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This research employs a behavioural approach to investigate the determinants of CEO disclosure tone inconsistency. By examining CEO characteristics and psychological attributes, the study aims to unravel the complexities underlying tone variations in Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) reports. Through this exploration, the research seeks to contribute to understanding ethical considerations in corporate communications and provide insights into the nuanced interplay between personal, job-related and psychological factors influencing CEO disclosure tone.

The study utilises a dataset comprising 1,411 MD&A reports from 143 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange between 2012 and 2021. Multiple regression analyses with year- and industry-fixed effects are employed to examine the relationships between CEO gender, tenure, duality, ability and psychological attributes such as narcissism, myopia, overconfidence and tone inconsistency. Data analysis involves MAXQDA software for analysing MD&A reports and Rahavard Novin software for document analysis, supplemented by audited financial statements.

The findings reveal significant relationships between CEO characteristics, psychological attributes and tone inconsistency. Female CEOs exhibit reduced tone inconsistency, contrasting with previous research trends. CEO tenure correlates negatively with tone inconsistency, whereas CEO ability shows a positive correlation, indicating a nuanced relationship with performance. However, CEO duality does not exhibit a significant association. Psychological attributes such as narcissism and myopia are positively associated with tone inconsistency, while no substantial connection is found with managerial overconfidence.

This research contributes to the inaugural exploration of CEO disclosure tone inconsistency through a behavioural lens, advancing measurement precision in the field. By delving into CEO characteristics and psychological attributes, the study offers unique insights into the roots of tone inconsistency. Applying comprehensive lexicon and phraseology enriches the methodological approach, fostering dialogue among diverse stakeholders and adding distinct perspectives to the discourse on ethical issues in business. Through its meticulous examination of behavioural underpinnings, this study becomes a catalyst for reflection, dialogue and progress in corporate communications and ethical considerations.

Career preparedness is critical to successfully transitioning from college to a full-time work environment. Being prepared means students have the technical and non-technical skills to help an organization meet its strategic goals. In many instances, students lack the requisite career competencies and collaborative skills. This study proposes designing an instructor-led, career-driven quasi-virtual internship to address this issue and improve students’ preparedness and teamwork.

Our research integrates and expands the four-step processes outlined in instructional and course redesign theories, including analysis, design and development, implementation and evaluation. In the evaluation phase, a survey is used to collect data, and natural language processing is applied to identify the emerging themes. The sample included 104 undergraduate students enrolled in an information systems degree program, which resulted in a digital corpus of 40,744 words for analysis.

Results indicate that the implementation of instructor-led quasi-virtual internships offered a comprehensive career experience comparable to an onsite or virtual company-sponsored internship in five notable areas: (1) application of technical knowledge, (2) critical thinking, (3) time management, (4) application of IT project management and (5) collaborative skills.

Our study only evaluated participants in our treatment group. Future research should examine the differences between students who complete sponsored versus instructor-led quasi-virtual internships. Researchers can add a control group of students who receive a theoretically based capstone course. Future research can simulate randomized controlled trials (RCT) (Chalmers et al., 1981) to measure the effectiveness of quasi-virtual internships. A benefit of this research is that an open-ended survey allows for collecting rich, multifaceted primary data. The second limitation is that the study included only single-item questions. Future authors can create and validate a survey instrument based on the themes and concepts emanating from our investigation. For example, they can operationalize team dynamics and career preparedness using a reflective model in which the underlying construct drives the indicators, requiring multiple items to examine each construct (Coltman et al., 2008). Third, the sample size in the study was relatively small. We can increase the sample size using a time-series dataset with multiple measurement periods. The fourth limitation is context; this study was conducted at a public university; other institutions may have varied teaching approaches, student demographics and resources. By expanding our study using a multi-site approach (Ballantyne et al., 2012), we can increase cross-sectional sample sizes and improve the generalizability of the study’s results.

This study provides several practical insights for educators by examining quasi-virtual internships. Academic institutions that want to offer internships but struggle to establish industry partners can implement the quasi-internship model as an alternative approach. The study highlights that students gain critical insight into their future careers during these internships by being familiar with industry concepts and tools. We also provide insights into engaging students in “meaningful collaboration.” We suggest the instructor provide some time during the class sessions for group work to improve coordination and introduce industry-level tools that provide a more applied approach to IS education.

The National Survey of College Internships (NSCI) 2021 indicates that underrepresented and first-generation students were less likely to participate in internships. Our research may positively impact diverse communities since the quasi-virtual internship allows all students to participate once they are enrolled in a capstone class.

To our knowledge, this study is the first to utilize latent semantic analysis to analyze students’ feedback to improve course design, career preparedness and team dynamics.

This study aims to examine the literature from the Web of Science database published on board committees between 2002 and 2023 and outline the quantitative summary, journey of board committees’ research and suggest future research directions.

This study examines bibliometric-content analysis combined with a systematic literature review of articles on board committees to document the summary of the field. The authors used co-citation, co-occurrence and cluster analysis under bibliometric-content analysis to present the field summary.

Board committee composition, such as their gender, independence and expertise, as well as factors affecting corporate governance, such as reporting quality, earnings management and board monitoring, all have a significant impact on board committee literature. The field is getting growing attention from authors, journals and countries. Nevertheless, there is a need for further exploration in areas like expertise, member age and tenure, the economic crisis and the nomination and remuneration committee, which have not yet received sufficient attention.

This paper has both theoretical and practical contributions. From a theoretical perspective, this study substantiates the prevalence of agency theory within board committee literature, reinforcing the foundational role of agency theory in shaping discussions about board committees. On practical ground, the comprehensive overview of board committee literature offers scholars a road map for navigating this field and directing their future research journey. The identification of research gaps in certain areas serves as a catalyst for scholars to explore untapped dimensions, enabling them to strengthen the essence of the committees’ performance.

This study examines the role of corporate governance on corporate tax avoidance from the developing country perspective of Malaysia.

A sample of 318 firm-year observations from 2016 to 2020 from the 100 largest listed companies in Malaysia was analysed using a fixed effects panel least squares regression model.

CEOs play a significant role in corporate tax avoidance in Malaysia. Specifically, they are motivated by money and power to engage in risky tax avoidance activity. It was also found that corporate governance mechanisms related to the board of directors have a limited effect on companies’ tax compliance issues.

This study’s findings can help regulators and policymakers understand the circumstances leading to increased tax aggressiveness as well as the limitations of certain governance mechanisms in curbing tax avoidance activity within companies. The findings can also assist shareholders and investors in formulating internal policies to create better alignment of their interests with those of management. The unique emerging economy evidence and insights from this study advance knowledge and can inspire fellow researchers in their future studies.

This study differs from most prior studies by examining the governance and tax issue from a developing country perspective, that of Malaysia. Developments in the country’s corporate governance framework and tax landscape in recent years make it relevant and interesting to investigate the issue in this emerging economy. Offering unique empirical evidence and insights from an emerging economy viewpoint, and with findings that may be generalised to other emerging economies sharing similar market traits (particularly ASEAN nations), this study enriches and extends the existing literature.

Fairy tales were first transmitted orally to teach the community to adapt and engage with their surroundings (Zipes, 1987, p. 1). Nonetheless, they have also contributed to reproduce traditional gender roles and stereotypes (Meland, 2020, p. 912). Indeed, they encourage ‘females to become passive self-denying, obedient, and self-sacrificial’, and males to ‘be competitive, authoritarian, and power-hungry as well as rational, abstract, and principled’ (Zipes, 1987, p. 3). Likewise, Western fairy tales are characterised by a racial dichotomy manifested through the uses of colour: purity is usually associated with white, while black is related to death. This binary opposition suggests that ‘[w]hiteness is often the invisible, privileged state, whereas any other skin colour is marked and laden with ideological judgments’ (Jorgensen, 2013, p. 56).

Carnival Row (2019–2023) is a neo-Victorian TV series created for Amazon Studios that rewrites Western fairy tales through the lens of postcolonial and gender studies. It is set in a fantastically reimagined Victorian England, where mythological creatures – e.g. fairies or centaurs – are allegorical representations of the ethnic Other. The male protagonist of this series, Philo, is a ‘half-breed’ – half human, half fairy – who passes as human to avoid racial discrimination. However, he evolves from being a male character who rejects his ethnic identity to a heroic figure who eventually embraces his racial origins at the end of Season 1. As I demonstrate in this chapter, Philo's nuanced development arguably subverts traditional depictions of white male heroes in fairy-tale narratives, where they tend to be portrayed as strong, principled and non-complex characters.

