Expanding Mechanisms of Governance: Uncertainty and Risk in Police Decision-Making Strategies in the Pursuit of Specialized Peace Bonds

This study examines police officers’ decision-making practices through analyzing how they determine which offenders are candidates for an 810, or peace bond. This legal tool allows police officers to petition the courts for continued surveillance and conditions for offenders postrelease. Little, however, is offered in terms of assessment guidelines on how to make such determinations. As a result, police officers discretionary behaviors and additional legal factors play a key role in these determinations. Our findings advance the idea that “uncertainty” is the central object to be managed, and further complicate how risk is constructed and mobilized by suggesting that risk assessments result in over-precautionary practices.

Trust predicts COVID-19 prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions in 23 countries

The worldwide spread of a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) since December 2019 has posed a severe threat to individuals’ well-being. While the world at large is waiting that the released vaccines immunize most citizens, public health experts suggest that, in the meantime, it is only through behavior change that the spread of COVID-19 can be controlled. Importantly, the required behaviors are aimed not only at safeguarding one’s own health. Instead, individuals are asked to adapt their behaviors to protect the community at large. This raises the question of which social concerns and moral principles make people willing to do so. We considered in 23 countries (N = 6948) individuals’ willingness to engage in prescribed and discretionary behaviors, as well as country-level and individual-level factors that might drive such behavioral intentions. Results from multilevel multiple regressions, with country as the nesting variable, showed that publicized number of infections were not significantly related to individual intentions to comply with the prescribed measures and intentions to engage in discretionary prosocial behaviors. Instead, psychological differences in terms of trust in government, citizens, and in particular toward science predicted individuals’ behavioral intentions across countries. The more people endorsed moral principles of fairness and care (vs. loyalty and authority), the more they were inclined to report trust in science, which, in turn, statistically predicted prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions. Results have implications for the type of intervention and public communication strategies that should be most effective to induce the behavioral changes that are needed to control the COVID-19 outbreak.

Moderating Effect of the 2001-65 Law Relating to Credit Tunisian Institutions on Discretionary Practices

The multitude of financial scandals throughout the last two decades is mainly due to fraud and significant irregularities recorded in the financial statements published following accounting manipulations. The aim of this study is to test the moderating effect of Law 2001-65 relating to credit institutions on discretionary practices within Tunisian banks. Following a comparative study of discretionary practices before the introduction of this law and after its introduction, on a sample of Tunisian commercial banks we have shown the crucial role played by this law in the limitation of discretionary behavior in order to align regulatory capital in relation to the period preceding the promulgation of this law (1990-2000). However, we have shown an increase in these discretionary behaviors for earnings management purposes during the period following the entry into force of this law (2001-2019).

Can I Be Me With You at Work? Examining Relational Authenticity and Discretionary Behaviors in the Workplace

Management scholars have long been interested in the topic of authenticity in the workplace, evidenced by the history of scholarship on authentic leadership and the many new authenticity constructs that have emerged. In this article, we take a narrower view of authenticity and focus on relational authenticity in the workplace, which we define as being genuine in workplace relationships. Adapting a validated relational authenticity scale to the organizational context, we explore the ways in which feeling authentic in workplace relationships has ramifications for discretionary behaviors. Specifically, we build on belongingness theory to posit that relational authenticity will result in an increase in engagement in both altruistic and sportsmanship behaviors. We also explore the moderating effect of proactive personality on these relationships. Results from our two-sample study ( N = 352; 500) indicate that relational authenticity is positively associated with engagement in both altruistic and sportsmanship behaviors.

Abusive Supervision: Group-Level Perception and Retaliation

Prior research provides various views on subordinates' workplace deviated behavior as retaliation against supervisory abuse, the effect of abusive supervision (AS) on subordinates as a group and their interpersonal relations gets poor attention. Grounded on the social exchange theory, the present study presents a model where a group of subordinates exhibits seemingly opposite discretionary behaviors in integration to combat supervisory abuse. In particular, this study posits that subordinates who experience abuse from the same supervisor form a group. This group bond provides them with enough power to involve in deviant behavior against their supervisor and supervisor's favored coworkers. Multiple source data were collected, and linear hierarchal regression in addition to process macro methodology was used for data analysis. Findings support the mediation hypotheses partially.

BANK EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND DIVIDEND POLICY UNDER AGENCY PROBLEM CONTEXTS

Using a large sample of U.S. bank holding companies (BHC) from 2000:Q1–2017:Q4, we investigate the impacts of dividend policy to bank earnings management, and document that banks that pay dividends tend to be less opaque than banks that do not pay dividends. The dividend policy not only impacts the conditional average earnings management of banks, but also exerts influence on their dispersion. The impact of dividend policy appears to be more profound for highly opaque banks. We identify different conditions that motivate different discretionary behaviors of banks, which allows us to better observe different managerial motives between dividend-paying and dividend-non-paying banks. Under high information asymmetry context, there is valuably additional information conveyed by paying dividends, and it follows that the role of dividends as a means of conveying information is more pronounced. For banks subject to high agency problems, paying dividends make them to be less opaque through reducing the discretionary behaviors.

Predicting customer experience and discretionary behaviors of bank customers in India

Purpose Banks in India are underperforming on customer-centric measures. The existing mechanisms used by Indian banks for evaluating their customer interface are efficiency measures which are limited in deciphering bank’s success in fulfilling customer needs. The purpose of this paper is to build a case for banks to evaluate their processes on the dimension of customer experience (CE). Design/methodology/approach The study performs in-depth review of literature to identify the factors of CE and uses confirmatory factor analysis to confirm these factors in Indian retail banking context. Post factor confirmation, it uses discriminant analysis to test the predictive strength of the CE factors for discretionary behaviors of customers. Findings CE factors are categorized as functional clues (convenience and credibility), humanic clues (employee competence and compassion) and mechanic clues (service context). The study finds that the functional clues are the most significant predictors of customers’ discretionary behaviors followed by humanic clues while the mechanic clues are only hygiene factors for customer behaviors. Practical implications The study highlights CE factors which could be developed into potential competitive advantages for banks. Banks can prioritize their investments in these factors for improved economic performance. Originality/value There is no clear definition of CE in the extant literature particularly, in the context of retail banking. A factor-level study of CE for discretionary behaviors of bank customers is an attempt to provide specific inputs to those banks which are looking forward to use CE as a means to win and retain customers in markets characterized by intense competition.