The perceptions of SME owner-managers relating to ethics and online business practices : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Management at Massey University

The Internet has created many new opportunities for small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and many of these firms are encountering external pressure to have an online presence. E-commerce, however, brings a series of ethical challenges for many businesses, notably issues relating to privacy and security. These ethical challenges need to be met by SME owner-managers in order to ensure that their business competes and survives in today's hyper-competitive environment. To date, there is very little research on ethics and online business, and the focus of this study was to investigate ethical perceptions of SME owner-managers relating to online business practices. The study was qualitative in nature and involved semi-structured interviews with twelve owner-managers of Wellington based SMEs that had an online presence. The exploratory nature of the study meant that rich data was obtained from the twelve interviewees and the findings were grouped into three main themes for discussion, the importance of e-commerce, the underlying values and risk-tolerance of the participant owner-manager and, participant perception of ethical online issues such as privacy, security, intellectual property (IP) and online trust. The importance of e-commerce both now and in the future was highlighted by the owner-managers, and there was also a diverse range of ethical concerns that they had with online business. These findings and subsequent discussion allowed for some interesting conclusions to be made. The complex changing nature of online ethics is highlighted, as well the notion that stakeholders have an important influence on the online ethical framework. This study also concludes that there is a gap between current legislation and an awareness of how this impacts on the owner-managers business. There is also a 'disconnect' between thought and action on the part of the owner-manager in terms addressing some of their online ethical concerns

MEASURING THE ANTECEDENT EFFECTS OF SERVICE COGNITION AND INTERNET SHOPPING ANXIETY ON CONSUMER SATISFACTION WITH E-TAILING SERVICE

Internet shopping anxiety (ISA), or the negative emotion that results from an individual’s experiences with online shopping in particular, is an important factor to explain the consumer’s emotion in ecommerce usage experience, such as e-tailing service usage experience. In this study, we introduce Internet shopping anxiety (ISA) as a new factor that reflect the consumer’s emotion in e-tailing service usage. We explore and empirically validate the relationships among Internet shopping anxiety, perceived risk and consumer satisfaction under the online retailing context. This study surveyed and collected the responses of 239 survey participants with online shopping experience. The results indicated that E-tailing service quality and trust in website have significant negative effects on Internet shopping anxiety. Further, the results showed that Internet shopping anxiety have a significant positive effect on perceived risk. Finally, perceived risk is found to have a significant negative effect on consumers’ satisfaction.consumer satisfaction, e-tailing service, internet shopping anxiety.

The relative importance of visual and sound design in the rehabilitation of a bridge connecting a highly populated area and a park

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Foreign Policy Views and U.S. Standing in the World

What do Americans think about the US role in world affairs and why do they think the way they do? Americans typically do not think about foreign policy most of the time, and, as a consequence, know relatively little about it (Almond 1950, Lippmann 1955, Converse 1964, Erskine 1963, Edwards 1983, Sobel 1993, Holsti 2004, Canes-Wrone 2006, Page and Bouton 2006, Berinsky 2007). While foreign policy issues can become salient when major international events (like 9/11 and the Iraq War) arise or when political candidates focus on foreign policy (Aldrich, Sullivan and Borgida 1989), ceteris paribus, Americans know and care more about domestic politics (Delli-Carpini and Keeter 1996, Holsti 1994, Canes-Wrone 2006, Converse 1964). Consequently, typical Americans are broadly aware of foreign policy, and have some available attitudes about it (Page and Bouton 2006, Aldrich et al. 1989). However, except in the face of political priming by elites or exogenous shocks, such attitudes may not be broadly accessible when making political decisions, like voting.

Charity Oversight: An Alternative Approach

In this paper, a former director of the Internal Revenue Services Exempt Organization Division argues that the IRS is structurally ill suited for the task of providing vigorous oversight of the nations growing number of nonprofit organizations. The author proposes a new, national institution, modeled loosely on the corporate sectors National Association of Securities Dealers that would, among other features, derive sufficient funding for vigorous oversight through contributions from nonprofit organizations. The author envisions an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code that would enable the nonprofit organizations to take a credit against excise taxes, particularly the excise tax on the net investment income of private foundations, they would otherwise pay to the federal government. This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 33.4. Hauser Working Paper Series Nos. 33.1-33.9 were prepared as background papers for the Nonprofit Governance and Accountability Symposium October 3-4, 2006.The author, Marcus S. Owens is with Caplin & Drysdale; Chartered

Social Bonding, Early School Leaving, and Delinquency

In this paper we investigate how successful social bonding theory is at predicting juvenile delinquency and school dropout behaviour. We adopt a simple dynamic approach which assumes that past involvement in risky behaviour reduces individual restraints for future participation in risky behaviour. We use a ten years education panel following Dutch adolescents who participated in a survey in their first year of high school in 1999. This information was matched to annual information on police arrests based on registry data. Our results show that school performance (as measured by test scores) is the key social bond element preventing young people from engaging in risk behaviour. We also find that involvement in past risky behaviour increases the likelihood of future missteps and that the protective influence of school performance is mitigated.labour economics ;

The energy-efficient transformation of EU business enterprises: Adapting policies to contextual factors

Business contexts differ in their ability to foster the energy-efficient transformation (EET) of enterprises. Accordingly, energy efficiency policies have to be adapted to different situations. The present paper analyzes the relationships between the EET of European Union (EU) business end-users and three contextual factors, i.e. high energy prices, stringency of regulations, and society's alertness toward environment conservation. Enterprises from 9 EU Member States have been grouped according to country, industry and size. The final sample includes 256 enterprise classes, and the model controls for the innovation propensity and energy intensity of each enterprise class. Our results show that regulatory stringency is the most impactful contextual factor, while the environmental alertness of society does not have a significant effect. Concerns over energy costs have not been found to drive EET per se, but more energy-intensive enterprise classes are more likely to react to high energy prices. We discuss the implications of our results for the EU governments that are currently monitoring and refining the transposition of the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive