A cross-cultural construct of the ethos of the corporate codes of ethics: Australia, Canada and Sweden

The objective of this paper is to develop and describe a construct of the ethos of the corporate codes of ethics (i.e. an ECCE construct) across three countries, namely Australia, Canada and Sweden. The introduced construct is rather unique as it is based on a cross-cultural sample seldom seen in the literature. While the outcome of statistical analyses indicated a satisfactory factor solution and acceptable estimates of reliability measures, some research limitations have been stressed. They provide a foundation for further research in the field and testing of the ECCE construct in other cultural and corporate settings. We believe that the ECCE construct makes a contribution to theory and practice in the field as it outlines a theoretical construct for the benefit of other researchers. It is also of managerial interest as it provides a grounded framework of areas to be considered in the implementation in organizations of corporate codes of ethics.

Corporate governance and corporate finance practices in a Kuwait Stock Exchange market listed firm: a survey to confront theory with practice

Purpose– This paper aims to explore the issue of corporate governance mechanisms by including the importance of stakeholders, primary objectives of the firm and the ownership of top financial managers of listed firms in Kuwait in the survey tool. It attempts to investigate whether theory aligns with the behaviour of financial managers in practice in an emerging market case.Design/methodology/approach– A survey was developed to focus primarily on the current corporate finance practices implemented by CFOs in listed companies in Kuwait. The target respondents are listed firms in the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange (KSE). The survey includes questions on topics that are closely related to capital budgeting, capital structure, cost of capital and dividend policy. For example, the survey asks the managers how they estimate their cost of equity (CAPM or other methods) and whether the impact of the weighted average cost of equity is taken into consideration in their capital structure choices.Findings– A surprising number of firms are now widely using IRR for decision making. CAPM is also in use, whereas WACC remains the most popular method used. There is some support for the “bird‐in‐hand” dividend theory in the tax‐free environment. Firms in Kuwait do not have any particular source of capital structure choices when it comes to how best to finance their projects as is the case in the US market. Firms in Kuwait are consciously striving for maximizing profits and those managers are regarded as their most important stakeholders. This may indicate the existence of agency problems.Research limitations/implications– The limitation of this study lies in the absence of empirical investigation on how corporate finance decisions may affect firms' performance in Kuwait. Hence, empirical validation will be performed by the authors in the next stage of this research, which will form the basis for further research. Empirical validation for the impact of corporate governance on performance is needed.Practical implications– This research may benefit managers and decision makers in many aspects, including having an understanding of applying popular and the most suitable corporate finance and corporate governance techniques in the management of their companies. In this research, the authors have identified the gap between practice and academia.Originality/value– To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine comprehensively major areas of financial policies and practices and corporate governance in an emerging market case, especially in the Middle East. Kuwait provides a unique institutional setting in its taxation system. Therefore, this study will make a contribution to the general literature in this field.

Intellectual capital disclosures and corporate governance: an empirical examination

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. Empirical examinations of the links between corporate governance and intellectual capital are underresearched, particularly from the context of emerging economies where corporate governance mechanisms tend to be largely ceremonial due to family dominance. This study aims to address this gap in the intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) literature by undertaking an empirical examination of the relationship between corporate governance and the extent of ICD of Bangladeshi companies. Inter alia, the key findings of this study suggest that there is a non-linear relationship between family ownership and the extent of ICD. This research also found that foreign ownership, board independence, and the presence of audit committees are positively associated with the extent of ICD. Conversely, family duality (i.e., where the positions of CEO and chairperson are occupied by two individuals from the same family) is negatively associated with the extent of ICD.

Compliance with corporate governance principles: Australian evidence

© 2015 Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal and Authors. This study investigates the association between the level of compliance of Australian listed companies with Australian corporate governance principles, in aggregate, and the level of discretionary accruals using the modified Jones model. It is hypothesised that higher levels of compliance would be associated with lower levels of discretionary accruals. Data from a random sample of 214 Australian listed companies for the years 2009 and 2010 were used to test the hypothesis. The results demonstrate a significant negative relationship indicating that companies with higher levels of compliance engage in lower levels of earnings management via discretionary accruals.

