Japanese managerial and organizational learning

The article describes how the external forces of Japanese culture, industrial organization, and government intervention support managerial and organizational learning. It provides an overview of the culturally explicit philosophies that govern and stimulate learning in Japan, then explains how these philosophies are exhibited in Japanese management practice today. A model is presented which demonstrates the relationships among external forces, philosophical origins, management practice, and managerial and organizational learning. The conclusion is that managerial and organizational learning constitute one of Japan's most valuable competitive advantages. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The effects of ethical climate on organizational identification, supervisory trust, and turnover among salespeople

This study examined how an ethical work climate influences salespersons' organizational identification, supervisory trust, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and turnover. Using a sample of 393 salespeople, the results found that facets of an ethical work climate are related directly to supervisory trust and organizational identification. One aspect of an ethical work climate, ethical norms, was related directly to turnover. These results indicate that an ethical work climate can directly affect salespersons' job attitudes and outcomes. The results indicate the importance of measuring ethical work climate from a multi-dimensional perspective.     

Personal characteristics of salespeople and the attractiveness of alternative rewards

How do personal characteristics of salespeople affect their desire for the various rewards available to them? Do younger salespeople desire different types and levels of rewards than older salespeople? Are there differences due to job tenure, marital status, family size, and so forth? In this article, the authors attempt to answer these questions. Based on an extensive investigation of the industrial sales forces from two large companies, the authors examine the relationship between personal characteristics and the sales force's valence for various rewards. Although some of the findings are consistent with current sales management practices, some are not, suggesting that present day thinking with respect to the design and administration of rewards may need more careful scrutiny.     

Three perspectives of Chapter 11 bankruptcy: Legal,managerial and moral

With cach successive generation of management, managers have been faced with different goals dictated by that current society's needs and mores. For example, in the early 1900's, industrial growth was essential to society's needs; at the same time, such growth would not be hampered by social costs that were perceived as unimportant. Those social costs viewed as unimportant have not been properly factored into the cost of goods produced. Therefore, the products sold were underpriced, failing to reflect their true social costs. Additionally, this miscalculation or misappropriation of such costs caused a misallocation of resources, such as the manufacturing of asbestos without regard to future health costs. Finally, the payment for the miscalculation of these social costs is due: present day management is now forced to provide a viable solution for payment of debts incurred by previous management. The most notable examples of such misappropriation are provided in the Manville, A. H. Robins and Continental cases. Unfortunately, the choice is often limited to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.This article views the solution of Chapter 11 bankruptcy from three perspectives: legal, managerial, and moral. The legal review consists of the law and the current jurisprudence. Particularly emphasized are cases dealing with the discharge of executory contracts, tort claims and debts both secured and unsecured. Additionally, an examination of implementing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan from the viewpoint of current management is made. Closely associated with both the legal and managerial aspects of this issue is the moral facet of using bankruptcy as a management tool. The broad question is: how prevalent and how reasonable is it for management to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy to manipulate the corporation's creditors, employees, and stockholders to achieve management's desired end.Professor Hogg currently teaches Managerial Perspectives and Business Law at the A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University. In addition, he is an adjunct faculty member at the Joseph A. Butt, S. J. College of Business Administration, Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana, where he teaches courses on Business Ethics and the Legal and Regulatory Environment of Business. Also, he has received several awards for excellence in teaching. His primary research is in the field of Business Ethics.Dinah Payne is licensed to practice law in the state of Louisiana. She has given a number of presentations, including a recent Continuing Legal Education Program on the use of bankruptcy as a management tool. Dr. Payne has also published articles in a number of journals, includingJournal of Business Ethics, Labor Law Journal, Managerial Accounting, andAccounting Today. She has been teaching at UNO since 1988.     

