Ethical Judgment and Whistleblowing Intention: Examining the Moderating Role of Locus of Control

The growing body of whistleblowing literature includes many studies that have attempted to identify the individual level antecedents of whistleblowing behavior. However, cross-cultural differences in perceptions of the ethicality of whistleblowing affect the judgment of whistleblowing intention. This study ascertains how Chinese managers/professionals decide to blow the whistle in terms of their locus of control and subjective judgment regarding the intention of whistleblowing. Hypotheses that are derived from these speculations are tested with data on Chinese managers and professionals (n = 306). Statistical analysis largely supports the hypotheses, which suggests that an individual's locus of control does moderate the relationship between ethical judgment and whistleblowing.     

Modeling Job Pursuit Intention: Moderating Mechanisms of Socio-Environmental Consciousness

Many scholars have suggested the relationship between corporate social performance and its ability to attract a large number of high-quality job applicants, because previous literature indicates that employees with strong social awareness help create a high-performance organization. For that reason, an important issue for successful business recruitment is how to boost the pursuit intention of job seekers. This study discusses such issue by proposing a model based on signaling theory and cognitive dissonance theory. In the proposed model of this study, the positive relationships between four dimensions of corporate social performance and job pursuit intention are hypothetically moderated by socio-environmental consciousness. The proposed hypotheses of this research were empirically tested using the data from graduating students seeking a job. The empirical findings of this study complement previous literature by discussing how corporate social performance benefits business firms from a perspective of strengthened human resources and recruitment. Finally, managerial implications for business managers based on the findings herein are provided.     

Coping with Job Insecurity: The Role of Procedural Justice, Ethical Leadership and Power Distance Orientation

This study examines the relationship between procedural justice and employee job insecurity, and the boundary conditions of this relationship. Drawing upon uncertainty management theory and ethical leadership research, we hypothesized that procedural justice is negatively related to job insecurity, and that this relationship is moderated by ethical leadership. We further predicted that the moderating relationship would be more pronounced among employees with a low power distance orientation. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 381 workers in Macau and Southern China. The results support all of our hypotheses. The implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.     

HALF THE SKY: The Moderating Role of Cultural Collectivism in Job Turnover Among Chinese Female Workers

The present study examines how collectivism, an important cultural value, plays a moderating role in the association between job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and actual turnover in a sample of 781 Chinese female workers. Results show that collectivism moderates the relationships between job attitude variables and turnover intention. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment are more powerful in predicting turnover intention when levels of collectivism are high rather than low. However, collectivism only moderates the mediation of turnover intention in the relationship between job satisfaction and actual turnover. The study deepens the understanding of the moderating effect of cultural values in organizational behavioral outcomes as Taras et al. (J Appl Psychol 95:405–439, 2010) suggest. Also discussed are the practical implications on how to control the voluntary termination of female laborers who constitute an important part in Chinese manufacturing.     

The Effect of Consumer Perceptions of the Ethics of Retailers on Purchase Behavior and Word-of-Mouth: The Moderating Role of Ethical Beliefs

Journal of Business Ethics - This paper explores how consumers perceive retailer ethics. Based on a review of the marketing and consumer research literature, we conceptualize consumer perceptions...     

Moderating Role of Brand Familiarity in Cross-Media Effects: An Information Processing Perspective

Abstract

Cross-media advertising campaigns have become commonplace in today's multimedia environment. Drawing from the multiple source effect theorization, this study explores the underlying mechanism of media synergistic effect from an information processing perspective. Brand familiarity is proposed as a moderator of cross-media effects: people with different levels of prior brand-related knowledge tend to process advertisements in diverse cognitive routes. An experiment found that for an unfamiliar brand, media synergy outperformed repeated exposures via a solo medium in terms of raising message credibility and generating more positive thoughts, while similar effects were not seen on a familiar brand.     

Supervisor Role Modeling,Ethics-Related Organizational Policies,and Employee Ethical Intention: The Moderating Impact of Moral Ideology

The moral ideology of banking and insurance employees in Spain was examined along with supervisor role modeling and ethics-related policies and procedures for their association with ethical behavioral intent. In addition to main effects, we found evidence supporting that the person–situation interactionist perspective in supervisor role modeling had a stronger positive relationship with ethical intention among employees with relativist moral ideology. Also as hypothesized, formal ethical polices and procedures were positively related to ethical intention among those with universal beliefs, but the relationship was much weaker among relativists. Thus, firms wishing to optimally promote ethical attitudes and behavior must tailor their organization-based initiatives to the individual characteristics of their employees.     

Consumer Ethics: The Role of Religiosity

This article presents the results of a study that investigated the role that religiosity plays in determining consumer attitudes/beliefs regarding various questionable consumer practices. Additionally, other personal factors were examined including idealism, relativism, consumer alienation and selected demographics such as income and age. All of these constructs were examined as antecedents of consumer ethical beliefs. The results of a post hoc analysis indicated that religiosity was a significant determinate of both idealism and relativism, and since idealism and relativism determine consumer ethical beliefs, religiosity is a significant indirect determinate of consumer ethical beliefs.     

The Role of Ethics Institutionalization in Influencing Organizational Commitment,Job Satisfaction,and Esprit de Corps

Given increasing ethical problems in business, many organizations have tried to control these problems by institutionalizing ethics such as by creating new ethics positions and formulating and enforcing codes of ethics. In this study, the impact of implicit and explicit forms of institutionalization of ethics on job satisfaction, esprit de corps, and organizational commitment for marketing professionals is investigated. Additionally, the influence of organizational socialization, ethical relativism, and age relative to each of the above organizational climate constructs is examined. Results indicate that at least one of the forms of institutionalization of ethics is a significant determinant of all three organizational climate constructs. However, while organizational socialization is a significant determinant of all three organizational climate variables, relativism is only significant in determining organizational commitment (in a negative direction) and age is only significant in determining job satisfaction. Scott John Vitell is Phil B. Hardin Professor of Marketing and Chair of the Marketing Department at the University of Mississippi. He received his Ph.D. in Marketing from Texas Tech University. He has published more than 100 journal articles. His recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, the Journal of International Marketing, International Business Review and the Journal of Macromarketing, among others. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Business Research. Anusorn Singhapakdi is Professor of Marketing and Marketing Area Coordinator at Old Dominion University. He has published more than 50 journal articles. He has also received recognition for his publications from a number of academic journals including the Journal of Business Research, International Marketing Review, Marketing Education Review, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He serves on the Editorial Boards of␣the Journal of Macromarketing and the Journal of Marketing Education. He is a section editor for Applied Research in Quality of Life and has served as a guest editor for the Journal of Business Ethics.     

Moderating Affect of Workplace Spirituality on the Relationship of Job Overload and Job Satisfaction

With the increase in market competition and dynamic work environment, work overload seems to have become a common issue suffered by almost every employee. Overload usually results in not only poor health conditions but also mental circumstances. These problems then become a threat to the organizations in the form of poor performance and lack of ability to reach standards. Workplace spirituality is one way to deal with stressful overload conditions. This research deals with the study of moderating affects of workplace spirituality on job overload and employee’s satisfaction relationship. Having large piles of work in given targeted time results in employees becoming stressed out from their work as well as their organization. The motive of their job becomes to achieve targets and diminish the creativity within the employees. Workplace spirituality basic dimensions mentioned in this research help one achieve these targets and help employees cope with the symptoms caused by work overload. The research includes three variables, workplace spirituality, job overload, and job satisfaction. The samples of 76 respondents were asked to fill the questionnaire on all the three variables. The final results show interestingly different results then, as conceptualized according to theory. Workplace spirituality also showed to have quite an impact on job satisfaction.     

