Values and Risk Perceptions: A Cross‐Cultural Examination

This article examines the relationship between values and risk perceptions regarding terror attacks. The participants in the study are university students from Turkey (n = 536) and Israel (n = 298). Schwartz value theory (1992, 1994) is applied to conceptualize and measure values. Cognitive (perceived likelihood and perceived severity) and emotional (fear, helplessness, anger, distress, insecurity, hopelessness, sadness, and anxiety) responses about the potential of (i) being personally exposed to a terror attack, and (ii) a terror attack that may occur in one's country are assessed to measure risk perceptions. Comparison of the two groups suggests that the Turkish participants are significantly more emotional about terror risks than the Israeli respondents. Both groups perceive the risk of a terror attack that may occur in their country more likely than the risk of being personally exposed to a terror attack. No significant differences are found in emotional representations and perceived severity ratings regarding these risks. Results provide support for the existence of a link between values and risk perceptions of terror attacks. In both countries, self‐direction values are negatively related to emotional representations, whereas security values are positively correlated with emotions; hedonism and stimulation values are negatively related to perceived likelihood. Current findings are discussed in relation to previous results, theoretical approaches (the social amplification of risk framework and cultural theory of risk), and practical implications (increasing community support for a course of action, training programs for risk communicators).     

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Managers' Whistleblowing Tendencies*

In a global marketplace, managers often face major difficulties when it comes to handling ethical problems within a different cultural context. Whistleblowing is one possible response to ethical problems. This study considers the differences in culture between a United States sample of managers and a Jamaica, West Indies sample of managers using Hofstede's (1991) theory of International Cultures. The study explores how those cultural differences may help in our understanding of the differences in reported whistleblowing tendencies. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Cognitive and Emotional Representations of Terror Attacks: A Cross-Cultural Exploration

A questionnaire measuring cognitive and affective representations of terror risk was developed and tested in Turkey and Israel. Participants in the study were university students from the two countries (n= 351). Four equivalent factors explained terror risk cognitions in each sample: costs, vulnerability, trust, and control. A single negative emotionality factor explained the affective component of terror risk representations in both samples. All factors except control could be measured reliably. Results supported the validity of the questionnaire by showing expected associations between cognitions and emotions, as well as indicating gender differences and cultural variations. Current findings are discussed in relation to previous results, theoretical approaches, and practical implications.     

Integrating Organizational-Cultural Values With Performance Management

Early analyses of organizational culture used and an approach derived from cultural anthropology to provide guidance for leaders, managers, and employees, but lacked units of analysis congruent with behavior science. More recent approaches identify values and practices, the latter being behavior which can be analyzed. However, the abstract language of this approach limits our ability to set specific performance expectations and relies on post-hoc recognition and reinforcement. This article outlines an approach that anchors performance analysis in the valuable work outputs (accomplishments) produced by behavior, and uses value statements to adjust expectations for work outputs and behavior. With this approach we can define how specific values apply to specific work outputs and behavior, and set clear performance expectations. The author proposes that performance analysis anchored in work outputs may improve our ability to set expectations and arrange conditions for optimizing values-driven performance in organizational or societal contexts.     

Cross-Cultural Differences in Risk Perception: A Model-Based Approach

The present study assessed cross-cultural differences in the perception of financial risks. Students at large universities in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and the U.S., as well as a group of Taiwanese security analysts rated the riskiness of a set of monetary lotteries. Risk judgments differed with nationality, but not with occupation (students vs. security analysts) and were modeled by the Conjoint Expected Risk (CER) model.⁽¹⁾ Consistent with cultural differences in country uncertainty avoidance,⁽²⁾ CER model parameters of respondents from the two Western countries differed from those of respondents from the two countries with Chinese cultural roots: The risk judgments of respondents from Hong Kong and Taiwan were more sensitive to the magnitude of potential losses and less mitigated by the probability of positive outcomes.     

