Over the past few years, scholarly interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been increasing. However, research on the relationship between CSR and firm performance has revealed a ...complicated relationship. In this paper, we argue that part of the basis for the generally positive relationship between CSR and firm performance might come from a reduction in agency costs. Relying on behavioral agency theory, we construct a model in which CSR moderates the impact of the agency problem on specific firm outcomes, including firm performance, the use of stock options, and goodwill. Based on panel data of publicly traded U.S. firms from 1999 to 2013, we find support for that model. These findings suggest the role of CSR in improving corporate governance efficiency through mitigating agency problems inside the firm.
Aeromonas hydrophila is a gram-negative facultative anaerobic coccobacillus, which is an environmental opportunistic pathogen. A. hydrophila are involved in several infectious diseases such as ...gastroenteritis, septicemia and wound infections. However, gastroenteritis caused by Aeromonas spp. are rare and the clinical relevance of Aeromonas species in stool specimens is still under debate. Although A. hydrophila rarely causes gastroenteritis, Aeromonas spp. should be considered as a causative agent of severe gastroenteritis with a cholera-like presentation. This case highlights the need to perform culture methods from stool samples when PCR-based methods are negative and gastrointestinal infection is suspected.
Lung transplant patients are a vulnerable group of immunosuppressed patients that are prone to frequent respiratory infections. We studied 60 episodes of respiratory symptoms in 71 lung transplant ...patients. Almost half of these episodes were of unknown infectious etiology despite extensive routine diagnostic testing.
We re-analyzed respiratory samples of all episodes with undetermined etiology in order to detect potential viral pathogens missed/not accounted for in routine diagnostics. Respiratory samples were enriched for viruses by filtration and nuclease digestion, whole nucleic acids extracted and randomly amplified before high throughput metagenomic virus sequencing. Viruses were identified by a bioinformatic pipeline and confirmed and quantified using specific real-time PCR.
In completion of routine diagnostics, we identified and confirmed a viral etiology of infection by our metagenomic approach in four patients (three Rhinovirus A, one Rhinovirus B infection) despite initial negative results in specific multiplex PCR. Notably, the majority of samples were also positive for Torque teno virus (TTV) and Human Herpesvirus 7 (HHV-7). While TTV viral loads increased with immunosuppression in both throat swabs and blood samples, HHV-7 remained at low levels throughout the observation period and was restricted to the respiratory tract.
This study highlights the potential of metagenomic sequencing for virus diagnostics in cases with previously unknown etiology of infection and in complex diagnostic situations such as in immunocompromised hosts.
Reconstructive vascular surgery has become increasingly common. Vascular graft infections (VGIs) are serious complications, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. Previously described risk ...factors for VGIs include groin incisions, wound infections, and comorbidities. We aimed to identify modifiable predictors for VGIs as targets for infection prevention strategies.
Participants of the prospective Vascular Graft Infection Cohort (VASGRA) with surgery between 2013 and 2017 were included. The observation time was calculated from surgery until a confirmed VGI or the last follow-up. Variables were assessed by infection status, using non-parametric tests. Univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression models, adjusted for demographic factors, were applied to assess risk factors for a VGI.
A total of 438 predominantly male (83.1%) patients with a median age of 71 years (interquartile range IQR 63 - 76) contributed to 554 person years of follow-up. Thereof, 39 (8.9%) developed a VGI, amounting to an incidence rate of 7.0/100 person years. We found incisional surgical site infections (adjusted hazard ratio aHR 10.09, 95% CI 2.88 - 35.34); hemorrhage (aHR 4.92, 1.28-18.94); renal insufficiency (aHR 4.85, 1.20 - 19.61); inadequate perioperative prophylaxis in patients with an established antibiotic treatment, compared to the additional application of perioperative prophylaxis (aHR 2.87, 95% CI 1.17 - 7.05); and procedure time increases of 1-hour intervals (aHR 1.22, 95% CI 1.08 - 1.39) to be risk factors for VGIs.
