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To summarize and comment on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) two-day conference, “The SEC Speaks,” held February 21-22, 2014, in which commissioners and senior staff provided thoughts and insights into the most pressing issues currently being considered by the commission.

Discusses SEC Chair’s decision to require defendants to admit violations in appropriate cases, the creation of the Financial Reporting and Audit (FRAud) Task Force, new guidelines that will allow staff to bring more enforcement cases as administrative proceedings rather than in federal district court, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) staff goals for 2014, some unfamiliar statutory provisions that are expected to be cited in upcoming enforcement cases, litigation goals for 2014, and other areas of historical concern that will receive continuing emphasis in 2014.

Where last year’s conference provided little insight in terms of specificity and direction of the enforcement program, this year’s conference revealed an Enforcement Division that has found its bearings and intends to use new technology, new ideas and new staff to enhance and improve its enforcement program.

Practical guidance from experienced financial services and securities lawyers.

Quality management is gradually becoming an area of interest among management accounting practitioners and scholars because of its significant effects on performance and increasing adoption by organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between these two broad disciplines and provide guidelines for their joint consideration.

Two specific management innovations are analyzed in detail: strategic management accounting (SMA) and ISO 9000 quality management system (QMS). Such an analysis includes a literature review of both frameworks, the identification of benefits associated with their simultaneous application and the design of a comprehensive model integrating their individual principles.

It is concluded that these management schemes are compatible and complementary from a theoretical standpoint; and that, therefore, their combined implementation might help organizations improve overall performance. It is also argued here that their use in conjunction could facilitate the spread of SMA techniques and the full exploitation of QMSs.

A new management system proposing the incorporation of SMA tools into traditional QMSs is introduced, and some recommendations for its practical use are presented.

A survey of managers in Israel, Slovenia, and the USA finds a marked similarity with respect to the characteristics and abilities managers need to contribute to organizational success. Factors such as decision making ability, communication skills, commitment to organizational goals, ability to choose the right persons in key persons and ability to delegate are considered to be very important although there are differences with respect to the degree of their importance. Several managerial characteristics are also found to be significantly correlated with the firm’s financial success and employee morale. The findings are framed in the context of convergence‐divergence hypothesis as it applies to the internationalization of management practices.

Arabic script is the most recent addition to the scripts available on the Research libraries Information Network (RLIN). Bibliographic control and retrieval using the authentic writing system are available for titles in Arabic, Persian (Farsi), Urdu, Ottoman Turkish, and other languages written with Arabic script. RLIN is the world's largest bibliographic database for Middle Eastern language material. This paper is a comprehensive description of the Arabic script features of RLIN. It covers Arabic character sets and RLIN's character repertoire for Arabic script; how Arabic characters are input and stored in the RLIN database; the equipment needed for Arabic script support; the indexing, retrieval, and presentation of records containing Arabic script; the inclusion of non‐Roman data in USMARC bibliographic records; and statistics on the RLIN databases. Sidebars explain features of Arabic writing. The discussion of data storage and presentation of text is relevant to any computer application that involves Arabic script.

Cross border trade, involving different business environments between the sellers’ and buyers’ countries, may result in conflicts because of asymmetry in the information structure across the borders. The International Chambers of Commerce (ICC) has laid down ground rules on terms of shipment and payment, enabling harmonization and standardization of business process, and fixing of responsibilities for international trade. The international commercial (INCO) terms by ICC define the duties, obligations and cost borne by the exporter and the importer. An exporter’s uncertainty looms once the goods cross his/her border. Therefore, there is a need for a smart contract that is secured, transparent, legitimate and trustworthy. The authors propose a blockchain technology-based smart global contract (BTGC) framework for international trade.

In this paper, the authors develop the framework based on value chain analysis (VCA) of international trade and an ontology-driven-blockchain-design approach. The paper analyzes the sequence of activities in the value chain of global trade, the terms of the contract, the data structure templates, the validation rules and the points-of-failure, and proposes the smart contract blockchain structure.

This paper proposes the BTGC framework considering the INCO terms 2020; it provides the validation rules and the probability of failures; and identifies the elements that cause the halting of contracts and conditions of creation of side blockchains. The framework also includes the governance of the BTGC system.

The proposed framework not only has implications at the firm level as it automates and secures a global sale contract but also is expected to harmonize the global-trade process as well. The developers may use the attributes, data structure templates and the rules identified in this paper for developing the GC software. Future research may consider using case analysis, class diagrams and the related steps for developing the blockchain software.

This paper proposes a complete value chain of global contract (GC) concerning exports, an ontology of GC and a blockchain-based smart-contract framework based on global standards. Besides, it specifies the elements of fraud (such as the non-integration of side chains) and uncertainty, i.e. the probability of failures. Such a framework will harmonize the global-trade process and build an international standards for smart GC based on blockchain technology (ISSGCBT), which is not yet done.

Broad-spectrum cephalosporin resistance is rapidly increasing in Escherichia coli, representing a food safety problem. The purpose of this paper is to characterize eight extended-spectrum-ß-lactamase (ESBL) and acquired AmpC ß-lactamase-producing E. coli isolates and virotypes associated, obtained from chicken and pork food samples in Puebla, Mexico.

Samples (36 from chicken and 10 from pork) were cultured on Levine agar plates supplemented with cefotaxime (2 mg/L) for isolation of cefotaxime-resistant (CTXR) E. coli. CTXR-E. coli isolates were detected in 33 of 46 samples (72 percent), and one isolate/sample was characterized (28 from chicken and 5 from pork), for ESBL production, phylogenetic group, sequence typing, resistance and virulence genes by PCR and sequencing.

