Heather Carle, Cara-Lynn Scheuer and Stephanie Swartz
This study offers insight on the impact of virtual team projects (VTPs) of varying types (global vs domestic teams, technology vs non-tech projects) on competency and anxiety…
Abstract
Purpose
This study offers insight on the impact of virtual team projects (VTPs) of varying types (global vs domestic teams, technology vs non-tech projects) on competency and anxiety outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Paired-sample t-tests and ANOVA tests were performed on student survey responses pre- and post-engagement of different VTPs.
Findings
The results demonstrated positive effects of VTPs on intercultural sensitivity (ISS), computer self-efficacy, perceived ease of use of online learning and COVID-19 anxiety. ISS (“interaction confidence”) improved more for students in the global vs. domestic teams and technology-related outcomes (CSE, PEU and computer anxiety) and ISS (“respect for cultural differences”) improved more for students that participated in tech projects, whereas COVID-19 anxiety lessened more for those that participated in non-tech projects.
Originality/value
The study expands understanding of the Technology Acceptance Model and provides insight into the ISS literature showing that VTPs could be a worthwhile pedagogical approach for improving student competencies and anxiety during times of academic disruption, but that project type can influence these changes.
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G.E. Swartz, N‐P. Swartz and S. Firer
The debate on the determinants of firm value is ongoing; and the increasing gap in the book‐to‐market ratio (Lev & Sougiannis 1999) has yet to be explained in the financial…
Abstract
The debate on the determinants of firm value is ongoing; and the increasing gap in the book‐to‐market ratio (Lev & Sougiannis 1999) has yet to be explained in the financial literature. This article contributes to the debate by examining whether intellectual capital measured using the value added intellectual coefficient (VAICTM) (Pulic 1998) contributes to the explanation of the book‐to‐market ratio. This study used Ohlson’s 1995 valuation model and JSE Securities Exchange (SA) (JSE) data in an attempt to identify whether the book value of assets, accounting (accrual) earnings and VAICTM explain the behaviour of South African share prices. The panel data least squares model results indicate a significant relationship between share prices three months after year end, and abnormal earnings, abnormal cash dividends, book value of assets, the capital employed coefficient, and the human capital coefficient.
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Matthew E. Archibald, Rachel N. Head, Jordan Yakoby and Pamela Behrman
This study examines chronic illness, disability and social inequality within an exposure-vulnerabilities theoretical framework.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines chronic illness, disability and social inequality within an exposure-vulnerabilities theoretical framework.
Methodology/Approach
Using the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), a preeminent source of national behavioral health estimates of chronic medical illness, stress and disability, for selected sample years 2005–2014, we construct and analyze two foundational hypotheses underlying the exposure-vulnerabilities model: (1) greater exposure to stressors (i.e., chronic medical illness) among racial/ethnic minority populations yields higher levels of serious psychological distress, which in turn increases the likelihood of medical disability; (2) greater vulnerability among minority populations to stressors such as chronic medical illness exacerbates the impact of these conditions on mental health as well as the impact of mental health on medical disability.
Findings
Results of our analyses provided mixed support for the vulnerability (moderator) hypothesis, but not for the exposure (mediation) hypothesis. In the exposure models, while Blacks were more likely than Whites to have a long-term disability, the pathway to disability through chronic illness and serious psychological distress did not emerge. Rather, Whites were more likely than Blacks and Latinx to have a chronic illness and to have experienced severe psychological distress (both of which themselves were related to disability). In the vulnerability models, both Blacks and Latinx with chronic medical illness were more likely than Whites to experience serious psychological distress, although Whites with serious psychological distress were more likely than these groups to have a long-term disability.
Research Limitations
Several possibilities for understanding the failure to uncover an exposure dynamic in the model turn on the potential intersectional effects of age and gender, as well as several other covariates that seem to confound the linkages in the model (e.g., issues of stigma, social support, education).
Originality/Value
This study (1) extends the racial/ethnic disparities in exposure-vulnerability framework by including factors measuring chronic medical illness and disability which: (2) explicitly test exposure and vulnerability hypotheses in minority populations; (3) develop and test the causal linkages in the hypothesized processes, based on innovations in general structural equation models, and lastly; (4) use national population estimates of these conditions which are rarely, if ever, investigated in this kind of causal framework.
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Empirical accounting research frequently makes use of data sets with a time‐series and a cross‐sectional dimension ‐ a panel of data. The literature review indicates that South…
Abstract
Empirical accounting research frequently makes use of data sets with a time‐series and a cross‐sectional dimension ‐ a panel of data. The literature review indicates that South African researchers infrequently allow for heterogeneity between firms when using panel data and the empirical example shows that regression results that allow for firm heterogeneity are materially different from regression results that assume homogeneity among firms. The econometric analysis of panel data has advanced significantly in recent years and accounting researchers should benefit from those improvements.
