Knowledge that Transforms

The unprecedented contagion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, causative of COVID-19, has spawned watershed economic, social, ethical, and political upheaval—catalyzing severe polarization among the global populace. Ostensibly, to demonstrate the most appropriate path towards responding to the virus outbreak, public officials in the United States (“U.S.”), representing both Democratic and Republican parties, stand accused of unduly influencing COVID-19 records in their respective jurisdictions. This study investigates the role political partisanship may have played in decreasing the accuracy of publicly reported COVID-19 data in the U.S. Leveraging social identity theory, we contend that public officials may have manipulated the reporting records in accounting for COVID-19 infection cases and deaths to validate the effectiveness of political party objectives. We employ Benford's Law to assess misreporting and evaluate the integrity of county-level COVID-19 reporting data through the construction of four distinct political party classifications. Specifically, we cross the county voting majority for the 2016 presidential candidate for each U.S. state (Democratic and Republican) with the 2020 gubernatorial political party (Democratic and Republican) in which each county resides. For the sample period of January 21, 2020 through November 3, 2020 (Election Day), the study's results suggest that the reported COVID-19 infection cases and deaths in the U.S. violate Benford's Law in a manner consistent with underreporting. Our analysis reveals that Democratic counties demonstrate the smallest departures from Benford's Law while Republican counties demonstrate the greatest departures.

While budgetary controls with capital rationing are theoretically optimal and widespread in practice, empirical research documents their association with higher employee dishonesty compared to budgetary controls without rationing. In this study, we examine whether combining budgetary controls with mission statements in a system of management controls decreases employee dishonesty. We predict that the system's effect on dishonesty depends on the interaction of the social norms conveyed by each control instrument within the system. We study two types of budgetary controls that differ in whether they include budget rationing and two types of mission statements that differ in whether they emphasize integrity or fi nancial values. We provide experimental evidence that mission statements reduce employee dishonesty more if combined with budget rationing controls than non-rationing budgetary controls. This effect is enhanced when the mission statement conveys a norm of integrity, as opposed to a norm of fi nancial performance. Our results suggest that mission statements can mitigate the downsides of budget rationing, but this effect is less pronounced when the norms conveyed by each instrument are redundant.

While multinational firms invest large amounts of money in employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) to reduce turnover, there is little evidence regarding ESOPs' effectiveness in retaining rank-and-file employees and none on a global scale. Building on psychological ownership (PO) arguments, we predict that a rank-and-file employee's ESOP participation will be negatively associated with a firm exit decision and that this effect will be stronger in contextual settings that are more conducive to turnover. For our analysis, we used internal data from a large multinational firm covering 190,453 rank-and-file employees and approximately 650,000 employee years. We find that ESOP participation is associated with a lower likelihood of individual firm exit decisions. We also find this effect to be more pronounced in countries with favorable labor market conditions and lower uncertainty avoidance (UA). Additional tests support our argument that PO arising from ESOP participation is particularly important for rank-and-file employees, who often only invest small amounts. Overall, our study provides cross-country evidence regarding the retention effect of ESOP participation for rank-and-file employees.

The paper seeks to enhance our understanding of the interaction between the development of disciplinary power in western liberal society and Foucault's writings on governmentality, through examination of the political processes resulting from the largest public scandal in the UK, the Poulson scandal of the early 1970s. The first research motive is to uncover any additional insights or hidden understandings that can be derived by applying Foucauldian historiographical and governmental perspectives as strengthened by Dean's (2010) analytics of government to the history of corporate governance in English local authorities over the forty years following Poulson. We argue that the continual process of intervention, investigation and prescription by central government set in motion by the scandal resulted in an increase in disciplinary power within local government by changing the expectations of council officials, elected representatives and politicians in Westminster through the normalisation of these intrusions and the spirit of dependency and compliance which resulted. Secondly, the paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of the analytics approach in a complex situation involving many genealogical disruptions to the status quo over a long time-period; and whilst the paper found the method helpful, limitations emerged regarding its claims to empirical certainty through precise questioning. Finally, the paper examines the significance of countering corruption as a motivating factor in the rise of disciplinary power in English local government, which it finds as limited.