Re-examining the Influence of Individual Values on Ethical Decision Making

This paper presents the results of five years of research involving three studies. The first two studies investigated the impact of the value honesty/integrity on the ethical decision choice an individual makes, as moderated by the individual personality traits of self-monitoring and private self-consciousness. The third study, which is the focus of this paper, expanded the two earlier studies by varying the level of moral intensity and including the influence of demographical factors and other workplace values: achievement, fairness, and concern for others on the ethical decision process. These studies were designed using a laboratory format and a decision exercise that attempted to establish realistic business conflict situations through decision scenarios. Support is presented for the influence of gender and achievement on ethical choice. Recommendations for the future direction of this stream of research are given.     

Typology Analysis of Performance Models of Small and Medium-Size Enterprises (SMEs)

A number of firm performance models are available. Reviewing these models and pointing out their individual strengths and weaknesses, would help both academic researchers and professional users to understand and appreciate how and when to use these various models. The theoretical models for Small and Medium-size Enterprise (SME) performance can be divided into two categories: firm dynamics theories and performance prediction models. In the first part of this paper we review, in a condensed manner, the most relevant firm dynamic theories, i.e. SME's performance models. These include: Stochastic Theories, Learning Model Theories and Hazard Modeling Theories. In the second part of this paper, we examine the performance prediction models of SMEs, which include Z-Scores, ZETA-Scores, Neural Networks (NN) and the SIV® models, among others. The strengths and weaknesses of each of these models are exposed and discussed.     

Fashion groups,gender, and boredom proneness

This study examined differences between men and women and among fashion consumer groups (fashion innovators, fashion opinion leaders, innovative communicators, and fashion followers) in propensity toward boredom. Participants (126 male, 130 female university students) completed questionnaires measuring fashion group membership, boredom proneness, and demographics. anova revealed significant effects for fashion group for two dimensions of boredom proneness: internal stimulation and constraint. Innovative communicators indicated lower propensity for boredom because of need for internal stimulation but more propensity for boredom because of constraint than fashion followers. Men indicated greater propensity for boredom because of need for external stimulation than women did.     

Economic Partnership Agreements Between Sub‐Saharan Africa and the EU: A Development Perspective

This paper draws on Hinkle and Schiff (2003). It analyses the planned Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) from a development perspective. It does not take a position on whether SSA should enter into EPAs with the EU. Rather, it starts from the notion that the process of forming EPAs is unlikely to be reversed and examines the conditions that will maximise SSA's benefits from the EPAs. If this notion is correct, then the analysis presented in the paper applies. On the other hand, Pascal Lamy, the EU Trade Commissioner, made a proposal at the May 2004 G‐90 summit in Dakar that might lead to a change in the EPA process. He proposed that the G‐90, a group consisting of ACP and non‐ACP LDC countries, should not have to make concessions at the WTO Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, i.e., he proposed a ‘free round’ for the G‐90. This proposal opens the door to the possibility that the same might apply to the ACP countries in the EU‐ACP negotiations and that the EPA process might be reversed. The paper considers the key issues raised by the planned EPAs, their relationship to the WTO's Doha Round and the EU's Everything‐but‐Arms Initiative, the changes needed to make the EPAs internally consistent, the domestic reforms in SSA that would need to accompany trade liberalisation in both goods and services, and the potential effects of the EPAs on regional integration in SSA. The EPAs will pose a number of policy challenges for SSA countries, including: restructuring of indirect tax systems, reduction of MFN tariffs, liberalisation of service imports on an MFN basis and related regulatory reforms in the services sector, and liberalisation of trade in both goods and services within the regional trading blocs in SSA. The paper also finds that the EPAs provide an opportunity to accelerate regional and global trade integration in SSA. To realise the potential development benefits of the planned EPAs, two steps are essential. First, the EU must, as it has stated, truly treat the EPAs as instruments of development, subordinating its commercial interests in the agreements to the development needs of SSA. Second, the SSA countries need to implement a number of EPA‐related trade policy reforms. However, the latter is far from certain, given the lack of reform momentum in SSA.     

