Managerial Technologies, Ethics and Managing

ABSTRACT   This paper engages with a key element of Legge's work: the relationship between the technical and the moral in the application of managerial technologies, and how managers manage these different layers of meaning. Taking business planning and performance measurement as an example of managerial technologies, these are analysed for the extent to which they allow for an engagement with an ethical position, using Legge's (1978 ) characterization of the role of managerial technologies originally identified in Power, Innovation and Problem Solving in Personnel Management . The inter-related elements of the technical, the ethical and the practical are then used to explore how managers construct the meaning of management and their implications for Legge's more recent deontological and teleological ethical framework.     

The geography of suppliers and retailers

In the last decades, supply chains have increasingly transcended national boundaries developing into global supply chains. Along with the many opportunities arising from international sourcing and the extended commercial presence over the world, the management of a globally dispersed supply chain is highly complex. A key issue to consider when dealing with the global supply chain design is the location of facilities, not only with respect to firms' owned facilities but also the supply and distribution side as factors that affect supply chain complexity and operational performance. This paper sets out a methodological framework to characterize the geographical configuration of a firm's suppliers and retailer networks. Quantitative indexes of network spatial concentration and relative proximity measures based on a nonparametric kernel density estimator are developed to identify both intra- and inter-firm patterns between the supply and point of sales' distributions. The method is first described by means of a series of theoretical-illustrative examples and exemplified by analyzing the geographical dispersion of four practical cases from the fashion-textile industry (i.e., Adidas, Benetton, C&A, and Puma). Subsequently, managerial implications and potential use of the metrics are discussed, showing how the proposed approach can support researchers and practitioners to improve supply chain location decisions and logistic integration, and evaluate changes in either the purchasing or distribution strategy.     

Evaluating cause‐marketing campaigns in the Indian corporate landscape: The role of consumer skepticism and consumer attributions of firm's motive

More and more business organizations are engaging in social initiatives to make a positive contribution to society. Cause marketing, such as CSR, is one of the many ways that firms can manifest social responsibility by pitching‐in where government solutions are few or takes time in implementation, and it is the only type that calls for consumer participation. Because customer participation is imperative for the success of the campaign, it must be designed to connect with consumers while also making them feel that corporate efforts are authentic and truly helping the cause and not exploitative of the social cause. Using fictitious brand, cause‐marketing campaigns were designed, and two studies were conducted to analyze the relationship between cause involvement, consumer attributions on firm's motive, and consumer attitudes towards cause campaigns, and if and how the relationship differs when consumer skepticism towards cause claims existed. Multivariate analysis performed for hypotheses testing suggests that cause involvement influenced campaign attitudes and the relationship was mediated by consumer attributions of firm's motive, and consumer skepticism towards cause campaigns affected the relationship.     

A configuration of sustainable sourcing and supply management strategies

This paper seeks to analyze empirical differences and patterns in applied sustainable sourcing and supply management (SustSSM) strategies. The question is whether companies employ individual SustSSM practices in reoccurring configurations. The study aims to identify such typical corporate SustSSM approaches and how they vary across contingency factors such as industry or region. We employed a two-step methodology. First, a literature review derives scoring scales for six categories of how companies can integrate sustainability into sourcing. Second, using these scales for a content analysis of sustainability reports from 99 corporations spread across different regions, a taxonomy is derived by means of a cluster analysis.Identifying five corporate types of how firms configure their SustSSM strategy, the analysis suggests that companies do not combine SustSSM practices randomly. Rather, individual SustSSM practices are combined to alternative configurations that follow different logics to form sustainable sourcing strategies. Addressing a cross-regional and cross-industry sample, the results encourage further investigating the interplay of different SustSSM practices. In doing so, we show the need to align SustSSM configurations with a firm's specific operative supply chain structures and strategic goals.     

