US Multinationals and Workers' Rights Globally

History shows that legislation can make firms respect their workers’ rights and refrain from victimising them. Given the scale of disregard for workers’ rights around the globe and the absence of a global legislature, should the US step in to protect workforces globally, at least so far as concerns American multinationals? The author is completing her MBA at London Business School and has an American background in accountancy and banking.     

Work-Related Stress: An Ethical Perspective

Work-related stress is too often neglected by employers and rarely seen as an ethical issue by them. Its moral implications are explored here by the Senior Corporate Policy Manager at City and Inner London North Training and Enterprise Council, 80 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3DP. Sue Bryan, M.A., A.M.I.P.D., is also completing an Executive MBA degree at London Business School.     

Anatomy of a rural meat operation: The family values/firm strategy nexus at Jackson's of Symington,c.1890–1981

Addressing current concerns in the academic literature regarding family business, this study traces the development of Jackson's, a firm which became Scotland's leading producers of sheep meat by the late 1920s, fulfilling this role until 1981. The paper examines the firm's progress from its startup before 1900 to 1933, when it abandoned its cattle-dealing interests to specialise in the production of lamb and mutton, principally for the London wholesale markets, which it served by means of rail transportation. After 1954, the firm greatly increased its throughput to meet the growing demands of the post-war economy, but by the late 1970s, increasing difficulties associated with the EEC caused a deterioration in trading conditions and results and the firm withdrew from the market in 1981. The paper focuses on the family influence on strategic direction and implementation.     

Business Integrity in Transitional Economies: Central & Eastern Europe

What are the ethical concerns among the growing populations of business people in Central & Eastern Europe, and how might they be dealt with practically in the course of business life? David Murray has been a management consultant since 1979 working primarily with the Hay Group in the area of strategic organisational change. Since founding Maine Consulting Services in 1991 he spends most of his time in the field of business and professional ethics, also holding a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Central Lancashire. He is chairman of the Professional & Technical Board at the (British) Institute of Quality Assurance and a coordinating editor of the quarterly Organisations & People. Marek Kucia is a social researcher operating his own research agency (which organised the Polish part of this exercise) and an academic teaching sociology, and conducting and co-ordinating Central European Studies at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow. He studied political science, sociology and philosophy at Krakow and studied for his PhD at Oxford. He has also worked for Gallup, London, in opinion and market research. This survey report is based on presentations made in April 1994 to the EBEN Research Centres Conference in Prague, and in June 1994 to the conference on “Ethics in Transition” organised in Gödöllö, Hungary, by the Democracy after Communism Foundation, Budapest. The authors wish to acknowledge the major contribution to this work of Mr Juraj Kusnierik of the Central European Foundation, SEN, Bratislava, who co-ordinated the survey exercise. The project was sponsored by The Ethics Development Initiative, CARE, London; the Central European Foundation, SEN, Bratislava, Slovakia; SIS Ltd., Bratislava, Slovakia; and Maine Consulting Services, 16 Acrefield, Blackburn, Lancashire, England BB2 7BJ, to which all correspondence connected with this report should be addressed.     

Corporate institutionalization of ethics in the United States and Great Britain

This paper compares the results of large-scale U.S. and U.K. surveys designed to identify managers' major ethical concerns and to investigate how firms are formulating and communicating ethics policies responsive to these concerns.Our findings indicate some important differences between U.S. and U.K. firms in perceptions of what are important ethical issues, in the means used to communicate ethics policies, and in the issues addressed in ethics policies and employee training. U.K. companies tend to be more likely to communicate ethics policies through senior executives, whereas U.S. companies tend to rely more on their Human Resources and Legal Departments. U.S. firms consider most ethical issues to be more important than do their U.K. counterparts, and are especially concerned with employee behavior which may harm the firm. In contrast, the issues which U.K. managers consider more important tend to be concerned with external corporate stakeholders rather than employees.Diana C. Robertson is an Assistant Professor in the Legal Studies Department of The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Robertson has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at The London Business School and she has received The University of Pennsylvania Provost's Award for Distinguished Teaching. Her research interests include the impact of corporate policy and strategy on employees' ethical behavior, and the diffusion of ethical practices among corporations. Dr. Robertson has published articles in theSloan Management Review, theJournal of Business Ethics, andOrganization Science.Bodo B. Schlegelmilch holds the British Rail Chair of Marketing. Dr. Schlegelmilch was formerly a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Lecturer in Marketing and International Business at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include international and strategic marketing. Dr. Schlegelmilch has published articles in theJournal of International Business, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, andIndustrial Marketing Management.     

