Work–Family Practices and Complexity of Their Usage: A Discourse Analysis Towards Socially Responsible Human Resource Management

Journal of Business Ethics - The question of work–family practices commonly arises in both theory and daily practice as a matter of responsibility in today’s organisations. More...     

Impact of a Flexible Evaluation System on Effort and Timing of Study

This paper examines results of a flexible grading system that allows each student to influence the weight allocated to each performance measure. We construct a stylized model to determine students' optimal responses. Our analytical model predicts different optimal strategies for students with varying academic abilities: a frontloading strategy for those with high academic ability and a gambling strategy for others. We test the model using data gathered from several sections of an Intermediate Accounting course offered by a Canadian university. We find that most students did make decisions that were consistent with our analytical model. Our results suggest that the flexible evaluation system does not uniformly motivate students of differing abilities and does not encourage most students to maintain effort uniformly throughout the semester.     

Solution business models: Transformation along four continua

Using a business model perspective, we identify four continua that are of specific relevance for industrial firms transforming toward solution business models: customer embeddedness, offering integratedness, operational adaptiveness, and organizational networkedness. Using these continua, we explore the opportunities and challenges related to solution business model development in two different business logics that are of particular importance in an industrial context: ‘installed-base’ (IB) and ‘input-to-process’ (I2P). The paper draws on eight independent research projects, spanning an eleven-year period, involving a total of 52 multinational enterprises. The findings show that the nature and importance of the continua differ between the I2P and IB business logics. IB firms can almost naturally transition toward solutions, usually through increasing customer embeddedness and offering integratedness, and then by addressing issues around the other continua. For I2P firms, the changes needed are less transitional. Rather, they have to completely change their mental models and address the development needs on all continua simultaneously.     

Should high-tax countries pursue revenue-neutral ecological tax reforms?

A politically intriguing question concerning the effects of a revenue-neutral ecological tax reform is whether such a political measure may succeed in providing a double dividend: to improve environmental quality and increase employment simultaneously. Theoretical studies reveal that for a competitive labor-market a green tax reform hardly yields a positive employment effect, whereas for a non-competitive market such an effect may well be obtained. However, little attention has focused on whether the ecological dividend remains attainable when an employment dividend accrues. We show for three different non-competitive labor-market scenarios that a positive employment effect can be expected, but that, for high-tax countries, environmental quality plausibly deteriorates when a revenue-neutral ecological tax reform is implemented.     

Derived factor demand under monopoly

Summary. We generalize the formula provided by Maurice and Ferguson (1973) for derived factor demand in a monopoly by extending it to cross-price effects and taking into account other variables which may, within an general-equilibrium framework, affect demand, such as income. Hopefully, both features increase the applicability of this formula in general-equilibrium analyses. Received: April 5, 2000; revised version: June 7, 2001     

Impact of group exams in a graduate intermediate accounting class

Cooperative learning techniques have been found to be quite successful in a variety of learning environments. However, in university-level accounting courses, investigations of the efficacy of cooperative learning pedagogical methods have produced mixed results at best. To continue the search for a cooperative learning method that is effective in accounting education, this study examines the use of group exams in a graduate intermediate accounting class. We provide evidence of a number of positive effects. Average scores on group exams were consistently higher than average scores on exams taken in individual format. Students adapted to the new assessment format rapidly and effectively. Further, students found the experience positive and believed they had improved important skills such as communication, time management, and teamwork. While some evidence of a free-rider effect and negative behavior associated with it was found in the beginning, this behavior was apparently temporary.     

Integrated solutions from a service-centered perspective: Applicability and limitations in the capital goods industry

Although advanced services, or so called integrated solutions, have increasingly received attention in the literature, no coherent body of literature exists, and the relational dimensions and consequences of integrated solutions are not explored in detail. Based on the emerging literature, we develop a framework identifying four different categories of integrated solutions: rental, maintenance, operational and performance offerings. We also compare and contrast the service- and the goods-centered logics with the logic of integrated solutions, and thereby show how the reciprocal interdependencies increase between customers and suppliers. We explore these interdependencies further in three case studies of firms experimenting with integrated solutions, and identify dependencies related to process knowledge, process optimization, and process operations. The paper shows that rather than moving along a linear continuum from goods to services, firms developing integrated solutions need to balance elements of both goods- and service-logics, as well as manage the increased customer–supplier interdependencies that integrated solutions entail.     

Identifying Fraud in Online Auctions: A Case Study

According to the FBI (IC3, 2011), losses as a result of auto‐auction fraud exceeded $8.2 million dollars in 2011. How can one detect deception in online auction transactions? The authors use a comprehensive case to teach students about deception detection processes, detection cues, and the e‐commerce environment. Students are challenged to make a professional judgment about whether the transaction under consideration is an attempt to deceive. The case is based on a real‐life situation and provides a valuable exercise for business students, educating them in the reality of online auction markets and developing their critical thinking skills. The case may be used with undergraduate accounting majors in Accounting Information Systems classes and with graduate students in an e‐commerce course either as an in‐class assignment or as a term project. Students provided favorable responses as to the value of the case.     

Towards a three-part heuristic framework for technology education

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - There is not one single global version of technology education; curricula and standards have different forms and content. This sometimes...