Birds of a Feather Flocking Together: Sustainability of Tax Aggressiveness of Shared Directors from Coercive Isomorphism

The purpose of the study is to examine the sustainability of the tax aggressiveness of shared directors from coercive isomorphism and whether social networks of directors have an impact on their tax aggressiveness. Specifically, the study intends to examine how tax knowledge diffuses across firms and how this knowledge diffusion affects connected firms. To test the constructed hypothesis, the panel logistic regression model is estimated using a firm-level panel dataset for the US and Pakistan to analyze cross-country differences, as the USA holds more legislation and effective governance mechanisms. The study covers the period of 2007–2019. The data required for the empirical analysis was collected from the Thompson Reuters database. The results of panel logistic regression show a significant relationship between tax aggressiveness and director’s connections, suggesting that information diffuses by board interlocks. Specifically, the estimates suggest that there is a positive and significant influence of connected directors on the probability that the tax aggressiveness spreads through coercive isomorphism, inferring that the sustainability of the tax aggressiveness of shared directors from coercive isomorphism is strong. Findings reveal that Pakistani firms, when compared to the USA, are more likely involved in tax aggression because of fewer legislations and tax reforms. The results also reveal that coercive isomorphism significantly mediates the relationship between board interlocks and tax aggressiveness. These findings provide valuable insights into detecting the tax aggressiveness of firms and the channels through which this spread. The study contributes to the scarce research on the impact of board interlocks on tax aggressiveness and the influence of coercive isomorphism on these impacts. This study can help tax authorities in identifying tax-saving strategies through connected directors. Secondly, this study provides empirical evidence to support the diffusion of information regarding tax aggression and provides mechanisms with which to detect tax aggression. Third, our choice of empirical context also helps us contribute to the management practice of firms. CEOs and boards should be wary of interlocks with organizations, lest they inadvertently become reticent and hence prove to be of no good.

More than a snapshot: dynamic value-in-use emergence in e-services

Supporting consumers’ value-in-use (ViU) emergence throughout a usage process has become increasingly challenging as, in today’s environment, usage has shifted from discrete events to continuous e-service interactions. Although researchers acknowledge that ViU is dynamic and evolves over time, most studies treat it as a static concept. Using the empirical context of language learning applications, the authors adopt a dynamic perspective on e-service ViU and extend it with regulatory mode theory using a qualitative approach. By applying the underlying functions of self-regulation: locomotion and assessment, the authors investigate how ViU emerges throughout a usage process and establish an eight-stage ViU emergence process, ranging from initial trigger to termination. By examining a consumer’s usage, assessments, and movements, practitioners can pinpoint a consumer’s location in the ViU emergence process and take appropriate measures to further promote ViU emergence in e-services.

“Mo” Together or Alone? Investigating the Role of Fundraisers’ Networks in Online Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

In online peer-to-peer fundraising, individual fundraisers, acting on behalf of nonprofit organizations, mobilize their social networks using social media to request donations. Whereas existing studies focus on networks of donors to explain success, we examine the role of the networks of fundraisers and their effect on fundraising outcomes. By drawing on social capital and network theories, we investigate how social capital derived from social media networks and fundraising groups explains individual fundraising success. Using the Movember health campaign on Twitter as an empirical context, we find that fundraising success is associated with a moderate level of centrality in social media networks and moderate group network size. In addition, we find that fundraisers interact only marginally on social media but prefer to connect with each other outside these platforms and engage in group fundraising. Our article contributes to research on fundraising and social networks and provides recommendations for practice.

Learning by Connecting: How Rule Networks Evolve Through Discovery of Relevance

Learning-by-connecting, the formation of connections between lessons, is a fairly common phenomenon, but how does it evolve? We argue that learning-by-connecting unfolds as the relevance of lessons to other lessons is gradually discovered over time. The process of “relevance discovery” unfolds through a dynamic interplay between lessons and their context that provides opportunities to discover the relevance of lessons to other lessons. We develop a theoretical model in which the availability of these opportunities and their sorting in time drive the formation of connections. We explore and test our model in the context of organizational rules that we conceptualize, following rule-based learning theories, as repositories of lessons learned. Our empirical context is the formation of citation ties between clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), a type of organizational rules in healthcare, in a Canadian regional healthcare organization. We find that citation tie formation intensifies when opportunities to discover relevance become available. We also find that learning-by-connecting creates rule networks in which the formation of new ties slows down due to the sorting of opportunities in time. Our findings support our assumption that learning-by-connecting is shaped by relevance discovery. Our study extends models of rule-based learning and contributes to discussions on the formation of connections in contexts of dispersed learning and knowledge.

