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Research examining the antecedents of recalls, instead of their consequences, is relatively sparse and has not considered whether firms' likelihood to recall products is influenced by legal changes that could induce managerial opportunism, such as those reducing shareholder litigation risk. To examine this question, the authors exploit the staggered adoption of universal demand (UD) laws across several U.S. states as a quasi-natural experiment. UD laws aim to prevent frivolous litigation from disrupting a firm's normal business operations by making it more difficult for shareholders to sue managers for neglecting their fiduciary duties and hold them personally liable. Although UD laws are well-intended, the reduced threat of shareholder litigation disciplining a firm's managers could have unintended negative consequences. Indeed, using a difference-in-differences analysis, the authors find that following the adoption of UD laws, affected firms become less likely to recall products. This effect is weaker in the presence of organizational mechanisms constraining managers' self-interest-seeking behavior, such as a corporate culture focused on customer needs and interests or the exercise of normative control through monitoring by institutional investors. The authors do not find support for a potential alternative explanation of operational improvement and therefore higher product quality driving their findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A company often faces incidents in which its offerings cause bodily (e.g., product safety defects) or psychological (e.g., data breach) harm to its consumers. Such incidents may invoke product liability lawsuits against the company. The company may try to recover from the liability-invoking failure by notifying the affected consumers, offering a remedy, and persuading them to comply with the company message. The authors theorize and experimentally demonstrate that, on average, a prevention-focused message receives greater compliance than a promotion-focused message. Further, a prevention-focused message is more effective with consumers from high-uncertainty-avoidance cultures, whereas a promotion-focused message is more effective in low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures. Perceived compatibility of prevention or promotion goals with low or high values of uncertainty avoidance mediates the interaction effect on compliance. The findings can help companies overcome consumer apathy to product recall or data breach notices and offer managers ways to promote consumer safety and protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To investigate characteristics of data reported in US medical cannabis registries across states. Methods. Data included 2021 medical cannabis registry reports from 34 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia (hereafter, states) with active medical cannabis programs. The data from the reports were manually coded into domains and subcategories, including information related to patients (e.g., number, demographics), authorizing clinicians, sales (e.g., content, revenue), license tracking, and health and safety outcomes. Results. Among 36 states, 97% reported total patient number and 75% reported number of authorizing clinicians. Least reported subcategories included patient race/ethnicity (8%), adverse events (11%), therapeutic benefits (6%), and product recalls (6%). States that recently legalized medical cannabis (2013–2018) reported a higher number of subcategories overall, with a median of 11 versus 8 for early adopting states (1996–2012). More medical-use states reported data on authorizing clinicians compared with nonmedical adult-use states but were otherwise similar. Conclusions. Medical cannabis state registries generally reported data on consumers, clinicians, and sales rather than health and safety outcomes. More comprehensive and uniform medical cannabis public health surveillance is needed. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S8):S685–S693. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307728) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Lobbying allows firms to influence the government to potentially limit firms' costs during product recall crises. However, such lobbying can elicit scrutiny from the media if the lobbying gives the impression that firms wish to save costs at the expense of safety, thereby appearing hypocritical. We theorize that when faced with negative media coverage of product recalls or recall‐related lobbying, firms strategically eschew lobbying to limit further media scrutiny and its associated negative consequences. We test our hypotheses using the US auto industry's lobbying from 2008 to 2022. We provide further depth to our examination of strategic eschewal through 15 supplemental interviews of lobbyists about how the media influences firms' lobbying decisions. Managerial Summary: Companies may resort to lobbying in efforts to reduce costs related to product recall crises, but such controversial lobbying may also tarnish their image. When confronted with negative media coverage of product recalls, or recall‐related lobbying, companies are more likely to strategically refrain from lobbying to minimize additional, unwanted media spotlight and its associated negative repercussions. Managers should be mindful that even if lobbying may help limit the costs of recalls, it could also cause potential reputational harm. Thus, it is vitally important that managers pay attention to the reputational cues from the media, which can help them determine when lobbying may be problematic and allow them to preemptively refrain from such lobbying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: We reviewed recent reports