Motivated by a large literature on how firm-specific resources drive firm performance, we propose and find that heterogeneity in investor optimism regarding firm-specific attributes plays a very important role in influencing the managerial propensity to manipulate financial statements. When firm-level investor optimism is moderate, the incidence of accounting misconduct increases, but it decreases when investors are highly optimistic. Further, market reaction to the announcement of financial restatements is more negative when investors held more optimistic firm-specific beliefs at the time of (...) initial misstatement. These findings are robust to alternative firm-specific optimism measures linked to analysts, general investors and unsophisticated individual investors, controls for market-wide consumer sentiment unexplained by macroeconomic factors, economy-wide and industry-level optimism, potential selection bias and reverse causality. Our analysis highlights the importance of firm-level investor optimism in predicting, preventing and detecting accounting misconduct. (shrink)

Abundant evidence has proved an association between peer victimization and problematic online game use. However, the underlying mechanisms of this relation are still under-investigated. Grounded in the ecological system theory, this study examined whether deviant peer affiliation and school connectedness mediated the association between peer victimization and adolescent POGU. A sample of 698 Chinese adolescents completed questionnaires regarding peer victimization, problematic online game use, DPA, and school connectedness, of which 51.58% were boys. Path analyses indicated that peer victimization was positively (...) associated with problematic online game use, and this link could be mediated by deviant peer affiliation and school connectedness. The findings identify the potential underlying mechanism by which peer victimization is associated with adolescent problematic online game use, which has important implications for theory and prevention. (shrink)

Drawing on social cognitive career theory, this study aims to ascertain how social creativity influences college students’ entrepreneurial intentions, based on the mediating role of career adaptability and the moderating role of parental entrepreneurial background. A total of 715 college students completed an online survey designed to collect information on these variables. SPSS was used to test the model. The results indicate that after controlling for gender and individual entrepreneurial experience, college students with a high level of social creativity were (...) likely to have a high level of entrepreneurial intention. Career adaptability partially mediates the association between social creativity and entrepreneurial intention. Moreover, both direct and indirect associations between social creativity and entrepreneurial intention were moderated by parental entrepreneurial background. Specifically, compared with college students whose parents had no entrepreneurial background, the relationships between social creativity and entrepreneurial intention, social creativity and career adaptability, and career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention were stronger among college students whose parents had an entrepreneurial background. The findings help to develop promotion programs that are more suitable for college students’ entrepreneurship intentions. (shrink)

BackgroundPatients with chronic heart failure and their family caregivers may experience adverse emotional problems, such as depression. Mutuality, which refers to the relationship between caregivers and those they care for, is an important factor affecting depression in the dyads. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between mutuality and depression in patients with CHF and their caregivers in China.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, we used the Mutuality Scale and the Self-Rating Depression Scale to measure mutuality and depression of (...) patients and caregivers. We used SPSS version 26.0 and AMOS version 21.0 to analyze the data. An APIM was established to analyze the actor-partner effects of patient-caregiver mutuality and depression.ResultsA total of 250 dyads of patients and caregivers were included in the study. There were statistically significant differences in mutuality and depression between CHF patients and caregivers. The 4 dimensions of patients’ mutuality all have the actor effect on depression. There were 3 partner effects of caregivers’ “pleasurable activities”, “shared values”, and “reciprocity” on depression. Regarding caregiver depression, we only found an actor effect of caregivers’ “shared values” on depression.ConclusionThe relationship between patients and caregivers should be evaluated in the clinical setting, and it is very important to develop intervention measures to improve the adverse emotional problems affecting both patients and their caregivers. (shrink)