Factors in the acquisition of an ethical training

Society in general demands an ethical behavior in business world. The research problem of the paper is to analyze whether higher education institutions of business contribute to ethical decisions making in students through a specific training approach based on practical methodologies that take into account students’ personal characteristics, which may affect the ethical decisions making. The acquisition of knowledge should be more effective whether is based on personal characteristics

Using Perspective Taking to De-Escalate Commitment to Software Product Launch Decisions

In software product development settings when things go awry and the original plan loses credibility, managers often choose to honor the originally announced product launch schedule anyway, in effect launching a product that may be seriously compromised in terms of both functionality and reliability. In this study, we draw on the perspective of escalation of commitment to investigate adherence to original product launch schedules despite negative feedback. Specifically, we use the notion of perspective taking to propose a de-escalation tactic. Through a laboratory experiment, we found strong support that taking the perspective of individuals that can be negatively influenced by a product launch can indeed effectively promote de-escalation of commitment. Furthermore, we found that the experiences of anticipated guilt mediate the relationship between perspective taking and de-escalation, and this indirect effect is significantly greater when a decision maker’s personal cost associated with de-escalation is high rather than low

The Neural Correlates of Guilt and Restitution During a Social Decision Making Task

Guilt is a social emotion that promotes prosocial and moral behaviours. It arises as a result of harming another individual, serving as a prompt for the guilty individual to take reparative actions, known as restitution. The neural regions that are involved in guilt and restitution, however, are not currently known. To identify these regions, we employed a novel social decision-making fMRI paradigm involving donations to charities. There was a significant positive correlation between trait guilt and BOLD signal in the vlPFC and mPFC during acts of restitution. Furthermore, choices of harm when compared to help showed increased BOLD signal in the amygdala, insula, and the superior temporal sulcus. The present results are consistent with past studies that indicate an important role of the vlPFC and mPFC for processing aversive social cues and to resolve decision conflict

Vem hjälper när? En studie om situationsbaserade och individbaserade faktorers påverkan på hjälpbeteende

Who helps others – and when? This study examined situation based and individual based factors’ impact on helping behaviors. The study consisted of a survey about personality traits and worldview, and a fictive ad from a charity organization, which were handed out to 130 participants. The ad was designed in two versions, where half of the participants were assigned a version which simulated a positive feeling of warm glow, and the other half were assigned a version which simulated a feeling of guilt. The reward for the participation was three lottery tickets. The participants had the option of donating the tickets to the charity organization. The relationship between number of donated lottery tickets, type of ad and the personality traits tested for was examined. The ad with guilt appeal generated a larger number of donated lottery tickets than the ad with warm glow appeal. Pressure motivation in helping and valuing the moral foundations care and justice highly correlated positively with donating lottery tickets. To have a preference for intuitive decision making and to value the moral foundations loyalty, authority and purity correlated negatively with donating lottery tickets. No interaction effects were found. Despite some results confirming previous research, more studies are needed to examine both situation based and individual based elements, especially worldview and intuitive thinking.Vem hjälper andra – och när? Denna studie undersökte situationsbaserade och individbaserade faktorers påverkan på hjälpbeteende. Studien bestod av en enkät om personlighetsdrag och världsbild samt en fiktiv annons för en välgörenhetsorganisation som delades ut till de 130 deltagarna. Annonsen utformades i två versioner, där hälften av deltagarna fick en version som spelade på en positiv känsla (warm glow) och den andra hälften en version som spelade på skuldkänsla. Belöningen för deltagandet var tre tianlotter. Dessa fick deltagarna sedan möjlighet att skänka till välgörenhetsorganisationen. Sambandet mellan antalet skänkta lotter, typ av annons och de testade personlighetsdragen undersöktes. Annonsen med skuldbetingelse fick deltagarna att skänka fler lotter än den positiva annonsen. Att ha pliktkänsla som hjälpmotivation samt att värdera de moraliska fundamenten omsorg och rättvisa högt korrelerade positivt med att skänka lotter. Att ha en preferens för intuitivt beslutsfattande samt att värdera de moraliska fundamenten lojalitet, auktoritet och renhet högt korrelerade negativt med att skänka lotter. Inga interaktionseffekter hittades. Trots att en del resultat gick i linje med tidigare studier behövs mer forskning om både situationsbaserade och individbaserade element, speciellt då det gäller världsbild och intuitivt tänkande

Guilt in Marketing Research: An Elicitation–Consumption Perspective and Research Agenda

