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Concordia University (John Molson)

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Concordia University (John Molson) 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd West, MB11-231
Montreal, QC, H3G1M8
Canada
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Demographic Information

Number of full-time MBA students (2011): 

96

Number of part-time MBA students (2011): 

55

Total duration of full-time MBA program: 

16 months

MBA faculty (Fall 2010): 

310

Females as percent of student body: 

33%
Who Are the Students? See what percentage of the 2010-2011 graduating class came to this MBA program from the private sector, the non-profit sector and government jobs
 
Private Sector (71%)
 
Non-profit (13%)
 
Government (16%)


Description of MBA Program: 

With the arrival of Dr. Sanjay Sharma as Dean in the fall of 2007, the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) at Concordia University further increased its focus on integrating sustainability and CSR into its vision of business. Part of the mission of JMSB is to form “socially responsible business people“. At JMSB we think that business schools have a critical role to play in educating our students in the social and environmental realities of the business world. More specifically, students must realize that any business decision they make will affect various stakeholders within society, directly or indirectly. Beyond making sure that students have the proper tools to diagnose and assess the social or environmental impact of business decisions, it is also necessary to provide them with the concept and mechanism that will ensure that, once adopted, social responsibility or environmental management strategies are properly implemented within the organization. In order to achieve that, JMSB has been steadily building a critical mass of scholars who work in this domain: Clarence Bayne, Michel Magnan, Martin Martens, Charles Cho, Ray Paquin, Crawford Spence, Dean Sanjay Sharma and several others; this has allowed for the introduction of several new and essential courses. The recent creation of the Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, housing the David O’Brien Distinguished Professorship in Sustainable Enterprise and the David O’Brien Distinguished Scholars in Sustainability, will further enhance our school's reputation as a leader in sustainable business education and will generate more scholars, research output and courses available to our students. The redesigned John Molson MBA curriculum already incorporates Business Ethics as a core course and others that focus entirely on issues of CSR, ethics and environmental management: Corporate Governance, Sustainable Business Strategy, Corporate Social Reporting, Responsibility and Accountability, Social and Environment



How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?: 

First of all, the new JMSB building is LEED certified, boasting the latest solar technology. It is the first ever international demonstration of combined generation of heat and power using photovoltaic panels from Day4Energy and Solarwall technology - a technology developed in-house at Concordia Engineering.

With its comprehensive R4 program, Concordia is rethinking how it operates (in addition to reducing, reusing and recycling). The school has also started a green purchasing policy, a 60-per-cent reduction in paper use and a bottled-water ban. The Concordia Shuttle buses run on bio-diesel, the campus has several solar compost garbage cans, full recycling systems are available everywhere throughout the campus; the Concordia green house has started a "4 Sasons Growing Project" to illustrate and support the idea of sustainable urban agriculture. Concordia campus has been named by the Canadian government as the most energy-efficient university campus.

Through an integrated underground system directly connected to Montreal's metro, the students, faculty and staff are encouraged to use public transportation to get to the university.

Academic Department

Course Name: Business Ethics
Instructor: Tim Field

More than ever the area of business ethics and corporate governance are at the forefront of discussion in the business community. While the frustration of the performance of publicly traded companies abound, the decisions of business leaders are more than ever coming under scrutiny.

The objective of the course is to provide students with the opportunity to explore the value and relevance of ethical theory as it relates to business. By utilizing the case method, this course will provide students with a hands-on approach to understanding opposing views when it comes to the ethical implications of business decisions. The stakeholder model will be the foundation by which the actions of management and their ethical implications will be analyzed.

This seminar course will introduce participants to the complexity of applying ethical theory to practical business situations. In the first part of the course, we will evaluate the theory related to ethical decision-making and its relation to the stakeholder model. The second part of the course will focus on evaluating business decisions within the various function areas of the organization. To achieve this, cases, current newspaper articles, and videos will be used to explore the ethical issues that are being faced by organizations.

Course Name: Business Policy and Strategy
Instructor: Kamal Argheyd, Howard Campbell

This course integrates the core functional disciplines of business within a strategic perspective. The course introduces several strategic management concepts including industry analysis and dynamics, the organizational resource audit, strategic typologies, the role of the general manager, and the management of strategic transformations. Many aspects of social responsibility and ethics, on both the organizational and personal level are covered.

