Pamela Johnson, Virginia Heimann and Karen O’Neill
Virtual reality, virtual space, virtual organizations, virtual teams; the word “virtual” is today’s organizational buzzword. One of the fastest‐growing, high‐tech office trends…
Abstract
Virtual reality, virtual space, virtual organizations, virtual teams; the word “virtual” is today’s organizational buzzword. One of the fastest‐growing, high‐tech office trends today is “virtual teams”. These teams cross time, space, and cultural boundaries and do so effectively with the use of technology. This paper will look at the changing nature of work, give a definition of virtual teams, discuss the qualities needed for successful virtual team membership, and view the communication challenges existing for virtual teams in the twenty‐first century.
Details
Keywords
Pamela R. Johnson, Virginia L. Heimann and Karen O’Neill
Today, many companies don’t want employees who merely “do their jobs.” Instead, they want people who will make them profitable. And because profit‐generation is increasingly in…
Abstract
Today, many companies don’t want employees who merely “do their jobs.” Instead, they want people who will make them profitable. And because profit‐generation is increasingly in the hand of “teams” of co‐workers who collaborate on short‐ or long‐term projects, or even permanently, companies are looking for people who can fit this type of work structure. This article discusses how a high performance team is much like a wolf pack, and gives a background on the purpose of teams, and describes the many reasons for failure of teams, discussing the qualities needed for successful teams in the 21st century.
Details
Keywords
The purposes of this paper are to organize historical, solved questions and recent, unsolved questions in a coherent, progressive way; explore the key question to be answered…
Abstract
Purpose
The purposes of this paper are to organize historical, solved questions and recent, unsolved questions in a coherent, progressive way; explore the key question to be answered under this systematic framework; and reflect on an alternative analytical perspective to the current “problem-solving-oriented” approach. Transnational bribery regulation, with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention as the central governing legal instrument, is on the top agenda of international governance. However, its complex nature makes theoretical viewpoints on this topic rather fragmented. This fragmentation is used to help understand the wisdom of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) approach in the early years. However, as the FCPA approach was internationalized and evolves to its current phase, in which individual inquiries become path-dependent and interdependent, the fragmentation causes more confusion than makes contribution.
Design/methodology/approach
Sections 2 and 3 retrospect the historical trajectory of academic research on the global regulation of transnational bribery, systemizes relevant theoretical insights and illustrates how people’s understandings of the wisdom of the FCPA approach in early years affect their evaluations of the effect of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in the contemporary era. Given that, at present, the most popular viewpoint is that the Convention is “ineffective”, Section 4 systemizes the diverse causal attributions of the “problem” in current academic literature, sorts out the roots causes and points out the key question for the next step forward under the version of the “problem-solving-oriented” analysis. Section 5 has a reflection on the inherent limitation of a “problem-solving-oriented” approach for our understanding of the effects of the Convention.
Findings
Under the version of a “problem-solving-oriented” approach, the key question to be solved is how to establish a mechanism to cope with the surreptitious nature of transnational bribery and the self-sacrificed nature of the FCPA-style approach simultaneously. The popular “problem-solving-oriented” approach has an inherent limitation to create new knowledge on the multilateral anti-bribery collaboration. A reality-based, historical analytical perspective is a good alternative to it.
Originality/value
The paper presents a personal, original organization of the conventional theoretical insights to the operation of the global anti-bribery collaboration and the underlying logics of these viewpoints. The paper also presents the author’s personal analysis of the “technical omission” and “inherent limitation” of a problem-solving-oriented approach to analyze the performance of the global anti-bribery collaboration, and the power of a historical analytical perspective as an alternative.
Details
Keywords
Gustavo Adolfo Yepes-López, José Luis Camarena, Julián Mauricio Cruz-Pulido, Luz Jeannette Quintero-Campos, Virginia Lasio, Jorge Rodriguez, Jack Zambrano-Vera, Consuelo Adelaida García de la Torre, María Matilde Schwalb-Helguero, María Ángela Prialé, José Solís-Sierra, Maruzella Rossi-Undurraga, Roberto Carvajal-Ramos, Pedro Javier Martinez, Victoria González-Gutiérrez, Rogelio Sánchez-Reyna, Griselda Lassaga and Nicolás Beltramino
This article aims to report on the development and validation of a bribery measurement index for the business sector, which, based on institutional theory, seeks to overcome the…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to report on the development and validation of a bribery measurement index for the business sector, which, based on institutional theory, seeks to overcome the limitations of traditional measurements, recognizing the dynamics that originate the phenomenon and identifying process components.
Design/methodology/approach
To construct the index, correlational and principal component analysis techniques were used, as well as rigorous statistical tests, validating the instrument in a sample of 2,963 companies in Latin America, including Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.
