AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF COMPUTER-ASSISTED DECISION ANALYSIS*

Decision analysis tools often are used in semistructured and ill-structured situations. While some researchers have argued that computerized decision analysis programs may improve decision quality in such situations, research support for this assertion is weak. In this laboratory study, business students used a computerized decision-analysis program with short strategic-management cases to prepare decision reports. Independent raters' perceptions of aided and unaided decision performance were contrasted, attitudes of students toward the program were assessed, individual differences were correlated with attitudes, and the program's impact on students' perceptions of their decision processes and performance was examined. Student attitudes toward the computerized aid were favorable, and individual differences in reactions generally were as predicted. However, the program did not improve the independent ratings of students' decision reports and recommendations. These findings suggest that computerized decision aids should be adopted cautiously. If such aids result in positive user affect and heightened decision confidence without corresponding improvements in decision quality, they may be dysfunctional. Rigorous research methodologies which incorporate independent evaluations of analyses and decisions are recommended for use in future research on computerized decision-analysis programs.     

‘Family money’ and ‘business money’: bankrupt entrepreneurs in a ‘question situation’

This paper addresses the question of bankruptcy and honesty in local contexts, and especially the problem of the bankrupt small businessman in conveying ‘honesty’ to the local community. Studying bankrupt entrepreneurs, the analysis explores a tacit dialogue between the failed businessmen and the small town communities where they live and work. The bankrupts respond to their seemingly mistrustful surroundings by demonstrating their respect for the dividing line between two social categories of money: ‘company money’ and ‘family money’. This discursive resource expresses business ethics and respectability, both essential for the bankrupt entrepreneur to start another business in the local community. The empirical material in the study consists of interviews with 22 businessmen who had created small businesses and experienced at least one bankruptcy, half of them in small towns. The entrepreneurs were found through court records and word of mouth. Interviews were conducted by the author and by graduate students from the Department of Sociology in Lund. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim.     

Employee perceptions of reputation: An ethnographic study

The ability of organizational members to identify and analyse stakeholder opinion is critical to the management of corporate reputation. In spite of the significance of these abilities to corporate reputation management, there has been little effort to document and describe internal organizational influences on such capacities. This ethnographic study conducted in Red Cross Queensland explores how cultural knowledge structures derived from shared values and assumptions among organizational members influence their conceptualisations of organizational reputation. Specifically, this study explores how a central attribute of organizational culture – the property of cultural selection – influences perceptions of organizational reputation held by organizational members. We argue that these perceptions are the result of collective processes that synthesise (with varying degrees of consensus) member conceptualisations, interpretations, and representations of environmental realities in which their organization operates. Findings and implications for organizational action suggest that while external indicators of organizational reputation are acknowledged by members as significant, the internal influence of organizational culture is a far stronger influence on organizational action.     

一般信任模式的跨部门差异及其中介机制: 基于2010年中国综合社会调查的研究

本文基于“市场”与“国家再分配”两种不同制度环境的讨论，利用中国综合社会调查2010年的数据，运用倾向值匹配方法处理潜在的选择性误差，考察了不同部门中个体的一般信任水平。结果显示，相比私有部门（外资企业和私营企业），在公共部门中工作的个体呈现了更高的一般信任水平。进一步的分析表明，政治参与水平和相对剥夺感作为中介于工作部门与一般信任水平之间的解释机制是显著的，在公共部门中工作的个体不仅在态度上对内在政治效能感有更高的认定，而且也能积极参与居委会社区的选举。这些特征极大提升了他们的一般信任水平。此外，公共部门中的个体在社会地位与经济地位上所持有的较低的相对剥夺感也有助于其建立更高的一般信任水平。     

高校本科生特别培养学院组织文化研究

本科生特别培养学院是中国高等教育大众化背景下,以培养拔尖创新的卓越人才为目标的荣誉学院,而优秀的组织文化是其顺利实施英才教育的基础.本文在对英才教育、大学组织文化和培育组织文化的意义进行理论思考的基础上,从特别培养学院是学习型、责任型、混合型和宽容型组织四个角度提炼并阐述了其组织文化的特质,并提出了特别培养学院的组织文化理念和实践载体.     

基于信任特征的荔农营销渠道构建研究

渠道制胜是现代市场营销的新观念.通过对广东省高州市根子镇柏桥村荔农的入户抽样调查,发现导致其荔枝增产不增收的关键因素在于渠道单一、组织松散、冲突频繁且缺乏促使相互信任产生的交流沟通平台等方面.为此,从加强荔农教育着手,通过创新种植模式、加大关系专用性资产投资、搭建信息交流平台等措施,尝试构建了基于信任特征的荔农营销渠道.     

(Mis)understanding Safety Culture and Its Relationship to Safety Management

Although the concept of safety culture was coined in relation to major accidents like Chernobyl and Piper Alpha, it has been embraced by the safety community at large as a cause for unsafe practice. In this article, three approaches to safety culture are discussed in terms of their underlying concepts of culture and organizational culture. Culture is an intangible, fuzzy concept encompassing acquired assumptions that is shared among the members of a group and that provides meaning to their perceptions and actions and those of others. The basic assumptions that form the essence of a culture are shared, yet tacit, convictions, which manifest themselves subtly in the visible world. As applied by safety researchers, the culture concept is deprived of much of its depth and subtlety, and is morphed into a grab bag of behavioral and other visible characteristics, without reference to the meaning these characteristics might actually have, and often infused with normative overtones. By combining the three approaches, we can resurrect the notion of safety culture and strengthen its analytical potential in understanding the development and implementation of safety management systems.     

实施“新两规”对信托核算的影响

通过分析实行“新两规”的政策本意，探讨实施“新两规”对信托业以及信托会计核算的影响，并从核算时效和核算质量两个方面提出信托公司应对会计核算变化的措施。