Does Selection-Socialization Help to Explain Accountants' Weak Ethical Reasoning?

Recent business headlines, particularly those related to the collapsed energy-trading giant, Enron and its auditor, Arthur Andersen raise concerns about accountants' ethical reasoning. We propose, and provide evidence from 90 new auditors from Big-Five accounting firms, that a selection-socialization effect exists in the accounting profession that results in hiring accountants with disproportionately higher levels of the Sensing/Thinking (ST) cognitive style. This finding is important and relevant because we also find that the ST cognitive style is associated with relatively low levels of ethical reasoning, regardless of gender. This finding implies a need for emphasis on the ethical training of accountants. The results also suggest that accounting firms should consider recruiting accountants with cognitive styles associated with relatively higher levels of ethical reasoning.     

Identifying Ethical Problems Confronting Small Retail Buyers During the Merchandise Buying Process

This research was designed to develop an inventory of vendor-related problems experienced by buyers for small retail apparel stores during the merchandise buying process, determine how frequently each difficulty occurs, and identify the experiences perceived to be unethical. Among the 22 vendor-related difficulties examined minimum order requirements, 6 month advance purchase, incomplete orders, late shipments, and shipping overcharges were identified most frequently. Analysis of results suggested that one factor, misleading vendor practices, and eight background variables (annual sales, price line, full- and part-time employees, retail and buying experience, and shopping large or small markets) were associated with unethical experiences. Ethically troublesome experiences mentioned most frequently were padded orders, selling competitor same merchandise, withholding return authorization and credit, shipping overcharges, and dealing with vendor's factor.     

The Relationship Between Ethical Reasoning and the Perception of Difficulty with Ethical Dilemmas in Pharmacy Students: Implications for Teaching Professional Ethics

Teaching Business Ethics - The pharmacy profession, as is the case with much of health carein the United States, is undergoing a paradigm change from a profession that hashistorically emphasized...     

零售营销策略组合及零售业态多样化

现代零售业的一个种重要特征就是业态的多样化,各种新业态层出不穷.而不同业态的主要区别,在于其营销策略的组合方式.本文在总结前人关于零售业态演变理论的基础上,提出消费者偏好理论,指出消费者对零售服务需求的差异性,决定了零售经营形态的多样性,而消费者需求偏好的改变,导致了零售经营形式的改变,推动了零售业态的演化和发展.     

Relationship Commitment and Ethical Consumer Behavior in a Retail Setting: The Case of Receiving Too Much Change at the Checkout

In this study, we conducted two experiments to examine the effect of relationship commitment on the reaction of shoppers to receiving too much change, controlling for the amount of excess change. Hypotheses based on equity theory, opportunism and guilt were set up and tested. The first study showed that, when the less committed consumer is confronted with a large excess of change, he/she is less likely to report this mistake, compared with a small excess. Conversely, consumers with a high commitment towards the retailer are more likely to tell when they receive too much change, especially when the amount is large. The second experiment provided an explanation for these findings: the less committed consumer is driven by opportunism, whereas guilt-related feelings play an important role in a high commitment relationship. These results have several implications for both retail management and future research.     

零售专业技能的跨国转移与零售本土化问题研究

零售专业技能的跨国转移与零售本土化问题是零售国际化理论研究的一个重要环节,对跨国零售商海外经营的成败有着重要的作用。本文对零售专业技能的内涵与构成进行了全新的界定,认为零售专业技能由零售技术、零售文化以及零售业态三部分构成,每一部分又可以分解成固化性与操作性两个层面,在此基础之上构建起零售专业技能跨国转移的理论框架,认为零售专业技能的固化性层面在跨国转移过程中应该进行标准化的复制,而操作性层面则可以进行不同程度的本土化调整,进而论文围绕零售专业技能操作性层面在跨国转移过程中的调整行为深入分析了跨国零售本土化边界与策略问题。     

Innovations in Retail Pricing and Promotions

Retailers confront a seemingly impossible dual competitive challenge: grow the top line while also preserving their bottom line. Innovations in pricing and promotion provide considerable opportunities to target customers effectively both offline and online. Retailers also have gained enhanced abilities to measure and improve the effectiveness of their promotions. This article synthesizes recent advances in pricing and promotions findings as they pertain to enhanced targeting, new price and promotion models, and improved effectiveness. It also highlights the role of new enabling technologies and suggests important avenues for further research.     

零售业态的生成机理与我国零售业态结构调整

零售业态生成演变有其内在规律,随着经济的发展、科技的进步,新业态不断涌现。每一业态的形成与发展,必然与人口、购买力之间保持合理比例,各业态之间也要保持合理的比例结构。业态结构变革,是社会变革的一部分,是零售业变革的重要组成部分。近年来,我国零售业虽然打破业态单一化,形成了多种业态并存的格局,但大多数企业的业态变革,仍是一种浅层表面变革,需要根据业态生成的内在规律,寻求业态结构的合理化。     

购物中心与零售业变革

购物中心已被业界看成是我国零售业在未来几年发展的重要变数之一。作为一种全新的商业聚集形式和经营管理模式 ,购物中心所体现的人文关怀、多业态的相互融合、相互依存 ,代表了世界零售业的发展新趋势 ,并为城市中心区的复兴和旧商业街的改造提供了新的发展思路。     

Customer Satisfaction in Retail Banking

Professional services firms (PSFs) engaged in international operations present a unique challenge for governments. They directly and indirectly affect governmental policies and the agencies that enforce these policies through policy development, problem solving, and implementation. Yet, governments that seek to advance rational, forward thinking public policy have little, if any, regulatory control over the input and influence of these professional experts. International professional service firms face an increasingly competitive marketplace and complex challenges that demand skill sets that are markedly different from those characteristically required of consumer service companies. This study identifies the qualities of the best performing PSFs that engage clients worldwide. Implications are discussed for governments to ensure the greater public good.     

