The Roles of HRM in CSR: Strategic Partnership or Operational Support?

As the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy requires promoting employee participation and initiating meaningful changes in organisational culture, the involvement of the human resource management (HRM) function in policy formulation and implementation is highly desirable. The relationship between the HRM and CSR functions is, however, under-investigated than other areas. Hence, there is a lack of clarity concerning HRM roles and the conditions under which they may be strategic or operational in nature. By drawing on data from interviews with 29 CSR and HRM professionals of large organisations in New Zealand, this paper argues that the role and contribution of the HR function in CSR is contingent on organisational variables such as the CSR structure, the scope and application of CSR and the nature of the HR functions. It concludes that in such contexts HRM is more likely to offer operational support in executing CSR rather than strategic input.     

Supply base rationalisation: myth or reality?

Companies throughout the UK have been claiming for some time that in order to become more competitive and flexible, and to reduce costs, they must reduce the size of their supplier bases. In recent years, extensive supply base reduction strategies have been witnessed in a wide range of firms in differing sectors. This article seeks to explore whether these strategies are truly being followed, how they have been implemented, and how successful they have been. The author finds that whilst companies have significantly reduced the number of their suppliers, such strategies have not led to the rewards that were first envisaged. It appears that this is mainly due to a haphazard approach to rationalisation, a focus on transaction cost information, and poor management of highly dependent relationships. In addition, there is now evidence that some firms are actually increasing the size of their supply bases once more, to mitigate these problems. The research found that whilst companies claimed that they had reduced their supply bases, the reality was that they still had the same numbers of suppliers — they had delegated control to `first-tier’ suppliers as opposed to reducing the supply base. This article concludes that supply base delegation may be a useful strategy; it allows firms to focus on fewer suppliers, build high-dependency relationships, share technological advantages and spend time and effort on improving fewer relationships, thus leading to more efficient resource utilisation and consequent cost reduction. However, this process needs to be conducted within a strategic framework.     

Punishing Vices or Rewarding Virtues? The Motivations for and Benefits of Ethical Ratings for Private Italian Companies

Journal of Business Ethics - In A Treatise on Virtues and Rewards, Dragonetti (1769) advances a theory of action based on rewards for virtues. The idea of rewards, especially of awards, relies on...     

The Environmental Benefits of Organic Wine: Exploring Consumer Willingness-to-Pay Premiums?

Consumers and the producers have shown interest in organics, but there exist gaps in their common interest. Producers require premiums for their products based on the peculiarity of their production circumstances and the perceived benefits inherent in their products. Predicting consumer willingness to pay a premium for the environmental benefits of organics (WTPe) is a challenge and is of interest in this study. The contingent valuation method was used to gather information on WTPe from a sample that yielded 2,099 surveys. The econometric test ordered probit regression and other analyses were carried out. On average, respondents indicated WTP 23% premium. The proposed hypotheses were tested, and all were accepted except social demographic variables that presented a mixed outcome. The results have implications for consumer sensitization and enlightenment programs of the wine industry, wine market segmentation, and government’s climate change policy. This study is exploratory and has presented a snapshot scenario. Confirmatory and longitudinal studies are recommended to validate this study’s outcomes.     

Innovation quantity or quality? The role of political connections

Based on the heterogeneity of innovation quantity and quality, this study investigates the impact of political connections on enterprises' innovation. Using the data of Chinese listed enterprises from 2003 to 2015, we find that political connections have a positive impact on enterprises' innovation quantity, but they are detrimental to innovation quality. We further find that political connections weaken the promotion of government subsidies on innovation quality and even reduce the R&D intensity of enterprises, which serves as an essential determinant of innovation quality. The government can stimulate enterprises' innovation quality by improving marketization, intellectual property protection, and anti-corruption.     

The real estate code of ethics: Viable or vaporous?

Several recent articles in the field of ethics and business have raised questions concerning the viability of professional ethical codes. Are such codes serious, effective tools for promoting and enforcing an ethical standard of behavior? Or do the codes more closely resemble clever, elaborate public-relation ploys? The purpose of this paper is to analyze the content, role and efficacy of one such ethical code, namely, The Code of Ethics of the National Association of Realtors. The paper examines the ethical principles embodied, implicitly or explicitly, in this Code; it tests these principles for coherence, comprehensiveness, clarity and enforce-ability. Furthermore, it seeks to determine whether this Code articulates standards of ethical conduct that are higher than those already required by law and whether the Code successfully translates a general ethical vision down to concrete, everyday real estate practice.     

The Dynamics of Online Purchase Visits: Inertia or Switching?

This paper studies the dynamics of online purchase patterns, focusing on the impact of the channel used on conversion probability, as well as the transition of channel use over time. A novel data set from a major Chinese online travel agency is used for analysis, consisting of four months of data with 24,337 store visits through three types of channels: direct visit, search advertising and referral. Results of a Bayesian multinomial logit model show that the search channel significantly affects consumers’ conversion probability, and show a high degree of inertia in channel use. This finding contrasts sharply with suggestions of previous research that most future purchases will converge to the direct-visit channel.     

Normative Self-Interest or Moral Hypocrisy?: The Importance of Context

We re-examine the construct of Moral Hypocrisy from the perspective of normative self-interest. Arguing that some degree of self-interest is culturally acceptable and indeed expected, we postulate that a pattern of behavior is more indicative of moral hypocrisy than a single action. Contrary to previous findings, our results indicate that a significant majority of subjects (N = 136) exhibited fair behavior, and that ideals of caring and fairness, when measured in context of the scenario, were predictive of those behaviors. Moreover, measures of Individualism/Collectivism appear more predictive of self-interested behavior than out-of-context responses to moral ideals. Implications for research and practice are discussed. George W. Watson received his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, his M.B.A. from California State at Fullerton, an M.S. in Systems Management from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, an a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Washington, Seattle. His teaching focus is on corporate social responsibility and ethics. Dr.Watson’s current research interests include moral psychology,ethical decision making, and ideology. He has published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Business and Society, and the Journal of Business Ethics. Farooq Sheikh received his BS in Physics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. from Smeal College of Business, Penn State University. He is currently Assistant Professor of Operations Management, School of Business at the State University of New York at Geneseo. Dr. Sheik’s research interests include rational and behavioral models in business operations, bounded-rational behavioral models in population games, social norms, game theory and cross-disciplinary research involving behavioral models.     

