CEO personality and language use in CSR reporting

We explore the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) personality traits and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. Upper echelons theory indicates that the values, experiences, and personalities of top organizational managers influence their organization's strategic decisions and effectiveness. We utilize IBM Watson Personality Insights software to infer CEOs’ personality traits based on their responses to questions raised by analysts during year-end conference calls; we obtain CEOs’ Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—from which we compute a measure of their risk tolerance. Using a longitudinal dataset of Standard and Poor's 500 firms for 2008–2015, we document that high CEO risk tolerance is related to lower CSR report readability and smaller CSR disclosure volume. This finding indicates that executives who are comfortable with greater risk are more willing to supply stakeholders with reports that are shorter and require greater effort to understand. Exploration of the association between CEO Big Five personality traits and CSR report readability and disclosure volume allows key stakeholders to better comprehend CSR disclosures and connotations thereof. Overall, our results contribute to the debate on how CEO personality traits affect organizations’ CSR disclosure reporting strategies, and support upper echelons theory in the CSR setting.     

The effect of near- versus distant-future mindsets on socially responsible investors’ mutual fund preferences

Socially responsible investing (SRI) has seen tremendous growth in recent years. For SRI investors, choosing among potential SRI investments often requires making trade-offs between social responsibility and financial aspects of the investment. In this study, we examine contexts where investors are more versus less willing to make such trade-offs, specifically in the context of SRI-guided mutual funds among Muslim investors. We expect that priming a near-future mindset will make respondents less likely to trade-off social responsibility for financial considerations, whereas priming a distant-future mindset will make respondents more likely to make such trade-offs. Using a discrete choice experimental design among Saudi Arabian adults, we find support for our hypotheses. Managerial implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Forum: Teaching Professional Judgement in Accounting

In May 2005, the University of Lethbridge and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta sponsored the Banff Education Conference entitled Professional Judgement: Can It Be Taught? The opening forum at the conference was a panel discussion on the topic presented by academics and practitioners. The session included an overview of the research literature on expertise as a basis for considering the nature of professional judgement and the implications of various attributes of expertise for accounting education. Past practices and current pressures facing practitioners in exercising good judgement were addressed, including increased complexity of transactions and decreased time to assess problems. The forum also included a discussion of the need for educators to help guide students to develop an understanding of a problem rather than simply seek the answer. There was a discussion of particularly challenging topics for students to grasp in a principlesbased environment. The forum culminated in a question‐and‐answer session involving the panelists and the attendees at the conference. This paper summarizes the presentations and the discussion that took place during the forum. En mai 2005, l'Université de Lethbridge et l'Institut des comptables agréés de l'Alberta commanditaient le congrès de Banff sur l'éducation ayant pour thème la question suivante: le jugement professionnel s'enseigne‐t‐il? Le forum d'ouverture a consisté en une table ronde sur cette question au cours de laquelle enseignants et praticiens ont effectué un survol des publications de recherche sur la compétence qui a servi de point de départ à l'étude de la nature du jugement professionnel et des répercussions de diverses caractéristiques de la compétence sur la formation comptable. Les panélistes se sont penchés sur les méthodes passées et sur les pressions auxquelles sont actuellement soumis les praticiens dans l'exercice d'un jugement éclairé, notamment les difficultés occasionnées par la complexité accrue des transactions et la réduction du temps dévolu à l'évaluation des problèmes. Les panélistes ont également discuté de la nécessité pour les enseignants d'amener les étudiants à mieux comprendre les tenants et les aboutissants d'un problème plutôt que de simplement en chercher la solution. Ils ont également discuté d'enjeux particulièrement importants pour les étudiants dans un environnement axé sur les principes. Le forum s'est terminé par une période d'échange entre panélistes et participants au congrès. Le texte qui suit est un résumé des exposés présentés dans le cadre de ce forum et des discussions qui s'y sont déroulées.     