Assessing the impact of green supply chain practices on firm performance in the Korean manufacturing industry

As a growing number of customers tend to view corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a key purchase decision criterion, demands for CSR including environmental sustainability have accelerated in today's business world. To meet such demands, many firms consider embracing environment-friendly business practices. However, many firms are still hesitant to implement those practices due to sceptical views about their real managerial benefits. Although the previous literature confirms the positive link between a firm's commitment to environmental sustainability and its performance, the varying degree of impact of different kinds of environment-friendly supply chain practices on the firm's operational performance is still unknown. To fill the void left by prior research, this paper aims to classify various types of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices and then assess the impact of each of these distinct types on the firm's operational performances (especially manufacturing and marketing performance). Also, this paper examines how the firm's organisational profiles such as firm size affect the particular firm's choice of GSCM practices. Our experimental results reveal that the chosen type of GSCM practices influences the firm's performance differently.     

Sustainable procurement: Building legitimacy in the supply network

The challenges introduced by sustainable development deeply affect purchasing and supply management practices and therefore foster a change in the firm's supply network. After a literature review on supply network management, sustainable sourcing and legitimacy, this paper presents the results of an in-depth case study of a gardening distributor which adopted a sustainable strategy. The analysis illustrates how the firm conquers its legitimacy in sustainable development through the evolution of its supply network. The paper highlights three types of legitimacy – product legitimacy, corporate legitimacy and cause legitimacy – and reveals the different roles of business and non-business actors in the firm's extended sustainable supply network.     

Editorial: Trust and HRM: Current insights and future directions

Over the last 20 years, HRM has been identified as one of the most influential organisational contexts in which to explore trust, and yet scholars have been slow to look systematically at both the systems and practices that underlie this assertion. Organisations make choices regarding both the design and implementation of HRM policies and practices, with research considering the impact on trust for both key single policy areas and bundles of policies. We outline the previous dominance on teleological approaches compared with a dearth of more deontological perspectives which would highlight moral and ethical considerations implicit in definitions of trustworthiness. We review the contribution of five new articles to further our understanding of trust and HRM and identify future research and practice agendas.     

Effectiveness of quality standards regulation considering the behavior of government and firms

We construct an analysis framework consisting of the central government, a local government, a representative firm, and consumers. This study analyzes how the local government's enforcement, the firm's compliance, and their interaction influence the effectiveness of regulation after the central government has established policies regarding quality standards. We construct three scenarios: perfect enforcement, imperfect enforcement, and collusion. We show that when the local government imperfectly enforces the regulation, the firm's utility and the local government's utility are higher, whereas the degree of the firm's compliance, consumers' utility, and the level of social welfare are lower. When there is collusion between the local government and the firm, the firm's utility and the local government's utility are the highest, but the degree of the firm's compliance, consumers' utility, and the level of social welfare are the lowest among the different scenarios. This study proves that the behavior of governments and firms plays a vital role in the effectiveness of quality standards regulation.     

Sustainable product innovation and changing consumer behavior: Sustainability affordances as triggers of adoption and usage

This conceptual paper argues that for sustainable product innovation to make a contribution to addressing sustainability issues, we need to understand not only why consumers adopt sustainable products but also what makes them use these in sustainable way. To explain how specific product features can change the ways in which consumers engage with sustainable products in the adoption and usage phase, we draw on affordance theory. Affordances refer to the potential for agentic action of users in relation to a technological object. We develop a conceptual framework that explains how sustainable product innovation can lead to the design of sustainability affordances that stimulate adoption and sustainable usage. The framework shows how three forms of agency—material, firm, and user agency—interact and together influence a product's sustainability affordances that drive adoption and a change in consumer behavior. The framework explains how trade-offs between a product's environmental features and consumer expectations regarding desired functionalities and user experience can be overcome.     

