Steven Bonner and Eleanor O'Higgins
This paper aims to examine the issue of illegal downloading of music under an ethical lens.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the issue of illegal downloading of music under an ethical lens.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical framework observed was one which included three independent variables: individual, situational and experimental elements. The dependent variable of the study was legal vs illegal downloading of music. A 20‐item questionnaire was completed by 84 respondents. The final four questions in the study were guilt‐inducing questions (which the respondent was informed of in compliance with ethical primary research); the remainder of the questions were neutral in nature.
Findings
The paper finds that the respondents illegally download despite viewing the act as immoral. Respondents choose to morally disengage from the non‐ethical nature of the act in an attempt to avoid feeling guilty about illegal downloading and also to avoid any blame being attributed to them personally. Many respondents feel the act of illegal downloading is simply today's reality and that there is nothing wrong or immoral about illegal downloading. Those who illegally download were less likely to attack the activity for being wrong. Active music fans were more likely to engage in illegal downloading than passive ones. Being a student versus being gainfully employed did not affect downloading behaviour.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of the study was the difficulty in getting people to disclose the truth about their own ethical violations. A related limitation was the difficulty in obtaining respondents, since participation in such a study meant revealing their music consumption behaviour. However, in the end, social networking proved to be a successful way of recruiting participants.
Practical implications
The results cast light on the obstacles managers in the music business face in eliminating music piracy.
Social implications
The results show the reasons for the difficulties in eliminating this widespread crime, because of the ethical ambiguity involved.
Originality/value
The study has the effect of explaining music piracy very clearly through the application of ethical/psychological theory. This has not been done before.
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Robert L. Bonner, Steven J. Hyde and Kristen Faile
The purpose of this study is to examine the organizational and environmental antecedents to the appointment of a woman to a non-CEO top management team (TMT) position.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the organizational and environmental antecedents to the appointment of a woman to a non-CEO top management team (TMT) position.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a conditional fixed effects logistic regression model to analyze non-CEO TMT appointment data collected from the S&P 500 between 2008 and 2016.
Findings
Women were more likely to be appointed to non-CEO TMT positions when a firm was undergoing strategic change, had slack resources, and was in a less munificent environment.
Originality/value
This article contributes to the literature concerning the antecedents of the selection of women to executive leadership (e.g. the glass cliff) roles by examining organizational and environmental contexts at the non-CEO TMT unit of analysis.
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This chapter investigates the recent surge of social media (mis)use in horror films including The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Unfriended (2015) and #Horror (2015) and how young…
Abstract
This chapter investigates the recent surge of social media (mis)use in horror films including The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Unfriended (2015) and #Horror (2015) and how young women’s relationship to social media in these films often pillories females for existing under, and delighting in, an anonymous, ubiquitous gaze. In these narratives, women are slut shamed both in the plot and through the threat of social media’s panoply of screens, sur- and selfveillance. In my discussion, I will utilize feminist film theory including the writings of Laura Mulvey, Linda Williams and Barbara Creed, while also including contemporary cultural criticism from writers and journalists like Nancy Jo Sales and Leora Tanenbaum to explore the horror genre from a more contemporary, multi-discourse perspective. The technology in these films serve as harbingers, intimating the figurative and literal dangers to come for their female protagonists, ultimately suggesting that the horror in these films is the medium itself and the patriarchal social media culture that these devices cultivate.
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Steven V. Campbell, Barbara P. Reider and Robert C. Maloney
This paper explores the contribution of the AAA Symposium on Ethics Research in Accounting to fostering accounting ethics research. For a 17-year period, the contributors, their…
Abstract
This paper explores the contribution of the AAA Symposium on Ethics Research in Accounting to fostering accounting ethics research. For a 17-year period, the contributors, their schools of affiliation, and their research topics were analyzed to determine the extent of and trends in accounting ethics research. The research rankings of the contributing authors were examined in business ethics journals, top-40 accounting journals, and accounting education journals. Institutional rankings identify supportive places to do accounting ethics research. The impact of significant accounting scandals such as Enron and Madoff was examined and a financial scandal “bump” in paper presentations was found. Authors affiliated with Texas schools had papers following the state requirement of an ethics accounting course. A large amount of ethics education-related research was also presented at the Ethics Symposia. Overall the study results indicate that the Symposium with its AAA affiliation is a high-quality venue for paper presentation.
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Lina Xu, Steven Dellaportas, Zhiqiang Yang and Sophia Ji
The aim of this study is to profile interdisciplinary accounting research and the facilitating role played by researchers by probing the characteristics of published articles in…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to profile interdisciplinary accounting research and the facilitating role played by researchers by probing the characteristics of published articles in three leading interdisciplinary accounting research journals, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ); Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS); and Critical Perspectives on Accounting (CPA).
Design/methodology/approach
Profiling analysis is undertaken with a broad scan of publication descriptors in AAAJ, AOS and CPA between 2005 and 2016. Profiling stems from identifying and quantifying the characteristics of interdisciplinary research, and with further analysis, infer generalisations about its content and the community of interdisciplinary researchers.
