Education systems and the formation of societal consensus on justice

We scrutinize whether the consensus on economic justice prevailing in a society is shaped by institutions, especially by education systems. We argue that social cohesion is ensured by the magnitude of consensus on justice rather than its content. Thus, we take the magnitude of consensus as our dependent variable abstracting it from its content. We examine the impact of various institutions on this variable by using set-theory based arguments, bootstrapping and multivariate models. The findings suggest that the sense of justice in society is significantly shaped by the institutional characteristics of the education system.     

Determinants of a Relational Exchange Orientation in the Marketing-Manufacturing Interface: an Empirical Investigation

During the last decade, both marketing managers and researchers have focused heavily on interorganizational exchange relationships. In this paper we apply the concept of relational exchange to the intra-organizational exchange relationship between the marketing and manufacturing functions. We apply a relational exchange instrument consisting of four dimensions (trust, bonding, empathy and reciprocity) to the marketing-manufacturing interface and conduct an empirical investigation in order to validate the use of such an instrument in this setting. We find that the relational exchange scale consists of four components of a relational exchange orientation that are both theoreticallymeaningful and empirically discrete. In addition, we identify five determinants(resource dependence, communication difficulties, procedural fairness,interfunctional rivalry and interfunctional distance) and explore how these determinants influence the individual dimensions of the relational exchange orientation. We report a number of differences between the marketing and manufacturing functions with regards to the impact of aforementioned determinants and relational exchange orientation dimensions.     

国有商业银行实施现金管理服务的具体构想

客户对银行现金管理服务的需求受经济和技术环境的影响,在不同时期呈现出了不同的特点,银行现金管理服务的内涵和实现手段也随之发生变化.在今后很长的一段时期内,基于电子银行平台开展现金管理服务将是银行现金管理服务的主流.作为银行实施现金管理服务的基础平台,电子银行在现金管理实施中具有独特的优势.从某种意义上讲,商业银行的现金管理业务体现的是一种客户需求、一种银企关系变化和进步的趋势,是一个具有持续发展能力的过程.基于此,国有商业银行实现现金管理要有战略规划,要抓住实施平台和支撑机制这两个重点,分阶段稳步推进.     

Temperatures,cleanliness and food storage practises in domestic refrigerators in Serbia,Belgrade

Consumers’ knowledge about proper household practises during food handling and storage are deemed insufficient. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate the conditions of food storage in refrigerators (temperature, hygienic and storage conditions) and consumer knowledge about good practises. This study included 100 households from the Belgrade area. All participants were interviewed using a standardized questionnaire. The internal temperature of refrigerators was measured at three points: the top and bottom shelves and the refrigerator door. The average temperature in the refrigerators was 9.3°C. The average temperature recorded in the refrigerator doors was significantly higher (P < 0.01) than temperatures recorded on the top or bottom shelves. The age and design of refrigerators, and potential heat source near refrigerator can impact the refrigerator temperature. In 50% of the surveyed refrigerators, food storage practises were incorrect. More than a half (56%) of the surveyed consumers were aware of the recommended refrigerator temperature, but measured temperature in their refrigerators was considerably higher. The results from our study indicate that knowledge of recommended behaviour about good food safety practise do not always translate into practise in the home.     

Reconsidering the Role of Fit in Celebrity Endorsement: Associative‐Propositional Evaluation (APE) Accounts of Endorsement Effectiveness

This study is designed to fill any explanatory gaps that have been traditionally underexplored when considering the interplay of implicit/automatic/unconscious and explicit/deliberate/conscious attitudes in the context of celebrity endorsement. The main experiment employed single target‐implicit association test as a measure of implicit attitudes. The key finding of the study is that the experimental condition where the fit between the celebrity and the endorsed product was low induced favorable implicit and explicit attitudes, similar to the condition where the fit was high. The explanation for this finding was that dissonance enhanced the association strength of the attitude object through biased attention and elaboration, which provided a basis for favorable propositions. In propositional reasoning, retroactive confirmation of the favorable implicit attitudes resolved dissonance. This study seeks to go beyond the existing endorsement and sponsorship literature developed based on matching principles such as source models, match‐up hypothesis, the congruity theory, and associative network models. The authors recommend that managers search for more creative and novel partners in addition to image‐matching ones.     

Examining the Effects of Moral Development Level,Self-Concept,and Self-Monitoring on Consumers’ Ethical Attitudes

This study investigates the possible effects of self-concept, self-monitoring, and moral development level on dimensions of consumers’ ethical attitudes. “Actively benefiting from illegal activities,” “actively benefiting from deceptive practices,” and “no harm/no foul 1–2” are defined by factor analysis as four dimensions of Turkish consumers’ ethical attitudes. Logistic regression analysis is applied to data collected from 516 Turkish households. Results indicate that self-monitoring and moral development level predicted consumer ethics in relation to “actively benefiting from questionable practices” and “no harm/no foul” dimensions. Actual self-concept is also a predictor variable in relation to “no harm/no foul” dimension. Age and gender make significant differences in consumers’ ethical attribute dimensions.     

Testing a Model of Behavioral Intentions in the Republic of Macedonia: Differences Between the Private and the Public Sectors

In this study, we developed a model of unethical behavior intentions, collected data from managers of the private (n = 208) and the public (n = 307) sectors in the Republic of Macedonia, and tested our model across these two sectors. Results suggested that for both sectors, unethical behavior intentions were not related to the love of money and corporate ethical values, whereas irritation was negatively related to life satisfaction. Moreover, corporate ethical values were related to life satisfaction for the private sector only, whereas the love of money and unethical behavior intentions were related to irritation for the public sector only. Managers in the private sector had higher corporate ethical values, lower unethical behavior intentions, lower irritation, and higher life satisfaction than those in the public sector. There was no difference in the love of money. There were more bad apples in the public sector (34.85%) than in the private sector (23.56%). The strongest factor of unethical behavior intentions in the private and the public sectors␣was theft and corruption, respectively. Finally, for the culture-free (etic) model, the love of money was positively related to irritation. Corporate ethical values had a positive “double-whammy” effect: reducing irritation and enhancing life satisfaction. Unethical behavior intentions were positively related to irritation (a mediator), which was negatively related to life satisfaction. Our theory provides new insights regarding doing business in the Republic of Macedonia.

Legal and Institutional Determinants of Factoring in SMEs: Empirical Analysis across 25 European Countries

Weak protection of the rights of financiers intensifies agency problems in SME financing, inhibiting the optimal provision of credit necessary to grow and innovate. We use a survey data set of 4,348 SMEs from 25 European countries to analyze whether the use of factoring as a form of SME financing is less dependent on low quality of laws and institutions. We do so analyzing whether the use of factoring by SMEs differs across countries due to differences in the legal protection of creditors. Our findings indicate that firms operating in countries with legal environments that weakly protect the rights of creditors, with political instability or high enforcement costs, are more likely to use factoring. Managers of riskier and opaque companies operating in such inefficient environments can use the results of this study to better understand that there are suitable options to complement bank financing. Managers who seek loans can use the results to diversify their financing structure through the use of factoring. Since factoring can be used as a complement to bank loans or as a substitute for bank financing, it is important that policy makers take our results into account when revising policies concerning access to external financing.