the male marital wage premium sorting vs differential pay the authors examine whether male marital and parenthood premia arise due to differential pay by employers or from differential sorting of employees on occupations and establishments they investigate these premia using matched employee employer data from the period 1979 96 in norway a country with increased pressures on men to be more active in the family sphere and in which public policy has aimed at remaking the family institution we find that the effect of marriage and to a lesser extent of children occurs mostly through sorting on occupations and occupation establishment units the role of differential pay from employers is marginal in explaining the marital and parenthood premia results assessing within individual changes in wages suggest that about 80 of the marital premium is due to selection the men who eventually marry and or have children sort into the higher paying occupations and occupation establishment units even prior to marriage and parenthood

best practices in demand forecasting tests of universalistic contingency and configurational theories abstract the paper focuses on best practices in demand forecasting literature has addressed the best practice concept under three different perspectives according to the universalistic perspective some forecasting practices are universally effective regardless of the context in which companies operate in the contingent perspective the effectiveness of forecasting practices depends on the specific kind of context each company faces a third perspective is the configurational one which asserts that there are synergistic effects among best practices in this work we compare these different perspectives by designing and testing different sets of propositions that underline the aforementioned perspectives analysis is conducted by collecting data of more than 500 companies in different countries via the 4th edition of the global manufacturing research group gmrg iv questionnaire the results demonstrate that each perspective has some empirical support

is there a glass ceiling in sweden using 1998 data we show that the gender log wage gap in sweden increases throughout the wage distribution and accelerates in the upper tail we interpret this as a strong glass ceiling effect we use quantile regression decompositions to examine whether this pattern can be ascribed primarily to gender differences in labor market characteristics or in the rewards to those characteristics even after extensive controls for gender differences in age education both level and field sector industry and occupation we find that the glass ceiling effect we see in the raw data persists to a considerable extent

glass ceilings or glass doors the role of firms in male female wage disparities i use canadian linked employer employee data to examine whether women face a glass ceiling in the labour market i also measure the extent to which the glass ceiling comes about because women are segregated into lower paying firms or because they are segregated into lower paying jobs within firms i find clear evidence that women experience a glass ceiling that is driven by their disproportionate sorting across firm types glass doors rather than within firms i find no evidence that these results are supply driven however my results are consistent with predictions of an efficiency wage model where high paying firms discriminate against females

sources of intra industry wage dispersion how much do employers matter observed human capital explains less than half of wage variation in bls industry wage surveys establishment based wage differentials controlling for occupation account for 20 70 percent of intra industry wage variation this corresponds to a standard deviation in wages of 14 percent of the mean almost as large as interindustry wage variation investigation suggests that establishment wage differentials are not random variations or returns to usual measures of human capital

the structure of the female male wage differential is it who you are what you do or where you work the efficacy of policies to narrow the malelfemale wage differential depends partly on the size of the portion s of the gap targeted previous research finds no between sex wage gap within occupations within employer job cell this is the first study to disentangle segregation by occupation from that based on employer or on job cell in five industries controlling for other forms of segregation occupational segregation produces a gap of 11 percent manufacturing to 26 percent services the wage gaps from establishment and job cell segregation are about 6 percent each since comparable worth acts on the occupation and job cell components it has a potentially large impact

high performance work systems and organizational performance across societal cultures this paper assesses whether societal culture moderates the relationship between human resource management hrm practices and organizational performance drawing on matched employer employee data from 387 organizations and 7187 employees in 14 countries our findings show a positive relationship between hrm practices combined in high performance work systems hpws and organizational performance across societal cultures three dimensions of societal culture assessed power distance in group collectivism and institutional collectivism did not moderate this relationship drawing on the ability motivation opportunity amo model we further consider the effectiveness of three bundles of hrm practices skill enhancing motivation enhancing and opportunity enhancing practices this analysis shows opportunity enhancing practices e g participative work design and decision making are less effective in high power distance cultures nevertheless in markedly different countries we find combinations of complementary hpws and bundles of amo practices appear to outweigh the influence of societal culture and enhance organizational performance

