Despite regulatory reforms aimed at inhibiting aggressive financial reporting, earnings management persists and continues to concern practitioners, regulators, and standard setters. To provide insight into this practice and how to mitigate it, we conduct an experiment to examine the impact of two independent variables on CFOs’ discretionary expense accruals. One independent variable, incentive conflict, is manipulated at two levels —i.e., the presence or absence of a personal financial incentive that conflicts with a corporate financial incentive. The other independent variable is (...) CFOs’ earnings management ethics, measured as their assessment of the ethicalness of key earnings management motivations. We find that incentive conflict and EM-Ethics interact to determine CFOs’ discretionary accruals such that in the presence of incentive conflict, CFOs with low EM-Ethics tend to give into the personal incentive by booking higher expense accruals; and in the absence of an incentive conflict, CFOs with low EM-Ethics tend to give into the corporate incentive by booking lower expense accruals. We also find support for a mediated-moderation model in which CFOs’ level of EM-Ethics influences their moral disengagement tendencies which, in turn, differentially affect their discretionary accruals, depending on the presence or absence of incentive conflict. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Behavioral ethics research has focused predominantly on how the attributes of individuals influence their ethicality. Relatively neglected has been how macro-level factors such as the behavior of firms influence members’ ethicality. Researchers have noted specifically that we know little about how a firm’s CSR influences members’ behaviors. We seek to better merge these literatures and gain a deeper understanding of the role macro-level influences have on manager’s ethicality. Based on agency theory and social identity theory, we hypothesize that a company’s (...) commitment to CSR shifts managers’ focus away from self-interests toward the interests of the firm, bolstering resistance to temptation. We propose this occurs through self-categorization and collective identification processes. We conduct a 2 × 2 factorial experiment in which managers make expense decisions for a company with commitment to CSR either present or absent, and temptation either present or absent. Results indicate that under temptation, managers make decisions consistent with self-interest. More importantly, we find when commitment to CSR is present, managers are more likely to make ethical decisions in the presence of temptation. Overall, this research highlights the interactive role of two key contextual factors—temptation and firm CSR commitment—in influencing managers’ ethical decisions. While limited research has highlighted the positive effects that a firm’s CSR has on its employees’ attitudes, the current results demonstrate CSR’s effects on ethical behavior and imply that through conducting and communicating its CSR efforts internally, firms can in part limit the deleterious effects of temptation on managers’ decisions. (shrink)

This study examines how taxpayer support for government spending can improve tax compliance. While there is ample evidence on the deterrent effect of audit probability on taxpayer noncompliance, there is no evidence related to the moderating role that taxpayer support may have on compliance behavior. We also examine the moderating role that taxpayer ethics plays in compliance decisions. Results of our study indicate that the level of taxpayer support influences taxpayer compliance decisions, in that those with greater support for how (...) tax dollars are spent report higher amounts of taxable income. In addition, we find that audit probability influences taxpayer compliance decisions when there is support for the government’s use of tax dollars for non-welfare programs, such as defense. However, for welfare programs, such as healthcare, taxpayer support leads to increased compliance regardless of audit rate. When taxpayers do not support government programs, their compliance is lower regardless of the audit probability. This highlights the importance of gaining taxpayer support for government programs and indicates that attempts to align the interests of taxpayers with those of the government may increase voluntary compliance among taxpayers. Finally, we find that taxpayer ethics influences compliance such that, for individuals who have lower ethical standards, a high audit rate as well as support for a program may be necessary to improve compliance behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Eternal Order I believed in a personal God, who created the beav ens and earth and all contained therein; in a personal devil, who had once been an angel, but had become evil through an avaricious ambition; in a literal heaven, and hell; that at death one went to one or the other of those places, eternally. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is (...) a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's rationale for supporting the development and approval of BiDil for heart failure specifically in black patients was based on under-powered, post hoc subgroup analyses of two relatively old trials , which were further complicated by substantial covariate imbalances between racial groups. Indeed, the only statistically significant difference observed between black and white patients was found without any adjustment for potential confounders in samples that were unlikely to have been adequately randomized. Meanwhile, because the accepted (...) baseline therapy for heart failure has substantially improved since these trials took place, their results cannot be combined with data from the more recent trial amongst black patients alone. There is therefore little scientific evidence to support the approval of BiDil only for use in black patients, and the FDA's rationale fails to consider the ethical consequences of recognizing racial categories as valid markers of innate biological difference, and permitting the development of group-specific therapies that are subject to commercial incentives rather than scientific evidence or therapeutic imperatives. This paper reviews the limitations in the scientific evidence used to support the approval of BiDil only for use in black patients; calls for further analysis of the V-HeFT I and II data which might clarify whether responses to H-I vary by race; and evaluates the consequences of commercial incentives to develop racialized medicines. We recommend that the FDA revise the procedures they use to examine applications for race-based therapies to ensure that these are based on robust scientific claims and do not undermine the aims of the 1992 Revitalization Act. (shrink)

Researchers of advanced technologies are constantly seeking new ways of measuring and adapting to user performance. Appropriately adapting system feedback requires accurate assessments of user performance. Unfortunately, many assessment algorithms must be trained on and use pre‐prepared data sets or corpora to provide a sufficiently accurate portrayal of user knowledge and behavior. However, if the targeted content of the tutoring system changes depending on the situation, the assessment algorithms must be sufficiently independent to apply to untrained content. Such is the (...) case for Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking (iSTART), an intelligent tutoring system that assesses the cognitive complexity of strategy use while a reader self‐explains a text. iSTART is designed so that teachers and researchers may add their own (new) texts into the system. The current paper explores student self‐explanations from newly added texts (which iSTART had not been trained on) and focuses on evaluating the iSTART assessment algorithm by comparing it to human ratings of the students’ self‐explanations. (shrink)

This essay offers a set of personal reflections on the relation of creature consciousness to the general philosophical issues of knowledge. morality. and humannature.

