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Previous research shows that symmetrical dialogue between companies and their investors through e‐mail does not match the quality of the asymmetrically provided information on investor relations websites. This paper seeks to further examine the quality of symmetrical dialogue and especially whether sender identity affects the corporate e‐mail handling performance.

A “mystery sender” approach is used to test whether companies answer similar e‐mails from two different stakeholder groups: investors and journalists. The corporate replies were evaluated for responsiveness, timeliness and relevance.

Overall responsiveness from the companies in the sample is low, and e‐mails from journalists turn out to get significantly fewer and less relevant replies than e‐mails from investors. Thus, the idea of sender identity affecting the way companies respond to e‐mail inquiries is empirically supported.

Stakeholders of listed companies should not rely too much on symmetrical dialogue by e‐mail given the high probability of non‐response, especially for journalists. Companies offering the possibility of symmetrical communication need to critically evaluate their information system to achieve better results in handling e‐mail from stakeholders and to make sure that certain stakeholder groups are not discriminated.

This is one of the first papers that present evidence on how corporate investor relation departments respond to e‐mails from different types of stakeholder groups. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the variables that drive the quality of symmetrical dialogue between companies and stakeholders groups.

In previous studies it remains unclear whether the internet is an effective mechanism for developing a symmetrical and interactive communications process that is initiated by the investor rather than the company. The purpose of this paper is to study the effectiveness of the internet to act as a mechanism to achieve a more interactive communication between companies and investors.

A “mystery investor” approach is used to test whether companies reply to e‐mails from investors. Content analysis was used to study the responsiveness, timeliness and relevance of the answers.

The quality of symmetrical communication (in terms of responsiveness and relevance) appears relatively low. Companies with high‐quality investor relations (IR) web sites do not handle e‐mails more effectively. Therefore, high‐quality asymmetrical communication between company and their investors not automatically associated with a high‐quality symmetrical type of communication.

Companies that provide e‐mail facilities for investors create the impression that they welcome communications with investors. However, if companies fail to handle incoming e‐mails from investors quickly and correctly, they create feelings of dissatisfaction. As a result e‐mail facilities on web sites are counter‐productive and hamper the creation of good relationships with investors. These results emphasize the need for better internal routing, better instructions and specific training programmes for IR staff.

The paper provides original evidence on the potential of the internet to enhance symmetrical communication between companies and their investors. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the way the internet can be used by IR departments to enhance the communications with investors.

This study uses a stakeholder perspective to explain the content of mission statements, in particular the inclusion of stakeholder groups. The study uses stakeholder dependency theory and resource dependency theory to explain the content of mission statement. In line with this perspective, stakeholders in this study will be classified as either being resource providers, such as employees and customers, or non‐resource providers, such as the community and the environment. The primary aim of the study is to find evidence for the theoretical relationship between the importance of stakeholders to the company and the inclusion of stakeholder groups in the company's mission statement.

The use of a large dataset with 490 observations enables a multivariate analysis of mission statement content, focusing on country‐, industry‐, and company‐specific factors.

The study finds that stakeholder groups the company is more dependent on, are addressed in mission statements more frequently. In addition, the profile of an industry, legal origin and ownership concentration are found to be related with stakeholder inclusion in mission statements.

The database used adopts a broad definition of a mission statement, as a result of which the study may also include documents such as vision statements. Additional factors might exist that could explain the inclusion of stakeholder groups in the mission statement. For example, Hope states that both legal origin and culture are important in explaining corporate disclosure. Therefore, literature on cultural dimensions by Hofstede and Schwartz might also be used as explanatory variables in future research. Finally, additional evidence on the industry classification developed in this study is required to further substantiate these results.

The observed differences in mission statement content with respect to stakeholder management signify the fact that the mission statement is not a standardized document which can simply be ignored by managers. Therefore, managers must be aware of the environment in which the company is situated, in order to approach the stakeholders which are most important to the organization. A failure to recognize and include essential stakeholders in the mission statement may be costly in the long run, particularly when competitors are better able to address these stakeholders.

