Hong Kong managers' perceptions of American business values

This report describes empirical research conducted to study the research question, “To what extent do foreign managers' own cultural values influence their perceptions of the corporate values of companies in other cultures?” Using the authors' “Business Values Questionnaire,” business managers from Hong Kong gave their perceptions of publicly stated corporate values of very large U.S. service companies. A similar United States sample was used as a comparison group. Results gave partial support to the authors' hypotheses that an individual's own cultural values influence perceived values of another culture.     

The Anglican clergy and the early development of British sociology

The theoretical bias evident in histories of sociological thought and practice has tended to minimise some other important influences on its development. One such is the relationship between ‘Christian Sociology’ as articulated by the writers of such Church of England organisations as the Christian Social Union and the Christendom Group. A reading of the early journal publications of early twentieth century British sociology suggests an inter-relationship between the input of the Anglican clergy and the emergence of a scientific, university-based discipline. With particular reference to the sociological intentions of the 1924 Conference on Politics, Economics and Citizenship (COPEC) and to the writings of the Christian Sociologist, Maurice B. Reckitt, this article suggests that the view that the relationship between Christian and academic sociology can be interpreted simply as a ‘phase’ in sociological history does less than justice to the complexities of a neglected aspect of the professionalisation of the discipline.     

ASYMPTOTIC LIKELIHOOD APPROXIMATIONS USING A PARTIAL LAPLACE APPROXIMATION

Elimination of a nuisance variable is often non‐trivial and may involve the evaluation of an intractable integral. One approach to evaluate these integrals is to use the Laplace approximation. This paper concentrates on a new approximation, called the partial Laplace approximation, that is useful when the integrand can be partitioned into two multiplicative disjoint functions. The technique is applied to the linear mixed model and shows that the approximate likelihood obtained can be partitioned to provide a conditional likelihood for the location parameters and a marginal likelihood for the scale parameters equivalent to restricted maximum likelihood (REML). Similarly, the partial Laplace approximation is applied to the t‐distribution to obtain an approximate REML for the scale parameter. A simulation study reveals that, in comparison to maximum likelihood, the scale parameter estimates of the t‐distribution obtained from the approximate REML show reduced bias.     

Effects of Risk and Time Preference and Expected Longevity on Demand for Medical Tests

Despite their conceptual importance, the effects of time preference, expected longevity, uncertainty, and risk aversion on behavior have not been analyzed empirically. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to assess the role of risk and time preference, expected longevity, and education on demand for three measures used for early detection of breast and cervical cancer—regular breast self-exams, mammograms, and Pap smears. We find that individuals with a higher life expectancy and lower time preference are more likely to undergo cancer screening. Less risk averse individuals tend to be more likely to undergo testing.     

MARKET VENTURES, MORAL LOGICS, AND AMBIGUITY: Crafting a New Organizational Form in Post-Socialist China

How do institutional entrepreneurs craft new organizational forms under unstable conditions, especially when all of the relevant organizational models have serious liabilities in terms of legitimacy? Previous literature argues that emergent organizational models must adopt existing organizational elements in order to solve three problems: (1) gaining access to resources, (2) exploiting previous competencies, and (3) demonstrating legitimacy to salient audiences. Yet, these three distinct needs often require very different organizational elements associated with diverse, contradictory moral logics. This article, which examines the case of for‐profit ventures started by Chinese state organizations in the 1990s, reveals one strategy that entrepreneurs can use to solve this problem—to deliberately increase ambiguity about the organization's central characteristics and its underlying moral logic. This strategy makes it possible for new organizations to solve the problems of resources, competency, and legitimacy by simultaneously adopting (and adapting) contradictory organizational elements.