Identification of values relevant to business research

In the face of increasing global competition, Human Resource (HR) professionals have been charged with ensuring that their organizations' human assets are adding the maximum value to products and services. One way to do this is to make an effective match between individual values and those that the organization espouses and requires. This article suggests that advances in maximizing human assets are being impeded because HR professionals lack a meaningful vocabulary with which to discuss values. Lists or taxonomies of values currently in the literature (Allport, G. W., Vernon, P. E., & Lindzey, G. (1960). A study of values. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; England, G. W. (1967). The manager and his values: An international perspective from the United States, Japan, Korea, India, and Australia. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger; Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: The Free Press) are not framed in the common language of contemporary business. This article presents an alternative list of values derived from interviews with representatives from the business community including senior HR managers and executive recruitment professionals. The implications of this empirically derived list of value statements for the management of human resources are discussed, including the integration of HR and strategic functions and applications within traditional HR practices.     

Sustainability motives,values and communication of slow fashion business owners

Research on sustainable consumption is increasing however, it mostly focuses on commercial products. Fashion industry in general remains understudied especially small size business in sustainable fashion. Even this segment continues to be neglected in research, it creates a significant impact on sustainability. The study is carried in Lithuania. While sustainability is regarded as the business standard in neighboring countries, especially Scandinavia, Lithuania is still learning how to become more conscious and sustainable. Although the country has the capacity to lead sustainability in the region, there is inadequate education on this matter. Regardless, several local businesses and governments agree that incorporating sustainability is a single clear route to economic growth. The paper aims to understand motives and values of Lithuanian sustainable clothing business owners and explore how they communicate these motives and values. The study employs a qualitative approach of in-depth semi-structured interviews. The analysis is guided by the framework of grounded theory, which leads to the conception of four themes: (1) Initiating a Change; (2) Respectful and Responsible Approach; (3) Slowness; (4) Personal and Purposeful Communication. A possible limitation of this study is the language barrier. Participants could choose whether they wished to speak in English or Lithuanian. Three out of seven chose to speak their native language, while four agreed to speak in English. Although English-speaking participants did not show any difficulty expressing themselves, their interviews turned out to be shorter than those conducted in Lithuanian. Findings indicate that the motives, values, and communication procedures of the owners are reflected in bringing about a change in consumers' minds and actions, taking responsibility to show respect to stakeholders and the environment, slowing down in every step from design to shipping, and building a conscious and educated community. The paper has defined relevant terms and put forward the ground values of the sustainable fashion industry by giving a voice to sustainable clothing business owners, their experiences, and insights.     

创造一个以"绩效"为导向的交通企业培训文化

主要讲述了交通企业培训文化的创造应以绩效为导向,分析了该文化的创建应在交通企业的员工培训中贯穿始终地进行培训评估,并强化了投资回报率的评估,研究出五级评估中交通企业的哪些培训适合哪一级评估。     

Personality similarities and differences between Mexican and American business leaders

A study was conducted to investigate personality similarities and differences for a group of 200 business leaders, 100 each from Southern Mexico and the United States. Mexican and American leaders were administered the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) in their native language (Spanish or English). A demographic questionnaire solicited information about age, education, and gender. These variables were used as covariates in some analyses. After controlling for the effects of age, gender, and education level, the authors found that Mexican leaders scored higher than their American counterparts on the warmth, emotional stability, social boldness, and openness to change scales. American leaders scored higher on the abstractedness and self‐reliance scales. On scales related to leadership there were between‐nationality differences on emotional stability, social boldness, abstractedness, and self‐reliance. Additional studies are suggested to illuminate cross‐nationality similarities and differences.     

Multi-factor of cultural values: a confirmatory factor analytic approach

All organisations is unique and thus practise different cultural values in the context of an organisation. Determination of values that constitute to the organisation is of challenging task. Therefore, this paper expounds the value-based culture that is related to the performance of the organisation based on the literature review and expert’s view. This study aimed at testing the psychometric properties of the questionnaire of value-based culture items of performance measurement based on the value-based total performance excellence model. 400 questionnaires were distributed to the selected Institution of Higher Learning (IHL) i.e, the public university of Malaysia. The data collected was analysed using predictive analytics software and analysis of moment structures software, both version 18. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique i.e., the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach was employed to test the 6-factor hypothesized model of the value-based cultures which consisted values of citizenship, consultation, caring, trust, respect and quality. The result suggested that 2 core values i.e., consultation and trust that dominantly explained the university’s culture in the selected university from the proposed of 6 core values in the hypothesized model. The findings also paved the way forward for empowering value-based cultures especially at the IHL. However, future research should be conducted to reaffirm this model to represent the values embraced by the universities in Malaysia.     

Work-related acculturation: change in individual work-related cultural values following immigration

The effects of culture in the workplace have been well documented. Because cultures vary across countries, business practices that are effective in some regions may not be effective in others. While cross-country cultural differences have been explored in depth, little is known about cultural variations and dynamics in the context of immigration. On the basis of a multilevel study of 2163 immigrants and locals residing in Canada, we investigate (1) patterns of immigrant acculturation; (2) the relationship between acculturation of visible elements of culture, such as language proficiency or cuisine and music tastes, and acculturation of tacit cultural values and (3) individual- and group-level predictors and moderators of acculturation. The results are discussed with a focus on implications for practitioner managers and immigration policy makers.     

