Understanding Managerial Work Values in Turkey

The objective of this study was to explore certain managerial work values in Turkey. A total of 1023 managers from six Turkey regions participated in the study and filled out the questionnaires. Findings were analyzed using regression and anova analyses. A total of three managerial work value factors emerged, which was supported by the current value literature. It was found that there was a relationship between work values and organizational size. The lower the organizational size, the higher the proper values are held. However, organizational tenure, the number of subordinates a manager is responsible, and the educational level of a manager had no significant effect on holding work values. The proper values outnumbered the improper values significantly. The three most held work values were integrity, doing work with care and discipline, and achievement. The three least held values were cliquishness, laziness, and hypocrisy.     

African economic development in a comparative perspective

Conventional explanations of poor African economic performancegenerally fail to pay adequate attention to causal mechanismsof growth, decline and stagnation. Many African countries experiencedinvestment booms after independence but, in contrast to EastAsian newly industrialising economies, these were not sustainedowing to failure to establish a virtuous growth circle involvingcomplementary increases in savings and exports. Structural adjustmentprogrammes dismantled stat-mediated mechanisms of accumulationwithout putting viable alternatives in place, and failed totackle the structural constraints which impede productivitygrowth in agriculture. A new policy approach, drawing on theexperience of both post-colonial and adjustment periods, isnecessary.     

Labour Management as Development of the Integrated Developmental State in China

The application of the developmental state concept outside its birthplace in East Asia is generally unsuccessful. The culprit is the ‘laundry list’ method commonly seen in the literature. In this paper a ‘strategic capacity’ conceptualisation is used instead, with emphasis on its diverse institutional underpinnings. The paper demonstrates that the Chinese state's approach to industrial relations is integrated with its national development strategy and that crafting institutions of labour management is part of the state's effort at building up its strategic capacity for political, social and economic management. The study delineates the factors shaping labour management institutions, paying special attention to the communist heritage that sets China apart from other developmental states. As such, the concept of developmental state has much wider application.     

Biotechnology as a low-level-of-coherence policy priority: effectual-targeting and the need for learning and experimentation capabilities

During the last two decades, policymakers in various positions have been adopting a systems-approach to policy thinking. However, in contrast with the quasi-evolutionary way in which policy is thought of and conceptualised it seems that policy doing is still being guided by ‘market-failure’ justifications causing actual policies to remain narrow in their scope. In this paper we sidestep this analytical divide of thinking/doing by developing a co-evolutionary framework that utilises a more productive analytical divide of means/ends. That is to say we focus on a process of co-evolution of a higher-order, one which takes place ‘inside’ the agent of policy herself, and involves changes in the ways ‘means’ and ‘ends’ are understood and acted upon. Conceptualising policy problems in terms of means/ends contributes to current debates by rendering the difficulty that countries are facing in their attempts to prioritise biotechnology more intelligible and thus manageable.     

Accounting for goodwill: an examination of factors influencing management preferences

This paper investigates factors that influenced the position of managements of UK-listed companies in the heated debate that surrrounded proposals for a new standard on goodwill accounting, i.e. the factors influencing whether managements preferred immediate write-off or capitalisation-based approaches. The factors investigated are derived from contracting cost theory, and include those associated with debt covenant restrictions and profit- based management schemes. They also include non-agency contracting costs. A key feature of the design is that, compared to prior research, we specify more rigorously circumstances where such contracting cost effects are, or are not, likely to be binding. In addition, the paper investigates the effects on management preferences of their beliefs about revisions in market perceptions of their companies resulting from changes in goodwill accounting. Our results support certain contracting cost-based hypotheses, but they also indicate that management beliefs about changes in market perceptions of their companies constitute a strong influence on their preferences.     

Personal Values’ Influence on the Ethical Dimension of Decision Making

Personal values have long been associated with individual decision behavior. The role played by personal values in decision making within an organization is less clear. Past research has found that managers tend to respond to ethical dilemmas situationally. This study examines the relationship between personal values and the ethical dimension of decision making using Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis. The study examines personal values as they relate to five types of ethical dilemmas. We found a significant positive contribution of altruistic values to ethical decision making and a significant negative contribution of self-enhancement values to ethical decision making. Dr. David J. Fritzsche is a retired Professor of Management and Organization at The Pennsylvania State University, Great Valley. Among the numerous journals in which he published are Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Macromarketing, and Simulation & Games. He is the co-author of the Business Policy Game: A Strategic Management Simulation. He authoured the book Business Ethics: A Global and Managerial Perspective (McGraw-Hill, 1997). Dr. Effy Oz is a Professor of Management Science and Information Systems at The Pennsylvania State University, Great Valley, where he teaches courses on IT management, ethical issues in IT, and business-stakeholder relations. He has authored several textbooks including five editions of Management Information Systems (Course Technology Inc., 1998–2006), Foundations of E-Commerce (Prentice-Hall, 2002) and, Ethics for the Information Age (McGraw-Hill, 1994), and a practitioner’s book (The Manager’s Bible, Ivy League Publishing, 1998). He has also published research articles in academic and professional journals, among which are MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, Information & Management, Decisions Sciences, OMEGA, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Computer Information Systems. Dr. Oz is a member of the editorial boards of Encyclopaedia of Information Systems, Information & Management, and Journal of Global Information Technology Management. He is a frequent speaker at IT conferences, has conducted research on a number of IT topics, and has been quoted in numerous media including Computerworld, MSNBC, and the Los Angeles Times. He was awarded the 1997 Notable Contribution to the Information Systems Literature Award by the Information Systems Section of the American Accounting Association, the 1999-2000 Distinguished Faculty Research Award at Penn State Great Valley, and Best Paper Award at the Annual Global Information Technology Conference of 2004.     

Real Estate Brokers and Commission: Theory and Calibrations

This paper has two goals: (a) To model an inherent conflict of interest between a seller of a house and the real estate broker hired by the seller. In this environment, the pressure brokers exert on sellers to reduce prices generates faster sales and hence reduces sellers?? expected profit. (b) To calibrate the brokers?? commission rates that would maximize sellers?? expected gain. The calibration results may hint whether the ongoing uniform commission rate reflects collusion among real estate agencies, or should be viewed as competitive.     

A Welfare Evaluation of History-Based Price Discrimination

We design an asymmetric duopoly model with inherited market dominance such that the dominant firm and the smaller firm can price discriminate based on consumers’ purchase history. We show that uniform pricing softens competition leading to higher industry profits than under history-based pricing. Consumers benefit from history-based price discrimination unless the switching cost is sufficiently high and the inherited degree of dominance is sufficiently weak. A ban on history-based pricing would typically introduce a distributional conflict between consumers and producers. Finally, we establish that the gains to industry profits associated with uniform pricing exceed the associated losses to consumers.     

A Short Survey of Network Economics

This article surveys a variety of topics that are related to network economics. Topics covered include: consumer demand under network effects, compatibility decisions and standardization, technology advances in network industries, two-sided markets, information networks and intellectual property, and social influence.     

Organizational Commitment and Ethical Behavior: An Empirical Study of Information System Professionals

IS professionals have been reported to have one of the highest turnover rates. They have also often been accused of unethical conduct, specifically, pirating software, hacking, giving professional opinion that exceeds their knowledge, and not protecting people's privacy. In a sample of 71 IS professionals and 250 members of other professions we found that IS professionals were more committed to their organizations than the other professionals, and that IS professionals were, indeed, less ethical with respect to software piracy and hacking. However, we found that they were not less ethical regarding professional opinions that exceed one's knowledge and protecting people's privacy.