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The objective of this paper is to identify and provide a description, assessment, and analysis of frauds occurring in governmental entities at the federal, state, and local levels and to compare these findings to data from the private sector. Analyses are conducted along the following dimensions: the victim of the fraud, its perpetrator(s), the fraud scheme, and the detection and investigation of the fraudulent activity. In addition, the conditions under which the frauds occurred in both the public and private sectors are described, discussed, and analyzed. Data were obtained from a mail survey distributed to the membership of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. A total of 2,471 responses containing details of actual fraud cases were received. Of these, 611 cases described frauds that had occurred in governmental units and 1,860 depicted frauds that had occurred in the private sector. The findings of this study clearly indicate that no entity is immune to victimization by criminal activities of a financial nature.

Investigates whether leadership styles, particularly relating to the use of power and the sharing of goal information, differ between men and women in autocratic situations and whether such potential leadership model differences affect decision effectiveness. Reviews relevant research, and describes a subject‐blind experiment designed to favour an autocratic approach, involving 40 teams of US graduate business school students, who were given a limited time to complete a problem‐solving exercise using written correspondence as the only communication method. Finds that greater task‐information sharing behaviour existed where both leaders were female, and, surprisingly, that problem‐solving effectiveness was greater where the leader used a participative leadership style. Reveals no evidence that subordinates evaluated the competence of male and female leaders differently, but suggests that subordinates are happier to initiate correspondence where the leader is of the same gender. Discusses the implications of the findings, concluding that leadership styles are situation‐ rather than people‐based, and acknowledges certain limitations of the study.

The purpose of this paper is to explore engagement of flexpatriates on rotational and regular field assignments in the energy industry, theoretically grounded in the “Four Fundamental Pillars of Engagement”.

In an exploratory case study within a global organisation in the energy industry, in a post-merger/acquisition integration stage, the authors interviewed 24 rotational and regular field assignees of seven different nationalities, residing at nine different global locations.

The results of the case study show that the following newly identified drivers within the “Four Fundamental Pillars of Engagement” are crucial for engagement of flexpatriate rotational and regular field assignees in the energy industry: information, communication and technology; training, learning and growth; support from colleagues and line managers (“capacity to engage”); job ownership/control; respect, recognition and appreciation (“reason to engage”); freedom to be creative and innovative; pride and promises; client satisfaction (“freedom to engage”); alignment between the organisation and the individual (“alignment to engage”), especially in a post-merger and acquisition (M&A) organisational context during a downturn in the oil and gas industry.

The case study focused on rotational assignees from one particular organisation in the energy industry, which restricts the generalisability of the findings on engagement of rotational assignees to other organisations, industries and geographies.

Organisations in the energy industry that actively promote engagement of rotational assignees, especially during the post-M&A integration stage and economic turmoil, will strengthen their sustainable global competitive advantage.

The contribution of this paper is that it presents a refinement and expansion of the drivers of engagement within the “Four Fundamental Pillars of Engagement”, conceptualised in an international post-M&A organisational context during a downturn in the oil and gas industry.

Considering the impact internal communication has on the performance of organizations, studies about internal communication are revisited in order to generate a deeper understanding about the disciplines that shape the topic and the main trends influencing both the academic and professional fields.

Departing from a communicational background, the authors integrate dispersed contributions from disciplines such as organizational communication, public relations, corporate communication and marketing communications, to the literature on internal communication.

The significant role played by internal communication is supported by scholars with different theoretical backgrounds. Despite the clear differences between disciplines, the defense of a strategized internal communication and a focus on the employee is widely accepted.

Both scholars and practitioners will need to keep adapting to a reality where: internal communication practices are not only managerial but also dependent on the inputs of the employees; the ability to listen and collect feedback is sacred, and internal communication plans are expected to be strategically implemented and measured.