Globalization and its consequences: Malaysian managerial perspectives and implications

With the aid of a multi-disciplinary literature review and a sample of 165 managers and professionals, this study investigated the perception of the impact of globalization in Malaysia. The study revealed that a significant percentage of the respondents subscribe to the hegemonic view of globalization as a system that is closed to other political, economic and value systems. However, they also see the benefits of globalization in terms of the transfer of good business practices as well as the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI). The views of respondents vary between ethnic groups, with the Chinese tending to be more enthusiastic about the positive impact of globalization while the Malays tend to be more concerned about its negative impact. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

Some perspectives of managerial ethical leadership

If managerial leadership means deciding responsibly in a complex situation, the ethical dimension of leadership — besides its analytical and instrumental aspects — has to be clarified. I present and discuss several essential aspects of managerial ethical leadership: (a) some major presuppositions (the concepts of leadership and responsibility), (b) three normative-ethical tasks of the activity of leadership (perceiving, interpreting and creating reality — being responsible for the effect of one's decisions on the human beings concerned — being responsible for the implementation of corporate goals) and (c) some claims on the leader as a subject responsible for his or her own activities. I shall conclude by adding some reflections on the limits of managerial ethical leadership. Georges Enderle is a private tutor for business ethics at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Since 1983 he has been Director of the Institute for Business Ethics. He is the author of Sicherung des Existenzminimums im nationalen und internationallen Kontext — eine wirtschaftsethische Studie,and he has written various articles on business ethics.     

Individual and organizational characteristics of women in managerial leadership

Women are making a substantial impact on the employment market, both in terms of overall numbers as well as by appointment to male-dominated organizational roles. Research on women in leadership positions within organizations has concentrated on two main foci. Firstly, the identification of relevant individual and organizational characteristics and secondly, on the impact of these variables on the women in management roles. This paper presents the findings from a series of studies in relation to these broad dimensions. Dr. Rowney was the chairperson of the Management of Organizations and Human Resources Area from 1978 to 1980 and until recently held the position of Associate Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. During 1988 she was a Visiting Professor to the Jiatong University in Xi'an and to the Australian Management College in Mount Eliza, Victoria, Australia. Commencing in January 1990 she will be at the International Management Center in Budapest, Hungary. Consultative activities have included such organizations as the Alberta Wheat Pool, Alberta Gas Ethylene, Gulf Canada and Technology Systems International. Research papers have been published in numerous journals including the Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology, Canadian Personnel and Industrial Relations Journal, Canadian Psychological Review and Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science. Her more recent publications include A Comparison of Burnout Across Public/Private Sector Managers and The Relationships Between Risk Propensity, and Individual and Job Environment Variables, Journal of Health and Human Administration; and A Preliminary Investigation of Burnout Dimensions in Intact Work Groups, Proceedings XXIV International Congress of Psychology. Currently, Dr. Rowney is involved in a major cross-cultural study of the environmental context of management and personnel in several countries. This research is an extension of projects involving women in management, stress, burnout and the public/private sector. Dr. Rowney is also a registered O.D. consultant and member of the International Advisory Board of the O.D. Institute. Dr. Cahoon has published numerous articles in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Canadian Public Administration, Journal of Health and Human Resource Administration Organization Development Journal, Canadian Journal of Petroleum Technology, and Leadership and Organization Development Journal. He has served as a member of the National Executive of IPAC and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Public Administration. Dr. Cahoon was a member of the Directing Staff of the Australian Administrative Staff College in Mount Eliza, Victoria, Australia from September 1, 1986 to July 1987. Some of his more recent publications include the chapter Overcoming Resistance to Affirmative Action in R. Rentschler's, T. Tullock's and K. Cole's (Eds) Affirmative Action in Action: A Guide to Implementation, JPMA (Inc.), Melbourne, Australia, 1987; and the article Management Development: A Competency Based Approach, The Practicing Manager, Vol. 8, No. 3, April 1987. His conference papers include: The Interaction Between Worksite Variables and Personal Characteristics for Female Managers (with Julie Rowney, JIA), presented at the Third International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, Dublin, Ireland, July 1987; and The Challenge of Human Resource Management: Maximizing the Human Asset Potential, presented at the Annual Conference of the Victoria Council for Educational Administration, Melbourne, Australia, June 1987. He is currently involved in a longitudinal study on the status of women as managers, stress and burnout. He is completing a text on Public Management in Canada and looking at the organizational and human resource implications of downsizing.     

