Cultural and Ethical Effects in Budgeting Systems: A Comparison of U.S. and Chinese Managers

This study developed and tested a model of culture’s effect on budgeting systems, and hypothesized that system variables and reactions to them are influenced by culture-specific work-related and ethical values. Most organizational and behavioral views of budgeting fail to acknowledge the ethical components of the problem, and have largely ignored the role of culture in shaping organizational and individual values. Cross-cultural differences in reactions to system design variables, and in the behaviors motivated or mitigated by those variables, has implications for the design and effectiveness of budgeting systems. The data largely support our research model, demonstrating the hypothesized national cultural differences in system design variables (e.g., participation, standards tightness, budget emphasis, etc. which we characterized as the opportunity and incentives to create budgetary slack), and the expected relationship between incentives (but not opportunity) to create slack and slack creation behavior. The data demonstrate hypothesized cultural differences in ethical ideology but show ethical ideology related to slack creation behavior only for U.S. managers. A discussion of the results and their implications is included.     

Clusters,knowledge spillovers and new venture performance: An empirical examination

Firms in geographic regions with industry clustering have been hypothesized to possess performance advantages due to superior access to knowledge spillovers. Yet, no prior studies have directly examined the relationship between a firm's location within a cluster, knowledge spillovers and firm performance. In this study, we examine whether technological spillovers explain the performance of new ventures in cluster regions. We find that ventures located within geographic clusters absorb more knowledge from the local environment and have higher growth and innovation performance, but contrary to conventional wisdom, technological spillovers are not the contributing cause of higher performance observed for these firms.     

DEFINING AND OPERATIONALIZING SUPPLY CHAIN PROCESS INTEGRATION

Integration has been recognized as critical to successful supply chain management. However, an extensive literature review revealed no consensus in its conceptualization. The current study attempts to address this research gap by providing a better definition and operationalization of supply chain process integration. With empirical support, it is proposed that internal and external supply chain process integration should be treated as two separate constructs, each comprised of two dimensions: connectivity and simplification.     

Female Representation on Corporate Boards in Europe: The Interplay of Organizational Social Consciousness and Institutions

Journal of Business Ethics - We examine the role of alignment between organizational social consciousness and the informal and formal institutions of a country in increasing female representation...     

Think Global, Invest Responsible: Why the Private Equity Industry Goes Green

The growth of socially responsible investment (SRI) on public financial markets has drawn considerable academic attention over the last decade. Discarding from the previous literature, this article sets up to analyze the Private Equity channel, which is shown to have the potentiality to foster sustainable practices in unlisted companies. The fast integration of the environmental, social and governance issues by mainstream Private Equity investors is unveiled and appears to have benefited from the maturation of SRI on public financial markets and the impetus of large conventional actors. Hypotheses on the characteristics and drivers of this movement are proposed and tested on a unique database covering the French Private Equity industry in 2011. Empirical findings support that Private Equity socially responsible investing is characterized by investor engagement and strategically driven by a need for new value creation sources, increased risk management and differentiation. In particular, results show that independent funds, which need to attract investors, are more likely than captive funds to develop socially responsible practices. Evolution of the movement and future research paths are proposed.     

REVERSE LOGISTICS: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESOURCE COMMITMENT AND PROGRAM PERFORMANCE

In response to increasing volumes of returned products, firms are establishing programs to guide the reversal of flows in the supply chain, i.e., reverse logistics. With reverse logistics programs firms seek cost savings and efficiencies related to reclamation, redistribution, and disposal of products returned “upstream” to the retailer or manufacturer. This paper reports on a recent survey of electronics catalog retailers regarding reverse logistics program involvement. In addition to creating a profile of current reverse logistics activities in an industry characterized by high volumes of returns, the research also examines the relationship between investment in reverse logistics related resources and reverse logistics program performance.     

Nurse-physician communication: an organizational accountability

Dysfunctional nurse-physician communication has been linked to medication errors, patient injuries, and patient deaths. The organization is accountable for providing a context that supports effective nurse-physician communication. Organizational strategies to create such a context are synthesized from the structural, human resource, political, and cultural frameworks of organizational behavior.     

The stylized facts about the behavior of manufacturers' inventories and backorders over the business cycle: 1959–1980

Recent theoretical work has highlighted the role of inventories in propagating business cycles. This paper attempts to provide an empirical foundation for current and future research on the role inventories play in business cycles. The evidence presented here indicates that inventories and backorders are major variables in predicting output fluctuations. Further, the evidence is that disaggregating inventories by stage-of-fabrication is important in predicting output. In concert with previous findings, our results suggest that disaggregated inventories ought to be a component of models of the business cycle.     

Bank Monitoring and Environmental Risk

Abstract:  Loan announcement effects for 152 Canadian companies are examined to investigate the efficiency of monitoring by banks facing lender environmental liability. Market reaction to the announcement of bank debt to 'environmental' firms is more positive and significant than for 'non-environmental' firms and, for firms in industries with a higher likelihood of experiencing spill events, is more positive and significant, reinforcing earlier results that establish a relationship between specific loan/borrower characteristics and announcement period excess returns and providing further evidence on the 'uniqueness' of bank loans by demonstrating the superior ability of banks to monitor corporate borrowers exposed to environmental liability.