Information Systems Project Abandonment: A Case of Political Influence by the Stakeholders

This paper serves as a stimulus to investigators to examine the role organizational politics plays in decisions leading to the abandonment of information systems (IS) projects. While prior research has identified the development of IS projects as a highly political process, where stakeholders may be more concerned about furthering their self-interests than about contributing to the overall success of the project, there has been little research on identifying the political factors contributing to IS project abandonment. Our case demonstrates six types of political action that took place that caused an electronic commerce (e-commerce) project to be abandoned. Finally, when analyzing mistakes and their principal causes, there is one important lesson that we should learn. That is, all organizations make mistakes and there is the potential for learning from project abandonment experiences.     

Internal Relative Price Stationarity in Long-Run Purchasing Power Parity

This study demonstrates that the joint relationship among domestic traded-goods prices, dometic nontraded-goods prices, foreign traded-goods prices, and foreign nontraded-goods prices is important to understanding rejections or confirmations of long-run PPP. This joint relationship is defined as the "cross-country internal relative price structure." For nine of the ten pairs of countries studied, the cross-country internal relative price structure is found to be stationary; thus, factors other than the influence of nontraded-goods prices must be responsible for the rejections of long-run PPP.     

European Air Transport — Uncabin the Consumer

The deregulation of air routes between London and Dublin has brought travellers the benefits of competition; and, hardly surprisingly, as prices have fallen the numbers making the journey have increased. Sean Barrett, Lecturer in Economics, and Mark Purdy of Trinity College, Dublin, compare the effects of liberalisation with those of the restricted entry to the European air transport market. How long, they ask, will the European consumer be denied similar benefits?     

Dimensions of Performance Effectiveness In High-Involvement Work Organisations

Sharon Parker, Sean Mullarkely and Paul Jackson, who are researchers in the MRC/ESRC Social and Applied Pyschology Unit at the University of Sheffield, draw on detailed case study evidence to consider the substantial changes to the shop floor roles entailed in high involvement work organisations. They argue that specification of the performance requirements of such roles will facilitate employees taking on appropriate behaviours, reduce role confusion, and enable consistency in human resource practices. They discuss the use of repertory grids to explore the models of effective performance held by production managers and derive nine critical dimensions of shop floor employee performance from the analysis. These contain specific behavioural examples and are grouped around four higher-order dimensions: ‘process ownership’, ‘social skills’, ‘personal style’, and loss prevention’. These dimensions form the basis of a broader specification of the skills, knowledge and general orientations required by shopfloor employees in high involvement roles.     

The determinants of West German exports of manufactures: An integrated demand and supply approach

Zusammenfassung Die Determinanten der westdeutschen Exporte von verarbeiteten Produkten. Eine Integration von Angebots- und Nachfragefaktoren. - Die Autoren entwickeln ein Modell, das das Gewinnmaximierungsverhalten der in offenen Volkswirtschaften operierenden Unternehmen ausdrücklich mikro?konomisch erkl?rt und setzen es ein, um zu zeigen, da? die westdeutschen Exporte und Exportpreise gut durch die inl?ndischen und ausl?ndischen Preise, die internationale Nachfrage, den inl?ndischen Kapitalstock und die Kosten erkl?rt werden k?nnen. Die dynamischen Versionen des Modells best?tigen, da? die westdeutschen Exporte von verarbeiteten Produkten, Gütern des Maschinenbaus und Automobilen schneller auf Ver?nderungen der internationalen Nachfrage und der Rentabilit?t im Exportgesch?ft reagieren als auf Ver?nderungen in der preislichen Wettbewerbsf?higkeit.

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Résumé Les déterminants de l’exportation des produits manufacturés allemands. Une intégration des facteurs de l'offre et de la demande. - Les auteurs construisent un modèle, dans lequel la maximation des profits par des firmes aux économies ouvertes est expliquée par des facteurs microéconomiques. Puis ils utilisent le modèle pour démontrer que les exportations et les prix d'exportation du RFA peuvent être bien expliquées par les prix étrangers et domestiques, la demande internationale, le stock de capital domestique et les co?ts. Les versions dynamiques du modèle confirment que les exportations des produits manufacturés, des produits de la construction mécanique et des automobiles réagissent plus vite aux changement dans la demande internationale et dans la rentabilité d'exportation qu’aux changements dans la compétiveté de prix.

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Resumen Las déterminantes de la exportaciones manufactureras de Alemania Occidental. Un enfoque integrado de oferta y demanda. - Utilizando un modelo derivado que considera explícitamente los fundamentos microeconómicos de las decisiones de maximizatión de ganancias de una empresa que opera en una economía abierta, se explican los movimientos de las exportaciones y de los precios de exportatión alemanes con los movimientos en los precios nacionales, precios extranjeros, la demanda mundial, el stock de capital national y los costos. Las versiones dinámicas del modelo confirman que las exportacíones manufactureras alemanas, en particular de productos de ingeniería mecánica y automotores, responden más rápidamente a cambios en la demanda mundial y la rentabilidad de las exportaciones que a cambios en la competitividad derivada del precio.

     

Investigating the Effects of Gender on Consumers’ Moral Philosophies and Ethical Intentions

Using information collected from a convenience sample of graduate and undergraduate students affiliated with a Midwestern university in the United States, this study determined the extent to which gender (defined as sex differences) is related to consumers’ moral philosophies and ethical intentions. Multivariate and univariate results indicated that women were more inclined than men to utilize both consequence-based and rule-based moral philosophies in questionable consumption situations. In addition, women placed more importance on an overall moral philosophy than did men, and women had higher intentions to behave ethically. The marketing and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and the limitations of the research are presented along with several suggestions for future inquiry, which could advance current understanding of consumer ethics.