Human–Animal Relations in Business and Society: Advancing the Feminist Interpretation of Stakeholder Theory

Journal of Business Ethics - Universities are increasingly pushed to apply for external funding for their research and incentivised for making an impact in the society surrounding them. The...     

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.     

Perfection on the Law of China on Protection Consumers＇ Rights and Interests

随着市场经济的快速发展,随着社会经济的发展和人民收入水平的不断提高,消费需求日益增长,交易形式不断更新、变化,消费者权益的法律保护也应进行与时俱进的探索与完善。本文首先阐述了我国消费者权益保护的现状,指出现行消费者权益保护法存在的不足,并提出完善我国消费者权益保护法的建议。     

Does Institutional Change Spread Across Countries? Explaining Spatial Patterns in Human Rights

If a country improves its human rights record, will neighbouring countries benefit? Beneficial spillovers could justify intervention by the UN or one of the many other organisations that internationally fight human rights violations. We document that countries’ human rights performances often resemble the human rights situation of their neighbours. However, exploiting time variation in a spatial panel, we find that much of that resemblance is simply determined by the shared geographical location. Changes in neighbouring countries have little influence on local human rights, suggesting that contemporaneous spillovers and interactions are limited.     

Do the Same Models Apply to Consumers and Business Firms? Comment on the Paper by Frey

Journal of Consumer Policy -     

Company Delistings from the UN Global Compact: Limited Business Demand or Domestic Governance Failure?

While a substantial amount of the literature describes corporate benefits of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, the literature is silent concerning why some companies announce CSR initiatives, yet fail to implement them. The article examines company delistings from the UN Global Compact. Delistings are surprising because the CSR agenda is seen as having won the battle of ideas. The analysis proceeds in two parts. I first analyze firm-level characteristics focusing on geography while controlling for sector and size; I find that geography is a significant factor while small firms are more likely to be delisted than large firms and some sector characteristics determine delistings. Next, I proceed to uncover country-level characteristics including the degree of international economic interdependence as well as the quality of governance institutions. Multivariate regression analysis shows that companies are less likely to be delisted from countries where domestic governance institutions are well-functioning. To a lesser extent, I find that firms from countries with international economies are more willing to comply with the UN Global Compact requirements. Countries with a high share of outward FDI/capita have a lower share of delisted firms as do countries that are internationally competitive.     

The Relevance of Ancient Greeks to Modern Business? A Dialogue on Business and Ethics

What follows is a dialogue, in the Platonic sense, concerning the justifications for "business ethics" as a vehicle for asking questions about the values of modern business organisations. The protagonists are the authors, Gordon Pearson – a pragmatist and sceptic where business ethics is concerned – and Martin Parker – a sociologist and idealist who wishes to be able to ask ethical questions of business. By the end of the dialogue we come to no agreement on the necessity or justification for business ethics, but on the way discuss the uses of philosophy, the meanings of integrity and trust, McDonald's, a hypothetical torture manufacturer and various other matters.     

Enhancing Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations: Is Extraterritoriality the Magic Potion?

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, resulting from the work of John Ruggie and his team, largely depend on state action and corporate good will for their implementation. One increasingly popular way for states to prevent and redress violations of human rights committed by companies outside their country of registration is to adopt measures with extraterritorial implications, some of which are presented in the article, or to assert direct extraterritorial jurisdiction in specific instances. Some United Nations human rights bodies and non-governmental organisations are clearly supporting the use of extraterritoriality and have argued that international human rights law places an obligation on states to embrace extraterritoriality so as to better control the activities of companies registered on their territories. In this context, the article aims to determine whether extraterritoriality is the magic potion that will help enhance corporate accountability for human rights violations committed overseas. The article explores whether such obligation exists and, beyond this, whether extraterritoriality should be further encouraged.     

Business and the Environment: Is There More to the Story?

Actions taken to improve the environment are frequently good for profits, but many executives, including economists, are not fully aware of just how good businesss environmental record is. As a result, they often have difficulty responding to critics. This article will present three major points: 1) the environment of the United States is much improved over the past several decades, and businesss pursuit of profits has been an important factor; 2) the publics information about business and the environment is poor; and 3) this faulty information fosters the impression that business is evading its responsibilities.JEL Classification Q50     

Separate or Integrate? Assessing the Impact of Separation Between Product and Service Business on Service Performance in Product Manufacturing Firms

Purpose: Investigating how the separation of the product and service business mediates the effect of management's commitment to the service strategy on service performance in product manufacturing firms.

Methodology: The authors surveyed 216 European manufacturers in the high-value durable equipment industry moving into the service business. After assessing adequacy of measurement scales, the authors tested statistically for mediation. Their results hold when replicating the study using a structural equation modeling approach and while testing for common method biases.

