“Enjoy Your Life in Spain WhereverYou Go”

China currently has ADS agree ment with 43 other countries,including the 12 EU countries and Ireland and Denmark,which have signed separate ADS MOUs with China.Since China has opened up outbound tourism in 1990, more and more countries in the world are eager to join the list.     

Perceptions of Accountants’ Ethics: Evidence from Their Portrayal in Cinema

This article examines popular representations of accountants’ ethics by studying their depiction in cinema. As a medium that both reflects and shapes public opinion, films provide a useful resource for exploring the portrayal of the profession’s ethics. We employ a values theoretical framework to analyze 110 movie accountants on their basic ethical character, ethical behavior, and values. We use factor analysis to reduce 22 personal characteristics to five factors encompassing two terminal and three instrumental value sets, which we relate to ethical behavior. Findings indicate that in popular cinema, the ethical behavior of accountants is positively associated with intrinsic terminal values, but negatively related to competency (instrumental) values.     

Do National Differences in Social Capital and Corporate Ethical Behaviour Perceptions Influence the Use of Collateral? Cross-Country Evidence

Journal of Business Ethics - We study the impact of social capital and perceptions about corporate ethical behaviour on the use of collateral in corporate borrowing. Using a dataset of more than...     

The Impact of Students’ Cultural Intelligence on Their Psychological Safety in Global Virtual Project Teams

This study addresses a call for the design and implementation of course curricula that prepare students to develop their CQ and gain experience working with peers on global virtual project teams. We explored how US-based and Peru-based students’ cultural intelligence (CQ) impacted their sense of psychological safety (PS) during a month-long global, virtual team project. We also examined the students’ people-focused (PF) and task-focused (TF) behaviors as mediators of the CQ-PS relationship. The results of mediation analyses provide support for our hypothesis that the relationship between cultural intelligence and psychological safety will be mediated by people-focused behaviors. Finally, we provide a model and suggestions for virtually bringing together students from different countries to collaborate on a global virtual project, and avenues for future research. Here we encourage a focus on a curriculum that educates students about their cultural intelligence and ways to develop psychologically safe learning environments. We also highlight the potential learning for faculty teaching such courses, and note how our experience collaborating with our counterpart in Peru constituted a fractal of what our students were experiencing on their global projects.     

Theory of Virtue Ethics: Do Consumers’ Good Traits Predict Their Socially Responsible Consumption?

Drawing upon the theory of virtue ethics, this study builds a decision tree predictive model to explore the anticipated impact of good traits (i.e., virtuous and personality traits) on socially responsible consumption. Using R statistical software, we generate a classification tree and cross-validate the model on two independent datasets. The results indicate that the virtuous traits of self-efficacy, courage, and self-control, as well as the personality traits of openness and conscientiousness, predict socially responsible purchase and disposal behavior. Remarkably, the largest segment of socially responsible consumers in the study (41 %) scored high in self-efficacy and openness. This result suggests that marketers should focus on these good traits when creating advertisements to encourage sustainable consumption. Our study contributes to enhancing knowledge about the social and psychological aspects of the sustainability movement and provides a new analytical approach to predicting socially responsible consumption.     

Predictors of Effective Web-Based International Business Management Courses in China: Students’ Perceptions on Course Interaction and Satisfaction

The aim of this study is to examine the determinants of effective web-based teaching and learning processes, using MEBIR (Management Education by Internet Readiness) Scale. Data were obtained from 407 students studying in a number of universities in China. The results demonstrate that the perceived quality of the web-based international management courses offered in the Chinese universities hinges on a number of factors such as course interaction, and course satisfaction. The study identified the Internet readiness of students at universities in China and paved avenues for asynchronous learning networks with the use of collaborative Internet technologies in interuniversity instructions. The implications surrounding the effect of the web-based management programs on students, staff, and universities are discussed.     

