Trust in Companies and in CEOs: A Comparative Study of the Main Influences

Trust is a crucial factor for the long-term economic success of a company. However, not only does the company establish trust, but the CEO representing the company builds up trust as well and, therefore, also influences the company’s success. Our study examines how different dimensions of trust (i.e., ability, integrity, benevolence, and information quality) influence the degree of overall trust in a company and in CEOs. Nevertheless, dimensions that influence trust in a CEO can be completely different to those influencing trust in companies. Companies and CEOs that act on an international level can hardly be experienced individually, and thus people get information about the company via media use. Therefore, additionally we examine which kind of media is used for getting information about a company or CEO and whether a relationship exists between media use and trust. Findings from a survey in Switzerland (n = 245) show that companies are more trusted than CEOs and that the items which influence overall trust differ between CEOs and companies. Social responsibility as a benevolence item is important for both groups. Regarding information on different media channels, users of traditional media like newspapers, TV, and radio are most critical regarding trust in companies and CEOs.     

“Organizational Terrorism” and Moral Choices – Exercising Voice When the Leader is the Problem

We introduce the concept of “organizational terrorism” to describe dysfunctional leaders who are abusive and who treat organizational members with contempt and disregard. After identifying the moral duties of leaders in organizations, we explain how organization members respond to their dissatisfaction with organizations through Exit, Voice, Loyalty, or Neglect. We explain why exercising voice is the most effective moral choice in dealing with dysfunctional leaders.     

The Meaning(s) of Trust. A Content Analysis on the Diverse Conceptualizations of Trust in Scholarly Research on Business Relationships

Scholarly research largely converges on the argument that trust is of paramount importance to drive economic agents toward mutually satisfactory, fair, and ethically compliant behaviors. There is, however, little agreement on the meaning of trust, whose conceptualizations differ with respect to actors, relationships, behaviors, and contexts. At present, we know much better what trust does than what trust is. In this article, we present an extensive review and analysis of the most prominent articles on trust in market relationships. Using computer-aided content analysis and network analysis methods, we identify key, recurring dimensions that guided the conceptualization of trust in past research, and show how trust can be developed as a multifaceted and layered construct. Our results are an important contribution to a convergence of research toward a shared and common view of the meaning of trust. This process is important to ensure the body of trust research’s internal theoretical consistency, and to provide reliable and common principles for the management of business relationships – a context in which opportunism and imperfect information may induce economic actors to cheat and stray from fair and ethically compliant behaviors.     

Speaking Platitudes to Power: Observing American Business Ethics in an Age of Declining Hegemony

The use of technology in marketing has become an increasingly important competitive tool in developing and maintaining efficient and productive customer relationships. However, the ethics of using this technology has received little attention. This study investigates how and if marketing organizations are adapting their ethics policies to incorporate use of sales technology (ST). Based on in-depth interviews with executives from a variety of highly regulated to nonregulated business-to-business and business-to-consumer industries, our results show that, although most organizations indeed have codes of ethics, there appears to be a gray area of how these codes address ST. Further, it appears that monitoring the ethical use of ST varies and can be a frustrating and time-consuming issue for marketing and sales executives. Implications of our findings are discussed for the benefit of marketing practitioners, ethics managers, and researchers.     

A Progressive Search for a Group Ranking with Robust Conclusions on Prudent Orders

We consider the problem where rankings, provided for instance by a group of evaluators, have to be combined into a common group ranking. In such a context, Arrow and Raynaud suggested that the compromise ranking should be a prudent order. In general, a prudent order is not unique. That is why, we propose to manage this possible multiplicity of compromise solutions by computing robust conclusions. This allows for a progressive refinement of the decision model and supports the group to eventually select one group ranking. The approach is illustrated on a problem where a group of junior researchers has to agree on a ranking of research domains.     

Communication Quality in Business Negotiations

The quality of a business negotiation process is usually assessed by its economic outcome, e.g. in terms of Pareto efficiency or distance to Nash equilibrium. We argue that this assessment method is insufficient in that it fails to provide a comprehensive analysis of business negotiations. Negotiators engage in highly complex communication tasks, and these communication processes should be analysed along with the outcome in the overall evaluation of a business negotiation. To this end, we will introduce Communication Quality as a new construct for analyzing the negotiation process. Furthermore, it will be argued that Communication Quality itself can affect economic negotiation outcomes both short- and long-term. We will present relevant aspects of Communication Quality, outline a scheme for its operationalisation and measurement, and discuss its probable impacts on business negotiations.     

Group Structured Reasoning for Coalescing Group Decisions

In this paper we present the notion of structured reasoning through a model, called the Generic/Actual Argument Model (GAAM). The model which has been used as a computational representation for machine modelling of reasoning and for hybrid combinations of human and machine reasoning can be used as a coalescent framework for decision making. Whilst the notion of structuring reasoning is not new, structured reasoning is advanced as a technique where group consensus on reasoning structures at various levels can be used to facilitate the comprehension of complex reasoning particularly where there are multiple perspectives. For an issue, the approach provides a scaffolding structure for cognitive co-operation and a normative reasoning structure against which group participants can identify points of difference and points in common as well as the nature of the differences and similarities. Intra-group transparency characterized by the ability to recognise points in common and understand the nature of differences is important to the process of coalescing group decisions that carry maximum group support.     

Income distribution dynamics of urban residents: The case of China (1995–2004)

Using a 1995–2004 panel data of Chinese urban residents, we investigate the dynamics of income distribution in cities. According to Kernel estimates of the relative income distribution of Chinese cities, we find that: (1) the national across-city distribution of per capita GDP exhibits an apparent unique-peak distribution in 1995 and an “emerging multiple-peak” one in 2004; (2) for prefecture-level cities, income distribution has evolved to an “apparent multiple-peak” distribution from a unique-peak one; (3) the income distribution of county-level cities maintains a unique-peak curve; (4) most of the income dynamics of urban residents originates from prefecture-and-higher-level cities. We sample three representative provinces and study the urban income dynamics respectively. The analysis suggests that within a single province, urban income distribution evolves from unique-peak to twin-peak curve; while among provinces, income convergence is evident for urban residents. In addition, we measure the incidence of poverty in cities based on our income dynamics analysis, and find that the ratios of people living below absolute poverty line have been decreasing at cities of all levels.     

Advertising Media Planning in Spain: Models and Current Usages

Advertising media planning has attracted considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. There is a clear dichotomy between the optimizing and the nonoptimizing approaches. We have reviewed the present state of the art of the mathematical media models. The purpose of this study was to examine the available models for media planning in Spain and to assess their usage. A postal survey was conducted among Spanish advertising agencies whose advertising expenditure in million pesetas was 521,000 in 1988.