Spear phishing in a barrel: Insights from a targeted phishing campaign

Executives in many industries have fallen prey to socially engineered attacks known as spear phishing. Using highly targeted emails, social engineers trick victims into performing unintended actions by masquerading as legitimate actors. To shed light on effective spear phishing training, we conducted a multi-round experiment. Our results indicate that training users with individual loss messaging might increase the effectiveness of the training. Additionally, we found potential evidence that organizational training can lead to increased overall spear phishing awareness, even for those not directly trained. Despite these promising results, however, individuals’ susceptibility to highly targeted spear phishing attacks remains troubling for practitioners and researchers.     

25 Years of Giddens in accounting research: Achievements, limitations and the future

Twenty five years ago, Giddens’ structuration theory (ST) was introduced into accounting research as a reaction to the history-less, apolitical and technical-efficiency focus of traditional functionalist research. A quarter of a century later, this growing stream of research consists of some 65 published papers and has become one of the dominant alternative approaches used to explore accounting as an organizational and social practice. We review this literature based on the following two research questions; (i) what are the major achievements of this literature, and in what respects has it contributed to our understanding of accounting in relation to other alternative streams of accounting research, such as those grounded in critical theory, actor-network theory (ANT), new-institutional sociology (NIS) and practice theory? and; (ii) what are the limitations of the ST strand and, considering these (and its relative strengths), how should it be advanced in the future? Overall, we find that the mobilization of ST as a general ontological framework has generated three major and largely unique contributions, namely; (i) the introduction of a duality perspective; (ii) the conceptualization of accounting as an interwoven totality comprised of structures of signification, domination and legitimation, and; (iii) an ontological basis for theorizing how, when and why socially embedded agents may produce both continuity and change in accounting practices. However, we also conclude that it is difficult to identify a particular and distinctive empirical imprint of the ST literature, and that some of the theory’s ‘competitive advantages’ are far from fully exploited. Based on these identified strengths and weaknesses of the ST perspective, we consider an array of directions for future scholarly effort.     

A situational analysis for the implementation of the National School Health Policy in KwaZulu-Natal

The South African National School Health Policy was launched in 2003 to improve pupils' health by linking school visits by nurses and other health providers with the intersectoral collaboration required for health promoting schools. In KwaZulu-Natal, the policy required that various parties collaborate in order to ensure the successful implementation of the policy. This study examines the status of provincial departments and district level groups and their capacity to contribute to this partnership. It is a situational analysis that includes interviews, a questionnaire and focus group discussions. The results reveal issues that need addressing before the policy can be successfully implemented, including staffing, transport for the School Health Teams and further training of these teams and the teachers. Given the health issues faced by South Africans, especially the quadruple burden of disease, it is imperative that the School Health Policy be comprehensively implemented in KwaZulu-Natal.     

When wildlife tourism goes wrong: a case study of stakeholder and management issues regarding Dingoes on Fraser Island, Australia

Images on brochures, web pages and postcards lead to an expectation by tourists and visitors that interaction with Dingoes (Canis lupus Dingo) will be part of their Fraser Island experience. Yet, as the number of tourists to the island increase, so do the reports of Dingo attacks. The first recorded death from such an attack on Fraser Island occurred in April 2001, and was immediately followed by a government-ordered cull of Dingoes. This paper explores issues surrounding both this decision and the management strategies implemented afterwards. Based on interviews with a variety of stakeholders, many conflicting perspectives on human–wildlife interaction as a component of tourism are identified. The conclusion is drawn that while strategies for managing Dingoes are essential, if such attacks are a consequence of humans feeding wildlife and resultant wildlife habituation, then strategies for managing people are also necessary for this example of wildlife tourism to be both successful and sustainable.     

Selectivity and Market Timing Performance of Fidelity Sector Mutual Funds

In this paper, we test the selectivity and timing performance of the Fidelity sector mutual funds during the 1989–1998 time period. We use the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industry Group Total Return Indexes, and the Dow Jones Subgroup Total Return Indexes as benchmarks. When we use the Dow Jones Industry benchmarks, our results indicate that many sector fund managers have positive selectivity but negative timing ability. We also find that the results are sensitive to our choice of benchmark and timing model.     

The impact of performance-based compensation on misreporting

This paper examines the effect of CEO compensation contracts on misreporting. We find that the sensitivity of the CEO's option portfolio to stock price is significantly positively related to the propensity to misreport. We do not find that the sensitivity of other components of CEO compensation, i.e., equity, restricted stock, long-term incentive payouts, and salary plus bonus have any significant impact on the propensity to misreport. Relative to other components of compensation, stock options are associated with stronger incentives to misreport because convexity in CEO wealth introduced by stock options limits the downside risk on detection of the misreporting.