McMahon on Workplace Democracy

This paper offers a sympathetic critique of Christopher McMahon’s Authority and Democracy: A General Theory of Government and Management. Although I find fault with some of his arguments, my goal is not to show that these arguments are irreparable, but to highlight issues that deserve further consideration. After defining some terms, first, I raise an objection to McMahon’s rejection of the moral unity of management (MUM) thesis. Second, I draw attention to his “moralization” of the workplace, and examine the role it plays in his arguments about the relative strengths of the different kinds of authority. Third, I raise questions about his reliance on an analogy between states and firms. I suggest that states and firms are in some ways more alike, but in other ways less alike, than he allows.     

Marketing Strategy Development Styles,Implementation Capability,and Firm Performance: Investigating the Curvilinear Impact of Multiple Strategy-Making Styles

There is growing interest in the process by which marketing strategy is developed. This article reports on a study in which we investigate the performance implications of using multiple organizational approaches to the development of marketing strategy. Specifically, we test a model in which implementation capability mediates the relationship between number of marketing strategy development (MSD) styles used and firm performance. Based on data collected from manufacturers, the results indicate that: (1) the relationship between the number of MSD styles used and implementation capability is curvilinear (an inverse U-shaped relationship), (2) implementation capability positively impacts firm performance, and (3) implementation capability mediates the relationship between number of MSD styles used and firm performance.     

Creativity, Process, and Time: The Antithesis of "Instant International"

Editorial Introduction

Creativity, Process, and Time: The Antithesis of "Instant International"     

Teaching business ethics

Business ethics should be taught in business schools as an integrated part of core curricula in MBA programs with a dual focus on both analytical frameworks and their applications to the business disciplines. To overcome the reluctance of many faculty to handle ethical issues, a critical mass of faculty must develop suitable materials, educate their peers in its use, and take the lead by introducing it in their own courses and on senior management programs.Jeffrey Gandz is an Associate Professor in the School of Business Administration, The University of Western Ontario. Following ten years of management experience in Europe and North America, Professor Gandz completed his Ph.D. at York University. He is active as a mediator and arbitrator in labour disputes, teaches Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management, and Labour Relations at Western, and has published widely in those fields.Nadine Hayes is a Ph.D. candidate at The University of Western Ontario and a graduate of Western's Honors Business Administration Program. She has written several case studies in the field of Business Ethics and has worked with Jeffrey Gandz in developing the School's approach to the teaching of business ethics.     

The paradox of new venture legitimation within an entrepreneurial ecosystem

The current rise in research on entrepreneurial ecosystems notes that many questions are still unanswered. We, therefore, theorize about a unique paradox for entrepreneurs trying to establish legitimacy for their new ventures within and beyond an entrepreneurial ecosystem; that is, when pursuing opportunities with high levels of technological or market newness, entrepreneurs confront a significant challenge in legitimizing their venture within an entrepreneurial ecosystem, while those entrepreneurs pursuing ventures using existing technologies or pursuing existing markets have a much easier path to garnering legitimacy within that ecosystem. However, the diffusion of that legitimacy beyond the ecosystem will be wider and more far-reaching for those pursuing the newer elements compared to those using existing technologies or pursuing existing markets, thus, creating a paradox of venture legitimation. Prior research outlines approaches for new venture legitimacy but it is unclear when these approaches should be applied within and beyond an entrepreneurial ecosystem. To address this paradox, we integrate ideas from the entrepreneurship and innovation literature with insights from the legitimacy literature to describe how different types of venture newness employ different legitimation strategies which results in different levels of legitimacy diffusion beyond an ecosystem. We conclude with a discussion of our concepts and offer suggestions for future research efforts.     

