Illegal entrepreneurship experience: Does it make a difference for business performance and motivation?

Existing studies show a positive relationship between entrepreneurs' business performance and their conventional human capital as measured by previous business experience and formal education. In this paper, we explore whether illegal entrepreneurship experience (IEE), an unconventional form of human capital, is related to the performance and motivation of entrepreneurs operating legal businesses in a transition context. Using regression techniques on a sample of 399 private business owners in Lithuania, we find that, in general, IEE is significantly and positively associated with subjective measures of business motivation. Moreover, younger entrepreneurs benefit from their IEE in terms of business performance, indicating that they have been more successful than older entrepreneurs in transferring their IEE to a market oriented setting. In addition, IEE and business performance are positively related for entrepreneurs who started completely new legal businesses. Thus, our research partially supports the notion that prior experience in the black or gray market may signal and provide valuable human capital for legal enterprising.     

Does direct foreign investment affect domestic credit constraints?

Firms in developing countries cite credit constraints as one of their primary obstacles to investment. Direct foreign investment may ease credit constraints by bringing in scarce capital. Alternatively, if foreign firms borrow heavily from domestic banks, they may crowd local firms out of domestic capital markets. Using firm data from the Ivory Coast, we test whether: (1) domestic firms are more credit constrained than foreign firms, and (2) whether borrowing by foreign firms exacerbates domestic firm credit constraints. Results provide support for both hypotheses. We also find that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are less financially constrained than other domestic enterprises.     

信贷市场存在行业歧视吗——以P2P网络借贷为例的研究

P2P网络借贷是互联网金融的主要业务模式之一,也是一种新型的信贷模式。不同于传统信贷模式,P2P网络借贷依托互联网技术撮合借贷双方直接完成信用交易,无须传统金融中介参与。借助人人贷平台的大数据优势,本文研究发现:中国P2P网络借贷市场存在行业偏好,具体表现为工作行业会对借款的满标率、成功率产生显著影响;进一步研究发现,该偏好其实是一种行业歧视,投资者以出借资金安全性或者损失投资预期收益为代价而选择投资于违约风险高的部分行业的借款人,即使在IT行业、金融/法律行业工作的借款人可以显著地提高投资人的福利,但其资金可得性并没有相应的提高;从解决机制来看,借款人完成工作认证、提高信息质量可以降低行业偏好,但不能消除行业歧视。     

铁矿石进口物流利润空间巨大国内物流企业要把握商机力争作为

铁矿石是我同钢铁生产的最初始原料,是国民经济发展的主要战略资源。总体上来看,虽然我国铁矿石资源总量较为丰富,但含铁品位较低,并且矿山分布不均衡,开采成本较高,国内资源难以满足日益增长的钢铁生产需要,必须依赖大革进口。海量进口,为物流业带来了巨大商机。目前,高额的铁矿石进口物流利润,     

Do company ethics training programs make a difference? An empirical analysis

The authors analyze results of a survey of members of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business classes of 1953–1987 in order to assess the potential effectiveness of firms' ethics training programs. Results suggest that such training has a positive effect, but that relatively few firms provide such programs (about one-third of the respondents worked for firms with such programs). Although the sample is not representative of American employees and managers generally, the results suggest that it may be worthwhile for firms to provide formal ethics training to their employees.John Delaney is Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at The University of Iowa. His research on ethics in business has been published in Across the Board and Iowa Business. As part of an ongoing study, he is collecting examples of ethical dilemmas that have been confronted by managers in recent years.Donna Sockell is Director of Credit Programs and Professor of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. In addition to her research on ethics in the workplace, she has designed and taught ethics programs for several corporations and commodities exchanges. Currently, she is gathering information on how firms' ethical practices affect employees.     

