Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-73). Also available online.

[Abstract]: The study of business ethics is an area that has gained a lot of attention around the world and is an ever-growing one in light of the many corporate scandals that have rocked economies in many countries around the globe. In many of the cases concerning corporate scandals, many have taken place in developed nations, and authors have devoted much attention to investigating the possible causes, including those that analyse the problem from an individual’s ethical behaviour standpoint.As a developing nation, Malaysia has seen its share of corporate irregularities, and accusations of breaches of ethical conduct by those who have an interest in corporate transparency and governance have made local headlines. What factors or determinants influence an individual’s ethical behaviour would be useful in these cases, but a dearth of studies from a Malaysian context does not allow this analysis to take place.Therefore, the purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the impact of certain determinants on the perceptions of ethical behaviour of corporate managers in Malaysia. The demographic and situational determinants used in this study -- such as age, gender, level of education, and the presence of a code of ethics in the organisation -- are those commonly scrutinized in attempts to understand individual ethical behaviour.Information analysed quantitatively was obtained from a self-administered questionnaire distributed by e-mail to 750 individuals who are corporate managers in Malaysia.It is hoped that this study contributes to knowledge by assisting Malaysian managers to understand the factors that affect individual ethical behaviour and designing relevant policies and procedures that take the results of this study into account.

Title: According to Swedish Citizens – Sweden has the Safest and Best food in the world – Really? Level: Thesis for Master’s Degree in Business Administration Authors: Benny Berggren and Mai Nasser Fouda Supervisor: Jonas Kågström, Ph.D. Date: May 20, 2013 Aim: The aim of this thesis is to fill the research gap on whether there are differences in how Swedish consumers remember publicized scandals in regards to the Country of Origin (COO), focusing on age, gender and time. Furthermore, this paper will also aim to look at how different scandals have affected the consumers trust based on whether foreign food scandals have a higher impact. Methodology: Since this thesis tested different relationships a deductive approach was taken with a conclusive research design. Quantitative data was collected via a VAS-scale questionnaire to 187 individuals via random sampling at train stations which had a response rate of 75,9%. By using SPSS, the primary data was analyzed via a Correlation and Factor analysis in accordance with scientific articles from within the fields of Purchasing Decision theory, the COO and Consumer Memory. A semi-open telephone interview with an expert from within the food industry was conducted as additional explanations to the findings were needed. Result & Conclusions: It was found that Swedish consumers remembered scandals differently depending on origin, and were according to themselves more affected by the foreign scandals. Gender did not have a preference depending on the COO of the product and consumer memory while age did. It was also found that trusting food was the essential theme throughout the empirical findings where the Swedish consumers valued cues such as food quality and food safety. This played a significant role on impacting the consumer’s long-term memory. Three different types of trust was found and divided by their characteristics; High-level-involvement products, the COO of the product or the company which the scandal was involved with, and finally, the size, positioning and equity of the brand involved. Business implications: Media can be seen as a key source of spreading negative publicity regarding scandals. It is therefore extra important for companies to act immediately, especially if they have any of the three characteristics of trust since it influences the consumer’s long-term memory in a negative way. These three characteristics combined could have strong more negative impact on the companies, where there is a risk of losing potential & current business partners, decreased brand equity & image and risk of facing legal aspects. This can be very costly both financially and time-wise which ultimately could lead to a negative turnover. Research Implications: future research is suggested to study why the results in this thesis differ from the other scientific findings when it comes to gender. Also suggested is that studies should be conducted similar to this, but based on specific types of food products since this thesis only studied food in general. Furthermore, studies comparing the effect of the consumer memory in regards to food scandals based on different companies are also suggested. Key words: Country of Origin, Scandals, Memory, Trust, Purchasing behavior.

This thesis is avout civil liability of auditors, to whom, for what and in which amount are auditors liable. Thesis deals with the effort which did European union about unification of the approach of its member states. Further chapters deals with geographical distribution of liability regimes and accounting scandals which led to auditors obligation to pay for harms.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: Peter Walmsley. Includes bibliographical references. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 237-254). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 237-254). Also available on the Internet.