Personal attributes,organizational conditions,and ethical attitudes: a social cognitive approach

This paper investigates the impact of personal attributes and organizational conditions on attitudes toward corporate misdeeds. On the basis of social cognitive theory, we develop hypotheses that are tested against data collected from 215 German employees using an online survey. Our findings suggest that personal attributes (i.e. gender, age, Big five personality traits) have a much greater impact on ethical attitudes than organizational conditions (i.e. organizational culture). Further, a moderating effect of control‐oriented culture on the relationship between personality traits (i.e. conscientiousness, extraversion) and attitudes toward corporate misdeeds is found. We derive implications for human resource management and further theory development.     

Engagement,telepresence and interactivity in online consumer experience: Reconciling scholastic and managerial perspectives

We propose a conceptual framework that reconciles the practitioners' view of engagement as central to online best practice and the scholarly view that tends to use other constructs to assess consumer experience. Building on research in e-learning as well as online marketing, we characterize the consumer experiential response to website and environmental stimuli as a dynamic, tiered perceptual spectrum which includes interactivity, telepresence and engagement. We construe engagement as a cognitive and affective commitment to an active relationship with the brand as personified by the website, and we propose dimensions of this construct. We discuss how the constructs of interactivity, flow and involvement are related to but distinct from the constructs within our conceptual framework. We offer suggestions for future empirical research into developing a scale for engagement and assessing its importance and utility.     

Avatars as salespeople: Communication style, trust, and intentions

Interactions with retail salespersons in stores contribute to building trust and profits. Within the largely impersonal Internet, an interactive animated character or avatar, playing the social role of an online sales assistant, should provide a potent source of social presence and so have the potential to replace some of these interactions. This investigation tests whether avatars with social- or task-oriented communication styles contribute to user trust and patronage intentions. Further tests explore the moderating effects of product/service type. The study includes an online experiment and survey, involving 636 participants, mainly from North America, Oceania and Europe, allocated randomly to different treatments.Task-oriented communications contribute to trust, which in turn contributes to patronage intentions, especially for search goods/services. Social-oriented communications also contribute directly to trust and to patronage intentions, most strongly for credence goods/services. The authors recommend a three-fold approach to avatar implementation, involving requirements captured to define appropriate appearance, role, interaction style and content for the task. Conclusions include further suggestions for development and research.     

Multi-item models for evaluating managerial and organizational resources in service firms

Services are the primary source of wealth in almost every nation around the world. Domestic competitiveness increasingly depends on the health of its service firms. Then understanding the source of competitive advantage for the case of service industry is a challenge that cannot be deferred. Resource-Based View literature gives sound evidences that intangible assets like managerial and organizational resources are the primary source of competitive advantage, especially in the service industry. However, the development of managerial tools for measuring and managing these resources remains as an open gap. In the last few years, some academic work has been devoted to develop intangible assets measurement devices. Nevertheless, these scales are either oriented towards manufacturing industry or do not take specifically into account the distinctive features of service delivery. This study replies the multi-item model proposed by Camisón (Manag Res 3(1):27–48, 2004) over a sample of 152 medium and large services companies. We have taken different tests to demonstrate validity and reliability of the scales. Results show that these scales may also be suitable for being used in all the types of service companies. However, some partial modifications should be done in order to give more relevance to soft managerial competences and to organizational human capital. This study was carried out as part of research project (reference GV2007-075) which has been subsidized by the “Valencian Government Programme Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects”.     

