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Board’s interpersonal diversity and financial misreporting: evidence from USA
Get PDFThis study delves into the correlation between board interpersonal diversity and financial misreporting. The measure of interpersonal diversity draws from the 'Out of Africa' hypothesis, which examines how ancestral evolution has shaped individual traits such as cognitive skills, abilities, and levels of interpersonal trust. Extensive literature highlights how diversity in cognitive skills and interpersonal trust enhances board performance and monitoring mechanisms among members. Applying the 'Too-Much-of-a-Good-Thing' (TMGT) effect theory, we examine how the interpersonal diversity of board members in US firms from 1999 to 2019 mitigates agency problems and financial misreporting, particularly earnings management. Our primary finding suggests that higher board interpersonal diversity correlates with lower levels of accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management. We utilize various measures of earnings management and employ strategies to ensure the validity of our findings. These results hold strong across different tests and significantly contribute to the literature and future policy discussions regarding board diversity in companies
Detachment as an "Emotional Practice" in British convents, 1950s-1970s
No full textCatholic convents in the twentieth century were home to very distinct emotional communities that offer a bounded site within which to study the interrelationship between the body and emotions. Convents taught, prescribed, and regulated habits, rituals, and practices that aided in reaching emotional states of being. This essay examines English Catholic convents as sites of changing emotional expressions and experiences from the 1940s to the 1970s paying particular attention to detachment as an emotional practice. It analyses the role of the nuns’ bodily movements and auditory practices in creating emotional detachment through the lens of Scheer's four emotional practices: mobilizing, naming, communicating, and regulating. Auditory practices and bodily movements were integral to lived religious experience, and also significant to maintaining community structures and relationships. The sources used for this chapter include governance and prescriptive documents such as the Rule, Constitutions, and custom manuals which identify the rules and regulations of religious life. Reports, memoirs, and oral testimonies are used to interrogate the shifting understandings of detachment and the related adjustments to bodily movements and auditory practices. The first section of the essay examines how detachment was taught in the convent novitiate as a positive practice intended to enable a prayerful life. The next section interrogates how in the 1940s to the 1970s emotional detachment was re-evaluated and linked to negative meanings. As a result, new ways of convent living were introduced that altered auditory practices and bodily movements. Some nuns received these changes with joy and relief, and others with confusion and anger. Such contradictory responses resulted in emotionally charged atmospheres. Using the example of emotional detachment, this essay argues that convent practices embodied and shaped expressions of emotions, thus influencing religious identities and everyday female religious life
Introduction: Queer and Trans life
No full textBook synopsis: Against a background marked by endless ordinary crises, widespread precarity, and disrupting critical events, Queer and Trans Life charts queer investments for the future. It examines the challenges and pleasures in marginal everyday experiences of gender and sexual dissidence and the labours of care and endurance which sustain a sense of sociality and community, often against all odds. It presents queer and trans anthropological research from emerging European contexts. Though occasionally posited as non-belonging, the volume demonstrates that queer anthropology in Europe continues to thrive by providing textured ethnographic analysis and timely interventions in anthropological theory
The limits of influence maximisation in online social networks
No full textInfluence maximisation over online social networks is a challenging ethical and technical problem. Among many applications, it is becoming relevant in public health and prevention: by choosing the right spokesperson for an advertising campaign, in fact, we can encourage people to adopt healthier lifestyles and increase organ donation rates.
Traditional Influence Maximisation models assume that all members of a social network have the same propensity to spread a message, regardless of the topic, and that each user will forward a message to all of his or her contacts.
These assumptions are clearly unrealistic: a user could be very sensitive to some messages (thus contributing to the information diffusion process) and completely insensitive to others (thus stopping the spread of information in a community).
A user could also selectively decide to whom a message should be sent.
To overcome the above limitations, we introduce a novel information diffusion model called IMBC (Influence Maximization with Budget Constraints), where the budget is an upper bound on the number of contacts to whom a message can be spread.
We have experimentally verified our algorithm on six large realworld networks containing millions of nodes
The impact of an ostomy on body image and sexual function of patients with colorectal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textBackground:
Body image disturbance and sexual dysfunction are two of the most common issues reported by patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). The objective of our systematic review and meta-analysis was to examine the effects of an ostomy on body image (BI) and sexual dysfunction (SX) in patients with CRC.
Methods:
In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched seven databases (MEDLINE, PsychINFO, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, PubMed, CINAHL, WEB of SCIENCE) covering articles published in English between January 1st, 2000 and July 20, 2024. Statistical analysis was carried out using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) version 4 software.
Results:
Of 6,321 identified articles, 92 met the inclusion criteria, totalling 27,039 patients. Patients with an ostomy reported significantly more body image concerns (g=-0·467 (95%CI -0·546 to -0·388, p<0·001; prediction interval (PI): -1·046 to 0·112) and sexual dysfunction (g=-0·331 (95%CI -0·406 to -0·256), p<0·001; PI: -0·894 to 0·232). Meta-regression showed that for BI, publication date and the choice of questionnaire explained 30% of the variance in effect size (R²analog=0·30, df=3, p<0·05). For SX, gender and publication date explained 31% of the variance in effect size (R²analog=0·31, df=2, p<0·001).