Cultural Values of Indian Managers: An Exploration through Unstructured Interviews

The present research addressed and explored the cultural values that Indian managers may apply in their business activities. Criticisms of research in this area include the use of Western theories and methods that may ignore cultural factors. The present study sought to overcome this concern by using unstructured interviews to collect qualitative data. This approach allowed for exploration of value diversity and contextual influences, which both tend to characterize Indian organizational behavior. Results suggested evidence of cultural values such as yogic spirituality, non-attachment, interconnectedness with others, nonviolence, tolerance, and a sense of duty. Some respondents however espoused values in direct opposition to the traditional culture. The managers in this sample also largely espoused the use of participative management and employee empowerment. Results are discussed with regard to current literature. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

中澳企业员工离职与激励认知的跨文化比较研究

将HOFSTEDE提出的国家文化理论运用到人力资源管理中进行实证检验,对中国和澳大利亚两国企业员工的离职和激励行为背后的文化影响进行了分析研究。研究分析显示,相比澳大利亚企业员工,中国企业员工的离职倾向较低;可选择工作机会的主观感知对中国企业员工离职倾向的影响较小;中国企业员工认为职业发展是较重要的激励因素,而澳大利亚企业员工认为工作本身是较为重要的激励因素。研究结果表明,国家文化理论提出的5个文化差异维度中的"权利距离"、"不确定性规避"和"长期取向",在中澳两国企业员工的离职和激励问题上基本得到印证。     

Public Values in Risk Debates

Both the issues inherent in regulation of specific risks and the contexts in which such regulatory processes occur are often characterized by confusion and controversy. Tools based on multiattribute utility measurement (MAUT) can help to clarify public values in risk debates and thus to facilitate option invention and decision making. Stakeholder group representatives, in interaction with an analyst, structure their values relevant to the problem into a value tree. The analyst prepares a common tree, iterating until all stakeholder representatives accept it. Stakeholders express their values as weights on the common tree. This provides a basis for option invention and negotiation. The paper presents three illustrative applications.     

The Effect of Risk Beliefs on Property Values: A Case Study of a Hazardous Waste Site1

Health risk beliefs of homeowners near a landfill site were assessed in a survey and compared to expert judgments of the health risks of living near the site. A bimodal distribution of health risk beliefs suggested sharp disagreement between the experts and at least some of the residents. Correlates of high risk beliefs included perception of odor from the site, exposure to media coverage of the problem, having children living at home, age (younger respondents more concerned), and gender (females more concerned). An aggregated neighborhood health risk belief predicted reductions in home prices even after controlling for home physical characteristics, such as size and other disamenities such as proximity to a freeway. In the 4100 homes near the site, the estimated depression in property values was estimated to total about $40.2 million before the site was closed and to be about $19.7 million after closure. Implications of these results for community conflict and for benefit-cost analysis of hazard site remediation are discussed.     

Underlying Values and Consequences in Financial Services

The freeing of financial markets has brought with it increasing sophistication in regulatory regimes. Over time, a succession of frauds and financial scandals has emphasised some limitations of these complex regulatory schemes. This paper seeks to address the reasons for the events that have caused concern, and suggests that they are to be found principally in three categories: (1) the underlying values that drive financial services; (2) the assumptions and values of regulatory regimes, and (3) the increased opportunities to break or evade the rules. Some possible ways forward are sketched. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Psychological Approaches to Values in Organizations and Organizational Behavior Management

Researchers studying individual and organizational value congruence are concerned with the degree to which the values of the employee and the organization for which he or she works agree and the affective outcomes that more or less agreement might predict. While a robust area of research, the applications following from it are somewhat limited. This paper reviews the concepts and research findings concerning value congruence, discusses various behavioral interpretations of the values construct, applies those interpretations to the organizational level, and offers recommendations for how these interpretations might point to more successful organizational change initiatives.     

A cross-cultural investigation of the shared values relationship

Data from managers in Australia (N=505) and Hong Kong (N=653) support the findings of studies using American managers and their companies that shared values, or person-organization values fit, is strongly related to positive work attitudes. This relationship is unaffected by culture, as two-way analysis of variance reveals no interaction effect between shared values and country. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Identification and Inference in Ascending Auctions With Correlated Private Values

We introduce and apply a new nonparametric approach to identification and inference on data from ascending auctions. We exploit variation in the number of bidders across auctions to nonparametrically identify useful bounds on seller profit and bidder surplus using a general model of correlated private values that nests the standard independent private values (IPV) model. We also translate our identified bounds into closed form and asymptotically valid confidence intervals for several economic measures of interest. Applying our methods to much studied U.S. Forest Service timber auctions, we find evidence of correlation among values after controlling for a rich vector of relevant auction covariates; this correlation causes expected profit, the profit‐maximizing reserve price, and bidder surplus to be substantially lower than conventional (IPV) analysis of the data would suggest.     