of recalled children's products contaminated with lead to learn more about what could be done to inform public health partners about the recalls in a timely manner to assist with broader consumer notification for proactive lead poisoning prevention efforts. METHODS: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff reviewed lead-related recall notices for children's products issued during June 2022 through April 2024. Recall notices were extracted from the Consumer Product Safety Commission using Really Simple Syndication feed technology to identify and capture the most current recall information. Specific product details in the database were extracted and analyzed descriptively to identify response trends and best practices. RESULTS: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's automated tool identified 30 recalls from Consumer Product Safety Commission. Lead-contaminated toys were the most frequent type of product recalled (n = 11, 37%). Most products were manufactured in China (n = 24, 86%). Products were on the market for an average of 25 months before they were recalled. No injuries were reported. The 30 recalls resulted in a combined number of 914 598 recalled units sold. CONCLUSIONS: The current approach to protecting children from lead hazards in consumer products could be augmented by timely notifying the public health community about recalls so they can broadly disseminate information through their channels to reduce lead exposure in children. Additional steps to reduce lead contamination in children'sproductswhen sourcing raw materials and components may help to decrease the number of recalls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety in consumer goods is maintained by product safety laws and associated regulations. However, the legislation and regulations are specific to product categories and legal jurisdictions, thus impeding one's ability to understand what a recall is and isn't, and how it differs from related phenomena (e.g., product-harm crisis). The authors aim to provide such an understanding. They reviewed 510 reports from academics, managers, governments, and regulators; conducted interviews with 25 practitioners; and used 10 recall data sets to identify seven fundaments of recall. They synthesize the fundaments to propose a definition and a decision tree of recall, which can help inform academics, journalists, managers, lawyers, and safety advocates regarding what term is appropriate in what context. The authors apply the fundaments to identify similarities and differences between a recall and a harm crisis, the term used frequently in marketing research in association with recall. The fundaments also enable the authors to make five recommendations each for lawmakers and regulators in an effort to guide the academic and practitioner discourse on product recall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to solve the problem of recognizing multiple product images, the author proposes the research of image recognition technology based on deep learning in automated control systems. Firstly, the FasterRCNN method is improved by proposing a non class specific FasterRCNN, which can be used for pre annotation of product images by training only on publicly available datasets. Due to the use of position correction networks, the pre annotation effect is more accurate than that of candidate region networks. Then, combining Grabcut with non class specific FasterRCNN, a sample enhancement method was proposed to synthesize a large number of training images containing multiple products and use them for model training. In addition, based on non class specific FasterRCNN, a re identification layer was proposed to improve detection accuracy. In the end, the recognition and positioning of multiple products achieved a recall rate of 93.8% and an accuracy of 96.3%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of chief marketing officers (CMOs) when firms experience crisis situations. In the context of product recalls, we analyze CMO impacts from the perspectives of two critical stakeholders—consumers and investors. For consumers, we find that firms with a CMO manage recalls for better consumer protection by issuing recalls earlier and having fewer consumer harm incidents than firms without a CMO. For investors, we find that firm financial value drops significantly more for firms with a CMO than those without a CMO when recall happens. These findings generate a more holistic picture of CMOs in the growing literature on the roles and impacts of marketing leadership. They boost the message that CMOs matter and show the nuanced impacts when firms face crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine a supply chain with a single risk-averse manufacturer who purchases from suppliers and sells to consumers. Within this context, we focus on two channels that drive blockchain adoption by the manufacturer: manufacturer risk aversion and consumer information asymmetry. Regarding the first channel, blockchain enables efficient tracing of defective products so that the manufacturer can selectively recall defective products rather than conducting a full recall. This tracing ability reduces the risk involved in the manufacturer purchasing from multiple suppliers and thereby leads the manufacturer to endogenously diversify across suppliers when blockchain is adopted. The diversification enhances the manufacturer's welfare due to the manufacturer's risk aversion and thus drives the manufacturer to adopt blockchain. With regard to the second channel, blockchain stores details from the manufacturing process and reveals them to consumers, thereby ameliorating consumer information asymmetry. This reduction in information asymmetry improves consumer decision making that, in isolation, would