A hybrid data mining model of feature selection algorithms and ensemble learning classifiers for credit scoring

Data mining techniques have numerous applications in credit scoring of customers in the banking field. One of the most popular data mining techniques is the classification method. Previous researches have demonstrated that using the feature selection (FS) algorithms and ensemble classifiers can improve the banks' performance in credit scoring problems. In this domain, the main issue is the simultaneous and the hybrid utilization of several FS and ensemble learning classification algorithms with respect to their parameters setting, in order to achieve a higher performance in the proposed model. As a result, the present paper has developed a hybrid data mining model of feature selection and ensemble learning classification algorithms on the basis of three stages. The first stage, as expected, deals with the data gathering and pre-processing. In the second stage, four FS algorithms are employed, including principal component analysis (PCA), genetic algorithm (GA), information gain ratio, and relief attribute evaluation function. In here, parameters setting of FS methods is based on the classification accuracy resulted from the implementation of the support vector machine (SVM) classification algorithm. After choosing the appropriate model for each selected feature, they are applied to the base and ensemble classification algorithms. In this stage, the best FS algorithm with its parameters setting is indicated for the modeling stage of the proposed model. In the third stage, the classification algorithms are employed for the dataset prepared from each FS algorithm. The results exhibited that in the second stage, PCA algorithm is the best FS algorithm. In the third stage, the classification results showed that the artificial neural network (ANN) adaptive boosting (AdaBoost) method has higher classification accuracy. Ultimately, the paper verified and proposed the hybrid model as an operative and strong model for performing credit scoring.     

Reliability and validity of a short credit card attitude scale in British and American subjects

Short scales to measure affective, cognitive and behavioural attitudes toward credit cards developed from a longer scale were administered to respondents in Great Britain and the United States and found to be highly reliable and valid.     

Credit cards in a Chinese cultural context—The young, affluent Chinese as early adopters

This research examines the attitudes of early adopters towards holding and using credit cards, especially how the ‘young and affluent Chinese’ view credit cards, in the Chinese cultural context. The findings indicate that frequent users of credit cards are more inclined to agree that: they display traits of new product adopters; credit cards offer them greater convenience; and others regard them as being more au-fait with technology, and more financially aware. The research also reveals a fear of loss of financial control when using credit cards that may impede its rate of adoption in China.     

In Advertising,a Double Negative Does Not Equal a Positive

This research investigates the effectiveness of double negative ads relative to positive, self-promoting ads as it relates to impression formation. The study was conducted using a 3 (ad valence/intensity: extreme double negative, moderate double negative, positive) x 2 (impression type: incidental, intentional) repeated measures design study using print ads designed for fictitious brands. Overall, brands in double negative ads received less positive impression ratings and the double negative ad format was less memorable. These effects were even more pronounced as the valence of the double negative ads became more extreme.     

What a difference a word makes: Understanding threats to performance in a VUCA world

VUCA is an acronym that has recently found its way into the business lexicon. The components it refers to—volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity—are words that have been variously used to describe an environment which defies confident diagnosis and befuddles executives. In a ‘VUCA world,’ both pundits and executives have said, core activities essential to driving organizational performance—like strategic planning—are viewed as mere exercises in futility. VUCA conditions render useless any efforts to understand the future and to plan responses. When leaders are left with little to do other than wring their hands, organizational performance quickly falls at risk. In this installment of Organizational Performance, we demonstrate that by overlooking important differences in the conditions that volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity describe, we have disempowered leaders. We show how leaders can appreciate the differences among each of these challenging situations in order to properly allocate scarce resources to preserve and enhance organizational performance.     

International Bribery: Does a Written Code of Ethics Make a Difference in Perceptions of Business Professionals

This article analyzes the attitudes of United States business professionals toward the issue of international bribery, and in particular, whether or not having a written code of ethics has an effect on these attitudes. A vignette relating to international bribery from a widely used survey instrument was employed in a nationwide survey of business professionals to gather information on ethical attitudes of respondents. Data were also collected on gender of respondents, whether or not respondents were self-employed, whether or not the respondents’ firms had a written code of ethics, and to what extent the respondents’ firms generated revenues from international operations. Attitudes concerning whether or not international bribery is ever acceptable exhibited wide dispersion. Respondents from firms that have a written code of ethics were significantly less likely to find international bribery acceptable. Firms that generate revenues from international operations were significantly more likely to have a written code of ethics than were firms which did not generate revenues from international operations. Implications of the findings for business policy are discussed. Joseph A. McKinney is Ben H. Williams Professor of International Economics at Baylor University. He was previously on the faculty of the University of Virginia, and has served as visiting professor to universities in Japan, France, the United Kingdom and Canada. His research interests include business ethics, international trade policy, and regional economic integration. Carlos W. Moore is the Edwin W. Streetman Professor of Marketing at Baylor University, where he has been on the faculty for more than 30 years. His research interests include business ethics, marketing and advertising evaluation, and small business strategies. He has done consulting on bank marketing and new product development.     

