Business Commons^™

Trustworthiness In Mhealth Information Services: An Assessment Of A Hierarchical Model With Mediating And Moderating Effects Using Partial Least Squares (Pls), Shahriar Akter

Shahriar Akter

The aim of this research is to advance both the theoretical conceptualization and the empirical validation of trustworthiness in mHealth (mobile health) information services research. Conceptually, it extends this line of research by reframing trustworthiness as a hierarchical, reflective construct, incorporating ability, benevolence, integrity, and predictability. Empirically, it confirms that partial least squares path modeling can be used to estimate the parameters of a hierarchical, reflective model with moderating and mediating effects in a nomological network. The model shows that trustworthiness is a second-order, reflective construct that has a significant direct and indirect impact on continuance intentions in the context …

Quality Modeling In Healthcare: A Study Of Mhealth Service, Shahriar Akter

Shahriar Akter

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Special Section: Careers In Context, Hugh Gunz, Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Pamela Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] Career scholars regularly cite Hughes’ (1937: 413) dictum that the study careers as “the moving perspective in which persons orient themselves with reference to the social order, and of the typical sequences and concatenations of office – may be expected to reveal the nature and 'working constitution' of a society.” Yet the greater part of the careers literature typically ignores this by focusing, largely, on the careers of individuals and influencing factors mainly linked to the person and his or her immediate context, to the neglect of the broader context within which the careers are lived. However, large-scale economic …

Economic Integration, Political Integration Or Both?, Daniel Brou, Michele Ruta

Daniel Brou

We study the effects of economic and political integration by presenting a model in which firms compete with each other in both an economic market—where they produce a good and compete for market share—and in a political (rent seeking) market—where they compete for transfers from the government. Growth is driven by firms’ cost-reducing innovation activity and economic and political integration affect firms’ incentive to innovate differently. In this setting, economic and political integration can be seen as complementary. Economic integration, when not accompanied by political integration, can lead to less innovation and slower growth as firms respond to increased competition …

Eating With A Purpose:Consumer Response To Functional Food Health Claims In Conflicting Versus Complementary Information Environments, Courtney Droms, Rebecca Naylor, Kelly Haws

Courtney M. Droms

Marketers of food products have recently introduced a variety of “functional foods” that promise consumers improvements in targeted physiological functions. However, despite the proliferation of functional food health claims promising more than basic nutrition, little is known about consumer responses to these claims, particularly in information environments in which inconsistent information may be available about the efficacy of a particular functional ingredient.

[Review Of The Book Labor Regulation In The Global Economy], Gary Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This is a practical and useful volume on labor standards in today’s highly globalized world. An introduction is followed by ten chapters, some of them general, talking about the ILO or the WTO, and some more specific, focusing on the United States and Europe. The general chapters cover the ILO, corporate codes of conduct, efforts to introduce labor standards into the multilateral trade regime, arguments for and against labor standards in trade, and policy implications. The specific chapters cover U.S. initiatives on child labor, labor standards in the bilateral trade agreements entered into by the United States and the …

[Review Of The Book Forecasting Retirement Needs And Retirement Wealth], Gary Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This volume enables researchers to learn about some of the latest research findings on specific issues. It is not the place to seek an introduction to current thinking on retirement, pensions, and Social Security—the papers are too narrowly focused for that. But for current or would-he pension specialists, this volume and the larger series of which it is a part are indispensable resources.

Gfc: Origin, Consequence And Cost, Mohamed Ariff, Ahmed Khalid

Ahmed Khalid

No abstract provided.

Liberty, National Security And The Big Society, Alison Green, Nick Johns, Mark Rix

Mark Rix

The Big Society agenda of the UK Coalition Government has had a significant impact on welfare policy as well as the terms of the debate about how welfare should be provided for and regulated. The ripples have travelled far beyond the UK and similar discussions are occurring in different national contexts. One such has been Australia, where commentators and policymakers are considering the ramifications of a Big Society approach for domestic social policy (Cox 2010). This debate no longer focuses on the ‘New Public Management’ agenda with its emphasis on outsourcing to third and private sector providers and the creation …

Combining Equity And Utilitarianism In A Mathematical Programming Model, John Hooker, H Williams

John Hooker

We discuss the problem of combining the conflicting objectives of equity and utilitarianism, for social policy making, in a single mathematical programming model. The definition of equity we use is the Rawlsian one of maximizing the minimum utility over individuals or classes of individuals. However, when the disparity of utility becomes too great, the objective becomes progressively utilitarian. Such a model is particularly applicable not only to health provision but to other areas as well. Building a mixed-integer/linear programming (MILP) formulation of the problem raises technical issues, because the objective function is nonconvex and the hypograph is not MILP representable …

Embedded Librarianship And Virtual Environments In Entrepreneurship Information Literacy A Case Study, Kelly Evans, Hal Kirkwood

Hal P Kirkwood Jr

No abstract provided.