Salaries and promotion opportunities in the English banking industry, 1890–1936: a rejoinder

The article is a rejoinder to Andrew J. Seltzer's article, published in Business History in August 2010, which critiqued an article published in May 2008 on the topic of clerical salaries in London, 1870–1914. It examines trends in salaries and promotions of branch clerks at the London, County and Westminster Bank and at the National Provincial Bank, and focuses on the London area for the period 1880–1913. It argues that salaries increased between 1880 and 1895 and then declined from 1895 to 1913. Adjusting for tenure and inflation, salaries were approximately at the same level in 1913 as they were in 1880. It also examines the relationship between tenure and salary, linking both to the rise of internal labour markets in Britain's large retail banks.     

FOCUS: Using Case Studies to Teach Ethical Business

Case studies invite students to share in an ethical dilemma and challenge them about their values. Dr Sheldrake is Reader in Modern History at London Guildhall University, Old Castle St., London E1 7NT. A version of his case study appeared in Sarah Vickerstaff (Ed.), 1992, Human Resource Management in Europe: Text and Cases , London: Chapman & Hall.     

“A healthy outside starts from the inside”: A matter of sustainable consumption behavior in Italy and Pakistan

The aim of this research is to determine people's motives when purchasing organic food and how these motives are moderated by price sensitivity and ethical concerns in a cross-cultural setting. A highly structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from 673 Italian and 594 Pakistani consumers, using the convenience sampling technique. Based on the etic research approach, the measurement invariance tests were performed, and data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that environmental concerns and health-consciousness are significant predictors of subjective norms and purchase attitudes among Italian consumers. Food safety concern proved the strongest predictor of purchase attitude and perceived behavioral control among Pakistani consumers. The results also confirm the moderating role of ethical concerns and price sensitivity in buying organic food in both cultures. In terms of originality, this study fills significant gaps in the literature, particularly regarding the roles of attitude, behavioral control, and subjective norms in consumer buying motives and purchasing intentions in cross-cultural studies but more importantly, the results validate that consumer concerns across the globe are related to the Sustainability Development Goals and the U.N. 2030 agenda, which aptly provides a blue print for the development and developmental goals and concerns across nations.     

FOCUS: Synergy Between Creativity and Destructiveness in Competition

Creativity is a powerful determinant of all economic activity, including competition. But its mirror image may be destructiveness, which cannot be ignored, either in life or in business. In fact, the nature of competition appears to involve synergy between the two. The author has considerable business experience as a Senior Executive of a medium-sized textile group, and is now Visiting Lecturer in Social Ethics at Heythrop College, University of London, Kensington Square, London W8 5HQ. This paper was first presented at a Seminar on Teaching Business Ethics held at London Business School on Friday, 10 March, 1995.     

Understanding the drivers of organic foods purchasing of millennials: Evidence from Brazil and Spain

This paper examines the antecedents of millennials' organic food purchasing. A conceptual framework, based on product characteristics, and consumers' concerns and consciousness, is proposed. Data collection was conducted through a survey in two culturally and socioeconomically distinct countries (Brazil vs. Spain) to increase the robustness and generalizability of the results. The results show that product characteristics and consumer concerns improve millennials’ health consciousness and increase their social consciousness, which, in turn, increase their willingness to pay a price premium and their purchase frequency of organic foods. The findings show that the proposed model has high validity, with only one significant difference between the two countries. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.     

FOCUS: Is it Ethical to Compete on Ethics?

Should ethical performance be a competitive factor in business behaviour? Is this necessarily a cynical view?‘A mature investigation into the use and abuse of ethics in relation to competition is required.’Dr Alan Stainer is Head of Engineering Management at Middlesex University, Bounds Green Rd., London N11 2NQ, Fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science and Founder Director of the International Society for Productivity & Quality Research. Mrs Lorice Stainer is Senior Lecturer in Business Organisation at the University of Hertfordshire, Hertford Campus, Mangrove Road, Hertford SG13 8QF, responsible for the European Business Studies programme, and Business Ethics consultant. This paper was first presented at a Seminar on Teaching Business Ethics held at London Business School on Friday, 10 March, 1995.     

FOCUS: Teaching Ethical Business* Creating and Using Vignettes to Teach Business Ethics

Brief thumbnail sketches capture group interest and show the relevance of ethical considerations in real life situations. Bill Bain has considerable experience of business and is currently a PhD student at the Management School of London University's Imperial College, 53 Prince's Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PG.     