Findings: The authors find evidence that the creation of a separate service organization, organized as a profit center, has a significant positive mediating effect between managerial commitment and the services' financial performance. Although separation also has a positive mediating effect between commitment and non-financial performance, organizing services as a profit center had a negative effect on the service's non-financial indicators.

Research Limitations: Research limitations include (a) a sample limited to German-speaking firms in the high-value durable equipment industry, (b) measurements based on self-reported managerial perceptions of service performance, and (c) conceptualization of service as a single strategic response.

Practical Implications: Although the complementarity between products and services is high in the market, the authors' research suggests few synergies to leverage their integration inside the organization. Accordingly, management should, at least in transition efforts similar to the ones included in this sample, look into creating a separate and distinct service organization.

Value/Contribution: This research was driven by practical concern on how to organize service operations in a manufacturing firm. Initial framing of the research through the creation of the construct of separation of product and service business was used.     

Dominant Articulations in Academic Business and Society Discourse on NGO–Business Relations: A Critical Assessment

Relations between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies have been the subject of a sharply increasing amount of publications in recent years within academic business journals. In this article, we critically assess this fast-developing body of literature, which we treat as forming a ‘business and society discourse’ on NGO–business relations. Drawing on discourse theory, we examine 199 academic articles in 11 business and society, international business, and management journals. Focusing on the dominant articulations on the NGO–business relationship and key signifiers they rely on, we analyze the problem-settings of articles in order to reveal the statements that are acceptable and appropriate within this field. Our threefold aim is to (1) identify dominant articulations of NGO–business relations in business and society discourse, (2) expose those articulations that are silenced or suppressed by these dominant articulations, and (3) critically assess possible power effects of these discursive dynamics in the field of discursivity. While business and society discourse on NGO–business relations overall remains open to many different articulations, we also find that those articulations that focus on NGO–business partnerships and governance initiatives tend to privilege collaborative and deliberative ways of engaging and marginalize more adversarial subject positions. We call for more recognition of the potentially constructive role that can be played by conflict.     

Adult and Teenage Use of Consumer,Business, and Entertainment Technology: Potholes on the Information Superhighway?

Adults and teenagers were surveyed to determine their use and ownership of 32 consumer, business, and entertainment technology devices. Demographics, technology experience, and “technophobia” were examined as potential discriminators between Confident Users, Hesitant Users, and Nonusers of each technological device. Results indicated that older, technophobic adults with little computer training and lower income, black and Hispanic, technophobic teenagers did not use most technological devices.     

Does Regulation in Credit,Labour and Business Matter for Bank Performance in the EU-10 Economies?

Cost efficiency scores for banks in ten new EU member countries of Central and Eastern Europe are estimated using a parametric approach (data envelopment analysis) for the period prior to and immediately following their accession (2000–2010). These are then used in both fixed effects and dynamic panels to estimate the impact of regulation on bank specific efficiency in the transition economies of the EU. Using the Fraser Index of Economic Freedom (Gwartney, Hall, and Lawson 2012) we find that, among all the indices of economic freedom, the composite regulation index that includes regulation in credit, labour and business has more importance for the banking sector as results suggest a positive and statistically significant impact on bank efficiency. By decomposing the regulation index into its three components (credit, business and labour regulation) we find that strict labour regulation is associated with lower bank cost efficiency while certain aspects of credit regulation such as foreign ownership and competition as well as private ownership are significantly associated with improved efficiency. The dynamic panel vector autoregression (VAR) results using impulse response functions and variance decomposition further support the validity of these results. These findings are valuable for both academics and policy makers in their attempts to understand the drivers of bank efficiency.     

How Can We Better Understand Current and Future Workforce Values in the Global Business Environment?

Our study tested the predictive power of socioeconomic development theory and age differences theory to explain work values across cultures and across age groups. We compared the values orientations of future managers, business students under the age of 25, with those of current managers and professionals, who we split into three decade groups (30 to 39, 40 to 49, and 50 to 59). Our respondents (n = 1,518) come from six diverse societies: Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, and Vietnam. Our findings indicate that both theories contribute to our understanding of work values and behaviors. One implication is that while socioeconomic development theory makes an important contribution, it is clearly not sufficient by itself to explain work values/behavior differences in the global context. The study findings and the discussion of them will hopefully provide multinational managers with a clearer assessment of current and future workforce values/behavior. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Deans’ Forum on the Globalization of Business Education and Development: Reflections and Directions for the Future

In this special issue of the Journal of Teaching in International Business, a number of deans reflect on the growth and development in global business education and development. The objective of the special issue is to provide insight into where the field originated and where it needs to move to continue advancement. Seven articles, written by current and former business school deans and their colleagues, are presented from a strategic perspective that cover the curricular, research, and business community outreach issues as they relate to international business academic and professional development programs. Through the presentation and discussion of these related issues, a dialogue will be started to set the agenda for continued advancement and sustainability of international business education across the globe.