applying partial least squares to model genetically modified food purchase intentions in southern spain consumers abstract consumers potential reactions towards genetically modified gm foods influence their commercial feasibility and determine the decisions of economic agents this paper studies the underlying factors involved in determining consumers choice behaviour towards gm foods in order to develop an integrated analytical framework reliable information about consumers behaviour towards gm foods should lead to the design of political strategies intended to make citizens feel safe in their purchasing choices in addition there is an analysis of behavioural differences due to consumers objective knowledge levels the research was performed in southern spain using variance based structural equation modelling namely the partial least squares pls regression technique the results support those arguments that connect consumers behavioural intentions attitudes and different factors involved in determining consumer choice because attitudes towards gm foods link consumer purchasing intentions to the perceived benefits and risks posed by gm foods furthermore there are some insights into the moderating role played by the consumers level of knowledge in their purchase intentions to gm food

is there a glass ceiling over europe exploring the gender pay gap across the wages distribution using harmonised data from the european union household panel we analyse gender pay gaps by sector across the wages distribution for ten countries we find that the mean gender pay gap in the raw data typically hides large variations in the gap across the wages distribution we use quantile regression qr techniques to control for the effects of individual and job characteristics at different points of the distribution and calculate the part of the gap attributable to differing returns between men and women we find that first gender pay gaps are typically bigger at the top of the wage distribution a finding that is consistent with the existence of glass ceilings for some countries gender pay gaps are also bigger at the bottom of the wage distribution a finding that is consistent with sticky floors third the gender pay gap is typically higher at the top than the bottom end of the wage distribution suggesting that glass ceilings are more prevalent than sticky floors and that these prevail in the majority of our countries fourth the gender pay gap differs significantly across the public and the private sector wages distribution for each of our eu countries

swimming upstream floating downstream comparing women s relative wage progress in the united states and denmark applying a new decomposition method to u s psid and danish longitudinal sample data the authors compare how u s and danish gender wage gaps developed between 1983 and 1995 in denmark they find the wage gap widened because the worsening in women s relative returns to observable human capital attributes as well as in their ranking relative to men in unobserv able productive attributes more than offset their wage gains from improved observable qualifications relative to men s in the united states in contrast the gender convergence in qualifications offset adverse influences including in creasing wage dispersion throughout the labor market to result in a narrowing of the gap the largest increase in the gap in denmark was experienced by women in the top earnings decile and the largest decline in the gap in the united states affected those at the top and in the middle of the distribution

consumer acceptance valuation of and attitudes towards genetically modified food review and implications for food policy abstract an increasing set of evidence has been reported on how consumers could potentially react to the introduction of genetically modified food studies typically contain some empirical evidence and some theoretical explanations of the data however to date limited effort has been posed on systematically reviewing the existing evidence and its implications for policy this paper contributes to the literature by bringing together the published evidence on the behavioural frameworks and evidence on the process leading to the public acceptance of genetically modified gm food and organisms gmos in doing so we employ a set of clearly defined search tools and a limited number of comprehensive key words the study attempts to gather an understanding of the published findings on the determinants of the valuation of gm food both in terms of willingness to accept and the willing to pay a premium for non gm food trust with information sources on the safety and public health and ultimate attitudes underpinning such evidence furthermore in the light of such evidence we formulate some policy strategies to deal with public uncertainly regarding to gmos and especially gm food

mnc knowledge transfer subsidiary absorptive capacity and hrm based on a sample of 169 subsidiaries of multinational corporations mncs operating in the usa russia and finland this paper investigates the relationship between mnc subsidiary human resource management hrm practices absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer first we examine the relationship between the application of specific hrm practices and the level of the absorptive capacity second we suggest that absorptive capacity should be conceptualized as being comprised of both employees ability and motivation further results indicate that both ability and motivation absorptive capacity are needed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from other parts of the mnc

are organisation researchers too obsessed with the economic responsibility of the firm the original intent of business education in america focused on the development of professional managers who would look after the interests of society as economic and shareholder theories influenced business education firm performance became the manager s top if not only priority the economic responsibility of the firm also appears to be dominating scholarly interest in organisations as well however business firms constitute part of the fabric of society and closer attention should be paid by organisation researchers to the social responsibilities of the firm in doing so a more balanced research approach can be achieved in this article we give evidence that research within the study of the organisation specifically in the field of management has predominately turned its attention to the economic responsibility of the firm we close by demonstrating that other fields within organisation research also appear to be favouring the study of performance and we offer suggestions as to how scholars might better address the firm s role in society beyond its economic responsibility

