The study of organizational behaviour in family business

Family businesses (FBs)—enterprises that are significantly influenced by family members and kinship ties—are ubiquitous and play a crucial role across all world economies. Because of the embeddedness of family and business systems in FB, these organizational forms are theoretically distinct from their non-family counterparts. Curiously, FBs have been largely overlooked in the organizational behaviour (OB) literature. The limited available research at the interface of OB and FB highlights the importance of FB as a unique context to advance OB theories, and of OB as a promising discipline to increase our understanding of FB. In a selective review of literature focused on the four topics of values and goals, leadership and power, trust and justice, and conflict, we discuss how insights from the general theory of communal and exchange relationships open exciting avenues for research at the FB-OB interface. Rich fruits of intellectual harvest await scholars who focus on behavioural research in FB.     

Personality aspects of entrepreneurship: A look at five meta-analyses

Research on personality aspects of entrepreneurship, recently summarized in five meta-analyses, has intensified during the past two decades. Internationally, entrepreneurship has been recognized as highly important for socio-economic prosperity. After discussing a few basic concepts relating task and context of entrepreneurship to personality characteristics the main results of the meta-analyses are reported. In the system of the Big Five, personality traits make a difference when entrepreneurs are compared with managers (C+, O+, E+, N−, A−). They are also relevant in predicting entrepreneurial intention (C+, O+, N−, E+) and entrepreneurs’ performance (C+, O+, E+, N−). For other more specific scales that have frequently enough been used and could therefore be included in meta-analyses (e.g., readiness for innovation, proactive personality, generalized self-efficacy, stress tolerance, need for autonomy, locus of control) have also been reported significant correlations with business creation and business success. Risk propensity supports business foundation, but not necessarily business success. Achievement motivation is favourable both for business foundation and business success. The effect sizes are mostly small, some moderate. Complementing the results of the meta-analyses, some recent single studies on mediator or moderator effects are briefly reviewed.     

Working in the Uncharted Technology Frontier: Characteristics of Women Web Entrepreneurs

The numbers of women choosing to become entrepreneurs has been steadily increasing for the past two decades. Recently, the Internet has provided a new venue for business that may be especially appealing for women. This study was conducted to explore gender- and business-related characteristics of women who own Internet businesses. Two hundred and eight women web entrepreneurs responded to an on-line survey. The results indicated that the types of businesses participants owned could be differentiated based on characteristics of the women web entrepreneurs. Specifically, women owning retail businesses reported less familiarity with computers and geared their Internet businesses more to women. In addition, participants defined the success of their Internet businesses in multiple ways that reflected their current life roles.This research was partially funded by an Initiatives for Women Grant from the University at Albany. A previous version of this article was presented at the Association for Women in Psychology conference in 2003.     

关于建立健全治理医药购销领域商业贿赂长效机制的思考

医药购销领域的商业贿赂,形式多样,对我国政治、经济、社会等方面均带来很大的负面影响。它的出现,既有物质条件、心理条件,更有制度条件。治理医药购销领域的商业贿赂,要从思想道德建设、制度建设、体制改革、管理监督等从多方面着手,建立健全长效机制。     

Theft reduction in a grocery store through product identification and graphing of losses for employees

Shoplifting and employee theft constitute a major problem for retailers. Previous research has described techniques for effectively reducing either type of theft but has not addressed the problem of thefts of unspecified origin. In a grocery store we evaluated the effect of identifying for employees frequently stolen products from three groups of items and graphing, twice weekly in the lunchroom, losses for the separate groups. After the products were identified and losses graphed, thefts from the three groups dropped from eight per day to two per day.     

Effects of group response-cost procedures on cash shortages in a small business

The effect of a group response-cost procedure (accompanied by verbal and written instruction) designed to decrease cash shortages in a small business was evaluated with a reversal design. When cash shortages were subtracted from the six employees' salaries on days in which the shortage exceeded 1% of total daily sales, the magnitude of daily shortages sharply decreased. This response-cost contingency was used only three times throughout the study, with a maximum cost of $8.70 per subject over the 41-day period. The efficacy of the procedures may be due to either increased precision in change calculations, a decreased frequency of stealing from the cash register, increased shortchanging of customers, and/or increased incidents of register under-ringing. Ethical questions relative to the utilization of group punishment procedures are raised, and it was concluded that the procedures used were more humane than commonly used alternatives.     

Ethical aspects of bribing people in other countries

Some argue that individuals and organizations doing business in countries where corruption is prevalent should not be expected to adhere to strict standards of ethical practice. The basis for such arguments is faulty. Ethics, unlike etiquette, has a universal basis; it is fundamentally the same all over the world. Even in a practical sense, there are long range advantages to be gained by ethical behavior in these situations. Engineering employees of companies operating in areas where corruption is common are sometimes forced to make very difficult decisions. The focus in this paper is on the ethical aspects of the problem. Laws applying to companies doing business abroad, for example the US Corrupt Practices Act, are not discussed. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Engineering Foundation Conference on “Ethics for Science and Engineering Based International Industries”, Durham, NC, USA, September 1997.     

企业管理者的控制点与信任感研究

控制点与信任感是与企业经营者任职资格密切相关的心理品质．研究采用问卷法,对297名企业管理者的控制点与信任感进行研究,结果表明：企业管理者倾向于采用个人实力控制归因而不易于采用人际间控制归因;管理者的控制点在管理者的人格类型、年龄、受教育水平、所属企业性质变量上存在显著差异。管理者的信任感在管理者的年龄、受教育水平变量上存在显著差异。企业管理者的个人实力控制点、信任感与人际间控制点之间的回归方程显著。     

企业中的道德决策

企业道德决策研究主要关注个体如何进行道德决策,以及哪些因素影响企业中的道德决策这两个基本问题。首先介绍企业道德决策的主要理论模型;然后简要总结实证研究的研究方法和基本结论;最后分析以往研究中存在的问题,并展望我国的企业道德决策研究