This study examines the influence of board independence on firm agency cost among listed firms in Bangladesh, which feature concentrated ownership and high insider representation on corporate boards. This study uses three measures of agency cost: the ‘expense ratio’, the ‘Q-free cash flow interaction’ and the ‘asset utilization ratio’. The finding of the study is that board independence can reduce the firm agency cost only under ‘asset utilization ratio’ measure of agency cost. These findings are robust to several robustness tests. (...) Furthermore, the non-linearity tests suggest that the benefit of outside independent directors is generally plausible as a factor controlling agency costs in the case of a medium level of board independence. Overall, these findings do not reject the validity of agency theory, supporting the Anglo-American orthodoxy promoting outside independent directors as good monitors. (shrink)

Mass-marketing frauds are on the increase. Given the amount of monies lost and the psychological impact of MMFs there is an urgent need to develop new and effective methods to prevent more of these crimes. This paper reports the early planning of automated methods our interdisciplinary team are developing to prevent and detect MMF. Importantly, the paper presents the ethical and social constraints involved in such a model and suggests concerns others might also consider when developing automated systems.

Apparently it was claimed that organisations are often not build to accommodate women’s values, primarily because they entered organisations relatively late, and work in a relatively narrow range of occupations. Given this scenario, men and women experience organisational cultures very differently and perceive gender discrimination as an issue. The number of women with children participating in the paid workforce has increased markedly over recent decades, but many workplaces have not altered their expectations or provided work policies to allow women to (...) balance work and family responsibilities There is considerable and increasing agreement that what in fact keeps women back are invisible and artificial barriers that prevent qualified individuals from advancing within their organisations and reaching their full potential – the ‘glass ceiling’ phenomenon. Although women in Malaysia now represent 44.5% of the working population and are just as academically qualified as men, they are grossly under-represented at the senior management positions. This study attempts to discover the obstacles that keep women from rising above certain level in the organisations in an effort to raise both their individual self-worth and the level of their contribution to economic development. (shrink)

BackgroundIn this study, medical errors are defined as unintentional patient harm caused by a doctor’s mistake. This topic, due to limited research, is poorly understood in Malaysia. The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of doctors intending to disclose medical errors, and their attitudes/perception pertaining to medical errors.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted at a tertiary public hospital from July- December 2015 among 276 randomly selected doctors. Data was collected using a standardized and validated self-administered questionnaire intending to (...) measure disclosure and attitudes/perceptions. The scale had four vignettes in total two medical and two surgical. Each vignette consisted of five questions and each question measured the disclosure. Disclosure was categorised as “No Disclosure”, “Partial Disclosure” or “Full Disclosure”. Data was keyed in and analysed using STATA v 13.0.ResultsOnly 10.1% intended to disclose medical errors. Most respondents felt that they possessed an attitude/perception of adequately disclosing errors to patients. There was a statistically significant difference when comparing the intention of disclosure with perceived disclosures. Most respondents were in common agreement that disclosing an error would make them less likely to get sued, that minor errors should be reported and that they experienced relief from disclosing errors.ConclusionMost doctors in this study would not disclose medical errors although they perceived that the errors were serious and felt responsible for it. Poor disclosure could be due the fear of litigations and improper mechanisms/procedures available for disclosure. (shrink)

for income tax evasion, but it cannot be defended for pursuing otherwise innocent people. The man responsible for bringing these four cases, Roanoke U.S. Attorney John Brownlee, has defended his actions (Rocktown Weekly, April 27-May 3, 2006, p. 11): “We have to properly track money going overseas so it’s not going to the wrong places.” But, this could be done without this law. Even though 12 agencies investigated these money transfers, led by the FBI, none charged that any went to (...) terrorist groups. “We know you are not the bad guys,” another prosecuting attorney has said. A group of agencies went looking for Middle Eastern Muslim terrorists around here after 9/11. Not finding any, they arrested four anti-Saddam Muslim Kurds, just like autoworkers went after a Chinese-American when they could not find any Japanese to beat up. This is an appalling travesty of justice. These men helped neighbors who needed to send money to families for medical care when there was no other way to do so, there being no banking system in Iraq. These men are all civic-minded, translating for schools, hospitals, and the courts since arriving here. They are being prosecuted for helping their neighbors in times of trouble. In their initial investigations, the FBI inquired whether these men knew Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. This makes as much sense as Abraham Lincoln ordering Union troops to investigate runaway slaves in the North to find out their knowledge of Jefferson Davis or John Singleton Mosby and then prosecuting them for sending money to their families in the South via an illegal method. Citizens of Harrisonburg should express their support for these four men and demand that these charges be dropped. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Roanoke should get back to what they are supposed to be doing and stop degrading our American system with such outrageous prosecutions. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of managerial ownership on firm agency costs among listed firms in Bangladesh. This is an institutional setting that features a mixture of agency costs. This institutional setting has a concentration of ownership by managers, but the firms are not solely owned by managers. The extant literature suggests that the sacrifice of wealth by the principal and potential costs associated with monitoring the agents is known as the agency cost. This study uses three measures of agency (...) cost: the ‘expense ratio’, the ‘Q-free cash flow interaction’, and the ‘asset utilisation ratio’. The finding of the study is that managerial ownership reduces the firm agency cost only under the ‘asset utilisation ratio’ measure of agency cost; this is robust with regard to a number of robustness tests. Furthermore, the non-linearity tests suggest that the convergence of interest is evident with very high and low levels of managerial ownership. The entrenchment effect by the owners is evident at moderate levels of managerial ownership. Although there has been great scepticism among management researchers on the validity of agency theory, overall, the findings of this study do not reject the validity of agency theory. Given that the entrenchment by managers is evident at certain levels of ownership and that the agency problem may still exist between insiders and outsiders, legislative guidelines for controlling share ownership may be required. (shrink)

Big data technologies are entering the world of ageing computer systems running critical infrastructures. These innovations promise to afford rapid Internet connectivity, remote operations or predictive maintenance. As legacy critical infrastructures were traditionally disconnected from the Internet, the prospect of their modernisation necessitates an inquiry into cyber security and how it intersects with traditional engineering requirements like safety, reliability or resilience. Looking at how the adoption of big data technologies in critical infrastructures shapes understandings of risk management, we focus on (...) a specific case study from the cyber security governance: the EU Network and Information Systems Security Directive. We argue that the implementation of Network and Information Systems Security Directive is the first step in the integration of safety and security through novel risk management practices. Therefore, it is the move towards legitimising the modernisation of critical infrastructures. But we also show that security risk management practices cannot be directly transplanted from the safety realm, as cyber security is grounded in anticipation of the future adversarial behaviours rather than the history of equipment failure rates. Our analysis offers several postulates for the emerging research agenda on big data in complex engineering systems. Building on the conceptualisations of safety and security grounded in the materialist literature across Science and Technology Studies and Organisational Sociology, we call for a better understanding of the ‘making of’ technologies, standardisation processes and engineering knowledge in a quest to build safe and secure critical infrastructures. (shrink)