Facts and Values in Risk Analysis for Environmental Toxicants

The U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy describes toxic substance regulation as composed of two stages. Stage I (facts) uses empirical data and scientific judgment to characterize human exposure and risk. Stage II (values) uses social and political judgment to decide regulatory action based on significance of the risk, benefits of the agent, and costs of its control. This paper argues that such a view represents an unrealistic and unattainable goal. We present examples showing how values enter virtually every part of risk analysis, and we review work on the vagaries in human judgment concerning both facts and values. These issues indicate that U.S. regulatory policy needs reconsideration.     

'The land of smiles': people issues in Thailand

This paper explores Indonesia's Javanese culture and the way to develop closer relationship between expatriates and the host country nationals. Previous research determined that strong social relationship is a major factor in enhancing expatriate adjustment and the overall business operations in Indonesia. This article examines two factors underlining the Javanese culture: (1) the concept of social status and (2) the Javanese business values. The article also suggests three human resource development interventions that may enhance expatriates' understanding of the Javanese culture and that may assist them in building strong relationships with the locals: (1) cross-cultural training, (2) storytelling technique and (3) boundary spanning activities.     

Inductive Risk,Science, and Values: A Reply to MacGillivray

The argument from inductive risk (AIR) is perhaps the most common argument against the value-free ideal of science. Brian MacGillivray rejects the AIR (at least as it would apply to risk assessment) and embraces the value-free ideal. We clarify the issues at stake and argue that MacGillivray's criticisms, although effective against some formulations of the AIR, fail to overcome the essential concerns that motivate the AIR. There are inevitable trade-offs in scientific enquiry that cannot be resolved with any formal methods or general rules. Choices must be made, and values will be involved. It is best to recognize this explicitly. Even so, there is more work to be done developing methods and institutional support for these choices.     

Values,Perceived Risks and Benefits,and Acceptability of Nuclear Energy

We examined how personal values and perceptions of risks and benefits are associated with the acceptability of nuclear energy (NE). A theoretical model is tested in which beliefs about the risks and benefits of NE mediate the relationship between values and acceptability. The results showed that egoistic values are positively related to the perceived benefits and acceptability of NE. In contrast, altruistic and biospheric values were positively related to the perceived risks of NE. Although it has been argued that NE may help to combat climate change through lower CO₂ emissions, these environmental benefits were not acknowledged by people with strong biospheric values. Furthermore, results confirmed that the more risks respondents perceived, the less they were inclined to accept NE. In contrast, the more a person believed that NE has beneficial consequences, the more acceptable NE was. Finally, as expected, perceived risks and benefits were found to partly mediate the relationship between personal values and acceptability. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

The Effects of Personality and Management Role on Perceived Values in Business Settings

This paper examines the effects ofpersonality variables and functional management role,either entrepreneur, manager in an entrepreneurialfirm, manager in a traditional firm, or small businessowner, on perceived business values. Functionalmanagement role had minimal discernible effects;personality variables differentiated entrepreneursfrom managers and produced many effects for ratings ofbusiness values. Results are discussed in terms ofMBTI and DISC theoretical constructs and theirimplications for entrepreneurship and management.     

A Longitudinal Study Exploring Value Changes During the Cultural Assimilation of Japanese Student Pilot Sojourners in the United States

This study explored longitudinally the value changes of Japanese student pilot sojourners attending pilot training in the United States for two years. Throughout their stay in the United States they are exposed to the United States Western culture, and assimilate some of that culture, because in order to achieve equilibrium, they will change some of their values, attitudes and behaviors (move toward the similar) and assimilate some of their new culture. This study explored the cultural assimilation of those pilots by exploring value changes using the Rokeach Value Survey; exploring values upon arrival, after one year in the U.S., after two years in the U.S., and one year after return to the Japan. The research results showed significant cultural assimilation as demonstrated by value changes between time of arrival and departure from the U.S., and continuing one year after return to Japan.