A Subcultural Analysis of the Brazilian Knowledge Industry: When Nation,Industry, and Organizational Cultures Collide

ABSTRACT

This exploratory research seeks to better understand the relationship between national and industry culture, concentrating particularly on the case of the Brazilian knowledge industry. Perceptions of real and ideal corporate values were obtained from 98 professional and managerial staff from Brazil and 40 from the United States. The results were also compared to those of a multi-industry Brazilian sample reported in Nelson and Gopalan (2003 Nelson , R. E. , and Gopalan , S. ( 2003 ). “Do Organizational Cultures Replicate National Cultures?” Organization Studies , Vol. 4 , pp. 115 – 152 . [Google Scholar]). The Brazilian knowledge industry respondents' view of their organizational culture was much more favorable than the US knowledge industry respondents' perceptions. The Brazilian knowledge industry sample also contained unique subcultures that varied by employment regime and favorably reflected on the industry's ability to adapt to modern trends. This configuration of results does not clearly favor any of the major theories of organizational culture but suggests a complex pattern of interaction between country, industry, industry position, and employment regime. The results do, however, suggest that interaction effects of country by industry may be much stronger than the main effects of either industry or nation.     

A Holistic Approach to Understanding the Use of Travel Guidebooks: Pre-, During,and Post-Trip Behavior

This study proposed a holistic approach to understanding the usage of travel guidebooks. Guidebooks were revealed to outperform other travel information sources in the stages of “during” and “post-travel” but lost their competitiveness in the pre-trip planning to the Internet, especially on the search for information on destination and accommodation. A factor analysis on an 18-item instrument concluded that travelers possess six underlying need dimensions when using guidebooks: reflective, security, confirming, destination, itinerary, and functional needs. Therefore, recommendations were provided for practitioners to reconsider the positioning of travel guidebooks when formulating product development and marketing strategies.     

Ricardo und die Troika — für die Einführung einer EU-Bodenwertabgabe

From a Ricardian point of view, taxes should be most efficiently financed through land rents. In spatial terms, the land rents are highest in the European core countries and lowest at the margins of the peripheral states, which are currently in turmoil due to the economic crisis. The austerity policy of the troika is strangling these states economically. The authors propose a common European tax based on land values. Its revenues should be redistributed to the EU states according to the size of their population.     

Gravity,Borders, and Regionalism: A Canada–US Sub-National Analysis

ABSTRACT

This article examines the extent to which trade costs influence the magnitude and direction of both east-west and north-south trade in Canada and the United States. With the aid of an alternative framework which pays attention to key estimation issues in the gravity literature, we garner further evidence in support of a decline, over time, in the home bias syndrome. Our results uphold the Linder hypothesis but refute the Heckscher-Ohlin factor endowment proposition. In light of the recently modernized trilateral trade agreement in North America, we conclude with policy lessons on buffering the Canadian economy from asymmetric trade shocks from its southern neighbor.     

Modeling Accounting Workplace Interactions with Text‐to‐Video Animation

This article describes a new pedagogical tool, text‐to‐video animation software, that accounting instructors can adopt to easily generate quality videos that address a variety of accounting learning objectives. Although this tool can be used to enhance traditional pedagogical methods, such as case analysis and discussion, it can also be used to address accounting learning objectives not currently addressed by traditional pedagogical methods. This article outlines the benefits of adopting and using this tool in financial and managerial accounting courses, and encourages further study of its effectiveness.     

Reply to the Caplan and Gochenour critique of Georgism

This paper refutes the proposition by Caplan and Gochenour that there is no such thing as natural resources because all goods are produced. Caplan and Gochenour use that proposition to argue against the reform proposal of Henry George and his followers, to replace all taxes with a single tax on land value. The rebuttal to Caplan and Gochenour made by this paper is that the discovery of a resource does not constitute its production. The refutation here argues that entrepreneurship and investment create human capital and capital goods, not natural resources. Discovery is not the same as invention or production.     

Customer perception and response to ethical norms in legal services marketing

The study here examines the relationship between ethical marketing norms, relationship quality (RQ), and commitment in the context of legal services. Through a survey of customers of legal services providers in Malaysia, data were collected. Results from a standard analysis of data show that the four dimensions of ethical marketing norms contribute significantly and explain a significant amount of variance in RQ and commitment. The results further show that three dimensions of ethical norms namely price and distribution norm, information and contract norm, and general honesty and integrity norm are significantly associated with relationship quality and commitment. Product and promotion norm has no significant relationship with relationship quality and commitment. RQ plays a mediating role in the relationship between marketing norms and commitment. The study reveals that the same three dimensions of marketing norms predict both RQ and commitment, and are useful for effective legal services marketing. These findings lead to research, managerial, contextual and policy implications that conclude the paper.     

The use of the Pareto shape parameter as a leading indicator of process safety performance

Metrics addressing process safety incident performance typically focus on frequency and severity statistics. Often, these lagging metrics are not overly sensitive to actual performance, making trending and forecasting difficult. This article presents the results from a statistical study of a large incident dataset where changes in the Pareto shape parameter were observed as a function of time. This approach has been found to give far better insight into process safety performance than traditional incident metrics and readily relates back to concepts such as the “incident triangle” and “layers of protection.” Through the application of this approach, trends within process safety incident performance have been observed earlier, and more accurate forecasting has allowed for the identification of anomalies. In turn, these critical observations have allowed for the better structuring and targeting of process safety programs. Although incident data are generally considered as a lagging indicator, this approach has clearly reduced the lag time associated with this type of data and has given valuable insight into the current status of process safety performance. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 2009