Business Commons^™

Corporate Oversight And Disobedience, Elizabeth Pollman

All Faculty Scholarship

Over a decade has passed since landmark Delaware corporate law decisions on oversight responsibility, and only a small handful of cases have survived a motion to dismiss. Scholars have puzzled over what it means to have the potential for corporate accountability lodged within the duty of good faith, but almost never brought to fruition in terms of trial liability.

This article explores the public-regarding purpose of the obedience and oversight duties in corporate law and provides a descriptive account of how they are applied in practice. The Article argues that the fidelity to external law required by the duty of …

From The Editors, Carole L. Hollingsworth, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Welcome to the Fall 2018 issue of the Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research, and Practice (JCERP). On behalf of the editorial team, we thank you for taking the time to read this issue and strongly encourage you to submit an article for consideration in an upcoming edition.

Enhancing The Design Of A Cybersecurity Risk Management Solution For Communities Of Trust, James E. Fulford Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research into cybersecurity risks and various methods of evaluating those threats has become an increasingly important area of academic and practitioner investigations. Of particular interest in this field is enhancing the designs and informing capabilities of cybersecurity risk management solutions for users who desire to understand how organizations are impacted when such risks are exploited. Many of the cybersecurity risk management solutions are extremely technical and require their users to have a commensurate level of technical acumen. In the situation evaluated during this research project, the founders of the company being researched had created a highly technical risk management solution …

Improving Revenue Capture And Patient Safety In An Icu Setting, Natasha Stankiewicz, Laura Lewis, Jonathan Archibald, Mark Parker, Suneela Nayak, Stephen Tyzik, Ruth Hanselman, Amy Sparks

Operations Transformation

IMPROVING REVENUE CAPTURE AND PATIENT SAEFTY IN AN INTENSIVE CARE SETTING

Materials management department is responsible for restocking chargeable supplies in an intensive care unit (ICU) at an academic tertiary medical center. Staff confusion as to what items were considered chargeable often led to low supply par levels resulting in delays of critical patient care.

Using baseline metrics, a team of caregivers created several performance improvement goals to increase nursing compliance with appropriate supply charging. The results of a root cause analysis spearheaded the development of a KPI that encompassed staff education, lost charge tracking and charge supply labeling.

Post …

Investigating Information Security Policy Characteristics: Do Quality, Enforcement And Compliance Reduce Organizational Fraud?, Dennis T. Brown

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Organizational fraud, a deceitful practice or willful device resorted to with intent to deprive another of his right, or in some manner to do harm or injury, is a growing global concern. While cyberattacks from the outside are more expected, the internal security threat from trusted insiders is responsible for significantly more information compromise than external threats. Information systems make life easier but are increasingly used by employees to perpetrate fraudulent activities. For example, a trusted insider employee with access to sensitive customer databases could misappropriate information and sell it to a competitor for personal gain. These type losses are …

From Value Protection To Value Creation: Rethinking Corporate Governance Standards For Firm Innovation, Roger M. Barker, Iris H-Y Chiu

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

A company’s pro-innovation needs are often met by the exploitation of its resources, widely defined. The resource-based theory of the firm provides immense empirical insights into how a firm’s corporate governance factors can contribute to promoting innovation. However, these implications may conflict with the prevailing standards of corporate governance imposed on many securities markets for listed companies, which have developed based on theoretical models supporting a shareholder-centered and agency-based theory of the firm. Although prevailing corporate governance standards can to an extent support firm innovation, tensions are created in some circumstances where companies pit their corporate governance compliance against resource-based …

Iran Sanctions: A Compliance Perspective The Promise And Peril Of Entering The Islamic Republic, Talib Amir

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

U.S. sanctions against Iran have limited trade between foreign and Iranian companies for decades. The 2015 nuclear agreement eased sanctions by widening the scope of permitted business dealings, but brought attendant risks to foreign companies considering venturing into Iran. This Essay proposes that companies can employ a risk-reward model to assess whether the opportunity posed by a proposed venture justifies the risks of violating sanctions laws. The Essay suggests that companies can create a model by categorizing and quantifying the likely benefits of a business deal and compare the opportunity with risks, after implementing processes to limit specific risks. The …

Strategies To Influence A Quality And Compliance Culture, Betsy Macht, Anne Davis

