Issues Of Agency Research Articles

The Gendered Politics of Postmodern Parody in Acker’s Great Expectations

This paper critically explores the gendered politics of Kathy Acker’s use of postmodern parody in her novel Great Expectations (1982). By using the textual codes and paradigms of postmodern parody, as theorized by Linda Hutcheon, Acker seeks to initiate a parodic appropriation of the Dickensian text in order to interrogate the culturally privileged gender norms encoded in this male text. Acker’s parodic rewriting of Dickens’ Great Expectations(1862) is really one of textual appropriation as it seeks to re-write the male text from a totally different, notably gendered, perspective. The aim of such an appropriation is to create a textual space to negotiate issues of gender and female agency. Acker seeks to challenge culturally established canonical narratives of male dominance. She does this by creating feminist counter narratives that bring to the fore issues of gender identity and difference. Keywords: Gender Politics, Postmodern Parody, Textual Appropriation, Intertextuality, Linda Hutcheon

Ethical Pitfalls in Research with Young People: How Can They Be Identified and Addressed?

This article aims to shed light on ethical pitfalls that may occur when researchers conduct research with young people (aged 15–24). Young age itself does not automatically indicate vulnerability. Yet, young research participants may be in need of extraordinary measures that safeguard their well-being. The presented pitfalls centre around the issues of consent, power and agency, and relationships and confidentiality. The article contributes to the research literature by creating awareness about these ethical pitfalls that otherwise may pass by unnoticed and by exploring how such pitfalls may be avoided or addressed. To this purpose, the authors build upon the existing knowledge base and reflect upon their own experiences as youth researchers. The article may be used as a thinking or discussion tool and concludes with recommendations that may become part of youth researchers’ ethical toolkit.

Co‐opted Independent Directors and Firms' Environmental Performance

ABSTRACTResearch Question/IssueConsidering escalating environmental concerns and the important role of board members in shaping strategic corporate decisions, we investigate the relationship between co‐opted independent directors and firms' environmental performance.Research Findings/InsightsExamining US firms from 2002 to 2018, we document a significant negative relationship between co‐opted independent directors and firm environmental performance. Our findings show that while institutional ownership and CEO power exacerbate the negative association, strong corporate governance mitigates this negative impact of co‐opted independent directors on environmental performance. The cross‐sectional results show that the relationship is pronounced in firms with young CEOs, male CEOs, and low CEO compensation. Further, the relationship is also prevalent in boards with fewer meetings, high multiple directors, and higher compensation, indicating a monitoring compromise by independent co‐opted directors.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsReasonable theoretical arguments are drawn from agency theory and the theory of friendly boards, and our statistical analysis supports the academic position of the theory of friendly boards. The negative effect of independent co‐opted directors on firm environmental performance challenges the role of independent directors in addressing agency issues in environmental efforts, hinting at a departure from conventional agency theory expectations.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsTo improve environmental performance, firms should reconsider their board structures, acknowledging the potential drawbacks of co‐opted independent directors. Our findings challenge the Sarbanes–Oxley Act's (SOX) emphasis on increasing the number of outside directors, which assumes independent board members will rigorously oversee executives. Such legislation is greatly based on the premise that independent board members strictly monitor executives. However, our findings indicate that not all independent directors are strict monitors, as demonstrated by lower environmental performance when there are more co‐opted independent directors.

The Complementarity and Substitution Effects of CSR‐Focused Governance Mechanisms on CSR Decoupling

ABSTRACTResearch Question/IssueThe study examines whether CSR‐focused governance mechanisms (CSR committees, standalone CSR reports, and CSR contracting) operate as complements or substitutes for each other in mitigating CSR decoupling.Research Findings/InsightsThe study finds that CSR‐focused governance mechanisms diminish CSR decoupling and enhance CSR credibility in UK firms. In addition, the simultaneous presence of CSR committees and standalone CSR reports has a complementary effect in mitigating CSR decoupling. Conversely, the combinations of CSR committees and CSR contracting as well as standalone CSR reports and CSR contracting exhibit a substitute relationship. These impacts remain consistent when categorizing CSR decoupling into underreporting and overreporting. During the financial crisis of 2008–2009, the complementary relationship between CSR committees and CSR reports remained consistent, although the substitution between CSR committees and CSR contracting, and CSR reports and CSR contracting, is only observed after the crisis.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsThe study innovatively contributes to the agency theory literature by adopting a bundle corporate governance approach while focusing on specific CSR governance mechanisms to address agency issues. It empirically shows that complementary combinations of CSR‐focused governance mechanisms signify a marginal benefit in reducing CSR decoupling, leading to a reduction in agency costs.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsThe study offers several implications. First, it helps firms create ideal combinations of different CSR‐focused governance mechanisms that provide superior marginal benefits. Second, firms' stakeholders, especially the investors, could identify the usefulness of adopting CSR‐focused governance mechanisms in CSR reporting. Finally, it could also attract regulators' attention toward the weaker aspects of the existing corporate governance code regarding CSR.

