A Comparison of Native Culture,Non-Native Culture and New Management Ideology

Abstract Based on a case study of a Native-operated criminal justice organization, this article uses Hofstede'sfive dimensions of national cultural differences to examine the connections between cultural values and management practices. It concludes that Hofstede's dimensions can provide insights into the differences between Native and non-Native cultures and how Native organizations may draw on traditional cultural values to improve organizational effectiveness. In general, Native cultures are described as collectivist, egalitarian, adaptive, and tolerant. The argument is made that the cultural context in which Native organizations operate is in many ways more compatible with the new management ideology than is the society in which this ideology prevails. Résumé Fondée sur une étude de cas d'un organisme de justice pénale géré par les autochtones, la présente recherche examine les liens entre des valeurs culturelles et des pratiques de gestion en se référant aux cinq dimensions des différences culturelles nationales de Hofstede. Elle con-clut que ces dimensions peuvent jeter une lumière nou-velle sur les différences entre cultures autochtones et allochtones, et sur la façon dont les organismes autochtones peuvent tirer parti de leurs valeurs culturelles traditionnelles pour rehausser I'efficacité orga-nisationnelle. En général, les cultures autochtones sont perçues comme collectivistes, égalitaires, flexibles et tolérantes. Nous proposons l'idée que le contexte cul-turel dans lequel fonctionnent les organismes autochtones est à de nombreux égards plus compatible avec la nouvelle idéologic de gestion que ne Vest la société où prévaut cette idéologic.     

Judges' attitudes toward the public accounting profession: An update

This study examines U.S. judges' attitudes toward the public accounting profession and the extent to which they have changed over the last 16 years: (a) early in the decade of the 1990's (1993), (b) late in the decade of the 1990's, but before the Enron and subsequent corporate accounting debacles (1997), (c) three years after the Enron debacle (2003), and (d) following the recent market collapse related to the failures of our financial institutions (2009). As previously reported (Reckers et al., 2004) attitudes of judges toward the public accounting profession are known to be representative of the views of other stakeholders (lawyers, jurors and MBAs) and would be expected, and have been found, to be relatively stable over time. Nonetheless attitudes are subject to change if given a substantial stimulus and the corporate debacles at the beginning of this decade, the corresponding CPA firm litigation and the demise of Arthur Andersen arguably constituted such a stimulus. It was reported that a significant erosion of judges' attitudes toward the public accounting profession could be measured in 2003 (Reckers et al, 2004). Given that judicial attitudes have been found to be significantly correlated with judgments rendered in a laboratory experiments, sharp erosion of attitudes is a concern. Judges were re-examined in 2009 to determine if attitudes had potentially rebounded. Reasons to expect attitudes may have rebounded include (a) expectations related to federal reforms of the auditing profession (e.g., SOX, PCAOB), (b) lack of recent accounting scandals, and (c) the financial institutions debacles of 2008. In comparison to the perceived abuses of the financial industry revealed in 2008, the earlier accounting abuses may have faded away.     

Appetizing learning in Swedish comprehensive schools: an attempt to employ food and tasting in a new form of experimental education

The word taste has several meanings: biopsychological, and cultural and social. Taste also influences food choice, though there is a widespread belief that tasty food is not synonymous with healthy eating patterns. In Sweden compulsory school daily meals are provided and Home Economics is a compulsory subject, while tasting lessons form an additional experimental form of education. The aim of this study has been to make a general evaluation of tasting lessons in four fifth‐year classes. The focus of the results is on pupils’ learning about, and interest in, food, and the opinions and reflections of teachers, catering staff and school heads. The participants were three professional focus groups comprising staff from four schools, and 48 pupils (eight groups with boys and girls in separate groups) from the same schools. Results showed that the children were prepared to be exposed to different foodstuffs, and the adults were prepared to be exposed to new educational methods. Two stages of children's learning have been described in connection with tasting: practice and experience, and verbalization and reflection.     