This paper describes a method and a practical exercise that offers students a glimpse of everyday enlightenment by using Socrates’ technique of questioning, Plato’s account of the ascent to the form of the good, along with an aspect of Buddha’s Eight Fold Path. The practical exercise prompts students to consider the form of honesty by considering what honesty is for them. The exercise then proceeds to a discussion of how they know they are honest and what rules one must follow (...) to be honest. With this initial account of honesty, the paper then details a set of “proto-philosophical questions” that challenges the student to further articulate their account of honesty, to compare it to dishonesty, and to contextualize it by imagining themselves as the victim of deception or as a deceiver. (shrink)

Three Traditions of Greek Political Thought: Plato in Dialogue is an analysis of the emergence of Western philosophical and political thought in archaic and classical Greece. With particular focus on Plato, this book is an in-depth study of the contentious dialogue in classical political philosophy.

This study reopens the question of the nature of political commitment and its causes during a time that drastically altered the history of the 20th century, the 1920s and 1930s. Focused largely on a body of texts produced by Japanese female writer Miyamoto Yuriko who returned from a three-year long trip to the Soviet Union in late 1920s as a convinced communist, the study offers a comparison with communism renunciation writings produced by leftist Romanian French writer Panait Istrati, as well (...) as other communist and fellow travelers who experienced the same Soviet realities as Miyamoto but with opposite outcomes, such as French writer André Gide. What made those members of the intelligentsia so passionately embrace or renounce certain political ideologies that ultimately changed the face of modern history? (shrink)

This study reopens the question of the nature of political commitment and its causes during a time that drastically altered the history of the 20th century, the 1920s and 1930s. Focused largely on a body of texts produced by Japanese female writer Miyamoto Yuriko (1899-1951) who returned from a three-year long trip to the Soviet Union in late 1920s as a convinced communist, the study offers a comparison with communism renunciation writings produced by leftist Romanian French writer Panait Istrati (1894-1935), (...) as well as other communist and fellow travelers who experienced the same Soviet realities as Miyamoto but with opposite outcomes, such as French writer André Gide (1869-1951). What made those members of the intelligentsia so passionately embrace or renounce certain political ideologies that ultimately changed the face of modern history? (shrink)

This paper describes a method and a practical exercise that offers students a glimpse of everyday enlightenment by using Socrates’ technique of questioning, Plato’s account of the ascent to the form of the good, along with an aspect of Buddha’s Eight Fold Path. The practical exercise prompts students to consider the form of honesty by considering what honesty is for them. The exercise then proceeds to a discussion of how they know they are honest and what rules one must follow (...) to be honest. With this initial account of honesty, the paper then details a set of “proto-philosophical questions” that challenges the student to further articulate their account of honesty, to compare it to dishonesty, and to contextualize it by imagining themselves as the victim of deception or as a deceiver. (shrink)

Before the Apology trial by five hundred of his fellow Athenians, Socrates is put on trial by a close associate, Alcibiades, in the Symposium. The first trial prefigures or echoes the second, famous one. The speeches on love that precede the entrance of Alcibiades, especially Socrates's speech—in which he discloses instructions on love given to him by Diotima—is the basis on which Socrates should be judged. Because the jury for this trial does not render a verdict, I assume the role (...) of a juror. If I were a modern prospective juror, I might not pass voir dire; though, like Alcibiades, I have been a lover of Socrates, I have become disenchanted with him because I find no evidence that he examined his own life in the... (shrink)

This study reports the results of a survey of 405 high school students in a school district in the western United States. The data were used to determine why so many students take only the minimal science required for graduation. Key areas addressed included how science is taught; science literacy; science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); science, technology, and society (STS); and who influences students to take science. Results were directed at how to motivate more students to continue science study (...) beyond the required courses and how to improve the prospect of more students choosing STEM majors in higher education. Key conclusions included that no new science courses are needed to increase enrollments, but existing courses need to be taught differently, specifically with more labs and activities that create more interest and relevance for students. Furthermore, students need more awareness of good reasons for taking science. Last, science instruction must improve. (shrink)

Complementary and alternative medicine research presents unique problems for research ethics committees which must be considered in some detail. Applying conventional research techniques to CAM raises a number of issues which ethics committees may find challenging. CAM is widely available and this will have a substantial effect on any proposed research strategy as so many individuals will have pre-existing opinions about these treatments. Whilst many complementary therapies may eventually be ‘validated’ by appropriate clinical trial methodologies other research methods could be (...) more appropriate in the early stages of a research strategy, particularly in view of the widespread availability in both the public and private sectors. Safety, efficacy, cost-effectiveness and patient preference also need evaluation; and these cannot be adequately assessed through double blind randomised placebo controlled trials. If the research question is clear, then thoughtful and often innovative evaluative processes can be designed to answer the socially and clinically relevant issues posed by this area of medicine. There are a number of agencies and organizations available to offer advice to ethics committees in this newly emerging field of CAM research including CAM Strategy Research and Development, the Foundation for Integrated Health and the Research Council for Complementary Medicine. (shrink)