Is the Ethical Culture of the Organization Associated with Sickness Absence? A Multilevel Analysis in a Public Sector Organization

The main aim of the present study was to examine whether an ethical organizational culture is associated with sickness absence in a Finnish public sector organization at both the individual (within-level) and work unit (between-level) levels. The underlying assumption was that employees working for organizations that are characterized by a strong ethical organizational culture report less sickness absence. The sample consisted of 2192 employees from one public sector city organization that included 246 different work units. Ethical organizational culture was measured with the Corporate Ethical Virtues scale covering eight sub-dimensions. Sickness absence was inquired by asking the participants to report how many days they had been absent from work because of their own sickness over the past year. Multilevel structural equation modelling showed that, at the individual level, perceptions of a strong ethical organizational culture were associated with less sickness absences after controlling for the background factors. This link was not found at the work-unit level. The findings indicate that an ethical organizational culture plays a significant role in enhancing employee well-being measured as sickness absence. It seems that especially supervisor’s ethical role modeling and possibilities to discuss about ethical issues are important factors in preventing sickness absence in the organizations.     

Is the Red Dragon Green? An Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Environmental Proactivity in China

China is the world’s second largest economy and the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, yet we know little about environmental proactivity in the most populated country in the world. We address this gap through a survey of 161 Chinese companies with two respondents per firm (N = 322), where we seek to identify the antecedents and consequences of environmental proactivity. We identify two categorizations of environmental proactivity: Environmental operational improvements and environmental reporting. We find that ecological motivations and regulatory stakeholder pressure are positively related to both types of environmental proactivity, and external stakeholder pressure is negatively related to environmental reporting. Furthermore, we find that (1) if a firm is environmentally proactive (as it relates to either measure) and they are ecologically motivated, there is a positive and significant cost advantage, and (2) if a firm makes use of environmental operational improvement and they are competitively motivated, there is a positive and significant reputation advantage. Implications for researchers, managers, and policy-makers in China are discussed.     

How Can Globalization Affect Income Distribution? Evidence from Developing Countries

ABSTRACT

The standard Hecksher-Ohlin-Samuelson framework claimed that foreign trade benefits developing countries, but many empirical studies suggest otherwise. After analyzing data on income deciles from the World Income Distribution Database for 66 developing countries, we found that trade openness benefits underprivileged people in affluent countries but not in developing countries. Also, external financial flows and democracy in conjunction do not exert significant effects, suggesting that these variables might affect income distribution through different channels. Finally, we reinforce the Kuznets inverted-U hypothesis; namely, the presence of an economic development threshold beyond which low-income deciles would increase.     

What about the Intended Consequences?

Research that examines race-stereotyped advertising emphasizes the social impact of these representations and overlooks the potential positive effect on advertising effectiveness. The present research examines the effects of race-stereotyped portrayals on advertising effectiveness among both members and nonmembers of a group that is stereotyped in an advertisement. We integrate research on consumer identity, social categorization, and advertising persuasion to hypothesize the process underlying viewers' attitude formation when exposed to advertising featuring a race-stereotyped portrayal. Results of an experiment conducted in South Africa demonstrate that members of the group that is the subject of the stereotyped portrayal (stereotyped viewers) feel offended. At the same time, results suggest that nonstereotyped viewers experience ambivalence when exposed to stereotyped portrayals. Findings highlight the role of viewers' strength of identification and provide guidance to advertisers with regard to the use of stereotyped portrayals in advertising.     

Inverting the Pyramid of Values? Trends in Less-Developed Countries

The authors discuss the consistency of transnational companies in their home, as well as in less developed host countries, concerning ethics, values and social responsibility. Ethical behavior offers good reputation, credibility and tradition to the corporation. It leads to corporate social, environmental and economic responsibilities, cooperating to the desired sustainability. This paper analyzes the inversion of values that corporate governance systems have suffered. The meaning and implication of the corporate social responsibility is investigated and discussed. A “pyramid of values” is built upon individual ethical values at the basis. Over them, the organizational ethical values should indicate the limits of operations, so that the corporate social responsibility can be sustained, in the top. The authors comment that ethical values no longer lead the organization. Its communication with the stakeholders, specifically through reports, has been gradually replacing the code of ethics and corporate values. These reports have taken the basis of the pyramid leading the organizations to socially irresponsible and unethical behavior. They do not guarantee transparency or communicate the needs of the society. It appears that transnational companies do not behave the same way in their home country as they do in host countries, particularly in less developed regions like Latin America and Africa. Lack of communication and transparency may induce employees to unethical decisions and transform the reporting system into a marketing instrument. In order to guarantee compliance with the codes, transparency and ethical responsibility, communication within the organization is essential.     

Where Is the Economic Center of the West?

