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This chapter on anti-racism struggles applies an anti-racist activist framing, both critically examining and recognising the milestones achieved through centuries of pro-justice and anti-racism struggles. It delves into the arduous journey that the global fight for racial equity has undergone and highlights the significant progress as well as setbacks experienced during this lengthy struggle. The earliest history of the fight against racial oppression and domination goes back to anti-slavery and anti-colonial movements. Scholars have analysed the emergence, development and state of global anti-racism struggles in a variety of ways. I approach this subject from a sociological perspective, highlighting the role of social structures, groups and institutions that have contributed to shaping the outcomes of anti-racist initiatives. While recognising the role of individuals and leading political activists, this chapter emphasises anti-racism as a collective social justice struggle. To do this, I explore various local and global anti-racism endeavours and examine how they may influence discussions on race, racism and racial equity and their evolving trajectories across different societies.

The global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–2008 had far-reaching consequences for the global economy, triggering widespread economic turmoil. We use the event-study method to investigate whether investors priced the effect of significant events before the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in European and Asia-Pacific banks. Abnormal returns on the event days range from −4.32% to 5.03% in Europe and −5.13% to 6.57% in Asia-Pacific countries. When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt on September 15, 2008, abnormal returns averaged the lowest at −4.32% in Europe and −5.13% in Asia-Pacific countries. The significant abnormal returns show that Lehman Brothers' collapse was a turning point, and investors paid attention to the precrisis events as warning signs of the oncoming crisis.

What does special education mean for general education teachers of students with disabilities? In this chapter, we share our approach to advancing values in the classroom placement of special education students in the general education setting. We will take the reader on a journey through time with “Jessie,” a special education student, as we examine the historical exclusion of students with disabilities to their inclusion in general education schools, environments and finally, general education classrooms. In doing so, we will examine the evolution of the general education teacher's role and how the historical perspective impacts current practices. Then, we will elucidate the benefits of inclusion, not only for the special education student but for the nondisabled peers as well. We will recommend values that should be maintained and practices that should be examined. This chapter will conclude with a connection between the values and recommendations of best practices for inclusive instruction.

We study the potential effects of pension underfunding on corporate investment, financial constraints and improved employee bonding using 10 Pacific-Basin countries (including the United States, Australia, and eight Asian countries) at heterogeneous economic development stages and different regulatory environments. We document that corporate pensions are significantly underfunded in most countries of our sample in the period of 2001–2017, when interest rates were ultralow in most countries. In addition, firms from countries with stronger employee protection and more generous retirement benefits tend to show higher levels of underfunding in their defined benefit (DB) pension plans. To the extent of pension underfunding imposing constraints on corporate investment, we find that firms in these countries can face more constraints on investment when their pension is underfunded.

This study aims to investigate whether auditors compromise their independence for economically important clients in countries with a secrecy culture.

The authors empirically examine the research question based on a data set of 33 countries for the period from 1995 to 2018. The dependent variable is the auditors’ propensity to issue modified audit opinions, which is a proxy for auditor independence. The authors use relative client size as a proxy for client importance. The authors adopt the Heckman (1979) two-stage model to mitigate the potential endogeneity issue involved in the selection of Big-N auditors.

Using a large sample of firms and controlling for the firm- and country/region-level factors, this study reveals that both Big-N and non-Big-N auditors are more likely to issue modified audit opinions to clients located in countries with a strong secrecy culture relative to those located in other countries. However, Big-N auditors are more likely to issue modified audit opinions for their economically important clients with a secrecy culture relative to their other clients, while no or weaker evidence is found for non-Big-N auditors. The results are consistent and robust to endogeneity tests and sensitivity analyses.

This study enriches the literature by providing a new perspective on auditor independence that an auditor’s reporting behavior can vary depending on the client’s importance and auditor type, even under the same secrecy culture.

This study aims to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of auditor mandatory suspicious activity reporting versus the exercise of professional judgement in the anti-money laundering regimes of the UK and the USA.

