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.     

“双高计划”呼唤高职院校补齐教师队伍建设短板

教师是兴教之本、立教之源,是实施"双高计划"建设最重要、最直接的力量。大力加强教师队伍建设是高职院校高质量发展的迫切要求。当前高职院校教师队伍存在总量不足、高层次人才短缺、双师素质不高、创新能力不强等问题,必须引育结合、创新机制、激发活力,补齐短板,提升整体实力和水平。     

How power distance belief,self-construal,and relationship norms impact conspicuous consumption

Building on the idea that luxury products can signal the owner's status to others, this research elucidates how fundamental and pervasive social factors—power distance belief (PDB), self-construal, and relationship norms—dynamically impact consumers' preferences for conspicuous consumption. Through three experiments, we found that (1) high-PDB consumers are more likely to prefer conspicuous consumption compared to low-PDB consumers, and this effect is mediated by their need for status; (2) the relationship between PDB and conspicuous consumption is enhanced under interdependent self-construal, attenuated under independent self-construal, and mediated by consumers' need for status; (3) these effects are moderated by relationship norms, such that the positive effect of PDB on conspicuous consumption under interdependent self-construal is attenuated when communal relationships (vs. exchange relationships) are salient. Our conceptualization and findings contribute to the literature on the dynamics of individuals' status-related behavior in social psychology and related fields, and provide important practical applications for luxury businesses.     

Direct intervention or indirect support? The effects of cooperative control measures on farmers’ implementation of quality and safety standards

In recent years, labor-intensive agricultural products from developing countries have exhibited inferior performance in international trade due to quality and safety incidents, among which pesticide residue is a major issue. Aiming to improve food quality and safety in the context of cooperatives, we introduced three categories of control measures: outcome control, process control and social control. Based on the Pre-Harvest Interval Standard (PHIS), we selected three indices, farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance to PHIS and relative distance to PHIS, to evaluate appropriateness of pesticides use, reduction of pesticide residue and safety improvements of agricultural products. By using random sampling survey data, we empirically analyzed the marginal effects of control measures and their combinations on food quality and safety standards. The empirical results show that implementing process control, namely, unified production standards or supply of unified agricultural inputs, can comprehensively improve farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance and relative distance to PHIS respectively by 34.9%, 3.2 days and 46.0% on average. While the effects of outcome control (safety inspection) and social control (bonus-penalty incentive or training) are restricted to other measures. Therefore, we suggest cooperatives should take farmers’ features, implementation conditions and the effects of control measures into consideration in order to make a sustainable management plan for improving food quality and safety and enhancing competitiveness in international markets.     

Uncertainty,story-telling and transformative learning: An instructor’s experience of TEFI’s Walking Workshop in Nepal

ABSTRACT

This article recounts three stories from TEFI’s walking workshop in Nepal: the construction of a road through what was once a trekking path; a dance-floor encounter at a Himalayan party; and the arrival of one participant, fatigued by jet lag and disoriented by the new surroundings. These stories of confusion, discomfort and fear are linked by one common theme: the potential of uncertainty to foster deep reflection and nuanced conclusions. The premise that uncertainty is to be valued and even cultivated has been explored in educational theory, spiritual traditions, and research on transformative learning. These sources affirm the role of uncertainty in the process of knowledge creation. However, accepting this role can be challenging for educators because it requires they assume a new identity, one which they may perceive as being at odds with their status as “teacher” the identity of learner. One way for the educator to address this challenge may be through recounting their own stories of uncertainty. Stories of being immersed in unfamiliar situations that challenge, confuse and even frighten – stories, in other words of being a tourist – can foster reflection on an intellectual, emotional and spiritual level, engaging the “whole” person, and thus initiating the educator/learner’s transformative journey.     

When empathy prevents negative reviewing behavior

Previous research has found that peer-to-peer platforms have overly positive reviews. Guided by Construal Level Theory, this research investigates the relationship between social distance, empathy, and tourists’ intention to leave negative online reviews. The first study is a qualitative analysis which compares peer-to-peer settings (i.e., Airbnb) to institutional ones (i.e., Booking.com), and explores whether social closeness hinders tourists’ willingness to provide negative online reviews to express their poor experiences. The second and third study are laboratory studies which show that the mechanism behind reviewing biases is the activation of empathy.This research offers practical implications for both traditional hospitality players, on how to activate empathy, and online platforms operators, on how to increase the reliability of their reputation systems.This article also launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Peer-to-peer accommodation networks, a special selection of research in this field.     

众创空间集聚的连续距离测度及影响因素分析

基于253家浙江省众创空间的微观数据，文章在运用连续距离的测度方法测算众创空间集聚水平的基础上，采用零膨胀负二项回归等方法实证分析众创空间集聚的影响机制。研究发现，众创空间的地理分布存在显著的区域差异，主要分布在杭州和宁波市辖区，选址具有明显的集聚特征。回归结果显示，区域创新能力和生态环境均对众创空间的地理集聚具有促进作用，但两者之间存在明显的替代效应；尽管不能直接促进众创空间的集聚，政策引导与创新能力之间具有较显著的互补效应。据此，文章从培育创新能力和优化创新激励等方面提出了政策建议。     

Challenges for regional science research: past and present

With regional science now into its seventh decade, it is timely to step back and look at what regional science is about, the past challenges it has faced, particularly its relevance, and to identify some of the challenges it has confronted in the past and at present. The paper demonstrates regional science research has had, and continues to have, policy relevance, as well as being relevant for business, and has addressed important issues. It provides an overview of recent commentaries on issues regional scientists might now be addressing.     

The (potential) demise of HRM?

This article seeks to provoke that human resource management (HRM), both as an academic field of study and as a form of professional practice, is at risk of impoverishment. The main reasoning for this is because of ideological individualism and marketisation with an attendant neglect on wider organisational, employee, and societal concerns. Following a review of the context of financialised capitalism, three contemporary developments in HRM are used to illustrate the argument: reward strategies, talent management, and high performance work systems. Implications for the practice of HRM and the way the subject area is taught in mainstream business schools are considered.