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The purpose of this paper is to examine the significance of gender diversity on corporate boards in India in the light of recent regulatory reform introduced in the Companies’ Act, 2013 which mandated the presence of at least one woman on the corporate boards of all the listed firms.

Based on a panel of 300 firm-year observations for 15 years from 2001 to 2015, regression analysis has been conducted to analyze the relation between gender-related variables of corporate boards with firm-specific financial characteristic, cost of equity (COE) and return on assets (ROA) of firms listed in CNX Nifty, a major financial market index of India.

The analysis indicates that boards with gender diversity explain a slightly more than 5.5 percent change in a firm’s COE and have a much higher impact of 45 percent on a firm’s ROA. The presence of female directors on the boards and their independence have a negative association with the COE, whereas the level of involvement of female directors on different committees has a positive association with the ROA.

The findings may help theorists in defining the right mix of female on the corporate boards in an emerging economy. Also, by taking input from the findings, regulators and industry can formulate policies to foster gender diversity on corporate boards in India.

This study considers the recent regulatory norm introduced in India. This issue has still not been discussed and analyzed by researchers in India. It attempts to explain the impact a gender diverse board can make on a firm’s performance. It also makes valuable recommendations to improve the norms intended to more effectively foster gender diversity on corporate boards in India.

The National Library of New Zealand hosts the two main public database services in New Zealand, i.e. the New Zealand Bibliographic, which is a database of information about books, with associated library bibliographic support services; and Kiwinet, which is a general database hosting service, concentrating on New Zealand databases. Since it was set up in 1982, the network has grown significantly.

IN making the suggestion, as some of my friendly critics have done, that the classes Fine and Useful Arts should be restored, as in Dewey, they rather miss the humour of the situation. The Subject Classification is not an amended Dewey or Cutter, but a humble attempt at an entirely new system, designed to meet the needs of popular libraries. It is not even a classification of knowledge, but, as experience has proved, a very practical and simple rearrangement of the factors of knowledge as set forth and preserved in books. The scheme is not indebted to any other system for aught but suggestions of main classes; all the details of the tables having been worked out independently, without reference to any classification save the Adjustable. It will be manifest, on reflection, that it would be fatal for the compiler of a new system to allow himself to be fettered or influenced by the schedules of other authors. I am one of those who decline to believe in the value of standardization of ideas or practice, save to a small degree in certain mechanical matters, and it would therefore be foolish to follow in the same rut as certain predecessors, simply because a longer existence has to some extent established their findings as settled conventions.

This conference report of the 2005 LIDA Conference captures the varied presentations by speakers from the USA, Europe and the Baltic States.

Digital libraries are in a maturing state and different developments were shared and examples of projects were given.

This is an annual meeting in this region of the world that brings a talented list of speakers from North America and Europe.

Small conference.

This is a focused conference that has proven itself over time to attract excellent keynote speakers that come to this part of the world to share expertise and ideas.

This conference attracts major prominent speakers so the themes are important and well documented. The annual themes lend to many subthemes such as user evaluation, usability, digital reference, and other new digital applications.

From a historical perspective, the purpose of this paper is to show how the current New Zealand Accountants' Code of Ethics (COE) differs from the first 1927 COE. The lengthy, current COE comprises strands of thought drawn from three different philosophical positions. By contrast, New Zealand's first COE was relatively short and reflected legitimacy by character employing the concepts of virtue ethics. The concepts of virtue ethics have now largely disappeared from the latest much longer code. The current code is more legalistic and technical, implying a concern for public relations. At the same time, the current COE has become a legitimising tool for the profession to emphasise image and quality.

To illustrate the shift in practice of ethical position, the paper is informed by a recent New Zealand case of a collapsed finance company as well as some further illustrations of a failure to discharge a duty of care to the public from the United Kingdom.

The shift in the COE coupled with a shift in underlying social values contributes to what the Economist Journal describes as a steady decline in professional ethics. There has been a shift from legitimising the character of an accountant to legitimising the character of accounting. This arguable conclusion is supported by a case study in New Zealand and cites the shift in combinations of cognitive, moral and pragmatic legitimacy as drivers employed by accounting firms.

The paper uses secondary and documentary data and is informed by conceptual analysis which necessarily in the realm of ethics may be contentious.

The paper seeks to link the changing social values with changes in legitimisation and the COE to show shifts in accounting practices like the recent practice of issuing disclaimers.