美国企业管理的学习与借鉴

本文总结了作者赴美培训考察的印象和体会。认为美国企业管理中最看重创新与信誉,高度重视信息化在管理和决策中的作用,具有超强的全球化意识,注重科技成果的利用和转化,以及科技园区基础设施的配套完善。这些都值得国内企业学习和借鉴。     

Organizational achievement values,high‐involvement work practices,and business unit performance

This study examines the relationships among organizational achievement values, high‐involvement work practices (HIWP), and business unit performance. Specifically, we examine whether HIWP mediate or moderate the effect of achievement values on retail store performance. Using data collected at three points in time from more than 1,000 employees, we found support for the mediation model. The article concludes with directions for future research and implications for management practice. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The financial and green effects of cultural values on mission drifts in European social enterprises

The sustainable social enterprises (SEs) literature shows that SEs have to simultaneously pursue economic, social, and environmental aims. However, tensions between these objectives can make this a challenging task and lead towards mission drift. This work investigates if the cultural dimension can forecast the mission drift. We empirically analyze this relationship in three stages. In the first stage, we identify a homogeneous dataset of 287 sustainable SEs from seven EU countries from 2011 to 2020. Then, in the second stage, we apply the data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology to calculate the efficiency of the SEs. An efficient SE has to simultaneously achieve social, environmental, and economic aims. We calculate a proxy of the mission drift and generate a dichotomous category variable that assigns value 1 to the SE not affected by mission drift, 0 otherwise. In the last stage, we implement the 2SLS logistic regression between the variable that identifies the SEs affected by mission drift and three cultural dimensions: avoidance of uncertainty, masculinity, and short-term orientation.     

Cultural norms & business start-ups: the impact of national values on opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs

It has long been known that the level of entrepreneurship, indicated as the percentage of incorporated and unincorporated nascent businesses relative to the labor force differs strongly across countries. This variance is related to differences in levels of economic development (Wennekers et al. 2005), but also to diverging demographic, cultural, and institutional characteristics (Acs and Armington 2004; Busenitiz et al. 2000; Fusari 1996; Karlsson and Duhlberg 2003; Rocha 2004; Thurik et al. 2006; Wong et al. 2005). Incorporating an institutional perspective, the aim of this research is to test if culture, operationalized through the World Values Survey (WVS) data, is a significant factor in predicting opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship rates at the country level. Opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship rates will be averaged from the 2001 to 2003 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and aggregated for 38 countries in this cross-sectional analysis.     

Effects of social and cultural processes on health1

Future advances in the planning and evaluation of health service systems are highly dependent upon the development of a methodology that permits the empirical validation of hypotheses concerning the effects of social and cultural processes on health. In this paper such a methodology has been proposed. A structural model has been developed and analyzed, using the causal modeling technique of path analysis, in which social, economic, and demographic characteristics of New Mexico counties have been related to the infant mortality rate as an index of health. Path coefficients have been estimated from census data and vital statistics. Dynamic programming has been utilized to predict the combined direct and indirect effects on the health of New Mexico's population that would result from changes in the composition of the population.Analysis of the model suggests that these structural characteristics are causally interrelated, with economic factors a major determinant of infant mortality. While urbanization and migration also significantly affect infant mortality rates, education surprisingly is not important causally when compared to other variables, nor is proportion nonwhite when other social and economic factors are taken into account. In contrast, the proportion of Spanish-Americans residing in a county has a rather unexpected effect in that infant mortality rates decline as the proportion of this ethnic group rises. This finding suggests that it is important in health planning to consider cultural factors that may be unique to particular ethnic groups.In general the model building techniques and the algorithms presented here provide a valuable means of generating and testing hypotheses regarding the effects of social and cultural processes on health.     

Exploring TQM awareness in the Greek national business context: between conservatism and reformism cultural determinants of TQM

This paper develops the theoretical understanding of the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) in business environments that differ from those from where it emerged. Business systems that are less developed tend to adopt more ‘sophisticated’ and formal strategic initiatives. The adoption of TQM by Greek organizations is a prime example. However, less has been said about the understanding of TQM or its cultural determinants in such environments. This paper, based on the results of 73 semi-structured interviews conducted with managers working in Greek public and private organizations, argues that there are two antithetical business-cultural ‘forces’ – conservatism and reformism – that seem to substantially affect the awareness and application of total quality concepts. Both features create pressures in the system, either restraining or promoting TQM implementation. In this context, the tension between traditional business culture and a modernization logic is the key to understanding the development of TQM.     

