Goal-setting has become a popular and effective motivational tool, utilized by practitioners and substantiated with decades of empirical research. However, the potential for goal-setting to enhance performance may come at the cost of ethical behavior. I propose a theoretical model linking attributes of goals and goal-setting practices to unethical behavior through two psychological mechanisms – ethical recognition and moral disengagement; and addressing the moderating role of individual differences (e.g., goal-commitment and conscientiousness), as well as the broader organizational ethical (...) context. (shrink)

Over the last decade, the news media have reported on corporate scandals involving high-profile organizations such as Arthur Anderson, AOL Time Warner,Enron, Halliburton, Kmart, and Xerox. In 2001, the Conference Board of Canada noted that supplier relationships represent some of the most common ethical problems in the private sector, and estimated that 95% of corporations in the United States and 86% of corporations in Canada have implemented ethical codes of conduct and are espousing their commitment to building relationship with ethical (...) suppliers. While a significant amount of research on corporate ethics has been published (for examples see Akaah and Riordan 1989; Cullen et al. 2003; Román and Ruiz 2005; Schminke et al. 2005; and Weaver et al. 1999a, 1999b), what still remains unknown is how and when a supplier’s ethical code of conduct matters to the buyer making decisions regarding their choice of suppliers. (shrink)

Drawing on signaling theory, we suggest that a supplier’s enforcement of ethical codes sends signals about the supplier that affect a buyer’s decision to continue their commitment to the supplier. We then draw on side-bet theory to hypothesize how switching costs influence the importance of a supplier’s enforcement of ethical codes in predicting a buyer’s continuance commitment to a supplier. We empirically test our model with data from 158 purchasing managers across three manufacturing industries. Results confirm the connection between ethical (...) code enforcement and continuance commitment, but suggest that a supplier’s enforcement of ethical codes matter less when switching suppliers is perceived as too costly. (shrink)

The mechanism influencing resource bricolage driving low-cost breakthrough innovations remains unclear. By introducing exaptation and organizational agility, this study creates a regulated mediation model, explores effects of resource bricolage on low-cost breakthrough innovations, and analyzes the moderating effect of organizational agility and mediation effect of exaptation. The results revealed that resource bricolage exerted a significant positive impact on low-cost breakthrough innovations, and exaptation played a mediation role between resource bricolage and low-cost breakthrough innovations. In (...) addition, both marketing agility and operational agility positively regulated the correlation between resource bricolage and exaptation. Further research revealed that the mediation effect of exaptation was positively regulated by marketing agility and operational agility, respectively. Overall, this study enriches the discussion of the impact mechanism of breakthrough innovations by resource bricolage and provides valuable enlightenment for enterprises to implement innovation-driven development strategies in the context of economic transformation. (shrink)

Exploring the darkest side of organizations may have a potential to change our previous assumptions about business life. Scholars both in management and organizational research fields have shown interest in the "bright" side of behavioral life and have looked for the ways to create a positive organizational climate and assumed a positive relation between happiness of employees and productivity. These main assumptions of the Human Relations School have dominated the scientific inquiry on organizational behavior. However, "the dark (...) side of organizational life" may have more explanatory power than "the bright side". Hostility, jealousy, envy, rivalry, gossip, problematic personalities, dislike, revenge, and social exclusion are the realities of business life. A manager may devote most of their time to cope with conflicts, deviant behaviors, ambitious individuals, gossips, and dysfunctional rivalry among employees. It is evident that negative events and interactions among employees cost more time and energy for a manager than the positive side of organizational life. This edited collection specifically focuses on these issues and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of management, organizational studies and behavior, sociology, social psychology, and human resource management. (shrink)

As destructive narcissists attain positions of power, unethical behavior ensues. Organizational identity shifts in response. As a result, unethical decisions become amplified in organizational structure and practices and embedded in technology. Little research related to how employees respond to organizational events, cost/benefit analysis of such, or the effects of negative treatment of employees by organizations is available. As persons become aware of the circumstances generated by destructive narcissistic behavior and informed about the consequences, some will resist. (...) In this article, we provide a model illustrating factors that may give rise to such organizational resistance to destructive arrogant narcissism. (shrink)