零售业顾客满意度测评研究

基于零售业在国民经济中的重要作用,及零售行业的特点,构建了零售业顾客满意度测评指标体系,并运用了定量与定性分析相结合的方法,将较为主观的测评过程模型化、数量化、合理化,以期对零售业顾客满意度进行科学的测量、分析和评价。     

Ethical Ideology and Ethical Judgments in the Portuguese Accounting Profession

The purpose of the present study is to examine the attitudes of Portuguese chartered accountants with respect to questions of ethical nature that can arise in their professional activity. Respondents were asked to respond to the Ethics Position Questionnaire developed by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(1), 175–184, 1980), in order to determine their idealism and relativism levels. Subsequently, they answered questions about five scenarios related to accounting practices, with the objective of measuring their ethical judgments. Based on the idealism and relativism levels of our respondents, they were classified into one of four groups, representing different ethical ideologies (absolutism, exceptionism, subjectivism, and situationism). The results indicated that age was the major determinant of relativism. Contrary to previous research, older respondents revealed themselves significantly more relativistic than younger ones. Gender seems to be the most important determinant of ethical judgments; against expectations, men evidenced significantly stricter judgments than women in two of the five scenarios. Findings also indicated that respondents’ ethical judgments did not differ significantly based on their ethical ideology, supporting the idea that ethical ideology is not an important determinant of ethical judgments.     

Retail Micro-Marketing Strategies and Competition

The goal of this paper is to open the debate about the effect of customer specific retail marketing on competition. Segmentation and targeting based on loyalty card information affects horizontal and vertical relationships. Few retailers can take advantage of the power connected to the ownership of customer information. Consumers benefit from a more targeted approach to value creation but the distribution of such value varies widely, as a consequence of micro-targeting. A second goal is to test a new way of conducting joint research with practitioners. An online community was set up for the discussion of micro-marketing related issues. Online, the authors have been able to test the hypothesis and deliver the survey questionnaire to participating retailers who, in turn, can access results through the community website: www.partnership4loyalty.com.     

Innovations in Retail Business Models

A retail business model articulates how a retailer creates value for its customers and appropriates value from the markets. Innovations in business models are increasingly critical for building sustainable advantage in a marketplace defined by unrelenting change, escalating customer expectations, and intense competition. Drawing from extant strategy and retailing research, we propose that innovations in retail business models are best viewed as changes in three design components: (1) the way in which the activities are organized, (2) the type of activities that are executed, and (3) the level of participation of the actors engaged in performing those activities. We propose six major ways in which retailers could innovate their business models to enhance value creation and appropriation beyond the levels afforded by traditional approaches to retailing. We also describe the drivers of business model innovations, the potential consequences of such innovations, and numerous examples from retail practice that highlight our concepts and arguments. In doing so, we provide a starting point for academic research in a domain that is deficient in theoretical and empirical research, and offer retailing managers a framework to guide retail business model innovations for sustainable competitive advantage.     

Organisation and Control in Retail Buying Groups

Retail alliances are a mechanism which enables small and medium retail businesses to compete with corporate retail chains. Alliances face different organisational problems from those of corporate chains because of the need to ensure convergence of interests between the individual member and the organisation as a whole. This paper examines how retail buying groups organise in terms of membership structures, control mechanisms, incentive structures and management systems to meet these needs. A study of retail buying groups in the United Kingdom is reported. Results show that these groups are not mirror images of corporate retail chains but vehicles to preserve the independence of their members through voluntary participation and democratic control structures.     

多渠道零售视角下的互动解析

信息化发展要求零售商拓展销售渠道。当前,直复渠道、网络渠道、移动渠道以及实体渠道等交叉融合形成多零售体系。多渠道零售使消费者具有更多消费选择权。互动是多渠道零售环境下零售商与消费者沟通交流的必要方式。零售商通过有效互动维持、稳定顾客关系,确保消费者对本企业的忠诚。互动促使消费者做出渠道选择。消费者通过互动寻求边际成本与边际收益的最佳结合点,选择最为符合自身意愿或消费效果最优化的购买渠道。     

Retail Characteristics and Ownership Structure

The choice of vertical relationships between an upstream manufacturer and a set of heterogeneous downstream retailers/entrepreneurs is examined using a principal-agent framework. Standard principal-agent theory predicts that as unobservable effort exerted by the retailer/entrepreneur becomes more important to the manufacturer, contracts between the manufacturer and agent will entail strong incentives and less direct control. The observability of effort is linked to retail characteristics in the gasoline industry, and station-level data on retail characteristics and ownership structure from every gasoline station in the Los Angeles retail gasoline market from 1992–1996 confirm the model's predictions.     

Mythic Agency and Retail Conquest

This paper expands agency theory by identifying mythic agency as a lens through which retailers can view spectacular events during which consumers act heroically to achieve an important consumption goal. Partaking in a stressful and challenging retail experience invokes the stages of a quest, through which successful consumers emerge transformed and where they challenge, at least in part, the culturally prescribed role of bride. Retailers who create events that evoke and support consumers’ heroic actions can develop powerful, meaningful, and enduring relationships with their customers.