Chinese workers' work ethic in reformed state-owned enterprises: implications for HRD

Work ethic, as the construct of work-related values and attitudes, directly affects employees' job performance. Work ethic subjects to the influence of business and social practices. China is in the mix of major economical and political transformation, although little is known about how work ethic has changed for Chinese workers since the economic reform first initiated in 1979. This study is designed to examine work ethic currently held by workers of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Findings revealed work ethic perceptions based on the multidimensional work ethic profile (MWEP), a Western work ethic profile, and the Confucian work ethic (CWE), an Eastern work ethic profile, resulted in similarities but often lived different life styles. The major differences tended to focus on perceptions of hard work, self-reliance and centrality of work. Other areas such as education, use of time, delay of graduation and other MWEP concepts were very similar to Chinese workers' work perceptions.     

Psychosocial risk assessment in organizations: Concurrent validity of the brief version of the Management Standards Indicator Tool

The Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT) is a 35-item self-report measure of the psychosocial work environment designed to assist organizations with psychosocial risk assessment. It is also used in work environment research. Edwards and Webster presented a 25-item version of the MSIT based on the deletion of items having a factor loading of < .65. Stress theory and research suggest that psychosocial hazard exposures may result in harm to the health of workers. Thus, using data collected from three UK organizations (N = 20,406) we compared the concurrent validity of the brief and full versions of the MSIT by exploring the strength of association between each version of the instrument and a measure of psychological wellbeing (GHQ-12 and Maslach Burnout Inventory). Analyses revealed that the brief instrument offered similar but not always equal validity to that of the full version. The results indicate that use of the brief instrument, which would be less disruptive for employees, would not elevate the risk of false negative or false positive findings in risk assessment.     

Ethical Comportment in Organizations: A Synthesis of The Feminist Ethic of Care and the Buddhist Ethic of Compassion

This article describes a mode of ethical behavior in organizations called ethical comportment that is the enactment of the principles of elements common to the feminist ethic of care and the Buddhist ethic of compassion. The paper outlines the main tenets of care and The Eightfold Path of Buddhism, a mode of practicing compassion, demonstrating the similarities in values and practices that embody what the author considers to be ethical comportment in organizations. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Ethics as Politics: Federal Ethics as the Basis for a ‘Normative’ Stakeholder Theory

This paper argues that business ethics needs to deal more effectively with situations in which stakeholder interests conflict – the essence of politics. The nature of conflicting interests and the inability of current theory to deal with conflict are explored. Federal ethics is offered as a promising approach to conflict in stakeholder relations. The paper begins by tracing the development of federal theory and then defines the central value of federal ethics – fidelity. Building on the work of Gabriel Marcel, I ground an ethic of fidelity in consent and creativity. The distinctive features of this approach are highlighted by contrasting it with integrative social contracts theory. Unlike traditional approaches, federal ethics provides a focus on process, rather than principle, which lends itself better to the essentially political nature of stakeholders in conflict. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Design of Feature‐Limited Demonstration Software: Choosing the Right Features to Include

Today, software supports many important tasks in a variety of industries. In the specialized nature of these environments, a common problem faced by software vendors is to correctly signal the true value of a software product to the end users. For example, telecommunications equipment manufacturers design complex software for important functions like provisioning new users in the network. These software products automate various functions that would otherwise need to be done manually. In order to enable potential customers—telecommunications providers—to evaluate and recognize the full value of the product, equipment vendors often provide a free, feature‐limited version of the product to the customer. As the specific features included in the feature‐limited version influence whether the full product is purchased or not, it is essential that the features included in the feature‐limited version be selected judiciously. While the importance of identifying the best set of features has been well recognized, there has been little research to date that systematically addresses this fundamental business decision. This study fills this gap in the literature by providing an objective approach to the design of demonstration software. We illustrate the benefits of our approach through a case study involving the design of a feature‐limited demo for a wireless telecommunications equipment manufacturer.     

British Petroleum: An Egregious Violation of the Ethic of First and Second Things

This study analyzes BP's crisis communication related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Specifically, we observe how an organization whose priorities are misaligned with the ethic of first and second things has a severely limited capacity for delivering a crisis message that resonates with the general public, and especially those most affected by the disaster. Organizational connectedness and Lewis' essays on the ethic of first and second things are discussed and research on virtuous responses to crisis and renewal discourse is highlighted to explain how BP's focus on maximizing profit over safety and the environment stymied their communication efforts. A discourse of renewal is suggested as essential for the organization to regain connectedness post‐crisis.     

Is the work society running out of work?

The growth of unemployment and underemployment in a society devoted to the work ethic creates a growing pressure for more work to be provided within a pre-existing social and economic framework. Growth of services and small businesses are unlikely to be sufficient. The public sector is widely used as a source of artificial and therefore unsatisfying work. The contrasting growth of the ‘black economy’ despite an official framework of wage rates and law suggests that work-creating forces are still strong. Relaxation of that framework and the breaking down of other rigidities in education, in attitudes to working times and to voluntary service are essential if the need to work is to be satisfied in our changing environment.     

