Antecedents and Consequences of Cronyism in Organizations

In this paper we discuss cronyism that exists between superiors and subordinates. Cronyism is defined as favoritism shown by the superior to his or her subordinate based on their relationship, rather than the latter's capability or qualification, in exchange for the latter's personal loyalty. We argue that two cultural antecedents, namely particularism and paternalism, give rise to strong ingroup bias and unreserved personal loyalty, which in turn lead to cronyism. We examine the consequences of cronyism at the individual level with respect to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and ingratiation. We also discuss how cronyism affects performance, morale, and inertia at the organizational level. Cronyism can be observed in all cultures; however, its manifestation is likely to vary from one culture to another.     

Delineating Foreign Market Potential: A Tool for International Market Selection

International expansion is becoming more imperative in today's marketplace. However, determining which markets best suit a specific company is not a straightforward task. This study tackles the question of how managers should go about identifying, evaluating, and selecting foreign markets. For this purpose, we propose a practical, flexible, and forward‐looking three‐stage template for assessing foreign market opportunities and identifying the most promising international markets. The three stages include determining country responsiveness for a specific industry, estimating future industry growth, and incorporating an industry‐relevant aggregate measure. The study illustrates the tool for three companies from various industries and discusses the implications. The proposed tool offers insights on crucial dimensions for the industry‐specific market potential, and assists managers in identifying favorable foreign markets. This study also addresses the gap in the international market selection literature by developing a new empirical tool for foreign market analysis and selection using longitudinal secondary data. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Closed-form Bayesian inferences for the logit model via polynomial expansions

Articles in Marketing and choice literatures have demonstrated the need for incorporating person-level heterogeneity into behavioral models (e.g., logit models for multiple binary outcomes as studied here). However, the logit likelihood extended with a population distribution of heterogeneity doesn’t yield closed-form inferences, and therefore numerical integration techniques are relied upon (e.g., MCMC methods). We present here an alternative, closed-form Bayesian inferences for the logit model, which we obtain by approximating the logit likelihood via a polynomial expansion, and then positing a distribution of heterogeneity from a flexible family that is now conjugate and integrable. For problems where the response coefficients are independent, choosing the Gamma distribution leads to rapidly convergent closed-form expansions; if there are correlations among the coefficients one can still obtain rapidly convergent closed-form expansions by positing a distribution of heterogeneity from a Multivariate Gamma distribution. The solution then comes from the moment generating function of the Multivariate Gamma distribution or in general from the multivariate heterogeneity distribution assumed. Closed-form Bayesian inferences, derivatives (useful for elasticity calculations), population distribution parameter estimates (useful for summarization) and starting values (useful for complicated algorithms) are hence directly available. Two simulation studies demonstrate the efficacy of our approach. JEL Classification C6 · C8 · M3     

Identifying the gaps in ethical perceptions between managers and salespersons: A multidimensional approach

This research examines, in a general manner, the degree and character of perceptual congruity between salespeople and managers on ethical issues. Salespeople and managers from a diversity of organizations were presented with three scenarios having varying degrees of ethical content and were asked to evaluate the action of the individual in each scenario. Findings indicate that, in every instance, the participating managers tended (1) to be more critical of the action displayed in the scenarios, (2) to view the action as violating a sense of contract or promise, and (3) to view the action as less culturally acceptable than did the salespeople.Tony L. Henthorne is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Henthorne has published in such journals asPsychology and Marketing andJournal of Professional Services Marketing.Donald P. Robin is Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Robin is coauthor with Eric Reidenbach of two recent books on business ethics. Dr. Robin has contributed several articles on business ethics in such journals asJournal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, andJournal of Business Ethics. He is also a frequent lecturer on the topic of business ethics.R. Eric Reidenbach is the Director of the Center for Business Development and Research and Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Reidenbach has written numerous articles for such journals asJournal of Business Ethics, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Macromarketing, andJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Dr. Reidenbach has coauthored two books on business ethics.     

International trade and child labor: Cross-country evidence

We explore the relationship between exposure to trade (as measured by openness) and child labor in a cross-country setting. Our methodology accounts for the fact that trade flows are endogenous to child labor (and labor standards more generally) by examining the relationship between child labor and variation in trade based on geography. We find that countries that trade more have less child labor. At the cross-country means, the data suggest an openness elasticity of child labor of − 0.7. For low-income countries, the elasticity of child labor with respect to trade with high-income countries is − 0.9. However, these relationships appear to be largely attributable to the positive association between trade and income. We consistently find a small and statistically insignificant association between openness and child labor when we control for cross-country income differences in the full sample, when we split the sample into different country groups, consider only trade between high- and low-income countries, or focus on exports of unskilled-labor intensive products from low-income countries. Thus, the cross-country data do not substantiate assertions that trade per se plays a significant role in perpetuating the high levels of child labor that pervade low-income countries.     

Sterling D. Sessions and Gene A. Sessions. A History of Utah International: From Construction to Mining. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2005. xx + 243 pp. ISBN 0-87480-836-7, $29.95.

Sterling D. Sessions and Gene A. Sessions explore the rise andtransformation of Utah International, one of the most importantcorporations in the history of the American West. Their storybegins with Edmund and William Wattis, two ambitious brotherswho set out to make their fortune in Utah in the late nineteenthcentury. In 1900, they founded the Utah Construction Company,which focused on railroad projects, from cutting tunnels throughthe High Sierras to laying track in the humid backcountry     

Estimating aggregate autoregressive processes when only macro data are available

The aggregation of individual random AR(1) models generally leads to an AR(∞$\infty$) process. We provide two consistent estimators of aggregate dynamics based on either a parametric regression or a minimum distance approach for use when only macro data are available. Notably, both estimators allow us to recover some moments of the cross-sectional distribution of the autoregressive parameter. Both estimators perform very well in our Monte-Carlo experiment, even with finite samples.     

The effects of social justice and stigma-consciousness on gay customers' service recovery evaluation

This study examines how social justice and the stigma-consciousness level of gay customers influence their service recovery perceptions. The results, based on an experiment involving 379 gay respondents, indicate that distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice significantly affect gay customers' service recovery evaluations (satisfaction) and post-complaint behavioral intentions (negative word-of-mouth and repatronage). Also, higher stigma-consciousness gay customers show more negative service recovery evaluations and behavioral intentions than those with lower stigma-consciousness. Service providers who are interested in attracting and maintaining gay customers should create awareness among their employees about stigma-consciousness.     

Toward a better comprehension of Lean metrics for research and product development management

This paper presents a compilation and empirical survey‐based evaluation of the metrics most commonly used by program managers during product development management. This work is part of a bigger project of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Project Management Institute (PMI) and International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). Three methodological procedures were applied: systematic literature review, focus‐group discussions, and survey. The survey results indicate the metrics considered to be the most and least useful for managing lean engineering programs, and reveals a shift of interest towards qualitative metrics, especially the ones that address the achievement of stakeholder values, and the absence of useful metrics regarding the lean principles People and Pull.