Most of the cases discussed each class cover such topics: green products (Ford case), cultural considerations in global companies (Sunlife Financial, McDonalds, Wal-Mart). Two of the cases focus entirely on ethics and CSR. "The Case of the Skeleton in the Corporate Closet" deals with the issue of a CEO finding that the company's founder may have used somebody else's invention as his own. The CEO's dilemma is what should he do now? "Nike's Dispute with the University of Oregon" deals with the alleged use of child labor and possibly unsafe work conditions by Nike's sub-contractors in developing countries such as Vietnam and China.

Course Name: Corporate Governance
Instructor: Janis Riven

Corporate governance has emerged as a global business issue in the past 5 years. The objective of this course is to instill the knowledge and key skills necessary for graduate business students to understand the fundamental principles of governance; to be familiar with the laws and regulations in Canada, the US and globally, that exist to build a framework for corporate governance; and to be able to apply ethical and governance principles to practical situations as they arise in their work experience. The first part of the course will focus on understanding the changing roles and inter-relationships of boards, management and stakeholders in various organizational settings. The second part of the course will develop skills in such areas as evaluating board committees, developing effective mandates, and managing change in the governance framework.

Course Name: Corporate Social Reporting, Responsibility and Accountability
Instructor: Charles Cho

This course provides an introduction to and analysis of corporate social reporting, responsibility, the meaning and issues that social responsibility entails in a democracy. The course will examine the theory and practice of social and environmental reporting, and look at the practical and political constraints on the development of substantive social and environmental reporting. It will also explore different ways in which the discharge of social accountability might be achieved and assess some of the current developments and applications of that reporting.

Course Name: Entrepreneurial Family Business
Instructor: Pramodita Sharma

Family businesses are the predominant form of business in the world. Almost 80% of new ventures are born as family firms and over 65% of all Canadian firms are family firms. In these firms, family members significantly influence the business including its creation, continuity, mode and extent of growth, and exit. This course aims to prepare students to work effectively and professionally, in and with family firms, to launch and create cross generational wealth in family firms.

The course touches extensively upon gender and cultural issues, as well important governance aspects specific cu family business. Some of the recommended readings are exclusively focused on gender and cultural aspects of the topic. (Barrett, M. & Moores, K. (2009). Women in family business leadership roles: Daughters on the stage. Edward Elgar; Dyer, Jr. W.G. (1986). Cultural change in family firms: Anticipating and managing business and family transitions. Jossey-Bass Publishers).

Course Name: Entrepreneurship and Small Business
Instructor: Bakr Ibrahim, Pramodita Sharma

Can entrepreneurship be learned? Research suggests that successful entrepreneurs combine keen intuition, drive and persistence with intelligent business planning and action. This course examines the fundamentals of entrepreneurial success - such as personal characteristics, opportunity identification, and new venture development - along with special contexts for entrepreneurial action. It requires that students apply business “know-how”, developed earlier in the program and through experience, to develop a business plan. CSR, environmental management, and ethics are touched upon in four of the nine book review options and three of the five business plans focused on environmental products and non-for-profit initiatives.

Course Name: Event Management
Instructor: Ronald Ferguson

This course provides a practical approach to the design, marketing and management of events. Events are managerial opportunities to learn how to co-create unique customer experiences. Event management is a challenging endeavor that requires the integration of knowledge and skills across all the functional areas of business in order to apply them to the event management context. It is an area of management that usually requires you “to get it right the first time”. Creativity, complementary skills, effective team performance and relationship management are essential elements for success in this course.

The course dedicates three of its 13 classes to event management related to non-for-profit organizations: charity, arts and sports management. Also, many of the student group projects are focused on non-profit organizations.

Course Name: Financial Accounting for Managerial Decisions
Instructor: Crawford Spence

This course provides an overview of the corporate external financial reporting system by examining the roles of management, government and auditors in preparing corporate financial statements. Since public corporations are required to issue their financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), the process for developing and enforcing GAAP is examined. The class discussions and readings touch upon CSR issues such as: Earnings Management, Corporate governance, Ethics and Social and environmental reporting.

