We study whether changes in analyst recommendation ratings systems encouraged by the implementation of NASD 2711 in 2002 are associated with improved objectivity and independence in analyst recommendations. Using recommendations issued during windows surrounding major investment banking events, we show that reductions in analyst optimism following the reforms concentrate in the recommendations of analysts whose employer adopted a three-tier rating system at the time of the reforms, and that this effect is generally stronger for analysts whom the underlying incentives to (...) engage in unethical behaviour is greatest. We also find evidence that adoption of the three-tier system improved the market’s perception of the objectivity of analyst recommendations issued after SEOs, and that for hold and sell-type recommendations this effect was stronger for analysts subject to the greatest potential ethical conflicts. While we find some evidence of a general post-reform increase in the profitability of recommendations issued following equity transactions, this improvement was only conditioned by changes to the rating system in our IPO sample. (shrink)

We study the relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance by comparing the portfolio returns of firms with changes in corporate social responsibility (CSR) intensity. Using an extensive US sample from the MSCI ESG database, we find that improvement in the overall CSR is generally value enhancing. The relationship varies with CSR dimensions. More importantly, the relationship shifts differently for various CSR dimensions during the crisis period when trust in the society is low and financial resource is limited. Improvement (...) in environment, human rights, and product characteristics shows higher financial returns during the financial crisis period, whereas the value enhancement of improvement in employee relations is more pronounced during the non-crisis period. (shrink)

This paper is based on the findings of research into the attitudes towards business ethics of a group of business students in Western Australia. The questionnaire upon which the research was based was originally used by Preble and Reichel (1988) in an investigation they undertook into the attitudes towards business ethics held by two similar groups of United States and Israeli business students. The specific purpose of the current investigation was to administer the same questionnaire with one minor modification to: (...) (1) two groups of Curtin University students; (2) a group of Asian students from the Australian Institute of Business and Technology (AIBT), a privately funded tertiary institution affiliated with Curtin University; and (3) a group of managers from the Australian Institute of Management (AIM), many of whom would not have been university graduates. The questionnaire was preceded by a profile inventory to establish the participant''s age, sex, occupation, course of study, whether or not they were born in Australia, their attitudes towards religion, and whether or not they saw themselves as ethically minded persons. In the original questionnaire, Preble and Reichel had asked the US and Israeli students to indicate on a five point scale, their attitudes towards a selection of business ethics situations by reflecting on thirty statements. In the replicate study, the means and standard deviations of each response of the four groups of Western Australian students were calculated and then compared with the means and standard deviations of the US and Israeli students. In summary, statistically significant differences in the scores of the original study were noted between nineteen out of thirty of the US and Israeli students in their attitudes towards business ethics. However, a closer examination and interpretation showed several of these differences to have little meaning. (p. 946) The purpose of this current study therefore, was to see if the Curtin, AIBT and AIM students'' results were statistically significant (different) to the US and Israeli student scores. The implications of understanding the way a selected group of business students in Western Australia react towards a range of ethical issues ought to have relevance for those involved in developing management education courses, particularly in view of the current economic and business climate. Studies into attitudes towards ethical issues in business have, as yet, received little attention in Australasia. This present study will hopefully lead to more thoughtful discussion of these issues. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that corruption by any firm is problematic. More importantly, its negative effects are compounded when corruption is present in large firms with global reach and corruption ceases to be a single instance but becomes a reoccurring or perpetuating phenomenon over time. Though the magnification of corruption over both time and size of operations creates scale effects that amplify its detrimental consequences, this context remains largely unexamined empirically. Thus, our research question is: What are the factors that (...) contribute to corruption by large global firms? Drawing on institutional theory, we examine the normative pressures that interact to create a vortex of corporate corruption that persisted over several years. We analyze a 9-year longitudinal dataset of 469 unique FT Global 500 companies representing 31 primary industries and 33 countries with over 3700 company year observations. Results help disentangle a complex interaction of firm-level and headquarters country-level factors that drive corruption and impact performance among top global firms. (shrink)