Sentiment and the U.S. business cycle

Psychological factors are commonly believed to play a role on cyclical economic fluctuations, but they are typically omitted from state-of-the-art macroeconomic models.This paper introduces “sentiment” in a medium-scale DSGE model of the U.S. economy and tests the empirical contribution of sentiment shocks to business cycle fluctuations.The assumption of rational expectations is relaxed. The paper exploits, instead, observed data on expectations in the estimation. The observed expectations are assumed to be formed from a near-rational learning model. Agents are endowed with a perceived law of motion that resembles the model solution under rational expectations, but they lack knowledge about the solution’s reduced-form coefficients. They attempt to learn those coefficients over time using available time series at each point in the sample and updating their beliefs through constant-gain learning. In each period, however, they may form expectations that fall above or below those implied by the learning model. These deviations capture excesses of optimism and pessimism, which can be quite persistent and which are defined as sentiment in the model. Different sentiment shocks are identified in the empirical analysis: waves of undue optimism and pessimism may refer to expected future consumption, future investment, or future inflationary pressures.The results show that exogenous variations in sentiment are responsible for a sizable (above forty percent) portion of historical U.S. business cycle fluctuations. Sentiment shocks related to investment decisions, which evoke Keynes’ animal spirits, play the largest role. When the model is estimated imposing the rational expectations hypothesis, instead, the role of structural investment-specific and neutral technology shocks significantly expands to capture the omitted contribution of sentiment.     

Transformational leadership and job involvement in the Middle East: the moderating role of individually held cultural values

This study examines whether individually held cultural values moderate the relationship between transformational leadership behavior of supervisors and the job involvement of subordinates in the Middle Eastern organizational context. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze survey data from 229 employees of 10 organizations in the United Arab Emirates. In line with the findings of studies in Western countries, transformational leadership was found to influence job involvement positively. In addition, the cultural value orientations of individuals were found to moderate this relationship. Collectivism positively influenced the relationship between transformational leadership and job involvement, whereas uncertainty avoidance had a negative effect. These findings provide an insight into how transformational leadership may be used to motivate culturally diverse groups of employees within the Middle East. To enhance job involvement, organizations need to realize that the attitudinal response of subordinates to transformational leadership can depend on their cultural values. This has significant implications regarding the training and effective deployment of transformational leaders within Middle Eastern organizations.     

A cross-national comparison of cultural value orientations of Indian,Polish, Russian and American employees

This study examines the cultural value orientations (VOs) of employees (managerial and non-managerial) working in three categories of organizations (professional, technical and local services) in India, Poland, Russia and the USA. The analysis is conducted at both the national and organizational levels. The paper hypothesizes cultural differences at the country level and cultural similarities among employees working for professional and technical oriented organizations and divergence in the VOs of employees working for local services organizations. It also hypothesizes differences in the VOs of managerial and non-managerial employees in the four countries. The investigation has been conducted with the help of a questionnaire survey of 1,852 respondents. The outcomes of the analysis show that there are both cross-country cultural differences and similarities among the VOs of employees of the four nations. Further, significant cultural convergence emerges in the VOs of employees working for both professional and technical organizations, however, no significant cultural similarities or differences are observed for employees of service-based organizations in the four countries. There are some similarities emerging between managerial employees in the research countries. The research contributes to the fields of cross-cultural management, international management and international human resource management.     

The impact of the US on Latin American business cycles: A new approach

Business cycles in Latin America have tended to be more volatile than those in wealthier nations such as the US. Accordingly, much research has been conducted on Latin business cycles, as well as the impact of the US on such fluctuations. Some research seeks to find how “integrated” cycles are in the US and Latin America, yielding conflicting results. We apply a new method to the question of business cycle synchronization between the US and nine Latin nations. We find that in the majority of cases integration has been rising in recent years. We also find, contrary to some previous studies, that integration does not appear to be affected by either the level of trade or of capital account openness. Finally, we find that the two countries that are dollarized – Ecuador and El Salvador – appear least integrated with the US. This last finding has potentially troubling implications in terms of the ability of these nations to adjust to asymmetric shocks vis-à-vis the US.     

Bank fee-based shocks and the U.S. business cycle

Efficient liquidity matching requires from banks to track external shocks (e.g., GDP growth shocks, stock market shocks and monetary policy shocks) in order to optimally allocate their assets between loans and other business lines. Profit maximizing banks have to rebalance their product-mix to take advantage of these changes. However, even though banking is cyclical, and contemporaneously reacts to shocks outside the banking sphere, there may also be some feedback effects at play, whereby bank changes, in turn, could affect economic and financial conditions. Generalizing the results of Marcucci and Quagliariello (2006, 2009), who indeed find an asymmetric impact of credit shocks on economic and financial time series in recession, we use a similar VAR framework to show that an even stronger feedback effect is prevalent for fee-based shocks. If the feedback effects of credit and fee-based shocks might have been both at play before the subprime crisis, the feedback effect of credit shocks seems to have faded away during the subprime crisis, whereas the feedback effect stemming from fee-based shocks has gained further strength.     

城市文化遗产保护与城市文化建设

从城市文化遗产与城市文化之间的紧密关系入手,认为文化遗产是城市发展的历史见证、特色体现及重要的发展资源;同时考察了当前快速城市化以及全球化的社会和时代背景对城市文化遗产保护所造成的严重冲击,以及城市对文化建设和特色塑造的必然追求,并就其传承与发展提出了相关建议。