Ethics and Economics in International Business Education: A Comparison of Kuwaiti and U.S. Students Using an Ultimatum Game Scenario

In the past 20 years a body of research in behavioral and experimental economics has challenged classical economic theory. Yet, this body of research seems relatively unknown in business education. One behavioral test with implications for international business education has been the use of ultimatum games, which has more recently expanded to cross-cultural studies. Yet, virtually no cross-cultural studies have been conducted for subjects in Middle Eastern countries. One of the central findings from ultimatum game research and other variations is that individuals place a high value on fairness in transactions, a fundamentally ethical concept. This article reports a preliminary study of Kuwaiti and U.S. business students. Results are consistent with previous studies, showing Kuwaiti subjects to be in line with subjects from developed economies. Discussion includes the implications for management and business educators.     

Intercollegiate Athletics as an Institutional Fundraising Tool: An Exploratory Donor-Based View

Previous research has indicated that intercollegiate athletics programs may be successful at attracting new donors to higher education institutions. Research has also shown that major donors who support both athletic and academic programs at an institution give more total dollars to the institution than other donors and are retained at higher rates. Through 65 in-depth interviews with donors making gifts to both athletic and academic programs at NCAA FBS (top athletic division) institutions, this exploratory research seeks to understand how intercollegiate programs influence donor decisions. Donors were questioned as to their motives for giving, specific changes in their historical giving patterns, and their future giving intentions. Several consistent themes emerged from donor interviews that provide insight into previous empirical findings and direction for both fundraising practice and future research.     

Theoretical Perspectives on Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure: Evidence From China

Using a data set of top 56 corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) disclosing firms with 112 observations on the H-share and Red-chip lists of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, results suggest that charitable donations, firm size, and the Songhua River incident response are positively related to the CSER disclosure, whereas debt–equity ratio, profit margin, and firm age revealed counterdirectional relationships. Other variables including media attention and market risk were found to have no impact. Findings imply that the Chinese government and its agencies need to prescribe CSER guidelines and make them mandatory for listed firms.     

Consumers’ Intent: In the Organic Food Market

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the determinants that influence consumers' intention to purchase organic products. Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour (TPB) provides the conceptual framework of the research and the appropriateness of the theory is tested. A survey of 144 consumers was used to determine the beliefs which determine consumers’ intent to purchase organic food. Furthermore, attitudes, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control were examined to determine whether they affect consumers’ intention to make organic products purchases. The findings offer considerable support for the robustness of the TPB in explaining intention in the sample. In addition, empirical evidence suggest that price, availability of organic products, product information and the subjective opinions of others are important determinants of consumers intent to buy organic products. The results are consistent with previous research.     

Creative Strategies in Highly Creative Domestic and International Television Advertising

The author gives an ITV Company view of the research environment of the eighties.     

Signaling Quality and Credibility in Yellow Pages Advertising: The Influence of Color and Graphics on Choice

Abstract

This research investigates the ability of color and graphics to convey information about quality and credibility and their influence on choice in Yellow Pages advertising. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to Yellow Pages ads across three product categories had more favorable attitudes toward the advertisement, advertiser, and quality for ads in color than for noncolored ads. Attitudes about the advertisement, advertiser, quality, and credibility were more favorable for ads with photos than for ads with line art. In both cases, results varied by product category. Experiment 2 tested the effect of color and graphics on selection of a Yellow Pages advertiser across eight product categories. Selection from a 32-page, simulated Yellow Pages booklet was made by 384 subjects. A significant effect for process (full) color and photographic-quality graphics on choice of an advertiser from Yellow Pages was found and varied across product categories. The results also highlight the impact of other variables that are controlled by the advertiser.     

Perceived effect of a salesperson's stigmatized appearance on store image: an experimental study of student's perceptions

The Perception of a specific stigma, obesity, and its influence on store image was studied. Previous studies have acknowledged the role salespeople play in the perception of a store's image, but no previous studies have specifically focused on the influence of the physical appearance of sales personnel on store image. The results of an experiment that examined students' perceptions of salespersons' appearance showed that, if a salesperson was described as obese, then the store was perceived as having a poorer image and as being less successful, regardless of the sex of the salesperson or the type of store. The implications of these findings for retailers are discussed in light of the Americans with Disabilities Act and recent legal discussion concerned with protecting physically stigmatized workers.     

Umpire and batsman: Is it cricket to be both?

The paper is a response to Richard De George's essay, Theological Ethics and Business Ethics. It defends the possibility of theologically oriented approaches to business ethics by pointing out certain deficiencies in business ethics narrowly based on the premisses of analytic moral philosophy. In particular it argues, in a manner consistent with Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981), that such a program of business ethics is insufficiently critical of its own roots in the social fiction of bureaucratic rationality. After showing how this ideology governs De George's negative judgments on theological approaches to business ethics, the author outlines a program of critical reflection that would draw from the intellectual traditions of both theology and philosophy in order to facilitate a dialogue in business ethics that no longer is captive in the Iron Cage of bureaucratic rationality. Dennis P. McCann is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at De Paul University. He has served on the faculties of Reed College and Lewis and Clark College. He is the author of Christian Realism and Liberation Theology (1981) and a co-author of Polity and Praxis: A Program for American Practical Theology (1985).     

