Impact of IT Service Management Frameworks on the IT Organization

Over 90 percent of companies are estimated to use IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks, yet there is little research on their benefits to the Information Technology (IT) department and the business units. An international survey of 491 firms was conducted to assess the benefits of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), the de-facto ITSM framework, specifically on how these benefits evolve as companies increase their adoption of the ITIL model. Also studied are the perception of challenges of the implementation and the number of ITIL processes implemented in relation to the progress of the adoption of ITIL. Results indicate that as the maturity of implementation increases, the perception of challenges decreases. Findings also show that as the maturity of implementation increases, the number of realized benefits increases, as well as the number of implemented ITIL processes. Implications for practitioners and researchers are also discussed.     

Matching of police and hospital road crash casualty records – a data-linkage study in Malaysia

Underreporting of road crashes hampers the development of appropriate road safety countermeasures in many countries. In this study, police and hospital records from road crash casualties in the Melaka Tengah district in Malaysia from 2014 were collected to determine their matching and reporting rates. Based on authentic personal identifiers from both types of records, Microsoft SQL was used to reveal how the matching rate varies due to multiple factors. The results showed that 311 cases (of 7625 hospital records) could be linked to both databases, yielding a 4.1% matching rate and a 4.7% police reporting rate. Both the reporting and matching rates increased with the level of injury severity. The significant underreporting in the police database showed that complementary data are necessary for enhancing the current official crash data records.     

Do Variations in the Strength of Corporate Governance Still Matter? A Comparison of the Pre- and Post-Regulation Environment

Corporate scandals brought the issue of corporate governance to the forefront of the agendas of lawmakers and regulators in the early 2000s. As a result, Congress, the New York Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ enacted standards to improve the quality of corporate governance, thereby enhancing the quantity and quality of disclosures by listed companies. We investigate the relationship between corporate governance strength and the quality of disclosures in pre- and post-regulation time periods. If cross-sectional differences in corporate governance policies affect the quality of financial disclosures, the quality of information available to analysts varies with such policies. Specifically, higher quality disclosures, produced as a result of strong corporate governance, should lead to more accurate and less dispersed analysts’ forecasts. Our analysis suggests that voluntary implementation of stronger corporate governance enhanced the quality of disclosures in the pre-regulation period; however, exceeding current corporate governance standards does not appear to result in higher quality disclosures post-regulation. These results suggest that SOX and the stronger regulations enacted by U.S. exchanges were effective in reducing variation in the quality of financial information available to investors.     

Governance of Knowledge‐Intensive Firms in the Modern Market Economy

We model contracting for joint production between workers and shareholders when investment in knowledge is non‐verifiable and the resulting specific human capital embedded in the workers is non‐tradable. The model explains how the effective cost of human capital services will vary depending on whether the investment in knowledge is financed by the workers or by the shareholders. We apply the results of the modeling to identify which firms are expected to gain and which to lose from posted trends in higher employability and lower empowerment of workers in modern market economies. Finally, we present conditions on the self‐interest of current shareholders to empower workers as a way to stimulate their investment in firm‐specific human capital.     

A Fair Trade-off? Paradoxes in the Governance of Fair-trade Social Enterprises

This paper explores how fair trade social enterprises (FTSEs) manage paradoxes in stakeholder-oriented governance models. We use narrative accounts from board members, at governance events and board documents to report an exploratory study of paradoxes in three FTSEs which are partly farmer-owned. Having synthesized the key social enterprise governance literature and framed it alongside the broader paradox theory, we used narratives to explore how tensions are articulated, how they can be applied within an adapted paradox framework, and how governance actors seek to mitigate paradoxes. The paper contributes to current debates in social enterprise scholarship concerning hybridity (Pache and Santos, Acad Manag Rev 35(3):455–476, 2010; in Institutional logics in action, Part B (Research in the sociology of organizations), 2012), hybrid organizing (Battilana and Lee, Acad Manag Ann 8(1):397–441, 2014) and operational tensions (Smith et al., Bus Eth Q 23(3):407–442, 2013) by illustrating empirically how the central social/enterprise paradox manifests in FTSEs governance arrangements. We build on the paradox categories proposed by Lüscher and Lewis (Acad Manag J 51(2):221–240, 2008) and adapted in Smith et al. (Bus Eth Q 23(3):407–442, 2013) by developing a recursive model of legitimacy-seeking governance processes, conceptualizing how boards seek to mitigate, but not necessarily resolve, paradoxes.     

Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Selection,Migration, and Operation of a Campus Management System

An increasing number of students, together with organizational and technological requirements, pose new challenges for universities. For these reasons, Campus Management Systems provide a solution for the necessary IS-support in student administration. In order to ensure cost-effectiveness, an extensive cost-utility analysis of the campus management systems under consideration is required. The process model illustrated here facilitates a ten-step cost-utility analysis for the selection, migration and operation of a campus management System. The process-oriented approach addresses the challenges posed by cost and benefit allocation. The subsequent ten steps, using the case analysis of two large German universities, show that the implementation of an integrated campus management system can lead to significant cost saving effects. The presented process model enables comparative calculations of differences with regard to the alternatives. The approach enables a comprehensive decision-support system for the selection of a university-specific and individually applicable campus management system.     

Asking Questions: A Sine Qua Non of Facilitation in Decision Support?

This paper reflects our ongoing interest in discovering essential elements of facilitation in decision support for groups with members having different perspectives on a strategic problem. We investigated questioning behaviour, a critical aspect of microlevel behaviour, of the facilitator in a classroom experiment with five-person groups (N?=?26). The supported groups used a facilitated modelling approach, that is, group model building, which is based on system dynamics. In the control condition, one of the participants led the group discussion in the role of chairperson. As expected, we found that the facilitator asked more questions than the chairperson. Subsequently, based on proposed functions of questions by discussion leaders in group decision making, we distinguished three categories of questions; related to (a) rational and social validation, (b) reflection, and (c) information management. Analysis of question type frequencies revealed that facilitators mainly ask questions from the rational and social validation category, and that this question type declines over the course of the discussion process. Questions prompting reflection increased over time. Information management questions were mostly used in the beginning and middle part of the session. In the groups led by a chairperson, a less clear picture emerged. There was a great variety between groups with respect to type of questions and sequence in which the chairperson asked questions. The only consistent result for unsupported meetings is that information management primarily took place at the end of the sessions.     

Underreporting,crash severity and fault assignment of minor crashes in China – a study based on self-reported surveys

Unreported minor crashes have importance as a surrogate for more serious crashes that require infrastructure, education, and enforcement strategies; and they still inflict damages. To study factors that influence underreporting, cause, and severity of minor crashes; a survey was performed in Kunming and Beijing to collect self-reported personal characteristics and crash history data of the three major urban road users in China: automobile drivers, bicycle riders and electric bike (e-bike) riders. Underreporting rates of automobile to automobile, automobile to non-motorized vehicle, and non-motorized vehicle to non-motorized vehicle crashes are 56%, 77% and 94%, respectively. Minor crashes with higher reported injury severity levels are more likely to be reported. E-bike riders without a driver's license are more likely to cause crashes. Licensing and education could be an effective way to reduce their crashes. The party that is not at fault in a crash is more likely to sustain high level of injury.     

Ethical Decision Making: Panama–United States Differences in Consumer and Marketing Contexts

ABSTRACT

Results show that significant differences, both statistical and practical, exist between Panamanians and U.S. nationals in how they intend to behave in various consumption-related and marketing-related ethical situations. As cross-national marketing increases, the need to understand marketing and consumer ethics across countries becomes more critical. Additionally, as Robertson, Brady, and Hoffman (2001) Robertson, C. J., Brady, M. K. and Hoffman, J. J. 2001. Moral and marketing differences between the United States and Ecuador. International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, 4(1–2): 75–98.  [Google Scholar] point out, there has been a genuine lack of emphasis in the marketing-related ethics literature in Latin America. This study partially addresses that need by examining and contrasting the intended behaviors in ethical situations of Panamanians and Americans as consumers and marketers. The study contributes to marketing ethics knowledge on several fronts: (i) increasing understanding of ethics of Panamanians in consumer and marketing contexts, (ii) adding to the extant cross-country literature in the area of ethical decision making by consumers, and (iii) incorporating effect sizes, which is very rarely reported, to complement the significance values. Results show that significant differences exist between Panamanians and U.S. nationals in how they intend to behave in various consumption-related and marketing-related ethical situations. Managerial implications are also discussed.     