Acceptability of videoconference technology for the delivery of continuing education to rural pharmacists

Aim: To investigate whether a rural continuing education (CE) program delivered by videoconference can enhance access to, and uptake of, CE among pharmacists and determine their satisfaction with videoconference for the delivery of CE. Method: A postal survey was sent to 33 registered pharmacists in south-west Victoria and south-east South Australia who had attended at least one videoconference CE session organised in that region. Results: Respondents worked in different areas of pharmacy, and 40% worked in more than one area of pharmacy. The use of videoconference facilities has increased access to and participation in CE generally, and most participants (88%) have found it to be an acceptable medium for delivery. Increased access to high-quality CE opportunities, and reduced travel time for CE were seen as the principal benefits of the medium. Negative aspects included technical glitches, organisational issues, and the time-lag in voice transmission. Overall, most participants were happy to receive a substantial proportion of their contact CE using this medium. Conclusions: Videoconference technology is a valuable tool for the delivery of carefully structured CE sessions in rural and remote areas with an appropriate information technology infrastructure.

Securities lending, empty voting and corporate governance

This paper examines the corporate governance implications of securities loans, in particular the impact of securities loans on shareholders' voting rights and the control of listed Australian companies. The paper considers whether the current regulatory framework for securities loans in Australia adequately addresses the concerns associated with securities loans and whether reform is required in order to protect the interests of shareholders in listed Australian companies and to ensure that the governance of these companies is not undermined by securities loans.

Securities lending, empty voting and corporate governance

This paper examines the corporate governance implications of securities loans, in particular the impact of securities loans on shareholders’ voting rights and the control of listed Australian companies. The paper considers whether the current regulatory framework for securities loans in Australia adequately addresses the concerns associated with securities loans and whether reform is required in order to protect the interests of shareholders in listed Australian companies and to ensure that the governance of these companies is not undermined by securities loans.

Investment opportunity set, corporate governance practices and firm performance

Prior research on the relationship between corporate controls and firm performance is premised on the notion that, in theory, there is direct association between corporate governance and firm performance. However, extensive research has produced mixed and often weak results. In this paper, we posit, as a primary relationship, a negative association between growth and firm performance and then examine whether corporate governance variables moderate this negative relationship. Our results support this notion and show that the role of corporate governance variables in firm performance should be evaluated in the context of the firm’s external environment measured in this study in terms of growth opportunities.

On the race of worms and patches: modeling the spread of information in wireless sensor networks

Sensor networks are a branch of distributed ad hoc networks with a broad range of applications in surveillance and environment monitoring. In these networks, message exchanges are carried out in a multi-hop manner. Due to resource constraints, security professionals often use lightweight protocols, which do not provide adequate security. Even in the absence of constraints, designing a foolproof set of protocols and codes is almost impossible. This leaves the door open to the worms that take advantage of the vulnerabilities to propagate via exploiting the multi-hop message exchange mechanism. This issue has drawn the attention of security researchers recently. In this paper, we investigate the propagation pattern of information in wireless sensor networks based on an extended theory of epidemiology. We develop a geographical susceptible-infective model for this purpose and analytically derive the dynamics of information propagation. Compared with the previous models, ours is more realistic and is distinguished by two key factors that had been neglected before: 1) the proposed model does not purely rely on epidemic theory but rather binds it with geometrical and spatial constraints of real-world sensor networks and 2) it extends to also model the spread dynamics of conflicting information (e.g., a worm and its patch). We do extensive simulations to show the accuracy of our model and compare it with the previous ones. The findings show the common intuition that the infection source is the best location to start patching from, which is not necessarily right. We show that this depends on many factors, including the time it takes for the patch to be developed, worm/patch characteristics as well as the shape of the network.

Influencing girls' interest in information technology

The lack of skilled labour that can support digital economies is a worldwide problem, exacerbated by the lack of female participation in the Information Technology (IT) industry. Interventions that promote IT study and career opportunities for girls can be a powerful means to counter the ongoing decline in IT interest amongst females. However, the impact of such interventions is rarely being evaluated. This study is, therefore, aimed at gaining insights into the influence on IT career perceptions of one IT intervention event for secondary school girls conducted in Australia in 2014. The analysis of comprehensive survey data (n=781) using the Partial Least Squares and other statistical techniques revealed that a positive attitude toward the analysed event had significant direct and indirect positive impacts on girls' intentions to choose a career in IT. The indirect influence was supported by such mediating factors as girls' self-efficacy towards IT careers and their intentions to learn more about IT, which the event affected directly. In addition to reporting on the results of testing the research model, further insights into girls' opinions and attitudes towards the intervention and IT in general are provided in the paper.