Incentive Contracts And Time Use, Tor Eriksson, Jaime Ortega

Jaime Ortega

Empirical studies on incentive contracts have primarily been concerned with the effects on employees' productivity and earnings. The productivity increases associated with such contracts may, however, come at the expense of quality of life at or outside work. In this paper we study the effect on the employees' non-work activities, testing whether incentive contracts lead to a change in the allocation of time across work and non-work activities. In doing so, we distinguish between two effects, a substitution effect and a discretion effect. On the one hand, the introduction of explicit incentives raises the marginal payoff to work, hence employees …

Service Undone: A Grounded Theory Of Strategically Constructed Silos And Their Impact On Customer-Company Interactions From The Perspective Of Retail Employees, Kelley O'Reilly

Kelley A. O'Reilly

This work elaborates the impacts of strategically constructed silos that are not byproducts of flagging cross-departmental cooperation or the cumulative effect of decades of decentralized command and control. Rather, these silos are strategically intended structures within organizations. Most significantly, the substantive theory of strategically constructed silos and their impact on customer service contributes to the field by illustrating the presence and consequence of silos occurring in suboptimal conditions. The existence of silos has implications that extend far beyond the retail area.

A key take-away from this research is that contrary to how most customer service processes are designed, not all …

Accession Tournaments: The Application Of A Game Theory Derivative To The Multi-Dimensional Family Business Accession Process (Interactive Paper), Justin Craig, Clay Dibrell

Justin B. Craig

We argue that the recent governance and professionalization focus in family business research conversations, while helpful in understanding succession, and family businesses in general, needs to be complemented with a theoretical discussion of the multi-dimensional accession process. We contend that this process is multi-dimensional as, unlike in a corporate setting where the incumbent is succeeded by a suitable successor, multi-generational family businesses are more complex and there is potentially a plethora of positions of influence for which actors can compete. We use tournament theory to propose how family actors will act in accession tournaments and propose that the absence of …

Overcoming The Liability Of Theoretical Newness: The Case For Stewardship Theory (Summary), Justin Craig, Clay Dibrell, Donald Neubaum

Justin B. Craig

To overcome stewardship theory’s liability of newness, we introduce a validated and reliable measure for stewardship. Using Dubin’s features of a theoretical model to position stewardship theory, we endeavour to take a structured approach in the Kuhn-characterised normal science stage of entrepreneurship. There is a danger that stewardship theory currently bears many of the hallmarks of a summative unit (in Dubin’s terms), where a summative unit is one that can be referred to as a global unit that stands for an entire complex phenomenon; conveys a great deal of meaning but is always diffuse; draws together a number of different …

The Newsvendor Problem: Review And Directions For Future Research, Yan Qin, Ruoxuan Wang, Asoo Vakharia, Yuwen Chen, Michelle Seref

Yuwen Chen

In this paper, we review the contributions to date for analyzing the newsvendor problem. Our focus is on examining the specific extensions for analyzing this problem in the context of modeling customer demand, supplier costs, and the buyer risk profile. More specifically, we analyze the impact of market price, marketing effort, and stocking quantity on customer demand; how supplier prices can serve as a coordination mechanism in a supply chain setting; integrating alternative supplier pricing policies within the newsvendor framework; and how the buyer’s risk profile moderates the newsvendor order quantity decision. For each of these areas, we summarize the …

Accounting Fraud At Cit Computer Leasing Group, Inc., Jeffrey Michelman

Jeffrey E Michelman

The case chronicles a newly promoted manager's search to uncover an inventory fraud that had been perpetrated by her supervisor at CIT, a publicly held company. During the ensuing investigation, CIT and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement identified 36 different transactions involving the diversion of nearly 2,500 computers, with a conservative estimated total loss to the company of $637,000. Students are also exposed to the importance of internal controls, red flags, the fraud triangle, and forensic accounting techniques. The case also lets the reader see what occurs when, due to management override of internal control, a subordinate no longer …

Six Steps To Successful Sponsorships, Laurence Minsky, William Rosen

Laurence Minsky

No abstract provided.

How Do Environmental And Natural Resource Economics Texts Deal With The Simple Model Of The Intertemporal Allocation Of A Nonrenewable Resource, Robert Main

Robert S. Main

Textbooks in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics invariably deal with the problem of allocating a non-renewable resource over time. The simplest version of that problem is the case of a resource that is to be allocated over two periods. The resource has a constant Marginal Extraction Cost (MEC). Most textbooks treat this case before moving on to more complex and realistic cases. This paper suggests the results that should be emphasized and the method that should be used to arrive at those results. It also points out the possible confusions that should be avoided. Finally, it examines how several well-known …

The Activation Imperative, Laurence Minsky, William Rosen

Laurence Minsky

No abstract provided.

