Phillip Chong Ho Shon and Shannon M. Barton‐Bellessa
Previous criminological research has examined the causes and correlates of violent juvenile offending, but failed to explore the developmental taxonomies of crime throughout…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous criminological research has examined the causes and correlates of violent juvenile offending, but failed to explore the developmental taxonomies of crime throughout history. Theoretically, developmental trajectories of offending (i.e. life‐course persistent and adolescence‐limited offenders) should be identifiable irrespective of time and place. This study aims to examine the pre‐offense characteristics of nineteenth‐century American parricide offenders.
Design/methodology/approach
Using archival records of two major newspapers (New York Times, Chicago Tribune), the study examines 220 offenders who committed attempted and completed parricides during the latter half of the nineteenth century (1852‐1999).
Findings
Results reveal that a small group of adult parricide offenders displayed antisocial tendencies at an early age that persisted into adulthood. These findings are consistent with the developmental literature, thus providing support for identification of pre‐offense characteristics of parricide offenders across historical periods.
Originality/value
The findings reported in this paper are of value to psychologists, historians, and criminologists, for they illuminate the similarities in predictors related to violent behaviors in a small subsection of adult offenders across two centuries.
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Liqun Cao, Xiaogang Deng and Shannon Barton
Applying Lundman’s organizational product thesis in explaining citizen complaints against police use of excessive physical force, the current study tests several hypotheses with a…
Abstract
Applying Lundman’s organizational product thesis in explaining citizen complaints against police use of excessive physical force, the current study tests several hypotheses with a national data set. Tobit regression analyses of the data show that Lundman’s thesis is partially supported. Both organizational behavior and organizational characteristics are important covariates of the complaint rate against police use of excessive physical force. Although generalization is limited, police departments need to actively recruit more mature persons into the police force, reinforce field training officer programs, and continually provide more in‐service training programs for its members if they are serious in reducing citizens’ complaints.
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Paolo Ferri, Shannon I.L. Sidaway and Garry D. Carnegie
The monetary valuation of cultural heritage of a selection of 16 major public, not-for-profit Australian cultural institutions is examined over a period of almost three decades…
Abstract
Purpose
The monetary valuation of cultural heritage of a selection of 16 major public, not-for-profit Australian cultural institutions is examined over a period of almost three decades (1992–2019) to understand how they have responded to the paradoxical tensions of heritage valuation for financial reporting purposes.
Design/methodology/approach
Accounting for cultural heritage is an intrinsically paradoxical practice; it involves a conflict of two opposite ways of attributing value: the traditional accounting and the heritage professionals (or curatorial) approaches. In analysing the annual reports and other documentary sources through qualitative content analysis, the study explores how different actors responded to the conceptual and technical contradictions posed by the monetary valuation of “heritage assets”, the accounting phraseology of accounting standards.
Findings
Four phases emerge from the analysis undertaken of the empirical material, each characterised by a distinctive nature of the paradox, the institutional responses discerned and the outcomes. Although a persisting heterogeneity in the practice of accounting for cultural heritage is evident, responses by cultural institutions are shown to have minimised, so far, the negative impacts of monetary valuation in terms of commercialisation of deaccessioning decisions and distorted accountability.
Originality/value
In applying the theoretical lens of paradox theory in the context of the financial reporting of heritage, as assets, the study enhances an understanding of the challenges and responses by major public cultural institutions in a country that has led this development globally, providing insights to accounting standard setters arising from the accounting practices observed.
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Since joining Bennett College in 2008, Dr. Oh has directed 17 undergraduate students’ research projects in applied mathematics. The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Dr…
Abstract
Since joining Bennett College in 2008, Dr. Oh has directed 17 undergraduate students’ research projects in applied mathematics. The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Dr. Oh grants from the Historically Black Colleges and Universities – Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP). The grants allowed her to mentor eight mathematics majors/minors in summer research for four years (2009–2012). Based on the four years of successful undergraduate research (UGR) experiences, she, together with Dr. Jan Rychtar from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), received funding for two summers National Research Experience for Undergraduates (NREUP), an activity of Mathematical Association of America (MAA), funded by the NSF in 2013 and 2014. During the six years of funded UGR, Bennett students made 33 presentations at regional, state, and national conferences; two teams won the outstanding student presentation award and first place for presentation. Three papers were published; two of them by Dr. Oh and one of them with a UGR coauthor. Three projects resulted in manuscripts. As a result of the UGR experiences in 2015, Dr. Oh received three more grants: the MAA NREUP, the NSF’s Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM), and the NSF’s Preparation for Industrial Careers in Mathematical Sciences (PIC Math) program awarded grants. A grant was also submitted to HBC-UP-Targeted Infusion Projects: Computational Mathematics at Bennett College.
Overall, the six years of UGR at Bennett College attained the three goals of: (1) enhancing the quality of undergraduate STEM education and research for a deeper appreciation in those disciplines; (2) supporting increased graduation rates in STEM undergraduate education of females; and (3) broadening participation in the nation’s STEM workforce as well as enrollments in graduate schools.