Low power,high ambitions: New ventures developing their first supply chains

This paper investigates sourcing decisions for new ventures. Sourcing decisions are especially problematic for start-ups because they lack resources, knowledge and legitimacy to evaluate and interact with suppliers. We develop and apply a framework that connects global sourcing, relationship development and attractiveness. Further, we investigate how new ventures develop their first supply chains by conducting an exploratory multiple case study of six Norwegian start-ups. Based on our findings, we develop three propositions regarding how start-ups mediate their lack of attractiveness through pre-sales and by choosing shorter supply chains and smaller suppliers. The implications for practice include emphasizing the importance of developing a business relationship with the supplier in parallel with making sourcing decisions. This study is a novel contribution to an underexplored topic, and we conclude by proposing a research agenda for future explorations of start-ups and supply chain development.     

Customer Information Sharing: Strategic Incentives and New Implications

We study oligopolistic firms' incentives to share customer information about past purchase history when firms are uncertain about whether a particular consumer considers the product offerings as complements or substitutes. We show that both the incentive to share customer information and its effects on consumers depend crucially on the relative magnitudes of the prices that would prevail in the complementary and substitute markets if consumers were fully segmented according to their preferences. This paper has important implications for merger analysis when the primary motive for merger is the acquisition of another firm's customer lists. Our analysis also suggests a new role of middlemen as information aggregators.     

Selecting the Good vs. Rejecting the Bad: Regulatory Focus Effects on Staffing Decision Making

Although staffing decisions are typically conceptualized as motivated by the desire to select the best employees, many managers and human resources practitioners may be more concerned with avoiding bad hires. Regulatory focus theory provides a rich and well‐developed framework for understanding how prevention and promotion orientations shape judgments and decisions. This work is the first to examine this theory's implications for understanding staffing, and it illustrates how these fundamental underlying motivations alter the salience of costs and benefits associated with staffing practices, as well as subjective judgments about individual applicants. Regulatory focus is a function of situational factors as well as individual differences, and predominant motivational orientations also vary with business cycles. This model therefore offers broad cross‐level explanatory power for understanding dynamic factors influencing staffing, as well as a novel perspective on ways to improve the quality of staffing decision making. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Unlocking the business outsourcing process model

Outsourcing has emerged as a prevalent business practice that is having a transformational impact on how many organizations manage their global supply chains. Despite this prominence, anecdotal reports from multiple reputable organizations suggest that many businesses fail to realize the benefits anticipated from their outsourcing initiatives. Motivated by these observations, this study investigates those management practices during the outsourcing process that are key drivers of outsourcing performance. Specifically, detailed data from 198 sourcing executives and managers responsible for outsourcing initiatives are used to investigate the influence that strategic evaluation, contractual completeness, and relationship management practices have on achieving projected outsourcing results. The results offer strong empirical evidence that outsourcing performance is significantly influenced by extensive strategic evaluation and proactive relationship management practices. Moreover, the impact strategic evaluation has on outsourcing performance is not direct, but rather is partially mediated by the relationship between the parties. Finally, the results show that contractual completeness does not distinguish between successful and unsuccessful outsourcing efforts, and can be considered qualifying activity.     

Using human resource management to enhance competitiveness: Lessons from four excellent companies

Recent research has emphasized the strategic focus that human resource management must have in order for an organization to fully utilize its human resources in a competitive market. However, few empirical studies have been done to date regarding how human resource planning should be linked to strategy. An extensive in-depth study of four large, complex, and very successful companies supports the widespread belief that human resource management can be a powerful tool to enhance competitiveness when policies and practices are logically driven by a firm's strategy and by the key environmental factors it faces. This article describes that study and looks at how the areas of selection, appraisal, reward, and development are handled by these firms. Based on both the specific policies and the actual practices as perceived by middle managers (those that implement the policies), the article presents a contingency framework which offers guidelines as to how certain HRM practices should be implemented to gain competitive advantage.     