shareholder value stakeholder management and social issues what s the bottom line we test the relationship between shareholder value stakeholder management and social issue participation building better relations with primary stakeholders like employees customers suppliers and communities could lead to increased shareholder wealth by helping firms develop intangible valuable assets which can be sources of competitive advantage on the other hand using corporate resources for social issues not related to primary stakeholders may not create value for shareholders we test these propositions with data from s p 500 firms and find evidence that stakeholder management leads to improved shareholder value while social issue participation is negatively associated with shareholder value copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

the dynamics of alignment insights from a punctuated equilibrium model several prior articles have emphasized the importance of alignment between business and information system is strategies and between business and is structures seeking to advance our understanding of alignment we examine the dynamics of changes in alignment through strategy structure interactions in the business and is domains more specifically we address the following question in what ways does alignment evolve over time changes in the strategic is management profile which includes business strategy is strategy business structure and is structure over time are examined using a punctuated equilibrium model involving long periods of relative stability or evolutionary change interrupted by short periods of quick and extensive or revolutionary change case studies of changes in business and is strategies and structure over long time periods in three organizations suggest that the punctuated equilibrium model provides a valuable perspective for viewing these dynamics the cases suggest that a pattern of alignment may continue over a long period because either the level of alignment is high or the managers do not recognize the low alignment as a problem revolutions involving changes in most or all dimensions of the strategic is management profile interrupt the evolutionary changes however organizations hesitate to make such revolutionary changes in strategic is management profiles complete revolutions apparently require a combination of strong triggers finally post revolution adjustments to one dimension of the strategic is management profile seem to follow revolutionary changes

evidence on the glass ceiling effect in france using matched worker firm data in this article we investigate the relevance of the glass ceiling hypothesis in france according to which there exist larger gender wage gaps at the upper tail of the wage distribution using a matched worker firm data set of about 1 30 000 employees and 14 000 employers we estimate quantile regressions and rely on a principal component analysis to summarize information specific to the firms our different results show that accounting for firm related characteristics reduces the gender earnings gap at the top of the distribution but the latter still remains much higher at the top than at the bottom furthermore a quantile decomposition shows that the gender wage gap is mainly due to differences in the returns to observed characteristics rather than in differences in characteristics between men and women

wage tenure and wage growth variation within and across establishments we estimate employer specific wage tenure and wage growth differentials using a unique bureau of labor statistics establishment survey of full time white collar workers employer wage and tenure differentials conditional on worker characteristics are substantial in these data education potential experience and tenure are highly correlated within an establishment high wage establishments generally employ higher quality workers and the most skilled men and professionals typically work with the most skilled women and nonprofessionals there is significant variation in wage growth rates across employers and high wage growth establishments tend to have longer tenure all else equal

institutional theory and mnc subsidiary hrm practices evidence from a three country study this study sets out to explore human resource management hrm practices in multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries within an institutional theory framework based on a sample of 158 subsidiaries of mncs operating in the united states russia and finland the paper examines factors hypothesised to influence the hrm practices adapted in us japanese and european mnc subsidiaries located in russia finland and the us the results indicate significant differences in hrm practices used across host countries both the status of the subsidiary human resource department and the degree to which the subsidiary was involved in knowledge transfer with other parts of the mnc had a significant impact on the selection of hrm practices

new evidence on sex segregation and sex differences in wages from matched employee employer data we use new matched employer employee data to estimate the contributions of sex segregation and wage differences by sex within occupation industry establishment and occupation establishment cells to the overall sex gap in wages in contrast to earlier data used to study this question our data cover all industries and occupations across all regions of the united states we find that segregation of women into lower paying occupations industries establishments and occupations within establishments accounts for a sizable fraction of the sex gap in wages nonetheless approximately one half of the sex gap in wages remains attributable to the individual s sex

the theoretical foundation of industrial relations and its implications for labor economics and human resource management the author identifies the core principle that forms the theoretical and policy foundation for the field of industrial relations labor is embodied in human beings and is not a commodity and argues that the field s two central dependent variables are labor problems and the employment relationship next he uses this core principle along with complementary ideas from institutional economics to develop a theoretical framework that not only explains the nature of the employment relationship and labor problems but also reveals shortcomings in related theories from labor economics and human resource management finally this framework is used to derive the fundamental theorem of industrial relations demonstrate that optimal economic performance occurs in a mixed economy of imperfect labor markets and organizations and show that a certain amount of labor protectionism promotes economic efficiency and human welfare

