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Cultural studies in business and economics research are still limited to particular cultures. Knowledge on cultural differences may help international corporations to adapt management practices according to the markets they are operating in. The purpose of this paper is to study the issue of escalation of commitment and framing in a new cultural setting involving Germany and Vietnam. This setting is unique and particularly interesting, for Germany being the biggest European market and Vietnam being one of the fastest growing emerging markets in Asia.

The authors use a lab experiment with student participants from Germany and Vietnam.

In a 2×2 in between-experiment, the authors find strong support that Vietnamese participants have a stronger tendency to invest additional resources and evidence that negatively framed information leads to the higher escalation of commitment. Implications are discussed.

The unique empirical comparison is important because differences between other western and eastern countries do not necessarily generalize to the setting.

Reports on an audit of service organizations, clinical care and casemix. The sample included up to 40 consecutive cases of acute stroke (1CD10 161‐164) from each trust, admitted from 1 January to 31 March 1998 and 1 August to 31 October 1999. Feedback consisted of individualized reports showing participants’ own results compared to the national data, and regional multidisciplinary workshops between audit rounds. A total of 197 (81 per cent) trusts (6,894 cases) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland participated in the first round, and 175 (72 per cent) (5,823 cases) in the second. Of the 38 organisational standards, 29 improved between 1998 and 1999 (range 1‐20 per cent, median 5 per cent); 64 of the 71 process standards improved (range 1‐20 per cent, median 8 per cent). Inter‐rater reliability was good with kappa scores of 0.49 to 0.87. National multidisciplinary, cross sector audit is feasible and can promote service improvements. Comparison of participants’ results to national data is a useful way of identifying areas needing change at local level.

The paper investigates the implications for gendered power relations at work of Nitaqat, a workforce localization policy operating in Saudi Arabia which, by regulating the employment of Saudi nationals in private sector firms, has stimulated greater feminization of employment.

Based on an interpretivist, phenomenological research approach, rich qualitative data were collected in two case study organizations – a retail company and an architectural firm. The mixed-method design involved in-depth interviews with managers and women workers and extensive non-participant observation.

In exploring gendered power relations in Saudi private sector workplaces under the Nitaqat regime, the paper highlights the importance of patriarchal power. However, increased feminization of employment provides women workers with access to power resources of their own, producing complexity and variation in gendered workplace power relations.

Drawing on Bradley's (1999) relational conception of gendered power, the paper illuminates how a Nitaqat-inspired feminization of employment, by increasing firms' dependency on women workers, has influenced the dynamics of gendered power relations in Saudi workplaces.

As most teachers realize, classroom discussions have limitations including time restraints, reserved participants, or domineering discussants. With the advent of Web 2.0, the opportunities for class discussion have expanded to include synchronous and asynchronous discussion boards, blogs, and wikis. Discussion forums, as an extension of classroom discussions and activities, allow teachers to target multiple social studies skills while giving students opportunities to expand their own historical understandings via peer interaction. Whether the goal is to address specific historical thinking skills or push students to think about what it means to be an active citizen in a diverse society, discussion forums can play an integral role in the development of students’ understanding of society. I describe the reasons for expanding discussion into these new mediums and provide examples of students’ online discussions. Recommendations are offered for teachers who would like to begin using discussion forums in their own classrooms.

The case, briefly reported in the last issue of BFJ, an appeal to a Milk and Dairies Tribunal arising out of a local authority's refusal to grant a licence to a milk distributor because he failed to comply with a requirement that he should provide protective curtains to his milk floats, was a rare and in many ways, an interesting event. The Tribunal in this case was set up under reg. 16(2) (f), Milk (Special Designation) Regulations, 1963, constituted in accordance with Part I, clause 2 (2), Schedule 4 of the Regulations. Part II outlines procedure for such tribunals. The Tribunal is similar to that authorized by S.30, Food and Drugs Act, 1955, which deals with the registration of dairymen, dairy farms and farmers, and the Milk and Dairies (General) Regulations, 1959. Part II, Schedule 2 of the Act provided for reference to a tribunal of appeals against refusal or cancellation of registration by the Ministry, but of producers only. A local authority's power to refuse to register or cancellation contained in Part I, Schedule 2 provided for no such reference and related to instances where “public health is or is likely to be endangered by any act or default” of such a person, who was given the right of appeal against refusal to register, etc., to a magistrates' court. No such limitation exists in respect of the revoking, suspending, refusal to renew a licence under the Milk (Special Designation) Regulations, 1963; an appeal against same lies to the Minister, who must refer the matter to a tribunal, if the person so requests. This occurred in the case under discussion.

This paper aims to summarise a contribution to the International Comparative Social Enterprise Models (ICSEM) Project from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It particularly highlights the relevance of the social constructionist approach adopted in the study to investigate and make sense of the social enterprise concept as an imported concept in a new environment.