The research draws upon the following sources. Firstly, statistics provided by the UK National Crime Agency, 2019 (NCA) regarding suspicious activity report (SAR) filing rates. Secondly, anti-money laundering legislation in the USA and UK. Thirdly, statements made in the political domain in the USA, particularly those which raised constitutional concerns during the progress of the Patriot Act 2001. Finally, statements and recommendations by a UK Parliamentary Commission enquiring into the effectiveness of the suspicious activity reporting regime.

The UK reporting regime does not accommodate professional judgement, resulting in the filing of SARs with limited intelligence value. This contrasts with discretionary reporting in the USA: voluntary reporting guides and influences auditor behaviour rather than mandating it. Defensive filing by UK auditors (defence to anti-money launderings [DAMLs]) has increased in recent years but the number of SARs filed has declined.

The study evaluates auditor behavioural responses to legislative regimes which mandate or alternatively accommodate discretion in the reporting suspicion of money laundering. Consideration of constitutional and judicial activism in this context is a novel contribution to the literature. For its theoretical framework the study uses Foucault’s concept of discipline of the self to evaluate auditor behaviour under both regimes.

With 43.2 million coronavirus cases and 525,000 deaths in 2022, India ranked second worldwide, after the United States (84.6 million cases and 1 million deaths), according to the latest available June 2022 COVID-19 impact data.

Amid people’s growing mistrust in the government, India’s news media enhanced the nation’s distinguished designation as the world’s largest and most populous democracy. India’s news media inform, educate, empower, and entertain a surging population of 1.4 billion people, which is roughly one-sixth of the world’s people.

Drawing upon the media agendamelding theoretical framework, we conducted a case study research into interplay between two prominent democratic institutions, the media and the government, to analyze the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in redefining India’s networked society.

India’s COVID-19 pandemic aggravated internecine tensions between media and government relating to four key freedom issues: (1) world’s largest COVID-19 lockdown affecting 1.3 billion Indians from March 25, 2020 to August 2020 with extensions and five-phased re-openings, to restrict the spread of COVID-19; (2) Internet shutdowns; (3) media censorship during the 1975–1977 “Emergency”; and (4) unabated murders of journalists in India.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic caused deleterious problems debilitating the tensions between the media and the government, India’s journalists thrived by speaking truth to power. This study delineates key aspects of India’s media agendamelding that explicates how the people of India form their media agendas. India’s news audiences meld media messages from newspapers, television, and social media to form a picture of the issues, insights, and ideas that define their lives and times in the 21st century digital age.

The main goal of this study is to determine the role of employee commitment in the relations between the compensation system and turnover intentions of employees in the Republic of Serbia, as well as to investigate whether there is a mediating effect of employee commitment in this relation.

The primary methodology implemented in the research was data gathering, obtaining theoretical research works on the proposed relations and empirical studies based on the PLS-SEM, analysed by IBM SPSS Statistics and SmartPLS data processing software. The data for the analysis was obtained from a total sample of 764 employees, collected in the Republic of Serbia via an online questionnaire.

The results indicated a positive statistically significant relationship between the formative construct (compensation system) and reflective construct (commitment), as well as a negative statistically significant relationship between the compensation system and reflective construct (turnover intentions). Employee commitment partially mediates the relationship between the compensation system and turnover intentions of employees.

The study was conducted in Serbia and is thus rooted in the specific national context which is characterized by high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance and more collectivistic society with feminine values more expressed. Most of the previous investigations related to the mentioned constructs were performed in companies from more developed countries, including Western Europe and the United States of America, whereas there has been no such research conducted in Serbia to date. The results portrayed a mismatch between the expected relations regarding the attitudes of employees to the rewards and the proposed national context. Modern companies in Serbia need to follow a modern reward mechanism to build stronger commitment and decrease turnover intentions. Moreover, in most earlier research works, compensation was examined in terms of satisfaction with rewards, while this study was based on questions related to perceptions of employees toward HR compensation practices (“The organization offers me”-type questions), not related to their satisfaction. Further, in the majority of previous research works, the compensation system was examined as a variable in combination with other HR processes (staffing, training and development, career development, employee relations, HR planning, communication, etc.), as a HPWP, while in this case the authors used only the practice of compensation (reward elements and employee performance evaluation) to investigate relations with commitment and turnover intentions.