By showing the plurality of disciplines that influence internal communication, a strategized multidisciplinary focus on the topic is encouraged.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how communication professionals enact an educational role aimed at improving organisational communication through communication training. Furthermore, this article analyses what this implementation means for the role of the communication professionals.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with seven communication professionals and ten managers in two organisations. The organisations were selected due to their involvement in developing and implementing communication training programmes. The interviews were then transcribed and analysed inductively.

This study demonstrates how communication professionals are expanding their professional role to become trainers in communication. The managers who participated reported increased awareness of the communication departments and the support they can provide. The communication departments became more visible in the organisations.

The study is qualitative and limited to two organisations. The managers' perspectives suggest that when communication professionals act as internal trainers, their role within an organisation is strengthened.

The results of this study indicate that in-house communication professionals enable managers to improve their communication, boosting their ability to implement simultaneous large-scale training and rendering the communication department more visible and available throughout the organisation.

This study adds to the existing discussion regarding the new roles of communication professionals in organisations by presenting two cases in which communication professionals are successfully functioning as internal communication trainers. The findings can help both researchers and practitioners gain insights into the future role of the communication profession.

The use of mobile devices by children and adolescents is increasing significantly; therefore, it is relevant to research the level of advertising literacy (AL) of parents who act as mediators between children and mobile advertising. This study aims to explore the conceptual, moral and attitudinal dimensions of AL and its relationship with different styles of parental control.

A cross-sectional survey was applied simultaneously to a sample of parents with children between 5 and 16 years old in three Spanish-speaking countries: Mexico, Spain and Colombia. Participants from the three countries were recruited via online social media networks and were asked to fill in an online survey. A questionnaire, which has been adapted from previous literature to suit the mobile advertising context and the population of interest, was designed. Cross-country samples of varying sizes, with a predetermined quota of 200 participants for each country, were used. The total sample consisted of 1,454 participants.

Four factors of mobile AL were found, which, to a greater extent, correspond to the dimensions of AL proposed in the literature. The following are the dimensions that were identified: cognitive, moral, attitudinal and an emerging factor is known as “children’s perceived mobile AL.” Differences in parents’ perceived knowledge of mobile advertising, parental control styles and AL levels in the three countries were identified. Parents with an authoritative style were identified to have more knowledge than those with an indulgent style. Differences were also identified between countries concerning the amount of exposure that children have to mobile advertising, while no significant differences were found in the moral dimension.

Marketing practitioners and public policymakers must consider that parents differ in some dimensions of AL. Parents also seem to lack adequate knowledge about the advertising tools available to announcers that affect children and adolescents in a mobile communication environment. Therefore, government agencies should consider developing mobile digital media literacy programs for parents.

This paper explores the dimensions of AL applied to the mobile context and identifies the level of parental mobile AL in three Spanish-speaking countries, as well as the differences between these sub-samples concerning parental mobile AL profiles and parental control styles, thus expanding the literature on AL with a cross-cultural approach.

The purpose of this paper is to guide future researchers and practitioners into the process of interviewing in the Chinese context.

The methodology used is an empirical critical reflection.

The authors identified 11 major themes such as how to get an interview, antecedents of the interview, building rapport, complexity, language, interview settings, interview procedure, stages, probing and sensitive topics, selection of respondents and post-interview.

The location of the interviews.

Guide foreigner researchers and managers on how to conduct interviews in China.

The context matters, and only with a specific approach some can perform well and achieve the interview objectives. Doing so, the researcher or practitioner will not create situations that might be problematic for her/him and the interviewee. Based on the above, the authors’ research decreases potential social tensions that interview situations can create.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other researcher has studied the specificities of interviewing in China, which brings originality and value to the authors’ research.