"This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Antonetti, P. and Baines, P. (2015), Guilt in Marketing Research: An Elicitation–Consumption Perspective and Research Agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17: 333–355. which has been published in final form at https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.1204

Please rate after riding : the impact of formal evaluation on consumers’ feedback

Advances in Information Technology along with changes in society have allowed for the emergence of collaborative services. The act of sharing among peers -in substitution to ownership- is a growing phenomenon with many successful companies having arisen in the last decade. Since this new economy works mostly on the basis of sharing among strangers, mechanisms for identifying good and ‘bad’ users have become a necessity. One popular tool is a mechanism that allows for mutual evaluation among platform users (peer-providers and peer- users) using reviews and/or ratings as forms of evaluation. However, often users will give a biased feedback or attenuate negative evaluations of their peers due to the nature of collaborative services, where interactions are more personal and social norms seem to exist. This represents a problem especially in situations where the service provided has a failure that goes unreported. Although collaborative services are growing in popularity, few studies have been carried out to investigate how pro-social norms are integrated into practices and interactions between peers. To examine factors leading to feedback bias and its boundary conditions, we conducted two scenario-based experiments online using the context of an on-demand transportation service. We compared feedback (in the form of rating and tip) in a formal type of evaluation to a control condition (i.e. informal). In Study 1, we find that feedback bias in a formal evaluation system can be explained by forgiveness. Furthermore, that the type of service failure directly impacts feedback bias with perceived quality compromised by the failure being a mediator for this effect. We also find tip to be a less biased form of feedback than ratings. In Study 2, we confirm results of Study 1, and investigate overall driver score as a boundary condition for the effect of type of evaluation on feedback. Results show that a high peer score leads to feedback bias in a formal type of evaluation. Additionally, we find anticipation of guilt to be another mediator for the effect of type of evaluation on feedback. Managerial implications and suggestions for further research are discussed

Temporal reframing of prices: a conceptual framework

Research on consumer’s response to pricing tactics has been plentiful and is still ongoing. One strategy that research has sought to explain and endorse is pennies-a-day (Gourville, 1998), where the cost of a product is expressed as a small ongoing expense. This dissertation tests two competing theories that may explain the effect of PAD on consumer participation intentions. The first theory, marketing exchange (Bagozzi, 1975) predicts different effects across exchange type; in particular, generalized exchange (charity) and restricted exchange (consumer products and services). The second theory, mental budgeting (Heath and Soll, 1996) predicts different effects across expense type; this study addresses recurring and non-recurring expenses. This research then extends this framework to a cause-related marketing (CRM) context. First, a pretest and one experiment test the competing theories, while considering process measures, such as sympathy and deliberation, to explain the effect of PAD on participation intentions. Results provide evidence that the relationship between PAD frame and participation intentions is moderated by exchange type. Consistent with the predictions, PAD frame improved perception of offer attractiveness and increased sympathy towards the object of the offer in a generalized exchange context (charity); the same was not supported in a restricted exchange context (consumer products). Second, a pilot test and two experiments test the effect of PAD on participation intentions in a CRM context. The studies explore the effects of sympathy, deliberation, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and attitude towards the manufacturer (ATTM) as mediating variables. Results provide support to the moderating role of donation amount on the effect of PAD on participation intentions. While PAD did not have a significant impact on participation intentions as donation amount increased, aggregate frame led to a significant increase in participation intentions. Results highlighted the mediating role of sympathy, CSR, deliberation, and ATTM between donation amount and participation intentions. Overall, this research helps companies to frame prices to improve consumers’ likelihood of participation. In addition, it helps companies to frame donations in CRM campaigns to improve participation. This research also identifies several variables with a potential to affect the relationships between price frame, donation amount, and participation intentions

Affect and Decision Making in Troubled Information Technology Projects

IT project failure is an enduring problem which has often been associated with bad news reporting and escalation of commitment. The literature in bad news reporting has focused on identifying factors (e.g., organizational climate of silence) that could influence one’s reporting decision. Similarly, the de-escalation literature has primarily investigated conditions or activities (e.g., changes in top management) which promote de-escalation. Nonetheless, what is missing in our understanding is how affect can influence bad news reporting and de-escalation decisions within IT projects. This represents a significant gap in bad news reporting and de-escalation research, as affect (i.e., mood and emotions) is recognized as a fundamental aspect of human life which strongly influences individual perceptions, judgment, and decision making. The aim of this dissertation to provide new insights regarding how affect can influence bad news reporting decisions and de-escalation of commitment within the context of troubled IT projects