Scholars have long recognised the interest of the Stoics' thought on geometrical limits, both as a specific topic in their physics and within the context of the school's ontological taxonomy. Unfortunately, insufficient textual evidence remains for us to reconstruct their discussion fully. The sources we do have on Stoic geometrical themes are highly polemical, tending to reveal a disagreement as to whether limit is to be understood as a mere concept, as a body or as an incorporeal. In my view, (...) this disagreement held among the historical Stoics, rather than simply reflecting a doxographical divergence in transmission. This apparently Stoic disagreement has generated extensive debate, in which there is still no consensus as to a standard Stoic doctrine of limit. The evidence is thin, and little of it refers in detail to specific texts, especially from the school's founders. But in its overall features the evidence suggests that Posidonius and Cleomedes differed from their Stoic precursors on this topic. There are also grounds for believing that some degree of disagreement obtained between the early Stoics over the metaphysical status of shape. Assuming the Stoics did so disagree, the principal question in the scholarship on Stoic ontology is whether there were actually positions that might be called "standard" within Stoicism on the topic of limit. In attempting to answer this question, my discussion initially sets out to illuminate certain features of early Stoic thinking about limit, and then takes stock of the views offered by late Stoics, notably Posidonius and Cleomedes. Attention to Stoic arguments suggests that the school's founders developed two accounts of shape: on the one hand, as a thought-construct, and, on the other, as a body. In an attempt to resolve the crux bequeathed to them, the school's successors suggested that limits are incorporeal. While the authorship of this last notion cannot be securely identified on account of the absence of direct evidence, it may be traced back to Posidonius, and it went on to have subsequent influence on Stoic thinking, namely in Cleomedes' astronomy. (shrink)

The paper aims to investigate the effects of corporate social performance (CSP) on bankruptcy likelihood in times of economic upswing. This is important because prior related literature focused on data containing times of economic crises. We measure bankruptcy likelihood with the Altman Z score and CSP with Refinitiv ESG scores. By applying static panel data regressions and instrumental variable regressions on a sample of 6696 US-firm-year observations from 2010 to 2019 our main findings are: (i) In contrast to existing research, (...) the level of firms’ CSP seems to have no (positive) effect on the likelihood of bankruptcy during times of economic upswing. (ii) Increasing a firm’s CSP in times of economic upswing leads to a rise in bankruptcy likelihood. We conclude that the positive effects of CSP on stakeholder relationships fail to materialize in flourishing business environments. The costs of increasing CSP, thus, exceed their immediate positive effects and raise bankruptcy likelihood. However, as they reduce financial default risk in subsequent crises, CSP investments can be seen as a balancing measure. Our findings bear implications for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. (shrink)

A generalized third-order autonomous Duffing–Holmes system is proposed and deeply investigated. The proposed system is obtained by adding a parametric quadratic term m x 2 to the cubic nonlinear term − x 3 of an existing third-order autonomous Duffing–Holmes system. This modification allows the system to feature smoothly adjustable nonlinearity, symmetry, and nontrivial equilibria. A particular attention is given to the effects of symmetric and asymmetric nonlinearity on the dynamics of the system. For the specific case of m = 0, (...) the system is symmetric and interesting phenomena are observed, namely, coexistence of symmetric bifurcations, presence of parallel branches, and the coexistence of four and six symmetric attractors. For m ≠ 0, the system loses its symmetry. This favors the emergence of other behaviors, such as the coexistence of asymmetric bifurcations, involving the coexistence of several asymmetric attractors. All these phenomena have been numerically highlighted using nonlinear dynamic tools and an analog computer of the system. In fact, PSpice simulations of the latter confirm numerical results. Moreover, amplitude control and synchronization strategies are also provided in order to promote the exploitation of the proposed system in engineering. (shrink)

Based on a unique data set on US direct microloans, we study the funding determinants of interest-free peer-to-peer crowdlending aimed at borrowers in the US. By performing logistic regressions on funding success and Tobit regressions on the reversed funding time, the existence of a social underwriting by a third-party trustee and information in the description texts fostering the investors’ trust are shown to be the main predictors of successful funding. Regarding social impact, the possibility to empower women and groups of (...) borrowers appeals to the investors, whereas empowerment of the family or community beyond the borrowers themselves appears to remain unappreciated. When examining the vulnerability of the borrowers as a predictor, the results manifest differences amongst the attitudes of the investors towards social impact. In the subsample of non-endorsed loans, the investors appear to prefer to support borrowers with an immigration background. In contrast, this is not the case with endorsed loans. (shrink)