Warren Belasco. Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food

Warren Belasco does not know what the future of food is goingto be, but he does know a great deal about the history of thefuture of food. In his book, Meals to Come: A History of theFuture of Food, Belasco examines predictions, discussions, fears,and controversies that have surrounded our food supply overthe previous two centuries. As he notes in his introduction,making predictions is a risky business, but, risk aside, therehave been no shortage     

An exploratory look at supermarket shopping paths

We present analyses of an extraordinary new dataset that reveals the path taken by individual shoppers in an actual grocery store, as provided by RFID (radio frequency identification) tags located on their shopping carts. The analysis is performed using a multivariate clustering algorithm not yet seen in the marketing literature that is able to handle data sets with unique (and numerous) spatial constraints. This allows us to take into account physical impediments (such as the location of aisles and other inaccessible areas of the store) to ensure that we only report feasible centroid paths. We also recognize that time spent in the store plays an important role, leading to different cluster configurations for short, medium, and long trips. The resulting three sets of clusters identify a total of 14 “canonical path types” that are typical of grocery store travel, and we carefully describe (and cross-validate) each set of clusters. These results dispel certain myths about shopper travel behavior that common intuition perpetuates, including behavior related to aisles, end-cap displays, and the “racetrack.” We briefly relate these results to previous research (using much more limited datasets) covering travel behavior in retail stores and other related settings.     

Cultural and socioeconomic constraints on international codes of ethics: Lessons from accounting

This paper provides a framework for the examination of cultural and socioeconomic factors that could impede the acceptance and implementation of a profession's international code of conduct. We apply it to the Guidelines on Ethics for Professional Accountants issued by the International Federation of Accountants (1990). To examine the cultural effects, we use Hofstede's (1980a) four work-related values: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity. The socioeconomic factors are the level of development of the profession and the availability of economic resources. We evaluate the applicability and relevance of the accounting guideline, and discuss the implications for accounting and other professions.Jeffrey R. Cohen is Assistant Professor of Accounting at Boston College. He is a CMA and a KPMG Peat Marwick Faculty Fellow. His articles have appeared in theJournal of Accounting Research, Decision Sciences, The Organizational Behavior Teaching Review, andThe International Journal of Accounting. His work on ethics has appeared inJournal of Business Ethics, Issues in Accounting Education, Management Accounting andThe CPA Journal.Laurie W. Pant is Associate Professor of Accounting at Suffolk University. She holds an MBA and DBA and an M.Ed. She is a CMA and serves on the editorial board ofIssues in Accounting Education. Her articles have appeared inJournal of Business Ethics, Issues in Accounting Education, Management Accounting, The Organizational Behavior Teaching Review, andThe International Journal of Accounting.David J. Sharp is Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Western Ontario. He received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. He is an ACMA and serves on the editorial board ofJournal of International Accounting Auditing and Taxation. His articles have appeared in theMidland Corporate Finance Journal, Sloan Management Review, andThe International Journal of Accounting.     

Planning to please: Following another agent's intended plan

In this article we analyze a particular model of control among intelligent agents, that ofnon-absolute control. Non-absolute control involves a “supervisor” agent that issues orders to a “subordinate” agent. An example might be a human agent on Earth directing the activities of a Mars-based semi-autonomous vehicle. Both agents operate with essentially the same goals. The subordinate agent, however, is assumed to have access to some information that the supervisor does not have. The agent is thus expected to exercise its judgment in following orders (i.e., following the true intent of the supervisor, to the best of its ability). After presenting our model, we discuss the planning problem: how would a subordinate agent choose among alternative plans? Our solutions focus on evaluating the distance between candidate plans, and is appropriate to any scenario in which one agent wants to follow (as much as possible) another agent's plan.     

Innovation, Ethics, and Entrepreneurship

This paper is a response to Ray's (2004) recent proposal that the intellectual property rights (IPR) attached to potentially life saving/life sustaining innovations should become public goods in cases where markets are either unable or unwilling to pay for the creation of the intellectual property. Using a free market approach to innovation based on Western moral philosophy, we suggest that treating intellectually protected life saving/life sustaining innovations as public goods will likely reduce social welfare over the long term.