Collaborating for success: managerial perspectives on co-branding strategies in the fashion industry

Abstract

This article investigates the nature of co-branded relationships within the fashion industry. Existing co-branding literature focuses heavily on consumer evaluations, and many studies explore FMCG and electronics markets, within which ingredient co-branding is common. When two brands from the fashion industry collaborate, both brands exist independently and do not rely on ‘ingredients’ for developing a new product and, therefore, presenting an opportunity for exploring the drivers and types of relationships that could exist. This study adopts an interpretive method of investigation using in-depth interviews with brand managers. Findings provide empirical support for value creation through different relationship levels (such as brand/awareness co-branding, values endorsement and complementary competence co-branding) while highlighting some challenges and risks for co-branding in practice. This article discusses implications for theory development and practice and highlights avenues for future research.     

企业文化与企业绩效的关系研究——一致性和均衡性的观点

Building on the Competing Values Framework (CVF), we investigated the relationship between organizational culture and performance. The perspective of consistency and that of balance were applied to examine the relationship. We tested our hypotheses on a sample of 270 companies in China, which resulted in two major findings. First, the consistency between organizational culture and external environment was found positively associated with organizational performance. Consistency was operationalized as a match between an organization’s current culture and its preferred future culture. Second, balance of organizational culture was found positively correlate with organizational performance. A balanced culture was defined as one in which values of each of the CVF culture types are equally held. Translated and revised from Kexuexue yu kexue jishu guanli 科学学与科学技术맜理(Science of Science and Management of S. & T.), 2007, 28(8): 140–148     

Deviant managerial behavior: Costs,outcomes and prevention

This paper examines deviant managerial behavior, and compares such behavior to the clinical psychological sociopathic model. The scope of a multinational corporate operation can enhance or degrade the quality of life for individuals with more impact than at any previous time in history. Social costs are compared to the results of sociopathic behavior and examined as the result of amoral or immoral behavior. The idea of the sociopathic manager is discussed, and theoretical causes of sociopathic development are examined with bases in behavioral, economic and criminological literature. Future research and recommendations for prevention of sociopathic behavior are advanced.N. S. Miceli is a doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma majoring in Management (Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management). His research interests include the effects of ASPD on decision making, attitudes toward disabled persons, occupational health and stress, international business, cross-cultural issues and labor relations.An earlier version of this paper was presented at a Southwest Academy of Management Meeting.     

Linking organizational culture, structure, strategy, and organizational effectiveness: Mediating role of knowledge management

Practices of knowledge management are context-specific and they can influence organizational effectiveness. This study examines the possible mediating role of knowledge management in the relationship between organizational culture, structure, strategy, and organizational effectiveness. A survey was conducted of 301 organizations. The results suggest that knowledge management fully mediates the impact of organizational culture on organizational effectiveness, and partially mediates the impact of organizational structure and strategy on organizational effectiveness. The findings carry theoretical implications for knowledge management literature as they extend the scope of research on knowledge management from examining a set of independent management practices to examining a system-wide mechanism that connects internal resources and competitive advantage.     

Core self‐evaluations and salespeople

A schemata drawn from the literature addressing core self‐evaluations was tested with the use of a sample of commissioned salespeople. Research propositions were tested for the internal locus of control, high self‐efficacy beliefs group and for the external locus of control, low self‐efficacy group of salespeople. Support was derived for several of the propositions. However, the relationship between performance and cell membership indicated that both internal, high self‐efficacy beliefs salespeople and external, high self‐efficacy beliefs salespeople perform at a higher level than those in the other cells. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Subnational managerial transformation and the post‐WTO‐accession business environment in China: Shanghai perspectives

The market‐oriented perspectives held by managers of China's municipal government agencies and urban enterprises constitute critical variables in the business environment encountered by foreign investors. A study of 426 predominantly subnational managers in Shanghai found most study participants generally positively inclined toward implementing accession‐related reforms and toward marketoriented developments. The study also revealed a surging interest in careers with foreign‐affiliated entities and widespread preference for incentives that give foreign‐invested firms a competitive hiring and retention advantage over domestic, especially state, establishments. The overall results suggest the transformation of subnational managerial orientations in a direction that is conducive for foreign participation in Shanghai's postaccession economy. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.