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A manager who is responsible for making the initial decision to invest in a project will typically have a tendency to “over‐commit” additional resources to the project (Staw, 1976, 1981; Staw and Fox, 1977; Staw and Ross, 1978, 1980). This increased total investment can occur even when the project shows poor economic performance. The terms “escalation of commitment” or “escalation effects” are used to describe such investment tendencies.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the motivation to manage earnings in US mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by investigating whether the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley act (SOX) has affected pre-merger earnings management.

The authors used a sample of over 700 completed M&As of US public firms during 1999-2008. Using quarterly reports, they tracked down earnings management during the four quarters preceding the deal and consequently drew inferences about the implications of SOX on interim reporting practices.

We report evidence that in the post-SOX era, non-cash acquirers begin pre-merger upwards earnings management in an earlier quarter than in the pre-SOX era. Further, our evidence indicates that in the quarters prior to the takeover, targets engage in more aggressive upwards earnings management in the post-SOX era.

Unlike what is anticipated regarding earnings management practices after SOX, the study reveals significant evidence of upward earnings management by firms engaging in M&A in post-SOX era.

The past two decades of economic activity in the U.S. have been characterized by both high inflation and interest rates in comparison to previous periods of stability. The importance of these two variables to our economic welfare and to the effectiveness of economic policy have led to renewed interest in the Fisher Effect. This is the hypothesis put forth by Irving Fisher describing the relationship between these two variables. It usually takes the form R = re + pe + repe (1) in which R is the nominal rate of interest, re is the expected real rate of interest, and pe is the expected rate of change of prices. The term repe is usually considered insignificant and is dropped, giving R = re + pe. (2) Although this equation can be readily quantified on an ex post basis using actual rather than expected values, the fact that expectation of r and p are not directly observable have always made it difficult to derive an ex ante measure of the real rate.

In the decade since Tillery, Rutledge and Inman reviewed the treatment of quality management in leading US production and operations management (P/OM) textbooks, attention to quality, once the watchword and driving force in world business, has faded in both the practitioner and popular press. The ultimate purpose of the present research was to establish the progress, current status, and relevancy of the treatment of quality in current US P/OM textbooks, which remain the principal source of quality information in the undergraduate P/OM core course, preparing most future US managers as well as many international managers of tomorrow. Results of the present study indicate that over the last decade US P/OM textbooks have begun to reflect a more proactive and less reactive approach to quality management. However, results also indicate that current US P/OM textbooks lack relevancy of their quality content to practitioner needs, treat TQM and other holistic approaches to quality management superficially, and have little consistency concerning quality emphases.

This paper aims to investigate Chinese bull and bear markets. The Chinese stock market has experienced a long period of bear cycle from early 2000 until 2006, and then it fluctuated greatly until 2010. However, the cyclical behaviour of stock markets during this period is less well established. This paper aims to answer the question why the Chinese stock market experienced a long duration of bear market and what factors would have impacted this cyclical behaviour.

By comparing the intervals of bull and bear markets between stocks and indices based on a Markov switching model, this paper examines whether different industries or A- and B-share markets could lead to different stock market cyclical behaviour and whether firm size can determine the relationship between the firm stock cycles on the market cycles.

This paper finds a high degree of overlapping of bear cycles between stocks and indices and a high level of overlapping between the bear market and a fraction of stock with increasing stock prices. This leads to the conclusion that the stock performance and trading behaviour are widely diversified. Furthermore, the paper finds that the same industry may have different overlapping intervals of bull or bear cycles in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. Firms with different sizes could have different overlapping intervals with bull or bear cycles.

This paper fills the literature gap by establishing the cyclical behaviour of stock markets.

The conflict between Iran and Iraq is not new; it dates from long before September 1980. In fact, the origins of the current war can be traced to the battle of Qadisiyah in Southern Iraq in 637 A.D., a battle in which the Arab armies of General Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas decisively defeated the Persian army. In victory, the Arab armies extended Islam east of the Zagros Mountains to Iran. In defeat, the Persian Empire began a steady decline that lasted until the sixteenth century. However, since the beginning of that century, Persia has occupied Iraq three times: 1508–1514, 1529–1543, and 1623–1638. Boundary disputes, specifically over the Shatt al‐Arab Waterway, and old enmities caused the wars. In 1735, belligerent Iranian naval forces entered the Shatt al‐Arab but subsequently withdrew. Twenty years later, Iranians occupied the city of Sulimaniah and threatened to occupy the neighboring countries of Bahrain and Kuwait. In 1847, Iran dominated the eastern bank of the Shatt al‐Arab and occupied Mohamarah in Iraq.

This paper aims to investigate the internal and external determinants of firms’ efficiency and develop optimal corporate governance risk benchmarks for the manufacturing sector across different countries.

Corporate governance risk data were acquired from Institutional Shareholder Services Europe SA. Data on firms’ efficiency and for explanatory and control variables were taken from the DataStream database. The generalised directional distance function data envelopment analysis (GDDF-DEA) model and its stochastic extension provided corporate efficiency measures and optimal corporate governance benchmarks. The authors used ordinary least squares multiple regression analysis with wild bootstrapping to test the study hypotheses.

The authors found significant differences between firms’ optimal and actual efficiency input/output variables and corporate governance risks in the manufacturing sector across countries. Internal firm characteristics such as group affiliations, product market competition and insider ownership and external institutional factors such as the legal system, the rule of law, control of corruption, law enforcement and cultural values are vital determinants of firms’ efficiency.

This paper provides valuable guidance to enable corporate managers, regulators and policymakers to enhance firms’ efficiency and corporate governance practices.

This paper develops optimal corporate governance risk benchmarks and identifies the most critical internal and external factors affecting firms’ efficiency in the manufacturing sector in various countries. It also used a novel GDDF-DEA model, with the multi-parametric model for bias correction of efficiency estimator.

Library instruction has become a public services program at most academic libraries. As such, it has the potential of being a library's most innovative and visible program. Yet, no matter how innovative, such a program cannot become visible without the support of the entire university community. Librarians, administrators, faculty members, and students alike must perceive a need and value for an instructional program if it is to be implemented successfully.

Most young men who are homosexual are not raised in an environment in which homosexual development is even recognized, much less encouraged. It is not unusual for men who have recently identified themselves as gay to not have any idea what being gay is all about. It is common, even typical, for the gay male to “come out” during his late teens or early twenties and to begin both exploring his sexuality and developing a sense of what it means to be gay. There are many resources available which will be of great use to the newly “out” gay male. The resources in this guide may also be of interest to other gay men, but the purpose of the pathfinder as it has been constructed is to provide a strategy for:

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether managers consider social and environmental information in evaluating projects.

Built on the stakeholder theory, this study hypothesises that managers consider social and environmental information in evaluating their projects. To test the hypotheses, this study employs experimental design.

The authors find evidence that managers consider social and environmental information in evaluating their projects.

This study finds that social and environmental information is relevant for managerial decision making, particularly in project evaluation.

Social and environmental information is considered relevant for project evaluation decision. Hence, managers should be provided those information.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first accounting study which examines the effect of social and environmental information on managers’ decisions, particularly in the Asian context using experimental approach. Previous studies only examined the effect social and environmental information on external stakeholders, such as investors.