Entrepreneurship and Risk Premium

This article deals with the measurement and determination of entrepreneurship. It utilises the issue of the absence of the entrepreneur from neoclassical theory and uses the theory of portfolio management to establish a model connecting risk premium with the entrepreneurship premium. It shows that the non-systematic risk may be a satisfactory proxy of the level of entrepreneurial activity. The development of successful entrepreneurial activity proxy contributes towards the development of a theorisation of entrepreneurship and an assessment of its contribution to growth.     

The temporal nature of growth determinants in new bank foundings: implications for new venture research design

Several authors have suggested the founding period as a critical time in the development of a firm, arguing that the resource and decision choices made at this point have a substantive impact on the firm's future. Yet, historically, most studies have measured new venture choices considerably after the founding period. We suggest that the uniqueness of the founding event is important and test its validity through the examination of two implicit assertions. These implicit assertions are those of temporal stability and temporal locus of growth determinants.     

The Separation of Technology and Ethics in Business Ethics

The purpose of this paper is to draw out and make explicit the assumptions made in the treatment of technology within business ethics. Drawing on the work of Freeman (1994, 2000) on the assumed separation between business and ethics, we propose a similar separation exists in the current analysis of technology and ethics. After first identifying and describing the separation thesis assumed in the analysis of technology, we will explore how this assumption manifests itself in the current literature. A different stream of analysis, that of science and technology studies (STS), provides a starting point in understanding the interconnectedness of technology and society. As we will demonstrate, business ethicists are uniquely positioned to analyze the relationship between business, technology, and society. The implications of a more complex and rich definition of ‘technology’ ripple through the analysis of business ethics. Finally, we propose a pragmatic approach to understanding technology and explore the implications of such an approach to technology. This new approach captures the broader understanding of technology advocated by those in STS and allows business ethicists to analyze a broader array of dilemmas and decisions.     

Self-Efficacy Toward Service, Civic Participation and the Business Student: Scale Development and Validation

This paper presents the development andvalidation of new measurement tools to exploreself-efficacy toward service and toward civicparticipation. We developed and administereda survey to 851 students in an AACSB-accreditedcollege of business at a comprehensive publicuniversity located in the Midwest. Traditionalscale development methodologies plusconfirmatory factor analysis and simultaneousfactor analysis in several populations wereused to analyze both a primary sample and aholdback sample. Results strongly support thevalidity and reliability of the surveyinstrument. Future use for the instrumentincludes verification of the effectiveness ofpedagogies designed to increase self-efficacytoward service and motivation for civicparticipation in business students.     

The Role of Retail Competition,Demographics and Account Retail Strategy as Drivers of Promotional Sensitivity

We study the determinants of sensitivity to the promotional activities of temporary price reductions, displays, and feature advertisements. Both the theoretical and empirical literatures on price promotions suggest that retailer competition and the demographic composition of the shopping population should be linked to response to temporary price cuts. However, datasets that span different market areas have not been used to study the role of retail competition in determining price sensitivity. Moreover, little is known about the determinants of display and feature response. Very little attention has been focused on retailer strategic decisions such as price format (EDLP vs. Hi-Lo) or size of stores. We assemble a unique dataset with all U.S. markets and all major retail grocery chains represented in order to investigate the role of retail competition, account retail strategy, and demographics in determining promotional response. Previous work has not simultaneously modeled response to price, display, and feature promotions, which we do in a Bayesian Hierarchical model. We also allow for retailers in the same market to have correlated sales response equations through a variance component specification. Our results indicate that retail strategic variables such as price format are the most important determinants of promotional response, followed by demographic variables. Surprisingly, we find that variables measuring the extent of retail competition are not important in explaining promotional response.