This paper examines whether firms strategically legitimize large labor dismissals by performing ex-ante downward earnings management. We further assess whether the effect is larger under stakeholder pressure and whether these practices influence the external perception of firms’ behavior. As laying off employees without an economic reason is perceived as a breach of the social contract, stakeholders pressure firms to provide economic justification for LLDs. We argue that firms strategically legitimize LLDs by artificially worsening their financial performance through downward earnings management. (...) From a sample of European listed firms for the period 1998–2014, using a propensity score matching model to control for differences in observable characteristics between LLD and non-LLD firms, we find that firms manage their earnings downward in the year prior to LLDs. These results are more pronounced in the presence of high stakeholder pressure. As such, firms with stronger trade unions, higher visibility, stricter employment protection legislation, and more stakeholder-oriented legal environments have stronger incentives to manage earnings downward before LLDs. Finally, we document that downward earnings management prior to LLDs is effective at legitimizing LLDs, offsetting the negative external perceptions of firms in the aftermath of LLDs. This study contributes to the business ethics literature by identifying unintended consequences of stakeholder pressure around LLDs. It also brings important empirical insights into how ethically questionable decisions are strategically legitimized through further unethical practices. (shrink)

La (re)construction démocratique de l’espace politique roumain après la chute du régime communiste est marquée par une très faible présence des femmes dans les institutions politiques. Cet article interroge cet « évanouissement » des femmes, en le mettant en rapport à la fois avec les logiques de (re)configuration des élites politiques postcommunistes et avec la (re)construction des représentations et des rôles de genre, insistant notamment sur le caractère inaudible et illégitime de la revendication égalitaire dans la Roumanie d’après 1989.

Our relationship with technology has become co-dependent and somehow a personal and an intimate one. Generally speaking, we tend to think that we experience the world around us as it is, but that is not what we really do. In a lifetime, we learn and store knowledge, but we only use from it what we think and feel it will help us to realize the most important projects in our lives. Therefore, we invent things that have the purpose to make (...) our lives easier, just to have time to manage and work on the other part of life – the non-material part of it -, that concerns the personal development of human. First of all, that is or that should be the idea for developing technology, but on second thoughts, we somehow fail to adapt to it, and from that it deceives us – transforming itself in an insecurity, like high-tech products that are too hard to use, or too unreliable to be counted on, the lack of necessary knowledge in order to use it, the costs. Even if we have these technologies as available, we manage to lose ourselves, by becoming more into it than into us and those around us. We like to think we possess knowledge, that we are experts in some areas, we hold and keep lectures on ethics, moral values, efficient communication, but all become a strategic action – from ones that have the power to others that need guidance and confirmation for looking good for others, to win over, convince or convert new adepts to the proposed ideas of ones that have the power, to court those in power, to please everyone, except yourself. But all of that leads to failure – a self-failure, an inner weakness – and we are becoming our own adversaries, which are silent ones. But if technology is so worthy, why we do not manage so well on moral and ethical aspects? (shrink)

This article sets out to critically examine the accounts of well-being produced by a middle-aged Swiss woman living in precarious prosperity. By taking on a feminist reading of the narrative on well-being, the article challenges the taken for granted assumption of the powerful agent in thriving societies. Insights from literature on happiness in nations and gender beliefs enabled addressing the woman’s capability to exert agency, while acknowledging the influence of the context in which narratives are embedded. In addition, the presence (...) of a non-national interviewer appears to be an incentive for the interviewee’s compliance with cultural meta-narratives. The approach of well-being as ‘agential flourishing’ proved helpful in assessing the woman’s capability on a gendered career path in atypical employment to deal with precariousness. (shrink)

Recent research has shown that the corporate social responsibility system has a positive impact on consumer behavior regarding products or services that promote social responsibility. Thus, it can be stated that customer loyalty to a particular company derives not only from commercial benefits but also from the components of corporate social responsibilities practiced by the company. The vast majority of company managers in Romania do not understand what it means to be a socially responsible company, which is why they do (...) not even agree with most of the definitions given to corporate social responsibility; secondly, when asked to explain what social responsibility means, they are not able to make logical arguments; I argue that the involvement of companies in social responsibility activities has a purely economic motivation and that it is related to the size of the company, rather large companies integrating the implementation of CSR activities in its vision. From a marketing perspective, corporate social responsibility has proven its ability to generate many benefits for companies, implementing and communicating specific policies and actions in this regard with the potential to improve satisfaction and loyalty, both among customers and of employees. The main objective of the article is to analyze the way in which consumers in Romania perceive the corporate social responsibility system of companies. (shrink)