The purpose of this paper is to examine factors affecting the relationship between annual changes in the amount of corporate foundation giving and changes in corporate reputation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine factors affecting the relationship between annual changes in the amount of corporate foundation giving and changes in corporate reputation. The factors investigated included the existing corporate reputation and the economic conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
Published data were obtained for 77 US corporations during both an upward and downward economic trend. Data for corporate foundation giving were obtained from IRS tax records while data on corporate reputation were obtained from the Reputation Institute’s RepTrak scores.
Findings
Linear mixed model analyses demonstrated that a firm’s prior reputation moderates the relationship between corporate philanthropy and changes in corporate reputation during a downward trend. That is, changes in corporate charitable giving and corporate reputation covaried positively for firms with an existing favorable reputation. However, for firms with an unfavorable reputation, there was an inverse relationship between changes in corporate giving and corporate reputation. The interaction between the variables was prevalent only during an economic downturn.
Practical implications
The findings provide firms with relevant information on conditions that affect how changes in charitable giving are likely to impact corporate reputation.
Originality/value
This study is the first to look at the effects of annual changes in corporate charitable giving on corporate reputation and adds to the research literature by demonstrating the complexity of the relationship by identifying two key factors that should be taken into considerations when developing annual budgets for charitable giving.
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Dane K. Peterson, Cathryn Van Landuyt and Courtney Pham
This paper examines how the inferred motives for corporate philanthropy relate to the types of charitable causes supported.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines how the inferred motives for corporate philanthropy relate to the types of charitable causes supported.
Design/methodology/approach
Published data were obtained for 256 publicly traded and private corporations from a variety of sources.
Findings
The results demonstrated that a number of motives were not significantly related to total charitable giving, but were related to how charitable funds were distributed to various charitable causes. Thus, the study provides insights on the strategic use of corporate charity as means of achieving various business objectives and advancing a theoretical understanding of corporate philanthropy strategies.
Research limitations/implications
This study only investigated some of the presumed motives for corporate philanthropy. Even for the motives investigated in this study, no attempt was made to examine all the motivational factors that determine the level of need for a specific motive. Thus, while the present study provides some of the first evidence of a relationship between motivational factors and data on the types of charitable causes supported, there are other motivational factors that could be investigated in future studies.
Practical implications
The results have a number of implications for managers of nonprofit organizations such as marketing/targeting potential donors. Additionally, the results could be useful for managers of for profit firms in terms of comparing corporate strategies with competing firms.
Originality/value
The study provides a framework for investigating the relationship between motivational factors and types of charitable causes supported.
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David B. Meinert and Dane Peterson
The purpose of this paper is to investigate why physicians in the USA have been reluctant to embrace electronic medical record (EMR) technology. More specifically, the present…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate why physicians in the USA have been reluctant to embrace electronic medical record (EMR) technology. More specifically, the present study aims to examine physicians' perceptions regarding the importance of various functions of EMR systems and the extent to which physician characteristics were related to the perceived importance of the functions.
Design/methodology/approach
A mail survey was sent to 358 physicians affiliated with a large, multi‐specialty clinic located in the Midwest region of the USA.
Findings
Although previous studies suggest that the age, computer sophistication, and medical specialty of physicians impacts the extent to which they use EMR technology, the present study found very little evidence that these characteristics of the physicians were related to the perceived importance of EMR functions.
Practical implications
Since the results demonstrate that physicians view EMR technology as highly important, it was concluded that difference in the use of EMR technology among physicians was not primarily the result of differences in the perceived importance of EMR technology. Rather, it appears that a lack of computer skills may account for much of the resistance to adopting EMR technology. Thus, training to increase computer proficiency among physicians may be the key to increasing the acceptance of EMR technology.
Originality/value
The paper provides useful information on physicians' perceptions of EMR technology.
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Dane Peterson, David Meinert, John Criswell and Martin Crossland
This study aims to compare the effectiveness of third‐party seals with self‐reported privacy policy statements with regard to the willingness of potential e‐commerce customers to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to compare the effectiveness of third‐party seals with self‐reported privacy policy statements with regard to the willingness of potential e‐commerce customers to provide web sites with various types of personal information.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was administered to 374 graduate business students at two Midwestern universities in the USA.
