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Exploiting detailed disclosures mandated by Accounting Standard Codification (ASC) 820, we provide evidence for the return relevance of Level 3 fair value remeasurements for a comprehensive sample of U.S. listed banks. We find that Level 3 remeasurements recognized in earnings are more return relevant than those recognized in other comprehensive income (OCI). Our results suggest that Level 3 remeasurements in OCI partially reflect transitory illiquidity discounts that are less relevant when banks have the ability to hold the underlying assets. The regulatory capital treatment of OCI also affects the return relevance of Level 3 remeasurements in OCI. Importantly, we find no differences in the return relevance of realized versus unrealized Level 3 remeasurements in earnings, allaying concerns that investors perceive unrealized Level 3 remeasurements of lesser quality. Overall, our findings support the usefulness of the segregated disclosures of Level 3 fair value remeasurements. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.

We examine how audit partners' geographic proximity to clients affects audit quality. We use hand-collected data to show that approximately half of audit partners are assigned to clients headquartered more than 100 km away from the partners' home locations. Few of these partners relocate after receiving their assignments and, as a result, more than one-third of clients are audited by partners who must commute long distances to visit the client in person. We explore this phenomenon by first modeling how distance affects partner-client matching. We find that partners' geographic proximity to a prospective client is an important matching criterion, but also that trade-offs are made when other partner characteristics such as industry specialization are more likely to be important. Next, consistent with our prediction, we show that audit quality is lower when partners reside farther from their clients. We corroborate our primary findings by showing that the association between partner distance and audit quality is mitigated when partners have access to direct flights to their clients' headquarters and when clients are geographically dispersed. Our paper should be informative for regulators, practicing auditors, and academics interested in how partner-client matching affects audit outcomes.

This paper investigates the effects of social assistance on subjective well-being looking at the case of Kyrgyzstan. For this purpose, we exploit recent changes in the design of social assistance and apply a difference in difference (DiD) method combined with an inverse probability weighting (IPW) technique. In contrast to the existing literature, we find that in the short-term, the receipt of social assistance benefits is associated with lower levels of subjective well-being. Our findings also reveal that participation in social assistance leads to some reduction in satisfaction regarding recipients' own economic conditions. Moreover, we find that the negative effects on subjective well-being disappear for the oldest generations, which experienced the dissolution of the Soviet Union. By contrast, the effect is negative for the youth, who grew up in a new society where needing help is ultimately the responsibility of the individual citizen. For individuals with high trust in political institutions, the negative effect of state intervention does not hold, while it persists in case of low trust in political institutions.

This study investigates the impact on audit pricing of PCAOB inspection outcomes on the quality control systems of small audit firms. Quality control deficiencies (QCDs) provide a strong signal about audit quality, which is expected to lead to price changing. We first document that audit fees in the pre-inspection period were higher for small audit firms without QCDs, implying that quality differences were already partially known and priced in the market. Next, we find evidence that in the post-inspection period audit fees further increase for firms without QCDs, while there is limited evidence for fee increases for firms with remediated QCDs, suggesting changes in audit firm reputation. Interestingly, we do not find support for fee changes for audit firms with disclosed quality control deficiencies. Finally, the magnitude of change in audit fees decreases over time. Collectively, these findings contribute to our understanding of audit quality differences amongst small audit firms and the functioning of the small audit firm market.