This study adds to the existing stream of literature on mission statements by introducing the dependence of the company on the stakeholder as an explanatory factor for the inclusion of stakeholders in mission statements. Consequently, the study uses stakeholder dependency theory and resource dependency theory to explain the content of mission statement, rather than signaling theory. Furthermore, this is one of few empirical studies on mission statements that uses a large dataset with 490 observations, enabling a multivariate analysis of mission statement content.

The primary research question of this study is to what extent auditors comply with auditing standards once they encounter fraud and whether compliance is associated with particular fraud characteristics (i.e. material versus immaterial fraud, management versus employee fraud, statutory versus voluntary audit and external versus internal fraud) as well as with auditor (experience) and audit firm characteristics (Big Four versus non‐Big Four). The study also aims to provide evidence on the role of auditors in redressing fraud. Redress refers to the auditee taking measures to nullify the consequences of the fraud, insofar as possible, and to prevent any recurrence of such fraud.

To gather data on the role of auditors in fraud cases, a survey was conducted among all audit partners of the top 30 Dutch audit firms. In total, 1,218 audit partners were selected and received a postal questionnaire. In total, 326 questionnaires were returned (27 per cent), of which 296 (24 per cent) were usable.

The results reveal that auditors fail to comply with some important elements of fraud standards. There are substantial differences among audit firms regarding compliance with the relevant auditing standards. Furthermore, auditors appear to encounter corporate fraud only incidentally. About half of the auditors believe they have a “significant” impact on redressing fraud.

One of the main research findings is that it is difficult for individual auditors to build up expertise in fraud detection. There appears to be a need for specific training programs for auditors to help them to detect fraud, emphasizing the need for mandatory consultation with the technical department of the audit firm once “red flags” indicating fraud are found. Indeed, this need for change has been addressed by the Dutch professional accountancy body NIVRA as a direct result of the findings of this study.

This study extends existing research by investigating the compliance of auditors with fraud standards and it sheds light on the actual redress experiences of auditors. It focuses on the actions taken by auditors – or the lack thereof – in situations where auditors encounter fraud signals. The study indicates that in the absence of good oversight, auditors have mixed incentives when they are confronted with signals for fraud, resulting in actions that are not always in line with existing regulatory requirements.

Now that the human-animal distinction is increasingly critiqued from various disciplinary perspectives, to the point where some suggest even letting go of the distinction completely, the purpose of this paper is to argue that organizational ethnography should start to explore in more detail what this means for organizational ethnographic research, theory and analysis to include non-human animals in it.

Revisiting the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work in Zimbabwe on a private wildlife conservancy, an organization that was specifically set up for and around wildlife. At the same time these non-human animals were not taken into account methodologically nor featured at all in the empirical material or in the analysis. What could it mean for the analysis and conclusions if non-human animals would have been part of the equation?

Since we live in a world shared between human and non-human animals, this also is true for the organizational lives. As scientific research increasingly shows that the distinction between human and non-human animals is more in degree than in kind it is interesting to note that nevertheless non-human animals usually produce deafening “silences” in organizational ethnographic work. Revisiting the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work in this context the author shows how taking non-human animals on board of the analysis radically alters the outcomes of the research.

This paper reports on revisiting the author’s earlier ethnographic research, without actually doing the research itself again. In that sense it is a hypothetical study.

Organizational ethnography might have to rethink what it would mean in terms of fieldwork methodologies if it would allow non-human animals as actual agentic stakeholders in the research and analysis. It would at least need to also think in terms of “research methodologies without words” as non-human animals cannot be interviewed.

The paper is based on a social justice perspective on human-animal relations. It tries to contribute to an intellectual argument to take non-human animals more seriously as “co-citizens” in the (organizational) life world. This may have wide ranging implications for the life styles, ranging from the types of food we eat, to liquids we drink, to the ways we think about the human superiority in this world.

A highly self-reflexive account of the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work, showing what it means theoretically if we take non-human animals seriously in organizational ethnographic research and analysis. At the same time it shows quite painfully organizational ethnography’s speciecist approach to research methodologies and processes of organizing.