Participation in the Workplace: Are Employees Special?

I consider two influential arguments for employee participation in firm decision making: what I call the ??interest protection argument?? and the ??autonomy argument.?? I argue that the case for granting participation rights to some other stakeholders, such as suppliers and community members, is at least as strong, according to the reasons given in these arguments, as the case for granting them to certain employees. I then consider how proponents of these arguments might modify their arguments, or views, in response to this conclusion.     

Blended Social Impact Investment Transactions: Why Are They So Complex?

Journal of Business Ethics - Blended social impact investment (SII) transactions, in which multiple types of capital are combined to support attainment of social impact, are a pervasive, yet not...     

Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship Education: Where Are We,and What Are the Possibilities?

The growing need for a workforce equipped to face uncertainties and address problems not susceptible to inquiry based on pure analytical skills has caused the rapid growth of design‐based curriculum and educational activities. Entrepreneurship education has embraced a design thinking lens, as evidenced by the increasing number of curricula incorporating processes that have roots in design. Yet there is limited understanding of the conceptual underpinnings and the implementation of such practices. We provide theoretical links to provide conceptual clarity to design‐based entrepreneurship education, propose recommendations with a multistakeholder alignment‐based model, and perform a survey to demonstrate its current state of practice.     

Why So Small? Explaining the Size of Firms in Latin America

On average, Latin American firms are small with respect to world patterns, both in terms of the quantity of assets they control and the amount of employment they generate. We examine data on firm size from developed and developing countries around the world to assess the influence of demand, supply and institutional factors on the size of the largest firms in each country. We find that, besides the size of the economy and the level of income per capita, the key determinants of the size of firms are trade openness, stock market capitalisation and physical infrastructure. Our simulations suggest that if the gaps with respect to the best Latin American performer were closed in each of these three areas, firm size in the countries of the region would – on average – reach world patterns.     

Eating Sustainably? Practices and Background Factors of Ecological Food Consumption in Four Nordic Countries

This article examines sustainable food consumption in the Nordic context, studying to what extent people in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden have food consumption patterns that are in the current discourse promoted as sustainability enhancing. The article analyses the association of sustainable food consumption to attitudinal support for environmental policy measures, interest in cooking, and healthy eating practices as well as sociodemographic background factors. The comparison of four countries enables an analysis of the importance of the national context in sustainable food consumption. The study is based on data from a 2012 Nordic Web survey (N?=?8248). The results show that carrying out sustainable activities was not very widespread. Buying local food was the most popular, eating meat less often the most unpopular sustainable activity. The level of participation in sustainable practices varied across the four countries. Swedish respondents were the overall most active, Norwegians the least. However, results from analysis of variance (anova) indicated that the individual explanatory factors of sustainable food consumption were relatively similar in the four countries. Healthy eating patterns, interest in cooking, and supporting environmental policy measures were all positively correlated to sustainable food consumption. Women and the elderly were more active in sustainable practices than were men and the young. Education and occupational position played a role, too, but their effect was not totally systematic across countries. The findings suggest that sustainable food consumption is not a strongly socially stratified phenomenon, but it is related to other practices of eating regarded as “proper,” such as interest in cooking and healthy eating. Broader and more inclusive policies are needed to better engage people in sustainable activities.     

Wage Inequality in the United Kingdom: Trade and/or Technology?

I employ two alternative intra‐industry trade Applied General Equilibrium (AGE) models to explain some stylised facts of the British economy. The model with skill‐biased technical change (i.e. exogenous skill‐biased technical change à la Solow) can explain the rise in wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers, the decline in manufacturing and the expansion of modern services. However, the model where technical change is trade‐induced (i.e. endogenous sector‐biased technical change à la Romer) performs better, because it can also explain the exponential rise of imported intermediate capital goods and developments in the wage rate of unskilled workers.     

Successful Psychopaths: Are They Unethical Decision-Makers and Why?

Successful psychopaths, defined as individuals in the general population who nevertheless possess some degree of psychopathic traits, are receiving increasing amounts of empirical attention. To date, little is known about such individuals, specifically with regard to how they respond to ethical dilemmas in business contexts. This study investigated this relationship, proposing a mediated model in which the positive relationship between psychopathy and unethical decision-making is explained through the process of moral disengagement, defined as a cognitive orientation that facilitates unethical choice. The results of the study supported this model, and implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Everybody Else is Doing it,So Why Can’t We? Pluralistic Ignorance and Business Ethics Education

In light of the myriad accounting and corporate ethics scandals of the early 21st century, many corporate leaders and management scholars believe that ethics education is an essential component in business school education. Despite a voluminous body of ethics education literature, few studies have found support for the effectiveness of changing an individuals ethical standards through programmatic ethics training. To address this gap in the ethics education literature the present study examines the influence of an underlying social cognitive error, called pluralistic ignorance. We believe that if pluralistic ignorance is reduced, the result will be more effective business ethics education programs. Eighty undergraduate management students participated in this longitudinal study, and a mixed-model ANOVA revealed that the reduction of pluralistic ignorance (due to an ethics education program designed to reduce pluralistic ignorance) resulted in higher personal ethical standards over the course of a semester, when compared to a class that did not receive a formal ethics education program as part of their course. We discuss the implications of pluralistic ignorance in training business ethics and ethics education.     

Who Invests in the Least Developed Countries?