Requesting another to taste: Passing food and the distribution of agency in the organization of bodily trajectories

This paper offers an analysis of the organizational features of passing food objects as a commonplace embodied social practice to accomplish requests to another to taste food during joint cooking activities. Situated within the cognate frameworks of Conversation Analysis and Ethnomethodology, the sequential, multimodal analysis details and explains the formal features of passing food from hand to hand and from hand to mouth as distinct practices with distinct micro-sequential organizations. The study draws on a corpus of 14 hours of video-recordings of naturally occurring joint cooking activities in which the participants speak German, Swedish, and English. Focusing on the projectable aspects of bodily trajectories, the analysis reveals how the request sequences are achieved through the participants’ early projection of how to pass the food objects and their stepwise mutual adjustments to their conjoint action trajectory. In progressively establishing who does what next and how during the food transfer, the participants orient to the relevance and distribution of interactional agency. When the normative organization of the step-by-step transfer is disregarded, an ambiguity emerges concerning what action the practice is doing, which prompts the participants to engage in significant interactional work to re-negotiate on what terms the transfer can resume. This shows how issues of interactional agency are exerted and exhibited in and through the sequential organization of social interaction. The results contribute to, and elaborate, prior findings on requests and advances our understanding for the close attention that participants to interaction pay to the detailed aspects of multimodally formatted actions and the normative expectancies that make up to their intelligibility, reflexively elaborating each other.

Feral Experiments in CreaTures Co-Laboratory

We share insights from our practice-based experimentation with ‘feral’ ways of sensemaking in the context of creative transformational practices. Drawing on three art and design research projects, we discuss how feral ways–open-ended, spontaneous, welcoming indeterminacy – may foster more-than-human co-creation of knowledge and data, and nurture shifts from anthropocentric ‘making sense of’ to relational ‘making sense-with’ other-than-human creatures. Through our cases, we illustrate how experimenting with feralness can foreground issues of power, agency, and control in the currently human-centric discourses around data, technology, and sensemaking in eco-social transformation. Our insights may nurture critical more-than-human perspectives in creative eco-social inquiries.

Tech Limited: AI is AI

AbstractWhat might a conversation between a highly trained generator that calculates the probability of the next word in a sentence, and the jumbled mess of organic neurons inside the head of a human architect look like? Through such a fictitious dialogue, architectural designer and educator Ryan Vincent Manning explores issues of human inquisitiveness, uniqueness and agency, human‐ machine interfaces, machine intelligence, AI latent spaces and the assimilation of design originality into free‐access, ubiquitous machine code that is adding to huge potential datasets.

A utopia do harém: representações do harém nas cartas persas de Montesquieu e em Nasci num Harém de Fatima Mernissi

The harem has long been depicted as representative of the Orient in Western imagination. For some, a place of despotic rule and (female) oppression; to others, a feminist utopia of female freedom and protection. This paper analyzes two fundamental works that focus on the harem, Montesquieu’s 18th century Persian Letters, and Fatima Mernissi’s 20th century Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood. It will do a comparative and exploratory reading of the harems presented in these two works, while focusing specifically on issues of agency and power—all departing from the concept of despotic power, female and authorial agency, and the gaze.

Intersectional Emancipation for Biocultural Conservation: An Exploratory Neolocalism Framework

Ketchikan, Alaska, is a coastal gateway community that has experienced rapid changes, unearthing visceral realizations of biocultural vulnerabilities and bioregional interdependencies. Bordering the Tongass National Forest, the community embodies and endures complicated historicized impacts from neoliberalism, reproduced today by mass cruise tourism. During the COVID-19 global lockdown, remote field work was conducted employing qualitative, in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The rich data illuminated embodied resident perceptions of community changes and bioregional sensoryscapes. Social-ecological reproduction theory is extended by conceptualizing complex interrelationships involving intersectional emancipation, neolocalism, and biocultural conservation. Emerging from the findings, the authors present an exploratory neolocalism framework including the following seven-indicators: resilient governance, diverse economies, biocultural conservation, intersectional engagement, biocultural identity, emancipatory zoning, and decomposition. This framework is intended to support regenerative tourism planning that resists oppression from corporate domination through neolocal resilience. This research articulates issues of community agency, social-ecological reproduction, and intersectional emancipation for biocultural conservation.