Can we have global ethics in a global economy?

With the collapse of the bi-polar world, we live in an increasingly integrated global economy, which includes economic, political, and cultural dimensions. We argue that there is a need for a global ethic commensurate with a global economy, based upon the claims of interdependence, economic insecurity, multiculturalism, and shared problems. The need to identify some common cross-cultural ethical norms is asserted as an important component of a global ethic and various sources and means for such identification are proposed. Finally, we propose reasons why global corporations ought to embrace cross-cultural ethical norms within their own corporate ethics.A version of this paper was first delivered at a joint business faculty seminar co-sponsored by Anadolu University and Baldwin-Wallace College, held at Anadolu University, Eskischir, Turkey, in December 1992. I express deep gratitude to my losts from Aanadolu University and special thanks to Professor Selva Herekman, who painstakingly translated my English text into Turkish.     

Transformational leadership and leader moral orientation: Contrasting an ethic of justice and an ethic of care

Previous research on the moral foundations of transformational leadership has focused on a Kohlbergian (1969, 1976) ethic of justice. However, proposed associations between level of justice reasoning and transformational leadership have received only partial support. We reasoned that an ethic of care would be more consistent with the nature of transformational leadership than would be an ethic of justice. Multilevel regression analyses on data obtained from a sample of leaders (N = 55) and followers (N = 391) at a Canadian university supported our predictions. Specifically, leader propensity toward using an ethic of care was significantly, positively related to follower perceptions of transformational (but not transactional) leadership. Leader propensity toward an ethic of justice was significantly, positively related to follower perceptions of transactional (but not transformational) leadership. Conceptual, research, and practical implications are discussed.     

The world's changing climate—some issues for planners

This paper is a consequence of some discussion at the 1979 National Conference of the Society for Long Range Planning. Attention is drawn to some climatic changes in the past and their effect on the ecosystem and man; subsequently reference is made to reports indicating that the world climate may be warming up as a result of industrialization and population increase. If this is so, then the impact is enormous. Evidence is given of significant changes in climate—accelerated by man's greed and failure to husband the forests—which will affect the world in the 21st century. Concern is expressed about the reluctance of planners and corporations to identify changes— to see threats and opportunities—and to be proactive and interactive. The problems loom large and the answers are not easy to find. But acceptable solutions must be found by seeking a new ethic towards work, a new ethic for cooperation in making the best use of resources (as opposed to the current ethic of competing for resources) and a recognition that the world community is an interdependent whole as described in the Brandt Report 1980.     

The nature of the work-leisure relationship

This article is concerned with the development of an analytical framework, developed from a social psychological perspective, for viewing the nature of the work ethic and its changed character in contemporary industrial life. Toward this end, an analysis of how a typical Western person's attitudes toward work and leisure are formed is presented. The interdependent influence of this attitude upon the worker's mental health is examined. The influence of social evolution in Western culture seems to be altering work-leisure attitudes and this phenomenon is studied. Finally, based on the previous analysis, social policy recommendations for increasing the self-actualizing potential of both work and leisure are offered.     

Impartiality,Priority, and Solidarity in the Theory of Justice

The ethic of priority is a compromise between the extremely compensatory ethic of outcome equality and the needs‐blind ethic of resource equality. We propose an axiom of priority and characterize resource‐allocation rules that are impartial, prioritarian, and solidaristic. They comprise a class of rules that equalize across individuals some index of outcome and resources. Consequently, we provide an ethical rationalization for the many applications in which such indices have been used (e.g., the human development index, the index of primary goods, etc.).     

Choosing the Number of Instruments

Properties of instrumental variable estimators are sensitive to the choice of valid instruments, even in large cross‐section applications. In this paper we address this problem by deriving simple mean‐square error criteria that can be minimized to choose the instrument set. We develop these criteria for two‐stage least squares (2SLS), limited information maximum likelihood (LIML), and a bias adjusted version of 2SLS (B2SLS). We give a theoretical derivation of the mean‐square error and show optimality. In Monte Carlo experiments we find that the instrument choice generally yields an improvement in performance. Also, in the Angrist and Krueger (1991) returns to education application, when the instrument set is chosen in the way we consider, it turns out that both 2SLS and LIML give similar (large) returns to education.     

Effects of knowledge management strategy on organizational performance: A complementarity theory-based approach

The extant research investigating the relationship between knowledge management (KM) strategies and organizational performance has yielded inconclusive results. Our paper revisits this research problem by drawing on complementarity theory from Economics. The empirical segment of our work is based on data on KM strategies and organizational performance from a sample of 131 Korean firms. Our results suggest three types of relationship among KM strategies: non-complementarity, and non-critical symmetric complementarity, and asymmetric complementarity. Integrating explicit-oriented with tacit-oriented KM strategies showed non-complementarity, which suggests a drag on obtaining higher levels of organizational performance. Our analysis of KM strategies based on KM source shows that companies could benefit from KM by implementing external-oriented or internal-oriented strategy. Combining the tacit-internal-oriented and explicit-external-oriented KM strategies indicates a complementarity relationship, which implies synergistic effects of KM strategies on performance.     

