Understanding the Ethical Cost of Organizational Goal-Setting: A Review and Theory Development

Goal-setting has become a popular and effective motivational tool, utilized by practitioners and substantiated with decades of empirical research. However, the potential for goal-setting to enhance performance may come at the cost of ethical behavior. I propose a theoretical model linking attributes of goals and goal-setting practices to unethical behavior through two psychological mechanisms – ethical recognition and moral disengagement; and addressing the moderating role of individual differences (e.g., goal-commitment and conscientiousness), as well as the broader organizational ethical context.     

Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics. Concepts, Approaches and Typologies

Marketing ethics is normally marketed as a sub-specialization of business ethics. In this paper, marketing ethics serves as an umbrella term for advertising, PR and sales ethics and as an example of professional ethics. To structure the paper, four approaches are distinguished, with a focus on typical professional conflicts, codes, roles or climates respectively. Since the moral climate approachis more inclusive than the other approaches, the last part of the paper deals mainly with moral climates, within the above-mentioned marketing sub-professions.     

Typologies of Banner Advertisements’ Attributes: A Content Analysis

The web has received significant amount of attention from advertising and consumer researchers investigating the impact of banner advertisement on consumers’ psychological and behavioral responses. However, no typology of banner advertisement has been identified yet, and the selection of banner advertisements as advertising stimuli has been carried out on the premise of personal judgment rather than scientific methodology. The identification of typology is important because different banner advertisement, such as static and pop-up, elicit different consumers’ responses. In addition the identification of a typology constitutes an advance to mid-range theory in a research domain. Hence, the purpose of this research is to identify the typologies of banner advertisements’ attributes such as type, number, shape, location, and size using content analysis. Specifically, nine banner advertisement types are identified as well as the typology of number, shape, location, and size of banner advertisements. Contributions of the research are discussed.     

Incidence of Market Typologies and Pattern of Marketing Activity Performance in Selected African Countries

Although product-market and state control are offered as environmental variables that udnerlie the diverstiy of the market environment of the Third World, empirical assessment of their influence is lacking. This paper therefore examines the incidence of product-market/state control market typologies in selected African countries when the two variables are coupled and also the extent to which marketing activity performance differs with respect to the product-market/state control market typologies. The study results suggest the existence of different product-market/state control market typologies in the countries studied and also differences in the pattern of marketing activity performance.     

Free-Standing Companies in the Oil Sector in Romania and Poland Before 1948: Typologies and Competencies

Recent research on free-standing companies has focused predominantly on pre-1914 British-registered businesses. The prevailing view suggests that the post-1918 business environment no longer favoured such institutional forms and were replaced over time by tighter managerial hierarchies. In this article it is argued that free-standing companies of British and non-British origin were still active participants in the inter-war period, particularly in the oil industry of Poland and Romania. Two case studies are developed to illustrate this observation: the British Phoenix Oil & Transport Co. and the French Crédit Générale des Pétroles. This article shows how these free-standing companies integrated horizontally and vertically and evolved into new organisational structures resembling the so-called ‘classic’ multinational entities. Their viability and success over the long run depended on their ability to withstand the unfavourable financial conditions of the early 1930s, which in turn was largely shaped by country-specific conditions affecting their field of operation.     

Online Shopper Motivations, and e-Store Attributes: An Examination of Online Patronage Behavior and Shopper Typologies

e-Stores and online shopping have become important aspects of a retailer's strategy. Previous research suggests that online shoppers are fundamentally different from traditional offline shoppers. However, based on the Big Middle Theory (Levy et al. 2005), the authors believe that there are segments of online shoppers that are very similar to regular shopper groups. To determine this, online shopping motivations and e-store attribute importance measures are separately used as the basis to develop online shopper typologies. Results reveal that there are more similarities than differences among traditional and online store shoppers. However, there are a few unique shopper types present at online stores, attracted by the distinctive characteristics and attributes of the online retail environment. The findings offer interesting implications for online retail strategy.     