Findings
The published output of 1,462 articles is produced by 1,688 authors affiliated with 660 institutions in 52 countries. The two most high-ranking topics are social and environmental accounting and management accounting. The highest-ranked authors are Stephen Walker, Rob Bryer, Lee Parker and Yves Gendron. The most productive universities are the University of London, Cardiff University and the University of Manchester. The countries highly involved in interdisciplinary accounting research are the UK, USA, Australia and Canada.
Research limitations/implications
The data is restricted by the sample of manuscripts based on three interdisciplinary accounting research journals for the period 2005–2016 and does not consider manuscripts published in other accounting and non-accounting journals. Additionally, the process of analysing publication descriptors to generate categorised lists was a complex process that may not be replicated precisely by other researchers.
Practical implications
The results reported in this study can assist researchers interested in interdisciplinary research on what they may expect to read and understand.
Originality/value
The present study profiles interdisciplinary research in accounting to gain a picture of the elements that comprise interdisciplinarity, which, at present, is without empirical investigation.
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Nathan Eva, Alexander Newman, Abby Jingzi Zhou and Steven Shijin Zhou
Community citizenship behaviors (CCBs) of employees help organizations to promote a socially conscious image. However, there is still a significant gap in the knowledge as to how…
Abstract
Purpose
Community citizenship behaviors (CCBs) of employees help organizations to promote a socially conscious image. However, there is still a significant gap in the knowledge as to how to foster CCBs amongst employees. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether ethical leadership, as a prosocial leadership approach, fosters CCBs amongst employees, both at work and when they leave the office, through enhancing their prosocial motivation.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 160 employees across 48 small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. Multi-level modeling using maximum likelihood estimation in MPlus was utilized to analyze the two-level model simultaneously and the significance of the multi-level indirect effects was tested using the Monte Carlo method with 20,000 replications.
Findings
Counter to the expectations, the authors found that although ethical leadership increased employees’ prosocial motivation, this only translated to higher levels of employees’ CCBs at work, but not once they left the office.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that ethical leaders play a critical role in developing the prosocial motivation of employees and encouraging them to engage in CCBs that are supported by the organization. To that end, organizations should consider hiring leaders with high levels of ethical leadership and provide ethical leadership training to senior management.
Originality/value
The authors make a theoretical contribution by explaining the process by which ethical leaders influence employees to engage in CCBs, addressing calls to understand how social learning theory can be used to understand how people learn to become socially responsible.
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Jennifer Barton, Steven R. Cumming, Anthony Samuels and Tanya Meade
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is distinguishable from suicide attempts (SAs) on a number of psychological and motivational factors. However, in corrective services settings…
Abstract
Purpose
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is distinguishable from suicide attempts (SAs) on a number of psychological and motivational factors. However, in corrective services settings, NSSI and SA are not clearly distinguished in assessment impacting on intervention. The purpose of this paper is to examine if any attributes differentiate lifetime history of SA+NSSI, NSSI and SA presentations in inmates who had recently been assessed in custody by a risk intervention team.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive clinical assessment and file review was conducted with 87 male inmates (including a no self-injury control group) in two large correctional centres in New South Wales, Australia, to determine if three self-injury groups differ from the control group and if the three self-injury groups differ from each other across a range of static, trait, environmental and clinical characteristics.
Findings
The SA+NSSI group was most different from the control group (27/59 variables), and from the SA group (10/59 variables), predominantly across trait and clinical correlates. The SA group was least different from the control group (2/59 variables: suicide ideation, childhood physical abuse).
Originality/value
It was found that the presence of SA+NSSI history is an indicator of increased psychopathology. A history of SA only appears not readily associated with psychopathology. The self-injury subgroups reflected different clinical profiles with implications for risk assessment and treatment planning.
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Yuqian Zhang, Juergen Seufert and Steven Dellaportas
This study examined subjective numeracy and its relationship with accounting judgements on probability issues.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examined subjective numeracy and its relationship with accounting judgements on probability issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A subjective numeracy scale (SNS) questionnaire was distributed to 231 accounting students to measure self-evaluated numeracy. Modified Bayesian reasoning tasks were applied in an accounting-related probability estimation, manipulating presentation formats.
Findings
The study revealed a positive relationship between self-evaluated numeracy and performance in accounting probability estimation. The findings suggest that switching the format of probability expressions from percentages to frequencies can improve the performance of participants with low self-evaluated numeracy.
Research limitations/implications
Adding objective numeracy measurements could enhance results. Future numeracy research could add objective numeracy items and assess whether this influences participants' self-perceived numeracy. Based on this sample population of accounting students, the findings may not apply to large populations of accounting-information users.
Practical implications
Investors' ability to exercise sound judgement depends on the accuracy of their probability estimations. Manipulating the format of probability expressions can improve probability estimation performance in investors with low self-evaluated numeracy.
Originality/value
This study identified a significant performance gap among participants in performing accounting probability estimations: those with high self-evaluated numeracy performed better than those with low self-evaluated numeracy. The authors also explored a method other than additional training to improve participants' performance on probability estimation tasks and discovered that frequency formats enhanced the performance of participants with low self-evaluated numeracy.