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The purpose of this paper is to test the theory of optimal monitoring, which posits that more generous county homestead exemptions lower the incentive for residents to monitor school operations, thereby increasing inefficiency in service outcomes.

This research uses two-stage Simar and Wilson’s data envelopment analysis to assess county school districts’ efficiency in the state of Georgia for each year from 2007 to 2012.

Controlling for other factors known to be correlated with government efficiency, such as fiscal capacity and competition, this study finds evidence that higher property tax burdens resulting from lower county school district homestead exemptions, as a proxy of more intense citizens’ monitoring pressures, are associated with improved county school district performance efficiency. These results provide empirical support for the theory of optimal monitoring.

Increased government funding toward education is more likely to improve education outcomes if accompanied by efficiency control mechanisms. One such mechanism could be increased transparency of government operations and accountability of public officials.

This research uses a newer and more robust estimation of relative efficiency and analyzes a more common type of property tax exemption. This improves the internal validity and generalizability of the findings regarding the theory of optimal monitoring.

Positive accounting theory suggests jurisdictions will meet their stakeholders’ financial information needs at the lowest possible cost, and current accounting policy will change if it does not accomplish that objective. This paper examines the breadth of stakeholders who are associated with accounting policy. We use multivariate methods to determine which among a group of potential users including taxpayers, interest groups, local government managers, the municipal credit market, and other governmental entities are correlated with accounting policy among municipal governments in Illinois. The results suggest one particular stakeholder - the municipal credit market - is an important determinant of the use of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The analysis shows that professionalism, history, and administrative capacity are also associated with a municipality’s accounting policy.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication covered by the news media is considered as more credible and effective in shaping public perceptions toward corporations than CSR shared by corporations themselves. This is particularly true when CSR is about corporations with social stigma inherent in business practices. This study examines the CSR publicity of stigmatized industries from the journalism lens.

A content analysis was conducted with CSR stories from 2019 to 2020 by USA newspapers (n = 348).

Results of this study showed that the overall volume of CSR from stigmatized industries has decreased, with fewer responses to the recent pandemic. Further, the media brought promotional CSR activities and the business motives behind the activities into focus. Opposing patterns were found for CSR of non-stigmatized industries presented with philanthropic activities based on corporations' social motives to help communities. Similarly, economic and legal responsibilities reflected in the CSR pyramid were more prominently reported for stigmatized industries, and ethical and discretionary responsibilities appeared more frequently for non-stigmatized industries.

Integrating business and media literature, this study enriches scholarly discussions on media processes and effects for CSR communication. This study also provides practical implications for stigmatized industries by highlighting more authentic and careful approaches for CSR communication to earn positive publicity.

This study provides social implications by highlighting the importance of CSR communications through the lens of news media when corporations are socially stigmatized.

Stigmatized industries are known to be active in CSR communication to nullify social stigma surrounding themselves. The authors' findings provide empirical evidence suggesting that not all publicity benefits CSR communication for stigmatized corporations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and identify the areas in common between strategic quality management (SQM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the literature. Studying these areas is important to develop any further connection between SQM and CSR because of both the potential for benefit to organisations and society, and in order to minimise resources needed for effective action by capitalising on synergies.

Literature review covering a broad range of publications that addresses the synergies of quality management and CSR to identify areas of commonality and thus simplify CSR implementation.

Identification of opportunities for knowledge transfer between SQM and CSR.

Synergies between SQM and CSR may offer attractive opportunities to capitalise on prior actions and learning, to enhance the value added to an organisation and the society in which it operates.

This evaluation is a part of a more in-depth research study investigating the relationship between and integration of SQM and CSR, and its application in specific contexts.

Increasing the ethicality of a project and the usefulness of the data enhances the probability that social good will result from the research; a combination of ethical and methodological soundness is therefore crucial. From 1999‐2002 I conducted a qualitative study of women’s, men’s, and mixed Internet chat room conversations. In this article, I discuss the particular ethical issues that arose, outlining my ethical decision‐making process within the context of current debates. I also describe the methodological concerns, demonstrating why a synthesized method responsive to the advantages and disadvantages of cyberspace was necessary, and how the data were enhanced by this choice of method and by certain characteristics of cyberspace. In discussing the details of my study, my overall goal is to provide an assessment of the social good of the project with a view to increasing the probability of more ethical and useful Internet‐based research outcomes more generally.