To tell or not to tell? Examining voluntary disclosure of customers’ identities under capital market pressure

Using China’s short-sell reform as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that firms respond to short-sell pressure by reducing the disclosure of their customers’ identities after controlling for the influence of proprietary costs. The result remains robust after conducting a parallel trends test and a placebo test, and using a propensity score matching approach. Furthermore, non-disclosure becomes more prevalent among firms with highly perceived customer risks and significant discretionary revenues. These findings imply that negative information transmission between economically linked firms and potential agency issues inherent to supplier firms prompt them to withhold customer identity. Finally, a non-disclosing strategy benefits firms by lowering the probability of fraud detection and reducing operating uncertainty. We suggest regulators implement policies to incentivize firms to improve information transparency in the supply chain.

Managerial discretion and debt financing under information uncertainty

AbstractThis study investigates how information uncertainty influences managers' decisions and compensation. It reveals varying financial choices under uncertainty levels. Initially, information uncertainty results in debtholders undervaluing debt in comparison to situations without such uncertainty. Consequently, they consistently estimate a default threshold that is lower than the threshold managers choose to maximize their value. Low uncertainty prompts overinvestment, heightening agency issues. Increased uncertainty leads debt holders to reduce the capital they are willing to lend to companies for investment. To invest early, funds must be injected or costs incurred. Information uncertainty can ease agency conflicts, shifting decisions from overinvestment to underinvestment. Managerial compensation matters: higher fixed salaries curb overinvestment, while increased reservation income exacerbates it.

Kenyan Rock Art: protecting the past, facilitating the future through immersive technologies, archaeology, and drama education

ABSTRACT This article responds to Olof Franck’s vision of a less didactic and more creative approach to Education for Sustainable Development. We consider how a multidisciplinary applied theatre project, bringing together Earth Sciences, Ancient Rock Art, storytelling, digital technology, and drama education knowledges and techniques can foster a more creative approach. The article is rooted in our analysis of the African Rock Art: protecting the past, facilitating the future project. We reflect on the challenges and possibilities of engaging with issues of climate crisis, responsibility, agency, and action in the Korogocho informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya.

Ewolucja i stan obecny amerykańskiego modelu postępowania administracyjnego. W kierunku reformy i ujęcia koncepcyjnego

Administrative procedure in the United States of America is an integral part of administrative law. It is universal in its nature as it plays the role of an effective tool to regulate the conduct and activities of officials of state authorities, to combat corruption, and to protect the rights and legitimate interests of citizens. The relevant agencies issue rules and regulations that have the force of law. Currently, progressive governance largely depends on decisions of the state policy made in the course of government rule-making, and therefore certain aspects of the modern model of administrative procedure in the US should be revised with a view to further reform. The objective of the article is to conduct independent research on the formation and current condition of the American model of administrative procedure. A set of general scientific and special methods was used to achieve this objective. The leading method in the process of research was the dialectical method of cognition of phenomena and processes, which made it possible to determine the condition, areas and prospects for the development of scientific research and legislative developments in legal regulation and approbation of the American model of administrative procedure. The conclusion drawn by the authors made it possible to form a conceptual understanding of the American model of administrative procedure.

Does corporate governance matter in competitive industries? Evidence from brokerage mergers and closures

AbstractWe document that firms in competitive industries experience significantly more deterioration in financial reporting quality after a reduction in analyst coverage due to brokerage closures or mergers, as compared to firms in noncompetitive industries. Most of the effects are mainly driven by firms with smaller initial analyst coverage, lower institutional ownership and greater financial constraints. Importantly, we further show that after brokerage exits, managerial slack increases more for firms in noncompetitive than competitive industries. Consistent with the notion that agency manifestation can take different forms, we provide evidence that competition may curtail some agency issues, such as managerial slack, while also exacerbating other agency issues, such as financial misreporting.

