Egoistic and ethical orientations of university students toward work-related decisions

An onslaught of ethically questionable actions by top government, business, and religious leaders during the 1980s has brought the issue of ethics in decision making to the forefront of public consciousness. This study examines the ethical orientation of university students in four decision-making situations. The dependent variable — ethical orientation toward work-related decisions — is measured through student responses to questions following four work-related vignettes. Possible responses to each vignette are structured to permit categorization of respondents into two broad orientations: egoistic and ethical. Independent variables are academic major, ethics in business orientation, gender, and religiosity. Generally, students tended to choose an ethical orientation over an egoistic orientation in each vignette. Business majors were generally no less likely to choose an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than nonbusiness majors. Respondents characterized by moral unity (belief in the consistency between general ethical principles and work-related ethical standards) were more likely to have an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than those subscribing to the amoral theory of business. Females showed a consistent tendency to be more ethically oriented toward work-related decisions than males. Finally, respondents high on religiosity tended to be more ethically oriented. Jon M. Shepard is Head of the Department of Management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His most recent publications include Gender Differences in Proclivity for Unethical Behavior (Journal of Business Ethics). His current research interests include ethics in business, corporate ethical climates, and the accountability of institutions in modern society.Linda Hartenian is a P/HRM doctoral candidate in the Department of Management at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include the performance appraisal process, the impact of decentralized computing systems on organizational communication, and research methodology.This research was supported by a grant from the Graduate School, University of Kentucky. We wish to thank Richard Wokutch for his thoughtful suggestions for this paper.     

Cyclicality in catastrophic and operational risk measurements

Using equity returns for financial institutions we estimate both catastrophic and operational risk measures over the period 1973–2003. We find evidence of cyclical components in both the catastrophic and operational risk measures obtained from the generalized Pareto distribution and the skewed generalized error distribution. Our new, comprehensive approach to measuring operational risk shows that approximately 18% of financial institutions’ returns represent compensation for operational risk. However, depository institutions are exposed to operational risk levels that average 39% of the overall equity risk premium. Moreover, operational risk events are more likely to be the cause of large unexpected catastrophic losses, although when they occur, the losses are smaller than those resulting from a combination of market risk, credit risk or other risk events.     

Are there windows of opportunity for convertible debt issuance? Evidence for Western Europe

This paper hypothesizes that hot convertible debt windows represent periods with lower convertible debt-related financing costs. Supporting this premise, we find that the stock price impact of Western European convertible debt announcements is significantly less negative during hot convertible debt windows. Importantly, this result holds while controlling for equity and straight debt issuance volumes and for macroeconomic conditions. In addition, stockholders are less sensitive to issuer- and issue-specific financing costs during hot convertible debt markets. Overall, these findings indicate that hot convertible debt markets represent windows of opportunity for convertible debt issuance. Firms with high idiosyncratic financing costs act accordingly by timing their convertible debt offering during a hot market.     

Who Will Pay for Long‐Term Care in the UK? Projections Linking Macro‐ and Micro‐Simulation Models

The long‐term care funding system continues to attract much debate in the UK. We produce projections of state and private long‐term care expenditure and analyse the distributional impact of state‐financed care, through innovative linking of macro‐ and micro‐simulation models. Variant assumptions about life expectancy, dependency and care costs are examined and the impact of universal state‐financed (‘free’) personal care, based on need but not ability to pay, is investigated. We find that future long‐term care expenditure is subject to considerable uncertainty and is particularly sensitive to assumed future trends in real input costs. On a central set of assumptions, free personal care would, by 2051, increase public spending on long‐term care from 1.1 per cent of GDP to 1.3 per cent, or more if it generated an increase in demand. Among the care‐home population aged 85 or over, the immediate beneficiaries of free personal care would be those with relatively high incomes.     

