Role of Leaders as Agents of Negotiation for Counterbalancing Cultural Dissonance in the Middle East and North Africa Region

This study provides a unique perspective in the field of cross-cultural management by exploring the relationship between “cultural dissonance”—the gap between cultural values and actual practice—and effective leadership attributes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Incorporating cultural dissonance into implicit leadership theory, the study uses measurements of dissonance on nine cultural dimensions to identify particular leadership preferences in seven MENA countries. The overall findings suggest that societies prefer leaders who counterbalance cultural dissonance by allowing space for negotiations by members of society to reduce disparities between cultural values—“the way things should be”—and actual practices—“the way things are.” The greater the disparity between cultural values and practices, the greater the citizens' desire that leaders act as agents of change by creating space for negotiation.     

Environmental practices and firm performance in emerging markets: the mediating role of product quality

Environmental practices have not received as much research attention in emerging market contexts as traditional topics like quality. However, the importance of environmental practices for a firm’s production strategy has been increasing at an unprecedented level across the globe. Our research objective is, therefore, to investigate the interplay between environmental practices and quality in the pursuit of firm performance. Relying on 492 responses from Turkish manufacturers to test our hypotheses, we show that environmental practices directly improve the quality of products over and above the effect of quality management practices in emerging markets. Product quality, in turn, is important for increasing firm performance, acting as a mediator for the positive effects of environmental practices on performance. Thus, we reveal that product quality functions as an instrumental conduit between environmental practices and firm performance in emerging markets like Turkey where stakeholder pressures are weak, and regulations are often not properly enforced.     

Subjective Recognition of Emotional Expressions in Face Transplant Patients

One of the most prevalent problems in face transplant patients is an inability to generate facial expression of emotions. The purpose of this study was to measure the subjective recognition of patients’ emotional expressions by other people. We examined facial expression of six emotions in two facial transplant patients (patient A = partial, patient B = full) and one healthy control using video clips to evoke emotions. We recorded target subjects’ facial expressions with a video camera while they were watching the clips. These were then shown to a panel of 130 viewers and rated in terms of degree of emotional expressiveness on a 7-point Likert scale. The scores for emotional expressiveness were higher for the healthy control than they were for patients A and B, and these varied as a function of emotion. The most recognizable emotion was happiness. The least recognizable emotions in Patient A were fear, surprise, and anger. The expressions of Patient B scored lower than those of Patient A and the healthy control. The findings show that partial and full-face transplant patients may have difficulties in generating facial expression of emotions even if they can feel those emotions, and different parts of the face seem to play critical roles in different emotional expressions.     

Why do Emerging Market Firms Engage in Voluntary Environmental Management Practices? A Strategic Choice Perspective

In this paper, we investigate firms’ decisions to engage in voluntary environmental management (VEM) practices within an emerging market context. Drawing on the strategic choice and the resource‐based view perspectives, we report results from a survey of VEM practices – a specific form of self‐governance – drawing on a sample of 519 Turkish firms from various industries to identify important strategic antecedents of firms’ decisions to engage in such practices. We find that as firms become more customer focused, more inclined to pursue a differentiation strategy and subject to a higher level of strategy‐oriented stakeholder focus, they tend to implement higher levels of VEM practices, with important implications for research, policy and practice for both emerging and developed markets.     

Acculturating into the Canadian society: a case of Karen refugees

This exploratory study examined acculturation strategies of Karen refugees who resettled in London, Ontario, Canada after initially being displaced from their villages in Burma and subsequently settled in refugee camps on the Thailand–Burma border. Developing and utilising Karen acculturation measure, the study found that Karen refugees had diverse orientations regarding customs and values, social relations, and leisure activities. The analysis grouped acculturation strategies of these individuals into three segments: segregation, integration, and assimilation. Karens adopting assimilation strategy overwhelmingly endorsed Canadian values and customs and engaged in social relations and leisure activities with members of Canadian society. While open to change and willing to experiment with new leisure activities and social relations, Karens in the integration strategy cluster preserved their values and customs. Karens adopting segregation strategies clung to their old ways of life, values, and practices.     

Parenting and children’s prosocial and problem behaviors in middle childhood: The role of Turkish mothers’ emotion socialization practices

Mechanisms by which the relations between different parenting behaviors and children’s prosocial and problem behaviors occur are the focus of the current study. Supportive and nonsupportive emotion socialization practices of mothers were considered as potential mediators. Further, the moderator role of gender was explored. Participants were 228 mothers of 6‐ to 11‐year‐old children living in Ankara, Turkey. Scales assessing parenting behaviors (specifically, positive parenting and inconsistent discipline), maternal reactions to children’s negative emotions, and prosocial and problem behaviors of children were completed by the mothers. The results revealed that supportive emotion socialization practices fully mediated the relation between positive parenting behaviors and both boys’ and girls’ prosocial behaviors. In contrast, nonsupportive emotion socialization practices partially mediated the relation between inconsistent parenting behaviors and problem behaviors, but only for girls. Findings indicated that girls were more vulnerable to their mothers’ inconsistent behaviors possibly because mother–daughter dyads are more likely to use emotion‐related language and to discuss emotions than mother–son dyads from a very early age.     

Comparison of GDP Per Capita Data in Penn World Table and World Development Indicators

This paper compares data on GDP per capita, which is used in almost every cross-country study, from two different sources which are used by numerous researchers and other users throughout the world. The methodology consists of taking GDP per capita in international dollars for the ICP benchmark year 2005 for each country from World Development Indicators 2012 CD-ROM (WDI) and Penn World Table 7.1 (PWT), which are the current (2012) versions of these well-known sources. A similar exercise is undertaken for World Development Indicators 2011 CD-ROM and Penn World Table 7.0, which are the last versions of the data. The WDI and PWT data are also compared with the benchmark estimates from the last International Comparison Program (ICP). Huge differences are found between the two sources for numerous countries in both the current and the last versions. The number of countries for which WDI and the ICP benchmark numbers show huge differences is small, but there are many countries for which PWT and the ICP benchmark numbers show large differences. The study seems important for judging how data on this crucial variable from two most widely used sources agree or differ. The reported huge differences suggest that the users may exercise caution in drawing strong conclusions from information derived from either source, and may consider doing some sensitivity checks based on data from the other source. A simple illustration is provided to indicate how use of data from each source might affect the results.