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This qualitative study set within Northern Ireland aims to explore professional perspectives on the application of evidence-informed practice to the adult safeguarding threshold screening process.

Data was gathered from seven social workers in one health and social care trust area, who perform the designated adult protection role, through individual semi-structured interviews in one region of Northern Ireland. The interview schedule comprised of a series of questions examining the role of the designated adult protection officer and included three vignettes (Appendix). A thematic analysis was undertaken using NVIVO software.

This paper reports main findings under the themes of: the role of the designated adult protection officer, threshold decision-making, evidence-informed practice and service improvement. One of the main findings was that professionals viewed the current process as too bureaucratic, and there was a desire to engage in more preventive safeguarding in collaboration with service users. There was a need to promote awareness of evidence-informed practice as it applies to the threshold screening process. Furthermore, the study raised the question of the need to consider the application of models or methods of assessment to the threshold screening process.

This in-depth exploration of the role of designated adult protection officers in Northern Ireland provides a valuable insight into the complexity involved in managing adult safeguarding referrals and investigations. This study adds to the existing knowledge base, identifies potential service improvements and highlights the gap in evidence-based practice as it applies to the threshold screening process. Threshold screening of adult safeguarding referrals remains a subjective process and is open to interpretation and differences in professional judgement. The study highlights the need to consider the application of quality improvement methodology to the threshold screening assessment and the need to promote the exchange of safeguarding knowledge.

The purpose of this paper was to review the effectiveness of telephone interviewing for capturing data and to consider in particular the challenges faced by telephone interviewers when capturing information about market segments.

The platform for this methodological critique was a market segment analysis commissioned by Sport Wales which involved a series of 85 telephone interviews completed during 2010. Two focus groups involving the six interviewers involved in the study were convened to reflect on the researchers’ experiences and the implications for business and management research.

There are three principal sets of findings. First, although telephone interviewing is generally a cost-effective data collection method, it is important to consider both the actual costs (i.e. time spent planning and conducting interviews) as well as the opportunity costs (i.e. missed appointments, “chasing participants”). Second, researchers need to be sensitised to and sensitive to the demographic characteristics of telephone interviewees (insofar as these are knowable) because responses are influenced by them. Third, the anonymity of telephone interviews may be more conducive for discussing sensitive issues than face-to-face interactions.

The present study adds to this modest body of literature on the implementation of telephone interviewing as a research technique of business and management. It provides valuable methodological background detail about the intricate, personal experiences of researchers undertaking this method “at a distance” and without visual cues, and makes explicit the challenges of telephone interviewing for the purposes of data capture.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of attribute frames and justifications on capital budgeting decisions and to examine whether the requirement to provide justification for a capital budgeting decision moderates the effect of attribute frames.

One-hundred and eleven participants made a capital budgeting decision in an experimental case that manipulated the frame of the financial evidence provided and the requirement to provide a justification.

Results suggest that both attribute frames and justifications affect capital budgeting decisions but the requirement to provide justifications did not moderate the effect of attribute frames.

This study contributes to the capital budgeting literature by identifying two factors that may bias judgments. This study also contributes to the framing literature by examining one potential method of moderating framing effects – requiring justification for decisions.

An increasing number of investors are becoming aware of the benefits of international diversification. Generally, an internationally diversified portfolio of securities will be less volatile than a purely domestic portfolio. The reduction in volatility occurs because the returns on foreign securities are not perfectly correlated with domestic securities. As a result of the perceived benefits, U.S. based international mutual funds and U.K. international investment trusts are becoming more popular with investors.

This paper seeks to examine the differences between executives and investors in the perception of determinant factors in executive compensation.

From a survey instrument comprised of archival executive compensation determinant items, a factor analysis is performed to examine the construct determinant perceptions unique to executives and non‐executive investors.

The authors find differences in factors between executives and non‐executive investors in a manner expected by agency theory. Non‐executive investors place greater weight on factors related to performance and less weight on human capital factors, while executive investors place greater weight on human capital factors in determining executive compensation.

This study is limited in that the sample may not be representative of the population of chief executive officers or shareholders in the USA.

Differing factors suggest that there is a misalignment of measures desired to be the foundation of executive compensation. The differing measures used to potentially motivate agents (executives) by principals (investors) results in an agency cost.

The authors have documented a difference between executives and investors in factors desired to determine executive compensation.

Capital budgeting projects fail about as often as they succeed. Recent research shows that accountants may frame information related to capital budgeting projects to be consistent with their preference for the project (e.g., accept or reject), perhaps in order to persuade management to agree with them. Psychology research consistently shows that framed information results in systematic differences in judgments. The purpose of this study is to examine whether framed information affects capital budgeting decisions, and to examine whether this effect is moderated by the importance of the potential project. Results from an experimental case completed by 173 participants indicate attribute frames affect capital budgeting decisions, however, the effect is moderated by the importance of the decision.

Reports citing excessive CEO compensation continue to make the news with evidence of peer relationships between the CEO and the compensation committee often the center of debate. The compensation committee of the board of directors determines CEO pay and is often comprises CEOs from other companies as well as non-CEOs such as academic, exgovernment, and professional individuals. This study examines the influence of the psychological factor of social comparison over accounting performance measures in a compensation experiment with 176 subjects. The results of this study are consistent with social comparison theory in that CEO director-subjects award greater pay and shield the compensation of the CEO when firm accounting performance is below average. Additionally, we find shielding is mitigated when subjects are informed that the decision of the amount of compensation awarded will be revealed to the public.

There has been concern expressed in the financial press and focus established in the accounting literature over rising levels of executive compensation. Individuals on the compensation committee, a sub-committee of the board of directors, collectively determine executive compensation and are responsible for maintaining the pay-for-performance standard, a concept that warrants further attention. This study examines the process of exaggeration of a group decision over individual beliefs and the impact of leadership upon a committee's outcome when making compensation awards. In an experiment with 98 subjects role-playing as compensation committee members, results show that in a committee of individuals where a coterie and a majority belief is present, group polarization occurs and the compensation results are exaggerated as compared to individual beliefs. The findings also suggest, though, that the appointment of a leader as chair of the committee, either in the majority or minority view, has a moderating effect on the group outcome. These results highlight and add to the literature the potential for agency costs in the group decision process that may be found in the executive compensation-setting environment.

When first asked to write a chapter on “Corporate Networks,” I was flummoxed by the Stanford focus. Unlike many of the other theories in this volume, where a game of word association by theory results in a roster of current or emeritus Stanford faculty members, corporate network has roots in many institutions. Indeed, institutions such as University of Chicago or Stonybrook may make a claim for being at the forefront of research on corporate networks, and University of Michigan is the current home to three of the top researchers in the area. Yet, among the core network researchers, a good number of them either spent their early faculty years at Stanford (e.g., Pam Haunschild, Don Palmer, Joel Podolny) or completed doctoral training at Stanford (e.g., Jerry Davis, Henrich Greve, Toby Stuart, Christine Beckman). And this list does not include those that came to Stanford later in their careers (e.g., Mark Granovetter and Woody Powell). Furthermore, the history of corporate network research is intertwined with many of the theories developed at Stanford during the late 1970s. To understand this influence, I begin with a brief but broad history of research on corporate networks, a history that begins somewhat earlier than 1970 and continues to the present. Then I turn to the question of Stanford's role in supporting this research stream and intellectual life more broadly.