Application of Telemarketing in University Foodservices

Abstract

One of the downsides of university foodservice operations is that non-mandated students are less likely to participate in the meal plan program. This paper discusses the development and use of telemarketing as a means of increasing student participation in non-mandated meal plans. Three goals were established for the telemarketing program: Increase revenues; define student participation factors; and generate goodwill. An analysis of revenues and costs attributed to the program showed that telemarketing was an effective means of increasing sales and generating profits.     

The use of social media to detect corporate fraud: A case study approach

Social media is a rapid and dynamic medium of communication that forms a crucial component of the modern business toolkit. It can be used to detect corporate fraud by tapping into collective user wisdom, also known as the wisdom of crowds. This article highlights both the potential and limitations of social media in detecting corporate fraud by examining information from traditional media and social media for a recent corporate fraud case (i.e., Empowered Products Inc.). Using text analysis of information posted on traditional media compared to social media, this article illustrates how social media provides an increased level of relevant information in a faster manner. By using wisdom of crowds in this way, social media platforms such as Twitter can improve organizational knowledge quality. We identify methods for managers to utilize social media to improve their organizational knowledge management.     

The Effects of Fraud and Lawsuit Revelation on U.S. Executive Turnover and Compensation

This study investigates the impact of fraud/lawsuit revelation on U.S. top executive turnover and compensation. It also examines potential explanatory variables affecting the executive turnover and compensation among U.S. fraud/lawsuit firms. Four important findings are documented. First, there was significantly higher executive turnover among U.S. firms with fraud/lawsuit revelation in the Wall Street Journal than matched firms without such revelation. Second, although on average, U.S. top executives received an increase in cash compensation after fraud/lawsuit revelation, this increase is smaller than that of matched non-fraud/lawsuit firms. Third, fraud/lawsuit firms were more likely to change top executive when chief executive officer (CEO) was not the board chairman and CEO had been on the board for a short time. Fourth, fraud/lawsuit firms were more likely to reduce their executive cash compensation when profitability was low, firms were involved in fraud, the compensation committee size was small, and the board met more often. These findings indicate that although, in general, U.S. fraud/lawsuits firms did not reduce their executive cash compensation, those involved in fraud were more likely to reduce their executive cash compensation than to change their top executives. The finding, that ethical standards is not a significant factor for U.S. executive turnover nor compensation reduction, suggests that ethics appears to play no part in the board’s decisions, and that U.S. firms may have ethical standards in writing but they do not implement nor enforce the standards.     

Differential Effects of Value Consciousness and Coupon Proneness on Consumers’ Persuasion Knowledge of Pricing Tactics

Pricing tactics persuasion knowledge (PTPK) is a relatively new concept that seeks to extend the research on persuasion knowledge to the pricing domain. Pricing tactics persuasion knowledge refers to the persuasion knowledge of consumers about marketers’ pricing tactics. Employing an acquisition–transaction utility theoretic perspective, this study examines the differential effects of value consciousness and coupon proneness on the accuracy, confidence, and calibration of consumers’ pricing tactics persuasion knowledge. The study finds that coupon proneness is negatively related to accuracy, confidence, and calibration of PTPK, while value consciousness is positively related to accuracy, confidence, and calibration of PTPK. The implications of the study are outlined.     

Psychological Pathways to Fraud: Understanding and Preventing Fraud in Organizations