Confucian culture and cost stickiness

AbstractCultural features may exert significant impact on firm behaviour. Through a sample of listed A‐share firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, we find that Confucian culture may significantly lower firms' cost stickiness. Our mechanism tests suggest that ideologies of self‐discipline and prudence embedded in Confucian culture may mitigate agency issues as well as overestimation of firm earnings. Furthermore, such impact is more pronounced among firms of lower shareholding by institutional investors or of weak internal control, which suggests that Confucian culture may help rectify the imperfection of corporate governance. Lower cost stickiness may also reduce firm risk.

The unintended cost of data breach notification laws: Evidence from managerial bad news hoarding

AbstractWe investigate how nonfinancial disclosure laws exacerbate agency issues in firms. Our analysis focuses on the staggered adoption of state‐level notification laws that require firms to disclose data breaches. Our findings reveal that the introduction of these laws increases the risk of stock price crashes. Managers appear motivated to accumulate unfavorable news in an effort to prevent market overreactions associated with the mandatory disclosure of data breaches. Cross‐sectional analyses also reveal that the impact is stronger when managers have a greater incentive, or greater ability, to hoard information. Our results highlight that nonfinancial disclosures can have unintended consequences for firm information asymmetries and potentially adverse market impacts in cases where the regulation is unable to consider all stakeholders.

Non-mandatory approaches to corporate environmental engagement: Insights from the Belt and Road Initiative

We investigate the impact of the Belt and the Road Initiative (BRI) proposal on environmental investments made by listed firms within China's heavy-polluting industry. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the BRI proposal results in a 81.53% increase in environmental investment made by firms located in provinces along the BRI route. Mechanism analyses suggest that government subsidies for firms' environmental protection activities alleviate corporate financial constraints, thereby providing them with the financial capacity for environmental protection. We further show heterogeneous effects across ownerships and the severity of agency issues. Overall, the results suggest that a combination of non-mandatory measures and financial incentives can effectively promote corporate engagement in environmental protection efforts.

CEO turnover shock and green innovation: Evidence from China

Green innovation requires sustainable input. However, a tradeoff exists between long-term sustainable inputs of green innovation and the short-term perspective of CEOs who desire improved financial performance. This tension is amplified when CEOs are newly appointed. Using a sample of listed Chinese firms, we find that newly hired CEOs have a short-term focus, leading to a significant decrease in green innovation in the year of CEO replacement (CEO turnover shock). When newly hired CEOs take over, such firms shift their research and development (R&D) investments toward mergers and acquisition (M&A) activities. Moreover, the adverse impact of CEO turnover shock on green innovation is stronger in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) and firms without family CEOs but weaker for firms with good internal and external monitoring. Our findings provide theoretical insights into innovation research and agency issues and practical insights into CEO recruiting policy.

CEO compensation complexity: Optimal contracts or agency problems?

AbstractI construct a CEO pay complexity index based on grant‐level compensation data to test whether compensation complexity is consistent with optimal contracts or agency problems. Complexity may represent board efforts to contract optimally or a means by which the CEO camouflages agency issues and rent extraction. I find evidence supporting the agency view by showing how complexity is negatively related to firm value, profitability, and CEO turnover–performance sensitivity. I also examine the relation between complexity and CEO investment behavior and find mixed results. Overall, the findings relate to shareholders' dissatisfaction with the increased complexity of CEO compensation.

Making sense of radiomics: insights on human–AI collaboration in medical interaction from an observational user study

Technologies based on “artificial intelligence” (AI) are transforming every part of our society, including healthcare and medical institutions. An example of this trend is the novel field in oncology and radiology called radiomics, which is the extracting and mining of large-scale quantitative features from medical imaging by machine-learning (ML) algorithms. This paper explores situated work with a radiomics software platform, QuantImage (v2), and interaction around it, in educationally framed hands-on trial sessions where pairs of novice users (physicians and medical radiology technicians) work on a radiomics task consisting of developing a predictive ML model with a co-present tutor. Informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA), the results show that learning about radiomics more generally and learning how to use this platform specifically are deeply intertwined. Common-sense knowledge (e.g., about meanings of colors) can interfere with the visual representation standards established in the professional domain. Participants' skills in using the platform and knowledge of radiomics are routinely displayed in the assessment of performance measures of the resulting ML models, in the monitoring of the platform's pace of operation for possible problems, and in the ascribing of independent actions (e.g., related to algorithms) to the platform. The findings are relevant to current discussions about the explainability of AI in medicine as well as issues of machinic agency.