The purpose of this paper is to share learning about practical steps that can be taken to eliminate persistent racism from the workplace, including racism by people who have cognitive impairments who do not understand the impact of their behaviours.

This paper is informed by qualitative research. An independent researcher was commissioned to recruit 45 black British, black African and black Caribbean women living in Norfolk and working for a range of employers. Parameters were agreed in advance (aims, consent, data protection). A list of questions was provided to the researcher. The questions covered experiences of prejudice and discrimination. Data collection included face to face/online/telephone interviews, focus groups and questionnaires. The researcher recorded the women’s views and compiled them in a findings report. The report was shared with the women to confirm that their views had been recorded accurately. The author has also convened conversations with over 100 professionals representing providers of public services, including social and domiciliary care.

The author identified that it will be impossible for employers to eliminate persistent racism from their workplaces until all managers consistently and diligently address every report of racism effectively, in line with the steps set out in this paper. The purpose is to establish, over time, a workplace culture where racism is never tolerated or allowed to persist, and workers and managers learn – and become more confident – to recognise, address and eliminate racism at work. Until this is embedded, racism affecting workers will continue to go unchecked and unacknowledged in the workplace.

The data gathered to inform this paper (specifically the research commissioned and described in this abstract, in addition to other data, such as conversations convened with professionals) is qualitative data. It cannot be assumed that the experiences of the people interviewed reflect the experiences of all people. However, the voices of participants have highlighted issues to inform future planning.

The author must be clear that, so far there has been no definitive solution to persistent racism in the workplace. The learning so far is being shared with the hope that this assists others with developing strategies to eliminate persistent racism.

Workplaces across the UK are committed to eradicating racism. However, the rate of change is glacial. This research paper shares learning about how to address this, to increase the pace of change, to begin to genuinely eliminate persistent racism from the workplace.

To the author’s knowledge, the learning from this research is original and not replicated elsewhere.

Demographic characteristics such as race and ethnicity have long been shown to affect individuals' decision-making and can be associated with various behavioral outcomes. In this paper, we examine the association between the ethnicity of a chief financial officer (CFO) and financial reporting conservatism in a large sample of US public firms. We find that firms headed by CFOs of nonwhite ethnicities exhibit less conservative financial reporting than firms headed by white CFOs; however, this effect is attenuated for firms facing greater external scrutiny. Moreover, nonwhite CFOs in our sample recognize a higher level of discretionary accruals than white CFOs. Our study contributes to the literature on financial reporting and answers the call for more studies on top manager ethnicity effects. More importantly, our findings hold implications for both regulators and investors, given the prevalence and significance of diversity initiatives in today's globalized business environment.

The final chapter of this book captures a diverse range of case studies across teaching and learning and campus stewardship. The five case studies presented here add illustrative insights of global actions, following on from the four case studies presented within previous chapters. These contributions provide compelling and practical insights into how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are broadly addressing SDG2 through student competitions in the first section, and curriculum approaches in subject areas in which ‘food’ and ‘hunger’ might not be expected in the second section. The final section of cases further explores HEIs’ approaches to food security through both a curriculum lens and a student-led campus project. It is a fitting way to close the book since the cases collectively illustrate the potential contribution that any student and/or educator might make to raising awareness of and action towards achieving zero hunger and SDG2.

This article reviews 69 press releases published by the Norwegian Økokrim from June 2022 to November 2023. The presented research applies the theory of focal concerns to identify the main themes in the press releases.

Serious fraud offices such as the Norwegian national authority for investigation and prosecution of economic and environmental crime (Økokrim) are facing many challenges when combating white-collar and corporate crime. Press releases represent an element of facing such challenges, as the messages are an important vehicle for the organization to disclose organizational activities to the public.

Three themes emerged: offender conviction, impression management and crime deterrence. Offender prosecution followed by offender conviction is at the core of Økokrim's business. Impression management serves the purpose of emphasizing the important role of the national authority in society. The subjective perception of detection and prosecution by potential offenders can be influenced by crime deterrence messages.

Press releases are signals that may be interpreted in other ways.

When politicians are to review national authorities, they may want a slightly different serious fraud office.

The deterrence effect is often not real for alleged white-collar crime.

Understanding a national authority in terms of its focal concerns based on press releases from the authority.