Wicksell's Unaminity Rule

A bstract    This paper identifies the extent to which James Buchanan's interpretation of Knut Wicksell's unanimity rule, as spelled out in the second essay in Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen (1896), has come to dominate the public economics literature despite competing with the interpretation offered by Richard Musgrave. A brief summary of the differing interpretations is offered. Citation analysis is used to examine the frequency with which Wicksell is cited and by whom. The sociology of the economics profession and avenues for the dissemination of ideas are examined to understand the dominance of Buchanan's particular interpretation and application of the unanimity rule.     

Dynamic Optimization of Long-Term Growth Rate for a Portfolio with Transaction Costs and Logarithmic Utility

We study the optimal investment policy for an investor who has available one bank account and n risky assets modeled by log-normal diffusions. The objective is to maximize the long-run average growth of wealth for a logarithmic utility function in the presence of proportional transaction costs. This problem is formulated as an ergodic singular stochastic control problem and interpreted as the limit of a discounted control problem for vanishing discount factor. The variational inequalities for the discounted control problem and the limiting ergodic problem are established in the viscosity sense. The ergodic variational inequality is solved by using a numerical algorithm based on policy iterations and multigrid methods. A numerical example is displayed for two risky assets.     

Principles and Influence in Codes of Ethics: A Centering Resonance Analysis Comparing Pre- and Post-Sarbanes-Oxley Codes of Ethics

This study examines the similarities and differences in pre- and post-Sarbanes-Oxley corporate ethics codes and codes of conduct using the framework of structuration theory. Following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation in 2002 in the United States, publicly traded companies there undertook development and revision of their codes of ethics in response to new regulatory requirements as well as incentives under the U.S. Corporate Sentencing Guidelines, which were also revised as part of the SOX mandates. Questions that remain are whether these new or revised codes are effective means of communicating changed ethical foci and attitudes in organizations. Centering resonance analysis (CRA) is used to identify differences and similarities across time and industries by analyzing word networks of 46 pre- and post-SOX corporate codes of ethics. Analyses focus on content and structure of generated word networks as well as resulting factors that emerged from the texts. Results are interpreted from the structuration perspective that content and structure of codes are constrained and enabled by system structures while they function to produce and reproduce those structures. Results indicate that corporate codes of ethics are formal discourses of ethics, laws, and control. Code structure has changed across time, with an increased emphasis on compliance in post-SOX codes. Implications for research and practice are discussed in light of findings.     

My Strengths Count!

This article builds on the argument that research on the link between HRM and performance benefits from investigating how HR practices are envisioned by managers (in terms of underlying philosophies), and how they are perceived by employees (in terms of psychological climates). Our study focuses on the effects of a strengths‐based HR philosophy assuming that employee performance can be maximized through leveraging individual strengths. This philosophy relates to a strengths‐based psychological climate, that is, employee perceptions of the opportunities they get to identify, develop, and use their strengths. We hypothesized that a strengths‐based psychological climate positively influences employees’ positive affect, which in turn enhances their in‐role and extra‐role performance. In our study, 442 respondents working in 39 departments of eight Dutch and Belgian organizations gave ratings on the strength‐based psychological climate of their organization, and indicated their level of work‐related positive affect, in‐role performance, and extra‐role performance. Results of multilevel hierarchical regression analyses supported our hypotheses by indicating that strengths‐based psychological climate was positively linked to in‐role and extra‐role performance, and that this link was mediated by positive affect. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The impact of transport costs on new venture internationalisation

This paper investigates the importance of transport costs in new venture internationalisation, i.e. of firms that start exporting before they are 3 years of age. It does so by merging two large international datasets, on the firm level (covering 49,584 firms) as well as on the country level (covering 154 countries). It is found that transport costs matter significantly for new venture internationalisation, for older firms’ decision to export, as well as the extent of the latter’s subsequent exports. Export costs, the quality of transport infrastructure and domestic logistics costs affect new venture internationalisation even when controlling for a range of standard determinants. New international ventures behave differently from older firms in two important ways: (1) Transport costs affect the probability that they will export but not the extent of their subsequent exports and (2) their probability of exporting is affected negatively by their networking, domestic success and ISO status, whilst in the case of older firms, these factors have a positive impact. Various recommendations for policy and further research are made.