Normative ethical theory should provide us with guidance for how to live moral lives in a world filled with inequity and abuse of power. In this essay, I address ways that features of resisting organizational power do and do not overlap with features of resisting oppression more generally. I examine the potential for moral damage to individuals who resist organizational power, and argue that the traits necessary for successful whistleblowing are similar to what Lisa Tessman refers to as (...) ‘burdened virtues’—they are necessary to successfully resisting organizational power, but ‘costly to the selves who bear them.’ I conclude by offering a preliminary sketch of the traits of a virtuous resister. (shrink)

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted (...) by the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code. (shrink)

This article examines the potential effect of organizing as a benefit corporation both on reducing transaction costs and as a container and creator of firm “identity.” It argues that to the extent that the Model Benefit Corporation Law (MBCL) creates a permissive environment—a big tent that can accommodate a diverse set of investors—it diminishes the power of the benefit organizational form to shape a unique benefit identity. Conversely, to the extent the MBCL creates a schema of mandatory defaults that (...) unduly impedes contracting, it will discourages adoption by entrepreneurs, and risks becoming a minor aberration—perhaps one of many—on the organizational landscape. The article suggests that further empirical research is needed to determine which firms are choosing the benefit corporation form; how the benefit corporation identity may have influenced that decision; and how those firms themselves affect perceptions of benefit identity by the larger community. (shrink)

This article examines the potential effect of organizing as a benefit corporation both on reducing transaction costs and as a container and creator of firm “identity.” It argues that to the extent that the Model Benefit Corporation Law (MBCL) creates a permissive environment—a big tent that can accommodate a diverse set of investors—it diminishes the power of the benefit organizational form to shape a unique benefit identity. Conversely, to the extent the MBCL creates a schema of mandatory defaults that (...) unduly impedes contracting, it will discourages adoption by entrepreneurs, and risks becoming a minor aberration—perhaps one of many—on the organizational landscape. The article suggests that further empirical research is needed to determine which firms are choosing the benefit corporation form; how the benefit corporation identity may have influenced that decision; and how those firms themselves affect perceptions of benefit identity by the larger community. (shrink)

The theory of the firm initially developed by Ronald Coase has made explicit the political nature of firms by putting hierarchy at the heart of the economic process. Theories of workplace democracy articulate this intuition in the normative terms of the conditions under which this political power can be legitimate. This paper presents an organizational theory of workplace democracy, and contends that the democratization of firms requires that we take their organizational dimension explicitly into account. It thus construes (...) democracy as an organizational principle and juxtaposes it to market, hierarchy, and norm-compliance as rival principles for the organization of economic activities. Attempts to construe democracy as an organizational principle with unique features in the tradition of transaction-cost economics are discussed before proposing an innovative solution based on an updated version of grid/group cultural theory of politics, adjusted to accommodate the basic requirements of democratic theory. (shrink)

Taking support from ego-depletion theory, this study examines ego depletion as a mechanism that explains how employees’ organizational citizenship behavior leads to antagonistic consequences, i.e., service sabotage. Employees’ positive psychological capital is considered a moderator. PROCESS macro was used to test all the hypotheses using time-lagged, dyadic data collected from 420 employees and their 112 their supervisors associated with the service industry in China. This study finds that employees’ exhibition of OCB is positively linked to ego depletion, which in (...) turn drives service sabotage behavior. Furthermore, employees’ PsyCap weakens the effect of OCB on employees’ ego depletion. This study highlights the dark side of OCB, the mechanism through which it causes adverse effects, and the moderating effect of PsyCap. It also provides insights to the organizations for managing service sector employees to effectively interact with customers. (shrink)

The essence of the ethical issues pertinent to business activities is the harm or benefit that occurs as part of a company's resource transformation process. A typology is developed that sorts ethical issues according to three variables: (1) the nature of the harm, (2) the nature of those harmed and (3) the transformation stage where the harm occurs. Propositions are formulated that would enable analysts and practitioners to predict the degree of legal condemnation of, and stakeholder retaliation to, harms generated (...) by questionable moral reasoning. An organizational harm analysis is then constructed as a decision making tool that could supplement cost/benefit analysis. (shrink)

