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Antecedents to Mobile Phone Diffusion in a Developing Economy: The Case of Malaysia
Mahendhiran Nair, Gil-Soo Han, Heejin Lee, Patricia Goon, Ramlah Muda |
205 |
Antecedents to Mobile Phone Diffusion in a Developing Economy: The Case of Malaysia
Mahendhiran Nair
Monash University Malaysia
Gil-Soo Han
Monash University, Australia
Heejin Lee
Yonsei University, South Korea
Patricia Goon
Monash University, Malaysia
Ramlah Muda
Monash University, Malaysia
Mobile phones have gone through rapid diffusion rates in developing countries and have been regarded by many as the information and communication technology (ICT) that will significantly close the digital divide between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ in the knowledge economy. Malaysia, like all other developing countries have introduced a number of policies and plans to increase mobile phone diffusion rate among rural and marginalized communities. This paper studies the level and the key determinants of mobile phone use among diverse rural populations in Malaysia. Using a sample survey of 1020 respondents and the PROBIT model, this study finds that access, type of rural communities, education, gender, encouragement and age are key determinants for mobile phone use in the rural areas in Malaysia. Reasons for not using mobile phones among rural communities were also identified and strategies to increase the mobile phone use among these communities were discussed in this paper.
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User Voice and Democracy in Value Creation: Integrating Competences with Innovation Development
Hart O. Awa, Sunday C. Eze, Darego W. Maclayton, Josephe C. Okoye |
228 |
User Voice and Democracy in Value Creation: Integrating Competences with Innovation Development
Hart O. Awa
University of Port-Harcourt, Nigeria
Sunday C. Eze
University of Bedfordshire, UK
Darego W. Maclayton
River State University of Science and Technology, Nigeria
Josephe C. Okoye
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria
The dynamics of capitalism precipitates mobilization of communitarian dimensions to ensure mutual sharing of social knowledge. Though consumers are complex and fragmented, this paper attempts to shift market hegemony to them. .Reviewing the works of neo-Marxist economics, Kotlerite’ doctrine, Fordism and post-Fordism, Foucault, and post-Maussian socio-economic theories, the paper proposed an indiscriminate conceptual framework of user collaboration that suggests political form of power involving behavioural change that emphasizes effective corporate use of consumer labour and flattened organizational structures, especially with the diffusion of Web-based collaboration. The use of IT to extract economic values from users’ creativity provides unparalleled democracy, self-fulfilment, and cost-effectiveness. To a large extent, the paper argued that co-creationist capitalism is an instrument of customer empowerment and corporate power of building competitive advantage when market power resides in immaterial and symbolic labour. Therefore, the paper concluded that socio-cultural and affective values provide key success factor (KSF) in value proposition and value creation when extended enterprise is built. The paper advised management to recast its philosophy to stimulate freeing consumer labour.
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Knowledge Outsourcing: A Proposed Model
David D. C. Tarn, E. Chien-Chih |
247 |
Knowledge Outsourcing: A Proposed Model
David D. C. Tarn
National Kaohsiung University, Taiwan
E. Chien-Chih
National Kaohsiung University, Taiwan
Knowledge management (KM) has played a critical role ever since the 1990s. In today’s global marketplace, firms not only outsource tangible resources, but they also acquire tacit knowledge. Based on this, the study herein attempts to construct a knowledge outsourcing (KO) model from the base of decision analysis and making in order to help firms consider whether, what, and how to outsource knowledge. After reviewing KM-related articles, this study concludes a four-mode KO Model by considering four managerial questions and eight criterions. The Model consists of four modes, named knowledge allocation, enlargement, trade, and initiation. Accordingly, this study classifies KO as 17 activities and details them. Finally, this study provides suggestions and directions toward KO practices and research for the future.
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The Effects of Ethnic Culture on Managerial Attitudes and Practices: A Survey in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China
William David Brice |
267 |
The Effects of Ethnic Culture on Managerial Attitudes and Practices: A Survey in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China
William David Brice
Menlo College
Comparative management studies traditionally use national cultures to explain culture’s role in managerial attitudes and practices. This paper uses a unique design and studies the same ethnic culture in three different national cultures, to differentiate ethnic culture from other environmental and national factors. This paper analyses the results of a survey of managerial attitudes and practices in three ethnic Chinese societies: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China. There were 151 respondents from Hong Kong, 95 from Taiwan, and 127 from the PRC. Average ages were 27.1, 36.6, and 34.2 with males comprising 45%, 58.1%, and 67.7% respectively. The survey instrument assessed managerial perceptions of six cultural dimensions (from Kelley et al 1986; Levine and Wolf 1985; Hofstede 1983, McClelland 1961): Materialism, Time, Collectivism/Individualism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance, and Efficiency. These cultural dimensions were surveyed in two parts: the way things are and the way things should be. Results may indicate that some dimensions are divergently affected by national factors, while some dimensions may continue to reflect a common Chinese culture.
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Psychological Predictors of Successful Entrepreneurship in China: An Empirical Study
Saul Fine, Hui Meng, Gerald Feldman, Baruch Nevo |
279 |
Psychological Predictors of Successful Entrepreneurship in China: An Empirical Study
Saul Fine
Midot, Ltd.
Hui Meng
East China Normal University, China
Gerald Feldman
CareerHarmony, Inc.
Baruch Nevo
University of Haifa, Israel
Recent economic reforms in China have brought on a wave of entrepreneurship in that country. Still, many entrepreneurs have been unsuccessful in their business endeavors, and the psychological aspects of successful entrepreneurship in China are still largely understudied. Following a comprehensive job analysis, we studied a sample of 193 Chinese new business owners and found entrepreneurs’ age, business skills, prior work experience, cognitive ability, and relevant personality dimensions to be predictive of government appointed auditor appraisals as well as the entrepreneurs’ own appraisals of their businesses. Culturally relevant Chinese norms are used to explain the findings.
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Effects of Information, Material and Financial Flows on Supply Chain Performance: A Study of Manufacturing Companies in Malaysia
Foo Li Leng, Suhaiza Zailani |
293 |
Effects of Information, Material and Financial Flows on Supply Chain Performance: A Study of Manufacturing Companies in Malaysia
Foo Li Leng
Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
Suhaiza Zailani
Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
In a challenging business environment, organizations not only need to improve their performances to meet customers’ requirements but ultimately they need to achieve customers’ satisfaction. This study aims to study the impact of three difference kind of flows on supply chain performance; information, materials and financial flows. This study is focused on manufacturing companies in the northern region of Malaysia. Data has been collected by using questionnaires that have been to 202 manufacturing companies in the northern region of Malaysia. Results from the analyses show that information flow and material flow do not have significant impacts on the performance of supply chain management, while financial flow has a significant impact on the performance of supply chain management. The implications of the findings for the effective management of the supply chain in manufacturing firms are discussed.
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The Role of Socio-Cultural Norms in Workplace Stress: An Empirical Study of Bank Employees in Nigeria
Adunola Oke, Patrick Dawson |
314 |
he Role of Socio-Cultural Norms in Workplace Stress: An Empirical Study of Bank Employees in Nigeria
Adunola Oke
University of Bath
Patrick Dawson
University of Aberdeen and University of Wollongong
This article contributes new data on workplace stress drawn from a sample of 305 employees from 10 banks in Nigeria. Data collected through the use of a questionnaire that was developed from a series of focus groups held with bank employees is used to highlight the importance of national cultural values and draw attention to the very different conditions that exist for employees working in Africa when compared to banking staff operating in North American and European-based organizations. We argue that the socio-cultural context is a key influential factor on the way people react to and cope with stress and represents the ‘living stage’ on which stress is experienced and made sense of in our daily working lives. Our findings also have practical implications in clarifying the potential value of developing a broader array of stress management techniques that are able to accommodate social processes and cultural aspects of workplace stress.
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Empowerment, Trust and Commitment: The Moderating Role of Work-Unit Centrality
Rachid Zeffane, Hana Ameen Mohammed Al Zarooni |
332 |
Empowerment, Trust and Commitment: The Moderating Role of Work-Unit Centrality
Rachid Zeffane
University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Hana Ameen Mohammed Al Zarooni
Dubai Municipality, United Arab Emirates
Based on survey data from 217 local government employees in the United Arab Emirates, the paper examines the effects of empowerment and trust on feelings of commitment. In support of previous research, the results show that the concept of empowerment is multi-dimensional and that one of its key dimensions is the felt (or perceived) centrality of work-unit. Further statistical analysis revealed that both empowerment and trust had an impact on commitment. However, different types of empowerment and trust were found to affect commitment to a different degree. In particular, the impact of trust on commitment was stronger when participants experienced feelings of high centrality of their work-unit. In contrast, the impact of empowerment (in terms of feelings of autonomy, freedom and information sharing) on commitment was much stronger when they experienced feelings of low centrality of their work-unit. These results verify the moderating role of work-unit centrality.
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A Multiple-Agent Joint Procurement Process Model for Virtual Organizations: A Simulation Study
Chih-Yao Lo, Yu-Teng Chang, Kuo-Ting Chung |
352 |
A Multiple-Agent Joint Procurement Process Model for Virtual Organizations: A Simulation Study
Chih-Yao Lo
Yu-Da University, Taiwan
Yu-Teng Chang
Yu-Da University, Taiwan
Kuo-Ting Chung
Yu-Da University, Taiwan
Technological changes have brought about significant changes in society, including the ‘creation’ of virtual counterparts to real life events and processes, including whole organizations and enterprise that exist in cyberspace rather than the physical world. Many real-life organizations have utilized the principles and practices that form the basis of such virtual enterprises and organizations, to become more competitive than their rivals in the same industry. The present paper indicates how this can be done for an important aspect of organizational functioning, the procurement of products or services with other organizations from multiple agents. It develops a virtual organization model based on a simulation of the key components and procedures involved in executing this function; a joint procurement model agents. The case which is simulated is that of leisure farms in Taiwan joining together to get the ‘best deal’ from a number of providers or agents. It is argued that the simulation suggests how enterprises should conduct the bidding that lies at the heart of the procurement process to their advantage. Other uses of the joint procurement model developed in this paper are also suggested.
