Management — according to a wild animal?

Know anyone who talks about the business world using phrases like "a new broom sweeps clean" or "cheeky monkey" while excitedly jumping around (much to the dismay of many left-brained business executives)? If you're nodding yes, chances are you've met, read or heard L. Vaughan Spencer. If you're nodding to sleep, wake up! Stuart Crainer wants to introduce you to a whole new genus of management guru.     

The characteristics and attributes of UK firms obtaining accreditation to ISO 14001

Environmental policy in the UK has tended to reflect orthodox textbook responses, focusing upon standard setting and taxation, both impacting upon the supply side of the economy. In addition, economic agents have the option of legal recourse to settle environmental disputes. Complementing this command and control framework is a growing tendency for firms to subscribe to additional voluntary environmental standards by, for example, registering with an appropriate agency, thereby signalling to others that they have adopted a particular scheme. This growing trend has far reaching consequences for future policy decisions and for financial and environmental performance of the firms. We aim here to identify the attributes of many firms which participate in ISO 14001. We use a probit model to determine, from a vector of firm and industry characteristics at one point in time, what factors influence the probability of firms registering with ISO 14001. We then utilize survival analysis to analyse how these characteristics impact upon the ‘hazard’ of accreditation over time. If significant differences exist between 14001 firms and others, important questions arise for academics and practitioners alike. Are certain types of firm hindered by their firm characteristics? Does the scheme favour larger firms over smaller firms, or high tech firms over low tech? Why do some industries have many accreditations whilst others have none? The analysis of such issues is not only an under‐developed area of academic debate, but also of direct relevance to practitioners within the field of environmental management and policy. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

An empirical study of ethical predispositions

Using a two-part instrument consisting of eight vignettes and twenty character traits, the study sampled 141 employees of a mid-west financial firm regarding their predispositions to prefer utilitarian or formalist forms of ethical reasoning. In contrast with earlier studies, we found that these respondents did not prefer utilitarian reasoning. Several other hypotheses were tested involving the relationship between (1) people's preferences for certain types of solutions to issues and (2) the forms of reasoning they use to arrive at those solutions; the nature of the relationship between utilitarian and formalist categories; and the possibility of measuring ethical predispositions using different methods. F. Neil Brady is Professor of Public Management and Associate Director for the Center for the Study of Values in Organizations in the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. He is the author of Ethical Managing: Rules and Resultsand has published numerous articles on business ethics, ethical theory, and moral reasoning.Gloria E. Wheeler is Associate Professor of Public Management and Associate Director of the Institute of Public Management at Brigham Young University. Her primary areas are research methodology and human resource management. She has extensive survey research experience in many substantive fields and has published articles in journals covering such diverse areas as taxation, teaching, marketing, and human behavior in organizations.     

Market orientation and marketing in nonprofit organizations. Indications for fundraising from Victoria

The effectiveness of a market orientation has been established in other parts of the world. Using a modified replication study of 401 nonprofit organizations from Victoria, this research took some initial steps to assess fundraising and marketing activities. Studies in Australia have usually focused on only one part of the Third Sector. This study takes a different view and uses a criteria sampling method to survey all 11 sections named by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The self‐reported data of fundraising activities showed that there were several choices available to all nonprofit organizations that can lead to an improvement in organizational performance. Results suggest that should nonprofit organizations have knowledge generating systems that evaluate their performance, this will improve outcomes for them. Even though organizational size is strongly linked to fundraising performance, there are key drivers that can aid even small organizations in their efforts. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The determinants of voluntary investment decisions

This paper analyses investments by firms into areas of corporate social responsibility, focussing on the decision by firms whether or not to invest in compliance with voluntary environmental standards. Theoretical predictions of the compliance decision are tested using discrete time survival analysis on a large dataset of UK manufacturing firms. The rate of voluntary compliance is found to have increased since the introduction of the International Standards Organization (ISO) scheme. Further, voluntary compliance is found to be negatively associated with rates of return and industry share, and positively associated with capital intensity and industry export intensity. In contrast to theoretical predictions on corporate social responsibility, there is no evidence that investment in intangible assets, either at the firm or the industry level, is positively associated with the compliance decision. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flexible adoption of conservation agriculture principles: practices of care and the management of crop residue in Australian mixed farming systems

This paper applies concepts from the sociological literature on ‘practices of care’ to investigate why flexibility is important for farmers in the adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) principles, and, crucially, how farmers integrate CA principles into their existing practices. Drawing on qualitative data from six mixed farming regions in South Eastern Australia, the paper discusses how a specific dimension of CA – crop residue retention – is integrated in the context of biophysical and material challenges, and practices of stubble burning. Farmers viewed burning as increasingly incompatible with their desire to be recognised as good land managers. Yet, shifting to full crop residue retention was perceived as posing challenges for their farming system and compromising farmers’ capacity to manage seasonal variations in pests, weeds and crop residue loads. As a consequence, farmers used burning as a key practice of care to deal in a flexible way with an uncertain and variable farming environment, and to make crop residue retention workable in the context of their farming system. In concluding, the paper argues that the significance of flexibility in farm-level integration of CA principles requires a shift in analytical focus from adoption barriers to practices of care.     

Modern Monetary Theory: Some Additional Dimensions

Atlantic Economic Journal - The objective of this paper is to examine the foundations of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) by building upon the individual papers in this issue of the Atlantic Economic...     

Organizing for solutions: Systems seller vs. systems integrator

This paper aims to examine how firms are organizing to provide integrated solutions: a business model for the supply of capital goods based on the provision of products and services as integrated solutions to individual customer's needs. The industrial marketing literature suggests that the origins of this business model can be traced back to early 1960s when firms adopted strategies and organizations for ‘systems selling’. The marketing literature helps us to identify two contrasting types of organizations: (1) the vertically-integrated systems seller that produces all the product and service components in a system; and (2) the systems integrator that coordinates integration of components supplied by external firms. The paper uses these two ideal types to analyse the strategies and organizations of five case study firms that have recently attempted to move into the provision of integrated solutions. It argues that there is no evidence to support the continuing dominance of the systems seller or a simple transition from systems selling to systems integration. A more complex pattern of organizational forms is emerging, combining elements of both systems selling (i.e. vertical integration into services) and systems integration.     

PROXIMITY AND VOTING FOR PROFESSIONAL SPORTING STADIUMS: THE PATTERN OF SUPPORT FOR THE SEAHAWK STADIUM REFERENDUM

This paper evaluates voting behavior on the Seahawk Stadium referendum in the State of Washington. For our empirical strategy, we implement both the linear probability model and a group logit model, which gives greater weight to voting areas with greater number of votes cast. We find that voting support was lowest among those living closest to the proposed stadium site, while voting support was highest among those within “easy access” of the stadium. This nonlinear distance effect differs from the typical “proximity” effect found in most professional sporting stadiums in the United States; however, it is consistent with a referendum‐voting outcome for a professional soccer stadium in Germany and public projects such as national forests. (JEL R53, H71, L83)