enhance consumer welfare. However, the manufacturer responds by increasing the consumer price, thereby transferring potential consumer welfare gains to the manufacturer, and consequently serving as a second channel to drive blockchain adoption by the manufacturer. This paper was accepted by Lin William Cong, finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noting the proliferation of product recalls and extensive use of lobbying in some critical product markets (e.g., automobiles, medical equipment), the authors examine the relationship between lobbying and product recalls. Lobbying does not alter product quality, so an efficiency perspective would suggest no relationship. However, a legitimacy-based institutional theory perspective and associated regulation models suggest that lobbying reduces voluntary firm-initiated and mandatory regulator-initiated recalls. To provide insights into these questions, the current study explores nine years of multisource data from the automotive industry, related to recalls and lobbying. The results, obtained with an instrumental variable approach, support dual impacts of lobbying for reducing both voluntary and mandatory recalls. Defect severity and media coverage moderate the effects, and the data support full indirect moderation, such that the interaction between media coverage and lobbying mediates the interaction between defect severity and lobbying. In terms of effect sizes, approximately $404,367 ($1.66 million) more in lobbying expenditures is associated with one fewer voluntary (mandatory) recall, assuming a typical average recall of 235,638 vehicles. This study highlights lobbying as an important (marketing) tool that automotive companies use to manage their regulatory environment, with deep implications for policy making, research, and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the dynamic interdependencies among the negativity and the positivity in news and user-generated content about safety in a firm's products (or the lack thereof) and the firm's product recalls. The authors use a panel vector autoregression (PVAR) to unearth theoretically novel and managerially relevant asymmetric associations. Specifically, they find that the negativity in the news negatively correlates with recalls, whereas the negativity in UGC positively correlates with recalls. Whereas the positivity in the news positively correlates with recalls, the positivity in UGC does not matter. Further, the negativity in the news and the negativity in UGC substitute for each other, whereas their positive counterparts complement each other's associations with recalls. Lastly, the negativity and positivity in the news have significant, though differently patterned, long-term associations with recalls. The findings contribute to research on the associations between earned media and managerial decisions in the product market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturers often recall defective products. When this occurs, multiple recalls of defective products can be announced in the same statement or separate statements (i.e., concurrent vs. separate recalls). We draw upon the attribution theory to study whether and how concurrent (vs. separate) recalls of multiple products affect each recalled product's market share loss. In this study, a unique dataset of product recalls in the Chinese automobile industry and two experiments reveal that when products are concurrently (vs. separately) recalled, each product's defect is perceived as less distinctive, thus assuaging the market share loss for the focal product. In addition, the mitigating effect of concurrent recalls is stronger when the focal product is recalled with many (vs. few) other products but weaker for products with high price premiums and those with a recall history. These insights suggest that manufacturers can strategically use concurrent recalls to minimize market share loss resulting from product recalls, particularly when dealing with lower‐priced products or those with a limited recall history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product recalls are direct remedies for producers in case of food safety problems. Unlike in the United States or other developed countries, in China, voluntary recalls are rarely documented in the food sector. The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: (1) why do firms adopt different recall strategies in different countries; (2) under what circumstances can voluntary recall help firms build up their food safety reputation? Based on the theory of collective reputation, we develop a dynamic model to incorporate firms' recall strategy and investigate the impact of such a strategy on industry collective reputation. The model takes into account production hazards: producers' lapses in food safety despite good‐faith efforts. Our results show that voluntary recall helps a firm to maintain a good historical record. Hence, firms are likely to achieve a high level of collective reputation under voluntary recall. However, a firm is willing to initiate voluntary recall only if the collective reputation is high enough. This explains the current situation in China: as consumers show little trust (belief in collective reputation is low), firms cannot recover the recall loss and thus have no incentive to initiate a voluntary recall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brand transgressions might put at risk some of companies' most important achievements: a high awareness brand and loyal customers' trust. High awareness brands may suffer from the effects of a functional transgression on customers' trust and perception regarding an organization's capacity to keep its promises, as well as the relationship developed with loyal customers. A common outcome of a product functional transgression is government intervention asking for a product recall. The voluntary recall is an alternative to handle brand transgressions, but less common than mandatory product recalls. This paper adds to the literature by theoretically discussing and empirically analyzing how the relationship status of a first-time or loyal customer with a high awareness brand affects consumers' trust after a functional transgression. Additionally, it examines the moderation effect of response to a functional transgression on the relation between trust's components—competence, integrity, and benevolence. Through an experimental study 2 (company's response: passive strategy; voluntary product recall) × 2 (relationship: loyal; first-time) × between-subjects design, the findings indicate that after a high awareness brand transgression, loyal consumers perceive greater competence, integrity, and benevolence in the brand than first-time consumers. When a transgression is followed by a passive strategy in which the transgressor company is aware of a malfunction and decides not to take any action to remediate the situation, loyal consumers have higher integrity and benevolence-based trust perception than first-time consumers. As voluntary recall takes place, loyal and first-time consumers' perceptions of integrity and benevolence increase, and first-time consumers reach the same levels as loyal consumers, which suggests voluntary product recall is an effective trust recovery strategy for a high awareness brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The rising number of food recalls has raised concerns about complexity, globalization and weak governance in the food supply chain. This paper aims to investigate the recall of plant-based products with data from the US Food and Drug Administration. Design/methodology/approach: Introducing the structural topic modeling method allowed us to test theories on recall in the context of sustainable food consumption, enhancing the understanding of food recall processes. This approach helps identify latent topics of product recalls and their interwoven relationships with various stakeholders. Findings: The results answer a standing research call for empirical investigation in a nascent food industry to identify stakeholders' engagements for food safety crisis management for corporate social responsibility practices. This finding provides novel insights on managing threats to food safety at an industry level to extend existing antecedents and consequences of product recall at a micro level. Practical implications: For practitioners, this empirical finding may provide insights into stakeholder management and develop evidence-based strategies to prevent threats to food safety. For public policymakers, this analysis may help identify patterns of recalls and assist guidelines and alarm systems (e.g. EU's Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) on threats in the food supply chain. Originality/value: Two detected clusters, such as opportunisms of market actors in the plant-based food system and food culture, from the analysis help understand corporate social responsibility and food safety in the plant-based food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to explore the characteristics of drug recall announcements issued over six years by the SFDA in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, to examine the patterns of voluntary drug recall requests by pharmaceutical companies (both innovator and generic) in response to product defects. Methods: A retrospective data analysis was conducted on drug recall announcements issued by the SFDA between 2017 and December 2022. The study included recalls of registered and unregistered drugs posted on the SFDA Drugs Circulars and Withdrawal webpage. Descriptive analysis was performed on relevant variables: recall year, therapeutic class, recall type, pharmaceutical company type, recall reasons and voluntary or involuntary product defect reports. Results: During the study period, a total of 371 products were recalled, with the majority being involuntary recalls (82.4%). About two-thirds of the recalls (66.0%) were related to registered products. The most common reasons for recalls were non-compliance with the manufacturer's specifications (33.2%), contamination (23.7%), and violations (20.5%). A total of 109 pharmaceutical companies were associated with the recalled products, with (85.3%) being generic pharmaceutical companies. The majority of innovator pharmaceutical companies (68.8%) requested voluntary drug recalls of defective products. Innovator pharmaceutical companies requested voluntary recalls more often than generic pharmaceutical companies. Conclusion: The study findings highlight the most frequent causes of drug recalls and the patterns of voluntary recall requests by pharmaceutical companies. Non-compliance with manufacturer's specifications was the most common reason for recalls. Significantly, more innovative pharmaceutical companies request voluntary recalls for product defects compared to generic pharmaceutical companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product‐harm crises are discrete events in which product failures expose consumers to safety hazards. Firms facing such crises must legally recall their products to protect consumers from further harm. In this study, we examine the effects of product‐harm crises and their recall strategies on CEO turnover. We find that firms are more likely to replace their CEOs after issuing product recalls, especially for recalls that are proactive and that offer extensive corrective actions. We further find that firms with poor performance and with limited financial flexibility are more likely to dismiss their CEOs after product recalls. Our study contributes to the disciplines of accounting, finance, and management by documenting product‐harm crises are a strong predictor of CEO dismissal, that is, incremental to other measures of firm performance for U.S. companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impact of product recalls on audit production. Product recalls are events that increase engagement risk associated with greater audit effort, and by extension, greater audit quality. Consistent with this conclusion, we find firm-years with a product recall have a lower likelihood of being subsequently restated and lower levels of accrual error. While a positive association generally exists between audit effort and audit fees, prior literature shows firms experiencing economic stress negotiate lower audit fees and auditors accept lower fees to earn future returns. We expect that to increase the likelihood of retaining a client, auditors will agree to lower fees when the short-term economic stress associated with a recall injects downward pressure into fee negotiations. Supporting this conclusion, we find product recalls are associated with lower audit fees – a relation attributable to differing magnitudes of temporal fee increase. We also show the effects are transitory, the higher levels of audit quality are attributable to specialist audit offices, and the lower levels of fees are attributable to engagements where the client has greater bargaining power. While a positive association typically exists between audit effort and audit fees, our paper identifies a firm-specific event that weakens this relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a firm announces a product recall it typically incurs a market penalty in the form of a decline in its stock price. But a specific recall announcement often happens among recalls by other firms in the industry. Could recent recalls by other firms in the industry impact the market penalty for a new recall announcement? To capture and test this effect, the authors conceptualize recall environment intensity. Using salience theory, they identify the dimensions of the recall environment intensity construct, confirm these dimensions using interviews and a survey, and develop a measure for the construct. The authors then develop hypotheses for the effect of recall environment intensity on the stock penalty for a new recall announcement and propose boundary conditions for the effect. The hypotheses are tested using data from the automobile industry to show that a firm that announces a recall in a high intensity recall environment will have a smaller decline in stock price, though the effect varies with the reliability reputation of the brand and the age of the recalled products. The study provides a nuanced understanding of the stock market response to recall announcements and offers guidance on how to conceptualize and measure recall environment intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommendation system is used to filter the information according to the customer's satisfaction. Based on consumer reviews, this approach discovers and compares product scores, ratings, and rankings. Here, the data are obtained from Amazon Product Recommendation dataset. These data are supplied to pre-processing. Altered phase preserving dynamic range compression acts as a pre-processing method to eliminate unsolicited details in the related text. Ternary Pattern and Discrete Wavelet Transform is used to this preprocessed output. The output is fed to recalling enriched recurrent neural network classifier, which classifies the product suggestion as five categories: excellent, very good, good, bad, and very bad. The proposed approach is activated in MATLAB; its efficacy is evaluated under some evaluation metrics, like accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity, f-measure, execution time. The proposed technique achieves 21.34%, 22.54%, 25.23%, 29.56% and 26.56% high accuracy; 29.29%, 25.35%, 27.45%, 26.75% and 27.95% higher AUC value and 10.136%, 9.04%. 10.45%, 11.45% and 18.81% lower execution time compared with existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the complex interplay of internal and external factors driving the likelihood of product recalls for an organization. Initially, it examines the impact of innovation capability on product recall likelihood. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, it posits a U-shaped relationship, suggesting that while heightened innovation capability generally benefits firms, it can lead to detrimental management challenges beyond a certain threshold. Furthermore, this research examines how firms handle product recalls in fiercely competitive industries. Recognizing the significance of external factors, this study asserts that industry competition amplifies the likelihood of product recalls. However, an intriguing twist emerges when the competition reaches an extreme level; the likelihood of product recalls diminishes, forming an inverted U-shaped pattern. In essence, this study empirically tests these theoretical constructs, shedding light on the complex dynamics governing the likelihood of product recalls for an organization, considering both an internal force and an external one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This case study describes, for the time frame of June 2021 through August 2022, the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VHA) organizational response to a manufacturers recall of positive airway pressure devices used in the treatment of sleep disordered breathing. VHA estimated it could take over a year for Veterans to receive replacement devices. Veterans awaiting a replacement faced a dilemma. They could continue using the recalled devices and bear the product safety risks that led to the recall, or they could stop using them and bear the risks of untreated sleep disordered breathing. Using a program monitoring approach, we report on the processes VHA put in place to respond to the recall. Specifically, we report on the strategic, service, and operational plans associated with VHAs response to the recall for Veterans needing replacement devices. In program monitoring, the strategic plan reflects the internal process objectives for the program. The service plan articulates how the delivery of services will intersect the customer journey. The operational plan describes how the programs resources and actions must support the service delivery plan. VHAs strategic plan featured a clinician-led, as opposed to primarily legal or administrative response to the recall. The recall response team also engaged with VHAs medical ethics service to articulate an ethical framework guiding the allocation of replacement devices under conditions of scarcity. This framework proposed allocating scarce devices to Veterans according to their clinical need. The service plan invited Veterans to schedule visits with sleep providers who could assess their clinical need and counsel them accordingly. The operational plan distributed devices according to clinical need as they became available. Monitoring our program processes in real time helped VHA launch and adapt its response to a recall affecting more than 700,000 Veterans.

User textual reviews have become a significant data source for enhancing the efficacy of recommendation systems as e-commerce website use has increased. These evaluations feature nuanced customer opinions that typically reflect their product preferences. On the other hand, the majority of conventional recommender systems (RS) disregard such user feedback and hence fall short of accurately capturing users' unique product thoughts. The majority of these techniques rely on handcrafted and rule-based approaches, which are known to be labor-intensive and time-consuming. Although other approaches try to employ fine-grained user opinions to somewhat enhance the accuracy of recommendation systems. Their applicability is therefore restricted. To address the aforementioned issues, this research develops an opinion-mining recommendation system that combines Information Extraction with Two-Layered ODNN and Semantic Analysis. The first layer uses NB and MSGM to forecast the aspects specified in the feedback, while the second layer uses ODNN to specify the opinion orientation as well as sentiment analysis. First and foremost, data pre-processing is critical before entering data into models, as it aids in reaching high accuracy. Special methods were necessary for textual data, including tokenization, stop word deletion, and user name removal, all of which were used in this study. Second, the first layer may focus on the critical context words to the given aspect terms in sentences utilizing NB, MSGM, and Enthalpy measure. Last but not least, Second Layer Opinion The outcome of sentiment categorization aspect polarities opinion orientation as positive, negative, and neutral is predicted using ODNN. In terms of information, the results of the experiments suggest that our proposed strategy outperforms current methods in terms of accuracy, precision, and recall for the Amazon product review at 95.29%, 96.67%, and 96.18%. As well as yelp dataset analysis of accuracy, precision, and recall are 92.13%, 90.45%, and 96.04%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms struggle to respond to product recalls and achieve high recall effectiveness, i.e., the percentage of affected consumers who participate in corrective actions. We present the first comprehensive study of recall effectiveness that analyzes a broader set of product categories, identifies managerially relevant drivers, outlines boundary conditions, and demonstrates the underlying psychological processes. Specifically, three studies investigate the impact of remedy choice, incident likelihood, and their interaction with firm reputation on recall effectiveness. In Study 1 (unique secondary data set), we show that remedy choice and incident likelihood each interact with the firm's reputation to influence recall effectiveness. In two subsequent experiments, we not only test the findings of the secondary data in a causal setting but also examine the underlying psychological process. We find that offering full remedy leads to higher recall effectiveness for high reputation firms and that recall effectiveness is higher for recalls with a high incident likelihood, but only for high reputation firms. In both cases, firms not only make consumers feel like they would benefit more from participating in the recall, but they also make them feel more comfortable in their ability to participate in the recall. These nuanced findings enable us to derive actionable guidelines for firms to increase recall effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that committing to corporate social responsibility (CSR) can induce moral licensing among employees, resulting in unethical behaviors. We extend this line of research and develop a theoretical framework to study how CSR influences managerial decision-making in crisis management. We test this theory in the context of product recall remediation. We examine under what circumstances CSR induces morally consistent or morally dubious recall remedial decisions and factors moderating this effect. We focus on two product recall remedial decisions that differ in ambiguity—full versus partial compensation and proactive versus passive recall. We predict and show that a company's strong prior CSR performance increases the likelihood of full compensation but decreases the likelihood of a proactive recall. This finding suggests that CSR can induce moral licensing behavior at the highest