Pragmatic Sustainability: Translating Environmental Ethics into Competitive Advantage

In this article, I propose a business paradigm that allows and enables the integration of environmental ethics into business decisions while creating a competitive advantage through the use of an ethical framework based on classical American pragmatism. Environmental ethics could be useful as an alternative paradigm for business ethics by offering new perspectives and methodologies to grant consideration of the natural environment. An approach based on classical American pragmatism provides a superior framework for businesses by focusing on experimentation and innovation, driving a long-term focus, and providing actionable clarity. Under a pragmatic approach to ethics, the choice for sustainability becomes self-evident for business performance and moral reasons.     

Does Competition Lead to Agglomeration or Dispersion in EMR Vendor Decisions?

We examine hospital Electronic Medical Record (EMR) vendor adoption patterns and how they relate to hospital market structure. As in many network technology adoption decisions, hospitals face countervailing incentives to coordinate or differentiate in their choice of vendors. We find evidence of substantial agglomeration on EMR vendors, which increases as hospital markets become more competitive. These findings suggest that incentives to coordinate dominate incentives to differentiate overall, and the relative balance grows stronger in favor of coordination as markets become more competitive. Our findings also have important implications regarding antitrust policy. A potential downside of hospital consolidation—increased obstacles in information sharing due to vendor differentiation—should be taken into account in evaluation of hospital mergers.     

Overconfidence and disappointment in venture capital decision making: An empirical examination

We examine the effects of overconfidence in venture capital investing. Overconfidence in financial decision making is a robust, well‐established finding, and its consequences for decisions by equity market investors, startup entrepreneurs, and CEO's of large firms have been comprehensively examined and documented. This paper considers the behavioral consequences of overconfidence by venture capitalists, comparing their anticipated returns to actual average returns. Our primary metric is Bell's disappointment, a measure of the difference between anticipated and actual payoff. We construct both deterministic and stochastic models, based on empirical data. We find that the average venture capitalist will experience substantial disappointment.     

Post‐Stratification Weighting in Organizational Surveys: A Cross‐Disciplinary Tutorial

Post‐stratification weighting is a technique used in public opinion polling to minimize discrepancies between population parameters and realized sample characteristics. The current paper provides a weighting tutorial to organizational surveyors who may otherwise be unfamiliar with the rationale behind the practice as well as “when and how to do” such weighting. The primary reasons to weight include: [1] reducing the effect of frame, sampling, and nonresponse bias in point estimates, and, relatedly, (2) correcting for aggregation error resulting from over‐ and underrepresentation of constituent groups. We briefly compare and contrast traditions within public opinion and organizational polling contexts and present a hybrid taxonomy of sampling procedures that organizational surveyors may find useful in situating their survey efforts within a methodological framework. Next, we extend the existing HRM literature focused on survey nonresponse to a broader lens concerned with population misrepresentation. It is from this broadened methodological framework that we introduce the practice of weighting as a remedial strategy for misrepresentation. We then provide sample weighting algorithms and standard error corrections that can be applied to organizational survey data and make our data and procedures available to individuals who may wish to use our examples as they learn “how to weight.” © 2018 Wiley ­Periodicals, Inc.     

A structural model to assess international visitors' perceptions about local foods in Tanzania

Interest in the use of local food in tourism and hospitality is growing in both industry and academic circles. Most research on local food has focused on its potential to enhance local community development, while relatively little research has examined the way tourists perceive local foods in developing countries. This study applies image theory to evaluate perceptions of international tourists regarding local foods in Tanzania. Data were collected between June and August, 2014 using a survey method. The study population consisted of 520 international tourists departing from Kilimanjaro International Airport. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with EQS 6.2. The results demonstrated that cognitive/perceptual and affective evaluations are two interdependent psychological constructs which, taken together, play a key role in understanding individuals’ overall perception about local foods. The cognitive/perceptual evaluations formed by individuals as a result of accumulated knowledge and beliefs about local foods influence the way individuals perceive local foods. Likewise, the affective evaluations (feelings) about local foods significantly influenced individuals’ overall perceptions about local foods. The results also show that many hotels where tourists stayed did not provide sufficient varieties of, or information about, local foods. Recommendations arising from the research relating to food policy and regulation are presented.     

Virtual and Hybrid Meetings: Gaining Generational Insight From Industry Experts

The focus of this study is to identify best practices, opportunities and barriers for planning and managing virtual and hybrid meetings for baby boomers, generation X, and generation Y. Through application of the generational cohort theory, a modified Delphi method was employed to identify best practices, opportunities and barriers for virtual and hybrid meetings for these three generations. The Delphi method engaged an expert panel of meeting professionals who made planning recommendations for each generational cohort. Results indicate generational perceptions of meeting attendees are considered by meeting professionals, based on their meeting planning experience, as they plan and execute their meetings, thus supporting the generational cohort theory.     

Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process in New Product Screening

The initial screening of a new product idea is critically important. Risky projects (i.e., those with high probabilities of failure) need to be eliminated early before significant investments are made and opportunity costs incurred. Unfortunately, previous research suggests that it is often difficult for managers to "kill" new product development projects once they have begun. Furthermore, recent studies (including some centering on PDMA members) suggest there is much room for improving new product screening, because this decision often is taken informally or unsystematically. Whereas tools such as Cooper's NewProd software are available to aid in the screening decision, management science decision support models for screening are not used frequently. In the present study, the authors illustrate the use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a decision support model to aid managers in selecting new product ideas to pursue. The need for flexible models that are highly customized to each firm's challenges (such as AHP) to support the screening decision and to generate knowledge that will be used as input for a firm's expert support system is emphasized. The authors then present an in-depth example of an actual application of AHP in new product screening and discuss the usefulness of this process in gathering and processing knowledge for making new product screening decisions. Finally, the authors explain how a customized AHP process can be incorporated into a sophisticated information system or used as standalone support. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc.     

Poverty analysis using small area estimation: an application to conservation agriculture in Uganda

This article demonstrates the utility of small area estimation of poverty (SAEp) methods for researchers wishing to conduct a detailed welfare analysis as part of a larger survey of a small geographic area. This study applies SAEp methods as part of an impact assessment of a conservation agriculture production system in Eastern Uganda. Using SAEp, we estimate Foster–Greer–Thorbecke rural poverty indices, estimate the effects of per‐acre farm profit increases to poor households on the indices, and compare the findings to estimates of net returns from a field‐level evaluation of conservation agriculture for maize farmers. Results suggest that increasing the farm profits of the bottom 30% of households by $1.60 per‐acre per‐season would reduce rural poverty incidence by 1 percentage point. Available data on the net returns to conservation agriculture indicate that even these modest increases are achievable for few adopting households.