Business Commons^™

Irresponsible Contagions: Propagating Harmful Behavior Through Imitation, Andrew Bryant, Jennifer J. Griffin, Vanessa G. Perry

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

‘Monkey see, monkey do’ is an old saying referring to imitating another's actions without necessarily understanding the underlying motivations or being concerned about consequences, such as propagating harmful behaviors. This study examines the likelihood of firms imitating and proliferating others’ unethical, irresponsible practices thereby exacerbating harmful effects among even more firms; in doing so, irresponsible contagions can rapidly spread more broadly, negatively affecting even more consumers. Building upon rivalry- and information-based imitation theories, we examine if harmful behaviors of others, in combination with misbehavior of referent firms, influences the likelihood of a firm to engage in irresponsible consumer-related practices. After …

Capturing Regulatory Agendas?: An Empirical Study Of Industry Use Of Rulemaking Petitions, Daniel Walters

All Faculty Scholarship

A great deal of skepticism toward administrative agencies stems from the widespread perception that they excessively or even exclusively cater to business interests. From the political right comes the accusation that business interests use regulation to erect barriers to entry that protect profits and stifle competition. From the political left comes the claim that business interests use secretive interactions with agencies to erode and negate beneficial regulatory programs. Regulatory “capture” theory elevates many of these claims to the status of economic law. Despite growing skepticism about capture theory in academic circles, empirical studies of business influence and capture return ambiguous …

Estimating The Reproducibility Of Psychological Science, Alexander A. Aarts, Et Al, Stephanie C. Lin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Reproducibility is a defining feature of science, but the extent to which it characterizes current research is unknown. We conducted replications of 100 experimental and correlational studies published in three psychology journals using high-powered designs and original materials when available. Replication effects were half the magnitude of original effects, representing a substantial decline. Ninety-seven percent of original studies had statistically significant results. Thirty-six percent of replications had statistically significant results; 47% of original effect sizes were in the 95% confidence interval of the replication effect size; 39% of effects were subjectively rated to have replicated the original result; and if …

Intraday Stock Prices, Volume, And Duration: A Nonparametric Conditional Density Analysis, Anthony S. Tay, Christopher Ting

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the distribution of high-frequency price changes, conditional on trading volume and duration between trades, on four stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The conditional probabilities are estimated nonparametrically using local polynomial regression methods. We find substantial skewness in the distribution of price changes, with the direction of skewness dependent on the sign of trade. We also find that the probability of larger price changes increases with volume, but only for trades that occur with longer durations. The distribution of price changes vary with duration primarily when volume is high.

An Empirical Analysis Of Internal Control Weaknesses Under Sas No. 78: An Examination Of State Audit Reports, Edmund J. Boyle, Steven M. Cooper, Marshall A. Geiger

Accounting Faculty Publications

While there has been a considerable amount of research regarding internal control over the past several years, scant empirical research has examined SAS No. 78's integrated five-component depiction of internal control in a government setting. In particular, to our knowledge, no study has assessed the types or frequency of weaknesses under the SAS No. 78 framework using actual internal control system findings. In this study, we examine 32 state department and agency internal control reports to assess how well the theoretical framework captures actual system weaknesses, and to determine the relative distribution of weaknesses across components of the framework.

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