Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine circumstances under which auditors subordinate their judgment. More specifically, the authors investigate factors associated with auditors’ propensity to accept client-preferred accounting methods that conform to accounting standards but do not faithfully represent the entity’s financial position, financial performance and cash flows.

Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the authors developed a survey that was sent to auditors at a non-Big 4 audit firm.

Main results suggest that auditors tend to agree with a client’s preferred accounting method when they anticipate little fallout from this decision, they believe they can easily justify the method, and they perceive that colleagues, shareholders and creditors would also agree with the decision.

Results benefit auditing standard setters and regulators and are relevant for accounting institutes and audit firms because practitioners can learn about circumstances under which auditors subordinate their judgment.

This study contributes to the audit literature by using the TPB to identify factors associated with auditors’ judgment subordination. In addition, it applies the TPB in a context where a client-preferred accounting method is considered acceptable but is not the most appropriate in light of the audited entity’s specific circumstances.

Prior research shows that a board of directors' gender diversity positively influences organizations. However, little is known about how and why gender diversity influences the board of directors' functioning and decisions. The objective of this paper is to investigate the differences between women and men when fulfilling their role as directors.

This research uses a qualitative approach based on 29 in-depth semi-structured interviews with female and male board members.

The authors’ findings reveal that women are as involved as men in the board tasks and responsibilities. Also, women have the same understanding as men of their role and of the skills needed to be board members. However, women fulfil their role differently than men. Women come to board meetings more prepared, take more notes and do more follow-up, and they also dare to ask tough questions to top management. Women directors bring a different point of view — representing different interests — to board discussions, have a different communication style, are not a part of the boys' club and have a social upbringing that might explain gender differences in the boardroom.

This study could help boards and policymakers introduce diversity measures and provide ways to better integrate women into top decision-making groups such as board of directors.

This study's findings can help organizations include females in key decision-making groups such as board of directors.

This study reveals that in the same social setting, with the same role and expectations, and the same understanding of their role, both genders continue to perform differently.

Based on direct evidence from board members, this study highlights how and why women do their role in the boardroom differently.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if self-serving bias affects audit client satisfaction level with their audit firm.

A 2×2 between-subjects design is used, where the authors experimentally manipulate the level of client involvement in the audit and the extent of value-added services the client received.

Using a sample of 115 financial managers (audit clients), the authors find no evidence that self-serving bias exists among clients in the experimental setting. Rather, they find that clients appear to be more satisfied with their auditor when they (clients) participate more in the service exchange.

The research is limited to a specific context within the privately held company audit setting.

Audit firms may consider encouraging their privately held clients to participate more in the audit process by clearly communicating expectations and providing clients with audit preparedness materials, including templates and training where necessary.

Although the self-serving bias has been shown to exist in the marketing literature, the authors present a setting where the relationship between service provider (auditor) and customer (client) is such that the self-serving bias may not hold.

The theoretical basis for this case is a focus on strategic positioning as related to Porter’s generic strategies. The case describes GameStop’s previous differentiation approach, executed through physical stores and knowledgeable staff. With technological shifts and the introduction of digital downloads, this strategy is less effective. The case requires students to consider how GameStop might revise its generic strategy based on the new competitive landscape in which it operates.

In writing this case, the research team conducted thorough analysis through primary data collection in stores as well as secondary data collection through the use of market research tools, such as IBIS World, MergentOnline, S&P Net Advantage, and academic journals, trade magazines, and websites.

With high uncertainty shown by stakeholders about the future of GameStop coupled with falling share prices, the company must find a way to stay in play given the rapidly growing digital gaming market. As it planned to close at least 150 of its 7,500 stores, the company was starting to take measures to reduce operational costs and restructure to sectors that best fit consumer interests. GameStop’s core competencies were no longer aligned with market conditions, and its executives were now questioning where it could expand the organization’s operations as they focused on finding untapped areas of the market that have an opportunity for a new competitive advantage. Given its unique market share in gaming memorabilia and trade-in values, students are tasked with finding GameStop’s existing competitive advantages or identifying potential new ones that can be leveraged in a technology-driven industry.

This case could be taught at either the graduate or undergraduate level strategy course. At the undergraduate level, it would be best taught when discussing industry life cycle or competitive dynamics. At the graduate level, MBAs could discuss competitive dynamics facing GameStop and how it might find areas for future strategic growth.

This case study draws on interviews conducted with officials from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), City of Woonsocket and Town of North Smithfield. Additionally, it pulls from relevant legal documents, recordings and minutes from meetings of the Woonsocket City Council and North Smithfield Town Council, City Council resolutions, state legislation and local press coverage.

From 2012–2017, the communities of Woonsocket and North Smithfield engaged in a protracted dispute concerning wastewater disposal. For 30 years, the two jurisdictions had maintained a signed service agreement. Following its expiration; however, Woonsocket imposed a new host fee on North Smithfield. Woonsocket needed to upgrade the facility to comply with mandates from the RI DEM. Over the next five years, leaders from both jurisdictions vociferously fought over the new fee. At the same time, leaders within communities experienced their own divisions. This case study highlights the challenges that decision-makers faced in both communities.

This case is appropriate for graduate and executive level courses in environmental policy, communication and leadership.

Reflecting on the myriad instances where juridical recognition demands a story, confession, testimony on suffering, or evidence of trauma – this chapter considers the role of storytelling and narrative in constituting the legal person, their persona, and relationship they have to a community or the state. What are the forces that drive the demand to give an account of oneself? What are the reasons for, and implications of, resisting the injunction to reveal all? Going beyond the usual bounds of juridically recognised testimony and evidence – the author considers how memory moves across time and space in human and non-human material formations. These questions are posed to open discussion of a wider concern about the autonomy and heteronomy of law. Looking beyond the separation of law and morality in positivist jurisprudence – the autonomy/heteronomy distinction is a means of getting at the co-constitution of the human and non-human. The discussion thus ranges across the philosophies of history that constitute autonomy/heteronomy – examining the tension between confidential stories of those who have suffered abuse, and the state’s archival drive to preserve such material; literary and metaphorical devices for narrating the past; and a consideration of nature and destruction where the human plays an infinitesimal part in making history.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between surface acting (SA), deep acting (DA) and organizational commitment (OC).

Guided by affective events theory, the study adapted emotional labour scale and three components model to profile 373 teachers from 30 schools around Peninsular Malaysia. A list-based simple random sampling technique was used to select respondents. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test hypotheses, and the proposed model was assessed through renowned fit indices.

OC was hypothesized as a second-order construct. SEM result indicates that both SA and DA have significant negative relationship with OC. Fit indices of the hypothesized model showed χ²/df ratio (560.069/265) = 2.113, RMSEA (0.055), and CFI (0.936). This result provides empirical support for the data collected.

The study provides new insight on the ongoing debate about SA and DA. Therefore, it advances body of research in this regard. The implication for HR managers is that strategic polices can be institutionalized to buffer the consequences of SA and DA. This is due to the fact that SA and DA may not be abolished for service employees like teachers. The practical implication for teachers is the understanding that emotional regulation process is inevitable because teaching is profoundly an emotional activity job. Besides being a cross-sectional study, the sampled population may have limited the study’s outcomes.

Given existing inconsistent results on the consequences of SA and DA, this study shows that not only SA can lead to negative after-effects, DA can also cause the same. Future study can explore spiritual intelligence to examine how best SA and DA can be performed at reduced consequences on OC.