Course Name: Financial Management
Instructor: Arshad Ahmad, Harjeet S. Bhabra

This course focuses on the investment and financing decisions of financial managers in the framework of identifying and undertaking business opportunities that maximize the value of the enterprise. This course emphasizes one of the vital functions of the financial manager which is incorporating social responsibility with the objective to maximize shareholder wealth. This is elaborated with examples in the context of "bad social responsibility" and "good social responsibility" to maximize the value of the company for the shareholders. The objective is to develop an appreciation of the interplay of expected returns and risk in determining the value contribution of business activities and in the pricing of financial instruments.

Course Name: Global Climate Change - Business Opportunities and Threats
Instructor: Paul Shrivastava

Global Climate Change is the foremost economic and social challenge facing humanity in the 21st Century. This course examines the climate change phenomenon and the business opportunities and threats it poses. These include opportunities in renewable energy, and clean and green technologies, as well as risks imposed carbon accumulation, pollution and waste. It offers a new perspective for companies to operate in the emerging carbon-constrained economies that will require businesses to move towards ecologically, socially and economically sustainable products, services, and operations.

Course Objectives:

1. To understand Global Climate Change and the processes and outcomes of carbon accumulation in the atmosphere.

2. To understand economic impacts of global climate change.

3. To understand what economic opportunities and threats are posed by climate change.

4. To understand how businesses can pursue new opportunities and avoid threats through ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable strategies.

Pages

Type of Offering

(Good) Corporate Governance and the Strategic Integration of Meso Ethics
Author(s): Steven Appelbaum; Edward Walker; Barbara Shapiro

Purpose – The primary goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of meso ethics from a corporate governance perspective, and the strategic process of integration between corporate and individual ethics for the creation of an ethical culture. A secondary aim is to identify the organizational behavior variables that are affected by the ethical congruence between employee ethics and the prevailing corporate ethical climate. Design/methodology/approach – By first situating organizational ethics within the broader phenomenon of business ethics, the authors then more aptly examine corporate ethics at the upper and lower permeable meso boundaries where a shared ethic is negotiated. This conceptual paper tries to capture through a phenomenological approach how strategic governance level (macro) and individual ethics (micro) interact in a complex and dynamic way at the organizational level (meso). Findings – Normative literature suggests that organizations require more than ethical safeguards to ensure ethical conduct. For example, ethics training programs are demanded and perceived as effective by employees. Recent empirical studies on “ethical fit” have converged and support the assertion that it is in an organization's best interest to continually look for ethical congruence between their workforce and the ethical climate that they intentionally foster. Furthermore, these studies show that perceived ethical congruence positively affects an individual's affective commitment to an organization, and reduces turnover intent. Research limitations/implications – There is a general lack of consensus, cohesion and empiricism in the current literature. Few studies deal with meso ethics, which have wide-ranging implications for current and future research. Practical implications – Demand for business ethics is on the rise as is its corporate response commonly defined as corporate social responsibility (CSR). Standard responsive measures taken by executives are shown to generally be unsubstantiated or insufficient for ethical conduct to truly take root in an organization. Originality/value – The scope of the paper, with its phenomenological approach, identifies the complexities of corporate ethics for academics and managers alike, where traditionally fragmented organizational levels are herein understood to be permeable and dynamic. The meso perspective of this study provides a new foundation for the study of corporate ethics. Its phenomenological approach provides a conceptual common ground and facilitates convergence in the field. Moreover, the conceptual framework of this paper can enable practitioners to formulate the appropriate strategic intent and governance strategy for their organization. Keywords: Corporate governance; Corporate social responsibility; Employee turnover; Ethics; Job satisfaction; Leadership

Journal Title: Social Responsibility Journal Volume: 5 Edition: 4 Page Numbers: 525-539
A fuzzy multicriteria approach for evaluating environmental performance of suppliers
Author(s): Satyaveer S Chauhan; S.K. Goyal; A. Awasthi

