Enhancing Moral Intensity: The Roles of Personal and Consequential Information in Ethical Decision-Making

This research explored how (a) information regarding consequences and (b) personal information regarding the potential victim influences perceptions of moral intensity and ethical behavioral intent. An experimental vignette research design was used and 314 professional managers participated. The results of the study indicated that personal information impacted ethical behavioral intent through its influence on perceptions of proximity. In contrast, consequential information's impact depended on the presence of personal information or prior knowledge. Implications for management and future ethical research are discussed.     

The Commodification of Race in Singapore: The Customer Service Implications of the Other-Race Effect on Tourism and Retailing

This paper examines the phenomenon known as the other-race effect, which is the ability to recognize the faces of those of one race, easier than the faces of those from another race. Typically, the race that is easier to recognize is the individual's own race, and most previous research has focused on this type of comparison. This study, though, analyzes the ability of Chinese Singaporeans to recognize the faces of people of color versus White faces in a customer service context, and compares those results with the ability of White subjects in the United States to recognize the same faces. This approach is particularly applicable to the Asia Pacific region. Tourism accounts for a significant part of the regional economies, and marketers are becoming more sensitive to the changing needs of the multicultural marketplace where inter-racial interactions between customers and service providers in retailing and tourism are on the rise. Results of the research indicate evidence of the other-race effect. Asians who were more exposed to people of color than to Whites, recognized Black faces better than White faces. The results are interpreted based on the theoretical premise that people are better at recognizing faces of races for which there is a higher level of interaction, exposure, and familiarity.     

Sustainable Development and the Consumer: Exploring the Role of Carbon Labelling in Retail Supply Chains

This empirical article contributes to the sustainable development debate by examining consumer responses to carbon labels within a real world context. Given the limitations of methodologies that use self‐reported or intended measures of purchasing behaviour, we use the loyalty card data of the largest supermarket retailer in the UK to measure the impact of carbon labels on sales by different consumer segments. The data show that the trial of carbon labels on supermarket own brand products has had no discernible impact on shifting demand to lower carbon products. In order to explore possible reasons for lack of impact, nine focus groups were held using purposive sampling by retailer consumer segments to allow an exploration of awareness, understanding and use of carbon labels. The findings from the focus groups identified possible reasons for this lack of impact: lack of awareness and understanding of carbon labelling; constraining or facilitating social and cultural influences; and the heterogeneous nature of consumers. As a result, a number of implications for stakeholders are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The hypothesis of a dominance hierarchy of information sources

This paper develops a conceptual base for an hypothesis of a so-called dominance hierarchy of information sources. The hypothesis states that previous brand experience tends to dominate word-of-mouth communication, while word of mouth, in turn, tends to dominate advertising. An empirical test of the hypothesis was inconclusive.     

Rethinking the conflict between landscape change and historic landscape preservation

It is commonly argued that today's historic landscapes are the result of change in the past and it is in the nature of the landscapes to be changed as society's needs evolve. This article provides an argument against this proposition. This argument suggests that the evolution of society's needs may also lead to preserved landscapes when both these needs can be satisfied in these landscapes and when individuals place high value upon them. In considering this idea, it is argued that an increase in the society's need for heritage tourism may lead to preserved landscapes.     

Asymptotically Optimal Response‐Adaptive Designs for Allocating the Best Treatment: An Overview

Response‐adaptive designs are being used increasingly in applications, and this is especially so in early phase clinical trials. This paper reviews a particular class of response‐adaptive designs that have the property of picking the superior treatment with probability tending to one. This is a desirable property from an ethical point of view in clinical trials. The model underlying such designs is a randomly reinforced urn. This paper provides an overview of results for these designs, starting from the early paper of Durham and Yu (1990) until the recent work by Flournoy, May, Moler and Plo (2010).     

The Effects of Proximity and Empathy on Ethical Decision-Making: An Exploratory Investigation

The goals of this research were to (1) explore the direct effects of and interactions between magnitude of consequences and various types of proximity – social, psychological, and physical – on the ethical decision-making process and (2) investigate the influence of empathy on the ethical decision-making process. A carpal tunnel syndrome vignette and questionnaire were administered to a sample of human resource management professionals to test the hypothesized relationships. Significant relationships were found for the main effects between magnitude of consequences and principle-based evaluation, cognitive empathy and principle-based evaluation, and empathy and moral intention. Physical proximity moderated the relationships between magnitude of consequences and utilitarian evaluation as well as magnitude of consequences and moral intention. Cognitive empathy moderated the relationships between magnitude of consequences and principle-based evaluation and physical proximity and utilitarian evaluation. Affective empathy marginally moderated the relationship between physical proximity and principle-based evaluation. Future research directions, management implications, and strengths and weaknesses of the research are discussed.     

Protecting children's privacy online: How parental mediation strategies affect website safeguard effectiveness

Concern toward children's safety in an online environment has resulted in demands for safeguards to protect their online privacy when involved with a wide variety of commercial websites. Unfortunately, little academic research has examined how effective safeguards are in limiting children's disclosure of information. We fill this void by examining how proposed safeguards may interact with various types of parental involvement in limiting children's willingness to disclose information online. The results of two studies involving preteen, young teen, and older teen children show that safeguard effectiveness depends on both the type of parental mediation and the particular age group. Implications are presented for retailers, educators, and parents.     

Comparing international human resource management practices between Yaohan and Jusco in Hong Kong

The performance of Jusco and Yaohan in Hong Kong was examined and compared by exploring their international human resource management (IHRM) practices in terms of recruitment and selection, compensation, and training and development. Yaohan and Jusco employed different IHRM systems as a response to their contextual factors – history and background of the company, and competitive environment and business strategy, especially the use of retail technology. The results show that the IHRM systems employed by Yaohan and Jusco affect the performance of the company, and explain the factors contributing to Yaohan's bankruptcy and Jusco's increasing profitabiliry.