Prior studies in business ethics highlight the role of philanthropy in shaping stakeholders’ perceptions of a firm’s underlying moral tendencies and values. Scholars argue that philanthropy-based character inferences influence whether and how stakeholders engage with firms. We extend this line of reasoning to examine the impact of philanthropy on firms’ contracting costs in the capital market. We posit that philanthropy-based character inferences reduce investors’ agency concerns, thereby reducing firms’ cost of capital. We also posit that the strength of the (...) philanthropy–cost of capital relationship is contingent on uncertainty regarding a firm’s character, visibility of a firm, and prevailing philanthropic norms. We test and find support for our arguments in a longitudinal study of philanthropy and the cost of capital. Our findings have implications for business ethics research on corporate philanthropy and corporate social performance and for organizational research on social judgment. (shrink)

Employee participation is essential to organizations’ corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related environmental initiatives (EIs). Employees’ attitudes to participating in pro-environmental behaviors are addressed in workplace literature drawing upon the theory of planned behavior. However, antecedents to employees’ attitude formation, including perceptions of the costs and benefits of participating in EIs, have not been adequately researched. Greater understanding of EI attitude formation can support efforts to foster EI participation. This study explores employees’ perceptions of EI costs and benefits to employees personally, to (...) their organization, and to society by applying goal framing theory. A sample of 120 survey participants described 150 initiatives and identified personal, organizational, and societal costs and benefits of the EIs. Cost and benefit categories are presented along with a taxonomy and themes. The findings of this study provide a reference point for researchers and managers in understanding how employees view EIs and how employees might be encouraged to participate. (shrink)

As frequent, violent, and organized peasant protests show, China’s reform regime has lost its once all-powerful control in the countryside. The sharp decline of village cadres’ positional authority in allocating economic resources, which began in post-Mao decollectivization, holds the key to explaining the change. Since the late 1990s, the collapse of village enterprises and the erosion of power over land have cost village cadres their remaining economic levers to engage the villagers as well as their incentives to work for (...) the party-state. The loss of the regime’s grip on village cadres and the loss of command by village cadres on peasants have almost synchronized, causing the traditional structure of organizational control to crumble in vast rural areas. In the new, prevailing patterns of village governance, party power is becoming increasingly irrelevant. (shrink)

Recent corporate legal and ethical meltdowns suggest that avoiding such harms to companies and to society requires a significant culture change within the organization. This paper addresses the issue of what it takes to change a corporate culture. While conventional wisdom may suggest that a change requires only the institution of an ethics office with proper reporting paths and an ethics code, such an approach is only a beginning. Many large corporations, especially those in danger of legal and ethical catastrophes, (...) need to undertake multiple initiatives to generate a new culture that manifests new values and new vocabularies. A cultural change accomplished by changing large numbers of personnel is expensive in financial and human terms. One component of a less costly approach is to tell new and different stories within the corporation because stories establish the cultural DNA that gives organizations, families, and individuals their identities. Such changes in individual firms, however, are influenced by the ideological assumptions within which and under which the industry and the society operates. (shrink)

Across the management, social science, and business ethics literatures, and in much of the philosophy literature, trust is characterized as a disposition to act given epistemic states—beliefs and/or expectations about others and about the risks involved. This characterization of trust is best thought of as epistemological because epistemic states distinguish trust from other dispositions. The epistemological characterization of trust is the amoral one referred to in the title of this paper, and we argue that this characterization is conceptually inadequate. We (...) outline and defend an alternative conception of trust as a moral phenomenon: when A trusts B to do something, A invites B to acknowledge and accept an obligation; when B accepts the invitation, B takes on an obligation; in that way trust creates an obligation. We conclude with an application, drawing out the difference between the epistemological conception of trust and our own in the context of Ghoshal et al.'s (Sloan Management Review 40:9—20, 1995, Academy of Management Learning & Education 4:75—91, 2005) critique of transaction cost theories of the firm. (shrink)

The objective of this study was to address the paradox of citizenship cost by hypothesizing an indirect rather than a direct effect of altruistic citizenship behavior on employee work–family conflict through coworker support. Data were gathered in a three-wave longitudinal survey of employees from private commercial banks. A multiple linear autoregressive longitudinal mediation model was analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results indicate that rather than directly, ACB affects indirectly employee WFC through CWS. This indirect effect (...) is negative, which reflects that the costs of citizenship behavior are paradoxical. The present study contributes to the ongoing debate on the positive and negative outcomes of employee citizenship behavior by providing empirical evidence on the beneficial rather than harmful effect of performing such behavior. For organizational managers, promoting a culture of CWS by encouraging altruistic behaviors can be a most viable strategy to reduce WFC among their employees. The study discusses its limitations and provides future research directions. (shrink)

