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Mismanaging Unethical Behaviour In The Workplace
Get PDFWhat constitutes unethical behaviour and its mismanagement is the focus of this article. This includes the transgression of moral norms by employees such as greed, corruption, antisocial behaviour and the abuse of company assets for personal enrichment. A salient feature of this case study is its focus on the workers’ lack of adherence to its ethics policies, and a conscious flagrant disregard for the organization’s moral codes by its employees. The research question that inevitably arises is whether the employees resort to unethical behaviour because they fail to achieve their goals through legitimate means, or whether it is simply a flagrant disrespect by them of organizational ethical policies that enunciate the moral norms for all its employees. This exploratory study used the mixed methods approach to investigate this problem. The research findings of this study strongly suggest why the sustainability of an organization can be threatened by reported cases of poor administration, weak management of human and non-human resources, and inappropriate job behaviour and performance of its employees. A key finding is that organizations should not leave managers and their employees to solely rely on their moral intuition and good judgement, but to create a culture with the aid of a performance management system in which there is a clear distinction between ethical and unethical behaviour. This research therefore provides further insight into the need for organizations to develop effective management strategies in order to prevent, detect, and respond forcefully to stamp out unethical behaviour of its employees
A Retrospective Look at the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002- Has it accomplished its original purpose?
Get PDFAs a result of notable frauds including Enron, WorldCom and Waste Management, the United States Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). The Act would forever change the accounting profession. After a little more than a decade, publicly traded companies have been able to create and implement policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the Act, specifically the provisions set forth in Section 404. Since all public companies have implemented SOX compliance together with other regulations imposed by the Internal Revenue Service and other regulatory agencies into their normal reporting routines, management of these companies have realized further benefits associated with SOX compliance. Because of these reported benefits many private companies have begun to voluntarily implement SOX-like policies and procedures into their own internal framework. This paper will discuss the perceptions of the enactment and implementation of the Act, the associated benefits derived from SOX compliance and reasons why private companies have begun voluntarily adopting SOX-like policiesprocedures and strategies
An Analysis of Using Time-Series Current and Deferred Income Tax Expense to Forecast Income Taxes Paid
Get PDFPrior research, using cross-sectional data, concluded that interperiod income tax allocation is useful in forecasting income tax payments (Murdoch, Costa, & Krause, 1994 and Cheung, Krishnan, & Min, 1997). Both these articles suggested that future research should focus on investigating whether time-series data are also useful in forecasting income tax payments. This paper uses time-series data from 235 Compustat firms over a 20-year period to evaluate whether income tax expense is useful in forecasting one-, two-, and three-year ahead income tax payments. We conclude that firms’ predictions are more accurate for shorter forecast horizons. Additionally, we determine that deferred income tax expense enhances the ability of current income tax expense to predict future tax payments for approximately 40% of firms across all three forecast horizons. Furthermore, we find that the prediction accuracy of a firm’s one-year ahead forecasts is significantly related to the prediction accuracy of its two- and three-year ahead forecasts
Can A Commercially Oriented Brand Be Authentic? A Preliminary Study Of The Effects Of A Pro-Business Attitude On Consumer-Based Brand Authenticity
Get PDFThe scholarly literature and general feeling support the idea that brands that are overly business-minded and commercially oriented are not authentic. Typically, consumers do not regard big corporations as authentic, due to the perception that corporations focus on making profit and their business-based mindset. In particular, consumers perceive commercially oriented brands are insincere. Sincerity is one of the three facets (quality commitment and heritage are the other two) that form consumer-based brand authenticity (Napoli, Dickinson, Beverland, & Farrelly, 2014). Contrary to that long-held assumption, this study suggests that consumers may perceive commercially oriented brands are sincere. A positive attitude toward business may increase the perceived brand sincerity. The results of this empirical research confirm the brand authenticity scale developed by Napoli et al. (2014) by showing the conditions under which commercially oriented brands may enter the group of sincere brands
The Impact of Media Independence On Firm Performance: A Panel Data Analysis From Emerging Markets