The mixed economy for public service consumers. The case of consumer agencies for public transportation

The phrase mixed economy of welfare refers to the observation that the provision of public services in western countries frequently involves the participation of other sectors in addition to government. For example, a service may be privately financed and produced but regulated by government, financed by government subsidies or vouchers but produced privately, or produced by a commercial or voluntary organization under contract to government. But such different ways in which government can arrange public service supply by no means exhaust the varieties of arrangements in a mixed economic system. Other examples include alternative institutional arrangements for articulating consumer wants for public services, evaluating consumer satisfaction, and holding the producers of services accountable for their performance.This paper examines the role of official public advisory bodies and private, voluntary associations whose purposes are to improve services to users of U.S. public transportation. At variance with some of the theory of political economy, it is found that the public and private consumer organizations generally enjoy a symbiotic rather than substitute or competitive relationship with one another, and that both kinds of organizations arise and complement each other in addressing the problems of consumers of a government service produced under monopoly conditions.

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Die Beteiligung mehrerer Wirtschaftssektoren bei der Versorgung mit öffentlichen Diensten — der Fall der amerikanischen Verbraucher-Agenturen für öffentlichen Nahverkehr

Zusammenfassung Der Ausdruck mixed economy of welfare bezieht sich auf die Beobachtung, daß die Versorgung mit öffentlichen Gütern in westlichen Ländern häufig nicht allein durch den Staat erfolgt. So kann zum Beispiel ein öffentliches Gut privat finanziert und hergestellt werden, aber unter öffentlicher Aufsicht stehen, oder es kann von der öffentlichen Hand bezahlt aber privat produziert werden, oder es kann durch eine kommerzielle oder gemeinnützige Organisation in Absprache mit staatlichen Stellen produziert werden. Ebenso gibt es Fälle, wo öffentlicher und privater Hersteller eines vergleichbaren Gutes verschiedene Marktseggmente versorgen. Beispielsweise stehen in den USA den Bürgern, die mit öffentlichen Schulen unzufrieden sind, private Schulen zur Verfügung.Diese Beispiele zeigen, auf welchen unterschiedlichen Wegen die Versorgung mit öffentlichen Gütern rangiert werden kann. Solche angebotsorientierten Beispiele zeigen aber nur einen Teil der möglichen Sektorverbindungen in einer Mischwirtschaft. Andere Beispiele treffen eher die Nachfrageseite bei öffentlichen Gütern, insbesondere die institutionellen Möglichkeiten für die Artikulation von Verbraucherwünschen hinsichtlich öffentlicher Güter für die Erfassung der Zufriedenheit und dafür, daß die Anbieter öffentlicher Güter für ihr Leistungsniveau einstehen müssen. Solche Beispiele zeigen, daß Einrichtungen wie Kommissionen für öffentliche Dienste, Departements für Konsumentenfragen, Ombudsmänner und eine Vielzahl privater und freiwilliger Organisationen in unterschiedlichster Weise tätig werden, um die Interessen von Bürgern zu schützen, die öffentliche Leistungen in Anspruch nehmen.Der vorliegende Beitrag betrachtet solche Einrichtungen für öffentlichen Nah- und Fernverkehr in den USA. Ebenso wie in England gibt es hier sowohl offizielle öffentliche Beratungsgremien wie auch private freiwillige Einrichtungen, deren Zielsetzung ganz ähnlich sind, nämlich die Leistungen der öffentlichen Verkehrsunternehmungen zu verbessern. Der Beitrag berichtet über die Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie beider Arten von Gremien und versucht die Rolle beider Arten in einer Mischwirtschaft zu beschreiben. Insbesondere versucht der Beitrag, zu erklären, warum beide Arten von Gremien entstehen, welches Verhältnis sie zu einander und zu den Transportunternehmen haben. Im Gegensatz zu manchen theoretischen Annahmen erwies sich, daß öffentliche und private Verbraucherorganisationen weniger in einem substitutiven oder wettbewerblichen Verhältnis zueinander stehen, sondern eher eine Symbiose miteinander bilden, und daß sich beide Arten von Organisationen häufig bei der Behandlung von Problemen ergänzen.The author is indebted to his former student and research assistant Chester Phillips for carrying out the survey for this paper. He would also like to thank his colleague Richard Silkman for insightful comments and suggestions on the first draft and Beverly Dolinsky of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA in New York City for the time and information she provided. Finally, the author wants to thank Ken Judge for providing the stimulus to write this paper through the invitation to participate in the 1983 Social Administration Association Conference in Canterbury, England, where this paper was first presented, and Harry Weiner for arranging support to allow attendance at that conference.

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Dennis R. Young is a Professor at W. Averell Harriman College for Policy Analysis and Public Management, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA.