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Bailey
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Spicer
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When will people from different national cultures have similar ethical attitudes? And
why is this important to know in international business?
Dr. Wendy Bailey, assistant professor in the School of
Accounting, and
Dr. Andrew Spicer, assistant professor of international
business, surveyed a total of 181 Russians and Americans and found “a common morality in individual
ethical evaluations across borders, even in situations where society-level behavior seems to
suggest otherwise.” This is important to know, say Bailey and Spicer, because “…in an increasingly
globalized marketplace, the identification of cultural similarities may be just as important as
differences since members of different societies need to build on common morality and beliefs when
working together to meet collective goals.”
In a nutshell, the professors found similar ethical attitudes under conditions of
"hypernorms," i.e., a common morality that all peoples of the world hold, such as the need for
companies to avoid physical harm to their employees and consumers. Bailey and Spicer also found
commonality when expatriates working abroad are highly integrated into local cultures. In this
case, they are more likely to follow local norms of their host country than their home
country. Bailey and Spicer’s paper, titled “When Does National Identity Matter?: Convergence
and Divergence in International Business Ethics,” has been accepted for publication by the
Academy of Management Journal.
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Ployhart
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Organizations actually have personalities, says
Dr. Robert E. Ployhart, associate professor of management.
In a 2006 article published in the
Academy of Management Journal, Ployhart found that employees had more similar
personalities to other employees within the same job and organization than to employees from
different organizations. “Said differently,” Ployhart says, “people within a given job and
organization had such similar personalities that we could classify jobs and organizations as having
a dominant personality type.” These findings suggest, he says, that “well-developed human resource
practices create an intangible resource know as human capital. This intangible human capital
resource is difficult for competitors to imitate. Consequently, careful management of human
resources can contribute to a firm’s competitive advantage through creation of such intangible
resources.” Ployhart studied 12 retail organizations, more than 80 jobs, and nearly 9,000
employees.
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Naylor
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Despite today’s obesity epidemic, do people eat food that is considered unhealthy because
of its perceived unhealthiness? That is, does part of the attractiveness of the food lie in the
perception that if the food is unhealthy, it must taste good? Or conversely, if it’s a “healthy”
food, it must taste bad?
The answer to all three questions is “yes,” according to an article coauthored by
Dr. Rebecca Walker Naylor, assistant professor of
marketing. The article appeared in the October 2006 issue of the prestigious
Journal of Marketing.
“Although the obesity problem afflicting people in the United States may be due, in part, to
the ubiquity of food high in fat content,” said the article, “our findings indicate that even if
options with less fat were available, consumers may choose to consume foods high in fat because of
a misguided notion that they need to eat unhealthy to eat tasty or that eating healthy means having
food that is not tasty.”
What to do about this misguided perception? The authors suggest controlling the volume of
unhealthy but tasty food eaten, changing unhealthy foods to make them less unhealthy but still
tasty, and providing consumers with better information about what constitutes “healthy.”
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McInnes
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Childhood obesity is now considered the most common health problem for children in the
United States. So what is their economic cost? According to a recent article coauthored by
Dr. Melayne Morgan McInnes, associate professor of
economics, the 20 percent of children who are overweight are associated with an extra $124 million
in health care expenditures annually while still children. The article, published in the Winter
2006 edition of
Eastern Economic Review, also found that overweight youngsters are more likely to be
Hispanic or African-American, rely on public rather than private insurance, live in southern
states, be in lower-income families, and have less-educated mothers. The authors estimate that
medical expenditures for overweight children are, on average, just $12.09 higher per year [than
normal-weight children]. Still, the long-term consequences of obesity—including higher health care
costs—won’t really be apparent until adulthood, says the study. And so the medical community needs
to be prepared.