Get PDFCan media have any influence on firm performance? Do firms in countries with more independent media perform better than firms with less independent media? This paper seeks to answer these questions by documenting the relationship between media independence and firm performance in emerging markets. Using a dataset from twenty seven emerging markets, we show significantly better performance of firms headquartered in countries with relatively more independent media than firms headquartered in countries with relatively less independent media during the period between 2007 and 2011. We argue that independent media reduces information asymmetries for stock market participants. Consequently, it is more difficult for managers to expropriate, thereby improving performance of firms. Our results indicate that media can play a substitute role for traditional governance mechanisms in emerging markets
On The Impact Of Family Versus Institutional Blockholders On Dividend Policy
Get PDFThis paper investigates the effect of not only the controlling shareholders but also their identity on dividend policy. For a large panel of French firms during the period 2006-2010, we find that the dividend payout ratio increases with the ownership concentration. However, this result changes with the identity of the largest shareholder. Family-controlled firms are more tempted to distribute lower dividends while firms dominated by institutional investors likely distribute higher dividends. Empirical results also reveal that firms with more independent directors are associated with higher dividend payout in contrast to US cross-listed firms
Identifying Central And Peripheral Dimensions Of Store And Website Image: Applying The Elaboration Likelihood Model To Multichannel Retailing
Get PDFCould the difficulties that retailers face in creating a seamless, cross-channel experience be due to the fact that their stores and website activate such different central and peripheral routes to persuasion that perfect transferability between channels is not possible? By relying on a rigorous and innovative dual-step methodology, this study provides a solid support for research aimed at identifying other channel-related central and peripheral elements. Although perceptual structure of the two channels is very similar, the store and website have no central or peripheral dimension in common. To enhance fluidity between its channels, a multi-channel retailer cannot rely on the customers' perceived integration of its channels. However, the retailer can easily orient its customers toward a given channel, by appealing to their enduring involvement. Finally, pricing and sales promotions are both peripheral dimensions: the former influences in-store buying and the latter, website buying
Enactment Of The National Credit Act And Its Implication On New And Improved Borrowers Rights In South Africa
Get PDFThe National Credit Act, 2005 (NCA) was introduced to create a more stable credit market and is applicable to all credit transactions. One of the main objectives of the Act is to establish new and improved rights for credit consumers. As a result, credit providers are obliged to comply with the NCA and enforce the new and improved rights. The purpose of this research paper is to determine if the NCA has established new and improved rights for home loan borrowers. The study utilised a mixed methods approach. Using a convenience sampling technique, a sample size of 250 respondents was used. The findings of the study revealed that borrowers’ rights are being enforced by credit providers by maintaining confidentiality, providing information to home loan borrowers on a regular basis and, most importantly, ensuring that home loan borrowers are well informed prior to entering the home loan credit agreement
Credit Spreads And Systematic RiskIn The U.S. Banking Industry - A Neural Network Model Approach
Get PDFThis paper shows that systematic risk in the U.S. banking industry displayed historical responsiveness to variations in the AAA-Baa credit spread. Critically, through the development of a series of single hidden layer perceptron neural network models, the principal credit spreads in the fixed income market catalyzed a defined regime shift in systematic risk proximate the financial crisis, and was more influential to the quantification of realized systematic risk than the statistical specifications of beta. As an intriguing result of the learned model simulations, the beta slope coefficients for the largest banks in the study exhibited significant acceleration in the statistical dependence on credit spread variations
Motives Behind The Integration Of CSR Into Business Strategy: A Comparative Study In French SMEs
Get PDFCorporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has become an important and substantial area of study for quite a few years. In this literature, while so much research has shed light on what makes SMEs integrate CSR into their business strategy, the existing results regarding their economic, social, and environmental motives are contradictory. In this article, we aim at making a contribution by conducting an integrative study. More specifically, we compare the roles of economic, social, and environmental motives in driving SMEs to make CSR become an integral part of their strategic planning and routine operational performance. Our sample includes 155 French SMEs