This study examines whether religiosity is associated with the valuation multiples investors assign to fair-valued assets that are susceptible to managerial bias. Using a sample of U.S. banking firms, I find that the value relevance of such assets is higher for firms located in more religious counties than it is for firms located in less religious counties. Moreover, I find that this result is more consistent with the ethicality trait than the risk aversion trait of more religious individuals. Additional tests (...) show that the positive association between religiosity and value relevance of fair-valued assets is limited to firms with high fair value exposure, and it is stronger for firms with lower audit quality, lower institutional ownership, and lower analyst following. The results of this study suggest that investors perceive the role played by religiosity, in particular ethicality, in curbing managerial accounting biases and price accounting estimates accordingly. (shrink)

This paper addresses the robust stabilization problem for a class of stochastic Markovian jump systems with distributed delays. The systems under consideration involve Brownian motion, Markov chains, distributed delays, and parameter uncertainties. By an appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, the novel delay-dependent stabilization criterion for the stochastic Markovian jump systems is derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities. When given linear matrix inequalities are feasible, an explicit expression of the desired state feedback controller is given. The designed controller, based on the obtained (...) criterion, ensures asymptotically stable in the mean square sense of the resulting closed-loop system. The convenience of the design is greatly enhanced due to the existence of an adjustable parameter in the controller. Finally, a numerical example is exploited to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed theory. (shrink)

In contrast to the conventional fund management industry with a profit-oriented logic based on risk and return, ethical and faith-based funds should follow the religious principles of their investment-style philosophy. Islamic funds should obey the theological teachings of the primary sources of Islam, the Quran and Sunnah, as stakeholders expect these religious teachings to influence the investment decisions of fund managers. In practice, Islamic fund managers use Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions ’s screening criteria, based on secondary (...) sources of Islam, which allow investments that are only partially halal to be included in their portfolios. This study finds that a more religious logic in screening practices, although impairing diversification, does not necessarily harm performance. Thus, Islamic investment funds, and the wider ethical fund management industry, should, and could, adopt stricter screening criteria that match their investment mandates and bring more ethical business practices to the industry. (shrink)

Статтю присвячено з’ясуванню внеску вихованців Київської духовної академії у становлення культурних практик модерного типу на теренах Російської імперії другої половини X IX — початку XX століть. В основу дослідження лягли біографії та науково-богословська спадщина братів Пархомовичів — Василя (згодом архиепископа Афанасія), Андрія і Йосифа, чия діяльність у навчальних закладах, періодичних виданнях, наукових і громадських організаціях Бессарабії тривала майже 80 років (1853-1932). Систематизація фактичного матеріалу дозволила зробити висновок, що Пархомовичі належ али до групи регіон альної інтелектуальної еліти, згрупованої довкола кишинівських архиєреїв, (...) і брали активну участь у реалізації низки просвітницьких і місіонерських проектів. Хоч, по суті, вони були провідниками політики русифікації регіону, проте їхня діяль­ність об’єктивно сприяла формуванню інституцій та ознак модерного су­спільства у Бессарабії. Це, зокрема: поширення освіти і розвиток місцевої школи за участі Пархомовичів як керівників і викладачів Кишинівської духовної семінарії, жіночого єпархіального училища та міських гімназій; їхня діяльність у місіонерських, просвітницьких, наукових та благодійних організаціях, що сприяла консолідації бессарабського суспільства; напи­сання ними низки історичних досліджень, які лягли в основу регіональної свідомості та культурної ідентичності мешканців Бессарабії. (shrink)

The Soviet ideology treated natural science as one of its cornerstones and provided the state support for philosophical studies of science. Their main aims were to prove its intellectual superiority and to demonstrate its scientific character. Do these studies have some positive results and resources for surviving in post-Soviet times? The chapter gives the overview of present situation in Ukrainian analytical studies of science and indicates some perspectives of their developments. Some of these are connected with a careful structure-nominative analysis (...) of real scientific knowledge systems and relations between them. -/- Ideology and philosophical studies of science Complexity of scientific knowledge systems Components and structures of knowledge systems -/- . (shrink)