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Doris M. Merkl-Davies and Niamh M. Brennan
The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework of external accounting communication in the form of a typology based on perspectives, traditions, and theories from…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework of external accounting communication in the form of a typology based on perspectives, traditions, and theories from the discipline of communication studies. The focus is accounting communication with external audiences via public written documents outside the audited financial statements, i.e., annual reports, press releases, CSR reports, websites, conference calls, etc.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical framework is based on two broad research perspectives on accounting communication: (A) a functionalist-behavioural transmission perspective and (B) a symbolic-interpretive narrative perspective. Eight traditions of communication research are introduced which provide alternative ways of conceptualising accounting communication, namely (1) mathematical tradition, (2) socio-psychological tradition, (3) cybernetic/systems-oriented tradition, (4) semiotic tradition, (5) rhetorical tradition, (6) phenomenological tradition, (7) socio-cultural tradition, and (8) critical tradition. Exemplars of each tradition from prior accounting research, to the extent they have been adopted, are discussed. Finally, a typology is developed, which serves as a heuristic device for viewing similarities and differences between research traditions.
Findings
Prior accounting studies predominantly focus on the role of discretionary disclosures in accounting communication in the functioning of the relationship between organisations and their audiences. Research is predominantly located in the mathematical, the socio-psychological, and the cybernetic/systems-oriented tradition. Accounting communication is primarily viewed as the transmission of messages about financial, environmental, and social information to external audiences. Prior research is mainly concerned with the communicator (e.g. CEO personality) and the message (e.g. intentions and effects of accounting communication). Research from alternative traditions is encouraged, which explores how organisations and their audiences engage in a dialogue and interactively create, sustain, and manage meaning concerning accounting and accountability issues.
Originality/value
The paper identifies, organises, and synthesises research perspectives, traditions, and associated theories from the communication studies literature in the form of a typology. The paper concludes with an extensive agenda for future research on accounting communication.
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Joseph Calvin Gagnon and Brian R. Barber
Alternative education settings (AES; i.e., self-contained alternative schools, therapeutic day treatment and residential schools, and juvenile corrections schools) serve youth…
Abstract
Alternative education settings (AES; i.e., self-contained alternative schools, therapeutic day treatment and residential schools, and juvenile corrections schools) serve youth with complicated and often serious academic and behavioral needs. The use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and practices with Best Available Evidence are necessary to increase the likelihood of long-term success for these youth. In this chapter, we define three primary categories of AES and review what we know about the characteristics of youth in these schools. Next, we discuss the current emphasis on identifying and implementing EBPs with regard to both academic interventions (i.e., reading and mathematics) and interventions addressing student behavior. In particular, we consider implementation in AES, where there are often high percentages of youth requiring special education services and who have a significant need for EBPs to succeed academically, behaviorally, and in their transition to adulthood. We focus our discussion on: (a) examining approaches to identifying EBPs; (b) providing a brief review of EBPs and Best Available Evidence in the areas of mathematics, reading, and interventions addressing student behavior for youth in AES; (c) delineating key implementation challenges in AES; and (d) providing recommendations for how to facilitate the use of EBPs in AES.
G. Page West and G. Dale Meyer
Organizational learning capabilities are embedded in organizational communication systems and processes related to knowledge creation and articulation. The emergence of new…
Abstract
Organizational learning capabilities are embedded in organizational communication systems and processes related to knowledge creation and articulation. The emergence of new organizational forms (such as horizontal organizations) in rapidly‐changing environments and hyper‐competitive markets underscores the need to better understand these foundational sources of learning. In fact, the reason horizontal organizations may find success is that their structure is intended to promote communications systems and processes which enhance a knowledge‐response sequence similar to a stimulus‐response sequence associated with learning. These systems permit managers to quickly gather information, respond with agility in making decisions, and continue to make ongoing adjustments. Firms which understand the need to build their communications capabilities may be characterized as meta‐learning organizations. Resource‐based theory suggests that communications systems and processes are thus sources of competitive advantage. Future empirical research on organizational learning may progress by evaluating specific measures of communication process as proxies for learning processes.
This review integrates and builds linkages among existing theoretical and empirical literature from across disciplines to further broaden our understanding of the relationship…
Abstract
This review integrates and builds linkages among existing theoretical and empirical literature from across disciplines to further broaden our understanding of the relationship between inequality, imprisonment, and health for black men. The review examines the health impact of prisons through an ecological theoretical perspective to understand how factors at multiple levels of the social ecology interact with prisons to potentially contribute to deleterious health effects and the exacerbation of race/ethnic health disparities.
This review finds that there are documented health disparities between inmates and non-inmates, but the casual mechanisms explaining this relationship are not well-understood. Prisons may interact with other societal systems – such as the family (microsystem), education, and healthcare systems (meso/exosystems), and systems of racial oppression (macrosystem) – to influence individual and population health.
The review also finds that research needs to move the discussion of the race effects in health and crime/justice disparities beyond the mere documentation of such differences toward a better understanding of their causes and effects at the level of individuals, communities, and other social ecologies.
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– This paper aims to present a framework enriching currency risk analyses based on information theory.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a framework enriching currency risk analyses based on information theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Information-theoretic measures of predictability (entropy rate) and co-dependence (mutual information) are used to enhance existing methods of analysing and measuring currency risk.
Findings
The currency exchange rates have varying degrees of predictability, which should be accounted for in currency risk analyses. In case of baskets of currencies, a network approach rooted in portfolio theory may be useful.
Research limitations/implications
The currency exchange rate time series must be discretised for the information-theoretic analysis (although the results are robust). An agent-based simulation may be a necessary further study to show what the impact of accounting for predictability in managing currency risk is.
Practical implications
Practical analyses measuring currency risk should take predictability of currency rate changes into account wherever the currency exposure is actively managed.
Originality/value
The paper introduces predictability into measuring currency risk, which has previously been ignored, despite the nature of the risk being inherently tied to uncertainty of the currency rate changes. The paper also introduces a portfolio theory-based approach to quantifying currency risk, which accounts for non-linear co-dependence in the currency markets.