The China Western Forum 2000was held from 20 to 22 Octoberin Chengdu. Twenty policiesencouraging investment in the west wereput forward, and the western developmentwas further accelerated.Will Chengdu the No.4 City inChina?There are three generally acceptedmetropolises in China: Beijing, Shanghaiand Guangzhou.In a new round of competition, whichcity will become the No.4 after Beding,Shanghai and Guangzhou?Western cities are longing for thisposition.On the vast 56% of Chinese land inthe…     

Who Bears the Cost of Agricultural Support in OECD Countries?

This paper provides quantitative estimates of the impact of removing agricultural support in both OECD and developing countries in partial and general equilibrium frameworks. The results show that agricultural support in OECD countries is highly distortionary, and tariffs have a larger distortionary impact than subsidies. Removal of agricultural support would likely raise the international prices of food, resulting in an increase in the cost of food for many net‐food importing countries, although the size of the increase is generally small. The results also show that most of the benefits from removing agricultural support accrue to the countries that liberalise.     

Organizational Citizenship Behavior and the Public Service Ethos: Whither the Organization?

Public services worldwide have been subject to externally imposed reforms utilizing tools such as financial incentives and performance targets. The adverse impact of such reforms on a public service ethos has been claimed, but rarely demonstrated. Individuals within organizations work beyond their formal contracts of employment, described as Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), to further organizational interests. Given New Public Management reform and the subsequent contextual changes in the way in which public sector organizations are managed and funded, the present study theorizes that OCB directed towards the organization may be ‘crowded-out’. This article tests the relationships between public service ethos and OCB and it presents empirical evidence from a study in England (n = 433) of the ability of each dimension of this ethos to predict OCB.     

Determinants of International Activities: Are SMEs Different?

In this paper we econometrically investigate the factors determining the choice of a specific internationalisation strategy. We distinguish four strategies, ranging from “serving foreign markets through exports only” up to “exporting and locating abroad several business functions such as distribution, production and R & D”. These strategies are evaluated against the reference category “domestic sales only” (multinomial logit model). The analysis, to a large extent, confirms Dunning’s well-known OLI paradigm. O-advantages turn out to be the main drivers of internationalisation, irrespective of firm size and internationalisation strategy. However, the knowledge-base on which O-advantages of smaller firms rests is more narrow than that of large companies. Whereas the former rely, in relative terms, primarily on capabilities related to incremental innovations, the latter draw to a higher extent on assets enabling them to be competitive in terms of far-reaching innovations. L-advantages (wages, regulatory framework, etc.) primarily are relevant in case of small firms; but even for this size class, O-advantages are dominant.     

Debt Relief for Low Income Countries: Is it Effective and Efficient?

Although a great deal of attention has been paid to IMF conditionality and to the effects of IMF programmes, relatively little attention has been paid to their completion rate. However, the record is that the clear majority of Fund programmes are uncompleted. Is this a cause for concern and why is it that the completion rate is low? In principle, a number of factors could be at work. Gaining a better understanding of what these are should allow policy reform at the IMF to improve performance. While there are things that we do not know and need to know about programme completion, we know enough to delineate the broad direction that policy should take.     

Standardization Versus Adaptation in Global Markets: Is Channel Strategy Different?

The argument over standardization versus adaptation of marketing strategy in international markets has raged for several decades. This argument has generally taken place at the aggregate level to include all four strategic areas of the marketing mix (product, price, promotion, and place) taken together. This article disaggregates the standardization-versus-adaptation argument by focusing on just one strategic area of the marketing mix—channel strategy. We argue that three underlying phenomena or forces in global markets (culturally distant distribution behavior, distributive institution rigidity, and international functional fragmentation) inhibit a firm's ability to standardize channel strategy in global markets to a greater degree than is the case for product, price, and promotional strategies.     

Ambush marketing: Is confusion to blame for the flickering of the flame?

Previous studies about the use of ambush marketing during major global sports events like the Olympics concentrated on the battle between ambush marketers versus official sponsors, and their success or failure to create a high level of recall or recognition. Almost no attention has been paid to the role event organizers are playing in this battle. This article presents the view that the Olympic event organizers are partially to blame for the growing use of ambush marketing, and the indifference that consumers exhibit to the use of ambush marketing. Data collected from a random sample of 1,500 consumers following the conclusion of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games reveal that consumers exhibit a lack of knowledge and confusion about the rights of official sponsors, the different levels of sponsorship, and the commitment to the event that is associated with each sponsorship level. Furthermore, the results demonstrate consumers' apathy to the use of ambush marketing. Some implications and actions that event organizers should take to improve consumer knowledge about the role of sponsors and to increase consumer public opinion against ambushers are suggested. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Internationalization Strategies of Business Schools: How Flat Is the World?

