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In this chapter, the authors studied cognitive biases such as certainty effect, isolating effect, and overconfidence effect in the Turkish version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” TV show. The research was carried out by watching the show during different dates between September 2013 and April 2015 and filling in a questionnaire, which consists of 25 questions. A total of 408 contestants were observed and evidence was found for both certainty and isolation effects.

This study extends the budgetary participation–performance/cultural effects literature by isolating and examining the moderating effect of one cultural dimension, power distance, on the budgetary participation–performance relationship. Isolating the impact of power distance is important to this literature because of the fact that participative budgeting remains a possibly underutilized management tool in high power distance countries.

We regroup our multinational sample of managers by power distance level, and employ multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) and a set of nonparametric bootstrap tests to triangulate our findings.

We find that the majority of our managers from three high power distance countries (Mexico, Korea, and China) score in the lower half of the power distance scale, that there is significant correlation between participation and performance in both the high and low power distance subsamples, but that the mechanisms connecting participation to performance are quite different. While job satisfaction plays a role in connecting budgetary participation and performance among low power distance managers, job relevant information alone connects budgetary participation and performance among their high power distance counterparts.

The primary contribution of our work is that we not only demonstrate that budget participation can improve the performance of subordinate managers in high power distance cultures, but also provide evidence of how and why this is plausible. First managers may not share the same high power distance tendencies of their countrymen, and second, the communication aspect of budget participation appears to be more important for increased performance among those with high power distance tendencies.

This paper seeks to discuss reliability problems associated with questionnaires, commonly employed in library and information science. It aims to focus on the effects of “common method variance” (CMV), which is a form of bias, and ways of countering these effects.

The paper critically reviews the use of existing tools for demonstrating reliability in questionnaire‐based studies. In particular, it focuses on Cronbach's alpha, “Harman's single factor test” and Lindell and Whitney's “marker variable” approach. The paper introduces an illustrative case study based on the work on metacognition and web searching. It goes on to make recommendations for researchers considering using a questionnaire‐based approach.

CMV is a problem affecting questionnaire‐based studies in different disciplines across social and information science. Where questionnaire items are more abstract, CMV has been found to be more of a problem. The widely used Cronbach alpha measure, of the reliability of a questionnaire, may often be affected by CMV. Where method bias dominates the results, a high alpha score may do no more than indicate that the questionnaire consistently allows participants to accede to their biases. “Harman's single factor test” is criticised as lacking sufficient foundation, and it is concluded that it should not be used. The marker variable approach is a useful option but must be applied with caution.

A number of practical implications for researchers are drawn. Questionnaire‐based work investigating abstract constructs should be assumed to carry a high likelihood of CMV, and therefore should attempt to avoid it and demonstrate the degree of success in this regard. Otherwise, interpretation of the results should assume CMV. A number of approaches to assessing and isolating CMV are discussed.

The paper draws attention to a problem that is arguably often overlooked in questionnaire‐based studies, namely method bias. It discusses a number of approaches whereby it may be identified and controlled.

The benefits of trade liberalization on upskilling and skill-based wage premiums for high-skilled workers have recently been questioned in policy circles, in part because of rising income inequality and populist movements in developed economies such as the USA. The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of trade liberalization on the relative supply and demand for skills.

Through the systematic review of the literature on trade and skill acquisition, this paper isolates a total of 25 articles published over the past two decades.

Key findings demonstrate the importance of the relative development of the trading partner, with more developed countries experiencing higher upskilling, while less developed countries experience deskilling. Technology, geographic level of analysis, sector and gender were also found to be important influences on human capital acquisition associated with international trade.

Overall, the authors find support for the idea that trade with developing countries places pressure on low-skill jobs in developed countries but increases the demand for educated workers. The implications of shifts in skills for public policy-making and in terms of the skill premium on wages are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the adoption of IFRS 10 and IFRS 11 affected consolidated financial statements. Specifically, the paper explores whether entities adopted mandatorily or voluntarily both IFRS, whether expressly declared effects, whether considered those effects as material and whether those effects had impacts on selected items of financial statements and on selected financial ratios.

The research is an exploratory study using public entities from Germany, France and the UK. The majority of the data is manually collected from financial statements.

The results suggest that the adoption of the new IFRS 10 affected the composition of a large number of entity groups but that their financial information and economic-financial indicators do not present material changes. There is also evidence of a large and material impact on the changes in the classification and accounting for interests in arrangements under joint control through the new IFRS 11. The evidence thus suggests unequal effects of the adoption of IFRS 10 and IFRS 11 on the proportion of entities declaring materiality of effects, on the quantitative effects on selected items of financial statements, and on financial ratios. A comparison between the pre-adoption and post-adoption periods reveals that the majority of the effects are driven by the adoption of IFRS 11.

