Legally astute managers as a source of value in organizations

The legal and compliance departments in organizations have more influence than ever before. Why then are companies so vulnerable to legal liability? The problem may not be with talented legal professionals, but with the lack of legal knowledge held by MBAs and other business school graduates that make day-to-day decisions in modern organizations. Firms can close this knowledge gap and minimize legal liability by training their managers in legal astuteness—the ability of a manager to address legal issues successfully—by instilling four essential traits: respecting the rule of law, recognizing legal issues, resolving problems proactively, and reporting complex legal issues to experts. Job candidates should also be screened for traits of legal astuteness. A legally astute candidate, especially a graduate of a business school that requires legal education for all its students, can be a cultural ambassador for legal astuteness and a valuable liaison between legal and compliance departments and the candidate’s functional area. A legally ignorant candidate will require significant training and a frank assessment of the legal risk they bring to the organization. Modern firms in today’s legal environment face two choices: hire a legally astute manager now or deal with a compliance headache later.     

全球气候变化背景下低碳旅游研究进展及可视化分析

低碳旅游研究是气候变化背景下旅游研究的前沿问题和关键领域。以Web of Science核心合集、CSSCI及CSCD数据库中关于低碳旅游的文献为基础,利用CiteSpace软件、Alluvial Generator程序、Excel统计功能进行国内外低碳旅游研究的可视化分析。结果表明：国外低碳旅游研究起步时间早,始于系统外部与旅游业相互作用视角,以生态环境和工程技术学科为基础,主要为了解决“碳中和”等现实问题,已形成固定的区域性合作网络;国外研究以定量研究为基本范式,其关键文献全部围绕旅游碳排放的测算,且已经形成了较完善的减碳体系。而国内低碳旅游研究与国外的快速发展时期相吻合,是从旅游业可持续发展角度开展研究,依附于旅游及经管类学科,尚未形成固定的合作网络;国内研究在概念理论的定性研究方面优于国外,但整体研究视角较为单一且未形成完整体系,其关键文献包含基础概念、理论体系、碳排放测算、影响因素分析等诸多方面。     

我国绿色创新研究的知识图谱可视化分析

低碳经济背景下,绿色创新作为缓解经济增长过程中资源环境约束问题的重要举措,受到学术界广泛关注。以中国知网收录的绿色创新核心文献为样本,综合运用CiteSpace、SATI、Excel等计量可视化工具绘制知识图谱,对国内绿色创新研究领域的文献年代分布、发文作者、科研机构、关键词以及突现词等进行分析。分析结果表明:我国绿色创新研究大致经历了三个阶段,分别是探索期(1994—2009年)、初步发展期(2010—2015年)、繁荣期(2016—2019年);研究热点主要集中在基础理论与相关概念研究、影响因素与激励机制研究、效率测度与评价体系构建研究三个层面;未来的研究趋势则是朝着绿色金融、环境规制、绿色创新效率、绿色全要素生产率等方向发展。通过对现有文献进行梳理、总结,揭示当前研究进展及演变趋势,为后续开展相关研究提供参考。     

Financial knowledge among Iranian investors

This research is the first to describe financial knowledge in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Data were collected from a convenience sample of investors in the Tehran Stock Exchange. The data were used to examine objective and subjective knowledge as well as overconfidence in one's financial knowledge. The results indicated that compared with other populations, Iranians did not perform well on either basic or advanced financial knowledge questions, especially when the questions dealt with interest rates. This is likely related to the Islamic law ban on usury‐based investing. Regression analysis indicated that demographic charactristics related to basic financial knowledge were income, labour force status and being a student. Demographic characteristics related to advanced financial knowledge were education, labour force status and age. Higher income and education reduced the odds of being overconfident about one's financial knowledge, while being a student and male increased the odds. The article concludes with recommendations about future research as well as building a national financial education strategy.     

Strategic Flexibility in New High‐Technology Ventures

Strategic flexibility is a vital capability for new ventures to update their strategies in a timely manner. However, the role of external knowledge sources in new ventures’ endeavours to develop strategic flexibility are unclear. Drawing on the knowledge‐based and relational views, we explore the effect of two sources of external knowledge: new product development (NPD) alliances, representing tightly coupled sources, and loosely coupled sources such as industry associations. Our field study of 148 high‐tech ventures found that the extent to which firms utilize knowledge from NPD alliances has a curvilinear relationship with strategic flexibility, whereas the extent to which firms utilize loosely coupled sources has a positive linear relationship with strategic flexibility. We also found that in new ventures, decentralization of decision‐making and institutional support enhance knowledge integration, positively moderating these relationships.     

The impacts of export competition on international technology flows

Knowledge flow is a key to building technological capabilities. This article investigates how competition in international trade affects knowledge flow between countries using patent data and trade data for analysis. The main finding is that export competition in the third market (in our study, the US market) seems to have a positive impact on the flow of knowledge. The findings from this study contribute to the debate on ‘learning-by-exporting’.     

Improving candy industry competitiveness: Retailers’ perception regarding customer satisfaction

This study aims to classify service quality elements in candy industry in order to determine their instrumentality to customer satisfaction. To address this purpose, a Fuzzy Kano questionnaire was distributed to 512 major retailers of candy products of four predominant candy companies in Iran. Subsequently, we calculated satisfaction increment index (SII) and dissatisfaction decrement index (DDI) for each of the quality elements. Brand name and quality are considered as must-be elements, while availability of credit purchases is considered as indifferent element by the majority of retailers. Eight out of 24 studied elements are found to be considered as attractive elements by majority of customers. Regular visits element ranks first in terms of satisfaction increment index (SII). This paper provides helpful insight for marketers to prioritize improvement of different quality elements. Therefore, this paper helps organizations to perceive their customers needs more thoroughly and improve their customer satisfaction policy.     

Application of collective knowledge diffusion in a social network environment

ABSTRACT

We present a group dynamics model that shows knowledge integration as a process occurring over time. As each individual in the group contact others, his own knowledge changes, and over time the collective knowledge is obtained. This allows modeling knowledge diffusion in a social network and while the models presented in this paper are not competitive in that area, they approach the problem from previously unconsidered direction. We test the behavior of the model in a multi-agent simulation and we test a simple advertisement campaign in a social network. We provide discussion of elements needed for making model more competitive.     

Information and Knowledge as Antecedents of Consumer Attitudes and Intentions to Buy and Recommend Fair-Trade Products

The authors propose and empirically test a causal model to understand how the availability of fair-trade information and consumer knowledge about this issue affect consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward fair-trade products. The model is built upon the attitude-behavior paradigm and the premises of agency theory. It is tested through structural equation modeling with a sample of 292 Spanish consumers. The findings are that consumers do not have good knowledge about fair trade and that this is significantly determined by the lack of information about this in the market. It is also observed that consumers’ perceptions about the availability of fair-trade information have negative effects on their concern about this issue and that such information as is available is not effective in reducing consumer skepticism. The research represents an extension of previous fair-trade literature because the role of information and communication in improving consumer attitudes and buying intentions has rarely been explored in the case of ethical products.