Job Satisfaction: Are Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives Beneficial And Do Different Governance Structures Matter?

The non-financial benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives remain an understudied controversy in the literature.  We draw on elements of stakeholder theory to investigate the effect of multiple CSR initiatives on job satisfaction for a widespread set of medium-sized Canadian companies.  We explore this relationship further by focusing on the moderating effects of governance control structures.  Data on these variables is captured through the lens of CFO/controller perceptions because of their intimate governance gatekeeping over firms’ control structure/systems.  In this respect, we assume that CFOs are among the instrumental drivers in advancing an organization’s unfolding social consciousness.  Research findings in this study reveal the criticality of examining this linkage within the context of the performance-based versus conformance-based dimensions of an organization’s corporate governance control structure – two governance dimensions championed by the International Federation of Accountants (2009).  Results for low/high levels of performance-based control structures manifest different interaction configurations of statistically significant CSR variables that heighten job satisfaction.  However, significant interaction effects under low/high levels featuring compliance-based control structures are not forthcoming, despite the presence of significant main effects in the CSR/job satisfaction relationship.  These findings offer firms a more comprehensive practical understanding of benefits associated with investments in particular CSR strategies while grooming specific control structures, as well as offering researchers new control variables to model in the CSR domain.&nbsp

Determinants of Ethical Climate in the Firm:The Role of Governance Systems and Environmental Uncertainty

Corporate governance mechanisms essentially reside in the control structure/systems of most organizations and provide, theoretically at least, a conduit to support a better organizational ethical climate.  This linkage, however, has seldom been portrayed this way in the literature and, correspondingly, there are virtually no empirical studies to offer increased understanding, especially with respect to the professional accountant in practice.  Accordingly, this paper empirically assesses the governance mechanisms sanctioned by the International Federation of Accountants (2009) as determinants of an organization’s ethical climate based on evidence from a Canadian sample of CFOs/controllers.  The ethics/leadership literature relating to ethical climate provides the theoretical underpinnings while organizational contingency theory supports examining the moderating effects of perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU).   Increases in corporate governance control mechanisms are found to positively influence ethical climate.  A significant relationship persists under both low and high levels of PEU but, as expected, it is much stronger when the level of PEU is low – which raises concerns about how to embrace a stronger ethical climate when uncertainty is high.  This paper contributes to the governance and ethics literature by providing empirical evidence that normative directives on evaluating and improving governance in organizations from global accounting authorities, such as the IFAC, are effective in shaping firms’ ethical climates in practice

Does More Corporate Governance Enhance Managerial Performance: CFO Perceptions and the Role of Mindfulness

The results of studies into the effects of enhanced governance structures have been equivocal and there is virtually no literature on the performance effects of individual managers, such as the professional accountant in practice.  This paper reports the results of an empirical study designed to assess the relationship of governance structures, specifically the conformance and performance dimensions defined by the International Federation of Accountants (2009), to mindfulness and managerial performance among CFOs in Canadian firms.  Organizational theory describing high reliability organizations provides the theoretical framework for specifying and appraising capacity for mindfulness.  As predicted, there is no significant direct relationship between governance and managerial performance for the conformance dimension; instead, this relationship is explained by the path through capacity for mindfulness and on to managerial performance, both of which are positively significant.  Likewise, there is no significant relationship between governance and managerial performance for the conformance dimension; however, although there is a significant path between the performance dimension and capacity for mindfulness, the path from the latter to managerial performance is insignificant.  Implicating the powerful role of the controllability principle in accounting may explain this unexpected finding

The Influence of Ethical Leadership on Managerial Performance: Mediating Effects of Mindfulness and Corporate Social Responsibility

In a continuing world of corporate misdeeds and unscrupulous decision making, much of the management and academic literatures points to the incomplete knowledge of the consequences of ethics leadership.  One of the bastions of ethics gatekeeping in the firm is the CFO but remarkably scant information can be found on their perceptions concerning ethics leadership.  This study addresses this void by examining mindfulness and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives as new mediating linkages in comprehending the influence of ethics leadership on managerial performance.  Findings reveal that ethical leadership is positively associated with CSR initiatives which, in turn, operate to enhance managerial performance.  Simultaneously, ethical leadership manifests a significant positive relationship with mindfulness but, surprisingly, there is no corresponding relationship with managerial performance.  Instead, mindfulness indirectly influences managerial performance through the intervening effects on CSR initiatives.  These findings suggest that firms can acquire better managerial performance by focusing efforts on CSR strategies, bringing cognitive processes of mindfulness to bear on these actions, and grooming ethics leadership.  In addition, the results offer researchers new relationships to model in the leadership domain.

Consensus guidelines for the use and interpretation of angiogenesis assays

The formation of new blood vessels, or angiogenesis, is a complex process that plays important roles in growth and development, tissue and organ regeneration, as well as numerous pathological conditions. Angiogenesis undergoes multiple discrete steps that can be individually evaluated and quantified by a large number of bioassays. These independent assessments hold advantages but also have limitations. This article describes in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro bioassays that are available for the evaluation of angiogenesis and highlights critical aspects that are relevant for their execution and proper interpretation. As such, this collaborative work is the first edition of consensus guidelines on angiogenesis bioassays to serve for current and future reference

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Strategic Information Content And Performance: The Impact Of Management Accounting And Control System Changes

Research has revealed that different strategy content requires different planning and control systems to supply the requisite information.  Strategic typologies potentially allow managers to understand the mix of information systems needed to enhance firm performance.  This paper investigates the relationship between changes to the firm’s management accounting and control system and performance under different scenarios of strategic content using the Miles and Snow (1978) framework.  Data from Singapore companies is used to assess this relationship.  Results indicate a positive relationship for the three strategic types analyzed and, further, each type reveals a different configuration of components changes that comprise the management accounting and control system

Evidence of Method Effects in Budget-Related Behavior Research

Research has revealed numerous budget-related behavior (BRB) dimensions that describe managers’ actions and interactions with their budgetary control systems. This research has been conducted using a survey questionnaire methodology. However, those responding to the questionnaires may do so on a basis other than the specific item content. This paper uses a structural equation approach to investigate systematic response bias in BRB survey type research. Data from Singaporean companies is used to test for the presence of response bias and results confirm this expectation. The implication is that future studies in this context should investigate the structure and potential impact of response bias