Management and Business Ethics: A Critique and Integration of Ethical Decision-making Models

This paper critically reviews the literature relating to the management of ethics within organizations and identifies, in line with other authors, a gap between theory and practice in the area. It highlights the role of management (both as an academic discipline and from a practitioner perspective) in bridging this gap and views managers, with their sense of individual ethical agency, as a key locus of ethics within organizations. The paper aims to address the theory–practice gap by surveying the business ethics literature in order to identify, draw together and integrate existing theory and research, with a particular emphasis upon models of ethical decision-making and their relationship to work values. Such an endeavour is necessary, not only because of the relative neglect of management practice by business ethics researchers, but also because of the current lack of integration in the field of business ethics itself. The paper outlines some of the main methodological challenges in the area and suggests how some of these may be overcome. Finally, it concludes with a number of suggestions as to how the theory–practice gap can be addressed through the development of a research agenda, based upon the previous work reviewed.     

Curricula and State of the Profession

Most of us have encountered problems in developing an effective quantitative analysis program for our business schools in the United States. We have often found managers very reluctant to adopt QA techniques; on the other hand, students, although not reluctant, lacked the necessary mathematical background. During the academic year 1970–71, the authors assisted in the development of a QA department in the business school of a developing nation which offers both resident coursework for graduate students and executives seminars for businessmen. Both the students and the executives had the necessary mathematical background for rapid understanding of QA techniques. The executives appeared eager to use QA in their business operations and the students were highly motivated toward the application of QA to business problems. Our purpose in this article is not to convince all the QA professors to teach in underdeveloped nations, but to furnish information which is likely to be useful to those who attempt to establish similar QA programs in other developing countries.     

Of those who plan: A meta-analysis of the relationship between human capital and business planning

Business planning is a popular managerial practice, especially in the SME context. Yet, literature presents diverging perspectives regarding business planning and the role it fulfills for the individuals leading these organizations. To advance research, we focus on evidence regarding factors that determine whether and how individuals engage in business planning. Drawing on human capital concepts and the theory of planned behavior, we scrutinize how education and different prominent work experience types influence business planning behaviors. We use meta-analysis to aggregate data on 8095 observations leading SMEs from 31 independent data sets. We find critical differences in planning behaviors relating to human capital types, as well as to whether individuals engage in substantive planning processes or the specific preparation of a formal business plan. Implications of our findings for research on business planning are discussed.     

Developing a Public Interest School of Management

This 'think piece' paper contributes to the recent 'business school business' debate by examining whether an alternative form of the business school – specifically, the public interest model – can be created. Current criticisms of conventional business schools are reviewed and alternative models explored. We take some examples from our own field of health management research. We define the public interest school model in more detail than in previous accounts and compare and contrast it with other models of the reformed business school. We identify certain conditions in which this form is more likely to succeed and suggest a future empirical research agenda.     

Bridging the Relevance Gap: Aligning Stakeholders in the Future of Management Research

This report examines the relevance gap in management research. Its focus is the nature of knowledge created by research at the interface between business and academia in the context of major changes likely to affect the nature of demand for such knowledge. Management research has been accused of a lack of relevance to managerial practice and of too narrow a discipline base. The report examines the conditions giving rise to this criticism, in the UK and elsewhere, and identifies an important strategic need to increase the stakeholding of users in various aspects of the research and knowledge creation and dissemination process. The report concludes with recommendations concerning new forms of research partnership and research training that will address the relevance gap. However, bridging this gap does not only require changes in the academic mind-set. Managers and firms too need to rethink their involvement in the research process.     

Demand-side strategy and business models: Putting value creation for consumers center stage

Value creation for consumers, as the conditio sine qua non for value capture, is at the heart of demand-side strategy research and is a core element of almost any business model. In this paper, we discuss the unique ideas that demand-side strategy and business model research jointly contribute to the strategy literature, and we elaborate on the potential for cross-fertilization between both areas of study. We argue that both the demand-side perspective and the business model concept could jointly promote a better understanding of strategy-making by mutually relying on the distinctive insights from each stream; specifically, while research on demand-side strategy can help business model scholars gain a more robust and granular understanding of effective value propositions, business models can serve as a “bridging concept” that links the shared ideas of both areas of study to resource-based streams of strategy research.     