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Three distinctive domains of inquiry in comparative and international education (CIE) point to epistemic fault lines that simultaneously enable and disable the possibilities for…
Abstract
Three distinctive domains of inquiry in comparative and international education (CIE) point to epistemic fault lines that simultaneously enable and disable the possibilities for social transformation in the cultural ecologies that demarcate, but also entangle, the so-called Global South and the North. Historically, these domains of inquiry – language/multilingualism, education, and development – engage arenas in which ideas about wellbeing, social arrangements, and the politics of knowledge (and of power) are constantly constructed, contested, and renegotiated. This analysis pinpoints some of the discursive technologies, which guarantee that active scholarly innovations and differentiation proceed in ways that ultimately leave intact the territorialized regionalizations of development differences. It reflects on ongoing fieldwork from the South to highlight three spheres of social control, and struggle, illustrative of the coloniality of difference and the expanding institutionalization of learning (as schooling) in an era of global interventionism. These loci – the sources of knowledge traditions, the sites of its enactment, and the power of knowledge transactions – represent overlapping activation points through which education interventions both stimulate and stultify social transformations. Specifically, the sources, sites, and power of knowledge offer empirical and discursive tools for historiographic reconsideration of the role of linguistic diversity and education in social change processes, and, crucially, for shifting critical focus from merely the occidentality of contemporary education traditions to the universalism of its social imaginaries. In this critical reading of new understandings of language(s) as invention, therefore, lies analytic opportunities for rethinking epistemic dilemmas in linking education and “development” in CIE scholarship.
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This article presents an extensive up‐to‐date list of selective references on quality circles.
Abstract
This article presents an extensive up‐to‐date list of selective references on quality circles.
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Renato Camodeca, Alex Almici and Umberto Sagliaschi
The purpose of this paper is to use a theoretical and empirical model to investigate the adoption of the integrated reporting (IR) framework as a strategic choice to signal…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use a theoretical and empirical model to investigate the adoption of the integrated reporting (IR) framework as a strategic choice to signal intellectual capital (IC) to equity investors, with specific reference to the pharmaceutical industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The choice of drafting an integrated report is modelled as a means for managers to strategically disclose price-relevant information related to IC. The voluntary disclosure model developed by Verrecchia (1983) is used, also introducing the role of financial analysts to derive a directly reproducible empirical equation.
Findings
Theoretically, as IR requires managers to exert an effort in reporting activity, this work shows that in equilibrium, only firms with sufficient IC have decided to adopt IR, resulting in rational investors’ willingness to pay more only for the forecasted earnings of integrated reporters. This theory is tested in the pharmaceutical sector, where the modelling choice is probably more valid, with mixed results.
Research limitations/implications
When compliant with the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC) standards, IR provides the means to disclose IC in a perfectly verifiable way. Furthermore, since the IIRC has only recently been established, the conclusions have only been tested on a limited data set.
Originality/value
This work connects the value relevance of IR to IC by adopting an equilibrium approach, which, in turn, provides specific indications of how to build a consistent empirical test of the theory.
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Joo‐Gim Heaney and Ronald E. Goldsmith
Empirically examines how certain variables influence the extent of external information search for banking services. The effects of perceived benefit, perceived cost, perceived…
Abstract
Empirically examines how certain variables influence the extent of external information search for banking services. The effects of perceived benefit, perceived cost, perceived risk, and perceived knowledge are tested within a proposed structural equation, cost‐benefit based Banking Services Model (BSM). Surveys a sample of 661 students at a major US university to gather data on their information search for banking services. The results reveal that the BSM provides a good fit to the data. Perceived benefit, cost and knowledge influence the extent of prepurchase bank information search. In addition, the consumers felt that it was more beneficial to obtain more information when there was a perceived benefit of lowering risk and when they already had some form of prior product knowledge. Implications of the BSM for services marketing management and consumer theory, limitations of the study, and future research are discussed.
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Alberto Tonelli, Fabio Rizzato, Donatella Busso and Alain Devalle
The purpose of this research is to verify whether the disclosure of intellectual capital (IC) positively affects the level of integration of financial and sustainability…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to verify whether the disclosure of intellectual capital (IC) positively affects the level of integration of financial and sustainability information.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample of the analysis relies on European public companies. The data were gathered from Refinitiv, focussing on a multi-year observation from 2013 to 2021 and performing a fixed-effect regression. According to the extant literature, the authors developed the Intellectual Capital Score and the Integrated Thinking and Reporting Score.
Findings
The more disclosure of IC, the more financial and sustainability information is integrated. Indeed, the results confirm that the disclosure of IC enhances the level of integration of financial and sustainability information.
Research limitations/implications
The study enriches academic knowledge about IC in conjunction with integrated reporting (IR) and integrated thinking by highlighting its relevance in the value-creation process and acting as a trait d’union of the disciplines.
Practical implications
For standard setters, the research may be framed to redefine the guidelines explaining the information on IC to be disclosed. Moreover, it could be helpful for practitioners when identifying the IC information that deserves to be disclosed, other than being exploitable to conduct enterprises geared towards adopting integrated reports.
Originality/value
This study answers the call for further research on the relationship between financial information and sustainability information to highlight their joint perspectives quantitatively.