Audits and COVID-19: A paradigm shift in the making

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the obsolescence and vulnerability of many existing auditing practices. While some progressive practices have been implemented (e.g., remote audits using rudimentary information and communication technologies), a new paradigm is needed not only to account for the risk of repeated lockdowns but also to align practices with the level of digitalization, automation, and use of artificial intelligence in the current business environment. In this article, we argue that the adoption of new technologies requires a fundamental rethinking of how auditing services are delivered. We argue that new technological possibilities have implications for five other auditing elements that enable a shift from the old to the new paradigm of auditing, namely actors, processes, spaces, training and skills development, and services. We explain how nonfinancial audits conducted under the new paradigm are key enablers of a firm’s ability to participate and to thrive in a competitive international marketplace.     

Supplier quality and reliability assurance practices in the Spanish auto components industry: a study of implementation issues

This paper reports some empirical observations of the way in which the Spanish auto components industry is implementing supplier quality and reliability practices. The findings are examined in relation to four hypotheses. Amongst the main conclusions of the study is that there is an apparently large group of suppliers who, in spite of implementing a range of quality management preventative practices, still undertake considerable component and product inspection, and they tend to be stuck in the old quality paradigm of detection. It is also pointed out that suppliers more advanced in the use of quality practices are achieving better operational performance in terms of quality, reliability, cost, flexibility and design.     

Quo Vadis,marketing? Toward a relationship marketing paradigm

The marketing mix and its 4Ps have remained the marketing paradigm for decades. In the article it is argued that the foundation for this paradigm is weak and that it has had negative effects on marketing research and practice. Contemporary research into services marketing and industrial marketing demonstrates that a new approach to marketing is required. This new approach is based on building and management of relationships. A paradigm shift in marketing is under way. The thoughts and actions of marketing academics and practitioners should not be constrained by a paradigm from the 1950s and 1960s.     

Training retail sales personnel in transition economies: Applying a model of customer-oriented communication

The former Soviet Bloc countries have been faced with the challenge of switching from a command economy to a free market-oriented economy. The extent to which people have managed to cope with the resulting turbulent period of change largely depended on whether they were able to break from their old attitudes and behaviour. Naturally, the knowledge and skills related to the previous dominant paradigm in those societies all influence direct communication with customers. In order to train salespeople in transition economies, we constructed a Model of Customer-Oriented Communication (COC). This paper describes the COC model, looks at the subsequent training courses and discusses the evaluation of the training process.     

公共行政范式危机的回顾与反思

范式危机在于传统的公共行政范式难以解决现存的问题。需要一种新的公共行政范式来替代传统范．式。公共行政范式的危机首先在于理解上的危机，公共行政的范式转换实际上是学科的演化而不是科学革命，而现行的公共行政范式是一种多元范式并存和互相推进局面。     

Revisiting the Purpose of Selling: Toward a Model of Responsible Selling

Selling as a profession and sales management as an organizational function have undergone major changes that were driven by the evolutionary journey of the marketing discipline. The extant value cocreation paradigm is recrafting the purpose of selling. This paper explores the conceptual development of a selling paradigm that is more responsible to its customers. Specifically, in Business-to-Business (B2B) context, the cost of any selling behavior that compromises customer interest could be of disastrous proportions. Building on the theoretical foundations of self-regulation and job demands-resources theory, this paper develops a conceptual model of responsible selling by integrating self-leadership literature with the emerging paradigm of value-based selling. The conceptual model outlines several research propositions for empirical validation and discusses its potential implications for sales managers and sales organizations.     

Do Ethics Matter? Tax Compliance and Morality

In this article we argue that puzzle of tax compliance can be explained, at least in part, by recognizing the typically neglected role of ethics in individual behavior; that is, individuals do not always behave as the selfish, rational, self-interested individuals portrayed in the standard neoclassical paradigm, but rather are often motivated by many other factors that have as their main foundation some aspects of “ethics.” We argue that it is not possible to understand fully an individual’s compliance decisions without considering in some form these ethical dimensions. Specifically, we argue here that there is much direct and indirect evidence that ethics differ across individuals and that these differences matter in significant ways for their compliance decisions. We then put this in the larger context of the inability of the standard neoclassical paradigm to explain compliance of at least some individuals, and we suggest several possible avenues by which theory can be expanded to incorporate ethics. We conclude by arguing that a full house of compliance strategies is needed to combat tax evasion, strategies that include the traditional “enforcement” paradigm suggested by and consistent with neoclassical theory, a less traditional “service” paradigm that recognizes the important role of a “kinder and gentler” tax administration in encouraging compliance, and, importantly, a new “trust” paradigm that is built on the foundation of ethics, in which the tax administration must recognize that it can erode the ethics of taxpayers by its own decisions.     

