Opening the Black Box: Corporate Codes of Ethics in Their Organizational Context

A review of the literature on Corporate Codes of Ethics suggests that whilst there exists an informative body of literature concerning the prevalence of such codes, their design, implementation and promulgation, it is also evident that there is a relative lack of consideration of their impact upon members' everyday organizational behaviour. By drawing upon organizational sociology and psychology this paper constructs a contextualist and interpretive model which seeks to enable an analysis and evaluation of their effects upon individual, group and organizational behaviour.     

Question order effects in taste testing of beverages

The effect of order position has been demonstrated in marketing research, sometimes compromising survey results. This paper studies the influence of order position in product taste trials of carbonated beverages using a sequential monadic design. The authors measure attitude ratings across product trials rather than across products to examine the effect of order position on preference ratings.     

Russian workers’ experiences with and perceptions of sexual harassment severity

As the reach of global business operations increases, cultural context will likely influence the nature and amount of sexual harassment workers experience. Surprisingly, little is known about sexual harassment in Russia, an attractive target for expanding companies. To address this gap in the literature, we examine Russian workers’ perceptions of sexual harassment severity through the lens of cultural context. In particular, we examine the sexual harassment severity perceptions from the perspective of both targets and perpetrators. Results indicate that as targets of sexual harassment, Russian women and men held similar sexual harassment severity perceptions. However, as perpetrators, Russian women reported perceiving the harassment they committed as being less severe than the reports of Russian men. Further, among both targets and perpetrators, Russian women held less permissive sexual attitudes than Russian men, with this difference mediating the relationship between participant sex and perceived sexual harassment severity: women perceived greater severity than men because women hold less permissive sexual attitudes. Implications for research, practice, and the role of national culture in shaping the social construction of sexual harassment are discussed.     

The Corporate Side of the Blogosphere: Examining the Variations of Design and Engagement Among Fortune 500 Blogs

Using design and communication principles, this study uses a content analysis design to evaluate all active blogs from the 2011 Fortune 500 list (n = 125). The results indicate that corporate America has only modestly incorporated the dialogic principles into their blogs. Current corporate blogs are well-designed as far as making them searchable and easy to navigate; however, the blogs are mostly being used to provide information in a one-way manner rather than creating an open dialogue with consumers. While blogging can enhance relationships with stakeholders, corporate communicators must strive to develop legitimate conversations with their blog readers.     

Media Catching: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Strategic Mediatization in Public Relations?

A form of strategic mediatization, media catching is the reversal of the traditional public relations process of pitching story ideas to journalists using press releases, feature pitch letters, and other techniques. In media catching, journalists working on specific stories reach out to large numbers of public relations practitioners using a variety of technologically aided services with queries for specific information. Using quantitative and qualitative content analyses, this study examines journalist queries submitted through a media request service, Pressfeed.ru, to understand the dynamics of the media-catching trend in Russia. Findings show a substantial gap between reporters’ expectations and public relations professionals’ goals and abilities, and a fragmentation of media outlets’ practices. The findings also revealed similarities in the growth and usage patterns of the Russian service to the first American media-catching service, Help-a-Reporter-Out. An empirical investigation is warranted to test an emergent model of the mutual influences of reporters, public relations specialists, internal (organizational values) and external (societal culture, political climate) factors during the process of media catching across different cultures and countries.     

Determinants of initial technology adoption and intensification: evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean

In this paper, we examine determinants of initial adoption and subsequent intensification of commercial use of the internet. In contrast to previous examinations that have looked at initial adoption and intensification in the highest income countries, we study companies in Latin America and the Caribbean and so contribute to empirical understanding of the two types of adoption. Many variables such as company size and industry intensification previously identified as influential in high-income regions continue to be important determinants. Novel determinants are also found, including informal sector competition and regional influence. There are sharp differences in determinants between the two adoption types.     

The Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) application in the Flemish long-term decision making process on mobility and logistics

The Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) is a methodology to evaluate different policy measures whereby different stakeholders’ opinions are explicitly taken into account. This paper describes the MAMCA methodology and how it has been used in the “Flanders in Action Process”. One of the objectives of this process is to turn Flanders into a top region in terms of mobility and logistics by attracting logistic activities with a large added value, realizing fluent and widely accessible mobility, a huge increase in traffic safety and a decrease of the environmental impact of transport. As there are a wide range of actors with different interests involved in this process, the MAMCA methodology was applied to evaluate a set of possible policy measures being proposed to reach this objective. An important advantage of this methodology is that it is able to support the decision maker in his final decision as the inclusion of different points of view leads to a general prioritisation of the proposed policy measures.     

Age and gender differences in risk-taking behaviour as an explanation for high incidence of motor vehicle crashes as a driver in young males

Risk-taking behaviour has been identified as a possible explanation for the high incidence of motor vehicle crashes involving young male drivers. This study examines the extent to which differences in risk-taking behaviour explain the differential crash rates by age and gender. A random sample of 689 adults aged 17-88 were selected from motor vehicle license holders within randomly selected geographical areas across Queensland. Participants completed a questionnaire covering their attitudes towards driving behaviour and general risk-taking behaviour, selected demographic characteristics and self-reported history of road crashes as a driver. Univariate analysis showed that males scored higher means than females in driver aggression and thrill seeking and in their general risk acceptance. Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that males were twice as likely (OR 2.46, CI 1.59-3.83) to have reported at least one crash as a driver compared to females and nearly three times as likely (OR 2.88, CI 1.84-4.49) to have reported two or more crashes. Drivers aged 17-29 were also twice as likely (OR 2.31, CI 1.10-4.19) to have reported at least one crash when compared to those aged over 50 years. When risk-taking behaviours were introduced into the logistic model the odds of males (OR 1.70, CI 1.29-3.30) or 17-29 year olds (OR 1.30, CI 0.93-3.91) being involved in at least one crash substantially reduced. An increased risk of a crash as a driver can, in part, be explained by the age and gender differential in risk-taking behaviour. The challenge for public health professionals is to determine suitable strategies to modify risk-taking behaviour in young or male drivers.     

Dangers of commitment under rational expectations

Within a New Keynesian framework, interest rate rules that respond to public expectations lead to determinate and expectationally stable solutions for any level of commitment, as shown by Waters (Macroecon Dyn 13(4):421–449, 2009). That paper also demonstrates gains to commitment, under least square learning, though over-commitment can lead to some very poor outcomes for some parameter values. This paper shows an identical outcome under rational expectations. The optimal level of commitment is unchanged if there are observation errors in the policymaker’s knowledge of public expectations, which is not the case under learning. However, if there is sufficient policymaker uncertainty about the parameter values, partial commitment is best.