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The purpose of this study is to identify sociodemographic factors that are predictive of the level of everyday sadism (SAD) in the business area.

A survey was conducted on 424 graduate and postgraduate students from business schools in Brazil and the USA. SAD was quantified by the assessment of sadistic personality proposed by Plouffe Saklofske and Smith (2017). The variables included age, gender, managing experience, education and nationality.

The average level of SAD was low. SAD was negatively associated with gender, age and nationality and positively associated with managing experience and education.

As individuals ascend professionally and academically, they display higher levels of everyday sadism. Depending on the context, dark personalities can cause either benefit or harm to the company's business and to society. However, the literature shows that seeking pleasure and dominance with no regard for consequences affects the business area directly or indirectly.

Very few studies have addressed everyday sadism in the business area, let alone evaluated predictive factors and discussed possible implications.

This study aims to analyze the relationship between the nonpathological traits of narcissism and decisions under conditions of uncertainty and risk in light of the prospect (PT) and fuzzy-trace theories (FTT).

This paper conducted an empirical-theoretical study with 210 Brazilian academics from the business area (accountants and managers), using a self-reported questionnaire to collect data. This paper analyzed the data through descriptive statistical techniques, correlation, test of hypotheses and logistic regression.

The results point to a lower disposition of respondents to narcissistic traits, although the characteristics of self-sufficiency, authority, exploitation and superiority have been demonstrated. Most participants chose the sure gain in positive scenarios and risk in light of possibility of losses. However, those with high levels of narcissism showed higher propensity to make risky decisions, both in positive and negative scenarios.

The empirical results about risky decision-making behavior of individuals with narcissist traits spur further investigation on the impacts of attitudes and behaviors in organizations as they are affected by psychosocial factors. These attitudes and behaviors, reflected in administrative and financial reports, influence future decisions of investors.

The interaction between the areas of business administration and psychology in regard to the effects of the narcissist personality trait and the FTT is both original and valuable for the business area. The simplest scenario based on the FTT theory can help eliminate issues around the interpretation and complexities of calculations regarding decision-making scenarios in PT format.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to investigate whether underlying firm-level incentives influence firms’ compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) convergence practices and whether this adoption impacts firms’ cost of equity capital and market liquidity in Brazil, a setting with a poor institutional environment but high growth opportunities.

Methodology/approach – Using a sample of 54 companies from the São Paulo Stock Exchange, this article employs three measures of accounting convergence based on: (i) compliance to a 37-item index, called the International Accounting Standards Convergence Index (IASCI), (ii) increase in annual reports disclosure, and (iii) increase in accounting earnings quality. Furthermore, the article employs statistical analysis to test the influence of firm-level incentives on IFRS compliance and its economic consequences for the capital market.

Findings – The results indicate that firm-level incentives are important drivers of compliance with IFRS convergence practices. The results suggest that firms that (i) are larger, (ii) are more exposed to international markets, and (iii) have greater financing needs are more likely to adopt IFRS practices by implementing material changes in their accounting policies. The economic consequence analysis shows that cost of capital does not seem to be related to any of the convergence measures used. However, there is a statistically significant relationship between all the market liquidity variables and the IASCI, indicating that companies that best meet the convergence requirements have lower trading costs and greater liquidity, and their share price is less susceptible to the influence of individual investors.

Research limitations and implications – The scope of the study is limited to a relatively small sample of listed Brazilian companies, and they may not represent all listed companies. The sample restriction is due to information availability, since the study requires earnings estimates from the Thomson ONE Analytics database.

Originality/value – The study extends the work of Barth (2008) considering Ball's (2006) observation that superior accounting standards do not necessarily translate into higher quality reporting, since reporting quality may be largely shaped not only by accounting standards, but also by economic/political forces and firm-level economic incentives.

According to the market timing theory, firms try to take advantage of windows of opportunity to raise capital by exploiting temporary cost fluctuations of alternative financing sources. In this context, the main objective of this paper is to examine the influence and persistence of market timing in the financing decisions of Brazilian firms that launched IPOs in the period from 2001 to 2011.

We analyze the influence of past market values on the capital structure of these firms, based on the main models proposed by Baker and Wurgler (2002), adapted to reflect the characteristics of Brazilian firms’ financial statements.

We find evidence of market timing, but this behavior is not sufficiently persistent in the period studied to the point of determining these firms’ capital structure. We believe the fact that Brazilian companies rarely carried out follow-on primary equity issues after floating their capital in the period analyzed, due to the presence of more advantageous financing sources (particularly from the national development bank, BNDES), explains the results. Therefore, Brazilian firms appear to be pay heed to different funding sources, in search of windows of opportunity, to guide their financing decisions and determine their capital structures.

The Brazilian capital market has been developing intensely in recent years, making it increasingly relevant to analyze the financing and investment decisions of the country’s listed companies. The Brazilian literature on capital structure is extensive, but few works have addressed the issue of market timing.