My Boss is Morally Disengaged: The Role of Ethical Leadership in Explaining the Interactive Effect of Supervisor and Employee Moral Disengagement on Employee Behaviors

The popular press is often fraught with high-profile illustrations of leader unethical conduct within corporations. Leader unethical conduct is undesirable for many reasons, but in terms of managing subordinates, it is particularly problematic because leaders directly influence the ethics of their followers. Yet, we know relatively little about why leaders fail to apply ethical leadership practices. We argue that some leaders cognitively remove the personal sanctions associated with misconduct, which provides them with the “freedom” to ignore ethical shortcomings. Drawing on moral disengagement theory (Bandura 1986, 1999), we examine the relationship between supervisor moral disengagement and employee perceptions of ethical leadership. We then examine the moderating role of employee moral disengagement, such that the negative relationship between supervisor moral disengagement and employee perceptions of ethical leadership is stronger when employee moral disengagement is low versus high. Finally, we examine ethical leadership as a conditional mediator (based on employee moral disengagement) that explains that relationship between supervisor moral disengagement and employee job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Results from a multi-source field survey provide general support for our theoretical model.     

Asset market games of survival: a synthesis of evolutionary and dynamic games

The paper examines a game-theoretic model of a financial market in which asset prices are determined endogenously in terms of a short-run equilibrium. Investors use general, adaptive strategies (portfolio rules) depending on the exogenous states of the world and the observed history of the game. The main goal is to identify portfolio rules, allowing an investor to “survive,” i.e., to possess a positive, bounded away from zero, share of market wealth over an infinite time horizon. The model under consideration combines a strategic framework characteristic for stochastic dynamic games with an evolutionary solution concept (survival strategies), thereby linking two fundamental paradigms of game theory.     

Innovations and Legacies in Russian Human Resource Management Practices: Surveys of 700 Chief Executive Officers

In 1998 we administered a survey to 740 Russian chief executive officers (CEOs), which enabled us to raise the question of the current human resource management (HRM) practices in Russian industrial companies. In October-December 2000 we administered another survey among 735 Russian CEOs. This time we observed a major drive towards some modern instruments of HRM policies. However, an additional survey, devoted to the source of innovations in HRM, revealed that most HRM innovations are implemented on a trial and error basis, without reference to international practices.     

Technological Innovativeness and Firm Performance in Slovenia and Romania

This study contributes to a better understanding of performance induced by technological innovativeness by developing and testing a model. The model clarifies the nature of the influence of technological innovativeness and its organisational and inter-organisational antecedents (organisational support for innovativeness and technological alliances) on firm growth, profitability and wealth creation. Survey data were collected from firms in two countries: Slovenia and Romania; structural equation modelling was employed to test the model and the hypothesised relationships. Support for most of the model hypotheses was found. Among the control elements in the model, country, industry technological opportunities and firm age were found to be the most influential.     

Finite additive utility representations for preferences over menus

I characterize a finite additive utility representation for preferences over menus. The numbers of both positive and negative components in this representation are expressed explicitly in terms of preference. These expressions can be used to characterize models of temptation, perfectionism, context effects, and other phenomena.     

Patterns of Aging-Related Changes on the Way to 100

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to investigate dynamic properties of age trajectories of physiological indices and their effects on mortality risk and longevity using longitudinal data on more than 5,000 individuals collected in biennial examinations of the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) original cohort during about 50 subsequent years of follow-up. We first performed empirical analyses of the FHS longitudinal data. We evaluated average age trajectories of indices describing physiological states for different groups of individuals and established their connections with mortality risk. These indices include body mass index, diastolic blood pressure, pulse pressure, pulse rate, level of blood glucose, hematocrit, and serum cholesterol. To be able to investigate dynamic mechanisms responsible for changes in the aging human organisms using available longitudinal data, we further developed a stochastic process model of human mortality and aging, by including in it the notions of “physiological norms,” “allostatic adaptation and allostatic load,” “stress resistance,” and other characteristics associated with the internal process of aging and the effects of external disturbances. In this model, the persistent deviation of physiological indices from their normal values contributes to an increase in morbidity and mortality risks. We used the stochastic process model in the statistical analyses of longitudinal FHS data. We found that different indices have different average age patterns and different dynamic properties. We also found that age trajectories of long-lived individuals differ from those of the shorter-lived members of the FHS original cohort for both sexes. Using methods of statistical modeling, we evaluated “normal” age trajectories of physiological indices and the dynamic effects of allostatic adaptation. The model allows for evaluating average patterns of aging-related decline in stress resistance. This effect is captured by the narrowing of the U-shaped mortality risk (considered a function of physiological state) with age. We showed that individual indices and their rates of change with age, as well as other measures of individual variability, manifested during the life course are important contributors to mortality risks. The advantages and limitations of the approach are discussed.     

Functional marketing plan development in department store retailing

Retailers are now implementing the types of formal marketing planning programs that have long characterized consumer goods firms. The functional marketing plans that are developed tend to be a year or less in duration. The primary responsibility for developing the plans resides with the general merchandise manager. The planning efforts of the retailing executive, in spite of their short term nature, do reflect an awareness of the importance of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of competitors and of the need to spell out issues involving profit planning, sales promotion planning, merchandise addition/deletion decisions, and issues involving inventory/physical distribution. A variety of marketing plans are developed. Separate plans are developed by merchandise lines in many organizations. The authors wish to express their appreciation to The Conference Board for permission to use the questionnaire, with modifications, underlying research for The Marketing Plan, Report No. 801, The Conference Board, 1981, as the basis for formulating the questionnaire used in this research     

The supply of and demand for accounting information

The article analyzes the use of accounting information in Russia. We assess reporting behaviour in the lending process for a sample of Russian companies in the years 1999–2004 and postulate that Russian companies manage their earnings in order to avoid showing losses when applying for bank financing. Once a credit has been granted, companies are predicted to manage earnings because of the bank's monitoring activities. By means of univariate and multivariate analysis we are able to attribute the discontinuity around a zero target in the earnings distribution with firms’ response to the banks’ assessment of accounting performance. This implies that financing considerations affect the reporting incentives of Russian companies.