Introduction to the Special Issue on the Impact of Network Ethics on Business Practices

Modern public relations practices have been dominated by appeals to impulses, desires, and images that affect publics defined predominantly in demographic terms. This paper argues that abandoning basic rhetorical assumptions about the ability of ordinary people to engage in practical reason has serious ethical implications for the marketplace as well as for society in general. The study applies recent rhetorical scholarship on issues of public discourse and rhetorical culture to public relations practices, considering how rhetoric can contribute to more effective and ethical public discourse in our dominant modes of marketplace communication.     

The impact of stocks and flows of organizational knowledge on firm performance: an empirical investigation of the biotechnology industry

The knowledge‐based view of the firm is a recent approach to understanding the relationship between firm capabilities and firm performance. Specifically, this approach suggests that knowledge generation, accumulation and application may be the source of superior performance. Other research has conceptualized organizational knowledge in terms of stocks of accumulated knowledge in the firm and flows of knowledge into the firm. This paper tests the relationship between stocks and flows of organizational knowledge and firm performance in the biotechnology industry. We suggest that a firm’s geographic location, alliances with other institutions and organizations and R&D expenditures are representative of knowledge flows, while products in the pipeline, firm citations and patents are indicative of knowledge stocks. Through factor analysis, we develop an aggregated measure of location from several variables. A regression model suggests that location is a significant predictor of firm performance as are products in the pipeline and firm citations. A major contribution of this investigation is the operationalization of geographic location and its statistically significant link to firm performance. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Planning and managing primary care services: lessons from the NHS in England

High-quality primary care services are an essential part of a successful health service. However, the planning and management of such services is complex. Using evidence from a study of recent extensive changes in the English NHS, the authors highlight the need for local service oversight by managers who understand local conditions and needs. The recent English experience supports an incremental policy adjustment approach, rather than wholesale organizational change.     

Relationship journeys in the internet of things: a new framework for understanding interactions between consumers and smart objects

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science - Consumers’ interactions with smart objects have a relational nature, and extensive research has supported the “relationship metaphor”...     

An analysis of Dow 30 global core indicator disclosures and environmental,social, and governance‐related ratings

We examine the extent to which US Dow 30 companies disclose the Global Core Indicators (GCIs), which are measures to assess companies’ contribution toward the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We find that the Dow 30 are generally compliant with disclosing GCIs that align with US capital market reporting expectations, high‐profile current events, and issues that are financially relevant. We also find the Dow 30 are more likely to disclose institutional and economic issues, rather than environmental and social issues, and note disclosure variation across industries in which the Dow 30 operate. Supplemental analyses indicate that GCI disclosure levels are generally higher when those GCIs are associated with financially relevant ESG issues, suggesting companies are more amenable to addressing sustainability when doing so aligns with their mandate to shareholders. Correlation analyses reveal that the GCI indices moderately or strongly correlate with two of three MSCI sustainability ratings, highlighting companies’ focus on financially relevant areas, and weakly correlate with companies’ CDP climate change ratings, highlighting the limited scope of the GCIs in capturing detailed environmentally focused sustainability efforts. We also show that the MSCI sustainability ratings of the Dow 30 have generally trended higher over time, with increases driven by companies in the manufacturing, financial, and retail industries. Our findings help fill a void in sustainability literature on US company reporting of the GCIs and may be informative to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as it reviews the GCIs in support of the 2030 Agenda.     

DEREGULATION AND EFFICIENCY IN GRAIN TRANSPORT

In this paper, it is argued that removing restrictions on road transport will not be sufficient to encourage efficiency improvements in grain freight industry while rail authorities continue to operate as public monopolies. This is because of the structure of costs in the grain freight industry, which imply that road transport cannot compete with rail transport in areas where road is the more efficient mode. While the tendency for a regulated monopoly to cross-subsidise inefficient operations is common place, the focus in this analysis is on the nature of the cross-subsidy in the grain freight industry, and shows that it is a type of cross-subsidy that is well hidden by aggregation. A model of investment in a rail network is presented where the monopoly power afforded to the rail industry is shown to be due to economies of traffic density. A case study of the grain rail network in Western Australia is presented where it is shown that the rail authority has been able to maintain very uneconomic sections of rail line, despite the introduction of road competition and apparently competitive pricing practices.     