In this paper, we present a fuzzy multicriteria approach for evaluating environmental performance of suppliers. The proposed approach consists of three steps. The first step involves identification of criteria for assessing environmental performance of suppliers. In step 2, the experts rate the selected criteria and the various alternatives (suppliers) against each of the criteria. Linguistic assessments are used to rate the criteria and the alternatives. These linguistic ratings are then combined through fuzzy TOPSIS to generate an overall performance score for each alternative. The alternative with the highest score is chosen as the one with highest environmental performance. The advantage of using fuzzy TOPSIS is that it distinguishes between Benefit (the more the better) and the Cost (the less the better) category criteria and selects solutions that are close to the positive ideal solutions and far from negative ideal solutions. In step 3, sensitivity analysis is conducted to evaluate the influence of criteria weights on the environmental performance evaluation of suppliers. The strength of the proposed approach is its practical applicability and ability to provide solution under partial or lack of quantitative information. A numerical application is provided to demonstrate the proposed approach. Keywords: Multicriteria decision making; Fuzzy theory; TOPSIS; Supplier selection; Environmental performance

Journal Title: International Journal of Production Economics Volume: 126 Edition: 2 Page Numbers: 370-378
A Pedagogy of Passion for Susainability
Author(s): Paul Shrivastava

Our current practices in teaching sustainable management are replete with scientific facts, analytical tools, optimization models, and management techniques. The key pedagogical goal is to help students intellectually understand and solve problems. I argue for a different focus for teaching sustainability. Managing sustainably requires students to develop passion for sustainability. Passion for sustainability can be taught using a holistic pedagogy that integrates physical and emotional or spiritual learning with traditional cognitive (intellectual) learning about sustainable management. It identifies options for including physical and emotional components in sustainable management courses and provides examples of the transformative potential of such embodied learning. A prototype course design on managing with passion for sustainability is suggested.

Journal Title: Academy of Management Learning and Education Volume: 9 Edition: 3 Page Numbers: 443-455
An analysis of the victims of occupational fraud: a Canadian perspective
Author(s): Dominic Peltier-Rivest

This paper aims to describe and explain characteristics of organizations that are victims of occupational fraud. This study is based on a 2006 occupational fraud web survey conducted in Canada by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). The analysis shows that occupational fraud losses are quite large, accounting for a median loss of C$187,500 and a mean loss of C$1,142,494. These losses represent, respectively, 0.3 percent (median) and 9 percent (mean) of the victim organization's annual sales. Private companies, not-for-profit organizations and small businesses are particularly vulnerable to relatively larger fraud losses. It is also shown that the smaller the organization the more likely fraud losses will be relatively larger. This study contributes to academia by measuring the statistical significance of the cost of occupational fraud per various organizational characteristics.This study is useful to regulatory agencies and anti-fraud professionals because it provides information about what types of organizations are more vulnerable to fraud, thus indicating where prevention and detection efforts should be directed.This paper is based on proprietary data owned by the ACFE and is the first to analyze the statistical significance of the consequences (cost) of occupational fraud in Canada.

Journal Title: Journal of Financial Crime Volume: 16 Edition: 1 Page Numbers: 60-66
Attributes of Social and Human Capital Disclosure and Information Asymmetry between Managers and Investors
Author(s): Michel Magnan

We extend the literature on voluntary disclosure by investigating the impact of precision attribute of social and human capital disclosure on information asymmetry. We provide evidence on how the stock market reacts to different levels of information precision. Overall, results suggest that quantitative disclosure reduces share price volatility and increases Tobin’s Q. As expected, firm size attenuates the impact of precision attribute of disclosure on information asymmetry. Furthermore, it appears that firms take into account ultimate costs and benefits to shareholders when determining precision attribute of their disclosure. Finally, our results suggest that efficient governance leads to more disclosure. Keywords: information asymmetry, corporate governance, human capital disclosure, social capital disclosure

Journal Title: Canadian Journal of Administration Sciences Volume: 26 Edition: Page Numbers: 71-88
Cargo Cult Science and the Death of Politics: A critical review of social and environmental accounting research
Author(s): Crawford Spence

We present here an extensive literature review delineating the main theoretical parameters that have shaped the discursive field of Social Accounting/Social and Environmental Reporting (SER). In doing so, we reflect upon the way in which theory is used in SER focusing particularly on its political character. We show that SER theories have been developed in isolation from, and in contradistinction to, other organisational literatures and the social sciences more generally. This self-referentiality has precluded consideration of whether accountability is a realistic or desirable demand to make of corporations. In an age where political antagonism has been seriously eroded in the Western World, we argue that if SER is to avoid complicity in this, then SER research must break free from its self-imposed theoretical limitations and embrace a goal beyond accountability.

