Risk Disclosure and Re-establishing Legitimacy in the Event of a Crisis - Did Northern Rock Use Risk Disclosure to Repair Legitimacy after their 2007 Collapse?

Banks are exposed to a wide range of risk in their every day operation and in response to this they have developed various tools and strategies in order to help avoid, measure, or manage these risks. These tools and strategies are not always successful which has lead to several well publicised crises including amongst others the Barings bank collapse, Allfirst fraud, Santander fraud and more recently the collapse of Northern Rock and its subsequent nationalisation. In order for society to permit their operation firms require legitimacy, where by its actions must conform to cultural and social norms (Suchman 1995). Legitimacy and trust are vitally important and central to bank operations (Linsley and Kajuter 2008) therefore society is more likely to hold them to account (Ashforth and Gibbs 1990), meaning that in the occurrence of an legitimacy adverse risk event or crisis a banking organisation must enact strategies in order to repair and re-establish trust. Whilst legitimacy theory and the use of voluntary disclosures as part of a strategy for restoring organisational legitimacy and reputation has received academic attention (Linsley and Kajuter 2008) there has been limited research on banking disclosures (Linsley and Shrives 2006) and even less done on disclosures issued as a response to an adverse risk event or crisis. The only previous study in this area (see Linsley and Kajuter 2008) focused solely on disclosures located in the annual report but in the concluding remarks identified that the annual report is not the only risk disclosure vehicle and that future research should consider looking at disclosures issued through alternative communication methods. This study therefore will be on the use of disclosures in alternative communication methods (as suggested by Linsley and Kajuter (2008)) in the event of an organisational crisis. The research will aim to add to the still evolving academic understanding of the use of risk disclosure, as well as any part it may play in organisational legitimacy repairing strategies. This exploratory research may also help to identify possible new areas for further study. 3 This study will attempt to achieve these aims by comparing and contrasting Northern Rock Plc‘s before and after their spectacular collapse in 2007 to identify any changes in their risk disclosure in press releases, which have been highlighted as a potential candidate for research in past studies (see Lebar 1982) that, as with most others, have focused on disclosures solely in the annual report. The Northern Rock Plc collapse caused by the lack of wholesale market finance resulting from the 2007 subprime crisis was widely reported and caused substantial damage to the banks legitimacy. The study will first compare press release disclosures in the periods before and after the crisis, and if any changes are found then it will attempt to identify whether the changes were part of a strategy formulated to re-legitimise the bank or not. First the chapter comprises a review of the existing risk, risk disclosure and legitimacy theory literature as well as a definition of key concepts and background to Northern Rock and its legitimacy crisis. Secondly, the research methods are explained, hypotheses developed and choice of press releases for the basis of the study is justified. Finally, the results are analysed and finally conclusions are drawn and suggestions for further research are made

The Challenge of Managing Modern Complex Projects

This paper presents a review of the most significant contributions on the topic of project complexity. It sets this review within the context of the development of project management as a topic receiving increased attention from both academe and practitioners. Following this review, a proposed framework of project complexity is presented alongside a more granular componentry of project complexity derived from work published by the UK's National Audit Office. The proposed framework is then tested via application to a live case study that is proffered as being a case of project complexity. The purpose of the paper is to present a coherent argument for what can be understood to make a project complex with the paper being the first phase in a research project that seeks to understand what expert project practitioners see as making projects complex and how these experts approach the management of such projects

Evaluating the Due Process and Crime Control Perspectives Using Rasch Measurement Analysis

Background:  The biases jurors possess may influence everything from the interpretation of case evidence to impressions of the defendant to, ultimately, verdict and recognition of this has led to a number of juror attitude scales attempting to tap into important biases.  A common ideology discussed in legal research is that individuals attitudes toward the law and the legal system differ along a continuum moving from due process (a concern for the preservation of individual rights) to crime control (a focus on swift and harsh punishment for those who break the law) although an agreed upon assessment of these perspectives has yet to be created.  Purpose:  The current research addresses due process and crime control perspectives and uses the ideology as a source for a new measure of juror bias: The General Attitudes toward the Legal System (GALS) scale. Setting:  Not applicable. Intervention:  Not applicable. Research Design: The GALS scale was constructed based on existing theory and administered to nearly 700 undergraduate psychology students at a large Midwestern university. The psychometric properties of the instrument were then evaluated to determine instrument quality.  Data Collection and Analysis:  The Rasch Rating Scale Model (RRSM) was used to evaluate the psychometric properties of the GALS. Evaluation focused on six characteristics of the instrument: dimensionality, reliability, rating scale quality, item quality, item hierarchy, and measure quality. Findings:  Results indicate the GALS is a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring juror bias. Keywords: juror decision making; juror bias; scale development; instrument validation; psychometric evaluatio