This study investigates the distinct and joint effects of corporate social performance, firm size, and visibility on a company’s decision to disclose sustainability-related information through sustainability reports. It seeks to provide more nuanced explanations for why certain companies tend to extensively report on their sustainability performance. First, while prior studies have predominantly focused on environmental reporting, the current analysis considers comprehensive sustainability reports that include both environmental and social issues. Second, the article argues that the effects of two important antecedents (...) of legitimacy pressure—firm size and organizational visibility—should be analyzed separately rather than restricting the analysis on the effects of legitimacy pressure per se. Third, it argues that the hypothesized effects are nonlinear because the marginal costs and benefits of sustainability reporting vary with a company’s CSP level, its size, and its visibility in the public. Finally, although there is a strong link between CSP and sustainability reporting, the strength of this link depends on its size and visibility. The study of 280 companies in environmentally and socially sensitive industries provides considerable support for these hypotheses, including evidence that size and visibility independently affect sustainability reporting and that the shape of the CSP/sustainability reporting link is contingent upon firm size and visibility. (shrink)

Since it implies a reduction in the quality and the quantity of the natural resources, environmental degradation is a present day problem that requires immediate solutions. This situation is driving firms to undertake an environmental transformation process with the purpose of reducing the negative externalities that come from their economic activities. Within this context, environmental marketing is an emerging business philosophy by which organizations can address sustainability issues. Moreover, environmental marketing and orientation are seen as valuable strategies to improve a (...) firm's competitiveness. However, the literature that has analyzed the link between environmental strategies and firms' results has been inconclusive and contradictory. In this study, we propose and test a model that analyses how the implementation of ecological issues within a firm's marketing strategy and orientation influences organizational results. Data were obtained through a survey sent to Spanish manufacturing firms. The results show that environmental marketing positively affects firms' operational and commercial performance and this improvement will influence their economic results. Moreover, environmental marketing is revealed as an excellent strategy to obtain competitive advantages in costs and in product differentiation. Thus, this study agrees with the researchers who affirm that environmental strategies positively affect firm's competitiveness while reducing environmental impact. (shrink)

Since it implies a reduction in the quality and the quantity of the natural resources, environmental degradation is a present day problem that requires immediate solutions. This situation is driving firms to undertake an environmental transformation process with the purpose of reducing the negative externalities that come from their economic activities. Within this context, environmental marketing is an emerging business philosophy by which organizations can address sustainability issues. Moreover, environmental marketing and orientation are seen as valuable strategies to improve a (...) firm's competitiveness. However, the literature that has analyzed the link between environmental strategies and firms' results has been inconclusive and contradictory. In this study, we propose and test a model that analyses how the implementation of ecological issues within a firm's marketing strategy and orientation influences organizational results. Data were obtained through a survey sent to Spanish manufacturing firms. The results show that environmental marketing positively affects firms' operational and commercial performance and this improvement will influence their economic results. Moreover, environmental marketing is revealed as an excellent strategy to obtain competitive advantages in costs and in product differentiation. Thus, this study agrees with the researchers who affirm that environmental strategies positively affect firm's competitiveness while reducing environmental impact. (shrink)

Corporate anti-corruption initiatives can make a substantial contribution towards curtailing corruption and advancing efforts to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. However, researchers have observed that underdeveloped assumptions with respect to the conceptualization of corruption and how firms respond to corruption risk impeding the efficacy of anti-corruption programs. We investigate the relationship between the perceived level of corruption in foreign host countries and the organizational structure of subsidiary operations established by multinational corporations. Foreign host market corruption is disaggregated (...) into two components—private and public corruption. We employ an uncertainty-based perspective grounded in transaction cost theory to focus upon the distinct mechanisms through which private and public corruption can each be expected to impact a foreign subsidiary’s organizational structure [wholly-owned subsidiary or a joint venture with a local partner]. We expect that each type of corruption fosters a different type of uncertainty which predominates in shaping the MNC’s choice of foreign subsidiary investment structure. Hypotheses are developed and tested with a sample of 187 entries into 19 foreign host markets. Each type of corruption was found to exert a distinct effect upon the organizational structure of foreign subsidiaries. More precisely, while heightened perceived levels of public corruption were found to motivate MNCs to invest through a JV with a local partner rather than a WOS, more pronounced private corruption precipitated the opposite outcome. (shrink)

