Corporate social responsibility and employee outcomes: The role of country context

This study examined the association between employee perceptions of two foci of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and work attitudes in different countries. Using data collected as part of a multinational research project with a core team in the United States, we found that perceptions of externally focused CSR enactment were positively associated with employee engagement and affective commitment. Perceptions of internally focused CSR enactment were positively associated with affective commitment but not with employee engagement. Analyses across countries revealed more cultural than economic differences. For example, perceptions of internally focused CSR enactment were consistently associated with affective commitment across cultural contexts, indicating that they might serve as a general foundation for building commitment. Perceptions of externally focused CSR were more strongly associated with affective commitment in Anglo than in Confucian and Latin American countries, suggesting a need for country-specific tailoring. Based on these results, we provided recommendations for planning and implementation of CSR.     

The structure and infrastructure of Finnish research literature1

The structure and infrastructure of the Finnish research literature is determined. A representative database of technical articles was extracted from the Science Citation Index for the years 2003–2004, with each article containing at least one author with a Finnish address. Document clustering was used to identify the main technical themes (core competencies) of Finnish research. Four of the pervasive technical topics identified from the clustering (Wireless Networks and Mobile Communication, Signal Processing, Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry) were analyzed further using bibliometrics, in order to identify the infrastructure of these research areas. Finally, the citation performance of Finnish research in the four pervasive technical topics above, and in other technical topics obtained by analysis of Abstract phrases, was compared to that of two Scandanavian countries with similar population and GDP, Norway and Denmark.     

The structure and infrastructure of Finnish research literature

The structure and infrastructure of the Finnish research literature is determined. A representative database of technical articles was extracted from the Science Citation Index for the years 2003-2004, with each article containing at least one author with a Finnish address. Document clustering was used to identify the main technical themes (core competencies) of Finnish research. Four of the pervasive technical topics identified from the clustering (Wireless Networks and Mobile Communication, Signal Processing, Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry) were analyzed further using bibliometrics, in order to identify the infrastructure of these research areas. Finally, the citation performance of Finnish research in the four pervasive technical topics above, and in other technical topics obtained by analysis of Abstract phrases, was compared to that of two Scandanavian countries with similar population and GDP, Norway and Denmark.     

Ethical correlates of role conflict and ambiguity in marketing: The mediating role of cognitive moral development

Researchers in marketing ethics have identified the importance of cognitive moral development (CMD) in marketing ethics models. This study looks at selected correlates of role conflict and role ambiguity in marketing, especially the mediating role of CMD. Of the correlates examined, the results seem to support the existence of statistically significant relationships between CMD and role conflict and ambiguity. Implications for practitioners are provided. For example, the study could have direct implications for management personnel who have the responsibility of hiring ethical people and helping them address any role conflict or ambiguity that may arise from their job. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Mississippi. His work has previously appeared in theJournal of Business Ethics, theJournal of Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management, theJournal of Marketing Theory and Practice, theJournal of Promotion Management, Health Marketing Quarterly, and various national proceedings. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from Texas Tech University. His work has previously appeared in theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Macromarketing, theJournal of Business Ethics, International Marketing Review, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and various other journals and proceedings. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. His research has previously appeared in theJournal of Marketing Research and numerous other journals and proceedings. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from Florida State University. His research has been published in theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Marketing Management, and in various proceedings.     

Managing for Speed To Avoid Product Obsolescence: A Survey of Techniques

Competition among product manufacturers is intensifying in many industries. The nature of this competition forces firms to manage the product supply process for speed to avoid product obsolescence and decreased competitiveness. Rene Cordero describes a number of time-saving techniques and develops a framework for managing the product supply process for speed: making speed a central objective of the firm, selecting faster product strategies, managing for the speedy implementation of these product strategies, and managing human resources for speed. Although speeding the product supply process requires significant changes in the traditional management of product development, managing for speed can bring benefits such as faster response to market needs, reduced product cost, and increased product quality.     

The Impact of Economic Shocks in the Rest of the World on South Africa: Evidence from a Global VAR

The substantial change in South Africa’s trade patterns over the past two decades has affected the impact of economic shocks in major world economies on South Africa. To investigate the effect, we use a global vector autoregression (GVAR) model with time-varying trade weights to account for changing international trade linkages. We show that the long-term impact of a shock to Chinese GDP on South African GDP is much stronger in 2009 than in 1995, due to the substantial increase in South Africa’s trade with China since the mid-1990s. At the same time, the importance of the U.S. economy to South Africa diminished considerably. The results indicate one of the possible reasons why the recent global crisis did not affect South Africa as much as it affected developed economies. It also stresses the increased risk, to the South African and other economies, should China experience slower GDP growth.     

State Dependence Can Explain the Risk Aversion Puzzle

Risk aversion functions extracted from observed stock and optionprices can be negative, as shown by Aït-Sahalia and Lo(2000), Journal of Econometrics 94: 9–51; and Jackwerth(2000), The Review of Financial Studies 13(2), 433–51.We rationalize this puzzle by a lack of conditioning on latentstate variables. Once properly conditioned, risk aversion functionsand pricing kernels are consistent with economic theory. Todifferentiate between the various theoretical explanations interms of heterogeneity of beliefs or preferences, market sentiment,state-dependent utility, or regimes in fundamentals, we calibrateseveral consumption-based asset pricing models to match theempirical pricing kernel and risk aversion functions at differentdates and over several years.     

Operational model for planning the harvest and distribution of perishable agricultural products

This paper presents an operational model that generates short term planning decisions for the fresh produce industry. In particular, the application developed helps the grower to maximize his revenues by making production and distribution decisions during the harvest season. The main motivation for this model comes from the fact that the profitability of producers is highly dependent on the handling of short term planning in the harvest season. Some of the factors affecting profitability include the management of labor costs, the preservation of the value of perishable crops, and the use transportation modes that provide the best trade-off between time (quality of products) and cost. These issues are interrelated, and their judicious management is fundamental for attaining good financial results. The results of the proposed planning model indicate that significant savings can be obtained by managing the trade-off of the freshness at the delivery of the product with the added labor and transportation cost at the grower's side. Moreover the results also show that dynamic, information based, management practices might be preferred over traditional practices based in fixed labor allocation and distribution practices.