As far as is known this exploratory paper is the first presenting the effectiveness of adopting the most important standards under the “consolidation package” and opens an avenue for future research by academics, for future post-implementation reviews by IASB, and for analysis of peer reviews between accounting practitioners.

In previous experiments where negotiators' fairness judgments have been found to be egocentrically biased, it is possible that the observed bias was caused largely by selective encoding of the background information given to negotiators. The extent to which egocentric fairness judgments were caused by selective encoding, however, cannot be determined from those experiments. In the present study, we tested for the effects of selective encoding by varying the point in time that negotiators learned their role in a simulated wage dispute. Results indicated that, while judgments of a fair settlement point were the most egocentric under conditions that allowed for selective encoding, these conditions were not necessary for the bias to occur; there was a significant degree of egocentric bias even when there was no possibility of selective encoding. Implications of these results for both research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest why the theoretically positive relationship between task conflict and team performance has received mixed empirical support.

We review the literature on task conflict and offer explanations for findings that contradict the expected positive relationship between task conflict and team performance.

High levels of correlation among task, relationship and process conflict, and measurement and data analysis issues make it difficult to isolate the effects of each type of conflict. Group-level moderators, including values congruence, goal alignment, norms for debate and the group’s performance history and conflict history affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. The complex relationship between conflict and trust may cause task conflict to have mixed effects on performance. Individual differences and conflict management approaches also affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. Temporal issues and stages of group development are other relevant influences.

To better achieve the theorized performance benefits of task conflict, a context characterized by trust is needed. Then norms fostering task conflict can be cultivated and employees can be trained in conflict management. Individual differences that affect team members’ ability to confidently accept task conflict can be considered in selection.

Suggestions are presented for future research that may explain discrepant findings in the past empirical literature. In particular, it may be difficult for some team members to perceive task conflict in well-functioning teams. Measures of task conflict that avoid the use of words with a negative connotation should be tested.

Strategic groups research has been hampered by the poor alignment between theory and methods. This has been due in large part to the lack of significance tests for cluster analysis. Now that significance tests are available, the theoretical and methodological implications are discussed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The theory behind strategic groups is reframed to capitalize on the available significance tests. Subsequently, the significance tests are also modified to fit the proposed theory. Due to this integrative approach, this is both a theoretical and a methodological paper.

In lieu of significance tests, finding differences in performance emerged as the litmus test for the existence of discrete strategic groups. The concept of strategic groups gradually evolved to fit this requirement. Now that significance tests are available, these legacy effects of the structure-performance link can be removed. This reveals that three conflicting concepts have been sharing the label of strategic groups: strategic categories, interdependent strategic groups and strategic performance groups. The theory also reveals that the significance tests developed in ecological research need modifications for use in strategic groups research.

A theory is proposed for interdependent strategic groups and a significance test of external isolation is proposed as part of this integrative solution.

This integrative solution appears to resolve the historical mismatch between theory and methods that has plagued this field since its inception. This creates a variety of intriguing areas for future research.

The organizational literature accepts that when an organization generates commitment among employees through cultural mechanisms, it will be more efficient since the individuals will be involved in the attainment of the organizing objectives and will be motivated to pursue them. It is not clear, however, how organizations can generate this commitment, what constitutes its key characteristics, or what impact its use has on organizational performance. This paper therefore aims to identify the cultural practices that allow organizations to generate commitment, to analyze its impact on organizational performance, and to analyze the degree to which these practices should be used to obtain commitment. The model presented is tested in Spanish hotels, which offer a clear example of the relevance that these sorts of tools can have in the achievement of organizational objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether isolated illiteracy generates a barrier to knowledge about the Brazilian Federal Government’s Single Registry for social programs.

Based on information contained in the Brazilian National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios – PNAD) 2014, the propensity score matching method was combined with the algorithm proposed by Imbens (2015). The analyzed sample consists of two groups of illiterate individuals: isolated illiterates (IILs) (treatment group), which consists of only illiterate individuals who live with other illiterates; and proximate illiterates (PILs) (control group), which consists of illiterates who live with someone who is literate in the household.

Evidence indicates that IIL individuals are, on average, less likely to know about the single registry than PIL people.

The main limitation relates to the database since the only information available in the PNAD on the access to the single registry is for the year 2014.

The evidence found in the study reinforces the need to invest in the fight against illiteracy in Brazil.

Results show that a portion of the possible beneficiaries of social programs are still “invisible” to the government’s social protection networks, and this highlights the existence of possible errors of exclusion.

The paper compares two groups of illiterate people, a group that lives in an isolated illiteracy situation and the other that does not. It also assesses the effect of literacy externalities on the access to the Brazilian Single Registry.