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We discuss the valuation of credit derivatives in extreme regimes such as when the time-to-maturity is short, or when payoff is contingent upon a large number of defaults, as with senior tranches of collateralized debt obligations. In these cases, risk aversion may play an important role, especially when there is little liquidity, and utility-indifference valuation may apply. Specifically, we analyze how short-term yield spreads from defaultable bonds in a structural model may be raised due to investor risk aversion.

A regression kink design (RKD or RK design) can be used to identify casual effects in settings where the regressor of interest is a kinked function of an assignment variable. In this chapter, we apply an RKD approach to study the effect of unemployment benefits on the duration of joblessness in Austria, and discuss implementation issues that may arise in similar settings, including the use of bandwidth selection algorithms and bias-correction procedures. Although recent developments in nonparametric estimation (Calonico, Cattaneo, & Farrell, 2014; Imbens & Kalyanaraman, 2012) are sometimes interpreted by practitioners as pointing to a default estimation procedure, we show that in any given application different procedures may perform better or worse. In particular, Monte Carlo simulations based on data-generating processes that closely resemble the data from our application show that some asymptotically dominant procedures may actually perform worse than “sub-optimal” alternatives in a given empirical application.

The main theme of this volume is credit risk and credit derivatives. Recent developments in financial markets show that appropriate modeling and quantification of credit risk is fundamental in the context of modern complex structured financial products. Moreover, there is a need for further developments in our understanding of this important area. In particular modeling defaults and their correlation has been a real challenge in recent years, and still is. This problem is even more relevant after the so-called subprime crisis that hit in the summer of 2007. This makes the volume very timely and hopefully useful for researchers in the area of credit risk and credit derivatives.

This study examines the perceptions of accounting faculties toward ethics education, the extent of ethics coverage and reasons why ethics should (or should not) be taught in Japanese tertiary schools. Data for this research was collected from faculties that primarily teach accounting in Japanese tertiary schools in 2009. The results indicate that over 90% of accounting faculties believe that ethics should be taught within the accounting curriculum. In terms of how ethics should be delivered survey participants believed in a more holistic approach, which would encompass the benefits of teaching it as both a stand-alone course and integrating it with other relevant courses. This outcome is in direct contrast to the results obtained from previous studies undertaken outside of Japan. Of particular interest was the fact that the current survey revealed that only 55.2% of respondents actually intend to incorporate ethics into their accounting courses in the foreseeable future. This research successfully adds value to the shortage of literature existing on the perceptions of ethics education among Japanese accounting faculties.

Our study examined whether work engagement follows a predictable pattern over the course of the work week and the role of personality traits in shaping this pattern.

We examined these questions with 131 employees from Canada and the United States who provided daily ratings of work engagement over the course of 10 work days.

Multilevel modeling revealed that employee engagement followed an inverted U-shaped curvilinear pattern from Monday to Friday, peaking midweek. Neuroticism moderated the change pattern of engagement across the work week, such that individuals with higher levels of neuroticism experienced lower and less stable levels of work engagement throughout the work week compared with individuals with lower levels of neuroticism. However, extroversion and conscientiousness did not moderate the change pattern of employee engagement.

These results provide insight into the entrainment of work to the work week and how this entrainment is further affected by the personality trait neuroticism.

Understanding the weekly pattern of work engagement will help leaders’ time work assignments, interventions, and training sessions to keep the levels of employee engagement high.

Our study revealed novel predictors of within-person engagement: weekly entrainment and neuroticism.

Digitalization has become more central in organizations than ever before. Traditionally, organizations were places where employees spent most of their time. With digital organizations, working life has become flexible in terms of time and space, and the way of doing work has changed radically. While it has become difficult for employees to keep up with technological change and transformation, various digital conflicts related to technology have emerged within the organizations. This chapter deals with digital conflicts that occur in digital organizations. Digital conflicts could affect both the efficiency of organizations and the attitudes and perceptions of employees toward the organization. However, studies on the understanding of digital conflict management in digital organizations are quite limited. In this chapter, therefore, the causes and organizational consequences of digital conflicts in terms of organizational behavior are reviewed. The study indicates that digitalization, which is expected to increase workplace effectiveness and efficiency, could lead to destructive conflicts if not managed well, reducing socialization and job satisfaction of employees. The study also has shown that a well-managed digitalization process could increase efficiency and productivity for digital organizations and could increase job satisfaction by providing flexibility to employees. The chapter ends with suggestions for digital organizations to manage digital conflict management successfully.