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

Sales of defective or substandard products carry a potential risk of unintended effects on the consumer. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore the strategies to influence a culture of quality and compliance. Findings identified the value of weaving quality and compliance into a unified matrix to establish a holistic approach to endowing the organizational culture with the behaviors and habits that drive quality and compliance across business unit boundaries. To treat any aspect of quality and compliance as a separate element of the culture may undermine the overall effectiveness of quality and compliance programs, leaving room for …

Nigerian Banks' Compliance With The Code Of Corporate Governance, Aderonke Alberta Tayo-Tiwo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Frequent incidences of bank failures in Nigeria resulting in enormous losses of investments and jobs have raised questions about the level of banks' compliance with the code of corporate governance. This single exploratory case study shifted attention from the banks to the regulators of banks in Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to find out the problems they may be encountering in getting the banks to be fully compliant. Purposeful sampling was used to select 25 senior participants who were directly involved with the monitoring of banks from CBN. The agency theory served as the conceptual framework. The sources …

Strategies For Compliance With Government Regulations In A Pharmaceutical Company, Charles Jagun

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Pharmaceutical companies accrued fines of over $30 billion within 25 years because of noncompliance with regulations. Noncompliance with regulations results in fines and an adverse impact on company profitability. Some pharmaceutical company managers lack effective strategies to ensure overall company compliance with regulation. Based on complexity leadership theory, the purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies pharmaceutical company managers used to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements in Nigeria. The target population was functional managers purposely selected because they had successfully implemented strategies for compliance with the regulatory requirements in Nigeria. Data were collected through face-to-face and telephone …

Mortgage Regulations And Compliance Strategies, Cheryl Travis-Johnson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 2010, regulators established new rules for single-family mortgage services that tightened the loan amount consumers could qualify for, restricted fees lenders could charge, and placed numerous financial penalties for improper servicing of loans. Regulatory fee restrictions made it difficult for leaders to offset the compliance costs through the price of services provided. Leaders responsible for mortgage regulatory compliance experienced increased operating costs for single-family mortgage services due to the new regulations, and some leaders found it challenging to comply and remain competitive. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies leaders in the single-family mortgage services …

Compliance Strategies To Reduce The Risks Of Money Laundering And Terrorist Financing, Cassandra Nottage

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective compliance programs expose banking and trust companies to increased risk of money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF). Using risk management theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore compliance strategies that Bahamian bank and trust company managers use to reduce ML/TF risks. Study participants comprised 7 senior risk and compliance managers experienced in risk strategy development and implementation. Semistructured interview data were triangulated with data collected from internal policy and procedural documents, publicly available papers of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), and the Central …

Preparing For The Merit-Based Incentive Payment Structure: A Value-Based Business Plan, Ali R. Saheb

Doctoral Projects

The notion of delivering value-based care while maintaining corporate vitality in health care is a multifaceted process. Shaping a business model to reflect this process requires the alignment of quality implications, reimbursement initiatives, a framework that takes into account stipulations on reimbursement for different types of clinicians, and an understanding and preparedness for emerging guidelines and nationally recognized structures for quality indicators. When organizations recognize the need for change, but are not yet prepared to implement it, a comprehensive business plan can help the organization visualize a path to success. In this project, the foundation of requirements for a value-based …

Strategic Cyber-Risk Implications Of Cloud Technology Adoption In The U.S. Financial Services Sector, Olatunji Mujib Arowolo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

According to research, the risks of adopting new technology and the technological and organizational factors that influence adopting it are not clear. Thus, many financial institutions have hesitated to adopt cloud-computing. The purpose of this quantitative, cross-sectional study was to evaluate the cyber-risk implications of cloud-computing adoption in the U.S. financial services sector. The study examined 6 technological and organizational factors: organization size, relative advantage, compliance, security, compatibility, and complexity within the context of cyber-risk. Using a combination of diffusion of innovation theory and technology-organization-environment framework as the foundation, a predictive cybersecurity model was developed to determine the factors that …

Enterprise Risk Management In Responsible Financial Reporting, Robin B. Ewers

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite regulatory guidelines, unreliable financial reporting exists in organizations, creating undue financial risk-harm for their stakeholders. Normal accident theory (NAT) identifies factors in highly complex integrated systems that can have unexpected, undetected, and uncorrected system failures. High-reliability organization (HRO) theory constructs promote reliability in complex, integrated systems prone to NAT factors. Enterprise risk management (ERM) integrates NAT factors and HRO constructs under a holistic framework to achieve organizational goals and mitigate the potential for stakeholder risk-harm. Literature on how HRO constructs promote ERM in responsible integrated financial systems has been limited. The purpose of this qualitative, grounded theory study was …