Computer abuse by employees is a critical concern for managers. Misuse of an organization’s information assets leads to costly damage to an organization’s reputation, decreases in sales, and impositions of fines. We use this opportunity to introduce and expand the theoretic framework proffered by Thong and Yap to better understand the factors that lead individuals to commit CA in organizations. The study uses a survey of 449 respondents from the banking, financial, and insurance industries. Our results indicate that individuals who (...) adhere to a formalist ethical perspective are significantly less likely to engage in CA activities than those following a utilitarian ethical framework. In addition, the results provide evidence that employees with individualistic natures are linked to increased CA incidents, whereas collectivist tendencies are associated with decreases in CA behaviors. Our results also show that collectivism acts as a strong moderator that further decreases the relationships between formalism and CA, and utilitarianism and CA. Finally, we offer detailed suggestions on how organizations and researchers can leverage our findings to decrease CA occurrences. (shrink)

Numerous studies have revealed that health care transitions for chronically ill older adults are frequently poorly managed, often with devastating human and economic consequences. And poorly managed transitions and their consequences also occur among younger, relatively healthy individuals who have adequate resources and are prepared to advocate on their own behalf. Despite the rich base of research confirming that evidence‐based transitional care enhances patients’ experiences, improves health and quality of life, and reduces costs, organizational, regulatory, financial, and cultural barriers (...) have, until recently, prevented widespread adoption of these proven approaches. Provisions of the Affordable Care Act, such as reductions in Medicare payments to hospitals with very high thirty‐day rehospitalization rates, have reduced barriers, but uptake of evidence‐based transitional care beyond demonstration projects continues to be sporadic and far too slow. With a rich understanding about how to better anticipate and respond to the compelling problems experienced by patients, family caregivers, and health care professionals throughout episodes of acute illness, the time has come to frame transitional care as a system's ethical responsibility in an aging society. Embedding transitional care within the ethical obligations of a health care system requires the perspectives and involvement of nurses and nursing because of this profession's integral role in every aspect of care transitions. (shrink)

The development of behavioral ethics has brought forth a detailed understanding of the processes of moral perception, decision-making and behavior within and beyond organizations and communities. However, prescriptive recommendations of behavioral research regarding how to support an ethical environment often underestimate the specifics of organizational characteristics that may encourage the occurrence and persistence of dishonesty, especially regarding deception as a desired action in some instances by some employees and managers. Furthermore, behavioral research does not adequately recognize the notion that (...) dishonesty can be sometimes viewed as an acceptable cost for some expected traits or skills of an employee such as intelligence or creativity. Under some conditions, deception can be even considered a moral, prosocial activity. Finally, formal ethics systems and situational measures to promote honesty may be inefficient or directly harmful. This article highlights questions of how to assess such factors in research on (un)ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

A travers une phénoménologie où l'art éclaire le réel, à travers son choix des auteurs et des oeuvres qu'il a commentés, le philosophe Henri Maldiney (1912-2013) a proposé un décentrement du regard et du savoir propres à renouveler l'étude du paysage. Il part d'une question trompeusement simple : sommes-nous "devant" ou "dedans" le paysage? Comment s'approche le paysage? Comment se fait-il image? Ce recueil présente une pensée complexe de manière accessible à tous les spécialistes et les passionnés de littérature et (...) d'études visuelles. Exemples littéraires, picturaux et photographiques, témoignent de la fécondité d'une pensée fondée sur l'aisthèsis, la présence et le rythme."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Organizations with multiple stakeholders typically make decisions by following the will of the majority of some subset of stakeholders that are entitled to vote. This Article examines an alternative decisionmaking mechanism - the “pivotal” mechanism developed by Vickrey, Groves and Clarke. Unlike voting, the pivotal mechanism produces efficient outcomes in the presence of heterogeneous voter preferences. Moreover, the mechanism allows control rights to be allocated more widely, reducing the costs of opportunism when a controlling class of stakeholders has interests adverse (...) to another class. These benefits come with costs. The pivotal mechanism’s efficiency diminishes in the presence of collusion between voters and requires the creation of “pools” that disperse revenues created by the mechanism. The mechanism is therefore most attractive when the costs of heterogeneity are large and the risks of collusion are small. As a result, I propose the development of a legal basis for the pivotal mechanism as a menu option for organizational decision-making. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to present the author's method of digitalization of transactions of solved business tasks to reduce transaction costs of a manufacturing enterprise. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the elements of digitalization are proposed in the work to reduce the transaction costs of searching for information, negotiating, measuring, and concluding a contract. The introduction of digital technologies into specific business tasks contributes to the optimization of transaction costs in the modern (...) institutional environment. As a result, the information relationship of the structural divisions of the production company was established during the performance of their functions at all stages of the production cycle from procurement to sales, the functional filling subsystems of the organizational structure were determined. Transaction costs, in accordance with their classification, are structured according to these subsystems, they represent the elements of digitalization recommended for use in the business processes of a manufacturing company to reduce its transaction costs. The introduction of digitalization processes of business tasks into the management structure helps to increase the level of validity and speed of decisions in the subsystems of the organizational structure of the company. (shrink)