Green Marketing: A Theoretical Perspective

The theoretical view of green marketing, derived from within institutional economics, environmental politics, and technological theory, is a multi-disciplinary perspective suggesting that a potential environmental crisis resides not necessarily in specific behaviours but rather within the dominant social paradigm (DSP) of Western industrial societies. Effective policies and strategies then must recognize the crisis as one of paradigms. This paper addresses the failure of contemporary green marketing to move beyond the limitations of the prevailing paradigm. While there are nascent macro developments in marketing thought that might lead to a truly green marketing considering sustainability, holistic thought, and the limitations of the prevailing paradigm, they remain thus far on the periphery of the discipline. They will remain so until a broader, multi-disciplinary approach incorporating the multiple dimensions of the DSP is developed.     

从“产品主导逻辑”到“顾客参与的价值共创”——看西方服务范式四十年来的理论演进

服务研究已经成为近四十年来的热点研究问题,从传统经典理论发展出的产品主导逻辑到服务主导逻辑与价值共创,服务范式的研究不断演进,如何认知服务的问题一直是学术界讨论的热点,文章对服务范式研究的发展历史与演进过程进行了梳理和分析,归纳、识别了包括产品主导逻辑、服务特征范式、关系主导范式、顾客接触范式、服务体验范式、服务主导逻辑和统一服务理论等七种不同的服务范式,分析了当前研究中的不足和面临的挑战,并对未来的研究方向进行了展望。     

库恩范式理论的信度与效度辨析

托马斯·库恩所著的《科学革命的结构》的问世,为科学发展的模式带来了一个全新的词汇——“范式”。这引起了人们对范式理论的关注和不同方面的研究与解析。比如讨论范式的内涵和功能,探讨范式理论的方法论意义,将“范式”引入其他学科等等。文章试从一个全新的角度,借用社会学中信度和效度的概念,对库恩的范式理论进行解析。     

金融发展和经济增长:功能观与结构观的比较

金融功能观认为金融体系通过增强流动性、降低风险、监督经理与实行公司治理和动员储蓄等,降低信息成本和交易成本,提高储蓄向投资转化的效率。金融结构观指出不同的金融结构在不同的历史条件下,对经济增长的作用机制和效果可能也会有差异。功能观与结构观都在一定程度上解释了经济增长,但金融体系提供的金融功能具有不同的比较优势,不同的金融功能对经济增长的作用各异。金融体系是否推动经济增长取决于金融结构与实体经济的适应效率,在不同的发展阶段和国情条件下,只有适合经济发展的金融结构才能促进经济增长。     

Relationship Marketing in the New Economy

Abstract

This article aims to put relationship marketing in the context of the New Economy; it is a quest for valid and practical theory. It is preoccupied with the reigning marketing management paradigm and a shift to a relationship marketing paradigm. A systemic view, referred to as total relationship marketing, is presented together with the core values and beliefs of relationship marketing. The article concludes that relationship marketing is fundamentally different from traditional marketing management and that successful implementation requires new mindsets.     

PARADIGM DEPLETION,KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND RESEARCH EFFORT: CONSIDERING THOMAS KUHN'S IDEAS

This paper deals in a Stackelberg differential game with Kuhn (1962) ideas of paradigm depletion and resiliency. Paradigm is considered as potential knowledge, as a stock of ideas that can be harvested to produce science. The results are: (i) paradigm depletion can be optimal, (ii) the optimal editor's shadow price of potential knowledge must be non‐positive, if it is positive, the editor is a keeper of the orthodoxy rather than a scientist, (iii) editor's and/or researcher's impatience is bad for science, and (iv) in equilibrium editor's behavior does not matter for research effort, while only editor's behavior matter for the paradigm.     