This study examines the nature and forms of collaboration among stakeholders that led to and existed during the design of the B.Ed. curriculum for the Colleges of Education (CoE) in Ghana. It aims to highlight the views of local stakeholders about the processes in an educational project that were likely to have enhanced the importance of contextualisation in the curriculum change process. The paper also prioritises the voices and views of local stakeholders, which have often been stifled in the process of curriculum change in Ghana.

A qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews, was used to collect data from 17 local stakeholders. Thematic analysis and social constructivism framed the interpretation of findings.

The study found that the CoE reform prioritised local stakeholders’ input throughout a highly collaborative process. This collaboration unexpectedly led to the development of a curriculum reflective of the Ghanaian context. However, ideological conflicts emerged at both the international and local levels, particularly regarding approaches to change and the decision to extend CoE management to four public universities. The conflicts underscore the power dynamics inherent in educational reforms funded by foreign aid.

The research offers crucial insights for policymakers and curriculum developers regarding the importance of local stakeholder engagement in collaborative reforms involving foreign aid. The study underscores the need for active involvement from all stakeholders to create contextually relevant curricula. While conflicts may arise, the research highlights that a social constructivist approach, combined with continuous communication, negotiation and compromise, can lead to meaningful and sustainable curriculum reform outcomes.

This paper aims to identify how the news media cover organizational crisis responsibility and crisis response strategies and, if at all, how they differ by crisis types.

The approach takes the form of a content analysis of level of responsibility (individual versus organizational level) and organizational response strategies in news coverage of major crisis events during 2006 in three newspapers.

Significant differences were found between preventable crises and accidental crises: most preventable crises news coverage focused more on the individual level of responsibility, while accidental crises news used the organizational level of responsibility. The significant differences of organizational response strategies indicated that preventable crises news coverage frequently reported denial strategies, while accidental crisis news covered deal with strategies more.

The study is limited to the samples of the three newspapers and the period 2006.

This study suggests that crisis managers should always check the crisis news coverage, and media bias and orientation, and try to have good relations with the media to deliver the right message to the public during a crisis.

Despite the importance of the media's role in the public's perception of crisis responsibility, there is a lack of systematic analysis of level of crisis responsibility.

This chapter critically engages with ways that teaching excellence has been operationalised in practice. Specific focus is on developing individual teaching excellence, rewarding of success and recognition of teaching excellence and the building of evidence around what works in teaching for the benefits of students. We consider the daily interactions with students that form the basis of frameworks of teaching excellence before arguing that operationalisations of teaching excellence are highly context specific and operate at the level of institutions and the whole higher education sector. We discuss the criteria that underpin teaching excellence awards. This includes governance as well as development frameworks. After considering the complex links between research and teaching and the importance of the disciplinary dimension of teaching excellence, the chapter finally looks at the skills and attributes commonly associated with individual teacher excellence and argues that these are exceptionally difficult to pin down let alone measure. It concludes with some reflections on some of the challenges faced by institutions as they seek to develop the quality of teaching whilst meeting the requirements of the TEF.

Focusing on the sociological clarification based on structural pluralism, this study explores the degree to which social media users who comment on the news posts of local newspapers use uncivil remarks and words that reflect their moral foundations.

This computer-assisted data collection produces three types of datasets that include numerous social media comments. To explore the association between moral foundations and incivility, both quadratic association procedure (QAP) and multiple regression QAP (MRQAP) are implemented.

The findings suggest that social media users who comment on the news posts of urban-located newspapers tend to use more uncivil words compared to social media users who comment on the news posts of suburban and rural-based newspapers. Individuals who comment on the news posts of urban-based newspapers tend to show a wider range of moral foundation spectrums than those who comment on the posts of rural and suburban newspapers. Lastly, there are significant associations between moral-vice components and incivility in response to urban- and suburban-located newspapers' social media posts.

The employed bag-of-words may not completely capture incivility given that social media users can use nuanced and metaphoric terms instead of explicitly uncivil terms. Even though this study systematically selected local newspapers' social media accounts, the contextual factors of other newspapers in politically slanted communities could be different.

The findings of this study provide meaningful and practical implications for journalists and news reporters. The inherent rudeness and aggressiveness of social media users can drive them to use uncivil and moral-harm words against a particular person or group.

Under the circumstance that fake news and politically slanted news content are widely distributed in the United States, social media users may easily express negative emotions toward news stories or the journalists who post the stories.

Structural pluralism particularly specializes in explaining why and how the contextual factors of news stories differ depending on community complexity. Building on the reasoning of structural pluralism in the social media context, this study investigates the degree to which social media users who comment on the news posts of local newspapers employ uncivil remarks and moral foundation words.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2020-0522.