Consumer Perceptions of “Functional Food” in the United States

There is a strong trend to market products that promise improved health in the United States. Functional food is a rather new concept promoting the healthfulness of foods. Functional food manufacturers should provide motivating and trustful marketing messages. However, since the term “functional foods” lacks definition, communication to consumers is challenging and can be confusing. This study investigates how U.S. consumers understand the concept of functional foods. An online survey containing 64 questions was structured to measure awareness, consumption, and trust toward functional foods. Based on a definition provided in the survey, a clear minority (15%) of the respondents (n = 1027) stated they had heard of functional foods before the survey. Compared to the respondents who had not heard of functional foods, they more often used whole wheat cereals, vegetable juice, carrots, toast with high fibre and green tea (Chi-square –test, p < 0.001). Food and drug administration (FDA), health associations, and dieticians were the most trusted sources of information for functional food decisions with 28%, 24%, and 20% shares of the respondents, respectively. Food producers, food retailers and media together were chosen as the most trustworthy source by less than 1.5%. We concluded U.S. consumers find functional foods confusing and even unreliable. To strengthen their confidence, we suggest clear and transparent collaboration with nutrition and health specialist and product- specific marketing messages based on solid scientific documentation.     

The Impact of Corruption on Firm Tax Compliance in Transition Economies: Whom Do You Trust?

Tax compliance is an important issue for governments and the public alike. To meet public needs and fund public mandates, firms around the world are expected to comply with tax laws. Factors that are related to organizational (firm) tax compliance have not been sufficiently examined in the literature. Owing to the increasing global influence of transition economies, factors associated with firm tax compliance in transition economies are particularly of interest. Based on a sample of over 5,000 firms from 22 former Soviet Bloc transition economies, we find that higher levels of corruption and higher levels of particularized trust (reliance on friends and family) are associated with lower levels of tax compliance. Interestingly, we also find that the negative relationship between corruption and tax compliance is weakened in situations of higher generalized trust (trust in strangers). Overall, our study’s results suggest that institutional factors play an important role and are related to firm tax compliance behavior in transition economies.     

Why Do Managers Leave Their Organization? Investigating the Role of Ethical Organizational Culture in Managerial Turnover

This study contributes to the corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory, and executive succession literature by examining the effect of corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) on strategic leadership turnover. We theorize that firms’ CSiR increases the likelihood of executive turnover. We also investigate the nature of succession (non-voluntary or voluntary succession) and successor origin (internal candidate or external candidate) following CSiR. We further examine how the CSiR–CEO succession relationship is moderated by firm visibility to stakeholders and industry dynamism. Our results, based on a dataset of 248 U.S. public firms between 2001 and 2008, provide evidence that firms’ CSiR affects what is conventionally seen as primarily a market-driven decision on executive turnover, especially when firms operate in a more dynamic industry. Research contributions and implications are discussed.     

What’s in it for Me? An Examination of Accounting Students’ Likelihood to Report Faculty Misconduct

Since there are so few controls over detecting and preventing faculty misconduct, one of the most common ways in which it is discovered is through student reports (in other words, whistleblowing). Given the importance of student reports in bringing to light faculty’s ethical lapses, this paper seeks to understand what factors influence students’ likelihood to report faculty misconduct. We develop an empirical model that integrates the decision process of the Prosocial Organizational Behavior (POB) Model with insights from the emotional perspective on whistleblowing. Specifically, we use an experimental survey to examine how students’ perceived unfairness of the faculty misconduct, feelings of anger, and the students’ self-interest in the situation in conjunction with situational “cues for inaction” lead to the intention to blow the whistle. Overall, the results from our structural model partially support our theoretical model. Interestingly, these findings demonstrate that, in the case of faculty member misconduct, anger and perceptions of unfairness play a greater role than the more rational cost-benefit process of the POB model. These results could aid in development of ethics education for students and could also inform the development of university policies that encourage students to come forward when faced with faculty misconduct.     

“We’re Just Geeks”: Disciplinary Identifications Among Business Students and Their Implications for Personal Responsibility

Journal of Business Ethics - This research shows how business students’ disciplinary specializations can affect their sense of personal responsibility by providing rationalizations for moral...     