Suggests that the strategic advantages of experience, scale economies, product differentiation, capital requirements, and location are important determinants of international franchise expansion, but are slowly being diminished by technological and capital market innovations. Explores this theme from the perspectives of competitive strategy and economic theory of the firm. Based on these perspectives, hypotheses are developed and tested with a large sample of US franchisors at two points in time. Results show that franchise firms′ strategic advantages derived from experience, scale economies and location differ for more international firms compared to nationally‐focused firms. Results also provide insights to the extent to which these differences are moderated by technological and capital market innovations occurring over time.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of Colombian migrants’ transnational businesses (TBs) and their operations. To this end, the characteristics of the entrepreneurs, their businesses and the patterns of their international operations are discussed and compared.

The paper analyses 14 cases developed from data from in-depth interviews with the same number of Colombian entrepreneurs who migrated to the USA. Similarly, the analysis includes secondary data sources.

TBs created by Colombian transnational entrepreneurs (TEs) aim to be successful through the best use of the resources of each market, allowing them to produce with lower costs and better quality in their country of origin while selling in more developed countries, such as the USA (their country of destination). The operations of those businesses are limited by their financial resources, small and fragmented networks, and their organic growth. The personal characteristics of the TE and their business comprise a nexus that helps to overcome business shortcomings.

The paper contributes to entrepreneurship, migration and international business literature by illuminating the nexus between the personal characteristics of the TE and the unique characteristics of their business, including the analysis of their international operations. Likewise, considering the characteristics of the context under study, the paper presents findings that are interesting for countries with similar social and economic difficulties.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the effects of accruals-based earnings management (AEM) and institutional and financial development on corporate risk of Latin-American firms.

The GMM estimator was used according to Arellano and Bond (1991) for panel data on a sample of 914 non-financial companies between 2005 and 2017.

AEM practices significantly increase corporate risk. This result indicates that the risk increase is associated to weakening of the corporate governance of companies. Positive discretionary accruals also have the same impact on corporate risk. In addition, accrual-based earnings management has a non-linear impact on corporate risk. Higher institutional and financial development systemically reduces the risk of Latin American firms. Institutional development can mitigate the effects of earnings management on corporate risk.

These results support that AEM represents a practice that managers use to weaken firms' corporate governance and expropriate wealth from shareholders. These practices promote higher firm's risk. However, the institutional and financial development reduces the corporate risk and contributes to mitigate the impact of AEM on it. These results have relevant implications for firms' corporate governance because they warn the relevance to control AEM practices and its impact over corporate risk perception by investors. These results also are relevant to policymakers because they orient the financial policies design to strengthen the institutional and financial development as a systematic way to reduce the firm's risk.

El propósito de este artículo es analizar los efectos de la gestión de ganancias basada en devengos (AEM) y el desarrollo institucional y financiero sobre el riesgo corporativo de las empresas latinoamericanas.

Se utilizó el estimador GMM de Arellano y Bond (1991) sobre una muestra de 914 empresas no financieras entre 2005 y 2017.

Las prácticas de AEM aumentan significativamente el riesgo corporativo. Este resultado indica que el aumento del riesgo está asociado al debilitamiento del gobierno corporativo de las empresas. Los devengos discrecionales positivos también tienen el mismo impacto en el riesgo corporativo. Además, la gestión de ganancias basada en el devengo tiene un impacto no lineal sobre el riesgo. Un mayor desarrollo institucional y financiero reduce sistémicamente el riesgo de las empresas. El desarrollo institucional puede mitigar los efectos de la gestión de ganancias sobre el riesgo corporativo.

Estos resultados revelan que AEM es una práctica que debilita los gobiernos corporativos y permite expropiar riqueza de los accionistas. Estas prácticas promueven un mayor riesgo corporativo, aunque el desarrollo institucional y financiero lo reduce. Estos resultados tienen implicancias relevantes para el gobierno corporativo de las empresas porque indican la relevancia de controlar estas prácticas en la percepción de riesgo de los inversionistas. Estos resultados también son relevantes para los reguladores porque orientan el diseño de políticas financieras hacia el fortalecimiento del desarrollo institucional y financiero como una vía sistemática que reduce el riesgo de las empresas.