Recent corporate legal and ethical meltdowns suggest that avoiding such harms to companies and to society requires a significant culture change within the organization. This paper addresses the issue of what it takes to change a corporate culture. While conventional wisdom may suggest that a change requires only the institution of an ethics office with proper reporting paths and an ethics code, such an approach is only a beginning. Many large corporations, especially those in danger of legal and ethical catastrophes, (...) need to undertake multiple initiatives to generate a new culture that manifests new values and new vocabularies. A cultural change accomplished by changing large numbers of personnel is expensive in financial and human terms. One component of a less costly approach is to tell new and different stories within the corporation because stories establish the cultural DNA that gives organizations, families, and individuals their identities. Such changes in individual firms, however, are influenced by the ideological assumptions within which and under which the industry and the society operates. (shrink)

Background In the wake of mandates for biomedical research to increase participation by members of historically underrepresented populations, community engagement (CE) has emerged as a key intervention to help achieve this goal.Methods Using interviews, observations, and document analysis, we examine how stakeholders in precision medicine research understand and seek to put into practice ideas about who to engage, how engagement should be conducted, and what engagement is for.Results We find that ad hoc, opportunistic, and instrumental approaches to CE exacted significant (...) consequences for the time and resources devoted to engagement and the ultimate impacts it has on research. Critical differences emerged when engagement and research decisionmaking were integrated with each other versus occurring in parallel, separate parts of the study organization, and whether community members had the ability to determine which issues would be brought to them for consideration or to revise or even veto proposals made upstream based on criteria that mattered to them. CE was understood to have a range of purposes, from instrumentally facilitating recruitment and data collection, to advancing community priorities and concerns, to furthering long-term investments in relationships with and changes in communities. These choices about who to engage, what engagement activities to support, how to solicit and integrate community input into the workflow of the study, and what CE was for were often conditioned upon preexisting perceptions and upstream decisions about study goals, competing priorities, and resource availability.Conclusions Upstream choices about CE and constraints of time and resources cascade into tradeoffs that often culminated in “pantomime community engagement.” This approach can create downstream costs when engagement is experienced as improvised and sporadic. Transformations are needed for CE to be seen as a necessary scientific investment and part of the scientific process. (shrink)

This paper relates firm size and opportunism by showing that, given certain behavioral dispositions of humans, the size of a profit-maximizing firm can be determined by cognitive aspects underlying firminternal cultural transmission processes. We argue that what firms do better than markets – besides economizing on transaction costs – is to establish a cooperative regime among its employees that keeps in check opportunism. A model depicts the outstanding role of the entrepreneur or business leader in firminternal socialization processes and the (...) evolution of corporate cultures. We show that high opportunismrelated costs are a reason for keeping firms’ size small. (shrink)

Three major trends in American health policy are intersecting in a fascinating way. First, managed care has grown to become the most dominant form of health-care delivery, leading to reductions in health-care costs as insurers are able to influence health-care providers with financial incentives. Second, the present growth of managed care has slowed, almost to a standstill, largely on account of consumers questioning what effects these financial incentives are having on the care of patients — questioning that has been expressed (...) in particular through lawsuits against managed care companies.Third, we are experiencing a renewed interest in the existence of medical error and how it may be reduced as a result of the Institute of Medicine’s report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. The most important aspect of this renaissance in error reduction has been its emphasis on health care as a system that can be made better through system-oriented change. The most frustrating aspect is that the IOM did not endorse change in malpractice liability, which consistently puts the impetus for reducing medical error on the individual provider rather than the system as a whole. (shrink)