Balancing Ethical Responsibility among Multiple Organizational Stakeholders: The Islamic Perspective

In spite of a renewed interest in the relationship between spirituality and managerial thinking, the literature covering the link between Islam and management has been sparse – especially in the area of ethics. One potential reason may be the cultural diversity of nearly 1.3 billion Muslims globally. Yet, one common element binding Muslim individuals and countries is normative Islam. Using all four sources of this religion’s teachings, we outline the parameters of an Islamic model of normative business ethics. We explain how this ethics model seeks to balance the needs of multiple stakeholders, and discuss its enforcement mechanisms. This Islamic approach to business ethics is centered around criteria that are in common with stakeholder theory such as justice and balance, and includes unique additional criteria such as trust and benevolence.     

The relationship between remittances and macroeconomic variables in times of political and social upheaval: Evidence from Tunisia's Arab Spring

If Tunisia is hailed as a success story with its high rankings on economic, educational, and other indicators relative to other Arab countries, the popular 2011 uprisings underscored the fragility of its main economic pillars, including those of tourism and foreign direct investment. This paper examines the economic impact of migrants’ remittances, which are expected to exhibit relatively countercyclical behaviour during periods of intense upheaval. This study is novel in its methodological approach, which is used to pinpoint the dynamic effects of remittances on key macroeconomic variables within an unstable framework. The analysis reveals that the effect of remittances on Tunisia's economy has varied over time. Prior to the Arab Spring, remittances had a short‐term negative influence on economic growth, varying effects on domestic investment and positive impacts on consumption. In considering the post‐Arab uprisings, positive and strong impacts of remittances on growth and consumption are found in the long run while negative and moderate investment effects of remittances are shown over the short and medium term.     

Inter-and intra-organizational stakeholder arrangements in carbon management accounting

This research investigates the role of inter-organizational arrangements and intra-organizational activities as sub-parts of carbon management accounting to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We apply the concept of stakeholder engagement, normally utilized in sustainability reporting, to carbon management accounting and performance. We also examine if carbon management projects that encompass many functional areas aid in GHG emissions performance. Using a sample of firms headquartered in the United States with data available from the CDP, we apply the three-stage least squares (3SLS) method to test for the endogeneity of GHG emissions reporting and performance. We find that both inter-organizational and intra-organizational arrangements improve GHG emissions performance through carbon management processes and procedures. Our research contributes to the literature by providing insight into how companies work externally with their stakeholders and internally with multiple functional areas to implement carbon management projects that reduce GHG emissions.     

Antecedents and outcomes of interpersonal influences and the role of acculturation: The case of young British-Muslims

Prior research considers antecedents and outcomes of interpersonal influence without consideration of acculturation. Data collected from 222 young British-Muslims using focus groups, in-depth interviews and questionnaires identifies significant antecedents and outcomes concluding that self-congruity, clothing conformity, need for uniqueness and modesty are major contributors to susceptibility to interpersonal influence. Acculturation moderates the effects of self congruity and susceptibility to interpersonal influence. The paper discusses implications for clothing retailers suggesting that self-congruity, conformity and modesty require closer attention to develop effective promotion and product strategies. The study is first of its kind within the UK ethnic minorities market.     

Capabilities in Motion: New Organizational Forms and the Reshaping of the Hollywood Movie Industry*

abstract This paper looks at the evolution of capabilities in the Hollywood movie industry in the aftermath of the transition from a studio era dominated by integrated hierarchies to a post‐studio era dominated by flexible hub organizations supplied by networks of resource providers. Adopting a dynamic capabilities perspective we argue that two industry capabilities – mobilizing and transforming capabilities – play a crucial role in assembling and transforming resource bundles into feature films. We further argue that the transition to new organizational forms shifts the co‐evolutionary process, with practices and routines that make up mobilizing capabilities changing faster and becoming more important to box office success than practices and routines that make up transforming capabilities. We test our hypotheses using a sample of 400 films split between the studio and post‐studio eras. The results support our hypotheses, pointing to the influence of centralized control versus dispersed access to resources. The strategy of integrated hierarchical organizations depends on ownership of resources that reduces incentives to develop mobilizing capabilities, and increases incentives to develop transforming capabilities. The advent of new organizational forms, by contrast, increases returns to new practices and routines that mobilize resources at the expense of returns on exploring practices and routines that make up transforming capabilities.