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In their study of reciprocity in investigative interviews, Matsumoto and Hwang (2018) found that offering interviewees water prior to the interview enhanced observer-rated rapport and positively affected information provision. This paper aims to examine whether tailoring the item towards an interviewee’s needs would further enhance information provision. This paper hypothesised that interviewees given a relevant item prior to the interview would disclose more information than interviewees given an irrelevant item or no item.

Participants (n = 85) ate pretzels to induce thirst, engaged in a cheating task with a confederate and were interviewed about their actions after receiving either no item, an irrelevant item to their induced thirst (pen and paper) or a relevant item (water).

This paper found that receiving a relevant item had a significant impact on information provision, with participants who received water providing the most details, and significantly more than participants that received no item.

The findings have implications for obtaining information during investigative interviews and demonstrate a need for research on the nuances of social reciprocity in investigative interviewing.

The findings have implications for obtaining information during investigative interviews and demonstrate a need for research on the nuances of social reciprocity in investigative interviewing.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to experimentally test the effect of different item types upon information provision in investigative interviews.

The purpose of this study was to explore potential witnesses' memories for a day that was experienced an unremarkable. There may be instances in an investigation in which all leads have been exhausted, and investigators use a broad appeal for witnesses who may have witnessed something important. Investigators can benefit from knowing the types of information that may be recalled in such circumstances, as well as identifying specific methods that are effective in eliciting useful information.

The present study explored how the delay to recall and recall method influenced the recollection of a seemingly unremarkable day that later became important. Participants were asked to recall an experienced event that occurred either recently (a few weeks prior) or in the distant past (a year prior). Participants recalled via either a written method, in-person individual-spoken or collaborative-spoken interviews.

Results suggest an independent benefit for individual-spoken in-person recall (compared to written or collaborative-spoken recall) and recall undertaken closely after an event (compared to delayed recall). Both individual-spoken interviews as well as more recent recollection resulted in a greater number of overall details recalled. The authors further examined the types of details recalled that might be important to progressing an investigation (e.g. other witnesses and records).

The present work provides important implications for interviewing witnesses about a seemingly unremarkable event that later became important.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the literature on information elicitation. The authors investigated the impact of social influence strategies on eyewitness recall performance. Specifically, the authors examined the effect of social influence techniques (Cialdini, 2007) on recall performance (Experiment 1) and conducted a follow-up experiment to examine the incremental effect of social proof on the report everything cognitive interview mnemonic (Experiment 2).

Participants watched a video depicting vandalism (Experiment 1: N = 174) or a verbal altercation (Experiment 2: N = 128) and were asked to recall the witnessed event. Experiment 1: Participants were assigned randomly to one of six conditions: control (open-ended prompt), engage and explain (interview ground rules), consistency (signing an agreement to work diligently), reciprocity (given water and food), authority (told of interviewer’s training) and social proof (shown transcript from an exemplar participant). Experiment 2: The authors used a 2 (social proof: present, absent) × 2 (report everything: present, absent) between-participants design.

Across both experiments, participants exposed to the social proof tactic (i.e. compared to a model exemplar) spoke longer and recalled more correct details than participants not exposed to the social proof tactic. In Experiment 2, participants interviewed with the report everything mnemonic also spoke longer, recalled more correct details, more incorrect details and provided slightly more confabulations than those not interviewed with the report everything mnemonic.

The findings have practical value for police investigators and other professionals who conduct interviews (e.g. military personnel, doctors obtaining information from patients). Interviewers can incorporate social proof in their interviewing practices to help increase the amount and accuracy of information obtained.

A recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling resulted in stricter rules being placed on how police organizations can obtain confessions through a controversial undercover operation, known as the Mr. Big technique. The SCC placed the onus on prosecutors to demonstrate that the probative value of any Mr. Big derived confession outweighs its prejudicial effect, and that the police must refrain from an abuse of process (i.e. avoid overcoming the will of the accused to obtain a confession). The purpose of this paper is to determine whether a consideration of the social influence tactics present in the Mr. Big technique would deem Mr. Big confessions inadmissible.

The social psychological literature related to the compliance and the six main principles of social influence (i.e. reciprocity, consistency, liking, social proof, authority, scarcity) was reviewed. The extent to which these social influence principles are arguably present in Mr. Big operations are discussed.

Mr. Big operations, by their very nature, create unfavourable circumstances for the accused that are rife with psychological pressure to comply and ultimately confess. A consideration by the SCC of the social influence tactics used to elicit confessions – because such tactics sully the circumstances preceding confessions and verge on abuse of process – should lead to all Mr. Big operations being prohibited.

Concerns regarding the level of compliance in the Mr. Big technique call into question how Mr. Big operations violate the guidelines set out by the SCC ruling. The findings from the current paper could have a potential impact of the admissibility of Mr. Big confessions, along with continued use of this controversial technique.

The current paper represents the first in-depth analysis of the Mr. Big technique through a social psychological lens.

Recent research provides useful insights on management accounting routines, yet little is written on their foundations. In particular, factors which may contribute to eventual management accounting routines have not been detailed in terms of the process of routinization. Thus, this paper aims to provide an initial theory-based understanding on the foundation of management accounting routines. In turn, it is hoped that this will raise further research interest on this topic.

Drawing on extant literature, a framework on foundations of management accounting routines is developed, and two empirical cases illustrate its operationalization.

The framework illustrates that a more complete understanding of change to management accounting routines can be gleaned when more is known about their foundations. The foundations are likely to be influenced by a combination and/or interaction of factors at the organizational level, the organizational field level and the economic and political level.

Because of the so far limited understanding of the foundation of management accounting routines, more research is required. This framework may be useful to guide such research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of few papers to offer an initial theory-based understanding on the foundations of management accounting routines specifically. This understanding can be built on to improve our knowledge in the management accounting domain of the complex, but ubiquitous, concept of organizational routines.

Why does the idea of marketing generate such negative reactions from many in the academic library world? Research on the word “marketing” in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) reveals that usage of the term can be traced back to 1561 when it meant simply “to buy or sell” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2004, http://dictionary.oed.com/). As early as 1884, the meaning began to change to “bringing or sending (a commodity) to market,” which encompasses not just the selling of a product, but the “systematic study of all the factors involved in marketing a product” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2004, http://dictionary.oed.com/). Is it the idea of “selling” that offends so many in libraries? Or do some dislike the suggestion of libraries having “products” much as companies do?

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which Scottish pre-eminence in accounting texts in the eighteenth century was influenced by religion. By so doing, to add to the literature on the relationship between religion and accountability.

An examination of religion as social practice is conducted by examining the relationship between formal, printed, sources and the extensive archives of the Church of Scotland. A sample of five administrative units of the church is used to explore local practice in detail.

Accountability was at the heart of the theology of the Church of Scotland. It shaped local practices of accountability to give what is termed “systemic accountability”, which featured the detailed specification of roles and the recording of transactions. Lay involvement in this system was extensive amongst the “middling sort”. This system formed the backdrop to the Scottish pre-eminence in accounting texts, facilitated by widespread literacy and a propensity to publish, both in turn shaped by the broader religious context.

The research is confined to Scotland and does not consider the wider impact on areas such as British North America. The value of examining religion as a relationship between belief and social practice could be extended to other belief systems, as the paper only considers the Reformed Protestant tradition of Christianity.

The value is in a detailed investigation of religion as a social practice, which has not been presented before in the context of accountability. It presents a new perspective on Scottish accomplishments in the field of accounting, accomplishments which have been of significance for the broader profession.