Abstract

Africa is a giant market with a population of Europe and Japan combined, and highly diversified with respect to culture, natural resources, economic development, and political regimes. Yet, the continent is largely ignored with respect to research on the multinational activities of U.S. firms. In this paper, we provide the first evidence regarding the operating characteristics of U.S. firms that operate in Africa. We find that firms with operations in Africa are larger, more diversified, and more profitable than a matched control sample of multinational firms. This paper also shows that technology firms, manufacturing firms, and mining firms dominate the rest of companies operating in Africa. Certain geographical regions in Africa also seem to attract more companies than others, with Southern Africa being the most preferred region, while Central Africa is the least preferred. Finally, when a multinational firm invests in a specific country in Africa, it tends to do so in several business sectors.     

Are Current Account Deficits in the OECD Countries Sustainable? Robust Evidence from Time-Series Estimators

This study examines the sustainability of current account deficits (CADs) and validity of intertemporal budget constraint (IBC) for 24 OECD countries. While the OLSEG, ML system, and OLSGH estimates of the model do not provide support, the GMM, DOLS, and NLLS estimates provide consistent support for the sustainability of CADs across most countries. The estimates of the model with multiple structural breaks reinforce the sustainability of CADs. The results provide dominant support for the sustainability of CADs and validity of IBC across most countries. The CADs are only short-run phenomena and are balanced by future surpluses.     

Are Firms in Developing Countries in Spider Webs or Iron Cages? Geographic Traps and Firm Performance

We explore the question of whether a geographic context represents opportunity or threat using two competing theories — geography of opportunity and curse of geography — and multilevel techniques to analyze data from 366 firms in six African countries (and validated with 128 firms from 24 countries). We find that location (landlockedness and bad neighbors) relate negatively to both sales and net profit. Infrastructure, however, does not relate directly to firm performance at a significant level but interacts with one firm characteristic — multinationality — in relating to sales and net profit. Locational traps — landlockedness and bad neighbors — also interact with multinationality and CEO origin in relating to sales and net profit. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Inequality and Unsustainable Growth:TWO Sides of the Same Coin?

Over the long run, sustained growth is central to poverty reduction.The rapid growth seen in much of the world over the past few decades, notably, but not only, in China and India, has led to an unprecedented reduction in poverty.And, in general, increases in per capita income tend to translate into proportionate increases in income of the poor.As Dollar and Kraay memorably put it, "Growth Is Good for the Poor."Some inequality is integral to the effective functioning of a market economy and the incentives needed for investment and growth.But too much inequality might be destructive to growth.Beyond the risk that inequality.     

Are you in the book?: Hotel attributes bundles and corporate travel departments

Price is a significant factor in corporate travel managers' choices of acceptable hotels. But it is by no means the only factor, and corporate travel offices may be willing to make tradeoffs.     

Why do consumers purchase goods and services in the informal economy?

To evaluate critically the dominant discourse that consumers acquiring goods and services in the informal economy are rational economic actors seeking a lower price, the results of a 2007 Eurobarometer survey involving 26,659 face-to-face interviews in 27 European Union member states form the basis for analysis. The finding is that achieving a lower price is the sole motive for just 44% of informal economy purchases, one of several rationales in 28% of transactions, and not a rationale in 28% of acquisitions. Consumers also use the informal economy to circumvent the shortcomings of the formal economy in terms of the availability, speed, and quality of goods and services provision, as well as for social and redistributive reasons, with multilevel mixed-effects logit regression analysis revealing how the prevalence of these rationales significantly varies across populations. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications of the findings.     

Why Are Themed Brandstores So Powerful? Retail Brand Ideology at American Girl Place

Although there is growing interest in themed brandstores, we still know very little about the source of these retail environments’ power to affect consumers profoundly. Utilizing an ethnographic study of American Girl Place, a culturally rich and highly successful retail environment, we find that effective retailing in these contexts is an intensely ideological affair. In our participant-observation of, and on-site interviews with, consumers at American Girl Place we find that the ideology of the brand manifests powerfully through a variety of different and distinct areas within the store: the Museum, the Library, the Café, the Salon, the Theater, and the Photo Studio. Ideological expression is central to each of these places. Tracking the influence of brand ideology through consumers’ retail experiences, we theorize about the centrality of retail place in ideological branding. Although the confluence of ideology and retailing has been referenced in prior research, this paper focuses on and systematically develops the theoretical interconnection between the two. The physical immediacy of themed brandstore experience acts as a quilting point that links together related cultural concepts into a strong retail brand ideology. The implications of this theory draw our attention to ideological and morally-bound retail brand expressions, emphasize the importance of a variety of retail formats within a single store, and provide practical guidelines for retailers eager to build successful brands of their own.     

Economics in the Backyard: How Much Convergence is there between China and her Special Regions?

This paper tests the hypothesis that the links and dependency relationships between China and her special regions have changed over the past 20 years with the industrialisation of China, and the emergence of Taiwan as a source of investment and sophisticated manufactures, and Hong Kong as financial centre and supplier of services. Has this changed the size and direction of spillovers in the region, and has it curtailed or eliminated American economic leadership? We use time‐varying spectral methods to decompose the links between six advanced Asian economies and the US. We find: (a) the links with the US have been weakening, while those within a bloc based on China have strengthened; (b) that this is not new – it has been happening since the 1980s, but has now been reversed by the surge in trade; (c) that Taiwan is more integrated with, and dependent on, the Chinese economy, while Hong Kong continues her separate development based on specialisation and comparative advantage; (d) that the links with the US are rather complex, with the US able to shape the cycles elsewhere through her control of monetary conditions, but the China zone able to control the size of their cycles; and (e) there appears to be no real evidence that pegged exchange rates encourage convergence; in fact the reverse may be true.