exploring the curvature of the relationship between hrm csr and corporate financial performance this article contributes to the general literature on the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance as well as to the emerging hrm csr literature by exploring the curvature of the relationship between hrm csp and cfp we advance conceptual arguments in favor of an inverted u shaped relationship our results demonstrate a significant quadratic relationship between hrm csp and cfp we provide evidence that this relationship is not linear or s shaped but rather inverted u shaped

modes of theorizing in strategic human resource management tests of universalistic contingency and configurational performance predictions the field of strategic human resource management shrm has been criticized for lacking a solid theoretical foundation this article documents that contrary to this criticism the shrm literature

consumer perceived risk model for the introduction of genetically modified food in spain abstract since the last part of the 20th century the search for new forms of cultivation and food has basically centred on the application of biotechnology giving rise to gm foods consumer acceptance is conditioned by the risk that they perceive from introducing food into their consumption habits processed through technology that they hardly understand besides information is insufficient in the consumer ambit and moreover it is influenced by ideological and ethical determining factors the factors were analysed that influence this consumer perceived risk through a structural equation model this study was conducted in spain concretely in the province of alicante located in the southeast of this country the main conclusion from this research is that the introduction of gm food into agro food markets should be accompanied by adequate policies to guarantee consumer safety these actions would allow a decrease in consumer perceived risk by taking special care of the information provided concretely relating to health for the most influential factor in consumer perceived risk from these foods is concern about health

information technology as competitive advantage the role of human business and technology resources this paper investigates linkages between information technology it and firm performance although showing recent signs of advance the existing it literature still relies heavily on case studies anecdotes and consultants frameworks with little solid empirical work or synthesis of findings this paper examines the it literature develops an integrative resource based theoretical framework and presents results from a new empirical study in the retail industry the findings show that its alone have not produced sustainable performance advantages in the retail industry but that some firms have gained advantages by using its to leverage intangible complementary human and business resources such as flexible culture strategic planning it integration and supplier relationships the results support the resource based approach and help to explain why some firms outperform others using the same its and why successful it users often fail to sustain it based competitive advantages

high performance work practices and core employee wages evidence from italian manufacturing plants past research has provided mixed evidence on the relationship between high performance work practices hpwps and wages drawing from more than 1 800 interviews with the hr managers in a stratified

on consumers willingness to purchase nutritionally enhanced genetically modified food this study assesses consumers willingness to purchase genetically modified gm food products with two different types of benefits an input i e reduced pesticides and an output trait benefit i e nutritionally enhanced data were collected using a telephone survey of an italian households sample discrete choice approach is used to elicit the purchase intentions of the respondents four separate probit models are estimated to examine the effect of various factors on choices results suggest that majority of italians are not willing to buy gm food products even if they are nutritionally enhanced however more consumers are willing to buy a nutritionally enhanced plant based gm product than a traditional plant based gm with input trait benefit willingness to buy for a nutritionally enhanced animal based gm product and for a traditional animal based gm product with input trait benefit are similar consumers unwilling to buy gm food would not buy it even if it is nutritionally enhanced and has lo

a theory of dual labor markets with application to industrial policy discrimination and keynesian unemployment this paper develops a model of dual labor markets based on employers need to motivate workers in order to elicit effort from their workers employers may find it optimal to pay more than the going wage this changes fundamentally the character of labor markets the model is applied to a wide range of labor market phenomena it provides a coherent framework for understanding the claims of industrial policy advocates it also can provide the basis for a theory of occupational segregation and discrimination that will not be eroded by market forces finally the model provides the basis for a theory of involuntary unemployment