In response to calls for more research on how to prevent or detect fraud (ACAP, Final Report of the Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession, United States Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, 2008; AICPA, SAS No. 99: Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit, New York, NY, 2002; Carcello et al., Working Paper, University of Tennessee, Bentley University and Kennesaw State University, 2008; Wells, Journal of Accountancy, 2004), we develop a framework that identifies three psychological pathways to fraud, supported by multiple theories relating to moral intuition and disengagement, rationalization, and the role played by negative affect. The purpose of developing the framework is twofold: (1) to draw attention to important yet under-researched aspects of ethical decision-making, and (2) to increase our understanding of the psychology of committing fraud. Our framework builds on the existing fraud triangle (PCAOB, Consideration of fraud in a financial statement audit. AU Section 316, , 2005) which is used by auditors to assess fraud risk. The fraud triangle is composed of three factors that, together, predict the likelihood of fraud within an organization: opportunity, incentive/pressure, and attitude/rationalization. We find that, when faced with the opportunity and incentive/pressure, there are three psychological pathways to fraud nestled within attitude/rationalization: (1) lack of awareness, (2) intuition coupled with rationalization, and (3) reasoning. These distinctions are important for fraud prevention because each of these paths is driven by a different psychological mechanism. This framework is useful in a number of ways. First, it identifies certain insidious situational factors in which individuals commit fraud without recognizing it. Second, it extends our knowledge of rationalization by theorizing that individuals use rationalization to avoid or reduce the negative affect that accompanies performing an unethical behavior. Negative affect is important because individuals wish to avoid it. Third, it identifies several other methods fraudsters use to reduce negative affect, each of which could serve as potential “psychological red flags” and helps predict future fraudulent behavior. Finally, our framework can be used as a theoretical foundation to explore several interventions designed to prevent fraud.     

Consumer Vulnerability to Fraud: Influencing Factors

Using the 1993 Survey of Older Consumer Behavior commissioned by the American Association of Retired Persons, consumer vulnerability to market fraud was investigated. Consumer vulnerability was determined based on consumers' market knowledge and awareness of unfair business practices. Using an ordered logit analysis, it was found that consumers were more susceptible to fraud if they were older, poor, less educated, and/or living without spouse. Neither gender nor race was found to be a significant predictor of consumer vulnerability. Implications for consumer educators and policy makers were drawn.     

董事会规模影响财务舞弊的机理及其实证检验

文章以董事会的监督职能和成员知识互补效应为基点,利用路径分析方法,较为细致地考察了董事会规模对财务舞弊的直接影响,并以企业绩效为中间变量研究了董事会规模对财务舞弊的间接影响.结果表明:由于董事会监督作用的发挥,董事会规模与财务舞弊直接负相关,其边际监督能力随着董事会规模的扩大先增强而后减弱;企业经营绩效与财务舞弊负相关,董事会成员间的知识互补效应导致董事会规模通过企业绩效而与财务舞弊负相关.董事会改革的方向之一是以专业董事替代非专业董事.     

Counterfeit credit cards —: How to protect hotel guests

Charge-card fraud is a serious and increasing problem, and in many cases hotels' procedures facilitate that crime. While the tourism industry is dependent on having a secure and guaranteed form of payment for its goods and services, hotel operators need to recognize and prevent the opportunities for fraud that seemingly harmless procedures present to criminals and dishonest employees.     

Correlates of responding to and becoming victimized by fraud: Examining risk factors by scam type

Consumer fraud reports in North America have been increasing each year along with median fraud losses. Using survey data from 1375 American and Canadian consumers who previously reported a scam to a North American consumer complaint organization, this study examines the correlates of responding to and losing money to four categories of consumer fraud: opportunity-based scams, threat-based scams, consumer purchase scams, and phishing scams. Relative to opportunity-based scams that offer the promise of rewards, consumers were less likely to respond to and report losing money when solicited by threat-based scams and phishing scams. The odds of victimization were highest for consumer purchase scams. Risk factors, including gender, race, education, income, loneliness, financial fragility, and financial literacy, differed across scam categories, suggesting that victim profiles differ across fraud types. Some of the risk factors associated with responding to the scam solicitation (vs. ignoring it outright) were different from risk factors associated with victimization. Having advance knowledge of fraud prior to being exposed was protective across nearly all scam types. Results suggest that awareness about specific scams helps protect against financial loss. Additional research is needed on how to effectively deliver fraud awareness messages to those who are most susceptible.     