Journal Title: Critical Perspectives on Accounting Volume: 21 Edition: 1 Page Numbers: 76-89
CEO Compensation as a Process and a Product of Negotiation
Author(s): Steven Appelbaum; Yongheng Yao

The purpose of this theory paper is to extend our understanding of CEO compensation by looking into the CEO pay-setting process. Particularly, a process model is proposed to specify the interaction between situational indicators, process variables, contextual factors and CEO pay. With regard to methodology, a modest review the major theories that are driving the field of CEO compensation study reveals several interesting findings. These models or perspectives provide valuable but incomplete understanding of the multifaceted phenomenon. Especially, the realm of CEO pay-setting process is still unexplored. A process model of CEO compensation is developed to fill in this gap. Our inquiry indicated that CEO compensation involves a negotiation between a CEO and a principal. Negotiated CEO pay is better predicted by CEO aspirations and principal reservations, rather than economic indicators. CEO power and the institutional environment have a moderating effect. The practical contribution of this paper is straightforward. The study suggests that a better theory is critically in demand in order to improve effectiveness of corporate governance. We underscore that a real challenge for a principal in influencing CEO pay is to anticipate CEO aspirations and to monitor the gaps between CEO aspirations and principal reservations, rather than to control economic indicators. Unfortunately, until now we have very limited information about principal reservation and CEO aspiration. This inquiry seeks to make a difference by moving CEO compensation research into a fruitful direction. To our knowledge, this inquiry is the first attempt that provides systematic explanation as to how and why situational indicators do not directly influence the negotiated CEO pay. The newly proposed model is much realistic, much integrative and much dynamic, compared with existing conceptualizations. Eight propositions are presented to guide empirical research as well as future theory development. Keywords: CEO compensation, agency theory, the process model of CEO compensation, CEO aspiration, principal reservation, the social exchange theory

Journal Title: Coporate Governance Volume: 9 Edition: 3 Page Numbers: 298-312
CEO Target Compensation and Performance Standards in Privately- and Publicly-held firms through a Disclosure Regulation Change
Author(s): Michel Magnan

In this paper, the authors investigate whether CEOs from publicly-traded firms have higher target bonuses, higher target total cash compensation and smoother abnormal bonuses than CEOs in private firms. The authors also analyse the impact of disclosure regulation on performance standards that boards set for CEOs of both publicly-traded and private firms. Relying on samples containing both publicly-held and privately-owned firms, the authors show that the advent of mandated disclosure of executive compensation has imposed an additional compensation cost upon the shareholders of publicly-held firms without necessarily leading managers to achieve higher performance standards. The results suggest that executive compensation determination may reflect, beyond agency, managerial power and rent extraction considerations, both institutional (impression management) and governance pressures.

Journal Title: International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics Volume: 4 Edition: 3 Page Numbers: 222-249
Corporate Governance and Information Asymmetry between Managers and Investors
Author(s): Michel Magnan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of governance on information asymmetry between managers and investors. Hence, the paper seeks to extend prior voluntary disclosure research. The paper investigates how a firm's governance maps into the level of information asymmetry between managers and investors. Governance encompasses two complementary dimensions: formal monitoring attributes and voluntary disclosure about board processes. Information asymmetry is measured by either share price volatility or Tobin's Q. The results show that some formal monitoring attributes (board and audit committee size) as well as the extent of voluntary governance disclosure reduce information asymmetry. This suggests that governance disclosure may complement a firm's governance monitoring attributes, especially in a country such as Canada where investors have good legal protection. It appears also that firms take into account ultimate costs and benefits to shareholders when determining their governance disclosure. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the impact of voluntary governance disclosure on information asymmetry.

