Spanish and American Business Professionals' Ethical Evaluations in Global Situations

More ethics research needs to explore the global differences in ethical evaluations. This study explored the relationships among nationality, teleological evaluations, ethical judgments, and ethical intentions using a sample of 222 American and Spanish business professionals. The path analysis indicated that teleological evaluations were related to ethical judgments and that both ethical judgments and teleological evaluations were related to ethical intentions. Executive nationality was related to teleological evaluations and ethical intentions with American individuals having higher teleological assessments and intentions to act ethically than the Spanish individuals. These findings have implications for global companies, which are presented along with the study's limitations and future research suggestions.     

Spanish and American Executives' Ethical Judgments and Intentions

This study explores differences between executives in the U.S. and Spain in their perceptions of ethical issues in pricing, specifically comparing a domestic firm's actions affecting a foreign market versus a foreign firm's actions affecting the domestic market. Overall, Spanish and American executives provided somewhat different responses to the scenarios. Findings indicate that ethical judgments and intentions among Spanish executives did not vary based on which country was harmed. U.S. executives generally perceived that a morally questionable act directed at a foreign country was more unethical than a morally questionable act directed at the United States. Possible explanations for these findings are suggested.     

An Ethical Decision-Making Framework for Competitor Intelligence Gathering

Competitor intelligence gathering involves the aggregation of competitive information to facilitate strategic development and a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, companies are sometimes willing to carry out questionable gathering practices to collect such information. An ethical decision making framework for competitor intelligence gathering is presented in this paper that outlines the impact of several strengthening and weakening factors on individual ethical reasoning. Dialogue is provided about the management of intelligence gathering from various viewpoints, and the implications of these managerial suggestions are discussed. Terri Rittenburg is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Wyoming; she is a member of the Editorial Policy Board for the Journal of Macromarketing. Her research has appeared in journals such as Psychology and Marketing,Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Macromarketing. Sean Valentine is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Wyoming. His research has appeared in journals such as Human Relations, Journal of Businees Research, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. James Faircloth is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of North Dakota.He has previously published in the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice and Psychological Reports.     

Diversity Analysis of Structural Change Based on the Canadian Input–Output Tables

This article presents some of the results of a study conducted at Statistics Canada that involved the analysis of the variability through time of input–output structures. All structures have been analyzed in current and constant prices over the period 1961–84, but only the results about the industries' input structures in current prices are reported in this article. Structural changes are assessed over time horizons of 1, 2 and 5 years, using the Kullback, cross-entropy index formula. Structural changes in the current prices input structure are decomposed into a price and a quantity component, following a new decomposition of the entropy formula. It is shown from that decomposition that the traditional analysis of the variability of constant prices input–output structures may be quite misleading. The authors have found that structural changes generally follow a smooth path through time and tend to be cumulative in the long run, with some cyclical fluctuations in the short term. Some of the structural changes appear to be due to statistical events (establishment moves across industries, changes in methodologies, etc.) rather than reflecting real phenomena. The quantity component of structural change appears to be more important than the price component in almost all time periods and time spans, except when the Canadian economy was subjected to important price shocks during the 1970s.     

The Financial Services Environment and Schools' Savings Rates in the San Francisco Kindergarten to College Program

Children's savings accounts (CSAs) have emerged as a promising intervention to improve educational outcomes, curtail rising student loan debt, and promote equality of opportunity. Numerous localized CSA programs have emerged in the last decade, and many are embedded within school systems. This study leverages novel data to investigate participation in one of the oldest and most well‐known CSA programs in the country: the San Francisco Kindergarten to College (K2C) Program in the San Francisco Unified School District. Spatial analysis of 21,617 accounts at 74 elementary schools reveals statistically significant differences in the rates of elementary schools' K2C account participation based on the concentrations of banks, credit unions, and alternative financial service providers—net controls for neighborhood demographics. Unless explicitly addressed, substantial variations in the financial service environment across neighborhoods could undermine participation in school‐based CSA programs for the very children these programs intend to support.     

Implementing the Marketing Concept One Employee at a Time: Pinpointing Beliefs about Customer Focus as a Lever for Organizational Renewal

This paper revisits the literature on organizational culture to motivate new theorizing about implementation of the marketing concept. We propose an individual-level construct, conceived as an alternative to the SBU-level conceptions featured in current theorizing about market orientation, and ground it in the organizational cognition perspective on culture. Our alternative construct—customer focus—is defined as an individual's beliefs about the value of direct customer contact for achieving desired performance outcomes in his or her own job. A measure for the construct is presented and its predictive validity is demonstrated with respect to individuals' interactions with customers. As a parsimonious and functionally-unbounded construct, customer focus can motivate theory development through identification of its unique antecedents and consequences. A preliminary nomological network is offered to suggest avenues for future research and indicate the potential role of customer focus in effecting organizational change and vitality.     

Alchemy in eden: entrepreneurialism, branding, and food marketing in the United States, 1880–1920

Through an investigation into the origins of American food marketing, this dissertation reveals how branding—specifically, the centennial brands Quaker Oats, Coca-Cola, and Crisco—came to underpin much of today's market-driven economy. In a manner akin to alchemy, the entrepreneurs behind these three firms recognized the inherent value of an agricultural Eden, then found ways to convert common, low-cost agricultural goods—oats, sugar, and cottonseed oil—into appealing, high-revenue branded food products. In the process, these ventures devised new demand-driven business models that exploited technology and communications advances, enabling them to tap a nascent consumer culture. Their pioneering efforts generated unprecedented profits, laid the foundation for iconic billion-dollar brands, and fundamentally changed how Americans make daily food choices.     

Consumer ethnocentrism when foreign products are better

In recent years, there has been a great deal of research exploring the concept of consumer ethnocentrism, although little has been done in Eastern Bloc countries. In these countries, foreign brands are often clearly superior to domestic alternatives. This study applied the CETSCALE in a survey of 218 Polish consumers with respect to attitudes and beliefs for one domestic and two foreign gas station brands. The findings suggest that, in a situation where foreign brands are superior to domestic ones, consumer ethnocentrism is displayed in more positive perceptions of the domestic brand, with little or no effect on perceptions of foreign brands. Moreover, the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on evaluations of different types of product qualities (search vs. experience) is explored. The results support the prediction that consumer ethnocentrism has greater impact on evaluations of experience qualities than on search qualities. Managerial implications and future research directions are suggested. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Dysfunctional learning in decision processes: the case of employee reciprocity

While traditional economic models characterize individuals as boundlessly self‐interested, decades of empirical findings suggest that individuals' self‐interest motives are constrained by concurrent preferences for fairness. Individuals act on these preferences by behaving reciprocally: rewarding others perceived as behaving fairly and punishing others perceived as behaving unfairly. Successful firms must learn to navigate environments characterized by the reciprocity of their transaction partners. This paper investigates firms' judgments about employee reciprocity and posits a dysfunctional learning process whereby firms that overestimate employee reciprocity learn to correct their beliefs through feedback, while those that underestimate employee reciprocity do not. The result, demonstrated through computer simulation, is a systematic bias toward an overemphasis on employee self‐interest, and a resulting inefficiency in wage choices that hurts firm profitability. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Negotiating Technology Implementation: An Empirical Investigation of a Website Introduction

Negotiated implementation is suggested as a cogent approach to meeting user and implementer needs, and thus, to increasing technology implementation. Negotiated implementation is expected to have its effect through three wellknown dimensions: ease of use, usefulness, and commitment. The efficacy of negotiated implementation is tested in the context of a universitybased field study of World Wide Web site use. Empirical support is found for the negotiated implementation approach. Implications and future research related to both theory and application are provided.