fda s regulation of genetically engineered foods scientific legal and political dimensions abstract the controversy over genetically engineered ge food during the southern africa drought in 2002 03 raised questions concerning the safety of ge foods and the basis for the safety assurances issued by national and international agencies in the case of foods grown in the us these assurances must be interpreted in relation to the food and drug administration s fda 1992 policy which remains in effect today this paper provides a detailed examination of the roles of scientific legal and political considerations in the development of that policy this paper reveals that the fda responded to political pressure for a permissive regulatory approach by exploiting gaps in scientific knowledge creatively interpreting existing food law and limiting public involvement in the policy s development common statements by the government and other proponents concerning sound science rigorous testing no evidence of harm and as safe as conventional foods are found to be misleading unless the scientific legal and political basis for the us policy is taken into account while this paper finds that the evidence for the safety of ge foods has been exaggerated by government agencies and other parties nothing in this paper suggests that ge foods currently on the market are harmful to human health to the contrary the situation is one of great uncertainty repeated recommendations that this issue be the topic of a major public research effort have yet to be acted upon

equal pay for equal work evidence from sweden and a comparison with norway and the u s using a new data set covering most privately employed workers in sweden we compare gender wage differences to those previously reported for norway and the u s the central finding is that the wage gap is small when comparing men and women working in the same type of occupation for the same employer segregation of men and women by occupation accounts for more of the gap in sweden than in the other two countries in all three countries we find that segregation by occupation explains more than segregation by establishment and that institutional changes over the past two decades aimed at improving the status of women had little effect on the gender wage gap jel classification j16 j71

a latent class approach to investigating demand for genetically modified banana in uganda this study explores consumer acceptance and valuation of a genetically modified gm staple food crop in a developing country prior to its commercialization we focus on the hypothetical introduction of a disease resistant gm banana variety in uganda where bananas are among the most important staple crops a choice experiment is used to investigate consumer preferences for various attributes related to the banana such as bunch size technology producer benefit and price and examine their opinions on gm foodstuff choice data come from 421 banana consuming households randomly selected from three regions of uganda a latent class model is used to investigate the heterogeneity in consumers preferences for selected attributes related to the banana and to profile consumers who are more or less likely to accept gm bananas our results reveal that there is significant heterogeneity in consumer preferences across our sample gm bananas are valued the most by poorer households located in the rural areas of the eastern region these food insecure households would experience the highest benefits i e welfare gains from the commercial release of gm bananas in contrast urban consumers are less accepting of gm bananas and they would experience significant welfare losses if gm banana is released according to our welfare estimates both the total welfare benefits acquired by the gainers and the total welfare losses borne by the losers of this technology are significant and large these results suggest the need for further investigation of the overall welfare effects of the introduction of gm bananas on the ugandan society as a whole

does more mean less the male female wage gap and the proportion of females at the establishment level we examine the theoretical empirical and public policy implications of the pro portion of females in the establishment arrow s model of heterogeneous employer discrim ination provides predictions that are tested empirical results indicate support for the theory using establishment data but a contradiction is obtained with the individual data it is es timated that the proportion of females in the establishment accounts for 26 per cent of the gender log wage gap implications for employment equity are considered in the context of a new method of decomposing the log wage gap and indicate that such public policy can reduce this gap by 20 per cent jel classification j71 and j78

high performance work systems in foreign subsidiaries of american multinationals an institutional model this study examines the implementation of high performance work systems hpwss in 217 subsidiaries of american based multinational enterprises operating in 14 countries in asia africa and europe specifically this paper explores the effect of host country institutional factors on the extent of hpws implementation in subsidiaries and focuses on strong agency influences and dominance effects the proposed model was more successful in explaining the effect of hpwss on rank and file employees than on managers of particular interest is the strong positive association between host country economic growth and hpws implementation which suggests a possible cyclical sensitivity of subsidiaries regarding human resource management strategy

intellectual capital configurations and organizational capability an empirical examination of human resource subunits in the multinational enterprise building on the organizational capabilities literature and theories of the multinational enterprise this paper develops and tests a framework that examines the relationship between intellectual capital configurations and organizational capabilities in human resource hr subunits looking at 187 subunits from 20 mnes findings show that intellectual capital dimensions vary in their usefulness for generating sharing and implementing hr management practices in particular while certain resources may help in the development of one capability they may harm the development of another implications are that an organization s intellectual capital investments will differ depending on the desired capability