Conclusion:
The findings revealed that patients with an ostomy, compared to those without, experience significantly higher levels of BI concerns and SX, with moderate-to-large effect sizes observed. However, there was significant heterogeneity, indicated by the broad prediction interval across studies. Results from the meta-regression suggested that the measurement tools, gender and publication date contributed to the observed variability. Future research should explore additional factors that influence outcomes in body image and sexual health for individuals with lived experience of CRC
Generative AI use and employee performance in SMEs. The important role of trust
Get PDFThis paper examines, in the context of small and medium-sized organizations, the influence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools on employee performance. The theoretical lens is the Job Demands-Resources theory. Empirical evidence is based on a survey conducted in November 2024 containing 465 responses from employees in the United Kingdom who use generative AI tools in their workplace. A structural equation reveals the positive impact of generative specific job resources on performance via increased engagement. Trust mediates the relationship between job resources and engagement. Trust does not affect the direct impact of generative AI specific job demands on exhaustion, but trust in the tools lowers exhaustion. There are significant differences across employees working for small employers with fewer than 50 employees and those working for medium-sized organizations, with those in small organizations experiencing higher levels of exhaustion from their use of AI tools. Organizations should focus on building trust to enhance employee engagement and mitigate exhaustion, ensuring that the full potential of AI tools is realized in the workplace
The International Work Addiction Scale (IWAS): a screening tool for clinical and organizational applications validated in 85 cultures from six continents
Get PDFBackground and aims: Despite the last decade's significant development in the scientific study of work addiction/workaholism, this area of research is still facing a fundamental challenge, namely the need for a valid and reliable measurement tool that shows cross-cultural invariance and, as such, allows for worldwide studies on this phenomenon.
Methods: An initial 16-item questionnaire, developed within an addiction framework, was administered alongside job stress, job satisfaction, and self-esteem measures in a total sample of 31,352 employees from six continents and 85 cultures (63.5% females, mean age of 39.24 years).
Results: Based on theoretical premises and psychometric testing, the International Work Addiction Scale (IWAS) was developed as a short measure representing essential features of work addiction. The seven-item version (IWAS-7), covering all seven components of work addiction, showed partial scalar invariance across 81 cultures, while the five-item version (IWAS-5) showed it across all 85 cultures. Higher levels of work addiction on both versions were associated with higher job stress, lower job satisfaction, and lower self-esteem across cultures. The optimal cut-offs for the IWAS-7 (24 points) and IWAS-5 (18 points) were established with an overall accuracy of 96% for both versions.
Discussion and conclusions: The IWAS is a valid, reliable, and short screening scale that can be used in different cultures and languages, providing comparative and generalizable results. The scale can be used globally in clinical and organizational settings, with the IWAS-5 being recommended for most practical and clinical situations. This is the first study to provide data supporting the hypothesis that work addiction is a universal phenomenon worldwide
Millennial slip‐rates variability of along‐strike active faults in the Italian Southern Apennines revealed by cosmogenic 36Cl dating of fault scarps
Get PDFWe present slip versus time histories derived from in situ 36Cl cosmogenic dating for three active normal faults in the southern Apennines, Italy. In this region the total extensional strain is accommodated by either a small number of faults located across strike from each other or, in places, a single fault where no other
active faults exist across strike. We investigate how strain‐rates on individual faults vary through time in the context of the overall geometry of the fault system. The 36Cl results confirm that the San Gregorio Magno, Auletta, and Vallo di Diano faults were active in the Holocene, with each fault exhibiting alternating periods of
relatively rapid and slow, or even absence of, slip. During periods of rapid slip, lasting a few millennia, the faults accumulate up to ∼5 m of slip, which we interpret as earthquake clusters. At other times, the faults exhibit no slip for time periods lasting multiple millennia. The fluctuations in slip‐rates reveal the migration of activity between faults and out‐of‐phase behaviour. Such fluctuations have important consequences for tectonic evolution and crustal rheology, and in particular for hazard estimation because they introduce considerable variability and hence uncertainty in earthquake probability calculations
Disrupted relatedness and shifting perceptions of others: changing moods over time for people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder
Get PDFFor people diagnosed with bipolar disorder, the relationship between mood episodes and interpersonal life is critical. Yet little is known about how their experience of other people changes during and between episodes of depression and mania. This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the experience of interpersonal change during depression, mania and euthymia (stability). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three women at two time points and were analysed using longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis. One longitudinal theme, “Changing sense of others impacts relatedness,” demonstrates profound changes in participants’ experiences of other people within and between episodes. During depression, participants experienced other people as critical and threatening, making interactions impossible, whereas during mania they felt liberated from the expectations of others, who were seen as either subservient or irrelevant. For some participants, interpersonal disruption persisted during euthymia, making social interactions challenging. The findings highlight distinct forms of disrupted relatedness during depression and mania which were cumulative, impacting participants’ ability to relate to others and reconnect during stable periods. This points to the clinical value of those affected by bipolar disorder gaining insight into their trajectory of interpersonal change, along with a focus on rebuilding relationships and relational connection during euthymic phases
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