When a few minutes sound like a lifetime: Does atmospheric music expand or contract perceived time?

In the first of two experiments, the estimated duration of a given interval was shorter when familiar as opposed to unfamiliar music was played, but only for respondents waiting idly; music had little or no effect on respondents engaged in a memory task during the interval. In the second experiment, respondents waiting idly again reported shorter estimates of duration when they heard familiar as opposed to unfamiliar music, but only when they heard a sufficient number of songs during the interval. On the other hand, respondents engaged in a memory task reported longer estimates of duration when they heard familiar as opposed to unfamiliar music, but again only when they heard a sufficient number of songs. These results are consistent with attentional (i.e., waiting condition) versus discrete events (i.e., memory task condition) models of duration judgments, respectively.     

Income and Quality of Life: Does the Love of Money Make a Difference?

This paper examines a model of income and quality of life that controls the love of money, job satisfaction, gender, and marital status and treats employment status (full-time versus part-time), income level, and gender as moderators. For the whole sample, income was not significantly related to quality of life when this path was examined alone. When all variables were controlled, income was negatively related to quality of life. When (1) the love of money was negatively correlated to job satisfaction and (2) job satisfaction was positively related to both income and quality of life, income was negatively related to quality of life for full-time, high-income, and male employees. When these two conditions failed to exist, income was not related to quality of life for part-time, median- or low-income, and female employees. This model provides new insights regarding the impact of the love of money and job satisfaction on the income–quality of life relationship. Thomas Li-Ping Tang (Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University) is a Full Professor of Management in the Department of Management and Marketing, Jennings A. Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 37132. He has taught Industrial and Organizational Psychology at National Taiwan University and at MTSU. Professor Tang teaches (has taught) EMBA courses in China and France. He serves (has served) on the editorial review board of six journals and as a reviewer for 26 journals around the world. Professor Tang’s research interests focus upon people’s work motivation, compensation, money attitudes, the Love of Money, pay satisfaction, turnover, stress, and cross-cultural issues. He has published more than 100 journal articles in top behavior sciences and management journals, including Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Human Relations, Journal of Management, Management Research, Management and Organization Review, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Managerial Psychology, European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Higher Education, and others. He has presented more than 185 papers in professional conferences and invited seminars in Austria, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, the UK, the US, and other countries. His research has been cited in many languages, textbooks of several fields (e.g., Management Organizational Behavior, Human Resources Management, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Human Relations, Compensation, and Statistics), and popular books. He was the winner of two Outstanding Research Awards (1991, 1999), and Distinguished International Service Award (1999) at Middle Tennessee State University. He also received the Best Reviewer Award from the International Management Division of the Academy of Management in Seattle, WA (2003).     

贸易逆差是否削弱了一国国际竞争力:美国经验

一国贸易逆差通常被认为会损害该国的国际竞争力。本文从美国巨额贸易逆差的成因入手,结合产品市场生命周期理论、国际分工现状两个方面分析逆差与竞争力的关系,认为美国巨额贸易逆差是美国经济增长与旺盛社会需求的结果,同时也是其国际分工、产业结构高级化的产物,由此反映出贸易逆差并未削弱美国竞争力。诸如日本、德国及印度等多国经验也显示贸易差额与一国国际竞争力的分离关系。因此,当前贸易差额已不能成为衡量一国国际竞争力的标准。     

Would You Like to be a Prosumer? Information Revelation,Personalization and Price Discrimination in Electronic Markets

Electronic commerce and flexible manufacturing allow personalization of initially standardized products at low cost. Will customers provide the information necessary for personalization? Assuming that a consumer can control the amount of information revealed, we analyze how her decision interacts with the pricing strategy of a monopolist who may abuse the information to obtain a larger share of total surplus. We consider two scenarios, one where consumers have different tastes but identical willingness to pay and another with high and low valuation customers. In both cases full revelation may only result if the monopolist can commit to a maximum price before consumers decide about disclosure.