How Do Social Norms Influence Parents’ Food Choices for Their Children? The Role of Social Comparison and Implicit Self-Theories

Despite the proliferation of healthier side items for children at fast food restaurants, many parents still do not make healthy choices for their children in this setting. The goal of this research is to identify the parents most likely to do so and develop an intervention to nudge these parents toward making healthier choices in retail outlets. Across four field studies conducted in a retail environment (i.e., locations of a fast food restaurant chain), the authors predict and find that parents with a high tendency to engage in social comparison and a malleable view of the self are most likely to conform to the norm in their parental social network. Given that the norm in the population studied is to order a less healthy side item (e.g., fries) versus a healthy side item (e.g., fruit), conforming results in significantly less healthy orders for the children of these individuals. The authors demonstrate that a social norm-based intervention designed to set a new healthy norm in this retail environment succeeded in increasing the overall proportion of parents that chose a healthy side item by over 29% by increasing the choice of healthy sides specifically for these individuals. The authors conclude with a discussion of implications for theory, retail managers, and policy makers.     

Ethical Perceptions of Business Students: Differences Between East Asia and the USA and Among “Confucian” Cultures

This paper reports the results of a survey of 842 undergraduate business students in four nations – the United States of America (the USA), the Peoples’ Republic of China (the PRC), Japan, and the Republic of Korea (the ROK). This survey asked students to respond to four scenarios with potentially unethical business behavior and a string of questions related to the importance of ethics in business strategy and in personal behaviors. Based on arguments related to differences in recent historical experiences, the authors suggest that student responses may be as different within the East Asian (Confucian) environment as they are between this environment as a whole and the USA. Survey results indicate a greater perception of ethical problems and more importance placed on ethics per se in business practices, as well as less of an emphasis on social harmony (a key distinguishing characteristic of Confucian values identified in prior research) on the part of USA students. At the same time, substantial national differences in response are also witnessed within the set of East Asian students. A priori expectations as to the manner in which these East Asian responses should vary based on differences in recent historical experiences are partially, but not fully, supported. The authors argue that the key value of the reported research rests on a demonstration that national differences within a common cultural (e.g., East Asian or Confucian) area can be as great as differences across cultural (East vs. West) areas and that practitioners of global business must fine-tune their expectations as to acceptable business and personal actions to accommodate specific national historical experiences to be effective. Professors Chung and Eichenseher are professor of accounting at their respective universities. Professor Taniguchi's primary field of study is economics.     

Do the Numbers Add Up to Different Views? Perceptions of Ethical Faculty Behavior Among Faculty in Quantitative Versus Qualitative Disciplines

Faculty across a wide range of academic disciplines at 89 AASCB-accredited U.S. business schools were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the ethical nature of faculty behaviors related to undergraduate course content, student evaluation, educational environment, research issues, financial and material transactions, and social and sexual relationships. We analyzed responses based on whether instruction in the academic discipline focused mainly on quantitative topics or largely on qualitative issues. Faculty who represented quantitative disciplines such as accounting and finance (n = 383) were more likely to view behaviors such as selling complimentary textbooks and grading on a strict curve as more ethical than faculty representing more qualitative disciplines such as management and marketing (n = 447). In contrast, faculty in quantitative disciplines were more likely to view behaviors such as showing controversial media and bringing up sexual or racial charged matters as less ethical than their counterparts. Whereas these differences may be attributed to the respondents’ academic backgrounds, the large level of agreement on ethical behaviors raises questions about the growing influence of business disciplines that operate within more unified research and teaching paradigms. Linda Kidwell (PhD, Louisiana State University) is an associate professor in the Accounting Department at the University of Wyoming where she teaches auditing as well as accounting ethics. Her research interests include academic ethics, auditing ethics, and governmental auditing. Her research has been published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Teaching Business Ethics, CPA Journal, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy and elsewhere. She has taught in the United States, Australia, and Canada. She has also been a frequent faculty mentor in the National Conference on Ethics in America held annually at the United States Military Academy (West Point). Roland Kidwell (PhD, Louisiana State University) is an associate professor in the Management and Marketing Department at the University of Wyoming where he teaches courses in new ventures, human resource management and general management. His current research interests include ethical issues involving family businesses and new ventures, social entrepreneurship, and workplace deviance such as withholding effort (free riding, shirking, social loafing) in organizational contexts. He is co-editor of a book of readings and cases, Managing Organizational Deviance (2005, Sage), and his research has appeared in Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management, Journal of Business and Psychology and elsewhere.     