Results showed 16 ESBL-E. coli (35 percent) (12/16 belonging to phylogroup B1) and 8 CMY-2-E. coli (17 percent). ESBL detected were as follows (number of isolates): CTX-M-2 (8); CTX-M-1 (2); CTX-M-15 (1); SHV-2a (4) and TEM-52c (1). In total, 20 different sequence types (STs) were identified among the ESBL- or CMY-2-producing E. coli strains, which included four new ones. The CTX-M-15 β-lactamase was detected in one E. coli ST617-ST10 Cplx-B1 strain that also carried ibeA gene. One CMY-2-positive strain of lineage ST224-B2 was detected and it carried the qnrA1 gene.

In this study, a ST131-based virotyping scheme for strains from food of animal origin was established since this kind of strains constitutes an important vehicle of virulent ESBL- and CMY-2-producing E. coli isolates, which could be transmitted to humans by direct contact or through the food chain.

Health and safety in small construction firms is often neglected by owners leading to poor health and safety performance and unacceptably high fatality and injury rates. A body of knowledge has established significant links between the motivational behaviours of operatives towards health and safety. Motivation is also considered as a key tool for improving operative productivity as when operatives experience safe worksites, they can carry out their work in a more productive manner. The purpose of this research is to develop a framework to examine the motivational factors that affect operative health and safety in small construction firms.

A critical review and synthesis of the body of knowledge incorporating motivational theory, health and safety literature and the factors which characterise small firms, is used to develop the framework.

Key components of the framework include the presence of intrinsic and extrinsic components, appropriate health and safety policies and procedures, the type of work environment, the operatives (i.e. attitude, experience and training) as well as the presence of appropriate management and supervision. The study revealed that operatives in small firms are less likely to be extrinsically motivated due to the absence of training, management commitment, policies and the wider working environment

Failure of motivational support can result in increased danger and risk in exposing operatives to injury in the small firm environment. In this context, the damage caused to operative's health and safety in small construction firms is dependent mainly on the extrinsic factors.

The framework provides a basis for improving our understanding of how to motivate operatives to act safely and will help to improve the health and safety performance of small firms. It is therefore vital to emphasise enhancement efforts on these extrinsic strategies in the small firms' environment especially in the initial stages of the project (or activity), so that the health and safety of operatives in small firms can be improved.

This study proposes a contribution in developing an understanding of the motivational factors and their influence on the health and safety of operatives in small construction firms. The study revealed that operatives in small firms are less likely to be extrinsically motivated and have only intrinsically motivated elements in their workplace. The study proposes an indirect link between the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that affect motivation.

The main goal of this study is to determine the role of employee commitment in the relations between the compensation system and turnover intentions of employees in the Republic of Serbia, as well as to investigate whether there is a mediating effect of employee commitment in this relation.

The primary methodology implemented in the research was data gathering, obtaining theoretical research works on the proposed relations and empirical studies based on the PLS-SEM, analysed by IBM SPSS Statistics and SmartPLS data processing software. The data for the analysis was obtained from a total sample of 764 employees, collected in the Republic of Serbia via an online questionnaire.

The results indicated a positive statistically significant relationship between the formative construct (compensation system) and reflective construct (commitment), as well as a negative statistically significant relationship between the compensation system and reflective construct (turnover intentions). Employee commitment partially mediates the relationship between the compensation system and turnover intentions of employees.

The study was conducted in Serbia and is thus rooted in the specific national context which is characterized by high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance and more collectivistic society with feminine values more expressed. Most of the previous investigations related to the mentioned constructs were performed in companies from more developed countries, including Western Europe and the United States of America, whereas there has been no such research conducted in Serbia to date. The results portrayed a mismatch between the expected relations regarding the attitudes of employees to the rewards and the proposed national context. Modern companies in Serbia need to follow a modern reward mechanism to build stronger commitment and decrease turnover intentions. Moreover, in most earlier research works, compensation was examined in terms of satisfaction with rewards, while this study was based on questions related to perceptions of employees toward HR compensation practices (“The organization offers me”-type questions), not related to their satisfaction. Further, in the majority of previous research works, the compensation system was examined as a variable in combination with other HR processes (staffing, training and development, career development, employee relations, HR planning, communication, etc.), as a HPWP, while in this case the authors used only the practice of compensation (reward elements and employee performance evaluation) to investigate relations with commitment and turnover intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the empirical reality of environmental scanning (ES) practices in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) contexts. In particular it tests a conceptual framework proposed in 2011 by Fabbe-Costes et al.

The empirical data for this research were obtained from 45 semi-structured interviews with key informants, combined with a discussion of the main results with a focus group of supply chain experts. These data are compared with the literature and brought to bear on the framework.

The research finds both breadth and depth in the scope of sustainability scanning practices of the respondent group and provides evidence of multi-level scanning, with all respondents describing scanning activity at the societal level. It further demonstrates the adoption of multiple and diverse scanning targets at all levels in the conceptual framework. The articulation and ranking of scanning targets for SSCM at all levels informs the development of priorities for practice. The paper also makes some observations about the boundaries of the scanning process.

The results provide managers with concrete guidance about what to scan in sustainable supply chain contexts. The validated framework can serve as a practical tool to assist managers with the organization and prioritization of their ES activities.

The paper is among the first to address the role of ES in sustainable supply chain contexts. It highlights the need for a multi-level framework for such scanning activities and opens up a debate about their implementation.