Trans-ideological business values in international codes of conduct

Traditionally, scholars of international business have been unconcerned with ethics and values, in part due to the widely-held belief that standards vary across cultures and ideologies. Recently, however, business ethicists have considered whether there are some business-related values that are shared across cultures. Through an analysis of the codes of conduct for multinational enterprises of four international organizations, five trans-ideological business values are discovered. They are national sovereignty, social equity, human rights, market integrity and organizational autonomy. The consensus in values is critically important for both scholarship and management.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Second Annual Meeting of the International Association of Business and Society (March 1991). The author would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Mlonte Carlo Techniques for Quantitative Uncertainty Analysis in Public Health Risk Assessments

Most public health risk assessments assume and combine a series of average, conservative, and worst-case values to derive a conservative point estimate of risk. This procedure has major limitations. This paper demonstrates a new methodology for extended uncertainty analyses in public health risk assessments using Monte Carlo techniques. The extended method begins as do some conventional methods--with the preparation of a spreadsheet to estimate exposure and risk. This method, however, continues by modeling key inputs as random variables described by probability density functions (PDFs). Overall, the technique provides a quantitative way to estimate the probability distributions for exposure and health risks within the validity of the model used. As an example, this paper presents a simplified case study for children playing in soils contaminated with benzene and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP).     

Towards an Objective Classification Scheme for Organizational Task Environments

This study replicates, refines, cross-validates and simplifies a scheme of operationalization and measurement of environmental dimensions proposed by Dess and Beard (1984). Employing a sample of 60 industries and data over a 16-year period, this study found considerable support for the viability of the three dimensions of munificence, dynamism and complexity. The data intensive and computationally complex operationalization scheme was simplified using a discriminant analysis approach and the discriminant functions were cross-validated using an alternate data set.     

European management: An emerging competitive advantage of European nations

This article extends the debate begun in the June 1992 issue of EMJ when the authors first criticized Michael Porter's explanatory framework in his Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990), over the role of national culture on the competitive advantage of nations. In this paper, Frans van den Bosch and Arno van Prooijen stress that Europe is a locus of competitive advantage if one is prepared to pay attention to the possibility of ‘European Management’ as a potential asset of European firms. In this connection, the transnationalization of European firms is of importance.     

Rural development and women: what are the best approaches to communicating information?

The project reported in this article aimed to discover how well the needs of women were being met with respect to rural development and to identify the best approaches to communicating information to farmers in Tanzania. Semi-structured interviews of male and female respondents in selected 200 households in Shinyanga, northwestern Tanzania, were conducted. The interviews were conducted in order to record data on gender differences in farming and herding with the aim of determining how to communicate information on development. Findings showed that women continued to be the poorest group in the community. Use of introduced technology was mostly associated with men's work. The activities of Hifadhi Ardhi Shinyanga conducted through communication channels were also more accessible to men than women. The improved stoves specifically aimed at women also failed because of ineffective communication strategies. It is difficult to approach women because they tend to be tied far more closely to the area of their homes. Thus, training through village workshops would encourage the active participation of women. This would enable information to be shared with, and between, as many women as possible.     

"Lazy men", time-use,and rural development in Zambia

This paper examines how work and the labor in agriculture in rural sub-Saharan Africa is measured. Section 1 presents a historical example of colonial discourses of the "lazy" African (the Lamba in Zambia). Section 2 analyzes a study carried out in rural Zambia to illustrate the relationship between stereotypes held by many Europeans, particular aspects of the colonial project, and the social relations brought about by colonialism. Section 3 examines the ways in which present work and labor approaches in sub-Saharan Africa embody value judgements which leads to distorted documentation of the division of labor between opposite genders. Sections 4 through 7 look at a time-use study conducted in Zambia and argue that studies of such nature create value judgement on what comprises work, and about how researchers and planners classify this. Overall, this article has demonstrated that time-use surveys may provide inadequate understanding of women and men's work in the absence of an understanding of the local context in which the work is undertaken, and of labor markets.     

A Reply to Gambino's "An Epidemiologic Note on Verification Bias: Implications for Estimation of Rates"

While two-stage designs in problem gambling research are expensive and relatively difficult to execute, they have the potential to yield more accurate prevalence estimates as well as valuable additional information about gambling and problem gambling in the community. However, gains in precision are heavily dependent on the accuracy of the screening methods used and the sample sizes involved. Sound practice requires reliable information about the variances and confidence levels associated with different screens. In the spirit of contributing to the ongoing dialog about ways to improve the measurement of problem gambling, we examine several reasons to question whether the revised estimates offered by Gambino are in fact an improvement.     

A methodological strategy for a one-number census in the UK

As a result of lessons learnt from the 1991 census, a research programme was set up to seek improvements in census methodology. Underenumeration has been placed top of the agenda in this programme, and every effort is being made to achieve as high a coverage as possible in the 2001 census. In recognition, however, that 100% coverage will never be achieved, the one-number census (ONC) project was established to measure the degree of underenumeration in the 2001 census and, if possible, to adjust fully the outputs from the census for that undercount. A key component of this adjustment process is a census coverage survey (CCS). This paper presents an overview of the ONC project, focusing on the design and analysis methodology for the CCS. It also presents results that allow the reader to evaluate the robustness of this methodology.     

How useful is the term "Cumulative Trauma Disorder"?

Cumulative trauma disorder is a widely accepted construct that refers to illnesses of the soft tissues which supposedly occur due to biomechanical workplace risk factors. However, is the term "cumulative trauma disorder" a useful term for describing the illness attributed to it? This paper will scrutinize this question by specifying the meaning of "cumulative trauma disorder" and examining this construct to see if the belief in it is justified, and if this belief is leading to the elucidation of the phenomenon it is purporting to notate. Anomalous findings will be identified and used to help evaluate the accuracy of the belief system currently surrounding the term. Finally the ability of the construct "cumulative trauma disorder" to provide an adequate foundation for research in this area will be explored. A model of alternate pathomechanisms for this illness is advanced to provide a method of studying the disorders associated with the term.