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Directors help determine the strategic direction of a corporation and are responsible for ensuring the institution has a good system of internal control. Banking institutions without a strategic direction emphasizing sound lending practices that promote the long-run financial health and viability of the institution will be sued more frequently than peer institutions. Institutions that do not have a good system of internal control will also be sued more frequently. Hence, legal expense is a bank corporate governance measure. We compare the performance of bank legal expense and a widely cited corporate governance index in a regression framework to determine which better predicts bank performance. The regressions indicate legal expense is a much better predictor, hence a better measure of bank corporate governance. Regulators should require legal expense reporting and rank institutions by the ratio of legal expense to assets to help identify institutions with weak governance. Seven case studies illustrate the role of legal expense in corporate governance.

This paper is based on research into the conduct of PhD vivas, whose aim was to investigate how this examination is experienced by successful candidates, and specifically to address a question raised by previous researchers: Why does a successful viva outcome nevertheless leave some candidates feeling negative about their experience? The focus in this paper is on the language – particularly the figurative language – which successful candidates use to describe their oral examination. It explores the fact that those who reported feeling a sense of achievement were found to employ metaphors and similes of sporting competitions or debate, while candidates who report feeling negative, despite their success, employ imagery relating to imprisonment and interrogation. It goes on to argue that neither of these conceptual models is appropriate for the examination of higher degrees, and that such discrepancy may arise from the way some examiners interpret their role.

Purpose – Recent research on the gender culture and femininity of adolescent girls found that girls construct their gender identity in various ways that are intertwined with race, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation. However, these existing studies focused on either general schoolgirls (see Ali, S. (2003). To be a girl: Culture and class in schools. Gender and Education, 15(3), 269–283; Bettie (2003); Weiler, J. D. (2000). Codes and contradictions: Race, gender identity and schooling. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; Renold, E. (2005). Girls, boys and junior sexualities: Exploring children's gender and sexual relations in the primary school. London: Routledge) or delinquent girls in a gang (see Miller, J. (1998). Gender and victimization risk among young women in gangs. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 35, 429–453; Miller (2001); Joe-Laidler & Hunt (2001); Schalet, A., Hunt, G., & Joe-Laidler, K. (2003). Respectability and autonomy: The articulation and meaning of sexuality among the girls in the gang. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 32, 108–143; Messerschmidt (1995); Messerschmidt, J. W. (1997). Crime as structured action: Gender, race, class, and crime in the making. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), and only a few studies paid attention to girls who showed overt oppositional behaviors at school.

Methods – The research uses qualitative methods and explores the gender identity of two adolescent girls in a junior high school in Taiwan, who are regarded as problem or “bad” girls by the school faculty.

Results – The two girls both manifested “ladette” culture (Jackson, 2006). On the one hand, they showed masculine behaviors such as fighting, troublemaking, disobeying school regulations, and using drugs and alcohol. On the other hand, they deliberately emphasized their femininity and sexual maturity in the way they dressed, talked, and behaved.

This paper examines the role of professional associations, governmental agencies, and international accounting and auditing bodies in promulgating standards to deter and detect fraud, domestically and abroad. Specifically, it focuses on the role played by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the US Government Accounting Office (GAO), and other national and foreign professional associations, in promulgating auditing standards and procedures to prevent fraud in financial statements and other white‐collar crimes. It also examines several fraud cases and the impact of management and employee fraud on the various business sectors such as insurance, banking, health care, and manufacturing, as well as the role of management, the boards of directors, the audit committees, auditors, and fraud examiners and their liability in the fraud prevention and investigation.

In this chapter, EYES theory proposes that international students view themselves and appraise their social standing of their own race based in relationship to extant social perceptions of racial stereotypes in the United States. These stereotypes are determined by geography which exude from the legacy of enslavement in the United States. EYES theory proposes that international students view racial differences through these dynamics by assessing their own identity in regards to race, colorsim and group identification. Specifically, international students use racial groups to classify, rank, and understand racial differences that are informed by these social geographies that impart a white/black racial discourse by which international students navigate their social status. EYES theory challenges the intellectual perception of heterogeneity among international students and in regards to race posits that international students experience mico and macrolevel contexts regarding race due to the socio-historical legacy of racism in the United States. The authors anticipate that EYES theory may have implications for study in other geographical contexts where a black white dichotomy serves as the parameter for understanding racial relationships and hegemony.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.

During the 1990s the value to an intending professional accountant of undertaking a period of liberal (general) studies was promoted internationally by a number of individuals and organisations, including the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (the “Institute”). The Institute significantly changed its admissions policy for Chartered Accountants in 1996 and one change was to require four years of degree level study with a compulsory liberal studies component. This study surveys the perceptions of New Zealand accounting practitioners on the impact of this compulsory liberal component. The results of this study demonstrate that there is little support from accounting practitioners for IFAC’s claim that liberal education “can contribute significantly to the acquisition of professional skills”, including intellectual, personal and communication skills. In addition, the majority of respondents did not perceive any improvements in the professional skills of the staff that had qualified under the Institute’s current admissions policy. However, any perceived improvements were mainly attributed to the Institute’s admissions policy change. Notwithstanding the lack of support for the assertion that liberal education develops professional skills, there is a strong belief by respondents in the value of liberal education for intending professional accountants.

This monograph contains abstracts from the 2005 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, 6‐7th September 2005

This article evaluates the coping practices adopted by households in East‐Central Europe following the collapse of the socialist bloc. Drawing upon the New Democracies Barometer (NDB) survey, it is here revealed that although a common assumption is that post‐socialist societies have under gone a transition to greater reliance on the market, an analysis of household coping practices provides little evidence that this is widely the case. Instead, households in most post‐socialist societies continue to rely heavily on a multiplicity of economic practices in order to secure their livelihoods with little, if any, shift over time towards the use of the formal economy in general and the market in particular. The outcome is a call for recognition and appreciation of the heterogeneous economic practices being used by households in East‐Central Europe and for greater consideration to be given to the contributions of the in formal sector in securing livelihoods.