This approach is used as a thread to follow through the structure proposed by the ICSEM Project, namely, to look at the concept in context, to identify social enterprise models and establish a typology, as well as to describe institutional trajectories shaping the models. This paper highlights the constructs and institutional trajectories shaping the concept, and the main findings of the study when identifying the models and establishing the typology, based on an in-depth survey of 12 social enterprises in the UAE.

While this typology can be considered as a preliminary one, it reveals creative recurrent models, with the state and private sector involved as incubators. Although the UAE offers a tax-free environment, the lack of a legal and regulatory system conducive to social enterprises seems to hamper the opportunities for them to develop and scale up.

This contribution is the first study to investigate the ecosystem of social enterprise and its deriving models, and to propose a preliminary typology in the UAE.

The purpose of this paper is to examine three potential explanations for the corporate choice to disclose environmental capital spending amounts.

Using archival data from a sample of Fortune 500 US firms operating in industries subject to both the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) TRI program and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Hazard Communication Standards, the authors conduct quantitative threshold tests to first investigate whether disclosure appears to be a function of the materiality of the spending. Using statistical tests, including multiple regression analyses, the authors next attempt to differentiate the choice to disclose across voluntary disclosure theory and legitimacy theory arguments.

First, the authors find that, for the overwhelming majority of observations, the disclosed amounts are not quantitatively material. This suggests that non‐disclosure is likely due to immateriality. Next, their findings show that disclosing firms do not exhibit improved subsequent environmental performance relative to non‐disclosing companies. Further, controlling for firm size and industry class, they find the choice to disclose is associated with worse environmental performance.

The sample includes only relatively larger firms from certain industries and this limits the generalizability of the findings. Smaller firms and those from excluded industries may have other reasons to choose to disclose environmental information. Further, the authors rely on TRI data to assess pollution performance, but TRI is self‐reported and its reliability is only as good as the inputs. Finally, although environmental capital spending is potentially relevant information, this investigation does not examine other types of environmental information disclosure.

This paper provides corroborating evidence that companies use the disclosure of environmental capital spending as a strategic tool to address their exposures to political and regulatory concerns. Hence, interpreting disclosed environmental information would appear to require careful understanding of the underlying motivations.

This paper extends the environmental accounting and reporting literature by contributing to the unresolved question of what drives differences in the corporate disclosure of environmental information. The authors add to this body of research by investigating the disclosure of one specific piece of environmental information, the amount of capital expenditures incurred for pollution abatement and control.

The purpose of this study is to consider the effect of an internship experience on tax accountants’ professional performance.

It uses survival analysis, a dynamic methodology that allows for more precise modeling than static traditional methods used to study promotion and turnover rates in the past. The hypotheses were tested using a longitudinal database obtained from the human resource departments of regional Certified Public Accountant firms located in the southeastern and mid-south areas of the USA.

Results were mixed. As in previous studies on the effects of internships on subsequent professional performance, tax accounting professionals with a master’s degree and prior internship experience had significantly faster promotion rates than those professionals with a master’s degree and no internship experience. However, tax professionals with a master’s degree and prior internship experience did not demonstrate a significant difference in turnover rate when compared to the no-internship group.

This research provides evidence that students, employers and institutions of higher education can use to guide them in their decisions regarding the effects of structured internships on professional performance – in this case, the professional performance of tax accountants.

Previous research on tax professionals’ performance and internship experience made use of static research methodologies. This study uses the more dynamic methodology of survival analysis to see if different findings result.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of violence with respect to white‐collar criminals.

The analysis is conceptual, focusing on the historical underpinnings of white‐collar crime and reviewing the evolution of white‐collar criminals.

Findings suggest that white‐collar criminals do display violent tendencies and, contrary to popular belief, can become dangerous individuals.

The paper represents an extremely useful and practical source for fraud examiners and other white‐collar crime investigators. Raising the awareness of investigators dealing with white‐collar criminals may prevent them from becoming victims of a violent act.

The paper fulfills a need to highlight a dangerous trend with white‐collar criminals in that they may be driven to violence against those involved in investigating their crimes.

The purpose of this research was to compare the use of non-family-members in the higher-level management team of Arab/Islamic family businesses versus American family businesses.

This research gathered survey data and tested the hypothesis using analysis of covariance.

American family businesses engaged the services of non-family-member managers to a statistically significant greater degree than did Arab/Islamic family businesses.

The research literature on Arab/Islamic entrepreneurship is very limited, and a family business study of this nature has not been previously conducted. This study furthermore challenges the common assumption that the findings generated in one specific country can usually be generalized to the broader phenomenon of family business, as it exists in most countries.