Journal Title: Corporate Governance Volume: 10 Edition: 5 Page Numbers: 574-589
Corporate Governance, Compliance, and Valuation Effects of Sarbanes Oxley on U.S. and Foreign Firms
Author(s): Lorne Switzer; Hui Lin

This paper examines the longer-term corporate governance, compliance and valuation implications of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) on US and foreign firms. Significant benefits of SOX are shown, particularly for small companies and US-traded foreign companies, although disproportional compliance costs are shown for the former. Firms that are less compliant with the legislation experience relatively higher abnormal returns, supporting the hypothesis that relaxing compliance constraints is value enhancing. Long-term abnormal returns are negatively related to board independence and CEO duality, but are positively related to the ownership by insiders and institutional investors.

Journal Title: International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics Volume: 4 Edition: Page Numbers: 400-426
Director Compensation and Firm Value:A Research Synthesis
Author(s): Michel Magnan

This article provides a synthesis of academic research on director compensation, the ultimate purpose being the identification of practices that are measurably linked with value creation. From a methodological perspective, mapping director compensation into firm performance is extremely difficult as there are many other aspects of governance and management that ultimately affect firm performance. The article focuses on specific components or aspects of director compensation. What is deemed to be the ‘Best’ practice in director compensation evolves over time. In parallel, the popularity of stock options as a compensation strategy for corporate directors has waned, with full-value equity unit grants (typically with vesting and ownership conditions) emerging as the preferred approach. Similarly, while earlier findings show stock option grants as a director compensation tool to be value enhancing, more recent findings revisit the issue and mostly support the use of full-value unit equity-based compensation. Overall, it appears that equity-based compensation for directors translates into value creation by enhancing directors’ monitoring focus. However, its effectiveness is conditional upon a firm's context, with greater improvements in performance being observed when firms start from a weak governance base. Moreover, there are several ethical dimensions, which must be addressed in the elaboration of any director compensation strategy. The article concludes with some additional observations and some recommendations useful to practitioners and that may guide academic research as well: 1. Director compensation must be high enough to attract high-caliber individuals and to reward them for their responsibilities, but not so high as to potentially impair their objectivity, judgment and independence.2. Director compensation must be set in a transparent and objective way, with clear benchmarks that reflect the most plausible talent markets.3. A significant proportion of director compensation must be ‘locked in’ for the long term (5–10 years).4. Director compensation must not be based upon the attainment of short-term objectives or goals, but rather based on the long-term success of the organization predominantly while not encouraging excessive risk taking. Keywords: board of directors’ compensation, governance, literature review, incentive plans, stock options

Journal Title: International Journal of Disclosure and Governance Volume: 7 Edition: 1 Page Numbers: 28-41
Ecological Antecedents of Terrorrism
Author(s): Paul Shrivastava

The global 'war on terror' is wreaking havoc on the natural environment and involving increasing number of organisations. This paper invites sustainability and strategic management studies scholars to explore the relations between terrorism and ecology. In several terrorism prone areas of the world, the disruption of ecological systems that support human populations is an important antecedent to the economic and social conditions that breed terrorism. By examining the ecological and economic patterns in Somalia and Afghanistan, this paper reveals ecological antecedents of terrorism. The author concludes that we can deal with terrorism more effectively and at a lower cost by going beyond the current narrow military response. We need to further study relations between ecology and terrorism and engage policies for ecologically sustainable development of terrorism prone regions.

Journal Title: International Journal of Sustainable Strategic Management Volume: 1 Edition: 2 Page Numbers: 114-123
Engaging Small and Medium-Sized Businesses in Sustainability
Author(s): Charles Cho; Martin L. Martens; E. S. Loucks

The purpose of this paper is to explore how to meaningfully engage small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in strategies that improve the social and environmental sustainability of their businesses. This paper is a conceptual review of the business case for sustainable development that has been offered to the business world. The paper describes the unique features of SMEs that indicate the need to reframe the case for socially and environmentally sustainable business practices for SMEs, and, using arguments discussed in the literature, we summarize the business case for sustainable development that has been specified for SMEs. SMEs need particular attention when it comes to business strategies for sustainable development, since the business case is not the same as for large firms. Furthermore, tools that are developed to support sustainability in SMEs need to recognize that these companies have different resources and profiles than larger firms. Sustainable development as a concept captures most issues facing our societies, which means there are endless possibilities for companies to find strategies that will impact – and hopefully improve – their social and environmental performance. While this paper does not provide empirical evidence and support, it offers some insights on practical and social implications of SMEs engaging in sustainability. This overview may help and give ideas to owners and managers of SMEs to rethink their overall business strategy by not only incorporating sustainability in their core values and actions but also implementing such strategy. In fact, this diversity of opportunities is where there is hope for turning the current world trajectory towards healthy and resilient human and natural communities.This paper provides review of the current debates and opportunities in business strategies for sustainable development, and an application to the realities of business operations for SMEs.

