The purpose of this paper is to counter the misunderstanding by Paul Craig Roberts of empirical measures of economic freedom.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to counter the misunderstanding by Paul Craig Roberts of empirical measures of economic freedom.
Design/methodology/approach
The objective is achieved by citing Roberts' criticisms of the Fraser and Cato studies of economic freedom and demonstrating the fallacies in his analysis.
Findings
The result of the present analysis is that Roberts misunderstands and misconstrues empirical measure of economic freedom. He conflates economic freedom with other desiderata, such as political freedom, personal liberties.
Research limitations/implications
To the extent the widely publicized Roberts findings are believed by scholars, there will be less research conducted in this vitally important arena. To the extent that his errors are exposed, as, for example, by the present essay, there will be more research conducted in this vitally important arena.
Practical implications
The practical implication of this research initiative is to improve economic freedom around the world. If citizens are not even aware that there is such a thing as economic freedom, this will lessen the chances of it being implemented. Roberts' creation of red herrings and muddying of the waters around this topic, thus, unintentionally, diminishes economic freedom. One of the implications of the present article is to counter Roberts' influence in this matter.
Originality/value
What is new in the paper is that the fallacies in Roberts' critiques of empirical measures of economics are dissected.
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Karen VanPeursem, Kevin Old and Stuart Locke
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the accountability practices of the directors in New Zealand and Australian dairy co-operatives. An interpretation of their practices…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the accountability practices of the directors in New Zealand and Australian dairy co-operatives. An interpretation of their practices, which focus on the relationship between directors and their farmer-shareholders, is informed by Roberts’ (2001a) understandings of a socializing accountability.
Design/methodology/approach
The fieldwork consists of interviews with 23 directors, including all chief executive officers and chairmen, of six dairy co-operatives together with observations and document analysis. These co-operatives together comprise a significant portion of the regional dairy industry. The methodology draws from Eisenhardt’s (1989) qualitative approach to theory formation.
Findings
The authors find that these directors engage in a discourse-based, community-grounded and egalitarian form of socializing accountability. As such, their practices adhere generally to Roberts (2001a) hopes for a more considerate and humble relationship between an accountor and an accountee.
Social implications
Findings add to the small pool of research on the lived experiences of co-operative boards and to a parsimonious literature in socializing accountability practices. The contributions of the study are in advancing real understandings of alternative forms of accountability, in evaluating the conditions in which these alternatives may be likely to arise and in anticipating the challenges and opportunities that arise therefrom.
Originality/value
The originality of the project arises from accessing the views of these industry leaders and, through their frank expressions, coming to understand how they achieve a form of a socializing accountability in their relationships with farmer-shareholders.
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Robert D. Straughan and James A. Roberts
Looking to the future of green marketing, examines the dynamic nature of ecologically conscious consumer behavior. The study also provides a method of profiling and segmenting…
Abstract
Looking to the future of green marketing, examines the dynamic nature of ecologically conscious consumer behavior. The study also provides a method of profiling and segmenting college students based upon ecologically conscious consumer behavior. Findings indicate that, despite a significant amount of past research attention, demographic criteria are not as useful a profiling method as psychographic criteria. Consistent with past findings, the study indicates that perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) provides the greatest insight into ecologically conscious consumer behavior. Further, the inclusion of altruism to the profile appears to add significantly to past efforts. Additional constructs examined suggest that environmental segmentation alternatives are more stable than past profiles that have relied primarily on demographic criteria.
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Teerooven Soobaroyen and Jyoti Devi Mahadeo
The purpose of this study is to examine whether the expectations and requirements contained within the corporate governance code have an impact on how accountability is perceived…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine whether the expectations and requirements contained within the corporate governance code have an impact on how accountability is perceived, understood and practiced by company board members in an emerging economy (Mauritius).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper relies on 24 semi‐structured interviews of board members in listed and non‐listed companies and also analyses the accountability implications present in the local code of corporate governance and relevant reports. The analysis is informed by the typologies of board accountability and process developed by Roberts in 2001 (socialising, individualising, sovereign and complementary) and is complemented by Pettigrew and McNulty's 1995 notions of minimalist and maximalist boards.
Findings
From a state which can largely be associated to the notion of sovereign governance and a minimalist board, the findings reveal a substantive change in the type of board accountability but it is one which privileges an individualising form of board interactions. A move to a more empowered “maximalist” board is also noted. Notwithstanding, the paper uncovers specific issues with the INED as an accountability mechanism in that there is much fuzziness on his/her role and motivations and whether INEDs can conceivably contribute to a socialising form of board accountability.
Originality/value
The paper responds to calls for more qualitative research on how boards actually operate in emerging economies, at a time when an increasing number of countries have adopted corporate governance requirements drawn primarily from the Anglo‐American model. This paper contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on corporate board processes and dynamics in non‐Western contexts.
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Janet Sayers and Nanette Monin
The purpose of the paper is to argue that an enriched understanding of texts would enable more informed and responsible management practice. The authors present an approach to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to argue that an enriched understanding of texts would enable more informed and responsible management practice. The authors present an approach to the analysis of management texts that enjoys, rather than contests, multivocality with the aim of making our approach to defamiliarising texts an accessible change management tool.
Design/methodology/approach
Working with a reader‐response methodology we provide comment on, and analysis of, a popular management book, Kevin Roberts' Lovemarks. The authors context a response to this text in a discussion of commodity fetishism and deconstructed management theory texts. The interpretation of the subject text highlights its rhetorical suasion and pulls buried meaning into view.
