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Prior research has extensively examined the relationship between religion and accrual-based earnings management. However, there is currently little research on the relationship between religion and real (non-accrual) earnings management, especially in Europe. This paper aims to fill this research gap and examines whether and how the effect of religion could be linked with firms’ real earnings management activities. Four hypotheses are developed and tested, with our results providing indications that the degree of overall religiosity is negatively and significantly associated with real earnings management. Furthermore, when investigating the effects of different religions in Europe, Christianity and Islam have the opposite impact on firms’ real earnings management activities. Overall, our paper indicates that in European countries, the religious environment can mitigate firms’ manipulations on earnings.

This article describes the accountability features of confraternities in Verona during the \"Long Seventeenth Century\". These charities, driven by a common and deep Christian spirit, played a pivotal role in a period of great depression, helping the local community. The accounts relating to their activities display precision and are rich in analytical detail, enabling the painting of a portrait of Verona's confraternities and their economic and charitable actions as strictly bound by a spiritual aim. Using the stakeholder theory lens to analyse the archival documents of the 53 confraternities revealed by the Appraisal Book of 1682, this article highlights a complex network of relationships among these organizations and their stakeholders in light of their power, legitimacy and urgency attributes. We conclude that these confraternities' accountability was the result of the most powerful stakeholders' influence, and underlines confraternities' pivotal role in supporting the poor in the local community and encouraging the salvation of souls, supporting their entrance into heaven.

This article describes the accountability features of confraternities in Verona during the \"Long Seventeenth Century\". These charities, driven by a common and deep Christian spirit, played a pivotal role in a period of great depression, helping the local community. The accounts relating to their activities display precision and are rich in analytical detail, enabling the painting of a portrait of Verona's confraternities and their economic and charitable actions as strictly bound by a spiritual aim. Using the stakeholder theory lens to analyse the archival documents of the 53 confraternities revealed by the Appraisal Book of 1682, this article highlights a complex network of relationships among these organizations and their stakeholders in light of their power, legitimacy and urgency attributes. We conclude that these confraternities' accountability was the result of the most powerful stakeholders' influence, and underlines confraternities' pivotal role in supporting the poor in the local community and encouraging the salvation of souls, supporting their entrance into heaven.

The relationship between religion and politics in the United States is a much-studied academic area, particularly evident in political institutional and behavioral venues such as interest groups, electoral behavior, and political culture. One academic area that has not received much attention is the influence of religion on public administration. Recently, however, public administration scholars have begun to mimic their counterparts in the business world by examining the role of religion and spirituality in the public workplace, especially with regard to organizational performance, ethical behavior patterns, decision making, and the personal spiritual health of employees. This article examines the role and impact of religion and spirituality in the workplace, reviews court cases and political measures regarding religious expression in the public sector, explores a private sector model to explain the interrelationship between religion and spirituality in the public workplace, and challenges public administrators to consider the positive role that religion and spirituality can play in the public workplace.

The effects of religiosity and financial information on charitable-giving behavior were juxtaposed for examination along with other demographic variables in this study. We adopted a survey research design in which 410 adults formed the sample representing people from across Taiwan who were Christians and Buddhists, people who believed in a folk religion, and people who had no religious beliefs. The results indicate that although charitable giving may reasonably be viewed, according to theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), as a rational behavior, it is influenced much more by religiosity than by financial information. Type of religious belief moderates the effect of religion on both the decision to give and the amount to give, with the strongest positive relationship found for those professing the Christian faith.

Work-life imbalance is a problem that has personal, national, and religious implications. Millions of Americans sense that they are rushing through life and that their work and non-work lives compete with one another. Many of us are harming our health through overwork. David Gray's Practicing Balance demonstrates why congregational leaders should take work-life imbalance seriously. The issue gets in the way of spiritual development, church attendance, and member involvement. As leaders look to help their congregations grow, particularly by attracting families with children, they would do well to understand and account for the problem. If you are struggling with finding balance in life, this book can help. Practicing Balance contains ideas and experiences that can help church members and all people develop spiritual practices for a healthy life. It tackles the time crunch challenges that are threatening so many families. It can help Christians realize God's calling for their life and how the way they use their time and set their schedules can draw them closer to God. For anyone interested in the fields of work life and work family, this book breaks new ground in discussing how people of faith are and can be involved in encouraging balance and in addressing the structure of American workplaces. Through his experience reading the social science research, listening to people's struggles, studying theology as a pastor, and dealing with his own work-life imbalance, Gray has come to believe that increasing workplace flexibility and deepening individual spiritual practice are two of the most important solutions that can help Americans, particularly Christians in congregations, live a balanced life. Gray shows how members of congregations, acting both individually and collectively, can use the resources of their faith to implement these two solutions. Practicing Balance will help all of us make balance a higher priority and draw on the resources of our faith as we seek to balance the many activities of our life.

The ability of conservative Christian political organizations to influence local and national political races seems remarkable—made possible through mass distribution of voter guides, magazines, radio advertisement, and political talk show appearances. Research on the Christian Right offers several competing ideas about support for the Christian Right. But little research to date has examined an important means of Christian Right influence in the contemporary political process: helping people decide how to vote in elections. This article analyzes nationally representative data on the influence of conservative Christian political organizations on voting, and seeks to explain who uses the electoral advice of such organizations, and why. Our results affirm some perceptions of Christian Right influence—that it is higher among evangelical Protestant voters—and challenge others—that it is higher among the elderly, less educated, whites, economically insecure, and southerners. Finally, we provide theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for the importance of accounting for social context to understand the appeal of Christian Right perspectives to the nearly 20% of Americans who claim to be influenced by them.

Access to insurance, as part of a broad range of essential financial services, is especially important for poor households in order to smooth consumption, build assets, absorb shocks, and manage risks associated with irregular and unpredictable income. Without access to good formal insurance services, the poor depend on less reliable and often far more expensive informal sector mechanisms. Yet, in many majority Islamic countries, accessing and using insur-ance products has been quite limited, as many Muslims avoid such services over concerns about riba (interest), gharar (uncertainty and ambiguity in contracts), and maysir (speculative risk), among other factors. Takaful insurance products are emerging as a central part of the Shariah-compliant family of financial services, helping meet insurance needs in ways that are consistent with the local norms and beliefs of many majority Islamic countries. Takaful has been developing steadily since the first Shariah-compliant insurer was founded in 1979, based on a Shariah-compliant cooperative model resembling mutual insurance. This is based on a group of participants donating funds into a pool that members can then use in the event of specified unfavorable contingencies. While practitioners have applied varying business models and standardization remains a challenge, many policy makers recognize the potential of takaful to expand financial inclusion and have aimed to promote the industry with supportive legislation and effective regulation. The response has been strong, with premiums growing about 30 percent (inflation adjusted) annually between 2007 and 2010, reaching US$8.3 billion. This robust performance is expected to continue, based on substantial latent demand in Muslim majority countries and improvements in the industry, including better distribution capabilities.