Business school strategy has become extremely complex, especially regarding internationalization. Using different paths, experiencing failure and success, business schools have internationalized, attracting many of the international students who contributed $27 billion¹ to the US economy in 2014. Some business schools are global, training global managers, while others serve national markets. How do business schools strategize about internationalization? Can we use existing models to explain this process? Are internationalization and globalization similar? Using a comparative analysis of six case studies in the United States and Europe, we found that the engine of internationalization influences its paths and outcomes. We contribute to international business (IB) research by discussing how business schools strategize their internationalization toward uniformity or diversity under isomorphic pressures from accreditation bodies (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business [AACSB], 2011) and rankings. The so‐called Uppsala model should be extended to address three tensions: internationalization versus globalization, enacted dimensions of audiences, and respective risks of different internationalization pathways. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Impact of Environmental Regulations on Trade in the Main EU Countries: Conflict or Synergy?

In an increasingly integrated world with declining trade barriers, environmental regulations can have a decisive role in shaping countries’ comparative advantages. The conventional wisdom about environmental protection is that it comes at an additional cost on firms imposed by the government, which may erode their global competitiveness. However, this paradigm has been challenged by some analysts. In particular, Porter and van der Linde argue that pollution is often associated with a waste of resources and that more stringent environmental policies can stimulate innovations that may overcompensate for the costs of complying with these policies. This is known as the Porter hypothesis. While there is a broad empirical literature on the impact of trade on environment, the empirical literature on the impact of environmental regulations on trade flows is relatively scarce, very heterogeneous and presents mixed results. The innovative feature of this paper is its attempts to estimate, in a gravity setting, augmented with a proxi of environmental stringency, the impact of three major multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) on 15 EU countries’ bilateral exports. According to our estimates, in the period 1988–2008, to be member of MEAs had a positive average impact on EU‐15 bilateral exports. This evidence can be partly explained by a possible trade diversion effect with respect to countries that did not sign MEAs and a corresponding trade creation effect among members of the environmental agreements. Furthermore, evidence coming from interaction effects estimates seems to show that for exporting countries, having signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Montreal agreements partly mitigates (by the amount of the estimated coefficient) the negative impact of having a relatively more stringent environmental regulation on bilateral trade. This result could have important policy implications for the future international trade–environmental negotiations.     

Is the global economy on the brink of recession?

Forum

Is the global economy on the brink of recession?     

The dark side of Bitcoin: Do Emerging Asian Islamic markets help subdue the ethical risk?

Continuous financing of illicit activities (drug and human trafficking, child abuse, cybercrimes) through Bitcoin nurtures the ethical risk of investors. Building on this argument, the current study investigates the extreme tail dependence between Bitcoin and Emerging Asian Islamic (EAI) markets. We report multiple tail-dependent copulas differing across turmoil periods for the whole sample period. Under the ethical-risk hypothesis and modern portfolio theory, our findings demonstrated stronger safe-haven properties of EAIs for Bitcoin to mitigate ethical risk, and higher diversification benefits are documented for both equally adjusted and optimal portfolios. We formulated useful implications for policymakers, governments, regulation authorities, ethical investors, and portfolio managers for policymaking and strategizing their investment portfolios.     

Assessing the Accountability of the Benefit Corporation: Will This New Gray Sector Organization Enhance Corporate Social Responsibility?

In recent years the benefit corporation has emerged as a new organizational form dedicated to legitimizing the pursuit of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Eschewing traditional governmental authority, the benefit corporation derives its moral legitimacy from the values of its owners and the oversight of a third party evaluator. This research identifies the benefit corporation as a new type of gray sector organization (GSO) and applies extant theory on GSOs to analyze its design. In particular, it shows how the theory of GSO accountability can be used to assess the potential of benefit corporations for enhancing CSR. This research first examines the statutes that have established benefit corporations in five states in the US, along with bills in other states, to show how legislation defines their specific public benefits and holds them accountable for delivering these benefits. It then compares the accountability of the benefit corporation with that of other corporate-centric GSOs, e.g., GSOs that closely resemble traditional corporations. It concludes with significant design-based concerns about the utility of the benefit corporation as an effective organization for implementing CSR.     

What Drives the Responsiveness of the Budget Balance to the Business Cycle in EU Countries?

Intereconomics - The European Commission methodology for computing the cyclically adjusted government budget balance provides a robust measurement of the fiscal position of the Member States. The...     

Who Invests in the Least Developed Countries?

Abstract

Africa is a giant market with a population of Europe and Japan combined, and highly diversified with respect to culture, natural resources, economic development, and political regimes. Yet, the continent is largely ignored with respect to research on the multinational activities of U.S. firms. In this paper, we provide the first evidence regarding the operating characteristics of U.S. firms that operate in Africa. We find that firms with operations in Africa are larger, more diversified, and more profitable than a matched control sample of multinational firms. This paper also shows that technology firms, manufacturing firms, and mining firms dominate the rest of companies operating in Africa. Certain geographical regions in Africa also seem to attract more companies than others, with Southern Africa being the most preferred region, while Central Africa is the least preferred. Finally, when a multinational firm invests in a specific country in Africa, it tends to do so in several business sectors.