Vietnamese values,networks and family businesses in London

The article explores the so-called Confucian values associated by Hofstede and Bond (1993) with competitive advantage in business and investigates the role of ‘trust’ and ‘trusted networks’ amongst the Vietnamese of London. It investigates the extent to which distinctive cultural attributes can be detected in the ways this Overseas Vietnamese community has adapted to London, and how the Vietnamese either resemble or differ from another migrant community with whom they share a common history, namely the Overseas Chinese. The study explores the extent of Confucian influence on core values and how these may account for the relative success of Vietnamese businesses in London. The findings support the idea that the cultural inheritance of the Vietnamese has conferred a competitive advantage in business activity, but this is not exclusively Confucian.     

The City of London and the Manufacturing Industry

Last October the Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry delivered the annual Gresham Special Lecture in Gresham College in the City of London, in which he considered ways of developing a closer and potentially more fruitful relationship between the City and the UK manufacturing industry. The lecture is here reproduced with permission.     

G20：More Action to Shore up Global Economy

At the summit on April 2 in London, leaders of the G20 reached consensus on how to save the i..world out of the financial crisis,including a pledge of US$1.1 trillion, of which China contributed US$40 billion, to revive the world economy, a joint call to fight protectionism, and concrete actions to tighten banking regulation.     

FOCUS: Consistency and Sympathy Changing attitudes through moral theories

Arguments may have little effect in changing people's views, but trying to sympathise with another's point of view can open the possibility of changing one's own attitude. Dr.Griseri is Director of the MBA Programme at the Management Centre, London Guildhall University, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ.     

The ethical underpinnings of nonmaterialistic values and voluntary simplicity behavior in the United States

Many scholars agree overconsumption is a serious ethical problem because of its adverse effects on the environment. This multimethod article uses two studies to explore the ethical underpinnings of two related consumer expressions of anticonsumption: nonmaterialism, which refers to not placing importance on material goods, and voluntary simplicity, which refers to reducing consumption behavior. Study 1 employs Structural Equation Models of secondary U.S. data and finds that nonmaterialism and voluntary simplicity have unique ethical underpinnings: Nonmaterialism is positively associated with an ethical ideology focused on universal rules and principles while voluntary simplicity is associated with an ethical ideology focused on the consequences of one's actions. Because engagement in voluntary simplicity can reduce overconsumption, Study 2 identifies which specific other-oriented environmental concerns increase voluntary simplicity and for whom. An online experiment indicates that concerns about contributing to landfill waste and depleting natural resources induce voluntary simplicity for those who base their decisions on consequentialist ethical ideologies and concerns about contributing to climate change increases voluntary simplicity across consumers. These findings contribute to the discussion on anticonsumption by delineating key anticonsumption constructs, identifying messages to effectively reduce consumption behavior, and identifying consumers who are most likely to respond to such appeals.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Dynamics and Conflict in Regional Structura1 Change—Essay in Honor of Walter Isard Volume 2 Practical Methods of Regional Science and Empirical Applications—Selected Papers of Walter Isard, Volume 2 Department of Economics Loughborough University Export Promotion Strategies—Theory and Evidence from Developing Countries Commonwealth Secretariat Export Market Development Division Human Development Report 1990 for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (New York and Oxford: University of Nottingham The World Bank and the Environment—First Annual Report Fiscal 1990, The World Bank (New York: The World Bank, 1990 London Environmental Economics Centre University College London The European Communities' Single Market: The Challenge of 1992 for Sub-Saharan Africa Loughborough University     

Marketing Financial Services in London

ABSTRACT

Given the extremely csompetitive nature of the financial industry in London, England it is important to understand how to conduct a successful marketing effort. A look at various financial services firms in London, such as General Electric Corporation Global, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Fidelity Investment and government organizations including the Financial Service Authority and the Bank of England help to profile several methods available to help a global marketing effort. Innovative marketing performance tools such as Customer Advisory Boards, Sales Technology Tools, and other effective performance issues are examined.     

‘At the desire of several persons of quality and lovers of Musick’: pervasive and persuasive advertising for public commercial concerts in London 1672–1749

The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the development in London of the public commercial concert which made early and increasing use of the newspaper as a method of advertising. This was both an innovation for promotion of commercial entertainments and a huge rise in pervasiveness over existing methods such as flyers and bills. A detailed analysis of the advertisement texts shows how they used various advertising techniques to convey a persuasive message about the concert and employed concepts such as novelty, quality, and appeals to class, status and self-identity. Moving beyond the argument that early advertisements could be persuasive, this paper identifies and interprets the techniques of persuasion musicians used and discusses how they foreground those found in more recent and current advertising practice.