Evaluating an Environmental Right: Information Disclosure, Public Comment, and Government Decision Making in Ontario

In 1993, the Ontario government enacted the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR). The EBR guarantees residents of the province, among other things, the right to comment on permit requests to take water and to discharge into the air and a guarantee that these comments are taken into account in the decision to approve or deny a permit. We model the firm's decision to request a permit, a resident's decision to provide public comment, and the government's decision to approve or deny permit requests to use water or air. Our examination of 1,000 government decisions regarding permit requests leads to two key findings: (1) few permit requests receive any public comment; and (2) to the extent that the public does comment, we find no empirical evidence that comments affect the likelihood that the government will deny a permit request. Our theoretical model anticipates the first result: there are few comments observed for permit applications, because each individual has an incentive to undercontribute to the provision of a public good. The second result did not support the theoretical argument we advance: government, acting to maximize social welfare, takes public concern as a signal of environmental damage. En 1993, le gouvernement de l'Ontario a édicté la Charte des droits environnementaux (CDE). La CDE garantit aux résidents de la province, entre autres, le droit de faire des observations sur les demandes de permis pour puiser l'eau et rejeter des quantités limitées de substances polluantes dans l'air, et garantit aussi que ces observations seront prises en considération dans la décision d'accorder ou de refuser un permis. Nous avons modélisé la décision d'une entreprise de déposer une demande de permis, la décision d'un résident de faire des observations et la décision du gouvernement d'accorder ou de refuser les demandes de permis pour l'usage de l'eau ou de l'air. L'examen de 1000 décisions du gouvernement concernant des demandes de permis a menéà deux principaux constats: 1. peu de demandes de permis reçoivent des observations du public; 2. lorsque le public soumet des observations, aucune évidence empirique ne laisse supposer que les observations influent sur la probabilité que le gouvernement rejette une demande de permis. Notre modèle théorique a anticipé le premier constat: les demandes de permis reçoivent peu d'observations parce que chaque individu a un incitatif à sous–contribuer à la fourniture d'un bien collectif. Le deuxième constat n'a pas appuyé notre argument théorique voulant que le gouvernement, qui agit afin de maximiser le bien–être collectif, tienne compte des préoccupations du public comme un signal de dommage environnemental.     

The Impact of Rating Agency Reputation on Local Government Bond Yields

This study examines a sample of 12,562 dual-rated local government bond issues including 6,104 split-rated issues to determine which rating agency has the greatest impact on yields. Using a database of municipal bond issues from 1986 to 2002, we show that Moody’s rated significantly more issues than S&P, and that Moody’s ratings were more conservative. However, from 1993 to 1997, there was a reduction in ratings disagreements and in Moody’s market share. Beginning in 1995, Moody’s received negative publicity related to a Department of Justice anti-trust investigation. Moody’s appears to have responded by sharply increasing their relative conservatism in 1997. From 1986 to 1994, Moody’s ratings had a greater impact on bond yields than S&P ratings, but their dominant influence on yields disappears in the recent sample period from 1995 to 2002.

Dual career couples: Individual and organizational implications

Since the introduction of the term ‘dualcareer’ family by Rapoport and Rapoport in 1969, an increasingly large body of literature concerning this phenomenon has developed — perhaps in response to the rapid growth of dual-careerism in North American Society. This literature is extremely diverse, ranging from purely ‘academic’ articles in the professional journals of economics, business, sociology, psychology, etc., to ‘self-help’ and ‘trade’ books such as The Two Career Couple by Hall and Hall; to ‘light’ articles in popular magazines such as Redbook, People, Good Housekeeping, etc. This paper reviews this literature and discusses the implications of the dual-career family structure from both the individual and the organizational points-of-view. Specifically, five major topic areas are covered: (1) advantages and disadvantages of the lifestyle, (2) marital satisfaction, (3) egalitarian relationships, (4) the impact of transfers, relocations and living apart, and (5) the employing organization's reaction to and adaption to the phenomenon.