The community brand paradigm: A response to brand management's dilemma in the digital era

Abstract

The consumer adoption of digital media has warranted much attention over the last decade. However, relatively little has been written about how digital media has impacted upon brand management perspectives and practices. The digital era has resulted in changes in how consumers interact with brands and each other, and this shift in behaviour requires a reappraisal of how brands should be managed. The current relational paradigm is no longer sufficient. Therefore this conceptual paper calls for brand management to develop and embody a deeper understanding of this shift by adopting a revised paradigm. Current brand management issues not addressed by the relational paradigm are outlined, the new community paradigm follows, and examples of community paradigm practice are provided as a guide for brand management.     

Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Value Chains: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?

We outline the drivers, main features, and conceptual underpinnings of the compliance paradigm. We then use a similar structure to investigate the drivers, main features, and conceptual underpinnings of the cooperative paradigm for working with CSR in global value chains. We argue that the measures proposed in the new cooperation paradigm are unlikely to alter power relationships in global value chains and bring about sustained improvements in workers’ conditions in developing country export industries. After that, we provide a critical appraisal of the potential and limits of the cooperative paradigm, we summarize our findings, and we outline avenues for research: purchasing practices and labor standard noncompliance, CSR capacity building among local suppliers, and improved CSR monitoring by local resources in the developing world.     

The structure of Islamic economics: A comparative perspective on markets,ethics and economics

A comparative examination of mainstream economic doctrines and their recent developments is undertaken with a view to find out how ethics has been treated in these. The principal focus here is to identify the new paradigm that can treat ethics endogenously in preference formation, the market and the economic order. The quest for this paradigm leads us to an examination of Islamic economics. Islamic economics is presented in terms of its epistemological roots. Thereby, a general systems view of interactions, integration and creative evolution among economic and social possibilities is shown to lead to the paradigm of Islamic political economy. Some Islamic financial and economic instruments are examined to bring out the pervasive causality of the principle of universal complementarity across diversity in a general systems perspective of Islamic political economy as premised on its epistemological roots.     

跨国公司结构演进逻辑:层级到网络的范式转变

层级范式在跨国公司的发展初期具有非常重要的作用,但随着全球竞争的压力加剧、控制协调的考虑,以及技术的进步,已经存在许多发展劣势,需要逐渐向网络范式转变。跨国公司网络结构主要由内部网络和外部网络构成,由于其网络结构更具开放性,形成了关键网络、空间网络和技术网络的不同边界。     

企业战略管理的信息范式

传统的企业战略管理理论是基于安德鲁斯的把战略管理过程分为制订和实施的两阶段模型,沿着企业外部环境和企业内部因素两个维度展开的广泛研究,形成战略管理各理论流派。结合博弈论与信息经济学理论提出一种新战略管理理论范式,使得当前各主要理论被整合在这一范式之下,使战略管理理论沿着科学化方向发展成为可能。     

Approaching Socially Responsible Investment with a Comprehensive Ratings Scheme: Total Social Impact

The socially responsible investment industry (SRI) is slowly changing from a screening, avoidance paradigm to a comprehensive paradigm that seeks to affect corporate behavior. Credible rating systems are a key component of this sea change. Reliable and recognizable social and environmental metrics are critical to this progress. The Total Social Impact (TSI) rating approach is a new social metric scheme based on a comprehensive rating of stakeholder issues. This paper describes the evolution of SRI ratings and the role that TSI hopes to play in affecting business behavior by promoting principled business leadership.     

A critical evaluation of Etzioni's socioeconomic theory: Implications for the field of business ethics

Given the pervasive influence of neoclassical economic theory on the field of business, the opposition of the standard economists to the inclusion of moral factors in economic decisions provides an intellectual resistance to the ideas of many business ethicists. Etzioni (1988) offers a theoretical alternative to the neoclassical model, an alternative that includes a moral dimension. This article: (1) highlights the differences between Etzioni's proposed model and the neoclassical economic paradigm; (2) describes and critically evaluates Etzioni's proposed theory in view of his objective of synthesizing the neoclassical paradigm with a duty-based morality; and (3) discusses the implications of Etzioni's proposed paradigm for the field of business ethics.Diane Swanson is an Assistant Professor of finance and economics at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is also a doctoral student in Business Environment and Public Policy at the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh.