A multi-country study of bank reputation among customers in Africa: Key antecedents and consequences

This paper studies the antecedents related to service quality and the consequences of bank reputation among bank customers in three prominent markets in Africa, the continent on which one of the banking industries with the highest potential in the world is located. The research hypotheses were tested through the use of partial least squares modelling and by employing data collected from almost 1000 retail-banking customers from Ghana (n = 349), Kenya (n = 337), and South Africa (n = 300). An analysis of these data indicates that service quality dimensions, namely service offering appeal and customer care, meaningfully contribute to the strong perceptions customers have of their banks as regards reputation. The positive role of bank reputation in the development of trust and customer loyalty is also validated in this study. Furthermore, the multi-group analysis shows differences among countries in the case of all the relationships analysed, with the exception of the weight of customer care on bank reputation. Finally, the conclusion is reached that bank managers should focus their reputational strategies on improving the competitiveness of their bank products and should consider subtle institutional differences outside the bank's home-country in order to succeed in their internationalization strategies on the continent.     

Educating for self‐interest or ‐transcendence? An empirical approach to investigating the role of moral competencies in opportunity recognition for sustainable development

Entrepreneurship education with a focus on sustainable development primarily teaches students to develop a profit‐driven mentality. As sustainable development is a value‐oriented and normative concept, the role of individual ethical norms and values in entrepreneurial processes has been receiving increased attention. Therefore, this study addresses the role of moral competence in the process of idea generation for sustainable development. A mixed method design was developed in which would‐be entrepreneurs were subjected to a questionnaire (n = 398) and to real‐life decision‐making processes in a case assignment (n = 96). The results provide stepping stones for implementing (moral) competencies in entrepreneurship education as a possible avenue to move away from a sole focus on a profit‐driven mentality.     

Longitudinal Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on Customer Relationships

Despite the emergence of corporate social responsibility, the impact of CSR efforts on customer relationships remains decidedly unclear. Moreover, previous studies have examined CSR in cross-sectional, experimental, and/or artificial settings. Through field survey data collected at both the beginning (n = 750) and conclusion (n = 469) of the 2007–2008 NBA season, the authors investigate linkages between customers’ perceptions of the CSR performance of an NBA team and the strength of their relationship with this same organization. With all respondents of the latter survey participating in both samples, the authors assess how CSR performance impacts customer relationships over time. The findings show how a firm that engages in CSR initiatives may reap rewards by building trusting and committed customer relationships which, in turn, help forge desirable customer behaviors. The results also demonstrate how CSR’s influence strengthens over the course of the tested business cycle, thus yielding revealing insights to academics and practitioners when it comes to understanding the real-world impact of CSR performance for strengthening customer relationships.     

Between adoption and rejection: attitudes of adult educators toward digitization in Germany

The use of digital media in adult education is very heterogeneous. To date, there are no empirical studies that have examined the possibility that media‐related differences in media usage of adult educators could be in part due to differential media pedagogical attitudes of adult educators. Moreover, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support the understanding of what factors modulate differences in media pedagogical competencies of adult educators. In order to examine different theoretical potentialities, in the present study, an online survey of adult educators (n = 626) was conducted to investigate the attitudes of adult educators in Germany toward their use of digital media. The results of the study indicate that there are influencing factors such as educational level or employment context on attitudes toward digital media.     

Authentic Leadership: An Empirical Test of Its Antecedents,Consequences, and Mediating Mechanisms

The recent economic crisis as well as other disasters such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the nuclear disaster in Japan has fanned calls for leaders who do not deny responsibility, hide information, and deceive others, but rather lead with authenticity and integrity. In this article, we empirically investigate the concept of authentic leadership. Specifically, we examine the antecedents and individual as well as group-level outcomes of authentic leadership in business (Study 1; n = 306) as well as research organizations (Study 2; n = 105). Findings reveal leader self-knowledge and self-consistency as antecedents of authentic leadership and followers’ satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and extra-effort as well as perceived team effectiveness as outcomes. The relations between authentic leadership and followers’ work-related attitudes as well as perceived team effectiveness are mediated by perceived predictability of the leader, a particular facet of trust. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice and provide suggestions for advancing theory and research on authentic leadership in the future.     

Consumer biases in the perception of organizational greed

This article extends current models of how consumers judge or perceive organizations as greedy using the theoretical framework of motivated moral reasoning. We show that inherent features of an organization (size and ‘black sheep’ status) and its behaviour (relative frequency) bias consumer perceptions of organizational greed. We use an experimental methodology, present subjects with vignettes describing different scenarios, validate our questionnaire using confirmatory factor analysis, and test our hypotheses using a general linear model with covariates. Our findings suggest that consumer perceptions of organizational greed are subject to three effects: the underdog effect (Study 1, n = 496), the black sheep effect (Study 2, n = 229) and the ‘common is moral’ heuristic (Study 3, n = 249). This is the first study to investigate greed under a motivated reasoning paradigm and to show that perceptions of organizational greed are subject to socio-psychological biases. This study also provides advice on branding and positioning strategies that appeal to the underdog status of an organization or its local origins.     

Incorporating corporate social responsibility into graduate employability

To remain sustainably viable in today's business environment, employers require appropriate skills to support their commitment to social responsibility. When recruiting skills, employers recognize that graduate attributes are essential indicators of the capability to render constructive workplace outcomes. Graduates need to develop these attributes to demonstrate their employability potential to prospective employers. However, existing employability capital frameworks do not include the graduate attributes needed to measure capability in corporate social responsibility (CSR) skills. The objective of this study was to determine which graduate attributes would support employability capability in CSR skills. Following a theoretical investigation, a mixed-method exploratory study was undertaken in South Africa's state-owned electricity provider to determine the employability attributes required by the organization in CSR management. The first phase involved a data collection survey, 302 managers and supervisors in South Africa's primary electricity provider rated a proposed 44 personal attributes linked to nine theoretical determined CSR skills and their importance in CSR management. In the second phase, the survey results were validated through a separate Delphi technique with three Human Resource Development experts. Confirmatory factor analysis found significant relationships between the tested attributes and the nine CSR skills. The findings could assist graduates in understanding the attributes they need to develop to be deemed employable for CSR performance. Furthermore, higher education institutions can include the results in curriculums to contribute to the development of CSR skills. Finally, the attributes and skills could be used to conceptualize a focused CSR employability capital, which employers can use to test employability potential.     

The good,the bad and the uncertain: Employers' perceptions of former entrepreneurs

Do employers perceive former entrepreneurs as suitable candidates for paid employment? We argue that (positive and negative) stereotypes and uncertainty drive employability perceptions regarding former entrepreneurs; these perceptions are contingent upon job type and the background of both the applicant and the person evaluating them. Two empirical studies yield broad support for our predictions. In Study 1 (a vignette study), we find lower employability perceptions regarding former entrepreneurs compared to other applicants, which are significantly mediated by positive and negative stereotypes as well as uncertainty perceptions. In Study 2 (conjoint experiments with two separate samples: recruiters and executives), we substantiate the results of Study 1, revealing that when former entrepreneurs apply for a job involving personnel responsibility or when there is evidence of a failure in their vita, they are less likely to face devaluations. Further, we find evidence for similarity effects; more specifically, entrepreneurs do not suffer from employability devaluation when the recruiter is a part-time entrepreneur or the executive is the business owner. We discuss the implications as part of the employability debate about former entrepreneurs.     

Consumer ethics,materialism and material satisfaction: A study on Turkish adolescent consumers

The aim of this study is to reveal the differences among consumer ethics, materialistic attitudes and material satisfaction of the adolescents across the socio‐economic level and gender in Turkey. The sample of the study is formed by randomly selected high schools students (n = 350) in Ankara. The results indicated that consumer ethics, materialistic attitudes and material satisfaction varied according to socio‐economic level (p < .01). Among materialistic attitudes and material satisfaction, only a significant difference is found on consumer ethics across the gender. There is no significant difference among gender on materialistic attitudes and material satisfaction. In general, males’ ethical beliefs were found lower than the females.     

The link between corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty: Empirical evidence from the Islamic banking industry

Increased support from customers for Islamic financial services is very important to create resilience and competitiveness in the Islamic banking industry. By highlighting certain social activities, this paper estimates the role of Islamic banks’ CSR in influencing customer loyalty, both individually and through the integrated roles of image, trust, satisfaction, and reputation. These paths explore how CSR makes customers impressed, convinced, satisfied, amazed, and ultimately loyal to Islamic banks. The empirical analysis of partial least square structural equation modeling (n = 283) has shown that CSR directly and positively impacts loyalty. Indirectly, these two aspects have an insignificant relationship through the serial roles of image-reputation and satisfaction-reputation, but significant through the single role of reputation and the serial role of trust-reputation. This study has resulted in an updated prediction model of Islamic banking customer loyalty. The practical implication lies in the importance of developing CSR to generate trust and reputation which ultimately increase customer loyalty toward Islamic banks.     

Intelligence Vs. Wisdom: The Love of Money, Machiavellianism, and Unethical Behavior across College Major and Gender

This research investigates the efficacy of business ethics intervention, tests a theoretical model that the love of money is directly or indirectly related to propensity to engage in unethical behavior (PUB), and treats college major (business vs. psychology) and gender (male vs. female) as moderators in multi-group analyses. Results suggested that business students who received business ethics intervention significantly changed their conceptions of unethical behavior and reduced their propensity to engage in theft; while psychology students without intervention had no such changes. Therefore, ethics training had some impacts on business students’ learning and education (intelligence). For our theoretical model, results of the whole sample (N = 298) revealed that Machiavellianism (measured at Time 1) was a mediator of the relationship between the love of money (measured at Time 1) and unethical behavior (measured at Time 2) (the Love of Money → Machiavellianism → Unethical Behavior). Further, this mediating effect existed for business students (n = 198) but not for psychology students (n = 100), for male students (n = 165) but not for female students (n = 133), and for male business students (n = 128) but not for female business students (n = 70). Moreover, when examined alone, the direct effect (the Love of Money → Unethical Behavior) existed for business students but not for psychology students. We concluded that a short business ethics intervention may have no impact on the issue of virtue (wisdom). Thomas Li-Ping Tang (Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University) is a Full Professor of Management in the Department of Management and Marketing, Jennings A. Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). He has taught Industrial and Organizational Psychology at National Taiwan University and at MTSU. Professor Tang teaches, has taught, MBA/EMBA courses in China (Hong Kong and Shanghai), France (Nantes), and Spain (Valencia). He serves, has served, on 6 editorial review boards and reviews papers for 28 journals. His research interests focus upon compensation, the Love of Money, business ethics, pay satisfaction, and cross-cultural issues. He has published more than 100 journal articles in top behavior sciences and management journals (e.g., Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Human Relations, Journal of Management, Management Research, Management and Organization Review, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Journal of Business Ethics.) and presented more than 190 papers in professional conferences and invited seminars. He was the winner of two Outstanding Research Awards (1991,1999) and Distinguished International Service Award (1999) at Middle Tennessee State University. He also received the Best Reviewer Awards from the International Management Division of the Academy of Management in Seattle, WA (2003) and in Philadelphia, PA (2007). Yuh-Jia Chen (Ph.D., Columbia University) is an Associate Professor of Business Statistics in the Rinker of School of Business at Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach, FL 33416. He has taught statistics at Middle Tennessee State University and Teachers College, Columbia University. His research interests lie in money attitude, choice and decision-making, risk-taking behavior, and compensation. His publications have appeared in behavior sciences and management journals (e.g., Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Journal of Business and Psychology, and Journal of Business Ethics).     

Two Lighthouses to Navigate: Effects of Ideal and Counter-Ideal Values on Follower Identification and Satisfaction with Their Leaders

Ideals (or ideal values) help people to navigate in social life. They indicate at a very fundamental level what people are concerned about, what they strive for, and what they want to be affiliated with. Transferring this to a leader–follower analysis, our first study (n = 306) confirms that followers’ identification and satisfaction with their leaders are stronger, the more leaders match followers’ ideal leader values. Study 2 (n = 244) extends the perspective by introducing the novel concept of counter-ideals (i.e., how an ideal leader should not be) as a second, non-redundant point of reference. Results confirm that a leader’s match on ideal and on counter-ideal values have independent effects in that both explain unique variance in followers’ identification and satisfaction with their leader. Study 3 (n = 136) replicates the previous results in an experimental scenario study and provides evidence for the proposed causal direction of the underlying process. We conclude that counter-ideal values might be an additional point of reference that people use to triangulate targets above and beyond ideal values and discuss the implications of our findings for value research and management.     

Impact of Ethical Leadership and Leader–Member Exchange on Whistle Blowing: The Moderating Impact of the Moral Intensity of the Issue

Given the prevalence of corporate frauds and the significance of whistle blowing as a mechanism to report about the frauds, the present study explores the impact of ethical leadership and leader–member exchange (LMX) on whistle blowing. Additionally, the article also explores the moderating role of the moral intensity [studied as magnitude of consequences (MOC)] of the issue on this relationship. The article reports results of three experimental studies conducted on the postgraduate students of a premier technology institute in India. Ethical leadership, LMX, and moral intensity are manipulated through scenarios. Study one (n = 81) manipulates ethical leadership (ethical/unethical) and quality of LMX (low and high) as independent variables; study two (n = 80) manipulates ethical leadership and moral intensity (high and low MOC), and study three (n = 87) manipulates LMX and MOCs to assess their individual and joint effects on whistle blowing. Results show that not only do ethical leadership and LMX predict whistle blowing, but these relationships get moderated by the moral intensity of the issue as well.     

Can rewards induce corresponding forms of theft? Introducing the reward-theft parity effect

Rewards are reinforcement mechanisms that organizations use to shape desirable employee behaviors. However, rewards may also have unintended consequences, such as building expectations for receiving extra benefits and weakening employee barriers to unethical acts. This article investigates the dark side of the reward–behavior association, and exploring what is referred to as the reward–theft parity effect (RTPE). The authors hypothesize that receiving rewards induces a corresponding type of theft. In Study 1, survey results (n = 634) show initial support for the RTPE between rewards and same-category theft, and that perceptions of procedural justice attenuate this association. Study 2 involved a 2 (reward) × 2 (theft opportunity) between-subjects experimental design (n = 300) and provides further support for the RTPE by revealing greater theft under a reward–theft parity condition than under a reward–theft disparity condition. Study 3 replicates these findings in a field experiment (n = 285) and finds that the RTPE is exacerbated when the reward–behavior task is perceived as unjust. Collectively, these findings provide new theoretical insights while also giving managers a more complete understanding of the dark side of behavioral reinforcement mechanisms.     

Find Out How Much It Means to Me! The Importance of Interpersonal Respect in Work Values Compared to Perceived Organizational Practices

Two large online surveys were conducted among employees in Germany to explore the importance employees and organizations place on aspects of interpersonal respect in relation to other work values. The first study (n = 589) extracted a general ranking of work values, showing that employees rate issues of respect involving supervisors particularly high. The second study (n = 318) replicated the previous value ranking. Additionally, it is shown that the value priorities indicated by employees do not always match their perceptions of actual organizational practices. Particularly, interpersonal respect issues that involve employees’ supervisors diverge strongly negative. Consequences and potentials for change in organizations are discussed.     

Human Rights,Transnational Corporations and Embedded Liberalism: What Chance Consensus?

I assessed change in students’ moral reasoning following five 75-min classes on business ethics and two assignments utilizing a novel pedagogical approach designed to foster ethical reasoning skills. To minimize threats to validity present in previous studies, an untreated control group design with pre- and post-training measures was used. Training (n = 114) and control (n = 76) groups comprised freshmen business majors who completed the Defining Issues Test before and after the training. Results showed that, controlling for pre-training levels of moral reasoning, students in the training group demonstrated higher levels of post-training principled moral judgment than students in the control group.     

Faith at Work Scale (FWS): Justification,Development, and Validation of a Measure of Judaeo-Christian Religion in the Workplace

Workplace spirituality research has sidestepped religion by focusing on the function of belief rather than its substance. Although establishing a unified foundation for research, the functional approach cannot shed light on issues of workplace pluralism, individual or institutional faith-work integration, or the institutional roles of religion in economic activity. To remedy this, we revisit definitions of spirituality and argue for the place of a belief-based approach to workplace religion. Additionally, we describe the construction of a 15-item measure of workplace religion informed by Judaism and Christianity – the Faith at Work Scale (FWS). A stratified random sample (n = 234) of managers and professionals assisted in refining the FWS which exhibits a single factor structure (Eigenvalue = 8.88; variance accounted for = 59.22%) that is internally consistent (Cronbach’s α = 0.77) and demonstrates convergent validity with the Faith Maturity Scale (r = 0.81, p > 0.0001). The scale shows lower skew and kurtosis with Mainline and Catholic adherents than with Mormons and Evangelicals. Validation of the scale among Jewish and diverse Christian adherants would extend research in workplace religion.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Benefits of Employee Trust: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective

Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has tended to focus on external stakeholders and outcomes, revealing little about internal effects that might also help explain CSR-firm performance linkages and the impact that corporate marketing strategies can have on internal stakeholders such as employees. The two studies (N = 1,116 and N = 2,422) presented in this article draw on theory from both corporate marketing and organizational behavior (OB) disciplines to test the general proposition that employee trust partially mediates the relationship between CSR and employee attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Both studies provide evidence in support of these general relationships. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the context of CSR and corporate marketing research.     

Firm Resources and Host‐Country Factors Impacting Internationalization of Knowledge‐Intensive Service Firms

In the era of the global economy, knowledge‐based services are becoming important sectors of the service industry. Services offered by a university are knowledge‐based services. Universities are in the service business, and they play a key role in creating and disseminating knowledge through teaching, research, and related services that cross domestic borders. The current research focuses on the internationalization of US MBA programs. The internationalization of US MBA programs refers to the delivery of knowledge‐based services beyond the domestic borders. The main objective of our research is to examine the effect of an organization's (e.g., a US business school) resources and a host country's attractiveness on the internationalization of knowledge‐based services offered by a firm (a US business school). Using data gathered from MBA programs of US colleges and universities, theÊstudy findings show that internationalization is influenced by human capital, prestige and reputation, management's willingness, and foreign market attractiveness. The results of this study offer practical insights for US business school leaders. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.