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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

It is well documented in cross-country research that institutions, both economic and political, affect the reporting behavior of auditors and audit services. These findings are based on the assumption that institutions vary across countries but are more homogeneous within a country. However, cross-country research suffers from the problems of country-specific cultures, accounting rules, and regulations, and can be criticized for the use of small sample sizes, potential endogeneity, and the correlation of omitted variables. This study overcomes these problems by engaging in within-country research. Specifically, this study examines how variations in the institutional environment within China affect auditor reporting behavior. Since the initiation of the open door policy in the early 1980s, China’s institutional environment has, from both the economic and political perspectives, undergone different development stages that have moved east to west across the provinces. This thesis takes advantage of these special institutional characteristics in China to test the influence of institutions on auditor reporting behavior within a single country. Based on the NERI Index (2001) of Marketization (NIM) (Fan and Wang, 2003), I classify China’s 30 provinces into “good” and “poor” institutional regions. In poor regions, the local economy is more influenced by local governments, and suffers from an underdeveloped credit market and a poorer legal environment. Taking into account the close relationship between local governments and local government-owned companies, the absolute power of resource allocation by governments, and the low litigation risk, I hypothesize that auditors in poor institutional regions tend to be lenient to local government-owned companies by issuing them with more unqualified initial and subsequent audit opinions. I collected 8,039 firm-year observations from the Chinese stock market, the results from which provide evidence to support the hypotheses. This study extends the previous research of Chan, Lin and Mo (2006) by revealing that the lenient reporting behavior of local auditors toward local government-owned companies is more prevalent in regions with a poor institutional environment. The findings of this thesis have rich implications for policy-makers and regulators in China. One implication is that institutional improvement is a key factor in the creation of a quality audit profession, even when uniform national auditing regulations have been established.

Workplace bullying has gained widespread attention as contributing to the increase in organizational costs and the reduction in employee productivity. Organizations and human resource departments have conducted studies and developed prevention programs to address bullies, but few studies or programs have focused on the role of victims in the onset of bullying. This quantitative study examined the relationship between bullying victimization in the workplace, focusing on personality traits, specific problem solving, and a victim's locus of control belief. A sample (N = 94) of male and female college students completed the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised, Heppner's Problem-Solving Inventory, Levenson's Locus of Control Scale, and the NEO-5 Factor Inventory. Data were initially analyzed using a 2-tailed MANCOVA with subsequent ANOVAs. Results showed that victims and nonvictims of workplace bullying had significantly different instrument scores. Specifically, victims scored significantly higher than nonvictims in Neuroticism, Approach/ Avoidance, Personal Control, and Powerful Others, whereas nonvictims' scores were significantly higher than victims for Extroversion related to workplace bullying. This study may contribute to social change by identifying and addressing the behaviors of individuals who could become the victims of workplace bullying and how to address victimization through educational awareness and training, allowing victims to be more proactive and reducing the risk of being bullied. Future studies are recommended to examine the relationship between bullied victims who score high on problem-solving and their locus of control.

Previous literature has focused on the traits of various leadership styles. Due to the lack of research on leadership styles, the focus of this study was to identify which emotional intelligence characteristics of a leader are significant to the success of virtual team projects. Supported by emotional intelligence and transformational leadership theories, the research questions addressed (a) whether, among virtual teams, a relationship exists between overall emotional intelligence scores and the success of virtual project teams, and (b) to what extent virtual team leaders' abilities to express and use their emotions predict the success of virtual team projects. The target population for this study included virtual team leaders who embodied a transformational leadership style. The correlation analysis showed that the overall emotional intelligence score correlated significantly and positively with project success of virtual teams in the areas of client satisfaction and perceived quality, as well as with the overall project success measure of virtual teams. The regression analysis did not reveal statistical significance for the relationship between the independent variables of aspects of emotional intelligence and the dependent variable of overall project success, as perceived by virtual team leaders. The underlying conclusion of the survey data included: among transformational virtual team leaders, there was a relationship between overall emotional intelligence scores and the success of virtual teams; however, the extent of that relationship remains uncertain. This study may aid organizations in the development of virtual teams by determining which leadership traits and attributes are essential for success.

The electric power industry is very complex, dangerous, and challenging. The number of workplace accidents declined over the last decade, but worker injuries and fatalities continue to occur. The purpose of this Delphi study was to gain consensus regarding the most feasible and desirable methods to prevent accidents and deaths. The research question focused on gaining consensus from a panel of experts regarding the most desirable and feasible solutions to fatal and serious workplace accidents in the United States. The Bolman and Deal 4-frame model proved useful for understanding challenges within the electric industry and how workers and leaders can work together to best prevent accidents. Twenty-seven managers, trainers, supervisors, and workers, each with more than 10 years of experience in the United States electric power industry, responded to 30 items in the first round. The responses from the first round, where 70% or more of participants agreed, were analyzed using the NVivo 12 Plus software. Consensus occurred after each round: In the first round through the solutions participants provided. In the second round and later rounds, consensus occurred through acceptance of items with scores of 3 or higher on a 5-point Likert-type scale endorsed by 70% or more respondents. Participants decided if the solutions were desirable and feasible in the second round, and important and credible in rounds third and fourth. Participants concurred that organizational leadership, managers, supervisors, and workers were in different ways responsible for accident prevention. Supervisors and managers who communicated organizational priorities, and demanded strict compliance with policies, rules, and procedures, promote social change in a highly specialized industry.

The theoretical foundation of this study comes from the significant recurrence throughout the leadership literature of two distinct behaviors, task orientation and relationship orientation. Task orientation and relationship orientation are assumed to be generic behaviors, which are universally observed and applied in organizations, even though they may be uniquely enacted in organizations across cultures. The lack of empirical evidence supporting these assumptions provided the impetus to hypothetically develop and empirically confirm the universal application of task orientation and relationship orientation and the generalizability of their measurement in a cross-cultural setting. Task orientation and relationship orientation are operationalized through consideration and initiation of structure, two well-established theoretical leadership constructs. Multiple-group mean and covariance structures (MACS) analyses are used to simultaneously validate the generalizability of the two hypothesized constructs across the 12 cultural groups and to assess whether the similarities and differences discovered are measurement and scaling artifacts or reflect true cross-cultural differences. The data were collected by the author and others as part of a larger international research project. The data are comprised of 2341 managers from 12 countries/regions. The results provide compelling evidence that task orientation and relationship orientation, reliably and validly operationalized through consideration and initiation of structure, are generalizable across the countries/regions sampled. But the results also reveal significant differences in the perception of these behaviors, suggesting that some aspects of task orientation and relationship orientation are strongly affected by cultural influences. These (similarities and) differences reflect directly interpretable, error-free effects among the constructs at the behavioral level. Thus, task orientation and relationship orientation can demonstrate different relations among cultures, yet still be defined equivalently across the 11 cultures studied. The differences found in this study are true differences and may contain information about cultural influences characterizing each cultural context (i.e. group). The nature of such influences should be examined before the results can be meaningfully interpreted. To examine the effects of cultural characteristics on the constructs, additional hypotheses on the constructs' latent parameters can be tested across groups. Construct-level tests are illustrated in hypothetical examples in light of the study's results. The study contributes significantly to the theoretical understanding of the nature and generalizability of psychological constructs. The theoretical and practical implications of embedding context into a unified theory of task orientated and relationship oriented leader behavior are proposed. Limitations and contributions are also discussed.