信用证欺诈例外疑难问题探析

《跟单信用证统一惯例》不可能对信用证的方方面面都作出规定,涉及信用证欺诈问题时,主要依靠各国的国内法加以解决。我国有关信用证欺诈法律制度的建设一直处于不断进步中。文章针对我国信用证欺诈例外法律中的若干疑难问题,从程序和实体两个方面进行分析,有助于进一步完善我国处理信用证欺诈的法律制度。     

居民金融素养与家庭诈骗损失

本文基于中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)的数据,采用工具变量法,从微观层面研究了居民金融素养对家庭遭遇诈骗产生损失概率的影响。研究发现:(1)居民金融素养水平的提高可以显著降低家庭因诈骗产生损失的可能性,即家庭具备的金融素养越多,越不会在诈骗中受损。(2)家庭收入在居民金融素养和家庭诈骗受损概率关系中起显著负向调节作用,当家庭收入越高时,其在诈骗中遭受损失的可能性受居民金融素养水平的影响越小。进一步的异质性研究表明,金融素养对不同教育水平家庭诈骗受损概率都具有显著的负向影响,但是影响效果存在差异。     

Internet use in Ukraine's Orange Revolution

The Ukrainian presidential elections of 2004 witnessed a massive uprising of the Ukrainian electorate against the incumbent government's tactics of vote rigging and ballot fraud. In this paper, ten Ukrainian websites focusing on the election are critically evaluated and compared by analyzing their website activity data. Despite lacking access to mass media, supporters of democratic change compensated through skillful use of the internet to recruit volunteers, raise funds, organize campaigns, report breaking news, and garner the sympathy of the global democratic community. Comparisons with broader web usage are made, and social and business implications are suggested.     

Fraud risk management: A small business perspective

Small businesses face big challenges when it comes to managing fraud risks. Financial strain, rapid growth, and a lack of resources and expertise create ample opportunity for motivated fraudsters to take advantage of small businesses. In this article, we draw upon insights from our years as fraud investigators to offer seven practical recommendations to help small business leaders prevent and detect fraud in this unique environment. These strategies can help even the smallest company make a big difference when it comes to fraud risk management.     

Predicting direct marketing response in banking: comparison of class imbalance methods

Customers’ response is an important topic in direct marketing. This study proposes a data mining response model supported by random forests to support the definition of target customers for banking campaigns. Class imbalance is a typical problem in telemarketing that can affect the performance of the data mining techniques. This study also contributes to the literature by exploring the use of class imbalance methods in the banking context. The performance of an undersampling method (the EasyEnsemble algorithm) is compared with that of an oversampling method (the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique) in order to determine the most appropriate specification. The importance of the attribute features included in the response model is also explored. In particular, discriminative performance was enhanced by the inclusion of demographic information, contact details and socio-economic features. Random forests, supported by an undersampling algorithm, presented very high prediction performance, outperforming the other techniques explored.     

Fraud in Sustainability Departments? An Exploratory Study

While sustainability is largely associated with do-gooders, this article discusses whether and how fraud might also be an issue in sustainability departments. More specifically, transferring the concept of the fraud triangle to sustainability departments I discuss possible pressures/incentives, opportunities, and rationalizations/attitudes for sustainability managers to commit fraud. Based on interviews with sustainability and forensic practitioners, my findings suggest that sustainability managers face mounting pressure and have opportunities to manipulate due to an immature control environment. Whether a presumably morality-driven attitude may prevent them from committing and easily rationalizing fraud remains controversial. Even though cases of fraud happening in sustainability departments are still widely unknown, the interview analysis reveals that sustainability fraud is likely to occur at least to some extent—and presumably remains undetected. The study brings to light the importance of a clear commitment from executives to sustainability to prevent sustainability fraud and demonstrates adverse developments driven by external stakeholders, specifically the bonus relevancy of sustainability index scores. In particular, the study shows a lack of awareness for potential fraud in sustainability departments.     