The multiplicity of value in the front-end of projects: The case of London transportation infrastructure

There is growing interest in the ways that value is understood in the context of projects and within project-based settings. Recent studies emphasise the multiplicity of project value in various project settings as perceived by different project actors. Drawing on previous work on project value and project front-end, this study expands on the idea of multiplicity of project value in the early project definition phase. To this end, the study draws from empirical data on infrastructure projects provision, including semi-structured interviews with a set of highly experienced and senior level informants with extensive knowledge and familiarity of infrastructure project planning and front-end decision making. The study is bounded with a focus on London, UK as an example of a complex, highly established global city with a great reliance on its infrastructure and a well-established projects ecology. Through inductive qualitative data analysis the study explores the role of infrastructure projects as solutions to policy problems, the multiple and complex nature of value in project definition and identifies three value levels, which are instrumental for project definition: local value, sector value and user value. The multi-level value framework in the project front-end extends and complements early decision making in planning and setting up of infrastructure projects

The Innocent Defendant\u27s Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study of Plea Bargaining\u27s Innocence Problem

In this Article, Professors Dervan and Edkins discuss a recent psychological study they completed regarding plea bargaining and innocence. The study, involving dozens of college students and taking place over several months, revealed that more than half of the innocent participants were willing to falsely admit guilt in return for a benefit. These research findings bring significant new insights to the long-standing debate regarding the extent of plea bargaining’s innocence problem. The Article also discusses the history of bargained justice and examines the constitutional implications of the study’s results on plea bargaining, an institution the Supreme Court reluctantly approved of in 1970 in return for an assurance that it would not be used to induce innocent defendants to falsely admit guilt

The Innocent Defendant\u27s Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study of Plea Bargaining\u27s Innocence Problem

In this Article, Professors Dervan and Edkins discuss a recent psychological study they completed regarding plea bargaining and innocence. The study, involving dozens of college students and taking place over several months, revealed that more than half of the innocent participants were willing to falsely admit guilt in return for a benefit. These research findings bring significant new insights to the long-standing debate regarding the extent of plea bargaining’s innocence problem. The Article also discusses the history of bargained justice and examines the constitutional implications of the study’s results on plea bargaining, an institution the Supreme Court reluctantly approved of in 1970 in return for an assurance that it would not be used to induce innocent defendants to falsely admit guilt

The Innocent Defendant\u27s Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study of Plea Bargaining\u27s Innocence Problem

In this Article, Professors Dervan and Edkins discuss a recent psychological study they completed regarding plea bargaining and innocence. The study, involving dozens of college students and taking place over several months, revealed that more than half of the innocent participants were willing to falsely admit guilt in return for a benefit. These research findings bring significant new insights to the long-standing debate regarding the extent of plea bargaining’s innocence problem. The Article also discusses the history of bargained justice and examines the constitutional implications of the study’s results on plea bargaining, an institution the Supreme Court reluctantly approved of in 1970 in return for an assurance that it would not be used to induce innocent defendants to falsely admit guilt

The Innocent Defendant\u27s Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study of Plea Bargaining\u27s Innocence Problem

In this Article, Professors Dervan and Edkins discuss a recent psychological study they completed regarding plea bargaining and innocence. The study, involving dozens of college students and taking place over several months, revealed that more than half of the innocent participants were willing to falsely admit guilt in return for a benefit. These research findings bring significant new insights to the long-standing debate regarding the extent of plea bargaining’s innocence problem. The Article also discusses the history of bargained justice and examines the constitutional implications of the study’s results on plea bargaining, an institution the Supreme Court reluctantly approved of in 1970 in return for an assurance that it would not be used to induce innocent defendants to falsely admit guilt

The Innocent Defendant\u27s Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study of Plea Bargaining\u27s Innocence Problem

In this Article, Professors Dervan and Edkins discuss a recent psychological study they completed regarding plea bargaining and innocence. The study, involving dozens of college students and taking place over several months, revealed that more than half of the innocent participants were willing to falsely admit guilt in return for a benefit. These research findings bring significant new insights to the long-standing debate regarding the extent of plea bargaining’s innocence problem. The Article also discusses the history of bargained justice and examines the constitutional implications of the study’s results on plea bargaining, an institution the Supreme Court reluctantly approved of in 1970 in return for an assurance that it would not be used to induce innocent defendants to falsely admit guilt