Journal Title: Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal Volume: 2 Edition: 1 Page Numbers: 178-200
Environmental Reporting on the Internet by America’s Toxic 100: Legitimacy and Self-Presentation
Author(s): Charles Cho

This study uses Goffman's self-presentation theory to examine corporate website environmental disclosures from an organizational legitimacy perspective. We argue that corporations use Internet reporting and website platforms to project a more socially acceptable environmental management approach to public stakeholders. We argue further that this disclosure activity is often de-coupled from their actual environmental performance. To test these conjectures, we refine and employ a comprehensive disclosure evaluation metric to assess both the content and the presentation of these types of disclosures and utilize a firm's America's Toxic 100 toxic score, a newly developed measure based on the US Environmental Protection Agency's toxics release inventory (TRI) data, to proxy for environmental performance. Based on empirical tests of four size-matched samples, our findings support our conjectures, showing that worse environmental performers provide more extensive disclosure in terms of content and website presentation. Keywords: Internet reporting; Website environmental disclosure; Legitimacy; Self-presentation; Goffman; Environmental performance; XBRL

Journal Title: International Journal of Accounting Information Systems Volume: 11 Edition: 1 Page Numbers: 1-16
Inside Agency: The Rise and Fall of Nortel
Author(s): Michel Magnan

By employing the theoretical template provided by agency theory, this article contributes a detailed clinical analysis of a large multinational Canada-headquartered telecommunications company, Nortel. Our analysis reveals a twenty-first century norm of usual suspects: a CEO whose compensation is well above those of his peers, a dysfunctional board of directors, acts of income smoothing to preserve the confidence of volatile investors, and revelations of financial irregularities followed by a downfall. In many ways, the spectacular rise and – sudden – fall of Nortel illustrates excesses of actors within, and contradictions of the system of corporate governance implied by the agency model. Furthermore, this case illustrates limitations of the agency framework in complex situations with short-term oriented investors. Keywords:  agency theory - executive compensation - financial misstatement - income smoothing - stock options

Journal Title: Journal of Business Ethics Volume: 84 Edition: 2 Page Numbers: 165-187
La fraude
Author(s): Dominic Peltier-Rivest

The article is an Introcution on a special issue on Fraud of the French international magazine of management "Gestion". After discussing the example of the Norburg fraud - one of the most famous ones in the past decades, the article tries to identify ways to prevent this plaque and its effects. The details are to follow in the articles of the issue.

Journal Title: Gestion: Revue internationale de gestion Volume: 35 Edition: 2 Page Numbers: 21-22
Legitimation Strategies Used in Response to Environmental Disaster: A French Case Study of Total S.A.’s Erika and AZF Incidents
Author(s): Charles Cho

This paper presents a case study examining the environmental disclosure decisions and practice of Total S.A. (hereafter, Total), one of the largest integrated oil and gas companies in the world. Because the company has a substantial international presence and operates in environmentally sensitive industries, management is constantly exposed to ethical and social issues. The company recently faced two major environment-related disasters, the sinking of the Erika tanker, leading to a major oil spill along the Atlantic coast of Bretagne in 1999, and the 2001 deadly explosion of the AZF chemical plant in the suburb of Toulouse, France. This case is framed within legitimacy theory, originating from the notion of a “social contract” between organizations and society, and investigates whether and how Total utilized some legitimation strategies to respond to these incidents. Findings generally indicate that Total used communication strategies to legitimate their actions and support the argument that social and environmental disclosures remain a powerful legitimacy device rather than an effort towards greater accountability. Keywords: case study; social contract; legitimacy theory; environmental disaster; environmental disclosure; legitimation strategies; accountability

Journal Title: European Accounting Review Volume: 18 Edition: 1 Page Numbers: 33-62
Les dirigeants et les fraudes dans les états financiers : Le cas CINAR et les leçons à tirer
Author(s): Michel Magnan