The Effects of Contextual and Wrongdoing Attributes on Organizational Employees’ Whistleblowing Intentions Following Fraud

Recent financial fraud legislation such as the Dodd–Frank Act and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (U.S. House of Representatives, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, [H.R. 4173], 2010; U.S. House of Representatives, The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, Public Law 107-204 [H.R. 3763], 2002) relies heavily on whistleblowers for enforcement, and offers protection and incentives for whistleblowers. However, little is known about many aspects of the whistleblowing decision, especially the effects of contextual and wrongdoing attributes on organizational members’ willingness to report fraud. We extend the ethics literature by experimentally investigating how the nature of the wrongdoing and the awareness of those surrounding the whistleblower can influence whistleblowing. As predicted, we find that employees are less likely to report: (1) financial statement fraud than theft; (2) immaterial than material financial statement fraud; (3) when the wrongdoer is aware that the potential whistleblower has knowledge of the fraud; and (4) when others in addition to the wrongdoer are not aware of the fraud. Our findings extend whistleblowing research in several ways. For instance, prior research provides little evidence concerning the effects of fraud type, wrongdoer awareness, and others’ awareness on whistleblowing intentions. We also provide evidence that whistleblowing settings represent an exception to the well-accepted theory of diffusion of responsibility. Our participants are professionals who represent the likely pool of potential whistleblowers in organizations.     

An Empirical Test for Mediation Effect of Educational Institute's Image on Relationship between Marketing Elements and Parents' Loyalty: Evidence from India

The article presents the results of a study that assesses effects of selected marketing tactics on parents' loyalty towards the educational institutions. The results of Multiple Regression Analysis show that the price mix was the most significant factor having impact on parents' loyalty followed by people mix, place mix, product mix, and promotion mix. Furthermore, educational institution image mediates completely (full mediation) the relationship between selected marketing tactics (product mix, people mix, place mix, promotion mix) and parents' loyalty. Whereas, educational institution image mediates partially (partial mediation) the relationship between price mix and parents' loyalty. The sample comprised 687 respondents.     

Fraud and the African Renaissance

Forensic studies have identified fraud as a major factor that hampers Africa's economic development. This paper first establishes a link between fraud and the ideal of the African Renaissance. It then gives an overview of the extent of fraud in Africa by discussing the findings of a recent forensic survey on fraud in Africa. Against this backdrop it is then argued that what is needed to turn the tide of fraud in Africa is a transvaluation of loyalties to include and cover interests of the modern nation-state rather than just those of the clan, tribe and race. The paper finally calls for African nations to rise up to new challenges in governance by upholding ethical values and by their determination to detect and prevent all forms of fraud as the only viable way towards the realisation of the ideal of an African Renaissance.     

新闻媒体视域下的教育财政——民初《大公报》对教育经费问题之疑异

民国初年,政局动荡,经济困顿,战乱时有发生,军费开支居高不下。教育经费之谋求有如山穷水尽,断港绝潢;教育发展之进程好似如履薄冰,岌岌称危。作为其时的权威大报——《大公报》抓住教育经费这一发展基点,时而警醒政府关注教育前程,时而谴责军阀挪占教育经费,时而借助舆情遏制军费,时而顺应潮流讨还庚款。其韧性,其风格,其策略,其步骤,无一不体现着《大公报》对中国教育发展的殷切情怀。     

Good Apples,Bad Apples: Sorting Among Chinese Companies Traded in the U.S.

Committing financial fraud is a serious breach of business ethics. However, there are few large scale studies of financial fraud, which involve ethical considerations. In this study, we investigate the pervasive financial scandals, which by the end of 2012 involved more than a third of the US-listed Chinese companies. Based on a sample of 262 US-listed Chinese companies, we analyze factors that differentiate between firms that commit financial fraud and those that do not. We find that firms more predisposed to unethical behavior, due to their low regional social trust in the home country and low respect for regulations and laws as proxied by political connections, are more likely to commit accounting and financial fraud. They take advantage of low hurdles for listing via reverse mergers and avoid third-party monitoring through poor governance and auditors. Finally, we find evidence, after these scandals, of non-fraudulent firms differentiating themselves from the fraudulent firms by sending costly signals such as insiders purchasing shares, increasing dividends, and going private.