Slippage In The System: The Effects Of Errors In Transactive Memory Behavior On Team Performance, Matthew Pearsall, Aleksander Ellis, Bradford Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Although researchers have consistently shown that the implicit coordination provided by transactive memory positively affects team performance, the benefits of transactive memory systems depend heavily on team members’ ability to accurately identify the expertise of their teammates and communicate expertise-specific information with one another. This introduces the opportunity for errors to enter the system, as the expertise of individual team members may be misunderstood or misrepresented, leading to the reliance on information from the wrong source or the loss of information through incorrect assignment. As Hollingshead notes, “information may be transferred or explicitly delegated to the ‘wrong’ individual in …

Strategic Leadership And Innovation In High Technology Firms, Terri Scandura

Terri A. Scandura

Did you ever wonder what the organizations that produce some of the high tech gadgets we marvel at such as the IPhone and the Blu-ray player are like? How do their leaders create and maintain a spirit of innovation that produces these hit products? High technology firms face unique challenges because of the fast paced and ever-changing landscape of their industry. Intellectual capital and innovation have become the key sources of competitive advantage in a wide range of industries and many have argued that the key to the future competitiveness of organizations in the U.S and abroad is the ability …

[Review Of The Book The System Of Professions: An Essay On The Division Of Expert Labor], Pamela Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] In The System of Professions, Abbott directly confronts these important and long-neglected issues in an original and highly thought-provoking approach to the analysis of professions. Focusing on the dynamics through which occupations define their jurisdiction, or the right to control the provision of particular services and activities, this approach draws attention to one of the most critical determinants of jurisdiction, interprofessional competition. Based on an astoundingly wide, cross-cultural knowledge of the histories of a variety of occupations, Abbott provides a rich and complex analysis of the nature of relationships among professional occupations and the forces that shape these relationships …

[Review Of The Book The Shopfloor Politics Of New Technology], Pamela Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] The results of the study provide support for Wilkinson's primary contention that neither the adoption of particular technologies nor the organization of work based upon those technologies is objectively determined. Instead, both are the result of informal political negotiations between management and workers. Much of the previous work on the impact of technology on organizations has assumed, at least implicitly, that the adoption of technical innovations is determined by the pressures of competitive survival, and that the requirements of particular technologies largely dictate the form of work arrangements. Wilkinson is critical of such assumptions, and his research clearly supports …

Organizational Demography And Individual Careers: Structure, Norms, And Outcomes, Barbara Lawrence, Pamela Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] As the terms career choices and opportunity structure suggest, demographic influences on careers operate at multiple levels of analysis: at the individual level, on individuals' perceptions of work environments and career decisions, and at the organization level, on group dynamics and organizational selection processes. However, there are few theories that explicate the processes that bridge these levels. What are the dynamics by which demographic patterns influence an individual's career choices? Similarly, how do individual actions shape the processes of demographic change within organizations? This chapter presents one approach to exploring such questions.

Group Gender Composition And Work Group Relations: Theories, Evidence, And Issues, Pamela Tolbert, Mary Graham, Alice Andrews

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] Prior to the publication of Kanter's seminal Men and Women of the Corporation in 1977, the field of organizational studies exhibited a striking degree of oblivion to the effect of gender relations on work group dynamics. This neglect may have been due, in part, to the relatively small proportion of women in the labor force in the first half of the 20th century, as well as to high levels of occupational and job segregation, which helped conceal the influence of group gender composition on individual and group behavior. In the postwar years, however, women's rate of entry into the …

The Institutionalization Of Institutional Theory, Pamela Tolbert, Lynn Zucker

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] Our primary aims in this effort are twofold: to clarify the independent theoretical contributions of institutional theory to analyses of organizations, and to develop this theoretical perspective further in order to enhance its use in empirical research. There is also a more general, more ambitious objective here, and that is to build a bridge between two distinct models of social actor that underlie most organizational analyses, which we refer to as a rational actor model and an institutional model. The former is premised on the assumption that individuals are constantly engaged in calculations of the costs and benefits of …

Notes, Patricia Warner

Patricia Campbell Warner

No abstract provided.

The Cost Of Treating Addiction From The Client's Perspective: Results From A Multi-Modality Application Of The Client Datcap, Kathryn Mccollister, Michael French, Jeffrey Pyne, Brenda Booth, Richard Rapp, Carey Carr

Michael T. French

There is a considerable disparity between the number of individuals who need substance abuse treatment and the number who actually receive it. This is partly due to the fact that many individuals with substance use disorders do not perceive a need for formal treatment. Another contributing factor, however, is a discrepancy between the real and perceived cost of services. Although many cost evaluations of substance abuse treatment have been conducted from the treatment provider perspective, less is known about the client-specific costs of attending treatment (e.g., lost work and leisure time, transportation, out-of-pocket and in-kind payments). Concerns about financial and …

Entrepreneurship In The Chesapeake Bay Oyster Industry, Anthony Wilbon

Anthony Wilbon