The Cross-Cultural Evolution of the Subordinate Influence Ethics Measure

The purpose of our article is to describe the initial development process of the subordinate influence ethics (SIE) measure, an instrument that was cross- culturally conceived, designed, and validity tested to measure upward influence ethics strategies of professional subordinates across different societies, as well as within a single society. Development of the SIE began by defining the SIE constructs through theoretical review and empirical (nominal group technique) assessments in Germany, France, Hong Kong, and the U.S. In the present measurement development phase, the SIE has been found to consist of three distinct dimensions: pro-organizational behaviors, self-serving behaviors, and maliciously intended behaviors. The construct validity of the SIE was examined across 4113 subjects from 30 countries. A reduced model of the SIE was developed empirically to represent the “best model” for the three-factor scale.     

Perceptions of United Kingdom exporters in transferring technology into the People's Republic of China

The objective of this study was to identify for UK firms active in transferring technology into the PRC, their perceptions of the market and their clients. The research was progressed by questionnaire and interview. The companies approached were selected on the basis of contracts listed in Chinese government publications and the financial press.
The main findings relate to the lack of awareness in the UK of the role of the Chinese research institutes, the poor quality of Chinese management, the inadequacy of infrastructure and training needed to support the new technology and the absence of problems arising from cultural differences or leakage of proprietary information. The Chinese are eager to obtain new technology although there is some difficulty in identifying suppliers.     

Enhancing perceptions of auditor independence

Financial statement users must believe that external auditors are free from management control, or users will doubt the verity of auditors' representations. Although U.S.-based auditing firms claim they are independent of their corporate clients, research has demonstrated that many individuals and groups perceive the situation otherwise. A proposal for enhancing perceptions of auditor independence is offered in this article. The proposal calls for an auditor-administered educational program, complemented by corporate audit committee involvement to lend credibility to auditors' claims. Michael A. Pearson is Associate Professor of Accounting at Kent State University. He received B.S. and M.B.A. degrees from Northeastern University and earned a D.B.A. degree at Kent State. Dr. Pearson is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and also holds the Certificate in Management Accounting (CMA). He has written numerous articles for academic and professional journals, and he is currently Associate Editor of The Ohio CPA Journal.     

Sustainable Tourism: An Overview of the Concept and its Position in Relation to Conceptualisations of Tourism

Reference to sustainable tourism is now made in most strategic tourism planning documents. Yet, despite its common use, definitional arguments exist over its meaning and subsequent operationalisation. In addition to this, literature on sustainable tourism rarely discusses its development prior to the publication of Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), 1987) and its relevance to current conceptualisations of tourism. This paper analyses the context within which sustainable tourism was developed and has recently been conceptualised. It does this by assessing the development of sustainable tourism (with an Australian focus) and proposing a model which incorporates the development of sustainable tourism into tourism. The paper argues that sustainable tourism has traditionally given more focus to aspects related to the environment and economic development and that more focus should be given to community involvement.     

Causes and consequences of psychological contracts among knowledge workers in the high technology and financial services industries

As organizations shift the central focus of their competitive strategy away from value appropriation towards value creation it is to knowledge workers that they will look to provide the innovation to fuel their continued development. The state of the relationship between the knowledge worker and the employer - the psychological contract - will determine whether this source of innovation and creativity is released. In this study, we developed and tested a causal model of the causes and consequences of psychological contract. Over four hundred participants who were knowledge employees drawn from eleven leading edge companies in the high-technology software, manufacturing and financial services sector participated in the study. We found support for the hypothesis that the psychological contract and those organizational processes relating to procedural justice would have a direct effect on two critical organizational outcomes, namely, employee commitment and intention to remain with the organization. We also found support for the hypothesis that psychological contract variables mediated the relationship between organizational processes and employee commitment and intention to stay with the organization.