the role of performance related pay in renegotiating the effort bargain the case of the british public service much of the academic and policy literature on performance related pay prp focuses on its role as an incentive system its role as a means for renegotiating performance norms has been largely neglected this study examines the introduction of performance related pay based mostly on appraisals by line managers in britain s public services during the 1990s previous research indicates that prp failed to motivate many of the staff and that its operation was divisive nevertheless other information suggests that productivity rose this article seeks to resolve the paradox using contract theory to show that performance pay was the instrument of a major renegotiation of performance norms and that this rather than motivation was the principal dynamic goal setting and appraisal by line managers played a key role in this process

opening the black box of the relationship between hrm practices and firm performance a comparison of mne subsidiaries in the usa finland and russia this paper investigates the extent to which different human resource management hrm practices work better in different countries we also try to open the black box between hrm and multinational enterprise mne subsidiary performance by considering mechanisms through which hrm practices affect mne subsidiary performance the study utilizes a unique data set consisting of subsidiaries of 241 mnes operating in russia usa and finland in the partial least square analysis used to examine our hypotheses we demonstrate that different hrm practices are preferable in different countries and that motivation and ability are important mediating variables in the hrm mne subsidiary performance relationship

international venturing by emerging economy firms the effects of firm capabilities home country networks and corporate entrepreneurship past literature on foreign direct investment generally supports an economics perspective that there is a direct relationship between firm specific ownership advantages and international expansion however in emerging economies with their institutional environment context characterized by low resource munificence and continuous economic liberalization a theoretical extension of the current perspective is needed this paper introduces new parameters by focusing on specific ownership advantages and strategic actions that firms have to develop in response to the institutional characteristics of the emerging economies when they decide to pursue outward fdi the focus here is on international venturing that requires a firm to engage in activities for new business creation in a foreign country rather than simply seek to distribute a product in another nation it is shown empirically that the relationship between firm specific ownership advantages and international venturing is moderated by the degree of home industry competition and export intensity in addition such a relationship is mediated by the intensity of corporate entrepreneurial transformation in the form of innovation new business creation and strategic renewal

male female wage differentials in job ladders much of the male female wage differential exists because men and women are assigned to different jobs within narrow job categories there is no male female differential only a tortured taste theory of discrimination can reconcile these facts we argue that differential movement along job ladders entails comparative advantage so the ability standard for promotion is higher for women this implies that more able women will be passed over in favor of less able men women assumed to have the same ability distribution as men earn less the differential reflects females lower promotion probability not within job discrimination

the impact of market orientation and strategic hrm on firm performance the case of chinese enterprises this study examines market orientation as the antecedent to strategic human resource management shrm and the related effects on firm performance in an emerging economy context it is suggested that the relationship between shrm and firm performance is moderated by ownership type and autonomy in staffing of these firms empirical results from a sample of chinese firms from various industries and regions reveal that shrm mediates the relationship between market orientation and firm performance it is also found that the effect of shrm on firm performance is stronger for firms with a higher degree of autonomy in staffing and weaker for private firms other types of ownership state or foreign have no effect on this relationship

the effect of human resource management practices on mnc subsidiary performance in russia this study investigates the relationship between human resource management hrm and the performance of 101 foreign owned subsidiaries in russia the study s results provide support for the assertion that investments in hrm practices can substantially assist a firm in improving performance further different hrm practices for managerial and non managerial employees are found to be significantly related to firm performance only limited support however is obtained for the hypothesized relationship between efforts at aligning hrm practices with firm strategy and subsidiary performance

viewpoint male female wage differentials how can that be abstract the paper outlines the main empirical procedures that are used to document the male female wage differential and the extent to which it reflects discrimination it then discusses the evidence on male female wage differentials their existence the extent to which they reflect discrimination their changes over time and the factors that influence the gap particular attention is paid to more recent studies that control for a wider range of conventionally unobserved factors theoretical perspectives are then outlined focusing on the issue of how discriminatory wage differentials can survive given the forces of competition the impacts of policy initiatives are also discussed

explaining wage inequality in telecommunications services customer segmentation human resource practices and union decline this study examines factors related to within occupation wage inequality among service and sales workers in the telecommunications industry the author draws on a 1998 survey of a nationally representative sample of 354 service and sales centers in the industry to examine the importance of management practices and union institutions in shaping wage variation the results strongly indicate that business strategies of customer segmentation and human resource practices explain variation in wages over and above that explained by the human capital of the work force in addition despite extensive deregulation and de unionization of the industry the union wage premium is 22

