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Organizational fairness has been shown to affect numerous employee outcomes, including organizational commitment and job satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether an expatriate manager’s favorability toward accepting a foreign assignment affects the way they respond to subsequent treatment in the workplace, viewed in terms of organizational justice.

Data were gathered in two stages from 175 expatriate managers located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). To test the authors’ predictions, the authors analyzed organizational commitment and job satisfaction as a function of organizational fairness (distributive and interpersonal) and pre-departure opinion.

The results suggest that expatriate managers who express a higher degree of favorability toward accepting a foreign assignment appear less reactive to changes in organizational fairness. Meanwhile, expatriate managers who express a lesser degree of favorability toward accepting the foreign assignment appear more sensitive to workplace fairness, such that when they feel treated unfairly, they demonstrate worse outcomes than those who were in favor of the assignment, and when they feel treated fairly, they demonstrate better outcomes than those who were in favor of the assignment. The net effect of pre-departure opinion appears to be an amplification of the relationship between subsequent fairness and outcomes.

Expatriate managers with a less favorable view of their assignment may harbor deep questions about whether they want to be in this new job capacity, and may therefore be more sensitive to how they are treated. Alternatively, people with a more favorable view of their assignment may have already decided they want to be in the new capacity, and so may be more robust to workplace treatment.

To the authors’ knowledge, this paper constitutes the first investigation of the effects of expatriate pre-departure opinion (i.e. favorability toward accepting a foreign assignment) on job satisfaction and commitment within the context of organizational justice. Furthermore, the UAE is a highly relevant context to study expatriate behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed and critical look at the evolution of online survey research since Evans and Mathur’s (2005) article on the value of online surveys. At that time, online survey research was in its early stages. Also covered are the present and future states of online research. Many conclusions and recommendations are presented.

The look back focuses on online surveys, strengths and weaknesses of online surveys, the literature on several aspects of online surveys and online survey best practices. The look ahead focuses on emerging survey technologies and methodologies, and new non-survey technologies and methodologies. Conclusions and recommendations are provided.

Online survey research is used more frequently and better accepted by researchers than in 2005. Yet, survey techniques are still regularly transformed by new technologies. Non-survey digital research is also more prominent than in 2005 and can better track actual behavior than surveys can. Hybrid surveys will be widespread in the future.

The paper aims to provide insights for researchers with different levels of online survey experience. And both academics and practitioners should gain insights.

Adhering to a strong ethics code is vital to gain respondents’ trust and to produce valid results.

Conclusions and recommendations are offered in these specific areas: defining concepts, understanding the future role of surveys, developing and implementing surveys and a survey code of ethics. The literature review cites more than 200 sources.

Consistent with traditional internationalization theory, we argue that, when a firm chooses franchising to achieve market penetration, market propinquity/similarity matters. Using a modified gravity model, we examine six country characteristics believed to enhance the flow of franchise activity among 39 nations. Our findings support the notion that market propinquity facilitates the flow of franchises between nations. Franchise expansion is greatest when the home and host nations are similar in terms of geography, culture, media availability, and political risk. The management implications of these findings are discussed in detail.

The concept of institution has been used by scholars from across a number of disciplines to explain a wide variety of phenomena. However, the philosophical roots of this concept have not been well examined, nor have implications for contemporary institutional analysis been fully appreciated. Returning to the works of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty reveals a depth of thinking that has otherwise been overlooked by institutional theorists. In particular, the author’s analysis reveals two critical insights. First, whereas organizational scholars have closely linked the concepts of institution and taken-for-grantedness, these two concepts were originally understood to be phenomenologically distinct. Second, a detailed examination of Merleau-Ponty’s later work poses the concept of flesh – the twining of the visible and the invisible – as the basis for the interplay of institutions. In turn, the idea of flesh as the foundation of institution invites a more radical reimagining of the growing bifurcation between microfoundations and macrofoundations.