Understanding heuristics-based financial decision-making using behavioral portfolio strategies

PurposeThrough a portfolio choice model, the study empirically examines the influence of the heuristic simplification through peak-end rule (PER) and the associated neglect of the duration of the experience. The portfolio strategy adopted involves optimizing portfolios to capture the impact of heuristic-driven investors' experience of good and bad states. The study attempts to validate PER in an empirical context and is expected to generate trading rules, which would exploit pricing errors emerging out of the use of heuristics by investors.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical approach adopted in the study primarily examines returns to portfolios sorted according to various hedonic evaluation rules. Behavioral portfolios are constructed using hedonic experiences as conditioning variables.FindingsThe results imply that there is continued investor demand for such assets in the short run. An equal weight portfolio based on a three-month hedonic evaluation earns an average monthly return of 2.77% over the next 12 months.Originality/valueThe authors’ study may perhaps be the first attempt to use the peak-end heuristic in portfolio construction.

Fellow Traveller Versus Moral Stranger: How Overall Views of Offenders Impact on Punishment and Rehabilitation Decisions

<p>Theoretical discussions have proposed that opinions relating to offenders can be viewed along a continuum, with the moral stranger at one end and the fellow traveller at the other (Connolly & Ward, 2008). At the very basic level the moral stranger is the offender who is a bad person, while the fellow traveller is the offender who has done a bad thing. It is proposed that where an individual’s view of offenders sits on the continuum will help determine punishment and rehabilitation decisions that they make about offenders. It is further proposed that these views are influenced by outside factors such as the way that the media portrays offenders. The media is an important source of information on crime and offenders (Gilliam & Iyengar, 2000; Klite, Bardwell, & Salzman, 1997), and so the way that the media write about offenders can influence the public’s opinions about offenders. The moral stranger and the fellow traveller are theoretical concepts at present, so the aim of the current research was to investigate these concepts in an empirical context. Firstly, Studies 1 and 2 presented crime vignettes written from either the moral stranger perspective or the fellow traveller perspective and then investigated what punishment and rehabilitation differences there were. Study 3 then developed a measure to evaluate individuals’ opinions about offenders, to create an empirical basis for the existing theory. The Opinions about Criminal Offenders (OCO) Scale was developed in Study 3. Study 4 then tested the psychometric properties of this Scale, and through further factor analysis the scale was pared down to 12-items made up of four subscales. Study 5 then brought together the empirical work from Studies 1 and 2 and the developed measure from Studies 3 and 4. Participants were presented with two vignettes, one written from a subjective view and the other from an objective view. They were also given the 12-item OCO Scale. Structural Equation Modelling was then used to extend the work of Studies 1 and 2, and to further develop the decision making process individuals go through. Results indicated that each subscale of the OCO predicted different judgements made about the offender, in terms of his characteristics and likelihood of reoffending, and that these judgements then predicted different judgements about the outcome of the offence, including punishment motive. These studies, together, show that the moral stranger and fellow traveller concepts do exist, as a continuum, and the development of the OCO Scale showed that there is utility in the scale in terms of the type of judgements made about an offender and an offence. The current study was conducted with a sex offence in the vignettes and so further research needs to extend this by using different offence types and different offender characteristics, to investigate how generalisable these findings are.</p>

Fellow Traveller Versus Moral Stranger: How Overall Views of Offenders Impact on Punishment and Rehabilitation Decisions