Although relatively rare, frauds committed by corporate executives are often quite spectacular and can incur significant losses for investors and other stakeholders (employees, governments, creditors, etc.). The majority of these frauds involve accounting and financial manipulations. In this article, we first define the main types of fraud involving financial statements, including misappropriation of assets, manipulation of financial results, failure of disclosure, incomplete disclosure or false disclosure. We then analyze the organizational characteristics related to fraud and individual characteristics commonly associated with executives accused of fraud. Finally, we draw lessons for the main bodies responsible for upholding the integrity of financial markets, including boards of directors, regulatory agencies and auditors, as well as financial analysts, journalists and other market watchers. To illustrate our arguments, we use the specific case of Cinar, while also referring to a number of other prominent cases. Keywords: executive compensation, fraud, Cinar, accounting and financial manipulations, financial statements, governance, intelligence, board of directors, regulatory agencies, auditors, auditing, financial analysts, disclosure

Journal Title: Gestion : Revue Internationale de Gestion Volume: 35 Edition: 2 Page Numbers: 61-72
Media Richness, User Trust, and Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility: An Experimental Investigation of Visual Website Disclosure
Author(s): Charles Cho

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the presentation medium of corporate social and environmental web site disclosure has an impact on user trust in such disclosure, and to examine the effect of media richness on user perception about corporate social and environmental responsibility. The paper's methodology is a three-by-two between-subjects design experiment, manipulating presentation medium and industry type. Participants viewed social and environmental web site disclosures and completed and communicated their perceptions of trust and the experimental companies' corporate social responsibility. The presentation medium richness of social and environmental web site disclosures is positively associated with: trusting intentions, but not trusting beliefs, of web site users; and user perception of corporate social and environmental responsibility. As with all controlled experiments, the research design focused on internal validity to maintain control over the task design, manipulation, and measurement of variables. While this required trade-offs with external validity, the task was designed based on real-world scenarios to maintain high levels of external validity within the experimental setting. The paper provides evidence that corporations could use enhanced web-based technology to potentially mislead users regarding their performance in the social domain.The paper extends the visual disclosure literature by examining the richness of the image/visual media, and investigates whether user perceptions are impacted by the variations in its richness.

Journal Title: Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal Volume: 22 Edition: 6 Page Numbers: 933-952
Mentoring experiences of successful women across the Americas
Author(s): Terri R. Letuchy

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare women's mentoring experience in nine countries within the Americas, and to explore linkages between personal characteristics, mentoring practices, mentoring functions, and consequences of being mentee. A total of 1,146 successful women are questioned about their mentoring experiences as a mentee: 105 from Argentina, 210 from Brazil, 199 from Canada, 84 from Chile, 232 from Mexico, 126 from the USA, and 190 from three countries in the West Indies (Barbados, Jamaica, and St Vincent). Most of the women have more than one mentor. Across all countries mentoring practices are more strongly linked to career mentoring function while the age and gender of the mentor are more strongly linked to psychosocial mentoring. Mentoring from the perspective of mentee has the same directional relationship with situational and individual variables, but the significance of those relationships vary by country. A possible cultural difference is detected between Spanish and non-Spanish speaking countries on the issue of mentoring practice. The fact that the paper focuses only on successful women in this paper means the findings are not necessarily generalizable to other groups of women or men. The paper is also limited because mentoring functions are constrained to two: psychosocial and career. There may be more functions that mentoring could fulfill for the mentee. Companies' interest in fostering mentoring among their members, particularly women, should be aware that different mentoring functions are influenced by different factors. For example, formal mentoring programs appear to have a greater impact on career mentoring functions than on psychosocial mentoring functions. To support women in their careers, companies should institute formal mentoring programs; this is especially important in South American countries. Moreover, mentoring programs must be designed to be adaptive since the analyses indicated that there are significant differences by country in terms of many mentoring issues. In the literature review, the paper finds linkages between culture, mentoring practices, characteristics of mentors and mentees, and mentoring functions, but no evidence that these linkages have been studied with a group of professionally successful women from different American countries, particularly non-English speaking American countries.

Journal Title: Gender in Management An International Journal Volume: 24 Edition: 6 Page Numbers: 455-476

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