This study investigates reputational penalties for two main types of corporate scandals in China: accounting scandal vs. corruption. Compared with U.S. firms that experienced an average of 41% drop in firm value if accounting scandal was disclosed, I find that accounting scandals are less destructive to firm value in a relationship-based economy such as China. However, while pure accounting scandals are relatively innocuous in China, I find that corruption charges against the firms' senior executives have serious consequences. I explore several explanations for such difference in market reaction to the two types of scandals, including political network effect, accounting write-off effect, corporate governance effect, incentive effect, and executive turnover effect. My empirical evidence provides consistent support to the political relationship explanation which indicates that the damaged social and political networks and the ability to contract caused by the corruption charges would have a more negative impact on firms' operations and performances. Although my results do not fully eliminate all the other alternative explanations, they are likely to be a less important reason for the stronger reputation penalties for corruption charges than accounting scandals in China. / Zhang, Fang. / Adviser: T.J. Wang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-11, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-61). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

The other study distinguishes the effects of political connection and governmental intervention on firm value. The event study of 371 scandals from 1997 to 2004 confirms the hypothesis that governmental intervention is the de facto reason. Scandal firms controlled by the state sustain less negative cumulative abnormal returns than non-state controlled firms, because the market expects that those state controlled scandal firms will surely receive governmental bailout or support while those non-state controlled ones not. For state controlled samples, the degree of political connection does not produce any significant effect on the market reactions. For non-state controlled scandal firms, however, closely politically connected firms have more negative CAR than loosely politically connected ones. This is because the governments get away from the scandal firms in trouble, and those non-state controlled firms that once gained the governmental intervention via political connection suffer more as the support withdraws. The results highlight the effect of governmental intervention on the firm valuation, and address a misconception that political connection is the source of firm value. / The thesis includes two empirical studies concerning corporate scandals in China. One investigates the intra-industry effect of 356 scandals from 1997 to 2004. The empirical results show that contagion effect and competitive effect are conditioned by degree of industry competition and ownership type of scandal firms. Because state controlled firms dominate in most industries and share common characteristics as the legacy of planned economy, their scandals can typically reveal the industry wide information on poor corporate governance problem. In highly competitive industries, the negative information of state controlled scandal firms spills over to state controlled peers, creating net contagion (negative) effect. In low competitive industries, contagion effect is offset by competitive effect that mainly stems from non-state controlled rivals. Comparatively, non-state controlled scandal firms, because of their marginal status in the market, do not produce evident externality in the industry. This study supports the hypothesis of informational contagion effect, and contrasts with the traditional view that scandals are idiosyncratic. The conclusions in previous studies are biased because they fail to consider the role of ownership on intra-industry effects. / Zhang, Peng. / "August 2007." / Adviser: Larry H. P. Lang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3259. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-113). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

This essay is a qualitative study where the theory of face and image repair theory evaluate the apologetic strategy of a pudel. The analysed data is from Swedish former Members of Parliament that had to leave their positions due to scandals they were involved in that affected them personally. The analysis shows that the image repair strategy of bolstering is commonly used, that bolstering poses a threat on the speaker’s positive face, and that bolstering is a jeopardising move when attempting to perform a pudel. This study also confirms that when executed successfully, a pudel could restore image and be a successful face-saving strategy. The results also detect the need to further research on how linguistics and rhetoric can cooperate to make more thorough analyses of speech acts. / Denna uppsats är en kvalitativ studie där teorin om face och image repair analyserar och utvärderar den kommunikativa strategin pudeln. Det analyserade datat kommer från pressmeddelanden, presskonferenser och officiella Facebookmeddelanden från svenska riksdagspolitiker som på grund av en skandal behövt lämna sin ledamotsroll i Sveriges Riksdag. Resultatet påvisar att strategin bolstering inom image repair teorin, är vanligt förekommande, att samma strategi utgör ett ansiktshot på den person som använder sig av den strategin och att om man inte lyckas med sin bolstering, riskerar man att inte rädda sitt ansikte eller anseende. Studien visar också på att en lyckad tillämpning av pudeln kan rädda en persons anseende och ansikte. Resultaten i studien öppnar även upp för framtida undersökning, och påvisar att lingvistiska teorier och retoriska teorier kan komplettera varandra vid mer ingående analyser av talakter.