Moral Choice and the Concept of Motivational Typologies: An Extended Stakeholder Perspective in a Western Context

Accountants and auditors are often faced with ethical dilemmas, which they have to process using resources available to them. Although they may be sensitive to the ethicality of the issues and have the cognitive ability to work through a judgment process, the final action they take may be dependent on a number of motivational factors, endogenous to the issue. Agency issues are a continuing area of concern providing accountants with an ability to shirk their responsibilities and hide confidential information, which may affect their career prospects if disclosed. This ongoing study explores these notions within a stakeholder context and uses a post test only field experiment to gain evidence to support the existence of an agency problem and that membership to one of a number of motivational typologies directly affects the way accountants respond to ethical issues. This association causes them to adopt informational heuristics that may result in less than optimal decisions. This study identified two specific endogenous constructs, namely social consensus and venal intent that discriminate between motivational types and which possibly provide psychological underpinnings explaining membership orientation. Gordon Woodbine PhD, FCPA, is a senior lecturer with the School of Accounting, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia involved primarily with research and supervision activities. He has taught in universities in the People’s Republic of China and Papua New Guinea and has been published in a number of local and overseas refereed journals. He is interested in behavioural ethics, auditing, governance issues and ethics in education.     

Moral Choice in an Agency Framework: The Search for a Set of Motivational Typologies

Moral choice, as a precursor to behaviour, has an important influence on the success or failure of business entities. According to Rest, 1983, Morality, Moral Behavior and Moral Development (John Wiley & Sons, New York), moral choice is prompted, amongst other things, by a motivational component. With this in mind, data obtained from a sample of four hundred financial sector operatives, employed in a rapidly developing region of China, was used to construct a relatively stable set of motivational typologies which could be used to predict choice within an agency-based context. A non-egoist version of the agency theory was developed, which permitted the modelling of alternative heuristic patterns. Altruists and persons identified as bordering on the verge of being classified as psychological egoists, refused to reorganize their motives when responding to a problem that included both moral hazard and adverse selection criteria. It was also possible to identify certain personal and contextual issues which discriminated between the typologies. Gordon Woodbine, Ph.D., FCPA is Senior Lecturer employed in the School of Accounting, Curtin University of Technology teaching undergraduate and post-graduate students in auditing, business ethics and governance. He has taught for extended periods overseas and is published in several refereed journals including Journal of Business Ethics, Asian Review of Accounting and Journal of Consumer Behaviour. Dennis Taylor Ph.D., FCPA is Chair Professor in Accounting at University of South Australia. Previously, he held professorial, associate dean, and head of school appointments at University of Adelaide, Curtin University of Technology and City University of Hong Kong. He is the author of over 100 publications in areas of corporate financial disclosures and public sector accountability.     

Understanding Managerial Perspectives of Volunteering at Nonprofit Leisure Events: A Comparison of Typologies Within Open Gardens Australia

Nonprofit volunteer motivations have been widely researched and discussed as the sector is volunteer-dependent. For nonprofit, community-based events, volunteers frequently fulfill multiple roles, yet motivations across roles are infrequently studied. This study explores managers’ views of volunteers across roles for Open Gardens Australia and whether existing typologies for leisure motivations and generic volunteering can be used to classify volunteer motivations. Examining managers’ perceptions is important as managers deliver volunteer-driven events by designing strategies to attract and manage volunteers’ experiences. Results suggest that existing typologies do not adequately capture the motivations of volunteers for these events with additional motivations of significance for some roles being - Obligation, Inertia, Filling a Personal Void or Gap, Elitism and Competitiveness. Of the 14 motivations found, many overlap and more than half may be simultaneously altruistic and egoistic, suggesting complex interactions within and across the different motivations, although motivational differences across volunteer rolesare limited.     

结果与过程

大力吸引外资,让中国成为国际资本投入的理想热土,是中国政府和人民既定的奋斗目标.2001年,中国实际利用外资已高达468亿美元,同比增幅15%,位于全球第六,连续九年独占发展中国家吸引外资的鳌头.2002年头七个月,实际利用外资又达295.4亿美元,同比增长22%.这个出色的"结果"是我国多年来在改善投资环境,提高为外商服务水准等诸方面积累系列成功的"过程"而获得的.     

