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This paper is in follow up to a presentation by its authors at the 2015 Association of Training and Development Conference in Orlando, Florida where participants gathered to learn new and innovative ways of working with people. Teams are everywhere in our global society, and we see untapped opportunities to harness the energy and potential to achieve positive results. The purpose of this paper is to offer a coaching approach to working with teams that utilizes positive deviance eliciting strengths, unique skills and knowledge, and building on these to create engagement and results.

The paper is based on the coaching and professional development work with leaders and teams in organizations. The concept of positive deviance is one that the authors have explored with individuals, groups, and teams over the past several years. The approach emerged from the application of theory in practice supporting ongoing learning and development.

The authors of this paper find organizations and members of teams wanting to be successful yet often still operating in silos. Supporting leaders and team members using a positive team coaching approach creates an environment that expands thinking, encourages creativity and learning, and develops strong teams.

This paper proposes utilizing an approach that brings multiple theories together in practice. Positive team coaching includes establishing a mindset of positivity, exploring for and promoting positive deviance, and cultivating positive beliefs.

We argue that uninformed subscribers to an initial public offering (IPO) of common stocks are exposed to greater ex ante risk of trading against informed traders in the secondary market because the advent of public trading conveys hitherto private information and thereby mitigates adverse selection. The going‐public firm underprices the new issue to compensate uninformed subscribers for this added secondary market adverse selection risk. We test this market liquidity‐based explanation by investigating the ex‐post consequences of ownership structure choice on the initial pricing and the secondary market liquidity of a sample of initial public offerings on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Consistent with our argument, we find that initial underpricing varies directly with the ex post trading costs in the secondary market. Further, initial underpricing is related positively to the concentration of institutional shareholdings and negatively to the proportional equity ownership retained by the founding shareholders. Finally, the secondary market illiquidity of new issues is positively related to institutional ownership concentration and negatively to ownership retention and underwriter reputation. Thus, the evidence based on our NYSE sample supports the view that the entrepreneurs' choice of ownership structure affects both the initial pricing and the subsequent market liquidity of new issues.

This paper examines the determinants of corporate dividend policy in Jordan. The study uses a firm‐level panel data set of all publicly traded firms on the Amman Stock Exchange between 1989 and 2000. The study develops eight research hypotheses, which are used to represent the main theories of corporate dividends. A general‐to‐specific modeling approach is used to choose between the competing hypotheses. The study examines the determinants of the amount of dividends using Tobit specifications. The results suggest that the proportion of stocks held by insiders and state ownership significantly affect the amount of dividends paid. Size, age, and profitability of the firm seem to be determinant factors of corporate dividend policy in Jordan. The findings provide strong support for the agency costs hypothesis and are broadly consistent with the pecking order hypothesis. The results provide no support for the signaling hypothesis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the risk factors that led to the Livent fraud, and the procedures that need to be taken by responsible parties to carefully investigate and address the incidents of misconduct.

The paper combs through the chronology of events that led to the Livent fraud by looking at both primary and secondary sources. These sources made it possible to examine how the fraud was discovered, and the investigative steps that should have been taken to uncover the fraud.

The findings indicate that a corporate culture which focuses on the bottom line coupled with weak to non-existent internal controls were the key elements that led to the Livent fraud. The findings also illustrate that when faced with declining profits, senior managers will go to any length possible to manipulate and falsify their company’s records.

The paper is useful to management personnel and fraud examiners in that it used an actual accounting fraud case to highlight areas more susceptible to fraud and the approach that can be taken to investigate similar cases of misconduct. The paper also highlighted the practical implications for internal and external auditors in detecting and addressing fraud.

The study used an accounting fraud case to examine the techniques used by management personnel to produce fraudulent financial statement.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the seventeenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items, in English published in 1990. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.