PREDICTING CORPORATE PERFORMANCE FROM ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE*

This article investigates the relationships of culture strength and two substantive cultural values with corporate performance. Culture strength is measured by the consistency of responses to survey items across people and the two cultural values are measured by items on the survey that relate to either adaptability or stability. The data, from management surveys of 11 US insurance companies in 1981, were correlated with asset and premium growth rates from 1982 to 1987. Results indicate that both a strong culture regardless of content and a substantive value placed on adaptability are associated with better performance for two to three subsequent years on both criterion measures. The results support the findings of Denison (1990) that strength of culture is predictive of short-term performance. The present results, however, suggest a more complex contingency model than that proposed by Denison.     

Organizing for peace operations

There have been two general approaches to organizing for peace operations: an ad hoc approach, in which entities independently intervene and operate on the basis of their unique expertise and interest; and a top?–?down approach, in which all entities are directed and controlled by a single authority. Using the UN experience in Afghanistan, we demonstrate how this view of the organizing problem is limited. Instead, we develop a typology that distinguishes among three systems for organizing peace operations-Command, Market and Community?–?on the basis of their differences on four analytic dimensions (agency, social attachment, social control and inter-organizational relations). Our analysis of the UN experience in Afghanistan demonstrates the utility of our framework for both theory and practice.     

A modest proposal for inclusion of women's household human capital production in analysis of structural transformation

Neoclassical economists posit a set of stylized facts which mark the structural transformation of national economies. Yet these facts, when disaggregated by gender, exhibit puzzling anomalies. For the 132 countries in our sample, female rates of economic activity are much lower than men's, and GDP per capita accounts for less than 16 percent of the variation in female rates. We argue that the missing female labor is occupied in a fourth sector – production and maintenance of human capital. Utilizing a series of heroic assumptions, the paper makes a first rough estimate of the value of this sector on a country-by-country basis.     

Two representations of information structures and their comparisons

Decisions in Economics and Finance - This paper compares two representations of informativeness.     

我国农村老年人体力活动状况及其环境影响因素研究

了解我国农村老年人体力活动状况及其影响因素,对于提高农村老年人自理能力和减轻养老负担具有重要意义.依据对现有文献资料的分析,基于2011年中国健康与养老追踪调查基线数据,通过广义分层线性模型等数理统计分析方法,讨论了我国农村老年人体力活动状况与其个人特征关系,并重点探讨村庄环境因素对农村老年人体力活动水平的影响.我国农村老年人在自身层次上,年龄、受教育程度、婚姻状况、自评健康状况、年轻时期自评健康状况、自身活动能力、自评生活水平等与其体力活动水平显著相关;在村庄环境层次上,老年人的居住地类型、村庄道路整洁程度,以及农贸市场是否在本村等与农村老年人体力活动水平显著相关,此外,室外健身场所对农村老年人体力活动水平也有较大统计关联关系.在我国农村地区要推广积极的生活方式,特别应注重加强农村环境对老年人的友好和宜居性建设,从而有效促进老年人积极进行体力活动,提高自身健康水平和生活自理能力.     

Justifying Deviant Behavior: The Role of Attributions and Moral Emotions

We present two studies investigating the impact of causal perceptions and the moral emotions of anger, shame, and guilt on the justification of deviant workplace behavior. Study 1 tests our conceptual framework using a sample of undergraduate business students; Study 2 examines a population of practicing physicians. Results varied significantly between the two samples, suggesting that individual and contextual factors play an important role in shaping the perceptual and emotional processes by which individuals form reactions to undesirable affective workplace events. Implications of these findings for the study of ethics, emotions, and attributions, as well as for promoting ethical behavior, are discussed.     

Testing the effectiveness of online assignments in theory of finance

The authors investigated the effectiveness of online versus paper assignments using final examination scores in three cohorts of theory of finance. In particular, two cohorts were exposed to online assignments while another cohort was exposed to traditional assignments. The central result is that exposure to online assignments robustly leads to higher final exam scores, all else being equal. The authors also found a lower level of engagement as shown by low assignment completion rates for students exposed to online assignments.     

Cheating During the College Years: How do Business School Students Compare?

When it comes to cheating in higher education, business school students have often been accused of being the worst offenders; if true, this may be a contributing factor in the kinds of fraud that have plagued the business community in recent years. We examined the issue of cheating in the business school by surveying 268 students in business and other professional schools on their attitudes about, and experiences with, cheating. We found that while business school students actually cheated no more or less than students in other professional schools, their attitudes on what constitutes cheating are more lax than those of other professional school students. Additionally, we found that serious cheaters across all professional schools were more likely to be younger and have a lower grade point average. Helen A. Klein is an assistant professor in the Management Department at Grand Valley State University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Computer and Information Systems and is interested in Object Oriented Software development, business process redesign and the use of ERP as a tool for learning in higher education. Nancy M. Levenburg is an associate professor in the Management Department at Grand Valley State University. She received her Ph.D. degree from Union Institute & University, and has done post-graduate study at Harvard University and UCLA. Her primary research interests include electronic commerce and strategic applications of information technologies. Marie McKendall is a professor in the Management Department at Grand Valley State University. She received her Ph.D. in Management from Michigan State University. Her primary research interest is organizational illegality. William M. Mothersell is an assistant professor in the Management Department at Grand Valley State University. He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Labor and Industrial Relations. His research interests include strategic human resource management, organizational behavior and development, and lean transformation.