Research on misconduct suggests that accusations against industry peers generate negative consequences for non-accused firms (a “stigma effect”). Yet, building on research on competitive dynamics, we ...infer that such accusations can benefit non-accused firms that compete with these peers (a “competition effect”). To reconcile these opposing perspectives, we posit that the negative stigma effect will increase with greater product market overlap between the non-accused firm and its accused peer, up to a point, beyond which the positive competition effect will counterbalance it. We further conjecture that the competition effect will be relatively more pronounced when the market classification used by investors for assessing the market overlap is more fine-grained. Accordingly, we suggest that more sophisticated investors, who rely on more fine-grained market classifications, increase their shareholdings in non-accused firms to a greater extent than less sophisticated investors as the market overlap between the non-accused firm and the accused peer increases. Using elaborate data on products and investments, we analyze investors’ shareholdings and stock market returns of non-accused firms in the U.S. software industry following accusations of financial misconduct by their industry peers, and we find support for our predictions. Our study elucidates the interplay between stigma and competition following misconduct by industry peers.
Scientific Misconduct Gross, Charles
Annual review of psychology,
01/2016, Letnik:
67, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Scientific misconduct has been defined as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. Scientific misconduct has occurred throughout the history of science. The US government began to take systematic ...interest in such misconduct in the 1980s. Since then, a number of studies have examined how frequently individual scientists have observed scientific misconduct or were involved in it. Although the studies vary considerably in their methodology and in the nature and size of their samples, in most studies at least 10% of the scientists sampled reported having observed scientific misconduct. In addition to studies of the incidence of scientific misconduct, this review considers the recent increase in paper retractions, the role of social media in scientific ethics, several instructional examples of egregious scientific misconduct, and potential methods to reduce research misconduct.
Between 1993 and 2003, more than 370 girls and women were murdered and their often-mutilated bodies dumped outside Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, Mexico. The murders have continued at a rate of ...approximately thirty per year, yet law enforcement officials have made no breakthroughs in finding the perpetrator(s). Drawing on in-depth surveys, workshops, and interviews of Juárez women and border activists, Violence and Activism at the Border provides crucial links between these disturbing crimes and a broader history of violence against women in Mexico. In addition, the ways in which local feminist activists used the Juárez murders to create international publicity and expose police impunity provides a unique case study of social movements in the borderlands, especially as statistics reveal that the rates of femicide in Juárez are actually similar to other regions of Mexico. Also examining how non-governmental organizations have responded in the face of Mexican law enforcement's “normalization” of domestic violence, Staudt's study is a landmark development in the realm of global human rights.
It is commonly hypothesized that scientists are more likely to engage in data falsification and fabrication when they are subject to pressures to publish, when they are not restrained by forms of ...social control, when they work in countries lacking policies to tackle scientific misconduct, and when they are male. Evidence to test these hypotheses, however, is inconclusive due to the difficulties of obtaining unbiased data. Here we report a pre-registered test of these four hypotheses, conducted on papers that were identified in a previous study as containing problematic image duplications through a systematic screening of the journal PLoS ONE. Image duplications were classified into three categories based on their complexity, with category 1 being most likely to reflect unintentional error and category 3 being most likely to reflect intentional fabrication. We tested multiple parameters connected to the hypotheses above with a matched-control paradigm, by collecting two controls for each paper containing duplications. Category 1 duplications were mostly not associated with any of the parameters tested, as was predicted based on the assumption that these duplications were mostly not due to misconduct. Categories 2 and 3, however, exhibited numerous statistically significant associations. Results of univariable and multivariable analyses support the hypotheses that academic culture, peer control, cash-based publication incentives and national misconduct policies might affect scientific integrity. No clear support was found for the “pressures to publish” hypothesis. Female authors were found to be equally likely to publish duplicated images compared to males. Country-level parameters generally exhibited stronger effects than individual-level parameters, because developing countries were significantly more likely to produce problematic image duplications. This suggests that promoting good research practices in all countries should be a priority for the international research integrity agenda.
Research Summary
Why do some boards refuse to take serious action against CEOs who have committed financial misconduct? Past work has directed attention to the antecedents of misconduct while largely ...overlooking this question. The relatively few studies that examined it have typically revolved around agency arguments. This study instead examines how the beliefs and values held by board members can influence their actions following financial misconduct. Focusing on political ideology, we argue that politically conservative boards are more likely to respond by dismissing the CEO than are liberal boards as the result of ideo‐attribution and threat management tendencies. Using data from S&P 1500 firms that were involved with financial misconduct, we find support for our arguments while addressing sample‐induced endogeneity and alternative explanations with additional analyses.
