Approaches to investor relations: implementation in the British context

This paper reports on an empirical study conducted in British organizations focusing on the role of investor relations as part of a coordinated marketing communications strategy. Consequently, this study considers the greatly neglected research area of the management of relationships between national and international organizations and both investors and those others who might consider themselves significant financial stakeholders. It examines the organizational role of investor relations within a coordinated communication programme and suggests that communication with financial stakeholders has a significant role to play as part of a developed corporate communication strategy.     

Ethical Leadership: Assessing the Value of a Multifoci Social Exchange Perspective

In this study, we comprehensively examine the relationships between ethical leadership, social exchange, and employee commitment. We find that organizational and supervisory ethical leadership are positively related to employee commitment to the organization and supervisor, respectively. We also find that different types of social exchange relationships mediate these relationships. Our results suggest that the application of a multifoci social exchange perspective to the context of ethical leadership is indeed useful: As hypothesized, within-foci effects (e.g., the relationship between organizational ethical leadership and commitment to the organization) are stronger than cross-foci effects (e.g., the relationship between supervisory ethical leadership and commitment to the organization). In addition, in contrast to the “trickle down” model of ethical leadership (Mayer et al. in Org Behav Hum Decis Process 108:1–13, 2009), our results suggest that organizational ethical leadership is both directly and indirectly related to employee outcomes.     

Information assimilation and stock return synchronicity: Evidence from an investor relations management platform

In this paper, we employ a unique information assimilation measure for listed firms in China based on their communications with investors through an online platform designated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). We examine whether a firm's efforts in enhancing investors’ information assimilation, such as providing more quality clarifications and explanations, helps facilitate the incorporation of firm-specific information in stock prices and reduces stock return synchronicity. We find robust evidence that more quality-clarifying communications contribute to lower stock return synchronicity after controlling for other information sources, and the decrease in synchronicity is mostly due to increased firm-specific information rather than noise. The causal relationship is established using a stacking DID approach and a PSM method. In a further analysis, we find that more quality communications can strengthen investors’ reaction to good news and smooth their reaction to bad news. Our study provides direct evidence that enhanced information assimilation benefits firms by entrenching more firm-specific information into stock prices.     

FOCUS: Using Case Studies to Teach Ethical Business

Case studies invite students to share in an ethical dilemma and challenge them about their values. Dr Sheldrake is Reader in Modern History at London Guildhall University, Old Castle St., London E1 7NT. A version of his case study appeared in Sarah Vickerstaff (Ed.), 1992, Human Resource Management in Europe: Text and Cases , London: Chapman & Hall.     

Ethical Customer Value Creation: Drivers and Barriers

There is a long-standing discussion on the positive interactions between enterprise value creation and business competitiveness. The corporate value can be seen as being created from three major sources within the cycle – from employees, from processes, and from customers or investors through reinvestment. To achieve competitive advantages, a firm must create more value than its competitors in the industry. Emphasizing that, firms should explore the positive drivers of customer value creation, allowing for a true value creation that will lead to increments in competitiveness. In reality, however, there are also barriers that hinder customer value creation. Targeting the above issues that have not yet been explored or analyzed, we have collected related literature at the first stage. Based on these presumable assumptions, this paper then conducts an empirical study by surveying and analyzing the relevance given by the investigated leading machinery measuring equipment firms in Taiwan, regarding the concerns as drivers and barriers in relation to customer value creation. This paper especially aims to answer several key questions: What drivers revolving around employees and processes can facilitate the organization to create more value for its customers? Conversely, what barriers block the organization from creating value for customers in examining the same dimensions? Does value creation direct an organization’s profitability and competitiveness? Our questionnaire survey results show that the most recognized and agreed drivers of customer value creation in consideration of employees are “distinctive skills”, “personal experience”, “learning and training”, and “team work”; and, in regard to the firm’s processes, the key drivers are “innovation and evolution”, “R&;D capability”, and “capability for differentiation”. Conversely, the most recognized and agreed barriers to customer value creation in relation to employees are a “distrustful environment” and “inadequate knowledge”; and, in terms of processes, they are “short of core technology”, “poor resource support”, and “bad services and attitudes”. Furthermore, our in-depth interview outcomes reveal that “capital sufficiency” and “mergers and acquisitions” are in practice considered to be other important customer value creation drivers; in contrast, “cultural and structural barriers” and “short of mechanisms to measure customer value creation effectively” are viewed as additional critical barriers to customer value creation.     

