Design of MySuper default funds: influences and outcomes

We interview Australian fund executives about how their organisations responded to MySuper, a regulatory framework for default retirement savings funds that providers were required to have in place by the beginning of 2014. We provide an account of the influences on MySuper product design. Our analysis generates insight into how fund providers balanced their perceptions of the needs of default fund members against business considerations. Differences in member bases and organisational circumstances across funds are found to lead to considerable variation in default fund design.     

Service-learning: an innovative approach to teaching accounting: a teaching note

Service-learning allows students to enhance their learning through real-world applications of accounting concepts. This Teaching Note describes the service-learning process and the benefits to students, faculty, the university, the community, and the accounting profession. Quotations from students' reflective journals are used as illustrations regarding how students develop communication, leadership, strategic, and critical thinking skills. Practical issues for implementing and supervising service-learning projects are also given.     

Ensuring Independent Auditors: Increasing the Saliency of the Professional Identity

We conceptualize threats to auditor independence as conflicts of social identity rather than interest and hypothesize that the greater the saliency of the professional identity among auditors, the more likely the auditor will engage in independent decision-making. Furthermore, we assert that saliency of non-professional identities and weakness of the professional image threaten independence. We hypothesize that a return to the traditional will relate positively to the saliency of the professional identity among auditors and ultimately, to independent decision-making. Actions for re-establishing the external image of the profession are drawn from historical references to the traditional image.     

Testing the lawyer-induced litigation hypothesis in Europe

Utilizing a European panel dataset, we contribute to the scant empirical literature on the lawyer-induced litigation hypothesis. To address endogeneity problems that arise when estimating the effect of the number of lawyers on civil litigation rates, we use two strategies. We first estimate our model by means of the 2SLS procedure. Second, we exploit the instrumental variable approach based on the linear GMM estimator of Arellano and Bond. The estimations result in a positive and significant effect of lawyers that is robust across the different model specifications and estimation methods in which we address endogeneity. In criminal litigation, where lawyers cannot induce demand, we find no such positive relation between lawyers and litigation.     

Against paternalism in Human Resource Management

The paper presents an evaluation of the paternalistic model of HRM. The analysis reveals that this conception of the employment relationship is deeply flawed and does not provide a morally acceptable approach towards responsible citizens in a democratic society. Moreover, where the employment relationship is based upon managerial hegemony and secrecy, the danger is that this can become institutionalized as a corporate morality that brings about the unintended consequences of moral indifference and unjust conduct towards employees and other stakeholders. The conclusion of this evaluation is that a wise management will try to open up its decision‐making processes and seek the participation of a wide range of stakeholders in the determination of the economic and social purpose of the company. There is another option: the employment relationship can be informed by a communitarian perspective, which aims to strike a balance between the economic interests of employers and employees, and the need for justice to foster mutual cooperation in the pursuit of a common purpose. This conception of the employment relationship will be outlined here as HRM in the 'community of purpose'.     

Pricing Augmented Commercial Services

The delivery of augmented services is a powerful demonstration of innovative product/service management. Based on well-executed scanning and positioning efforts, augmented services allow marketers to obtain a premium price for their innovative ness by delivering more than what consumers have learned to expect. For this purpose, Roberto Friedmann and Warren French have developed the notion of an augmented service. They then proceed to outline the necessary considerations and procedures for creating an augmented service that commands a premium price in its market.     

Interest rate differentials on short-term securities and rational expectations of inflation

This paper tests a theorem to the effect that the difference in nominal interest rates between two securities of the same maturity but different risk is an increasing linear function of the expected rate of inflation. When inflation is modelled in a way which is rational in the sense of Muth, the evidence is highly consistent with the theorem's inferences. Estimates are also obtained of the real risk premiums that certain types of securities generate over the three-month treasury bill rate (which is assumed to be risk-free). These range from three basis points for three-month finance paper to 16 basis points for three-month Eurodollar deposits.     

HRM and front line managers: the influence of role stress

With front line managers (FLMs) being critical in the delivery of human resource management (HRM) we would benefit from a better understanding of how and why these managers execute their human resources (HR) responsibilities in the way that they do. Without such knowledge we cannot fully identify the factors that contribute to the known gap between intended and implemented HRM and mediate the relationship between HRM and organizational performance. Yet FLMs have been largely overlooked in many studies of line management-HRM with very few employing a role-theoretic framework. To address this, interviews were conducted with FLMs in the retail industry to examine the relationship between their work role stressors and their implementation of HRM. FLMs were found to experience role overload, role conflict and role ambiguity, and in accordance with process role theory, engaged in role-making as a response. This resulted in FLMs deviating from intended HRM whereby role overload and conflict often brought about a renegotiation of the more intangible or costly HR policies, whereas role ambiguity undermined their ability to consistently and confidently implement HRM. The paper concludes by arguing that FLMs and their experiences of role stress are critical to our understanding of the gap between intended and implemented HRM.     

Native American reservation constitutions

The Cherokees wrote a constitution in 1827; in contrast, the Yokuts tribe on the Santa Rosa Rancheria Reservation adopted theirs in 2014. As Native American tribal constitutions are common, I examine determinants of establishing these written constitutions. During their formation, some reservations had bands of the same tribe forced onto the same land. These reservations of forced coexistence wrote constitutions at an earlier date. More homogeneous, centralized tribes tended to adopt their constitutions at a later date, although this finding is less robust. The implication is that coordination costs were less than the benefits from constraining a potential rival band, and that social norms of centralization made having a written constitution less necessary. Additionally, a positive correlation is found between having a written constitution and economic output, similar to other studies.