Three major trends in American health policy are intersecting in a fascinating way. First, managed care has grown to become the most dominant form of health-care delivery, leading to reductions in health-care costs as insurers are able to influence health-care providers with financial incentives. Second, the present growth of managed care has slowed, almost to a standstill, largely on account of consumers questioning what effects these financial incentives are having on the care of patients — questioning that has been expressed (...) in particular through lawsuits against managed care companies.Third, we are experiencing a renewed interest in the existence of medical error and how it may be reduced as a result of the Institute of Medicine’s report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. The most important aspect of this renaissance in error reduction has been its emphasis on health care as a system that can be made better through system-oriented change. The most frustrating aspect is that the IOM did not endorse change in malpractice liability, which consistently puts the impetus for reducing medical error on the individual provider rather than the system as a whole. (shrink)

The dominant academic paradigm and the main inspiration of anticorruption policies is the economic theory of corruption, according to which anticorruption policies should be focused on raising the costs associated with corrupt behavior. In this article, I provide three reasons to explain why anticorruption interventions in organizations inspired by the economic theory of corruption frequently fail. I contribute to the current literature by integrating the literature on constructive deviance, on personality psychology, and on managerial biases in ethical decision-making into the (...) study of corruption and into the design and implementation of anticorruption interventions. Research propositions are advanced. Research and practice implications are discussed. (shrink)

This article uses institutional ethnography to investigate how accounting texts mediate the reshaping of managerial practice in the educational sector. The community college system in Ontario is currently undergoing an extensive process of restructuring. Operating grants have been reduced; government spending policies increasingly pull colleges into market relations. In this context, college administrators are working to develop new ways of "doing business." Integral to this are accounting procedures that play a powerful role in organizational restructuring by creating new patterns (...) of organizational visibility. One such, program costing, calculates the profitability rate of an academic department's various program offerings. As deans, department chairpersons, faculty and union representatives orient to this new visibility, the changes they introduce into their work routines bring market relevances into the local sites of college activity. (shrink)

Migrating Minds contributes to the prominent interdisciplinary domain of Cosmopolitan Studies with twenty innovative essays by humanities scholars from all over the world that re-examine theories and practices of cosmopolitanism from a variety of perspectives.

We give a general method for producing various effective Null and Positivstellensätze, and getting new Positivstellensätze in algebraically closed valued fields and ordered groups. These various effective Nullstellensätze produce algebraic identities certifying that some geometric conditions cannot be simultaneously satisfied. We produce also constructive versions of abstract classical results of algebra based on Zorn's lemma in several cases where such constructive version did not exist. For example, the fact that a real field can be totally ordered, or the fact that (...) a field can be embedded in an algebraically closed field. Our results are based on the concepts we develop of dynamical proofs and simultaneous collapse. (shrink)

Learning to live together is the central concern of education everywhere in the world. Traditional sporting games provide interpersonal experiences that shape miniature communities charged with emotional meanings. The objective of this study was to analyze the ethnomotor features of TSG in three Catalan-speaking Autonomous Communities and to interpret them for constructing emotional communities. The study followed a phenomenological-interpretative paradigm. The identification of TSG was done by a hermeneutic methodological approach by using an exhaustive exploratory documentary research. We studied 503 (...) games collected in the Dictionary Català-Valencià-Balear de Alcover and Moll. Instruments and procedure: A database was built up with information about the internal and external logic of the games. The validity of the information was confirmed by means of a concordance test between the researchers. Data processing was carried out by means of classification trees, identifying the predictive variables of the types of TSG. Most of the TSGs were sociomotor games. The classification tree identified four explanatory variables. Three variables were internal traits, and one variable corresponded to external logic. Features of the TSG of the Catalan-speaking Autonomous Communities build original emotional communities. The ethnomotor regularities triggered emotional experiences associated with pleasure for living together ; domesticating of aggressiveness over opponents ; developing sustainability ; educating the competition ; and interpersonal well-being based on the community. (shrink)