<p>Theoretical discussions have proposed that opinions relating to offenders can be viewed along a continuum, with the moral stranger at one end and the fellow traveller at the other (Connolly & Ward, 2008). At the very basic level the moral stranger is the offender who is a bad person, while the fellow traveller is the offender who has done a bad thing. It is proposed that where an individual’s view of offenders sits on the continuum will help determine punishment and rehabilitation decisions that they make about offenders. It is further proposed that these views are influenced by outside factors such as the way that the media portrays offenders. The media is an important source of information on crime and offenders (Gilliam & Iyengar, 2000; Klite, Bardwell, & Salzman, 1997), and so the way that the media write about offenders can influence the public’s opinions about offenders. The moral stranger and the fellow traveller are theoretical concepts at present, so the aim of the current research was to investigate these concepts in an empirical context. Firstly, Studies 1 and 2 presented crime vignettes written from either the moral stranger perspective or the fellow traveller perspective and then investigated what punishment and rehabilitation differences there were. Study 3 then developed a measure to evaluate individuals’ opinions about offenders, to create an empirical basis for the existing theory. The Opinions about Criminal Offenders (OCO) Scale was developed in Study 3. Study 4 then tested the psychometric properties of this Scale, and through further factor analysis the scale was pared down to 12-items made up of four subscales. Study 5 then brought together the empirical work from Studies 1 and 2 and the developed measure from Studies 3 and 4. Participants were presented with two vignettes, one written from a subjective view and the other from an objective view. They were also given the 12-item OCO Scale. Structural Equation Modelling was then used to extend the work of Studies 1 and 2, and to further develop the decision making process individuals go through. Results indicated that each subscale of the OCO predicted different judgements made about the offender, in terms of his characteristics and likelihood of reoffending, and that these judgements then predicted different judgements about the outcome of the offence, including punishment motive. These studies, together, show that the moral stranger and fellow traveller concepts do exist, as a continuum, and the development of the OCO Scale showed that there is utility in the scale in terms of the type of judgements made about an offender and an offence. The current study was conducted with a sex offence in the vignettes and so further research needs to extend this by using different offence types and different offender characteristics, to investigate how generalisable these findings are.</p>

Weberian Bureaucracy

The term Weberian bureaucracy refers to Max Weber’s (1864–1920) ideal type (or model) of rational bureaucracy, published in Economy and Society posthumously in 1921/22 by his wife Marianne Weber. His ideal type of bureaucracy consists of a number of organizational features of administrative order. At the ideal type’s core lies a hierarchically structured, professional, rule-bound, impersonal, meritocratic, and disciplined body of public servants who possess a specific set of competences and who operate outside the sphere of politics. An ideal type is an analytical construct against which to contrast empirical observations. Weber never meant it to be a descriptive nor a prescriptive account of how bureaucracy should be. Weberian bureaucracy is part of his broader sociology and must therefore be understood as part of its methodological, theoretical, and empirical context. The model is not an isolated concept; it derives from Weber’s historical analysis of modernization and the emergence of the rational state, and serves as the epitome of it. To Weber, modernization and people’s corresponding transformed worldviews were preconditions for rational rule and inevitably led to rational bureaucracy. Weber’s rationalization thesis draws from his sociology of rule, which comprises three types of authority: charismatic, traditional, and rational. Weber wrote in dynamic historical times. His bürgerlicher (bourgeois) background and his politically liberal stance contributed to the model’s normative objective of keeping administration out of democratic politics. The model received immense scholarly attention. Due to its simplicity and how catchy it was, the model was prone to become a stereotype, which is exactly what happened. In post–World War II public administration literature, Weber’s model was made into the scapegoat for unfashionable bureaucracy based on hierarchy and red tape. The model’s reception was not only negative because of de-contextualized reading and misinterpretation. There were also serious criticisms regarding the model itself, including claims of empirical inaccuracy. Twenty-first-century attempts to launch a neo-Weberian approach in Public Administration have not yet eclipsed the stereotypical use of Weber. Weber’s legacy as an intellectual giant of 20th-century social sciences is best served if 21st-century Public Administration scholarship treats the model as what it actually is—an integral part of a historical scholarly masterpiece, not an analytical or normative guideline for the study and design of early 21st-century administrative praxis.