situational ethics across borders a multicultural examination managers throughout the world regularly face ethical dilemmas that have important and perhaps complex professional and personal implications further societal consequences of decisions made can be far reaching in this study 210 financial services managers from australia chile ecuador and the united states were queried about their ethical beliefs when faced with four diverse dilemmas in addition the situational context was altered so the respondent viewed each dilemma from a top management position and from a position of economic hardship results suggest a complex interaction of situation culture and issue when individuals make ethical judgments specifically chileans were found to have different beliefs about sex discrimination and child labor dilemmas when compared to their colleagues from the other three nations chileans and australians also disagreed on the bribery dilemma anglo managers were more likely than latin american managers to change their ethical responses when the situation was altered for multinational firms interested in maintaining healthy ethical climates the findings suggest that culturally contingent ethical guidelines or policies adapted to the local customs must be considered further managers must remain aware of issues related to specific situations both internal and external that would cause subordinates to alter their moral judgment

consumer willingness to pay for genetically modified food in kenya genetically modified gm crops are popular in many regions of the world but their deployment in africa is hindered by safety concerns and regulatory issues although the continent is in dire need of boosting its food production although consumers acceptance of gm food has been analyzed in many continents no such studies have been conducted in africa therefore a survey of 604 consumers was conducted in nairobi kenya in 2003 to gauge consumers awareness of gm crops their willingness to pay wtp for gm food and the factors that influence their wtp consumers knowledge of gm crops was limited and only 38 of the 604 respondents were aware of gm crops people in higher education and income groups were more aware than others regardless people were generally appreciative of the technology and a large majority 68 would be willing to buy gm maize meal at the same price as their favorite brand consumers were however concerned about possible side effects especially on the environment and biodiversity wtp was estimated using a double bounded dichotomous choice model and the mean wtp was found to be 13 8 higher than the average price of non gm maize meal perceptions of health risk and ethical and equity concerns had a negative influence on the likelihood of purchasing gm maize meal whereas trust in government to ensure food quality had a positive influence on wtp people with at least some secondary education and those in the high income category were more likely to purchase gm maize meal at the same price the study concludes that because awareness is still low appropriate communications are needed to involve the consumer in the debate consumers acceptance in this study was high but the research needs to be expanded to rural areas where most consumers live and other survey methods need to be explored

perceived senior leadership opportunities in mncs the effect of social hierarchy and capital drawing on the structural perspective in organizational theory this study develops a conceptual framework of the social hierarchy within the multinational corporation mnc we suggest that parent country nationals pcns host country nationals hcns and third country nationals tcns occupy distinctively different positions in the social hierarchy which are anchored in their differential control or access to various forms of capital or strategically valuable organizational resources we further suggest that these positions affect employees perceptions of senior leadership opportunities defined as the assessment of the extent to which nationality and location influence access to senior leadership opportunities using multilevel analysis of survey data from 2039 employees in seven mncs the study reveals two significant findings first hcns and tcns perceive that nationality and location influence access to senior leadership opportunities more than pcns second three moderating factors gender tenure and education increase the perception gaps between pcns on the one hand and hcns and tcns on the other although these results are inconsistent these findings indicate that the structural position of pcns hcns and tcns in the social hierarchy affect sense making and perceptions of access to senior leadership opportunities

the firm s choice of hrm practices economics meets strategic human resource management the authors compare and contrast two theoretical approaches to explaining a firm s choice of human resource management hrm practices one from strategic human resource management shrm and the other from economics they present hrm frequency distributions depicting key empirical patterns that both theories must explain and then review and apply shrm theory to explain these patterns since no economic model has thus far explicitly considered firms choice of hrm practices the authors develop one based on standard microeconomic production theory the model yields a new theoretical construct the hrm demand curve and a new empirical estimating tool the hrm demand function together these provide an alternative explanation of hrm frequency distributions new insights on the limitations of shrm theory and the first alternative to the standard huselid type regression model using recent survey data on hrm practices at several hundred american firms the authors estimate representative hrm demand functions to illustrate the empirical implementation of the model they find that although both theoretical approaches have value the economic model seems superior in terms of generality logical coherence predictive ability and congruence with empirical data