Price or quality? The influence of fluency on the dual role of price

Despite extensive pricing research focusing on price information processing, the importance of the role of fluency on price-perceived quality and monetary sacrifice remains unclear. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that consumers with high retrieval and processing fluency are more likely to evaluate price according to its implications for perceived quality and less likely to focus on price-perceived monetary sacrifice. By contrast, consumers with low retrieval and processing fluency are more likely to evaluate price according to its implications for monetary sacrifice and less likely to focus on price-perceived quality. Besides, study 2 further demonstrates the influence of fluency on purchase intention. Finally, the mediating role of the incidental affect induced by fluency in the theoretical link between fluency and price perceptions is also demonstrated.     

Is Kaldor's Theory of Money Supply Endogeneity Still Relevant?

Contemporary monetary theory is characterized by the predominance of the monetarist thesis. Paradoxically, the widespread acceptance of the monetarists' conclusions has coincided with the disappearance of the stable relation between money stock and nominal income from the 1980s onwards. These results did not call the monetarist theory into question, but instead stimulated the elaboration of various proposals for the modification of the monetary authorities' operative schemes. Each of these proposals gives rise to some perplexity. These anomalies provide the justification for this paper, which sets out to analyse the characteristics of the money supply endogeneity theory, a theoretical approach initiated in the 1970s thanks to Kaldor's seminal contribution, with the objective of demonstrating the inconsistencies in the monetarists' conclusions. It is intended to show that the debate on the endogeneity theory developed by the post‐Keynesians has overlooked an essential aspect of Kaldor's theory, the examination of which permits: (a) the elaboration of an important criticism of monetarism; and (b) the development of a theory of credit and of financial intermediaries that highlights elements of Keynes's theory that have been neglected by the traditional interpretation.     

The Role of Academic Research in Supply Chain Practice: How Much Are We Contributing?

Supply chain academics and practitioners enjoy a unique bond. The applied heritage of logistics and supply chain scholarship motivates researchers to identify problems residing in current and future practice, address them in a conscientious manner, and to provide findings that yield meaningful insights. Yet, this bond is sometimes strained when scholarship loses touch with “real problems” found in industry. Strains in the bond then limit the contribution potential and impact of resultant work. This editorial calls for supply chain researchers to embrace the discipline's applied heritage in the identification of problems and delivery of results, while employing the requisite rigor for valid conclusions. Fortunately, there has never been a better time to work with practitioners in light of the disruptive forces at work in industry and the thirst for meaningful insights.     

Policy takers or policy makers? The lobbying of global banking regulators

Do financial sector groups act as passive policy takers, or do they ‘shape’ the policies to which they are subject? This article responds to this question with three arguments pertaining to the policy shaping power of the financial industry when it comes to international financial standards. First, industry groups confront a number of additional challenges when it comes to lobbying international regulatory bodies, which tend to be more opaque in their decision making and more difficult to hold accountable when they make unpopular decisions. Second, while these groups are sometimes able to shape financial regulatory policy, the extent of this influence is more partial and contingent than most depictions suggest. The third argument advanced is that since the global financial crisis, business groups have had many of their traditional lobbying tools adversely affected, making lobbying a more uphill battle than before. Financial industry groups are able to influence the governance of their own activities and act as ‘policy shapers’ some of the time, but are less strongly positioned in this role than many existing depictions seem to suggest.     

The Ethics of Advising on Regulatory Compliance: Autonomy or Interdependence?

Many companies are now implementing ethics and regulatory compliance programs. The growth of employment of both lawyers and specialist "compliance professionals" to advise on and facilitate implementation of these programs has expanded concomitantly. This paper examines the ethical role that should be played by these advisors. Traditional ways of conceptualising corporate lawyers' ethics are shown to be inadequate because they see the legal advisor as an autonomous adversarial advocate or an independent and aloof counsellor. Instead interviews with compliance practitioners are used to show that a superior conceptualisation of the compliance advisor's role is emerging. Compliance practitioners identify explicitly with business and, at the same time, identify with a broader ethical community of other compliance professionals, regulators and stakeholders in order to play a transformative role within the organisation. This conception recognises the interdependence between compliance advisor and corporate client.     

Trade Effects of Anti-dumping in India: Who Benefits?

This article assesses the trade effects of anti-dumping (AD) duties levied on 177 (8-digit) products by India during the period 1994 to June 2001. A panel regression has been applied to quantify the effects of AD actions on import volumes, values, and prices. It finds that the investigation effects of AD actions are not substantial. The imposition of AD duties restrains trade (both volume and value) and raises import prices. While trade effects start dissipating in subsequent years, import prices from both named and unnamed countries rise significantly in the post-duty years. There is little evidence that trade is diverted from unnamed to named countries. Thus, the domestic industry is benefited due to the price rise. Their financial position improves at the expense of both consumers and downstream industries. Since anti-dumping is an expensive form of protection, only large and dominant producers in concentrated industries emerge as the major beneficiaries of this protection. Finally, the developing trade partner countries suffer significant import losses when named. However, the trade destruction effect is insignificant for developed countries. Even though the unit value of their imports rises, there is no evidence of decline in trade from these countries.