Executive Perceptions of Superior and Subordinate Information Control: Practice versus Ethics

This study examines executive perceptions of business information control. Specifically, the study explores (a) whether executives perceive certain types of information control being practiced within their businesses; and, (b) whether the executives regard such practices as ethical. In essence, the study suggests that both superiors and subordinates selectively practice information control. Even more importantly, however, executives see such practices as ethically acceptable on the part of superiors but as ethically questionable on the part of subordinates. A closer look at the responding executives' profile characteristics – age, gender, education and salary – reveals the complexity of these perceptions. Most importantly, gender and age emerge as two prime factors influencing executive perceptions regarding both the practice and the ethics of information control. Suggestions for future research are included at the end of the article.     

Identification Effects on Advertising Response: The Moderating Role of Involvement

This study examines two important variables for advertisers, ethnicity and product involvement. We investigate the effectiveness of Hispanic-targeted advertising by exploring the impact of ad model's ethnicity on attitudes toward high- and low-involvement products. The results of our quasi-experiment suggest that appealing to strong Hispanic identifiers may be highly desirable in terms of creating favorable attitudes when advertising low-involvement products. For high-involvement products, Hispanic-targeted advertising may not be as effective since ethnicity may not be an important cue. Theoretical implications regarding the impact of distinctiveness theory and practical implications for practitioners trying to spend advertising dollars more efficiently are discussed.     

Designing Effective Websites: The Moderating Role of User Internet Experience

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of various aspects relating to execution of a Website: Presentation format, quantity and type of content. We developed experimental Websites and we found that in high-involvement context this effectiveness is not influenced as much by the format of presentation of the Website as by the quantity and type of content offered. The extension of the Website content generates more favorable, affective and behavioral responses only when such extension has an informative nature. Moreover, we found evidence of the moderating role of the individual's Web experience in the advertising persuasion process. Therefore, the results of this investigation can provide recommendations to the organizations on how to create effective Websites.     

From Decision to Run: The Moderating Role of Green Skepticism

This paper examines the impact of corporate ability, environmental attitude, and environmental knowledge on consumers’ purchase intentions, information seeking, and actual green purchase behavior; additionally, green skepticism is examined as a moderator of these relationships. A sample of Gokarn’s organic products consumers, in Tehran, is used. The structural model is examined by the partial least squares approach by using Smart PLS 2.0 software. The findings suggest that environment attitude and corporate ability are the main factors in building green purchase intentions and information seeking, while environmental knowledge is not a significant predictor. The results show that green skepticism has a significant moderation impact on the relationship between corporate ability and environmental knowledge, and information seeking.     

Consumer Attitudes toward Online Advertising: The Moderating Role of Personality

This study investigates how consumer attitudes toward advertising in general affect their attitudes toward online advertising. It also investigates the moderating role of the personality traits of introversion and extroversion in explaining this relationship. An online survey is used to collect data from a convenience sample of 244 respondents living in Canada. Results show that attitude toward advertising in general has a positive and significant impact on attitude toward online advertising. Introversion is found to have no moderating impact on the relationship between both attitudes. However, extroversion moderates this relationship.     

Teaching Business Ethics: The Role of Ethics in Business and in Business Education

The paper begins with an examination of traditional attitudes towards business ethics. I suggest that these attitudes fail to recognize that a principal function of ethics is to facilitate cooperation. Further that despite the emphasis on competition in modern market economies, business like all other forms of social activity is possible only where people are prepared to respect rules in the absence of which cooperation is rendered difficult or impossible. Rules or what I call the ethics of doing, however, constitute just one dimension of ethics. A second has to do with what we see and how we see it; a third with who we or what I describe as the ethics of being. Of these three dimensions, the first and the third have been most carefully explored by philosophers and are most frequently the focus of attention when teaching business ethics is being discussed. I argue that this focus is unfortunate in as much as it is the second dimension which falls most naturally into the ambit of modern secular educational institutions. It is here that moral education is most obviously unavoidable, and most clearly justifiable in modern secular teaching environments. I conclude by describing the importance of this second dimension for the modern world of business.