How Selecting and Socializing Newcomers Influences Insiders

The organizational literature on selection and socialization concentrate on what happens to recruits from interview through acculturation. In contrast, little has been written about what happens to “insiders” as they choose new members and help bring them on board. In this paper, we demonstrate how involvement with newcomers can have profound effects on insiders' attitudes, performance, and knowledge. We emphasize how managers can harness these rarely discussed features of selection and socialization to enhance the effectiveness of veteran members and their organizations.     

The effect of product visibility upon the relationship between price and quality

Previous studies have suggested that the relationship between price and quality for certain types of consumer goods often is not positive. Investigators have hypothesized that the experience of value, or the relationship between quality and price, may be less relevant for product categories in which a consumer's self-worth may be elevated through the act of purchase. Brands within such product categories would appear to be particularly susceptible to image building strategies involving the use of premium pricing to infer high quality. This study examined the relationship between price and objective quality from 1961 through 1978 for 878 brands of 54 products within three broad product categories of toilet articles, cosmetics, and clothing. Generally, the relationship for products within these categories was weak which suggests that marketing managers of some brands may well be basing prices on intangible as well as tangible values.     

从品牌的角度理解消费者的需求--Universal Needs Inventory sm模型在汽车市场研究中的应用

在经历了惨烈的价格战和2004年中国汽车市场增速放缓后,越来越多的厂商开始思考如何在竞争越来越激烈的中国汽车市场确立自己的竞争优势。中国的汽车市场在过去的4-5年中整体高速增长的同时,其消费者也逐步走向成熟,消费者的需求也变得复杂和多样化。一万面,消费者要求汽车除了要满足原本的产品功能需求外。他们还要求更高级的情感需求;另一万面,随着汽车的更新换代及家庭第二辆车的增加,个性化的需求开始产生。几乎所有的厂商都认识到,在这样一个需求驱动的市场,了解和把握消费者需求从而制定相应的营销战略和策略将是经营成功的关键。因此,越来越多的厂商开始注重对消费者需求的研究。     

The self-regulating profession: An analysis of the political monopoly tendencies of the audit profession

Litigation, congressional hearings and external criticisms have prompted the accounting profession to address their performance as a self-regulating monopoly. This research presents the basic characteristics of a self-regulating monopoly and models the issuance of accounting and auditing standards based on the occurrence of certain paramount events in the history of the accounting profession. These events, the 1938 issuance of Accounting Series Release (ASR) 4 by the SEC, the 1971 passage of the congressional act on accounting for investment tax credits, the 1978 introduction of the Moss Bill based on the Moss and Metcalf hearings, and the 1985 Dingell committee hearings, are found to support the self-regulating monopoly hypotheses. This study questions the profession's response of new standards and statements unless these standards and statements close the expectation gap and have a strong conceptual base.     

Unravelling the ethical decision-making process: Clues from an empirical study comparingFortune 1 000 executives and MBA students

Using a nationwide survey, this study compared the ethical values and decision processes ofFortune executives and MBA students. Statistically significant differences in ethical values were found by class of respondent, gender, and professed decision approach. MBAs were also found to process ethical decisions differently than business professionals.James R. Harris is Associate Professor of Marketing at Auburn University. He has published in theJournal of Business Ethics, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, Business and Professional Ethics Journal, and elsewhere. He has taught the Legal and Social Environment course at the graduate level for a number of years.Charlotte D. Sutton is Assistant Dean for Graduate Programs at the College of Business, Auburn University. Her research on such topics as women in management, stress and interpersonal communication has been cited in such places as ABC News, Good Morning America,Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, andBusiness Week.     

The weird rules of creativity

For at least the past decade, the holy grail for companies has been innovation. Managers have gone after it with all the zeal their training has instilled in them, using a full complement of tried and true management techniques. The problem is that none of these practices, well suited for cashing in on old, proven products and business models, works very well when it comes to innovation. Instead, managers should take most of what they know about management and stand it on its head. In this article, Robert Sutton outlines several ideas for managing creativity that are clearly odd but clearly effective: Place bets on ideas without much heed to their projected returns. Ignore what has worked before. Goad perfectly happy people into fights among themselves. Good creativity management means hiring the candidate you have a gut feeling against. And as for the people who stick their fingers in their ears and chant, "I'm not listening, I'm not listening," when customers make suggestions? Praise and promote them. Using vivid examples from more than a decade of academic research to illustrate his points, the author discusses new approaches to hiring, managing creative people, and dealing with risk and randomness in innovation. His conclusions? The practices in this article succeed because they increase the range of a company's knowledge, allow people to see old problems in new ways, and help companies break from the past.