整合能力与企业绩效：商业模式创新的中介作用

经济全球化的背景下,企业为了构建竞争优势,获取更好的绩效,开始利用整合能力和商业模式创新应对多变的外部环境。然而,当前研究对于两者之间存在何种联系的认识是模糊的。针对理论研究的缺陷,基于动态能力的理论视角,通过分析商业模式创新对整合能力与企业绩效的中介作用,揭示企业整合能力和商业模式创新促进企业绩效提高的内在机制,采用中国6省1市319个企业样本数据,运用线性回归的统计方法对理论假设进行实证检验。研究结果表明,整合能力和商业模式创新都对企业绩效具有正向的促进作用,同时整合能力与企业绩效之间存在着一定的中间机制。整合能力通过提高组织变革和价值创造效率两个方面促进商业模式创新,而商业模式创新作为中间纽带将整合能力与企业绩效联系起来。企业的整合能力越高,越有利于开展商业模式创新,进而促进企业绩效的提高。研究揭示了整合能力和商业模式创新共同促进企业绩效提高的内在理论机制,打开了能力与绩效间关系的“黑箱”,对于中国企业开展商业模式创新具有重要的实践指导意义。     

Personnel planning and information systems

Today the need for long-range planning is seen by most private and public organizations. Therefore growing attention to it is required of management in companies, in public services, in the armed services and in the school and university area. Some parts of the long-range planning problems have been widely discussed and practised. But there are some parts, which have received less attention in the business world. One of the relatively neglected areas, but one of special importance is long-range planning for personnel from the shop-floor up to top-management. This lack is remarkable, as one finds a lot of research and practical work on the use of other operations research planning systems, which cover for example queueing, inventory, production or investment problems. But in no field, is planning ahead more important than in personnel. Company growth and effectiveness depend on it. For unless a business organization has people with skill, imagination and a capacity for leadership, at the right time, its other plans may well be worthless.     

The Regime of Excellence and the Erosion of Ethos in Critical Management Studies

The regime of excellence – manifested in journal rankings and research assessments – is coming to increasing prominence in the contemporary university. Critical scholars have responded to the encroaching ideology of excellence in various ways: while some seek to defend such measures of academic performance on the grounds that they provide accountability and transparency in place of elitism and privilege, others have criticized their impact on scholarship. The present paper contributes to the debate by exploring the relationship between the regime of excellence and critical management studies (CMS). Drawing on extensive interviews with CMS professors, we show how the regime of excellence is eroding the ethos of critical scholars. As a result, decisions about what to research and where to publish are increasingly being made according to the diktats of research assessments, journal rankings and managing editors of premier outlets. This suggests that CMS researchers may find themselves inadvertently aiding and abetting the rise of managerialism in the university sector, which raises troubling questions about the future of critical scholarship in the business school.     

试论工商管理学科的案例研究方法

案例研究是世界工商管理学科发展的重要的研究方法之一。对案例研究的重视可以追溯到哈佛商学院所代表的案例学派和早期的经验学派。目前我国工商管理的研究普遍存在研究方法不规范的问题,研究成果很难被国际学术界承认,规范性研究方法是世界学术交流的共同平台。本论文旨在通过案例研究与案例教学、研究案例与教学案例的区别,在结合笔者从事案例研究与编写教学案例的经验基础上,探讨规范性案例研究的内容与方法,以及相应地案例研究的步骤与评价标准等,以促进我国工商管理学科的案例学派的学术研究与国际接轨,走向规范化。     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN RESPONSE TO BIG STAKES

It is commonly perceived that increasing incentives improves performance. However, the reaction to increased incentives might differ between men and women, leading to gender differences in performance. In a natural experiment, we study the gender difference in performance resulting from changes in stakes. We use detailed information on the performance of high‐school students and exploit the variation in the stakes of tests, which range from 5% to 27% of the final grade. We find that female students outperform male students in all tests—but to a relatively larger degree when the stakes are low. The gender gap disappears in tests taken at the end of high school, which count for 50% of the university entry grade. (JEL: D03, J16, I21, C30)     

Why management professors (should) teach ethics in the classroom

This article explains in comprehensive macro and micro terms why business management professors teach or should be teaching ethics as part of their classroom subject matter. Ten different perspectives, starting with transcendental and global, and ending with departmental and individual, are presented in convincing fashion. Ethics is an extremely popular topic today inside and outside of business schools. This article summarizes why; and it attempts to encourage professors who are not yet a part of the new environmental-ethical era of the 1990s to join the movement.     

Business models and organization design

Despite a voluminous literature, business model research continues to be plagued with problems. Those problems hinder theory development and make it difficult for managers to use research findings in their decision-making. In our article, we seek to make three contributions. First, we clarify the theoretical foundations of the business model concept and relate them to the five elements of a business model: customers, value propositions, product/service offerings, value creation mechanisms, and value appropriation mechanisms. A clear definition of a business model enables theory to develop systematically and provides coherent guidance to managers. Second, we suggest that value configuration is a contingency variable that should be included in future theorizing and model building. Each of the elements of a business model is affected by a firm's value configuration depending on whether the firm is a value chain, value shop, or value network. Third, we link business models to organization design. We show how organization design is affected by value configuration and how new collaborative organizational forms enable open and agile business models. We derive the implications of our analysis for future research and management practice.     