伦理型领导与伦理问题报告：一个多层次模型

基于社会学习理论及社会信息加工视角,文章探讨了伦理型领导激发员工报告组织内部伦理问题的多层次作用机制。文章采用两阶段问卷调查方式收集67名团队领导与302名员工调查样本,运用多层线性模型进行假设检验,结果表明,个体导向的伦理型领导对员工伦理问题报告具有显著正向影响,道德勇气在二者之间起部分中介作用。同时,团队导向的伦理型领导显著正向影响员工伦理问题报告,伦理氛围在二者之间起完全中介作用。此外,在伦理氛围更强的团队,个体导向的伦理型领导对伦理问题报告的作用更强。研究结果揭示了伦理型领导影响员工伦理问题报告的多层次作用路径及边界条件,对于加强组织的伦理管理具有重要的现实意义。     

Modeling Ethical Business Culture: Development of the Ethical Business Culture Survey and Its Use to Validate the CEBC Model of Ethical Business Culture

This article reports the results of research to develop a survey instrument and its use to validate an ethical business culture construct (CEBC Model). The reported three-stage quantitative study builds on our previous qualitative work, aimed at identifying dimensions of ethical business cultures. The research resulted in a parsimonious construct, covering five dimensions of ethical business cultures, and a ten-question instrument, measuring this construct. In this article, we report results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and convergent construct validity testing, discuss the potential applications of the construct and instrument in assessment and development of ethical business cultures, and provide recommendations for industry practitioners and for further research.     

Using Policy Modeling to Describe the Negotiation Exchange

This is a study of the points of view in a negotiation. Policy modeling, a new method for understanding utilities, is discussed. With policy modeling, the importance weights, subjective values, and a trade-off strategy were estimated from prenegotiation ratings. With these parameters, the values of unfamiliar offers made during a negotiation then also could be estimated. The utility models of the individual negotiators allowed display of the pattern or dance of offers of a particular negotiation. These graphs showed a surprising stability of utilities prior to and during the negotiation. Individual negotiator's offers and perceptions of the opponent's offers during negotiation were consistent with the utility predicted from the policy model. Results are discussed in terms of the important role of utilities in negotiation and the potential for this new method to examine variables that may influence, or cause a departure from, the stability of utilities during negotiation.     

FOCUS: Teaching Ethical Business* Creating and Using Vignettes to Teach Business Ethics

Brief thumbnail sketches capture group interest and show the relevance of ethical considerations in real life situations. Bill Bain has considerable experience of business and is currently a PhD student at the Management School of London University's Imperial College, 53 Prince's Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PG.     

Measuring Ethical Organizational Culture: Validation of the Spanish Version of the Shortened Corporate Ethical Virtues Model

Journal of Business Ethics - A key issue in the business ethics field is the design of effective measures for assessing the ethical culture of organizations. The Corporate Ethical Virtues Model...     

Using simultaneous latent structure models to analyze group differences: Exploratory analysis of buying style items

This article shows how methods for simultaneous latent structure analysis can be used to test for intergroup differences in unobservable characteristics. In many respects these techniques are similar to those for simultaneous factor analysis. To show how these methods can be used, we analyze data obtained from the 1979 Study of Media and Markets collected by the Simmons Market Research Bureau. Five dichotomized items pertaining to buying style attitudes were chosen as “indicators” of a latent variable (or variables): brand loyalty, willingness to experiment, degree of conformity to buying style of others, persuadibility, and style consciousness. The sample was composed of full-time employed, married, white females in the middle social class categories recognized on the survey. Two groups were compared in terms of latent structure model parameters. The first group consisted of those who work “at a career” and the second consisted of those whose work was “just a job.” Using the methods advocated here there is no significant difference between these two groups once the “brand loyalty” item is excluded. The model-search procedure takes account of within-group contributions to lack of fit. Generalizations of this procedure may be useful in exploratory analysis using the simultaneous latent structure model.     