Do You See What I See? A Simulation Analysis of Order Bundling within a Transparent User Network in Geographic Space

The Physical Internet (PI) concept presents a radical change with the aim to revert the unsustainable practices that are used for transporting goods. It identifies dedicated freight flows and transforms them into transparent open logistics networks which can be accessed by other users, such as shippers and carriers. In this paper, we test the universal network openness in which the users can tap into the PI network and place orders that will be assigned to the nearest available transport service and consequently delivered to the order sender. The objective of our paper is to investigate the impact of inserting extra service points into existing dedicated freight flows of a service‐driven company. We simulate different transparency levels and routings to new pickup locations and evaluate the impact in terms of altered lead times, covered distances, and fill rates. The novel aspects presented herein are (1) deliveries based on decentralized location detection of the nearest order sender, (2) dynamically changing speed parameters of agents within specific geographic clusters based on their geo‐locations in order to account for congestion levels, (3) more realistic routing strategies that consider the urban layout, and (4) transparent querying of nearest agents in space and time that meet specific conditions such as current ongoing processes, available capacity, and position. Finally, we identify the impact from a general/holistic perspective that emerges once extra orders are assigned to the service‐driven company's fleet.     

Use of a “Coping-Modeling,Problem-Solving” Program in Business Ethics Education

During the last decade, scholars have identified a number of factors that pose significant challenges to effective business ethics education. This article offers a “coping-modeling, problem-solving” (CMPS) approach (Cunningham, 2006) as one option for addressing these concerns. A rationale supporting the use of the CMPS framework for courses on ethical decision-making in business is provided, following which the implementation processes for this program are described. Evaluative data collected from N = 101 undergraduate business students enrolled in a third year required course on ethical decision-making in business indicated that the CMPS model is a promising alternative for both overcoming teaching challenges and for facilitating skill acquisition in the areas of ethical recognition, judgment, and action. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

What Did You Do to My Brand? The Moderating Effect of Brand Nostalgia on Consumer Responses to Changes in a Brand

Previous research on consumer nostalgia has concluded that nostalgic feelings primarily have a positive effect on consumers, boosting positive feelings and affective responses. However, evidence suggests that consumers who hold nostalgic feelings toward a specific brand sometimes respond negatively to updated or modified versions of the brand. This research tests the moderating effect of consumers’ brand nostalgia on their responses to changes to a brand. Across four studies, the authors find that consumers who are nostalgic toward a specific brand exhibit a positive bias toward the original version of the brand that leads them to perceive the brand as having changed more than do less nostalgic consumers. Further, when the change to the brand is perceived to be large, individuals who are highly nostalgic for a brand show a significantly sharper decrease in reported attitude and behavioral intentions toward the changed brand than do their less nostalgic counterparts. This effect is in opposition to the positive effects of a general tendency toward nostalgia proneness. These results are replicated across multiple product categories and both manipulated and real changes, and the effect is found to be mediated by the consumer's biased perception of how much the brand has changed.     

Can Arabic Proverbs Enhance Arabic-Speaking Students’ Comprehension of Financial Concepts?: An Empirical Study in Randomly Selected Business Schools in Dubai

In this study, we investigated the use of Arabic proverbs and quotes for teaching finance courses to Arabic-speaking students who are nonnative speakers of English. The study found that the use of Arabic proverbs and quotes greatly enhances the students’ comprehension of the finance topics covered. Similarly, the study revealed that the use of Arabic proverbs and quotes for Arabic-speaking students in teaching finance courses creates rapport between the student and instructor, thus enhancing learning. Finally, the study confirmed that the use of Arabic proverbs and quotes for Arabic-speaking students in teaching finance courses does not lead to confusion or complicate matters, but enhances comprehension and bolsters retention.