This study empirically examines the curvilinear relationship between top management team task-related demographic faultlines and over-investment, as well as how biodemographic faultlines and industrial environment moderate the curvilinear relationship between task-related demographic faultlines and over-investment.

The study designs the panel data from the listed companies of China's growth enterprises board (GEB) (set up by Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2009) in the period 2011–2016 and uses hierarchical regression analysis and grouping regression analysis in exploring the curvilinear relationship with the variables involved.

The study provides empirical insights into the relationship on top management team (TMT) task-related demographic faultlines and over-investment, as well as how biodemographic faultlines and industrial environment moderate the relationship between task-related demographic faultlines and over-investment. It suggests that the relationship between task-related demographic faultlines and over-investment is significantly inverted-U. Furthermore, biodemographic faultlines and industrial environment can strengthen the inverted-U relationship between TMT task-related demographic faultlines and over-investment.

The study investigates the influence of task-related demographic faultlines on firm over-investment. The sample is restricted to the listed companies on GEM in China and limited in size. It is also not concerned with the cross-culture contrastive analysis between the Chinese- and Western-listed companies.

The findings suggest that strong/weak TMT task-related demographic faultlines is beneficial in promoting rational investment, but medium TMT task-related demographic faultlines may lead to over-investment.

The study within the crossed-categorization theory, the study provides a contemporary research path by moderating biodemographic faultlines and industrial environments to explain the long-ignored impact of TMT faultlines within a new perspective of firm investment efficiency with a recent significant sample of new emerging countries (e.g. China).

The future of online business education seems quite bright. Three‐fifths of the 1,700 US institutions of higher learning that are engaged in distance education – 55 percent of which offer credit‐bearing business courses – already use some form of Internet‐based technology. Nonetheless, there have been no large‐scale studies of potential online business students in terms of their traits and desires. In this article, the background of distance education is presented. Then, the results of a major survey, involving NPD’s Online Research Panel, are discussed. In all, 2,651 adults participated in the survey, 1,945 of whom indicated some interest in online business education. Eight propositions are tested, relating to demographics, courses versus programs, reasons for enrolling or not enrolling, desired features, customer service expectations, tuition, prestige and value, and institutional attributes.

Educated elites are making their mark on the stratification structure of the metropolitan US. Educated elites are proportionally greater whenever the economy is service dominated, and furthermore, these elites are the key factor in explaining why disparities resulting from high earners are present in service dominated areas. The resulting inequality in earnings is one of the unanticipated consequences of the growth of an educated elite, at least among males. It remains to be seen whether female elites will resemble males in their influence on inequality if sex differences in earnings disappear. The elite is a professional cadre rather than an aristocracy based solely on inherited wealth, placed just beyond an upper middle class. Given their background, education, affluence and numbers, the choices this elite makes on issues will influence the course of society.

Megachurches represent an interesting empirical and conceptual phenomenon. Empirically, megachurches (Protestant churches with average weekly attendance of greater than 2,000 members) are growing at a time when overall church participation in the United States is steady or declining. Conceptually, megachurch pastors can be viewed as institutional leaders who attempt to reconcile new technologies and large congregations within a highly institutionalized setting. While many of these megachurches have a denominational affiliation, some do not. In this essay, we describe the literature on megachurches and offer observations about the megachurch as an institution. Drawing from preliminary analysis of a sample of over 1,400 megachurches (identified from the Hartford Institute for Religious Research), we also draw tentative conclusions about the characteristics of the pastors of megachurches, and one growing institutional maintenance practice: writing texts. We propose that examining megachurches can help extend the current research on institutional leadership, institutional work, and institutional support mechanisms.

Many companies are placing greater emphasis today on the marketing of their mature brands. Notes several reasons for that trend persisting well into the future. Little has been written about how companies can more methodically plan and enact marketing strategies for these brands. Addresses the marketing of mature brands by: (1) providing a guide to the key (and sometimes misunderstood) terms involved with branding decisions; (2) describing a continuum comprised of ten strategic alternatives available to firms with mature brands; and (3) presenting recommendations as to when best to apply the various strategic alternatives.