Ethical Decision Making in Multinational Organizations: A Culture-Based Model

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between national culture and ethical decision making. Established theories of ethics and moral development are reviewed and a culture-based model of ethical decision making in organizations is derived. Although the body of knowledge in both cross-cultural management and ethics is well documented, researchers have failed to integrate the influence of cultural values into the ethical decision-making paradigm. A conceptual understanding of how managers from different nations make decisions about highly ethical issues will provide business ethics researchers with a sound theoretical foundation upon which future empirical inquiry can be based.     

Tax Practitioners' Ethical Sensitivity: A Model and Empirical Examination

Ethical sensitivity triggers the entire ethical decision-making process (i.e., recognition of ethical content in work situations). In this article, five factors are examined that affect tax practitioners' professional ethical sensitivity. The five factors that were examined include role conflict, role ambiguity, job satisfaction, professional commitment, and ethical orientation. Ethical content in work situations is examined in relation to professional ethics as enumerated by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant's (AICPA) Statements on Responsibilities in Tax Practice (SRTP). Utilizing Hunt and Vitell's (1986, 1993) General Theory of Ethics, a model of ethical sensitivity was constructed and empirically tested. Role conflict negatively and job satisfaction positively influenced tax practitioners' ethical sensitivity. Also, the covariates of the tax practitioner's professional risk level and type of employer were found to be significant. The significant factors are job specific. The tax firm may have the best opportunity to positively change a tax practitioner's ethical recognition abilities. Professional accounting organizations may need to evaluate if resources should be used to formulate, maintain, and publicize codes of conduct because of the lack of significance of professional commitment.     

Shareholder Value Effects of Ethical Sourcing: Comparing Reactive and Proactive Initiatives

Journal of Business Ethics - With the advent of responsible business, ensuring social responsibility in sourcing is of interest to both academics and practitioners. In this study, we examine one...     

Relativism in Ethical Research: A Proposed Model and Mode of Inquiry

While some of the great thinkers (Socrates, Kant) have argued for an absolutist view of ethical behavior, over the past 250 years the relativist view has become ascendant. Following the contingency framework of Ferrell and Gresham (1985) and the issue contingent model of Jones (1991), a model for ethical research is proposed. The key components include the moral agent/transgressor, the issue type and its intensity, and the nature of the victim. In addition, a statistical methodology, namely conjoint analysis, is introduced to investigate the trade-offs inherent in relativistic inquiry. In two ethical scenarios, in each of which three factors were varied, conjoint analysis provided important insight. The individual transgressor factor of gender had minimal impact on observer responses to two scenarios of questionable ethicality. In contrast, both the dollar magnitude of the transgression and the organizational status of the transgressor (salesperson/manager/owner) did affect observer responses.     

Ethical Business and Investment: A Model for Business and Society

Two key questions lie at the heart of the business challenge for business ethics: is it possible for business and investors to do well while doing good; and if so, how can this be achieved? This paper adopts an international investment perspective to address these questions. It demonstrates that it is possible for business and investors to achieve a triple bottom line of environmental, social and financial performance. A new integrated model of Ethical Business including an Ethical Scorecard performance measurement technology is presented based on international ethical investment criteria and case studies of businesses rated highly by ethical investors. Ethical Performance Scores are presented for these businesses and New Zealand business. Examples from New Zealand are presented to illustrate the Ethical Scorecard and ethical business practice. The model and scoring system provide a basis for international benchmarking of ethical business to assist investors, managers and researchers.     

From Tell-Tale Signs to Irreconcilable Struggles: The Value of Emotion in Exploring the Ethical Dilemmas of Human Resource Professionals

This paper explores the character of emotion (felt and displayed) and its value in understanding ethical dilemmas in work organisations. Specifically, we examine the emotional labour of human resource professionals (HRPs). Through in-depth interviews and diary study, we uncover the emotional and ethical struggles of HRPs as they search for the ‘right thing to do’ in situated interaction. Through the lens of emotion, we chart the process of how the very framing of what is deemed ‘right’ can move from the social to the moral order (Bauman, Postmodern ethics, 1993) and vice versa. Based on our findings, we contribute to understanding the linkages between emotional and ethical dilemmas, and how expectations of multiple ‘others’ at the individual, interpersonal and organisational level shape and constrain ethical choices.