corporate level when a decision is morally difficult to diagnose. Further analysis reveals that consumer harm and institutional ownership moderate the relationship between CSR and these two remediation strategies. Together, our findings provide important insights into when CSR leads to moral licensing in crisis remediation and how the link can be mitigated, and thus shed light on when CSR yields consistent and meaningful ethical business decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Objectives: Commentators and professional organisations note that an expanding market in human milk-based products (HMBPs) could reduce breastfeeding, compromising maternal and infant health, and undermine public milk bank donations. We investigate whether English NHS trusts purchased these products and whether HMBP companies have marketed to them. Design: Freedom of Information (FOI) requests asking: (1) whether trusts obtained human milk; (2) if so, how; and (3) whether HMBP companies had approached them. We analysed trusts' responses qualitatively. In 2023, an FOI request to the Food Standards Authority (FSA) following a product recall. Setting: England. Participants: One hundred and ninety-four NHS trusts, the FSA. Main Outcome Measures: Obtaining human milk, approaches by companies, and trust responses to approaches. Results: One hundred and seventy-six trusts responded, 102 reporting human milk from milk banks. No trusts reported purchasing from companies in 2022. In 2023, the FSA confirmed six English hospitals used HMBPs from one company; an FOI for trusts' names was refused on law enforcement grounds. Two trusts reported participating in clinical trials funded by companies. Twenty-one reported approaches, using several strategies, including uninvited ward visits. Trusts rejected marketing based on guidance from: (1) trust dieticians or physicians; (2) regional regulatory bodies; (3) professional bodies; and (4) perceived application of an International Code on breastfeeding. Conclusions: Companies market to trusts, adopting methods previously used by the formula industry. Trusts express confusion over whether this infringes agreements designed to promote breastfeeding. We encourage clarification and guidance for professionals and trusts to ensure safety, infant and maternal health, and protect public provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The N-nitrosamine, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), is an environmental mutagen and rodent carcinogen. Small levels of NDMA have been identified as an impurity in some commonly used drugs, resulting in several product recalls. In this study, NDMA was evaluated in an OECD TG-488 compliant Muta™Mouse gene mutation assay (28-day oral dosing across seven daily doses of 0.02-4 mg/kg/day) using an integrated design that assessed mutation at the transgenic lac Z locus in various tissues and at the endogenous Pig-a gene-locus, along with micronucleus frequencies in peripheral blood. Liver pathology was determined together with NDMA exposure in blood and liver. The additivity of mutation induction was assessed by including two acute single-dose treatment groups (i.e. 5 and 10 mg/kg dose on Day 1), which represented the same total dose as two of the repeat dose treatment groups. NDMA did not induce statistically significant increases in mean lac Z mutant frequency (MF) in bone marrow, spleen, bladder, or stomach, nor in peripheral blood (Pig-a mutation or micronucleus induction) when tested up to 4 mg/kg/day. There were dose-dependent increases in mean lac Z MF in the liver, lung, and kidney following 28-day repeat dosing or in the liver and kidney after a single dose (10 mg/kg). No observed genotoxic effect levels (NOGEL) were determined for the positive repeat dose–response relationships. Mutagenicity did not exhibit simple additivity in the liver since there was a reduction in MF following NDMA repeat dosing compared with acute dosing for the same total dose. Benchmark dose modelling was used to estimate point of departure doses for NDMA mutagenicity in Muta™Mouse and rank order target organ tissue sensitivity (liver > kidney or lung). The BMD50 value for liver was 0.32 mg/kg/day following repeat dosing (confidence interval 0.21–0.46 mg/kg/day). In addition, liver toxicity was observed at doses of ≥ 1.1 mg/kg/day NDMA and correlated with systemic and target organ exposure. The integration of these results and their implications for risk assessment are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethylene oxide (EtO), although banned for use, is still being detected in foodstuffs that have been fumigated to eradicate pests during storage and transport. Residual levels over the European Union's (EU) maximum residue limit (MRL) pose severe health concerns. Recent detection of EtO and its by-product 2-chloroethanol (2-CE) at alarming levels have led to product recalls throughout the EU. Here, a simple, automated headspace (HS)-trap method for the simultaneous determination of EtO and its derivative 2-CE by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) at the required MRL of ≤ 0.05 mg/kg has been implemented. Syringe-based HS combined with backflushed trapping technology provided enrichment of multiple extractions from the same sample vial (known as multi-step enrichment or MSE®) to increase sensitivity for EtO and 2-CE analysis by GC-MS using single-ion-monitoring (SIM) mode. Method detection limits (MDLs) of 0.00059 mg/kg and 0.00219 mg/kg for EtO and 2-CE, respectively, were obtained without the need for manual handling, solvent extraction or derivatization methods. Recoveries were shown to average (n = 5) at 98% and 107% for EtO and 2-CE, respectively, and the reproducibility was <10% for both compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]