How New Product Introductions Affect Sales Management Strategy: The Impact of Type of "Newness" of the New Product

How do firms adjust sales management strategy for new product launch? Does sales management strategy change more radically for different types of new products such as new‐to‐the‐world products versus product revisions? Because firms introducing a new product rely considerably on their sales force in the product launch effort, the types and degree of changes made in managing the selling effort are important issues. Past studies have demonstrated that firms make substantial adjustments in their sales management strategy when they introduce a new product. This study expands on previous investigations by examining whether sales management strategy changes are conditioned by the type of newness of the new product to the market and to the firm. Australian sales managers were asked to respond to a mail questionnaire concerning pre‐ and post‐new product launch sales management activities. Three groups of firms were compared: (1) those with new‐to‐the‐market and new‐to‐the‐firm products (i.e., new‐to‐the‐world products); (2) those with products new to the firm but not new to the market; and (3) those with products that are revisions to the firm and not new to the market. The study finds that firms do not make the most adjustments for products with the greatest degree of market newness—the new‐to‐the‐world types of products—except in the sales management strategy categories of compensation and supervision. In the other sales management strategy categories defined for study—organization, training, quotas and goals, and sales support as well as for all categories in the aggregate—sales management strategy changes were greatest in incidence, as measured both by the percent of firms making changes and the average number of changes per firm, when the new product was new to the firm but not new to the market. These results suggest that, because different types of new products face different competitive environments, there may be greater incentive for a not‐new‐to‐the‐market new‐to‐the‐firm product to make changes in sales strategy. Uncertainties about market size and customer location with new‐to‐the‐world products may limit the understanding of what changes to make in the strategy categories of quotas and territories. Similarly, uncertainties about product use and customer acceptance of new‐to‐the‐world products may limit the development of training and sales support materials by these firms. Instead, these firms may rely more on compensation and supervision to direct sales efforts for new‐to‐the‐world products. However, observing the market experience and performance of the first‐to‐market product can benefit firms launching a not‐new‐to‐market and new‐to‐the‐firm product, allowing them to rely more on strategy changes in training, sales support materials, organizational adjustments such as redeployments, and quotas.     

Further Evidence on the Information Content of Bank Examination Ratings: A Study of BHC-to-FHC Conversion Applications

Certain nonrecurring circumstances associated with the passage of the Gramm Leach Bliley (GLB) Act create a unique opportunity for the market to infer bank examination ratings. This natural experiment enables an assessment of the market's views on this, heretofore, private information. We find little evidence that the stock market extracted and/or valued regulatory information from these conversion announcements. Upon implementation of the GLB Act, systematic risk increased for most of our sample—both converting and non-converting BHCs. We find smaller bond spreads for converting BHCs compared to non-converters. While the expanded bank powers from the GLB Act increases systematic risk exposure to shareholders, bondholder exposure to credit-risk appears to decrease.     

The impact of project managers' communication competencies: Validation and extension of a research model for virtuality,satisfaction, and productivity on project teams

Current research continues to establish the importance of communication in the management of projects. However, little is known about the behavioral aspects of project managers' communication competency especially as they relate to crucial outcomes in virtual environments. This article reports on a survey‐based research study of 564 respondents from the Chief Project Officer Web site that validates and extends a research model of project managers' competencies in decoding and encoding communication, the satisfaction and productivity of their team members, and the degree of virtuality present in the project. The findings indicate that project managers' competencies in decoding and encoding communication significantly contribute to team member satisfaction and productivity. In addition, geographic dispersion plays an unexpected and significant role in how project managers' competency in decoding and encoding communication impacts team member satisfaction and productivity.     

Are performance appraisals a bureaucratic exercise or can they be used to enhance sales‐force satisfaction and commitment?

In some sales organizations the performance appraisal is treated as a bureaucratic exercise. As such, sales managers may essentially conduct appraisals in an arbitrary and perfunctory manner. This behavior could be based on the belief that conducting performance appraisals requires considerable amounts of time and effort, generates few rewards, and adds considerably to the manager's level of conflict and stress. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships existing between performance appraisals, salesperson organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. If various characteristics of performance appraisals that build commitment and satisfaction could be identified, then managers may be more capable of using performance appraisals that yield positive results. A survey of 185 retail salespeople and 58 retail sales managers provided the data required to evaluate the relationship between satisfaction, commitment, and various aspects of performance appraisals. The results of the study indicate that managerially mediated factors may be used to enhance salesperson job satisfaction and organizational commitment. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Spatial interactions among U.S. cities: 1900–1990

We test implications of economic geography by exploring spatial interactions among U.S. cities. We use a data set consisting of 1900–1990 metro area populations, and spatial measures including distance from the nearest larger city in a higher-tier, adjacency, and location within U.S. regions. We also date cities from their time of settlement. We find that among cities which enter the system, larger cities are more likely to locate near other cities. Moreover, older cities are more likely to have neighbors. Distance from the nearest higher-tier city is not always a significant determinant of size and growth. We find no evidence of persistent non-linear effects on urban growth of either size or distance, although distance is important for city size for some years.