Climate change mitigation: Carbon assurance and reporting integrity

Concern about climate change has increased the pressure on firms to be accountable for social impact and to report on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. Focusing on the view that sustainability-oriented firms are likely to consider wider stakeholder interests and pursue high financial reporting integrity, this paper examines the association between carbon assurance and earnings management. Using a sample of firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange, we find voluntary adoption of carbon assurance (level), carbon disclosure and gender diverse boards are negatively associated with earnings management. Additional tests using different components of carbon assurance (percent and verification) confirm our main results. Our results suggest that firms that voluntarily invest in carbon assurance, carbon disclosure and gender diverse boards are less likely to engage in earnings management and thus have higher reporting integrity. This aligns with the view that firms' ethical concerns translate into higher quality reporting.     

The Effects of the Global Financial Crisis on Supply Chain Members in Non‐BRIC Emerging Markets

The global economic crises that began in 2008 had profound effects on the supply chains of many multinational firms across all industries including altering some fundamental supply chain characteristics. This study discusses the effects of the crises on lower‐level supply chain members in the context of the textile and garment industry in emerging markets. The fieldwork for this research and the integration of new United Nations data provide evidence for the vulnerability of those supply chain members that provide only commoditized basic services that do not depend on talent skills or resource availability. Most of these, less sophisticated supply chain members are located in non‐BRIC emerging economies, including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Haiti, Honduras, and so on. We present a framework that is transferable across industries. The framework is useful for managers when evaluating the feasibility and reliability of different suppliers from emerging and developing countries in particular. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Home Care Providers in Queensland: Exploratory Data Analysis Using My Aged Care Platform

The My Aged Care website, established by the Australian Government, is the starting point for aged care consumers and carers to find information on aged care providers. Using information published on this platform, we compile a unique dataset of 588 approved home care providers in Queensland. This article presents a brief introduction to this dataset, including how they are extracted and what variables are available. We propose some current and future applications of this data with a focus on how it can contribute to evidence-based policymaking in Australia.     

Nutrient Management and Farmers' Concept of Soil Fertility and Fertilisers: A Case Study in Southern Vietnam

Nutrient management in Vietnam was exposed to major changes with the introduction of the reform policy (‘doi moi’), which entailed the introduction of new crops and new fertilisers and increased consumption of mineral fertilisers, leading to higher yields but also possibly to higher losses of nutrients to the environment. However, sustainable nutrient management options can be developed through merging scientific and local concepts. Participatory methods were used to gather information about the farmers' concept of soil fertility, the fertilisers available and their features, and the information available. The farmers' concept of soil fertility was more directly connected to the ability of the whole system to promote good yields than the scientific concept of soil fertility as the soil's ability to deliver sufficient nutrients and water to the plant. The farmers' concept of fertilisers included a wide range of amendments that were added to promote good conditions for plant growth, rather than to provide nutrients for the crop. The study revealed an information system whereby some innovative farmers were the keys to other farmers' access to external information on nutrient management. The results show that any attempt made by outsiders to improve nutrient use efficiency must be applicable to the farmers' concepts.     

The Fight Against Obesity: Influences of Self-Efficacy on Exercise Regularity

Given the current social problem of obesity, past and current research efforts have examined consumer choice and decisionmaking regarding food consumption. However, preventative health behaviors such as exercise are also instrumental in combating the obesity epidemic. Limited studies in the marketing literature have explored how internal and psychological characteristics influence physical activity and exercise regularity. Thus, this study seeks to examine how individual self-efficacy impacts exercise behavior. Findings indicate that in order to fully explain the relationship between perceived self-efficacy and exercise regularity, significant mediating factors such as health consciousness, goal progress, attitude toward exercise, and satisfaction with current weight must be included in the decision-making process. Implications for consumers, social marketers, and public policy makers are discussed.     

Pre-IPO ownership structure and its impact on the IPO process

We investigate the impact of pre-issue ownership structure on the key decisions surrounding an IPO. We find that managerial ownership is significantly related to (1) the proportion of shares offered, (2) share allocation, and (3) direct issue-related expenses. This suggests that pre-IPO ownership by managers influences their incentive to maintain control and to lower the cost of going public. In comparison, large pre-IPO non-managerial shareholders are more concerned about exiting, and their presence tends to increase issue size and costs. Our findings indicate that differences in pre-IPO owners’ incentives and bargaining power as implied by their pre-IPO shareholdings can significantly influence the IPO process.     

Rice Production,Trade and the Poor: Regional Effects of Rice Export Policy on Households in Vietnam

Analysing Vietnam's rice export policy and recent export ban in the context of rising food prices, this study combines insights from a regionally‐disaggregated or ‘bottom‐up’ CGE model and a micro‐simulation using household data. Three main conclusions are drawn. First, although there is little impact on GDP, there are substantial distributional impacts across regions and households from different export policies and market conditions. Second, both rural and urban households, including poor households, benefit from free trade, even though domestic rice prices are higher. Finally, under free trade, relatively large gains accrue to rural households, where poverty is most pervasive in Vietnam.     

Are Business Students Prepared for the World of Business? Self‐interest,Conformity and Conflict Styles

While conflict management is a central capability in the business world, it gets relatively little attention in most business schools. In a study of undergraduate and graduate students at a Canadian university, we investigate the roles personal values play in the relationship between majoring in business and students' conflict management propensities. We find that business students hold more narrowly self‐interested, as well as more conformist and traditionalist, values than students in other disciplines, with the implication that business students may be more prone to conflict avoidance and less likely than other students to engage with conflict collaboratively. We discuss both self‐selection and socialization as possible explanations, and the implication this has for business education and curriculum development.     

Controlling monopoly power in a double-auction market experiment

There is robust evidence in the experimental economics literature showing that monopoly power is affected by trading institutions. In this paper, we study whether trading institutions themselves can shape agents' market behavior through the formation of anchors. We recreate experimentally five different double-auction market structures (perfect competition, perfect competition with quotas, cartel on price, cartel on price with quotas, and monopoly) in a within-subject design, varying the order of markets implementation. We investigate whether monopoly power endures the formation of price anchors emerged in previously implemented market structures. Results from our classroom experiments suggest that double-auction trading institutions succeed in preventing monopolists from exploiting their market power. Furthermore, the formation of price anchors in previously implemented markets negatively impacts on monopolists' power in later market structures.     

The eye of the beholder. Reconsidering the notions of pro‐poor growth and progressivity,with an application to Vietnam

Both policymakers and economists have tried to find criteria to assess whether economic growth is pro‐poor. In this paper we reconsider the inequality‐oriented approach originally proposed by Jenkins and Van Kerm. They look at the changes in the whole income distribution, and decompose the change in income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient, into a progressivity and a reranking component. They define a pro‐poor (or progressive) change as one where the changes in income are more to the benefit of those who are initially poor than to the benefit of those who are initially rich. We challenge this assumption, and maintain that also the point of view of the finally poor and the finally rich should be taken into account when evaluating whether growth is pro‐poor. We suggest a new decomposition method, based on an inequality index of the generalized entropy family, which allows the change in income inequality to be decomposed exactly into a forward‐looking and a backward‐looking progressivity component. Our empirical illustration, using data from household surveys in Vietnam, shows that economic growth in Vietnam has been pro‐poor from a forward‐looking perspective, but not from a backward‐looking perspective.