Managerial Summary
Despite criticism from stakeholders, the public, media, and policy makers, many firms do not take serious action against CEOs who have committed financial misconduct. Past studies have suggested that this is due to board structures (e.g., lack of board independence) or situations surrounding misconduct (e.g., severity of misconduct). We propose that political ideology, a set of beliefs and values, held by board members, influences whether firms dismiss their CEOs following financial misconduct. Examining S&P 1500 firms that were involved in financial misconduct, we find that politically conservative boards tend to dismiss their CEOs more often than do liberal boards, offering practical implications for how the ideology of board members can influence critical actions that they take.
ABSTRACT We study the influence of supervisors on employee misconduct at branches of U.S. financial institutions. Individual supervisor fixed effects explain twice as much variation in branch ...misconduct as firm fixed effects. Supervisor influence is concentrated in firms that theory suggests are most likely to delegate authority—firms with complex operations, distant branches, and trustworthy supervisors. Supervisors affect misconduct through their personnel decisions, attention to employees with past misbehavior, and ethics and industry rules training. After major internal control improvements, supervisor influence declines. Our results illustrate how supervisors influence misconduct above and beyond firm-level factors. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: D21; D82; G20, L22; L23; M12; M40.
Retractions of scientific articles are becoming the most relevant institution for making sense of scientific misconduct. An increasing number of retracted articles, mainly attributed to misconduct, ...is currently providing a new empirical basis for research about scientific misconduct. This article reviews the relevant research literature from an interdisciplinary context. Furthermore, the results from these studies are contextualized sociologically by asking how scientific misconduct is made visible through retractions. This study treats retractions as an emerging institution that renders scientific misconduct visible, thus, following up on the sociology of deviance and its focus on visibility. The article shows that retractions, by highlighting individual cases of misconduct and general policies for preventing misconduct while obscuring the actors and processes through which retractions are effected, produce highly fragmented patterns of visibility. These patterns resemble the bifurcation in current justice systems.
The Geography of Financial Misconduct PARSONS, CHRISTOPHER A.; SULAEMAN, JOHAN; TITMAN, SHERIDAN
The Journal of finance (New York),
10/2018, Letnik:
73, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Financial misconduct (FM) rates differ widely between major U.S. cities, up to a factor of 3. Although spatial differences in enforcement and firm characteristics do not account for these patterns, ...city-level norms appear to be very important. For example, FM rates are strongly related to other unethical behavior, involving politicians, doctors, and (potentially unfaithful) spouses, in the city.
The honesty and integrity of scientists is widely believed to be threatened by pressures to publish, unsupportive research environments, and other structural, sociological and psychological factors. ...Belief in the importance of these factors has inspired major policy initiatives, but evidence to support them is either non-existent or derived from self-reports and other sources that have known limitations. We used a retrospective study design to verify whether risk factors for scientific misconduct could predict the occurrence of retractions, which are usually the consequence of research misconduct, or corrections, which are honest rectifications of minor mistakes. Bibliographic and personal information were collected on all co-authors of papers that have been retracted or corrected in 2010-2011 (N=611 and N=2226 papers, respectively) and authors of control papers matched by journal and issue (N=1181 and N=4285 papers, respectively), and were analysed with conditional logistic regression. Results, which avoided several limitations of past studies and are robust to different sampling strategies, support the notion that scientific misconduct is more likely in countries that lack research integrity policies, in countries where individual publication performance is rewarded with cash, in cultures and situations were mutual criticism is hampered, and in the earliest phases of a researcher's career. The hypothesis that males might be prone to scientific misconduct was not supported, and the widespread belief that pressures to publish are a major driver of misconduct was largely contradicted: high-impact and productive researchers, and those working in countries in which pressures to publish are believed to be higher, are less-likely to produce retracted papers, and more likely to correct them. Efforts to reduce and prevent misconduct, therefore, might be most effective if focused on promoting research integrity policies, improving mentoring and training, and encouraging transparent communication amongst researchers.
We show that opportunistic insiders can be identified through the profitability of their trades prior to quarterly earnings announcements (QEAs) and that opportunistic trading is associated with ...various kinds of firm or managerial misconduct. A value-weighted trading strategy based on (not necessarily pre-QEA) trades of opportunistic insiders earns monthly four-factor alphas of over 1%, which is much higher than in past insider trading literature and substantial and significant even on the short side. Firms with opportunistic insiders have higher levels of earnings management, restatements, US Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions, shareholder litigation, and executive compensation. These findings suggest that opportunism is a domain-general trait.
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