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Prior research finds that firms disclosing a focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) experience less negative reactions following a corporate misstep. We predict that this “insurance effect” is limited to cases of ordinary failures (i.e., failures not directly related to the social or environmental impacts of the firm) and may provide no protection when a failure is directly related to CSR. Further, we hypothesize a potential “backfire effect,” where investors react more negatively to a CSR-focused firm in the case of a CSR-related failure than to a traditional firm experiencing the same failure. In-keeping with attribution theory and expectancy violations theory, our results support the predicted limitation of the insurance effect. In addition, we find that the limited insurance effect is mediated by reputational assessments. Although directionally consistent, the proposed backfire effect is not statistically significant. Overall, our results suggest that CSR is not a panacea for dampening the penalties associated with business missteps, and managers seeking to benefit from CSR engagement should be diligent in monitoring their firms' future CSR performance.

Increasing one's chances for early job attainment is a major motivation for accounting graduates. Accounting programs are often evaluated by the job attainment rates of their graduates. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that affect the early job attainment of accounting graduates. This study provides insight into variables that influence job outcomes for accounting graduates. In particular, our results demonstrate that gender, internship experience, grade point average (GPA), and transfer status each significantly impact the early employment of accounting students. Further, the relationships between gender and job attainment, as well as GPA and job attainment, are partially mediated through internship experience. This suggests that gender and GPA not only impact job outcomes directly but also impact job outcomes through their effect on internship attainment. The findings could help accounting programs better prepare, advise, and assist future students in their academic activities, thereby improving students' chances of early accounting job attainment.

It is important to understand how recent regulation allowing small businesses to issue equity through crowdfunding can impact investors' decision-making. One unique feature of crowdfunding presented to investors is an issuer's fundraising goal (i.e., minimum target) and how much money has currently been pledged toward that goal by other investors. However, it is unknown whether investors are sensitive to the level at which the minimum target is set, which can influence the perception of the level of support an investment has received from other investors. While holding the amount of capital pledged to an issuer constant, we conduct an experiment to examine how the minimum level of an issuer's fundraising goal impacts the likelihood of investment by investors. We predict that lower minimum goals will facilitate a perception that an issuer has strong support from other investors and will lead to a change in how investors perceive that issuer. We find that, regardless of the financial strength of the issuer, lower minimum fundraising goals lead to greater investment likelihood compared to higher minimum fundraising goals. We also find that issuers with weak financial strength tend to benefit from this effect more than stronger firms. Finally, this effect is mediated by investors' perceptions of the support of other investors in the company. The results of our study have both practical and theoretical contributions.

This study examines the sequential mediating role of employee organisational commitment (EOC) and innovation on the relationship between budgetary participation and competitive advantage. Data were collected from a mail survey questionnaire of 86 Australian organisations with PROCESS applied to analyse the data. The study's findings make a significant contribution to the budgetary participation and behavioural management literature and practice. Specifically, the study provides a theoretical insight into the role of an important employee behavioural factor, EOC and innovation in mediating the relationship between budgetary participation and competitive advantage. In particular, the findings inform practitioners that budgetary participation influences the EOC of employees and subsequently influence competitive advantage through exploratory innovation.

The purpose of this study is to examine if evidence weighting has any effect on auditor's judgment and its relationship with advocacy attitudes. We collected data from 181 practicing auditors employed in audit institutions certified by Tehran Stock Exchange in Iran. Our structural equation analysis on these data show that auditor's advocacy attitudes and client identification are related to evidence weighting which in turn affects auditor's judgment. Auditors with higher (lower) advocacy attitudes and client identification overweight client-favorable (client-unfavorable) evidence leading to more (less) acquiescence to client-preferred position. This is tempered by auditor's experience and professional identification. Specifically, we show that auditor advocacy impacts auditor judgment directly as well as indirectly through auditor's evidence weighting process. The findings of the present study add to the literature on auditor judgment and decision-making and highlight the possible benefits of awareness training to tackle the effects of advocacy attitudes on judgments and evidence weighting.

This paper examines whether there is a presence of behavioral consistency in CEOs' earnings management decisions. Based on insights from the career imprint theory, we propose that firms are more likely to engage in earnings management when their newly appointed CEOs come from firms that were also involved in such practices. Empirical support was found by analyzing a dataset that tracks 855 CEO transitions. Additionally, we find that the strength of this effect is influenced by factors such as the age of the CEO when they joined their previous firm, the length of their tenure at the previous firm, the size of the former firm, and the strength of corporate governance in their current firm. Furthermore, additional tests support the idea of “moral cleansing” behavior in CEOs, but not the “slippery slope” mechanism.