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Effects of Identity Variables and Job Performance on Employee Intentions to Leave: A Study of Indian Call Centers
Diya Das |
368 |
Effects of Identity Variables and Job Performance on Employee Intentions to Leave: A Study of Indian Call Centers
Diya Das
Bryant University
Voluntary employee turnover has remained one of the most important concerns for the practice of human resource management since it involves loss of investments made in the people who leave and increased costs of finding and training replacement (Hom and Griffeth, 1995). In the Indian international call center industry, employee turnover is the biggest HR problem (Ramesh, 2004). Recent studies have shown how identity centrality, i.e., the relative importance of one set of identities within multiple identities that a person holds, affects one’s intention to leave in this industry. For example, national identity centrality, which is when a person holds their national identity to be one of the most important identities, is associated with a high intention to leave; whereas occupational identity centrality, or a high importance of one’s professional identity, is associated with lower intention to leave. In this paper, we specifically explore how identity centrality and organizational identification (OI) interacts with performance to impact intention to leave in this industry. For this we conducted a survey with questions designed specifically to test a range of different identity centralities. Our data collection yielded 268 usable surveys from one Indian call center. Our findings show that both occupational and national identity centralities affect intention to leave over and above organizational identification. We also find that these identity centralities are moderated by variance in performance.
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The Impact of Voluntary Disclosure on the Mandatory Disclosure of Financial Information: A Study of Companies on the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange
Christopher J. Robertson, Hussam A. Al-Angari, Sulaiman A. Al-Alsheikh |
379 |
The Impact of Voluntary Disclosure on the Mandatory Disclosure of Financial Information: A Study of Companies on the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange
Christopher J. Robertson
Northeastern University
Hussam A. Al-Angari
King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia
Sulaiman A. Al-Alsheikh
King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia
Firms that voluntarily disclose financial data that is not required by law convey a general policy of transparency and compliance. In this study we assess the impact of voluntary disclosure of annual report data on mandatory disclosure of financial information. Building upon research in this area we extend previous research by incorporating the company variables of age, industry, stock price, annual revenues and net income. Utilizing data from the 100 largest firms traded on the Saudi Arabian stock market our results from Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis reveal a positive relationship between two types of voluntary disclosure and mandatory disclosure while controlling for company variables. A positive link is also identified between industry, revenues and disclosure activity. Future research directions as well as managerial and audit implications are also discussed.
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The Practice of Corporate Social Responsibility in Different Countries: A Study of Firms in Canada, Hungary, Italy, Lebanon, Taiwan and the United States
Dennis Krumwiede, Ann M. Hackert, Joanne Tokle, Robert J. Vokurka |
389 |
The Practice of Corporate Social Responsibility in Different Countries: A Study of Firms in Canada, Hungary, Italy, Lebanon, Taiwan and the United States
Dennis Krumwiede
Idaho State University
Ann M. Hackert
Idaho State University
Joanne Tokle
Idaho State University
Robert J. Vokurka
Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi
There is a long history developing the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the framework for considering the issues including why firms might adopt these practices and how they implement them. This paper provides a unique contribution to the literature by evaluating CSR practices at firms in countries that have not been widely studied. The study also includes health and safety aspects of CSR that have not been widely studied in the literature. The data for this study is comprised of survey data from companies in Canada, Hungary, Italy, Lebanon, Taiwan, and the United States. The data were collected by The Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG), an organization of academic researchers interested in international manufacturing research. Data collected in 2003 and 2004 in the third GMRG survey is used to examine various aspects of CSR. Survey responses from the study were used to analyze the extent of firm investments in environmental initiatives including pollution prevention, recycling, and waste reduction. This research also includes data on work place health and safety, statistical process control, and total quality management. The goal of the study is to evaluate how CSR activities vary by country and how firm activities compare with competitors.
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| Addresses of Authors |
401 |
The Effects of Job Satisfaction and Work Experience on Employee Desire for Empowerment: A Comparative Study in Canada and India
Amarjit Gill
Trident University International
Suraj P. Sharma
GTB National College, India
Neil Mathur
Simon Fraser University, Canada
Smita Bhutani
Panjab University, India
The paper examines the effects of job satisfaction and work experience on employee-desire for empowerment. Restaurant industry employees from the Lower mainland area of British Columbia, Canada and the Punjab area of India were surveyed to assess their perceptions of job satisfaction, work experience, and desire to be empowered at their places of work. Results suggest that job satisfaction and work experience enhance the employee-desire for empowerment in both countries -- Canada and India. The practical implication of this study is that employees who exhibit job satisfaction and work experience behaviors are more likely to heighten their desires to be empowered, regardless of cultural context. The findings help to explain failures in organizational efforts to empower workers by demonstrating the critical role of job satisfaction and work experience behaviors in heightening employee-desire for empowerment.
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