Coaching von etablierten Professor/innen

Coaching for professors is increasingly gaining in importance at German universities. Especially the more established professors are challenging to reach. This article identifies and analyzes the established professors as a target group for business coaching in academia. Unique requirements concerning their management tasks and professional role are presented. Basic reasons for coaching of established professors are demonstrated in three characteristic case studies from practical experience.     

Experience,Service Operations Strategy,and Services as Destinations: Foundations and Exploratory Investigation

This paper explores the customer experience paradigm as it pertains to service operations strategy and design. First, we operationally define and discuss the concept of customer experience. In this context, we propose a reframing of the strategic role of operations strategy as one of choreographing experience‐centric services. We then introduce the concept of services as destinations as an emerging business model for classifying experiential service strategies. Our conceptual typology of experience‐based strategies uses two dimensions: (1) the depth of use of experience as a source of value creation, ranging from brand experience to the services as a destinations business model, and (2) the degree of integration of experience internally within the firm. Using this conceptual typology, we develop five propositions and use multiple cases to illustrate firms' use of these experience strategies. Laying the groundwork for future research, we highlight insights from the qualitative, multiple‐case data as they pertain to service operations strategy and the business model that employs services as destinations. A number of questions for further research are suggested.     

连续竞价市场的交易策略研究综述

由于连续竞价交易机制的广泛应用和交易过程的随机性,其交易策略的研究一直是人们关注的热点和难点问题,经历了从简单到复杂、从脱离现实到逐渐贴近现实的过程。从博弈论和经济学的视角,把连续竞价市场交易策略的研究分为博弈分析学派、实验经济学派和计算经济学派3种理论,系统阐述了每个学派的研究特点和主要成果,并指出了今后的研究方向。     

The relevance and impact of business schools: In search of a holistic view

The degree to which business schools are relevant and impactful for society has been disputed. Critics that engage in the so-called ‘relevance problem’ have argued that business schools are preoccupied with academic rigour at the expense of practical relevance, resulting in a lack of societal impact. This systematic literature review synthesizes the fragmented body of knowledge pertaining to the relevance and impact of business schools. Appreciating the contributions of both research and education, this review offers a holistic view that acknowledges the multidimensional nature of business schools. Based on an analysis of 266 journal articles, we present the four main literature streams in this domain. We find limited evidence of cross-fertilisation between discussions of research and education. However, by acknowledging the contribution of applying a multidimensional lens to the study of business schools, we develop a holistic thematic framework that provides theoretical directions for the future. Using this, we demonstrate four avenues for advancing the business school literature. First, we emphasise the potential of an institutional logics perspective to viewing business schools. Second, we offer a novel proposal for understanding the bridge between research and education. Third, we emphasise the application of a value co-creation theoretical lens when considering how business schools engage with stakeholders in research and education. Finally, we propose an all-encompassing stakeholder-centric definition of relevant and impactful knowledge and advocate for this inclusive definition to conceptually bridge the fragmented discussions of research and education.     

Knowledge generation and governance in management research

We consider how historical developments led to an emphasis on positivistic research approaches in business schools, and we explain how alternative assumptions could be the basis for academic management knowledge. We then discuss the governance structures journals use to determine which articles to publish and how reviewer motivations may influence these processes. Given this academic research and publishing context, we argue that it is not surprising that management research relevant for management practice receives little support. We propose changes to encourage more innovative research that offers stronger ties between management research and practice.     

We Are the Corporation: Dispersive CSR

We contend that the current trend of emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) serves to divert the public's attention from the real ethical issues facing business and society. We extend the scope of social responsibility beyond business corporations to include a range of institutions. We also propose that CSRs be reconceptualized in terms of the ways that managers enable stakeholders to hold themselves and each other responsible for the ways their actions affect each other as they conduct business through the firm. In this article, we propose a new view of corporations and responsibility that reconstrues behavior currently referred to as CSR. Starting with an overview of theories of the firm, we show that the way in which a firm is conceived yields different views on CSR. A shortcoming of the theory of the firm approach to CSR is that it leads us to focus excessively on business corporations at the expense of a broader analysis of other institutional players. These theories also tend to emphasize the obligations of corporations to people rather than of people to each other. We propose that social responsibility be viewed through a systems theory paradigm instead. We then argue that corporations should be construed in terms of the people who impact them. We advance a different conception of business responsibility that is more comprehensive, inclusive, and systemic.