Findings
The authors demonstrate that rhetorical analysis and satirical play, a mode of defamiliarisation that is employed in their own reading and incorporated into their classroom praxis, enables managers to better understand and control their own sense‐making. The authors argue that where their enriched understandings challenge embedded assumptions, changed management practices are enabled.
Originality/value
The authors offer their own construction of a Lovemark text, a satirical echo of the Roberts original, as an example of the distancing effect of humorous textual play.
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Krista M. Reynolds, Lindsay Michelle Roberts and Janet Hauck
This paper aims to provide an overview of Keller’s ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction) model of motivational design and explores how three instruction…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide an overview of Keller’s ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction) model of motivational design and explores how three instruction librarians at different institutions have integrated the model into their teaching practices to improve student motivation during information literacy (IL) sessions.
Design/methodology/approach
Case studies describe how instruction librarians began to incorporate the ARCS model into library instruction. Three librarians used self-reflective practice and a range of assessment techniques to evaluate and improve teaching practice.
Findings
ARCS is valuable for improving student engagement during IL instruction. The authors suggest best practices for learning about and integrating the model and propose instructional strategies that align with it.
Originality/value
This paper fills a gap in literature on practical applications of motivational design in library instruction and suggests best practices for teaching and assessment using the ARCS model.
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Ashok Ganapathy Iyer and Andrew Roberts
This paper presents the phenomenographic analysis of students' approaches to learning in the first year architectural design coursework; thereby correlating contextualization in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents the phenomenographic analysis of students' approaches to learning in the first year architectural design coursework; thereby correlating contextualization in the architectural curriculum.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews phenomenographic data of first year architecture students' learning experience through a comparative analysis of first- and fourth-year students' approaches to learning in the design studio; further co-relating this analysis to the final classification involving all five years of students' learning approaches in the architecture program.
Findings
Five meta-categories of the comparative analysis and nineteen meta-categories of the final classification are evaluated using first-year students' learning approaches – to understand the importance of contextualization in curriculums of architecture.
Practical implications
This phenomenographic analysis of first-year students' learning experience represents the onward journey from surface-to-deep approaches to learning that is encountered in their learning approaches, pertaining to the design process in the design coursework during five years of architectural education.
Originality/value
This paper systematically extends the discussion of first year architecture students' engagement in the design process that leads to deep learning; further delving into the static dimension of knowledge and its extension to the dynamic dimension of knowing architecture.
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This chapter explores how early theorising about information behaviour and the emergence of conceptual modelling in information behaviour research had its beginnings in thinking…
Abstract
This chapter explores how early theorising about information behaviour and the emergence of conceptual modelling in information behaviour research had its beginnings in thinking that was taking place in the very late 1970s and early 1980s in Europe and the USA. Some of these ideas were presented in papers that are very familiar and much cited, but others in papers which may be less familiar and, consequently, may not be much cited, but which together contribute to explain why the rapid development in conceptual thinking about, as opposed to the simple empirical study of, information behaviour took place from that period to the present. Four dimensions are identified which together underpin the emergence of conceptual modelling in contemporary information behaviour research. The four dimensions are (1) the adoption of a social science perspective, (2) a qualitative as opposed to a quantitative orientation, (3) a focus on the modelling of information behaviour and (4) a concern with empirical validation and exemplification in the development of such models. These four dimensions came together to provide a tacit rather than explicit framework for subsequent theorising about information behaviour, and in particular underpinned studies involved the conceptual modelling of information behaviour. Information behaviour research then began to develop conceptual models very different from the empiricism of earlier studies, and, at the same time exhibited a strong concern for the exemplification or validation of these models in empirical studies. This combination of theoretically based conceptual modelling and empirical exemplification and validation together gave much of the character to information behaviour research from the later 1970s and early 1980s, an influence that extends to the present.
C. Herman Pritchett saw politics in law without losing the sense that law was not simply politics. This synthesis from the 1940s was lost in the last half of the 20th century and…
Abstract
C. Herman Pritchett saw politics in law without losing the sense that law was not simply politics. This synthesis from the 1940s was lost in the last half of the 20th century and it deserves to be brought back. While denial that politics matters is a staple of Supreme Court confirmation hearings, this position is no longer credible. In constitutional law in particular, politics has pushed law aside in the minds of scholars, journalists, and many Americans. This makes it hard to find a place for law in the study of the Supreme Court. This chapter advocates a return to the balance that was in place over 50 years ago when we were first taught that Supreme Court decisions were political.
Muhammad Usman, Ernest Ezeani, Rami Ibrahim A. Salem and Xi Song
This paper aims to examine the relationship between audit characteristics (ACs) and audit fees on classification shifting (CS) among German-listed non-financial firms.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between audit characteristics (ACs) and audit fees on classification shifting (CS) among German-listed non-financial firms.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 130 German-listed (Deutscher Aktienindex, Mid Cap dax and Small caps Index) firms from 2010 until 2019, this study investigated the impact of audit committee size, audit committee meetings, audit committee financial expertise and audit fees on CS.
Findings
This study found the evidence of CS, meaning that managers misclassify recurring expenses in the income statement into non-recurring expenses to inflate core earnings. This study also found that the audit fee ratio, audit committee financial expertise and frequency of audit meetings are negatively associated with CS among German-listed firms. However, the audit committee size does not influence CS.
Research limitations/implications
This study will help the board improve its internal auditing practices and provide essential information to investors to assess how ACs affect the quality of financial reporting.
Originality/value
This study focused on a bank-oriented economy, i.e. Germany, with lower investor protection and low transparency. This paper documents new evidence on how ACs and audit fees impact CS among German firms, as most of the previous studies on CS mainly focused on market-oriented economies such as the UK and the USA.