Students' academic achievement is a key predictor of various life outcomes and is commonly used for selection as well as for educational monitoring and accountability. With regard to achievement indicators, a differentiation has traditionally been drawn between grades and standardized tests. There is initial, albeit inconclusive, evidence that these indicators might differentially reflect students' personality as encapsulated in the Big Five personality traits as well as measures of cognitive abilities. In this article, we propose the personality-achievement saturation hypothesis (PASH) as an overarching model that describes the association between achievement indicators and personality. The PASH suggests that the differentiation between grades and tests is too simplistic and that associations between personality and achievement instead vary across five main features of the achievement measures that are used: level of standardization, relevance for the student, curricular validity, instructional sensitivity, and cognitive ability saturation. On the basis of findings from prior studies, we focused in particular on conscientiousness and openness to test the PASH. We used data from three large-scale studies (total N = 14,953) and aggregated our findings across these studies. In line with the PASH, the Big Five trait of conscientiousness was most strongly related to measures that were less standardized and less saturated with cognitive ability but higher on curriculum validity, relevance, and instructional sensitivity. In addition, openness was most strongly related to measures that were higher on standardization and cognitive ability saturation but lower on relevance, curriculum validity, and instructional sensitivity in English.Educational Impact and Implications Statement Achievement measures are of central importance for student selection, employment, and educational policy, and according to a widely shared belief, they involve intellectual abilities as well as aspects of personality such as effort and persistence. Up to now, prior research has remained rather inconclusive about why achievement measures vary in their degree of personality saturation. In this study, we developed and successfully tested a new framework (the PASH), which categorizes achievement measures along five main features and thereby contributes to a better explanation of differential associations between personality traits and different achievement measures.

Researchers, regulators, and practitioners have expressed concerns that the increase in disclosures in annual reports of firms over the past decades has resulted in unintended consequences for financial statement users. We investigate whether increases in disclosure requirements are associated with increased difficulty to use financial statements. We create an index measuring firms' increasing exposure to regulation-induced disclosures in their 10-K filings and show that a higher index is on average associated with longer analyst delay, lower analyst accuracy, and higher dispersion. Consistent with information overload theory, we also find evidence consistent with an inverted-U curve: As regulation-induced disclosures increase, the decision quality of analysts initially increases. However, above a certain level of disclosures, increases in disclosures are associated with a decrease in the decision quality of analysts, as evidenced by an increase in analyst delay and dispersion and a decrease in accuracy. In addition, these adverse effects are more pronounced when analysts are less experienced, follow more firms, and have access to fewer resources. Overall, the findings suggest that increases in regulation-induced disclosures, above a certain level, are associated with information overload.

To understand what motivates individuals to look at their pension situation and make adequate savings decisions, we conduct two field experiments with 226,946 and 257,433 pension fund participants. We find peer-information statements do not increase the rate at which individuals check their pension information, but lottery-type financial incentives do. Offering a few large prizes rather than many small prizes is most effective. However, the uptake of pension information does not lead to improved pension knowledge nor to increased self-reported savings three weeks after our intervention. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Measures that integrate social, economic and ecologic land use functions have increasingly raised the interest of scholars and practitioners concerned with sustainability. However, achieving effective integration involves important governance challenges. One challenge is that actors need to work across social, cognitive and physical boundaries. This article studies how actors span, but also challenge, defend and construct boundaries over time during integrative processes, and what temporal sequences of boundary actions help to realize effective integration. It does so with a comparative longitudinal analysis of two cases of Multifunctional Land Use. We find three main patterns: First, to bridge boundaries, they first need to be created, strengthened and explicated, whilst also connecting actors where possible. Second, after a period of spanning and challenging, reconstructing boundaries can help to keep the process manageable, provide safety and maintain autonomy. Third, challenging boundaries is often necessary to realize integration, even when this stirs up conflicts and internal discussions.

Responsible innovation has emerged as a field of research dedicated to introduce sensitivity to societal values in innovation processes. However, much of the academic literature on RI deals with single technologies instead of technological systems and is future-orientated without explicitly using specialised knowledge of past developments. In this paper, we present a problem-focused approach to RI that aims to support researchers and stakeholders in developing potential solutions from a perspective of systemic awareness and historical sensitivity. We then describe the application of this approach in an 18 months long interdisciplinary research project on plastics. We show that the approach has generated new and unexpected research projects, formed new inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations, and has impacted some participants’ understanding of the systems in which their work is embedded. We conclude that with appropriate willingness to engage by individual researchers, our approach is able to, firstly, influence highly experienced researchers to engage more responsibly with their work, and secondly, to make research projects responsive by including societal concerns and their historical emergence from the start.