Human Resource Systems and Ethical Climates: A Resource‐Based Perspective

We know very little about how ethical climates are built and the potential role of a firm's HR system in facilitating the development of this resource. The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm suggests that human resource systems directly influence a firm's performance through the development of resources that are deeply woven in a firm's history and culture. How this occurs though has not been thoroughly considered in the research literature. Drawing on the theoretical insights from the resource‐based view of the firm, this article explores how HR systems can foster the development and maintenance of five types of ethical climates. In so doing, this article improves our conceptual understanding of why ethical climates may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how HR systems may influence that value. In addition, it contributes to theory by extending the domain of the resource‐based view of the firm by exploring its integration with the varied types of ethical climates. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

When a Sinner Does a Good Deed: The Path‐Dependence of Reputation Repair

This study examines how shareholders will interpret a socially desirable action taken by firms with a damaged corporate reputation status. We first explain theoretically why shareholders’ path‐dependent judgments of a tainted firm increase the likelihood of shareholders making less favourable judgments of the firm's socially desirable actions. We then test the theoretical predictions using a sample of Chinese listed firms that were sanctioned for securities fraud and subsequently made donations to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake relief funds. We find that the shareholders evaluate the donations made by fraud‐tainted firms less favourably than those made by firms that have not been sanctioned for fraud. Furthermore, the shareholders’ evaluations of the donations made by fraud‐tainted firms is less favourable if the firms have committed more serious fraud and undertaken fewer positive remedial actions in the post‐fraud period. Overall, our evidence demonstrates that shareholders’ path‐dependent judgments of fraud‐tainted firms constitute a major obstacle that constrains the effectiveness of reputation repair.     

What Factors Affect the Persistence of an Innovation Advantage?

Factors that affect a firm's ability to achieve an advantage may differ from those that affect its ability to sustain that advantage. Moreover, if advantage is a relative concept then studies that relate resource stocks to ‘absolute’ outcomes say little about how resources contribute to enduring differences among firms. We explore these issues in the global semiconductor industry by analyzing how a firm's resource stocks contribute to the persistence of an innovation advantage (a relative outcome). The findings demonstrate that a firm's own production experience and the experience held by its partners contribute to temporary innovation advantages. The results also show that a firm's own production experience yields a more durable innovation advantage as compared to the experience held by a firm's partners and that the experience held by a firm's partners provides a more enduring advantage than a firm's patent stock.     

Management Accounting Practices in the U.S. and Japan: Comparative Survey Findings and Research Implications*

In recent years, the success of Japanese firms in the global market has prompted efforts to understand the sources of their competitive advantage. It has been suggested that one such source is the Japanese firms' management accounting systems, and a number of articles have claimed that important differences do exist between U.S. and Japanese firms in this area. However, these claims have tended to be supported by anecdotal, rather than systematic, evidence. The objective of this article is to contribute further insights into similarities and differences between U.S. and Japanese firms' management accounting practices. Exhaustive searches of published surveys in the U.S. and Japanese literatures (much of which is in Japanese) provided the basis for U.S.-Japan comparisons on six aspects of management accounting practices. In turn, these comparisons were used for deriving implications for future research. Two major limitations of extant research and, thus, directions for future research are identified. First, future research needs to go beyond the simple use or non-use of techniques to investigate more detailed aspects of technique use. Second, since management accounting is only one component of a firm's total management system, attention also needs to be devoted to the organizational context, process, and goals of a firm's management accounting practices.     

Reputational risk as a factor in the offshore location choice

Drawing on extant literature and eight case firms, this paper explores reputational risk as an essential factor in selecting offshore locations. By categorizing and aggregating insights from the empirical data and the relevant literature, the paper identifies country reputational risk as a factor determining the firm's propensity to exclude specific offshore locations. However, its effect is contingent upon managers' interpretation of the critical elements of the business environment in a particular country. Thus, the study contributes by demystifying the role of ‘managerial inputs’, which are often neglected within international sourcing literature. Further, reputational risk is delineated as a higher-order construct comprised of three lower-order constructs: unethical practices, institutional weakness, and quality concerns. Our findings distinguish reputational risk from the CSR framework because the dimensions of reputational risk identified in this study transcend beyond the governance, ethics, environmental and social spheres of CSR. This way, the study contributes to a holistic representation of reputational risk that can allow researchers to match its broad predictors with broad outcomes.