Corporate recidivism in emerging economies

Prior research on corporate misconduct pays extensive attention to single misconduct behaviors. However, little research has addressed recidivism – the repeated behaviors of corporate misconduct. Based on institutional theory and using the context of emerging economies where recidivism plays a considerable role, we propose the path dependency of corporate recidivism and suggest that three influential factors exist: internal preconditioning, inter‐organizational imitation, and the prevailing external evaluation. Our event history analysis of 1,036 listed companies in China over the period 2001–2008 statistically confirms our hypotheses. We conclude the paper by outlining the implications for both theory and practice.     

Familiness,business strategy and stakeholder engagement: The internationalisation of Spanish olive oil mills

Based on social capital theory and the family-firm context, this paper studies familiness' composition and the result of the overlap of the family and firm systems, analysing their influence on the internationalisation strategies of family firms. In this relationship, the stakeholder engagement becomes at the same time an antecedent and a result when developing family businesses' strategies, being one of the most relevant the internationalisation strategies. Prior research focused on familiness as the result of proxy variables such as the percentage of ownership and management in family hands, or business size, instead of as psychological variables resulting from shared organisational culture and social interactions. Through a qualitative study based on 12 interviews of general managers and/or export managers of Spanish family olive oil mills, this study asserts that the level of familiness influences internationalisation strategies, the reasons underlying a business becoming international and its commitment to activities abroad being the role of stakeholders crucial in those interactions. The higher the level of familiness, the more likely the family business internationalisation and the higher their levels of international commitment. Additionally, the higher the concern about their stakeholders, the higher their levels of international commitment. The family businesses' concern for their stakeholders and their international commitment share a reciprocal relationship. The results regarding the relevance of familiness as social capital resources in sustaining competitive advantages support the decision to promote, develop and nurture social capital when a family business goes international.     

Sustainability accounting regulation in Spanish public sector organizations

In 2011, the Spanish government made sustainability accounting mandatory for public sector organizations. This paper documents why, despite the new legislation, the quantity and quality of sustainability accounting practices remains low.     

Informal Employment and the Structure of Wages in India: A Review of Trends

The “alternative”, “atypical” or “informal” workforce has grown in developed and developing countries alike. One of the more recent evolutions of informal employment has been of informal employment within formal enterprises. In the interest of flexibility and cost‐reduction, many formal firms increasingly resort to hiring workers on a temporary or informal basis. Alongside, and perhaps, as a result of the persistence and pervasiveness of informal employment, issues relating to inequality have come to the fore. This paper is motivated by these two intertwining aspects of Indian labor market—informality and wage inequality. Using nationally representative sample data, the paper examines trends in wage inequality among various forms of informal workers, overlaying these findings with broader trends in inequality. Using a regression based inequality decomposition, the paper compares the sources of wage inequality across different employment groups and the reasons for differences in wage inequality.     

Corporate Stock and Bond Return Correlations and Dynamic Adjustments of Capital Structure

This paper analyses the effects of dynamic correlations between stock and bond returns issued by the same firm on the speed of adjustment towards target leverage. The results show that the estimated correlations are time varying, show persistence and differ among firms. Analysis of the potential explanatory variables reveals that the correlations decrease with negative expectations about future aggregate risks, but only for firms with a low default probability. In contrast, correlations are positively associated with specific risk measures, especially idiosyncratic stock risk and financial leverage. The positive relationship between the correlations and the leverage ratio suggests that target leverage can be achieved faster when the stock–bond correlation is high. Our results show that this is the case.     

Punishing Vices or Rewarding Virtues? The Motivations for and Benefits of Ethical Ratings for Private Italian Companies

Journal of Business Ethics - In A Treatise on Virtues and Rewards, Dragonetti (1769) advances a theory of action based on rewards for virtues. The idea of rewards, especially of awards, relies on...     

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior: Use of Local Language for Market Communication—A Study in Region Friuli Venetia Giulia (Italy)

Cross-cultural consumer behavior is of market interest due to globalization of marketplaces, migration, multicultural marketplaces, and diffusion in the EU of many languages. The objective of this study is to check whether the local language used in a marketing communication could affect the consumers’ preferences for food products. The theoretical foundation is the consumer motivational approach that goes deeper into motivations interfering with the consumers’ preference order. The multivariate conjoint analysis is used to evaluate the preferences for attributes described in different languages. A number of students from the University of Udine (located in the northeastern part of Italy) have been submitted to interviews to examine their preferences for a simulated sandwich package reporting information in different languages, distributed by vendor machine. The results suggest that the consumer’s reaction to local language depends on sociodemographic profile, cultural background, language knowledge, and family education, and the local language could actually be used as a market tool for market segmentation. These results are of interest to many EU countries with bilingual communities such as Spain, Belgium, the UK, Switzerland, and most of the Italian regions where local languages are still alive.     

Innovation and its diffusion: process,actors and actions

Seeking to understand factors affecting innovation diffusion, research has increasingly focused on process, actors and activities. After two decades of research, however, a systematisation of these three sets of studies is still lacking. Thus, this paper contributes to the existing literature providing a comprehensive framework of factors affecting innovation diffusion between organisations. Specifically it evidences phases of innovation diffusion process, clarifies the role of innovator, adopters and intermediaries and evidences actions that policy-makers can implement to support it.     

Gender differences in positive perceptions,anxiety, and depression among mothers and fathers of children with intellectual disabilities: a logistic regression analysis

This study explores gender differences in positive perceptions, anxiety, and depression among mothers and fathers of children with intellectual disabilities (IDs). We examined the relationship between these variables and certain characteristics of both the child (age and severity of disability) and the parents (age, educational level, and employment status). A sample of 60 mother/father couples who had children with IDs completed the Positive Contributions Scale to measure their positive perceptions, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale to assess their level of anxiety and depression. Bivariate analyses were used to determine differences between fathers and mothers as regards their positive perceptions and levels of anxiety and depression. A logistic regression model was then applied to identify which of the variables might be significant predictors of the gender differences observed among parents. Both mothers and fathers had positive perceptions of their children with IDs that co-existed with symptoms of anxiety and depression, with scores being higher among mothers. The predictive analysis of gender showed that individual variables (such as the employment status of both parents) may explain these differences.     

Military casualties and exchange rates during the First World War: did the Eastern Front matter?

Although the First World War was ultimately decided in the west, historians have emphasized the importance of the often ‘forgotten’ Eastern Front in understanding its complex evolution. This article examines the perception of contemporary foreign exchange traders concerning the relative importance of the Eastern Front over time. Using a newly compiled dataset on prisoners of war and on soldiers killed and wounded, we show that traders were concerned with casualties on both fronts, recognizing the significance of the two‐front war in the early war years. From the autumn of 1916 onwards, traders seemed to believe the key to winning the war lay in the west only.