肼的生产工艺发展及应用

本文介绍了肼的物理、化学性质及工业上主要的生产工艺,并对肼的应用作了重点概述。     

业务流程再造与现金流量管理

席卷全球的金融风暴给世界各国的经济发展带来了极大的冲击,世界经济一体化发展的进程使我们看到了国际经济发展的相互影响和制约性。面对这场金融风暴,我国企业更应该加强生产经营管理水平,提高应对风险的能力,本文从生产经营流程管理角度,提出围绕价值创造对企业流程进行再造,更好地加强现金流量管理。     

Process and context in choice models

We develop a general framework that extends choice models by including an explicit representation of the process and context of decision making. Process refers to the steps involved in decision making. Context refers to factors affecting the process, focusing in this paper on social networks. The extended choice framework includes more behavioral richness through the explicit representation of the planning process preceding an action and its dynamics and the effects of context (family, friends, and market) on the process leading to a choice, as well as the inclusion of new types of subjective data in choice models. We discuss the key issues involved in applying the extended framework, focusing on richer data requirements, theories, and models, and present three partial demonstrations of the proposed framework. Future research challenges include the development of more comprehensive empirical tests of the extended modeling framework.     

平衡记分卡与层次分析法

平衡记分卡是一种有效的企业绩效测评方法 ,它采用了内部测评的视角 ,有助于联系企业战略和短期行为。在引入了数学模型层次分析法后 ,不仅成功解决了各绩效测评指标的权重确定问题 ,而且也使平衡记分卡成为了一个决策工具     

Process innovations and firm productivity growth

This article analyses the effect of process innovations on firm total factor productivity growth, explicitly considering the impact of firm size on the nature of this relationship. In particular, we analyse whether firm size affects the life span of the impact of process innovations on productivity growth. The data are drawn from a Spanish survey of manufacturing firms over the period 1991–1998. We use a fully non-parametric methodology based on the concept of stochastic dominance. Our results show that the implementation of process innovations produces an extra productivity growth both for large and small firms. However, this productivity growth is more persistent for large than for small firms.     

玫瑰吐司面包的配方及工艺条件研究

本文将食用玫瑰花以一定比例加入到吐司面包配方中,研究其生产工艺,包括工艺流程、原材料配比、操作要点等。利用正交试验对工艺条件进行优化,改善其产品的营养成分、疗效和口感,为食用玫瑰的开发利用进行新的探索。     

Group Aggregation Techniques for Analytic Hierarchy Process and Analytic Network Process: A Comparative Analysis

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the analytic network process are important multiple criteria decision making methods for supporting complex, discrete strategic management decision problems. In order to exploit a broader information basis as well as to achieve a sufficient degree of objectivity strategic decision settings are mostly embedded into a multi-personal decision context to which different individuals with expert status contribute. Owing to the fact that there is a vast number of different methods and further internal possibilities (derivation of means) to aggregate the individual expert preferences to a group consensus, the first aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive literature review on various aggregation possibilities. The second aim is the conduction of a transparent comparative analysis of selected approaches and methods (geometric/arithmetic aggregation of individual judgments, geometric/arithmetic aggregation of individual priorities, geometric/arithmetic loss function approach and Group AHP model). Therefore, we use four different evaluation scenarios and point out under which assumptions which solution is suitable. Starting from these results, the aggregation techniques adequate to a specific decision context are provided.     

Due Process and Standard-setting: An Analysis of Due Process in Three Canadian Accounting and Auditing Standard-setting Bodies

Due process is the means by which ethical constraints are placed on administrative decision-making. I have developed a model of variation in due process and use this model to explore the implementation of “due process” norms by three standard-setting bodies that are created, funded, and overseen by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants – the Accounting Standards Board, the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, and the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board. I conducted two analyses: a comparative analysis of the implementation of due process norms based on differences among the three cases; and, a critique of the due process norms followed by these boards based on their internal logic and a set of best practices identified in other contexts for due process by standard setters. I have presented evidence that due process norms are more fully developed, where standards are enforced by the state and the heterogeneity of users is greatest.