Assessing Managers’ Ethical Decision-making: An Objective Measure of Managerial Moral Judgment

Recent allegations of unethical decision-making by leaders in prominent business organizations have jeopardized the world’s confidence in American business. The purpose of this research was to develop a measure of managerial moral judgment that can be used in future research and managerial assessment. The measure was patterned after the Defining Issues Test, a widely used general measure of moral judgment. With content validity as the goal, we aimed to sample the domain of managerial ethical situations by establishing links to dimensions of managerial performance, as well as to the types of organizational justice issues managers encounter. Proposed scenarios were evaluated for realism by ethics officers and human resource managers. Results indicated that the new measure is reliable and correlates with a number of relevant variables in the hypothesized manner, demonstrating evidence of construct validity. Implications for future research and for human resources management are discussed.     

Adoption of conservation tillage in Australian cropping regions: An application of duration analysis

The diffusion of agricultural innovations is rarely rapid. As a result, adoption decisions over time are very likely to be influenced by changes in generic factors such as the price of complementary inputs and environmental conditions. Despite this, the vast majority of studies aiming to explain innovation adoption are limited to cross-sectional data and analysis techniques that cannot accommodate time-dependent variables. This study departs from these attempts by using a duration analysis technique to investigate the significance of time-dependent economic and environmental variables, along with cross-sectional variables such as technology-specific perceptions, on the adoption of soil-conserving cropping practices by grain growers in southern Australia over the period 1983–2003. Of particular interest is the possible trade-off faced by farmers where adoption of no-tillage cropping technology can lead to greater herbicide reliance and subsequently unsustainable weed management due to high risks of herbicide resistance. Results show that factors affecting the cost-effectiveness of herbicides are important in the adoption of the erosion-reducing cropping systems. Several factors relating to the availability and use of technical information are also shown to be influential. The duration analysis approach allowed changes in time-dependent variables, including the fall in the price of the herbicide glyphosate, to be identified as determinants of the timing of no-till adoption.     

Organizational performance and managerial turnover

Involuntary and voluntary managerial job‐termination hazard functions are estimated for English professional soccer for the period 1972–1997. A novel feature is the use of match‐level data, which reveals aspects of the hazard otherwise concealed by estimation using annual data. Short‐term fluctuations in performance strongly influence the involuntary termination hazard. The latter is also heavily dependent on the team's current league position relative to its position when the manager took charge, and on the win ratio over the entire spell. Managerial human capital attributes are found to have a greater influence on the voluntary rather than on the involuntary termination hazard. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New generations of futures methods

This paper presents and further explores the issues discussed during the “New generations of futures methods” session at the WFSF 19th World Conference, Budapest, Hungary. The generational interplay has many different facets and can be looked at from many various perspectives. This paper looks at a broader role of young people as agents of cultural change in societies, their relation to futures studies and the implications of their fresh ways of thinking for futures methods. Also, the past evolution of futures methods and the challenges facing the present and future generation of futurists in regard to methodological as well as general development are reviewed. In an effort to draw together these issues and provide practical ways forward for futurists and their field four integrating themes are addressed:

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Allowing for differences, how do we develop solidarity between generations?

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What does the near-future outlook tell us that might help to achieve this?

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What personal, organisational and social capacities are needed?

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What methods are available for building social foresight?

     

Participant crowding and physical contact rates of whale shark tours on Isla Holbox,Mexico

Whale shark tourism is a growing niche market within the marine wildlife tourism sector. Increased visitation and declining whale shark numbers at some tourism sites worldwide raise questions over the long-term sustainability of this industry. This study examines the social and potential biological impacts of “swim-with” whale shark tourism on Isla Holbox, Mexico. A total of 397 tour participants completed a self-administered questionnaire regarding perceived crowding, reported encounters and encounter norms, as well as self-reported physical contact rates with whale sharks. Relatively high physical contact rates suggest that tourism may cause some harm to sharks. Users who encountered more swimmers than their norm felt significantly more crowded and were more likely to perceive the industry as having a negative impact on the sharks and surrounding environment. However, the results suggest that the number of boats in the whale shark viewing area may have a greater influence on crowding than number of swimmers. Management interventions to improve the sustainability of the industry include improved interpretation and guide intervention, achieving higher compliance with existing guidelines, and limiting the number of boats allowed in the whale shark viewing area.     

Contested land tenure reform in South Africa: experiences from Namaqualand

In South Africa the distribution of land rights remains a major manifestation and cause of injustice, only slowly affected by the constitutionally mandated programme of land restitution, redistribution and tenure reform. The Transformation of Certain Rural Areas Act 94, 1998 (Trancraa) is the first post-apartheid legislation to reform ‘communal’ land tenure. It applies to 23 former ‘coloured rural areas’ and was introduced in six areas in Namaqualand in the Northern Cape Province during 2001–2. In a different, contested process a Communal Land Rights Bill for the former ‘homelands’ was published in August 2002, adopted by Cabinet in 2003 and signed into law in July 2004. While the Communal Land Rights Act relies on ‘traditional councils’ with a majority of non-elected members, Trancraa was enacted in the context of the 1997 White Paper of South African Land Policy and focused on community choice and the role of municipalities. The consultative process in Namaqualand was driven by civil society organisations and community actors, but did not include the training, finance and development support needed to transform rural relations among people affected by unemployment, land scarcity and weak local organisations. To promote procedural and substantive justice, tenure reform must honour the human rights of equality, redress and land development support articulated in land policy and the Constitution.