We identified procedure time; inadequate perioperative prophylaxis, especially among patients with an established antibiotic treatment; and several postsurgical infectious and non-infectious complications as modifiable, predictive factors for VGIs and, therefore, as keys to improved surveillance programs and prevention strategies.
NCT01821664.
•When is corporate political activity (CPA) linked to firm performance?•CPA targeting politicians with extreme political ideologies hurts firm performance.•Ideological CPA represents an example of ...opportunistic behavior.
Corporate political activity (CPA) is an important area of research due to the high level of CPA in which many firms engage. Prior research has focused on the demand side of the political market. In this paper, we consider how choices made by CEOs regarding their interaction with the supply side of the political market can have performance implications for the firm. In particular, we argue that where CPA focuses less on supporting extreme ideologies, these investments in CPA will be positively associated with higher performance, and thus are more effective. Next, relying on agency theory, we argue that firms in which top managers are less likely to behave opportunistically will engage in such effective CPA. We test our theory on a panel of archival data generated by combining business data with political records, and we find strong support for our arguments.
Scholars studying corporate political activity (CPA) have developed a market theory that has been widely accepted. This theory's ability to predict performance, however, has been equivocal. We argue ...that the predictability of the market theory for CPA could improve by accounting for three kinds of constraints that limit the possible actions of the politicians, the businesses, and other interested parties as they engage in CPA. These three constraints are the politician's ideology, the nature of his or her financial contributions, and the political trends among his or her constituents. All actors are limited by these constraints, but they also could impact them. We test our hypotheses upon a unique dataset and find support for our hypotheses. We argue that using this approach to understand the pressures facing the actors involved in CPA could help scholars find a more predictable link between CPA and firm performance.
In its constructive and speculative nature, design has the critical potential to reshape prevalent socio-material realities. At the same time, design is inevitably normative, if not often violent, as ...it stabilises the past, normalises the present, and precludes just and sustainable futures. The contributions rethink concepts of critique that influence the field of design, question inherent blind spots of the discipline, and expand understandings of what critical design practices could be. With contributions from design theory, practice and education, art theory, philosophy, and informatics, »Critical by Design?« aims to question and unpack the ambivalent tensions between design and critique.
Purpose The worldwide imposition of lockdown measures to control the 2020 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has shifted most executive communications with external stakeholders online, ...resulting in quick responses from stakeholders. This study aims to understand how presentational styles exhibited in online communication induce immediate audience responses and empirically test the effectiveness of reactive impression management tactics. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyze presentational styles using MP3 files containing executive utterances during earnings call conferences held by S&P 100-listed firms after June 2020, the quarter after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Using timestamps, the authors link each utterance to a 1-minute interval change in the ask/bid prices of the stocks that occurs a minute after the corresponding utterance begins. Findings Exhibiting an informational presentation style in earnings calls leads to positive and immediate audience responses. Managers tend to increase their reliance on promotional presentation styles rather than on informational ones when quarterly earnings exceed market forecasts. Originality/value Drawing on organizational genre theory, this research identifies the discrepancy between the presentation styles that audiences positively respond to and those that managers tend to exhibit in earnings calls and provides a reactive impression management typology for immediate responses from online audiences.
There has been growing scholarly interest in the impact of CEO narcissism on discrete firm outcomes. One area this CEO characteristic might impact is the firm's corporate political activity (CPA), ...and in fact scholars have called for further research into its antecedents. In this article, we argue that while CEO narcissism might be negatively related to CPA in general, the CPA the firms do engage in will be aimed at more ideologically extreme politicians. To test this prediction, we rely on prior research that has identified manifestations of CEO narcissism such as CEOs’ compensation and the size of their pictures in the annual report. We develop databases following this guidance that we test using panel data analysis and propensity score matching to address endogeneity. We find support for our hypotheses by testing an unbalanced panel with 10,841 observations of 2,211 publicly traded firms over a ten-year period.
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