This book is an expansion and major updating of the highly successful Theories of Learning for the Workplace, first published in 2011. It offers fascinating overviews into some of the most important theories of learning and how they are practically applied to organisational or workplace learning. Each chapter is co-authored by an academic researcher and an expert in business or industry, providing practical case studies combined with a thorough analysis of theories and models of learning. Key figures in education, psychology, and cognitive science present a comprehensive range of conceptual perspectives on learning theory, offering a wealth of new insights to support innovative research directions and innovation in learning, training, and teaching for the upcoming post-Covid-19 decades. Containing overviews of theories from Argyris, Decuyper, Dochy & Segers, Engestrom, Ericsson, Kolb, Lave & Wenger, Mezirow, Raes & Boon, Schon, Senge, and Van den Bossche, this book discusses: Learning of employees in the digital era Workplace learning High impact learning Informal learning Adult learning Learning & development didactics (L&D) Reflective practice Transformational learning Experiential learning Deliberate practice Communities of practice Team learning Organisational learning Expansive learning Combining theory and practice, this book will be essential reading for all trainee and practising educational psychologists, organisational psychologists, researchers, and students in the field of lifelong learning, educational policy makers, students, researchers, and teachers in vocational and higher education. It will also be of interest to those involved in training trainers and teacher training. © 2022 Filip Dochy, David Gijbels, Mien Segers and Piet Van den Bossche. All rights reserved.

This article presents data on companies' innovative behavior measured at the firm-level based on web scraped firm-level data derived from medium-high and high-technology companies in the European Union and the United Kingdom. The data are retrieved from individual company websites and contains in total data on 96,921 companies. The data provide information on various aspects of innovation, most significantly the research and development orientation of the company at the company and product level, the company's collaborative activities, company's products, and use of standards. In addition to the web scraped data, the dataset aggregates a variety firm-level indicators including patenting activities. In total, the dataset includes 21 variables with unique identifiers which enables connecting to other databases such as financial data.

In the digital economy, firms' IT resource investments represent a significant portion of their capital investments. IT governance processes are critical for companies to decide what and how to deploy IT resources and measure and achieve the expected business benefits. This study introduces and measures the concept of IT governance process capability, which is defined as the firm's ability to identify, design, implement and leverage the following IT governance processes: IT decision-making, IT planning, IT infrastructure modernization, IT services delivery, and IT monitoring. We propose that IT governance process capability can improve IT performance, which in turn can improve business performance. Using a unique dataset from 881 global companies, we found support for the proposed research model. This paper contributes to the Information Systems (IS) literature on business value of IT by conceptualizing, evaluating, and introducing the construct of IT governance process capability and theorizing and proving how this core IT capability positively affects IT performance to enhance business performance.

This paper synthesizes research on audit firm culture (AFC) over the past decade, reviewing recent developments in research on factors instilling culture in audit firms, and how culture influences audit quality and auditors’ work attitudes. We develop and apply a three-phase model based on prior research (e.g., Schein, 2017) and professional guidance (IAASB, 2014), which maps cultural embedding mechanisms (EMs, visible manifestations and organizational conditions to establish culture), perceptions of existing culture, and consequences of culture. Our synthesis shows that the culture of an audit firm is most oriented toward quality if leadership emphasizes professionalism over commercialism, promotes ethical judgments, and facilitates learning through systems, integration of specialists, and interpersonal interactions among auditors. The research cited shows strong influence on AFC of tone at the top set by leadership, as well as incentives in performance/reward systems. Studies we review generally imply continued concern for the influence of commercialism on AFC, but future research should investigate whether recent forces (i.e., pressure from regulators and efforts by the firms) have caused a cultural shift toward professionalism. We close by suggesting opportunities for future research that can strengthen understanding how AFC can be better managed by firms.