Findings
The result was an instrument composed of two dimensions: (1) anti-bribery game rules, composed of regulations knowledge and anti-bribery efforts, and (2) bribery as a perceived habit, allowing an objective representation of reality due to its internal consistency, concurrent and discriminant validity.
Practical implications
This instrument is one of the few that focuses on measuring bribery in the business sector in terms of corrupt practices, applicable for both public and private institutions to promote game rules against bribery. Additionally, the proposed theoretical model can be used to measure other phenomena with similar characteristics.
Originality/value
This article empirically highlights different variables that make bribery possible. The results can be helpful in the design of strategies to prevent this type of behavior. It also highlights the importance of designing mechanisms to record information related to bribery and the different expressions of corruption in order to explain its different nuances.
Propósito
Este artículo informa sobre el desarrollo y validación de un índice de medición de soborno para el sector empresarial, que, basado en la teoría institucional, busca superar las limitaciones de las mediciones tradicionales, reconociendo las dinámicas que originan el fenómeno e identificando los componentes del proceso.
Diseño/metodología/enfoque
Para la construcción del índice se utilizaron técnicas de análisis correlacional y de componentes principales, así como rigurosas pruebas estadísticas, validando el instrumento en una muestra de 2.963 empresas de América Latina, entre ellas Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, México y Perú.
Hallazgos
El resultado fue un instrumento compuesto por dos dimensiones: (1) reglas de juego antisoborno, compuestas por conocimiento normativo y esfuerzo antisoborno (2) soborno como hábito percibido, permitiendo una representación objetiva de la realidad debido a su consistencia interna, validez concurrente y discriminante.
Originalidad/Valor
Este artículo pone en evidencia empírica diferentes variables que hacen posible el soborno. Los resultados pueden ser útiles en el diseño de estrategias para prevenir este tipo comportamiento, también destaca la importancia de diseñar mecanismos para registrar la información relacionada con la lucha contra el soborno.
Implicaciones prácticas
Este instrumento es uno de los pocos que se enfoca en medir el soborno en el sector empresarial en términos de prácticas de corrupción, útil para instituciones tanto públicas como privadas para promover mejores reglas de juego en contra del soborno. Adicionalmente el modelo teórico propuesto puede ser utilizado para medir otros fenómenos con características similares.
Details
Keywords
Kusum W. Ketkar, Athar Murtuza and Suhas L. Ketkar
Using Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), this paper establishes a statistically significant link between CPI and foreign direct investment (FDI…
Abstract
Using Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), this paper establishes a statistically significant link between CPI and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to 54 developing and developed countries. In addition to each country’s CPI, several location and economic characteristics are also postulated to influence FDI. For a group of 22 developing countries, the paper then simulates the impact of an improvement in the CPI score on FDI. This simulation shows that a one point improvement in CPI would generate on average additional FDI of 0.5% of GDP. For instance, the gain in annual FDI would be $7.5 billion for India and $18 billion for China. The paper further simulates the effects of larger FDI on the generation of taxable income and tax revenues in each country using country-specific rates of return on US investment and the highest marginal corporate tax rate in each country. This simulation shows that a three point improvement in CPI would more than double the corporate tax take on average with the biggest beneficiaries such as India, Turkey, Egypt, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand.
Saleha Khumawala and Latha Ramchand
This paper examines if country level corruption affects the size of a country’s stock market and its ability to raise equity capital. Using Transparency International’s ranking of…
Abstract
This paper examines if country level corruption affects the size of a country’s stock market and its ability to raise equity capital. Using Transparency International’s ranking of countries based on corruption levels, we relate the corruption index to total market capitalization for a sample of 104 countries and also examine the number and volume of new equity issues in each country across time. Additionally, we examine if corruption affects the frequency of foreign firms’ raising capital in the U.S. We find that the corruption index is not highly correlated to either the number of issues or the total volume of issue. The correlation between the average volume of issue and the TI index suggests that there is no clear cut relation between the corruption index and the likelihood of the firm raising capital abroad.
The Supreme Court order dated July 19,2004, ordering relief for Bhopal gas victims is a case of the long arm of justice 20 years after the event. The leakage of a poisonous gas…
Abstract
The Supreme Court order dated July 19,2004, ordering relief for Bhopal gas victims is a case of the long arm of justice 20 years after the event. The leakage of a poisonous gas, Methyl Isocynate (MIC) from the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Ltd, Bhopal, on December 3, 1984,resulted in a loss of 10,000 lives and permanently disabled nearly 50,000 people. This tragedy raises some serious corporate social responsibility issues to be addressed by manufacturing Companies, in their responsibility towards the community and environment. This Case examines the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and explains what happened and why: The economic, legal and environmental aspects and addresses the wider issues facing the stakeholders and the players.