Search results

This research aims to develop a moderated mediation model to examine the relationships among participants' motivation, organizational identification and participation loyalty with perceived business practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) in philanthropic road-running events.

The data come from a questionnaire survey that was administered to a sample of 236 participants as runners at philanthropic road-running events. All hypotheses are tested using Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) and structural equation modeling (SEM)–Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) with a bootstrapping technique.

The results reveal that perceived business practice CSR moderates the relationship between extrinsic motivation and organizational identification and then influences the mediating effect of organizational identification on the relationship between extrinsic motivation and participation loyalty. This highlights the important role of perceived business practice CSR to participants' attitude and behavior when supporting philanthropic road-running events.

This research scrutinizes the role of perceived business practice CSR on philanthropic road-running events through an empirical study and resultant evidence. One recommendation is that when a firm intends to host a philanthropic road-running event, the firm must implement the reality of sound CSR in the firm's business practice.

To examine the effects of consumers' lurking and posting behaviors in virtual consumer communities on specific brand loyalty.

An online survey of a virtual community of Apple computer users was conducted to test a model of involvement, participation, loyalty, trust, and attitudes toward the brand exist in messages within the community.

The causes and effects of lurking and posting differed. Lurking contributed to brand loyalty more than posting did, and the primary purpose of lurking was to look for information regarding product function/performance, instead of satisfying consumers' affective needs.

As a result of the limitations in a computer mediated communication environment, virtual consumer communities should be perceived as an arena for weak‐tied strangers to communicate for word‐of‐mouth (WOM) behavior, rather than as a brand community.

Although negative messages in a community can hurt brand image, companies should encourage the establishment of communities about their products and encourage consumers to participate in them.

Although the importance of virtual communities has been recognized, few studies have been done to examine the business value of consumer communities. Based on perspectives of brand community and WOM behavior, this paper contributes to virtual community and marketing research by clarifying the effects of consumers' lurking and posting behaviors in a consumer community on brand loyalty.

This exploratory study describes an empirical comparison of organization citizenship behavior (OCB) between samples from the United States and Romania. The economic and work environment distance between the U.S. and Romania was theorized to result in a dissimilar structure and strength of good citizenship behaviors and differential contributions of OCB to productivity. Data from Romania produced a unique factor structure with lower factor scores than those of the comparable organization in the United States. The citizenship behaviors in both countries were positively related to productivity, but links were stronger in the U.S. There were significant differences in the individual citizenship behaviors and productivity between the U.S. and Romania. National and organizational cultures appear to be significant determinants of OCB. The results are interpreted with respect to the stage of development, histories, and economies of the two countries.

This article discusses the nature of quality achievement in industry. The characteristics of the Japanese approach to quality and management are examined, and the importance of employee participation and involvement in contributing to quality achievement is noted. In this context the South African business environment is considered, and a recent study by the author outlined. This study explored the participative approach to a quality programme which would serve as a catalyst for changing management style. The main features of a company‐wide quality programme are outlined, and the necessity for commitment by all levels of personnel – including top management – is emphasised. In South Africa a conservative management style prevails, which is not receptive to the idea of employee participation. Changes must therefore be made there if industry is to compete successfully in the world markets.

Few comments on business organizations are more damning than the suggestion that they are resistant to change. The refusal to embrace change, whether in response to consumer demand or altered economic, social or even political conditions, is generally perceived as a major factor behind the failure of organizations.

A common misconception about innovation is that the innovation process lacks pragmatism. Innovation professionals use soft concepts applied in fuzzy ways with too much emphasis on unproven approaches to solving problems. Perhaps because of the unconventional approaches taken by practitioners of innovation, business executives have generally segregated innovators from main stream operations, recognizing the importance of innovation, but not comfortable with the approach that innovation professionals often employ in getting to their ends. This paper discusses an approach to innovation that has the ability to firmly tie the strategy, mission or vision of the organization to the innovation process. An approach that allows you to take the “Universal Intentions” (mission, vision, goals objectives or strategies) to an iterative process that allows innovation iteration to optimization of a process.

The South African management style can be best described as conservative. Whilst the need to achieve quality, especially within the automotive industry, is ever increasing, the South African style of management is also under the same pressure to change. Teamwork and commitment are ingredients that have been shown to be important elements of quality programmes used in Japanese industry. The focus of this article is therefore on participative approaches to what is termed “quality achievement” by the author. It reviews the type of company‐wide quality programme that would be acceptable in the South African context and form a catalyst in changing management style while improving quality.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the competing effects of brand community participation, which should enhance loyalty to both the brand and to already-owned products, against switching costs, which should make consumers sensitive about the financial costs associated with new products.

Using the participation and weekly adoption data from 7,411 members in two brand communities and one product category forum over a six-month period, switching costs were computed for each member using 10 years of product release and pricing data.

Consistent with prior research, switching costs had a significant effect on reducing product adoption. Brand community participation also had a significant effect on overcoming switching costs. However, these main effects were qualified by an interaction, such that the most active participants were more likely to buy the new product when switching costs were higher.

Most importantly, these findings provide unique insights into financial switching costs and demonstrate ways in which brand community participation provides a way to mitigate switching costs for consumers who would most be affected by them.

This research examines the impact of organisational culture on the ethical judgement and ethical intention of corporate accountants in Vietnam.

The study relies on survey data collected from 283 practising accountants in Vietnam. Organisational culture was measured using the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument, developed by Cameron and Quinn (2011). The Instrument is developed based on the competing values framework comprised of four distinct cultures: clan, hierarchy, market and adhocracy. Ethical judgement and ethical intention were measured based on respondent responses to five ethical scenarios, each linked to a principle of professional conduct in the code of ethics.

The findings indicate that the clan culture (family oriented) is dominant and has a significant positive influence on accountants' ethical judgement and ethical intention. Respondents in the clan culture evaluate scenarios more ethically compared with accountants in the adhocracy and market cultures but not the hierarchy culture. Accountants who emphasise the adhocracy and market cultures display a more relaxed attitude towards unethical scenarios whereas respondents in the hierarchy culture (rule oriented) display the highest ethical attitude.

The code of ethics, its content and how it is interpreted and applied may differ between professions, organisations or cultures.

Organisational research on ethical decision-making is ample but few studies link organisational culture with ethical judgement and ethical intention from the perspective of individual accountants.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which Confucian moral standards may serve as a moral root of employees' organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The approach is conceptual, based on research within the field.

This paper suggests that the moral characteristics of Confucianism (based on a strong body of empirical studies): harmony, group orientation, guanxi (relationships), diligence, self‐learning and thrift, are the great virtues of the indigenous forms of OCB in the PRC, including helping co‐worker; individual initiative and/or functional participation; group activity participation; self‐development; social welfare participation; promoting company image; voice; protecting and saving company resources; interpersonal harmony and keeping the workplace clean; and keeping departmental harmony and coexistence in adversity.

First, this paper contributes to the extant knowledge as to the ways in which Confucian moral standards may affect Chinese exhibition of OCB. Second, this paper contributes to discerning Chinese economic success on employees' OCB performance with recourse to its traditional cultural heritage of Confucian moral standards. Finally, it highlights the presence of voice as a type of OCB which may be attributed to China's opening up to the West.