Bowlin and Herda Fort Abercrombie Article, 2015

A photocopy of the article is included

Relationship between religious beliefs and the accounting and economic practices of a society: evidence from the Dead Sea scrolls

This study explores the Dead Sea Scrolls to demonstrate how Essene socio-religious values shaped their accounting and economic practices during the late Second Temple period (ca. first century BCE to 70 CE). Our primary focus is on the accounting and commercial responsibilities of a leader within their community †“ the Examiner. We contend that certain sectarian accounting practices may be understood as ritual/religious ceremony and address the performative roles of the Essenes\u27 accounting and business procedures in light of their purity laws and eschatological beliefs. Far from being antithetical to religious beliefs, we find that accounting actually enabled the better practice and monitoring of religious behavior. We add to the literature on the interaction of religion with the structures and practices of accounting and regulation within a society

The effects of organizational fairness and commitment on the extent of benefits big four alumni provide their former firm

In this paper, we examine why some Big Four alumni more than others choose to benefit their former firm (post-employment citizenship). Grounded in social exchange theory, we find that organizational fairness predicts perceived organizational support, which in turn predicts organizational commitment. Organizational commitment predicts post-employment citizenship, and perceived organizational support and organizational commitment partially mediate the positive relationship between organizational fairness and post-employment citizenship. The contributions, limitations, and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

The Effect of Board Independence on the Sustainability Reporting Practices of Large U.S. Firms \

As sustainability reporting becomes more commonplace, it is important to understand the factors that influence firms’ voluntary reporting decisions. This exploratory study examines whether board independence affects the sustainability reporting decisions of the 500 largest firms in the United States. We also investigate other factors that may be associated with sustainability reporting, including environmental performance and reputation. We find that firms with a greater proportion of independent board members are: 1) more likely to publish standalone sustainability reports, and 2) more likely to publish higher quality sustainability reports. This paper contributes to prior literature that reports somewhat mixed results on the effect of board independence on voluntary disclosure

Customer injustice and employee performance: Roles of emotional exhaustion, surface acting, and emotional demands–abilities fit

This paper develops and tests a process model examining the sequential mediating roles of emotional exhaustion and surface acting on the relationships between employee perceptions of unfair treatment from customers and three forms of employee performance: in-role performance, customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCBC), and customer-oriented counterproductive work behavior (CWBC). In Study 1, we found support for our model demonstrating that the relationships between customer injustice and supervisor ratings of employees’ in-role performance and OCBC are each sequentially mediated first by emotional exhaustion and then by surface acting. In Study 2, using time-lagged data, we found additional support for our sequential mediation process when predicting CWBC. Moreover, we found that emotional demands–abilities fit moderated the sequential indirect effect of customer injustice on CWBC. Implications for research and practice are discussed