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This study aims to examine how the prestige of audit committee (AC) chairpersons influences earnings management.

The sample contains 1,973 firm-year observations of French listed firms for the period 2007–2018. The authors examine the status of AC chairs and CEOs by focusing on the French business elite system. This study tests the association between AC chairs’ (relative) status and the level of earnings management using measures of accrual earnings management and real earnings management (REM).

The results of this study do not show that high-status AC chairs constrain accruals manipulation. However, the results provide evidence that they play a key role in constraining REM. High-status AC chairs are more likely to enhance the monitoring of this type of manipulation, given their thorough knowledge and understanding of the firm’s business environment and practices. This study also finds evidence that AC chairs with a status higher than CEOs are associated with lower levels of REM. The results suggest that prestigious AC chairs influence lower status CEOs’ strategic decisions.

This study demonstrates that high-status AC chairs play an important role in detecting and constraining deviations from normal business practices. The results have substantial implications for boards, which will benefit from an understanding of how the appointment of high-status chairs affects financial reporting quality.

Voluntary participation, feedback loops, rules and goals are key elements of total quality management (TQM). The purpose of this paper is to determine if these four elements which make TQM successful are the same elements that make computer games successful. If this is the case, what are the implications for developers of Human Computer Interfaces (HCI) in Industry 4.0.

This paper is a systematic literature review of recent literature on engagement in games and user experiences and HCI design for industry followed by interpretation of the literature. The findings from the literature review are analysed and compared to TQM.

Good game design and TQM share four key components: goals, rules, a feedback system (including rewards) and voluntary participation. There is an opportunity for HCI developers to use a user experience lens inherent in games evolution and to expand on the design and motivational elements that have made games and TQM successful at motivating and engaging. Kuutti’s (1995) proposal of activity theory puts forward a promising framework for making systems engaging. There are positive implications merging good games design and TQM in socio-technic systems which could improve engagement and quality in companies implementing in Industy 4.0.

The implications of achieving increased engagement in HCI systems similar to those seen in companies that have successfully implemented TQM could lead to greater productivity in companies operating in the highly technical environments of Industry 4.0.

The originality of this paper is threefold: first, a description of the origins in industry of voluntary participation, feedback loops, rules and goals and their relationship to TQM; second, a systematic literature review of the same elements in computer games design; and third, the implications for developers of HCI systems in Industry 4.0.

This conference review aims to address major issues regarding the position of women in science and technology as well as key technical topics in the debate of globalisation with a specific focus on chances and new opportunities for women in a changing world.

The article is based on a report on the 14th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists that was hosted by the Conceil National des Ingénieurs et des Scientifiques de France (CNISF). Organised by an international committee, the conference was held at the Polytech University in Lille, France, 15‐18 July 2008.

The exchanges generated by such an international gathering of (mostly) women experts and scholars from diverse scientific fields were a rich source of learning and inspiration. In view of the fact that the lectures not only addressed the current situation but focused also on the development of an international vision and new opportunities for women in a globalised world, the conference will influence science policies and measures for equal opportunities.

The conference brought together over 500 participants from 60 countries.

OCCASIONALLY some writer is inspired to make the declaration that reference work as understood in America does not exist in Great Britain, or, even more definitely, is not known there. We rejoice at any advance our American friends make, but our enthusiasts for American methods must not undervalue the homeland. In the pages that follow some aspects of reference work receive attention, and the inference to be drawn may be that, if we have not specialized this department of work to the extent that transatlantic libraries have done, if in some smaller places it hardly exists “as the community's study, archive department and bureau of information,” yet in our larger cities and in many lesser places much work is done.

This paper aims to present and summarise the arguments for and against the ISO 18404 standard and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of implementing it.

A qualitative interview approach was utilised by interviewing a panel of leading academics and practitioners familiar with Lean Six Sigma.

The results indicate that Lean Six Sigma professionals have conflicting opinions on ISO 18404. An overwhelming majority of the panel questioned the “quality” of the standard and whether it is “fit for purpose”, while others see the advantages of a common standard in helping continuous improvement deployment.

As the standard has not been widely adopted, there were limited examples on ISO 18404 discussion in the literature. Much of the current literature focuses on the theoretical application of the standard, with sparse practical examples providing case study deployment. Also, the interviews were short and at a high level. There is an opportunity for further study and analysis. It was difficult to find qualified interviewees who were familiar with the standard. A very real constraint when conducting research into ISO 18404 is to obtain a balanced view of the standard from those who have a vested interest in its continuation and evolution, or not.

The paper provides a resource for people to obtain insight into the value or non-value add of a standard in Lean Six Sigma and the appropriate details of such a standard. These results can form the basis of a case for the implementation of the standard for those organisations currently trying to decide whether to implement it or not.

Sacrifice, integral to gift giving, remains unexplored and undertheorized in marketing. This paper aims to address this shortfall by analyzing the dynamics of sacrifice and theorizing how it serves as an engine of the gift chimney.

The ethnographic investigation of public ceremonial gift giving in sectarian Northern Ireland describes and interprets the complex nature of the gift.

The authors show that sacrifice is a plausible mechanism of the gift chimney and that the co-occurrence of monadic, dyadic and systemic giving in the same ritual acts as an accelerant.

The authors analyze how public ceremonial gift giving induces sectarian communities to risk convocation, enabling them to exorcize trauma sustained at one another’s hands and to build a platform for future cross-community cohesion in a context of ineffective institutional efforts.

Sacrifice propels circulation of the gift, creating a social bond between antagonists whose ethos of mutuality depends upon ritualized reciprocal recognition of entangled loss.