Coordinating Compliance Incentives, Veronica Root

Faculty Scholarship

In today’s regulatory environment, a corporation engaged in wrongdoing can be sure of one thing: regulators will point to an ineffective compliance program as a key cause of institutional misconduct. The explosion in the importance of compliance is unsurprising given the emphasis that governmental actors — from the Department of Justice, to the Securities and Exchange Commission, to even the Commerce Department — place on the need for institutions to adopt “effective compliance programs.” The governmental actors that demand effective compliance programs, however, have narrow scopes of authority. DOJ Fraud handles violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while the …

Foreword: Twenty-Eighth Annual Corporate Law Symposium: Rethinking Compliance, Felix B. Chang

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The University of Cincinnati College of Law devoted its 28th Annual Corporate Law Center Symposium to compliance. It was a timely choice, coinciding not only with an explosion of sector regulation in recent years but also with shifting market realities for legal employment and legal education. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”) and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are two prominent examples of major legislation that has added—and will continue to add—to compliance obligations for broad swathes of industries. Meanwhile, the financial crisis has spurred profound transformations in legal employment, including cutbacks in entry …

“Oversight Of The False Claims Act” Testimony By Professor Larry D. Thompson Before The U.S. House Of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee On The Constitution And Civil Justice, Larry D. Thompson

Presentations and Speeches

Sibley Professor in Corporate and Business Law Larry D. Thompson testifies in a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice hearing on “Oversight of the False Claims Act.” The purpose of the hearing was to examine the act’s success and seek ways “to prevent, detect and eliminate false claims costing taxpayer dollars, while ensuring fair and just results.”

For A Dollar, Would You…? How (We Think) Money Affects Compliance With Our Requests, Vanessa K. Bohns, Daniel A. Newark, Amy Z. Xu

Vanessa K. Bohns

Research has shown a robust tendency for people to underestimate their ability to get others to comply with their requests. In five studies, we demonstrate that this underestimation-of-compliance effect is reduced when requesters offer money in exchange for compliance. In Studies 1 and 2, participants assigned to a no-incentive or monetary-incentive condition made actual requests of others. In both studies, requesters who offered no incentives underestimated the likelihood that those they approached would grant their requests; however, when requesters offered monetary incentives, this prediction error was mitigated. In Studies 3-5, we present evidence in support of a model to explain …

Are Social Prediction Errors Universal? Predicting Compliance With A Direct Request Across Cultures, Vanessa K. Bohns, Michael J. J. Handgraaf, Jianmin Sun, Hillie Aaldering, Changguo Mao, Jennifer Logg

Vanessa K. Bohns

Previous research conducted in the United States has demonstrated that help-seekers fail to appreciate the embarrassment and awkwardness (i.e., social costs) targets would experience by saying “no" to a request for help. Underestimation of such social costs leads help-seekers to underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their requests. We hypothesized that this error would be attenuated in a collectivistic culture. We conducted a naturalistic help-seeking study in the U.S. and China and found that Chinese help-seekers were more accurate than American help-seekers at predicting compliance. A supplementary scenario study in which we measured individual differences in collectivistic and …

Once Bitten, Twice Shy: The Effect Of A Past Refusal On Expectations Of Future Compliance, Daniel A. Newark, Francis J. Flynn, Vanessa K. Bohns

Vanessa K. Bohns

Four studies examined help-seekers’ beliefs about how past refusals affect future compliance. In Study 1, help-seekers were more likely than potential helpers to believe that a previous refusal would lead a potential helper to deny a subsequent request of similar size. Study 2 replicated this effect and found that help-seekers underestimated the actual compliance rate of potential helpers who had previously refused to help. Studies 3 and 4 explain this asymmetry. Whereas potential helpers’ willingness to comply with a subsequent request stems from the discomfort of rejecting others not once, but twice, help-seekers rely on dispositional attributions of helpfulness to …

If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests For Help, Francis J. Flynn, Vanessa K. Bohns

Vanessa K. Bohns

A series of studies tested whether people underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their direct requests for help. In the first 3 studies, people underestimated by as much as 50% the likelihood that others would agree to a direct request for help, across a range of requests occurring in both experimental and natural field settings. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating a person’s perspective (as help seeker or potential helper) could elicit this underestimation effect. Finally, in Study 6, the authors explored the source of the bias, finding that help seekers were less willing than potential …

