The ethical use of crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing has attracted increasing attention as a means to enlist online participants in organisational activities. In this paper, we examine crowdsourcing from the perspective of its ethical use in the support of open innovation taking a broader system view of its use. Crowdsourcing has the potential to improve access to knowledge, skills, and creativity in a cost‐effective manner but raises a number of ethical dilemmas. The paper discusses the ethical issues related to knowledge exchange, economics, and relational aspects of crowdsourcing. A guiding framework drawn from the ethics literature is proposed to guide the ethical use of crowdsourcing. A major problem is that crowdsourcing is viewed in a piecemeal fashion and separate from other organisational processes. The trend for organisations to be more digitally collaborative is explored in relation to the need for greater awareness of crowdsourcing implications.     

When opposites attract? Exploring the existence of complementarity in self‐brand congruence processes

In the psychology of human interpersonal attraction, complementarity is a well‐recognized phenomenon, where individuals are attracted to partners with different but complementary traits to their own. Although scholarship in human–brand relations draws heavily from interpersonal attraction theory, preferred techniques for measuring self‐brand congruence tend to capture it in only one form: the similarity configuration, which expresses the extent to which brand traits essentially resemble or mirror a consumer's own. Hence, the aim of this study is to explore, for the first time, the existence of complementarity in self‐brand congruence. From a canonical correlation analysis of survey data in which respondents rated their own personality traits and those of their favorite brand, the existence of both similarity and complementarity configurations is indeed revealed. Based on this, the study then derives a measure of self‐brand congruence that captures both configurations, and tests its predictive power for a range of brand‐related outcomes. The new measure is found to perform well against existing measures of self‐brand congruence based purely on a similarity configuration, particularly for emotionally based brand‐related outcomes.     

Adventure recreation and subjective well-being: a conceptual framework

ABSTRACT

Despite the documented positive outcomes of adventure experiences, subjective well-being (SWB) frameworks have been largely absent from discourse and analyses in adventure studies. This conceptual paper proposes a framework for understanding how adventure recreation experiences promote eudaemonic SWB. In our framework, we propose that adventure recreation fosters eudaemonic aspects of SWB by supporting the satisfaction of basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness and beneficence. The framework also integrates ‘contact with nature’ as an important mechanism through which adventure recreation fosters eudaemonic SWB. Analysis of research and practice across diverse aspects of adventure recreation (leisure, tourism, and education contexts) is used to support the proposed framework and to critically evaluate how psychological models, such as self-determination theory (SDT) and SWB, can advance theory and practice in adventure recreation. We conclude by offering a number of suggestions for future research directions and practical implications.     

Protecting expatriates in hostile environments: institutional forces influencing the safety and security practices of internationally active organisations

Abstract

The operations of internationally active organisations continue to encroach on hostile locations that are vulnerable to the negative consequences of crises such as political upheaval, terrorist attacks or natural disasters. Yet research into how firms ensure the physical and psychological safety and security of international staff in these locations is limited. This article reports an empirical study exploring the expatriate safety and security practices of 28 internationally active organisations from three industries that commonly operate in hostile environments. We unveil starkly different approaches across the three industries, and label these approaches ‘regulatory’ (mining and resources), ‘informal mentoring’ (news media) and ‘empowering’ (international aid and development). We use institutional theory to propose that these configurations reflect legitimacy-seeking choices that these organisations make in response to the various institutional environments that affect each sector. Our results provide a platform for initial theory building into the interrelated elements of organisations’ safety and security practices, and the institutional factors that shape the design of these.     

COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCY OF MARKET INDICES: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

This study ranks eight widely used market indices using two mean-variance efficiency scores developed from Roll's geometric representation of the Shanken's CRS T² test statistic and the likelihood ratio test statistic of Kandel. The results indicate that, over the period of 1973–1982, the CRSP equally weighted, CRSP value weighted, and S&P 500 emerge consistently as the three most efficient indices under all market conditions.     

The effects of market structure characteristics on competitive reaction intensity: A longitudinal analysis

This study explores the effects of market structure characteristics and exogenous market interventions on competitive reaction intensity over time. It is found that moderate growth rate and moderate concentration induce greater competitive reactions. The effect of the exogenous intervention in the industry studied appears to have a dampening impact on competitive responses. Our research inquiry addresses some issues raised on competition, in general, by Weitz (1985) and specifically on competitive responses by Robinson (1988) and Gatignon, Anderson, and Helsen (1989). The authors express their appreciation to Lee Cooper, Imran Currim, Hubert Gatignon, Avijit Ghosh, Jagmohan Singh Raju and Bill Robinson for their helpful comments and to Mark Parry for his computer programming assistance. The authors gratefully acknowledge research support from the College of Business Administration, University of Georgia, and Graduate School of Management, Rutgers University.