The Role of Individual Variables,Organizational Variables and Moral Intensity Dimensions in Libyan Management Accountants’ Ethical Decision Making

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and (in Libya) Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world.     

Process and intensity of internationalization of IT firms – Evidence from India

This paper provides insights and evidence related to the process and intensity of internationalization of firms in the Information Technology (IT) sector, which is the driving force of high economic growth in the Indian sub-continent during the last two decades. Research objectives were set as (i) to examine the existence of born global firms in the IT sector, (ii) to identify the process of internationalization adopted by firms in the IT industry, (iii) to measure the intensity of internationalization of IT firms. The paper is based on data collected from annual financial reports of firms listed in the CNX IT Index of National Stock Exchange of India. Two clusters were extracted using hierarchical clustering method followed by k-means clustering to analyze the characteristics of the variables. We find that the firms in both clusters are true global firms with 66 and 85% of their income from foreign markets with a very high level of international intensity. Though the findings provide some evidence for the gradual internationalization of Indian IT firms; the empirical results indicate that firm age has no impact on internationalization. The results from our study also show that firms, especially in certain industries such as IT, do have access to information that reduces the risk aversion.     

Philanthropy, Integration or Innovation? Exploring the Financial and Societal Outcomes of Different Types of Corporate Responsibility

This article argues that previous research on the outcomes of corporate responsibility should be refined in two ways. First, although there is abundant research that addresses the link between corporate responsibility (CR) and financial performance, hardly any studies scrutinize whether the type of corporate responsibility makes a difference to this link. Second, while the majority of CR research conducted within business studies concentrates on the financial outcomes for the firm, the societal outcomes of CR are left largely unexplored. To tackle these two deficiencies, this article extends the different conceptualizations of corporate responsibility and elaborates both the financial and the societal outcomes of different types of CR.     

Organizational Misbehavior and Management Control in China’s Public Hospitals: Doctors’ Red Packets

This paper investigates Chinese doctors’ informal payment, known as red packets, with reference to the debate on organizational misbehavior, fiddles and control. It aims to examine the internal and external factors that have contributed to the emergence of red packets in health services and the strategies of hospital management in dealing with informal payment. Analysis on the data collected from two hospitals shows that doctors’ misbehavior is influenced by health services’ funding mechanism, payment systems and corruption. More importantly, the study demonstrates the rationality of employee fiddles and management responses. Findings indicate that doctors are mainly responsible for this fiddling, unethical and illegal activity because of the financial gains acquired from patient bribery. However, doctor misbehavior remains under management’s latent control as long as hospital income generation and reputation are not severely threatened. The study contributes to the analysis of informal payment in the field of organizational studies and employment relations, with a fresh perspective offered to extend our understanding of red packets in the context of healthcare marketization reform.     

Organizational Virtue and Performance: An Empirical Study of Customers and Employees

This paper offers the first large-scale empirical study of organizational virtue as perceived by both internal and external stakeholders (employees and customers, respectively) and of the links between these virtues and organizational outcomes such as identification, satisfaction, and distinctiveness. It takes a strategic approach to virtue ethics, one that differs from a more traditional Aristotelian concept of virtue and from Alasdair MacIntyre’s manner of distinguishing between internal and external goods. The literature review compares three different perspectives on the empirical study of organizational virtues, taken by virtue theorists, POS scholars, and strategy scholars. The main study describes an empirical research undertaking that involved the analysis of 2548 usable questionnaires administered to employees and customers of seven organizations in the U.K. A structural equation model was used to test the linkages of the six dimensions of organizational virtue (empathy, warmth, integrity, conscientiousness, courage, and zeal) to satisfaction, identification, and distinctiveness. All the links were significant, with the strongest between virtue and identification. For employees, identification (with a firm) was driven most significantly by integrity, whereas customers’ identification was principally influenced by empathy. The empirical finding also sounds an alarm bell to the global firms who focus on creating a differentiated image based on CSR in the hope that it will lead to satisfaction. The results lead to a discussion of how companies might build favorable stakeholder perceptions of key dimensions of virtue that most shape their identification and differentiation in the marketplace.