Strategies To Influence A Quality And Compliance Culture, Betsy Jean Macht

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In drug, medical, and consumer products businesses, leaders should establish strategies that ensure production of quality products and drive profitability. Sales of defective or substandard products carry a potential risk of unintended effects on the consumer. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the strategies used by leaders to influence a culture of quality and compliance, leading to production of saleable products, and business profitability. The conceptual framework of the theory of constraints served to guide the scope and data analysis for this study. Participants included ten individuals with a minimum of 5 years of experience at …

Impact Of Regulatory Burden On Small Community Banks In Pennsylvania, Teresa L. Gregory

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Community bank managers are struggling with the implementation of the many new regulations promulgated over the past several years. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies community bank managers in Pennsylvania use to implement new financial regulations. The population of interest included all community banks in Pennsylvania. For purposes of this study, a community bank was defined in terms of an asset size less than $500 million. Two community banks in Pennsylvania were selected, and 3 participants at each bank were interviewed. The participants included the chief executive officer, the compliance manager, and a mortgage …

Corporate Governance Issues In The Nigerian Banking Industry, Oyebola Bejide Akande

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Corporate governance issues resulting from bad governance, fraudulent activities, insider abuse, and corruption have attracted the attention of shareholders and regulators in the banking industry. The financial crisis that erupted from the United States affected the financial institutions of both developed and developing countries, among which Nigerian banks belong. The Central Bank of Nigeria removed 8 managing directors and executive directors due to bad governance, nonperforming loans of 61%, and toxic assets of $13.3 billion; the Central Bank injected 620 billion naira into the banks. The purpose of this multiple case study was to develop an understanding of corporate governance …

How Grant Recipients Can Satisfy Compliance Requirements For U.S. Federal Awards, Thomas Edward Drabczyk

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Improper grants payments stemming from weaknesses in business processes have been a focus of the U.S. president, Congress, and federal and state governments since 2009. Researchers have demonstrated that the internal control weakness at the federal, state, and local government level has contributed to the problem of compliance. The Office of Management and Budget issued federal rules effective in December 2014 to address the problem of federal award compliance. Despite these measures, there is a gap in the literature on strategies for recipients of federal grants to meet compliance requirements. The purpose of the qualitative descriptive study was to explore …

The Changing Face Of Corporate Compliance And Corporate Governance, Sean J. Griffith, Steve Thel, Miriam Baer, Geoffrey P. Miller, Gerald Manwah, Stuart Breslow, Alan Cohen, Martin Grant, Henry Klehm Iii, Allen Meyer, Thomas C. Baxter Jr.

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

We are pleased to present this Symposium on the revolution in corporate compliance and its evolution in the financial services industry. This is the annual symposium hosted by the Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law on significant topics in the realm of business law.

The format of the symposium is as follows. It begins with an introduction by Professor Sean Griffith, followed by edited transcripts of the two panel discussions and the keynote address.

The first panel is “Revolution: Challenging Corporate Norms?” and addresses the question of whether the revolution in corporate compliance challenges the established norms of corporate …

World Tours And The Summer Olympics: Recent Pitfalls Under The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act In The Areas Of Gifts, Entertainment, And Travel, Jon Jordan

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

In the spring of 2015, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission brought two significant Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases involving gifts, entertainment, and travel. The SEC brought the case of In the Matter of FLIR Systems involving FCPA violations concerning the financing of a “world tour” of personal travel for government officials. The SEC then filed the case of In the Matter of BHP Billiton involving FCPA violations concerning the sponsored attendance of foreign officials at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. These landmark cases affirm previous guidance by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States Department …

Who Let The Lawyers Out?: Reconstructing The Role Of The Chief Legal Officer And The Corporate Client In A Globalizing World, Constance Bagley

Constance E. Bagley

A Work System Perspective On Adoption Entities, Adoption Processes, And Post-Adoption Compliance And Noncompliance, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This conceptual contribution responds to the invitation to the DIGIT 2015 Call for Papers “to reflect on and move forward from the dominant stream of research work on technology acceptance.” The dominant stream of research is basically about antecedents and correlates of adoption and continuation of use for hardware/software artifacts. This paper uses work system theory and several of its extensions to identify directions for adoption research that have been realized partially, but not nearly to the extent possible. It focuses on three general issues:

1) what adoption means in the context of work systems,

2) how adoption occurs, and …