Work motivations as antecedents and outcomes of leadership: Integrating self-determination theory and the full range leadership theory

While some research has documented links between supervisors’ leadership style and subordinates’ motivation, little is known about what drives leadership behaviors in the first place. This study aimed to contribute to the scholarly literature on motivational antecedents of leadership by drawing on the self-determination theory (SDT) of motivation and the full range leadership theory. We traced work motivation throughout the leadership process, starting with supervisors’ work motivations as potential antecedents of leadership styles and proceeding to how leadership styles associate with subordinates’ work motivations. A 2-2-1 multilevel mediational model tested on 61 supervisors and their 244 subordinates showed that supervisors’ autonomous work motivation was linked with subordinates’ ratings of supervisors’ transformational leadership which, in turn, was linked with subordinates’ autonomous work motivation. Furthermore, supervisors’ transactional leadership mediated the association between their controlled motivation and their subordinates’ controlled motivation, whereas supervisors’ passive-avoidant leadership mediated the link between their amotivation and their subordinates’ amotivation. Our integration of the full spectrum of SDT’s conceptualization of motivation with the full range of leadership theory provides insights into the motivational processes that naturally direct supervisors toward transformational, transactional, or passive-avoidant leadership styles and their consequent reflection in subordinates’ motivations. The work has both theoretical and practical implications.     

Measuring Christian Beliefs that Affect Managerial Decision-Making: A Beginning

Although considerable work has been done on the measurement of religious values and beliefs, little is understood about their effect on managerial values and decision making. This paper reports on theoretical work by the authors identifying Christian religious beliefs that might affect managerial decision making; it also reports the results of empirical work validating five scales of religious beliefs that might affect managerial decision making. Future research directions are proposed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Leadership Effectiveness in the Process of Planned Organizational Change

Using data from public employees in Korean central agencies, this research examined the effectiveness of team building as a planned organizational change with respect to the change-oriented leadership and leader–member exchange. However, no statistically significant differences in change-oriented leadership and leader–member exchange were found either before or after planned organization change. Because this type of change did not reflect the characteristics of the Korean public sector, organizational members do not become completely institutionalized. Based on these findings, this research concludes that organizational change did not have the intended results unless organizational contexts were considered.     

Will 1990 mark the end of the will to work—or the right to manage?

The environment of the 1980s is not likely to be as comfortable as the 1970s. The combination of new technology, new economics and new social forces is likely to trigger a drastic drop in the number of jobs as well. At the same time, our education systems, the media and every other element affecting people's expectations seem to be combining to foster something that might be called the ‘more syndrome’—people demand more pay, more secure jobs, more amenities and more control over their working lives—but appear unwilling to commit themselves, to exhibit loyalty to an employer, or even to move in search of work. The challenge is international, the goal must be convergence between social policies, between the expectations and the realities, between the new technology and the new values. The end of the decade is likely to see the end of the work ethic and the beginning of the real post-industrial society.     

A quantitative field study of the decision behaviour of four shopfloor schedulers

In this article the decision behaviour of four production schedulers in a truck manufacturing company is investigated by means of a quantitative model. The model consists of there parts: performance variables, action variables and disturbance variables. The outcomes show that there is a large difference between schedulers that apparently have the same type of decision problem. Another interesting finding is that some scheduling actions work positively in the short term, but negatively over a longer term. Other results, along with methodological issues of quantitative research, are discussed.     

Global Measures of Information Service Quality: A Cross-National Study*

Maintaining consistently high quality information services (IS) is a powerful means of increasing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of a global enterprise. This study introduces a global Information Services Function (ISF) Quality Framework that outlines the importance of both behavioral and procedural dimensions in planning, implementing and evaluating global IS quality. Based on this framework, the study investigates the cross-national psychometric properties of a behavioral measure of service quality in the IS context. Using a cross-national survey of IS customers from Korea, Hong Kong, the United States and the Netherlands, perceived ISF service quality was measured using a service quality measure (SERVQUAL) to determine cultural affects. Based on confirmatory factor analysis, support was found for four of the original five SERVQUAL quality dimensions in the U.S.A. and the Netherlands. However, the same four-dimensional measurement model did not fit the Hong Kong and Korean samples. Further factor analysis showed that the Hong Kong and Korean samples shared a somewhat similar factor structure that differs from the shared U.S.A. and Netherlands structure. These findings support previous research that has found an “Asian factor'’with differing definitions of IS Service quality. These findings suggest that the feasibility of standardized global ISF measurement depends heavily on the relative magnitude of cultural effects. Rather than merely applying the U.S.A. ISF/SERVQUAL measure, a localized version of the instrument may need to be developed that captures the unique nature of ISF service perceptions in internationally based subsidiaries or companies.