Misperceptions By Managers and Their Bosses of Each Other's Preferences Regarding the Managers’ Careers: A Case of the Blind Leading the Blind?

Peter Herriot, Carole Pemberton and Robert Pinder report on and consider the policy implications of a study of the career attitudes of managers. Managers and their bosses believed that their attitudes about the managers’ careers were similar. In fact, there was little relationship between them, and furthermore, their perceptions of each other's preferences were largely unrelated to the preferences themselves. Three factors, ‘reputation’, ‘promotion’ and ‘competences’, explained approximately half the variance. Length of service with the organisation was the main predictor of the managers’ career attitudes. Managers believed themselves to be more likely to be promoted than did their bosses, and considered promotion more probable the more frequently they had moved jobs. Peter Herriot is Director of Research and Carole Pemberton is Research Consultant at Sundridge Park Management Centre. Robert Pinder is Director of Integra Associates.     

A cross-national comparison of cultural value orientations of Indian,Polish, Russian and American employees

This study examines the cultural value orientations (VOs) of employees (managerial and non-managerial) working in three categories of organizations (professional, technical and local services) in India, Poland, Russia and the USA. The analysis is conducted at both the national and organizational levels. The paper hypothesizes cultural differences at the country level and cultural similarities among employees working for professional and technical oriented organizations and divergence in the VOs of employees working for local services organizations. It also hypothesizes differences in the VOs of managerial and non-managerial employees in the four countries. The investigation has been conducted with the help of a questionnaire survey of 1,852 respondents. The outcomes of the analysis show that there are both cross-country cultural differences and similarities among the VOs of employees of the four nations. Further, significant cultural convergence emerges in the VOs of employees working for both professional and technical organizations, however, no significant cultural similarities or differences are observed for employees of service-based organizations in the four countries. There are some similarities emerging between managerial employees in the research countries. The research contributes to the fields of cross-cultural management, international management and international human resource management.     

Teleconferencing and its effects on business travel

With escalating travel and convention costs some organizations are looking to teleconferencing by satellite as a possible solution. Although with certain disadvantages over the conventional meeting, it can allow for a maximum of cost-effective information exchange over a geographically disparate area. The author provides an overview of this young industry and discusses what effects teleconferencing will have on business travel.     

Market Integrity and Surveillance Effort

Maintaining and enhancing market integrity is a central objective of exchanges worldwide. However, there is relatively little research examining the efforts of exchanges in achieving this objective. Using unique data, this paper presents evidence on Australian Stock Exchange surveillance effort and the characteristics of alleged market manipulation. The evidence reveals significant and enhanced surveillance effort over time. Significant changes in the characteristics of alleged manipulation are also evident. Analysis of these changes indicates improved integrity outcomes in areas of persistent and targeted Surveillance effort.     

Workplace Values and Outcomes: Exploring Personal,Organizational, and Interactive Workplace Spirituality

Spiritual values in the workplace, increasingly discussed and applied in the business ethics literature, can be viewed from an individual, organizational, or interactive perspective. The following study examined previously unexplored workplace spirituality outcomes. Using data collected from five samples consisting of full-time workers taking graduate coursework, results indicated that perceptions of organizational-level spirituality (“organizational spirituality”) appear to matter most to attitudinal and attachment-related outcomes. Specifically, organizational spirituality was found to be positively related to job involvement, organizational identification, and work rewards satisfaction, and negatively related to organizational frustration. Personal spirituality was positively related to intrinsic, extrinsic, and total work rewards satisfaction. The interaction of personal spirituality and organizational spirituality was found related to total work rewards satisfaction. Future workplace spirituality research directions are discussed.     

Identification through technical analysis: A study of charting and UK non-professional investors

The usefulness of technical analysis, or charting, has been questioned because it flies in the face of the ‘random walk’ and tests present conflicting results. We examine chartists’ decision-making techniques and derive a taxonomy of charting strategies based on investors’ market ontologies and calculative strategies. This distinguishes between trend-seekers and pattern-seekers, and trading as a system or an art. We argue that interpretative activity plays a more important role than previously thought and suggest that charting’s main appeal for users lies in its power as a heuristic device regardless of its effectiveness at generating returns.     

Impact of Flexible Periodic Premiums on Variable Annuity Guarantees

In this article, we study the fair fee of a flexible premium variable annuity (FPVA), in which the policyholder can choose to pay periodic premiums during the accumulation phase instead of a single initial premium. We are able to express fair fees using a fast and accurate approximation based on bounds on the price of the FPVA. We identify scenarios that are particularly costly for the insurer. Our study could help insurers estimate the magnitude of typical underpricing when offering flexible-premium variable annuities with the same fee as the corresponding single-premium variable annuity.     

Assessing changes in teachers’ attitudes toward interdisciplinary STEM teaching

Integrating engineering and technology concepts into K-12 science and math curricula through engineering design project-based learning has been found to increase students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), however preparing teachers to shift to interdisciplinary teaching remains a significant challenge. Primarily teachers need to develop both skills and attitudes toward interdisciplinary teaching. In doing so, professional development (PD) is considered a key component in helping teachers through this transformation process. In an educational environment of accountability, measuring the effects of PD programs on teacher behaviors and capacity is essential but often elusive. The current study describes the change in attitudes to interdisciplinary teaching of 29 self-selected middle and high school teachers who participated a PD workshop and in delivering a 12–15 week interdisciplinary teaching and design problem unit that spanned multiple STEM subjects. This quasi-experimental pilot study implemented a single group pretest–posttest design using survey methods to collect data from the participants at two intervals; at the time of the PD workshop and at the completion of the teaching unit that emphasized a long-term engineering design problem. The goals of this research are to (1) assess the changes in attitudes to interdisciplinary teaching, attitudes to teamwork, teaching satisfaction, and resistance to change, (2) explore relationships among these changes, (3) and describe the variation in these changes across teachers’ gender, school level, discipline taught, and education level.