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This study aims to clarify the psychological mechanism of international contractors' fraud by linking performance pressure to fraudulent intention through the displacement of responsibility and addressing the moderating role of moral intensity.

Based on moral disengagement theory, performance pressure was hypothesized to be positively associated with fraudulent intention by mediating the displacement of responsibility. Drawing on the issue-contingent theory, moral intensity was hypothesized to inhibit the relationship between performance pressure and displacement of responsibility in three aspects: magnitude of consequences (MC), probability of effect (PE) and social consensus (SC). The scenario-based questionnaire was conducted to collect information from contractors spread across 50 countries. The partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to assess the proposed model.

The results demonstrated that performance pressure was positively associated with the fraudulent intention, and displacement of responsibility exerted a positive partial mediating impact between performance pressure and fraudulent intention. Regarding moral intensity in the moderating analysis, the negative moderating role of MC and PE was significant, while that of SC was insignificant.

This study provides international construction practitioners with a deep understanding of the formation mechanism of fraud at the psychological level.

It clarifies the psychological mechanism from performance pressure to fraudulent intention by integrating a mediation impact from the displacement of responsibility and a moderation effect from MC and PE. It contributes to the sparse research on how situational factors shape individuals' fraudulent intentions in the international context. It provides a fresh perspective on fraud by constructing a formation model from moral psychological theories.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework of ideation pathways that organically extend the current stock of knowledge to generate new and useful knowledge. Although detailed, granular guidance is available in the strategy literature on all aspects of empirically testing theory, the other key aspect of theory development – theory generation – remains relatively neglected. The framework developed in this paper addresses this gap by proposing pathways for how new theory can be generated.

Grounded in two foundational principles in epistemology, the Genetic Argument and the open-endedness of knowledge, I offer a framework of distinct pathways that systematically lead to the creation of new knowledge.

Existing knowledge can be deepened (through introspection), broadened (through leverage) and rejuvenated (through innovation). These ideation pathways can unlock the vast, hidden potential of current knowledge in strategy.

The novelty and doability of the framework can potentially inspire research on a broad, community-wide basis, engaging PhD students and management faculty, improving knowledge, democratizing scholarship and deepening the societal footprint of strategy research.

Knowledge is open-ended. The more we know, the more we appreciate how much we don’t know. But the lack of clear guidance on rigorous pathways along which new knowledge that advances both theory and practice can be created from prior knowledge has stymied strategy research. The paper’s framework systematically pulls together for the first time the disparate elements of transforming past learning into new knowledge in a coherent epistemological whole.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

This study aims to build on the well-documented case of the Olympus scandal to dissect how social networks and corporate culture enabled corporate elites to commit fraud across multiple generations of leaders.

A flexible pattern matching approach was used to identify matches and mismatches between behavioural theory in corporate governance and the patterns observed in data from diverse sources.

The study applies the behavioural theory of corporate governance from different perspectives. Social networks and relationships were essential for the execution of the fraud and keeping it secret. The group of corporate elites actively created opportunities for committing misappropriation. This research presents individuals committing embezzlement because the opportunity already exists, and they can enrich themselves. The group of insiders who committed the fraud elaborated the rationalizations to others and asked outside associates to help rationalise the activities, while usually individuals provide rationalizations to themselves only.

The social processes among actors described in this case can inform the design of mechanisms to detect these behaviours in similar contexts.

This study provides both perspectives on the fraud scandal: the one of the whistle-blowers, and the opposing side of the transgressors and their associates. The extant case studies on Olympus presented the timeframe of the scandal right after the exposure. The current study dissects the events during the fraud execution and presents the case in a neutral or a negative light.

This paper aims to propose a model for democratization of Islamic home financing to tackle the issue of sustainability of homeownership affordability.

A conceptual framework and fractional equity model (FEM) are developed to incorporate big data analytics, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology in an ecosystem for affordability and sustainability of homeownership via the proposed financing model. In addition, the FEM adopts the simulation approach to show its validity in terms of liquidity when compared with traditional home financing. In this regard, this paper is focused on developing and demonstrating the feasibility of a new financing model, rather than testing specific hypotheses or relationships. This is to propose the democratization model for Islamic Home Financing that will not benefit the prospective home buyers without compromising the profitability of the financial institutions.

The findings indicate that the proposed end-to-end solution within the financing ecosystem can lead to more efficient matching market between the buyers and sellers of houses, reduced transaction costs, greater transparency and enhanced efficiency which in the end could lead to lower costs of owning homes and sustained financial resilience among house owners. The findings indicate that the FEM model is able to increase homeownership with more elements of liquidity, marketability and sustainability for homebuyers.

This research highlights the potential of big data and blockchain technology in democratizing Islamic home financing and evidence that the transfer of ownership is possible through tokenization. However, this will require a mature financing environment to adapt the technology for practical application.

The model proposes a solution to propagate shared prosperity among stakeholders such as the house buyers/owners, sellers, investors as well the government agencies. The proposed FEM model provides alternative home financing that is more marketable, flexible and sustainable for households/buyers and financiers.

It is hoped that with the proposed financing ecosystem to promote affordability and sustainability of homeownership via big data analytics, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology can lead to greater financial resilience for homeowners which can then be translated to enhanced well-being, increased productivity and can further promote economic growth.

This research is a concept paper based on academic research and industry collaboration with a technology provider.