Findings
The results indicated that third‐party seals were not as effective as self‐reported privacy statements with a strong guarantee of security.
Research limitations/implications
This study did not provide any evidence to support the necessity for small enterprises to incur the added costs in terms of money and time required to obtain a third‐party seal. Rather the results suggest small enterprises may increase consumer trust more effectively through strong privacy policy statements.
Originality/value
This study provides useful information on the effectiveness of third‐party seals with self‐reported privacy policy statements with regard to the willingness of potential e‐commerce customers to provide web sites with various types of personal information.
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This study examined the relationship between perceived leader integrity, belief in universal moral rules, and employees’ ethical intentions while controlling for socially…
Abstract
This study examined the relationship between perceived leader integrity, belief in universal moral rules, and employees’ ethical intentions while controlling for socially desirable response tendencies. The results demonstrated that both higher perceived leader integrity and stronger beliefs in universal moral rules were associated with lower intentions to commit unethical acts. More importantly, the results revealed an interaction between perceived leader integrity and belief in universal moral rules. Individuals with a strong belief in universal moral rules exhibited low intentions of committing unethical acts, regardless of the perceived integrity of their leaders. For individuals who do not adhere to a belief in universal moral rules, intention to commit unethical acts decreased as the perceived integrity of the leaders increased.
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Questionnaire data from 161 business professionals were analyzed to investigate a proposed interaction between pressure to engage in unethical work activity and relativistic moral…
Abstract
Questionnaire data from 161 business professionals were analyzed to investigate a proposed interaction between pressure to engage in unethical work activity and relativistic moral beliefs with respect to business professionals’ organizational commitment and intentions to leave the organization. The results indicated that organizational commitment was lower and intention to leave was higher for professionals who felt pressured by their employer to engage in unethical work activity. The proposed interaction was also significant for organizational commitment demonstrating that organizational commitment was generally high, except for business professionals who felt pressured to engage in unethical behavior and did not adhere to a belief that ethics are relative.
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Examines the influence of computer guidelines and the belief in universal moral rules on ethical intentions regarding the use of computers in the workplace. The results revealed…
Abstract
Examines the influence of computer guidelines and the belief in universal moral rules on ethical intentions regarding the use of computers in the workplace. The results revealed that the interaction between computer guidelines and belief in universal moral rules was significant. Business professionals with a strong belief in universal moral rules exhibited high ethical intentions, regardless of whether or not their organization had clear guidelines concerning the use of company computers. However, for business professionals with a low belief in universal moral rules, the presence of clear computer guidelines had a positive effect on ethical intentions. This investigation provides evidence that computer guidelines are positively related to ethical intentions only for individuals who do not adhere to a belief in universal moral rules.
This exploratory survey study investigated the alleged benefits associated with corporate volunteer programs. The results demonstrated that employees viewed volunteerism as an…
Abstract
This exploratory survey study investigated the alleged benefits associated with corporate volunteer programs. The results demonstrated that employees viewed volunteerism as an effective means of developing or enhancing several types of job‐related skills. This was particularly true for female employees and employees participating in a formal volunteer program. The results also demonstrated that organizational commitment was higher for volunteers from companies with a corporate volunteer program than for non‐volunteers with organizations without a corporate volunteer program. Finally, the results indicated that job satisfaction was related to volunteerism among female employees, but not for male employees.
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In spite of decades of focus on decision making and decades of research on cross‐cultural management, few authors have devoted attention to the combination of decision making and…
Abstract
In spite of decades of focus on decision making and decades of research on cross‐cultural management, few authors have devoted attention to the combination of decision making and specific cultural settings. The focus of this paper is the decision‐making processes in French and Danish companies. Results from empirical data indicate that there are clear differences in the ways decisions are arrived at in terms of how managers emphasize different phases of the decision‐making process. The analysis also shows what happens when different stages become the responsibility of people in different roles within the organisation. In the analysis, the importance of decision rationality is discussed, and the different cultural styles are linked to the classical theories in decision making such as economic man, administrative man, and muddling through. Since these are found inadequate to characterize French and Danish actual behaviour, new models are suggested under the labels of emotional man and action man.