Evolution and control of unethical practices in sales : a study of institutionalized bribery in developing country markets

Bribery as an unethical sales practice is institutionalized in developing countries causing serious challenges for the smooth operations of multinational companies (MNCs). Therefore, their control is the primary concern for MNCs. Sales ethics and bribery in international business (IB) research largely focus on intra-organizational perspective. This perspective neglects the broader social context to understand and control bribery. Alternatively, institutional work in organization study is rich in investigating the social and dynamic nature of practices. However, this work ignores the invisible aspects of informal institutions, such as bribery. Against this background, the purpose of this research is to investigate the social and emergent nature of unethical practices in sales along with their control in developing country markets. The research builds on multiple theoretical perspectives: practice-based view (PBV); neo-institutional theory; and industrial network theory. The study employs a qualitative approach and the empirical data has been collected from the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan since bribery practices in sales are widely prevailing in this market. This study achieves its goal via four articles. Research starts from a systematic review of existing knowledge in sales ethics. The review in article 1 reveals the need to study unethical behavior from a social practice perspective. As a result, article 1 introduces a PBV and its applications in sales ethics. The second article empirically examines the evolution process of bribery in sales. Findings show that bribery practices socially evolve in a sequential and partly overlapping process of four identifiable stages: early development; chain reaction; legitimization; and revision. The third and the fourth article included in this study emphasize on controlling bribery. The third article is conceptual that introduces a practice-based strategic framework for MNCs to control bribery in developing countries. Finally, the fourth article empirically investigates the nature of invisible pressure of institutionalized bribery and related practices of MNCs to respond. Findings related to the pressure indicate that MNCs closely monitor bribery practices of market actors to make sense of invisible pressure. Results further discover a range of MNCs practices to respond towards such pressure along with practices’ types, focus, objectives and intended actors. Overall this dissertation shifts the focus of sales ethics and bribery in IB research from the dominated intra-organizational view to PBV that helps to understand the social and dynamic nature of corrupt practices and their control. Study open new avenues for institutional work to understand the nature of invisible pressure arising from informal institutions and related organizational responses. Study further offers important implications for organizations and policymakers to understand and control practically significant bribery phenomenon in sales.Myynnin yhteydessä tapahtuva lahjonta on usein laajasti institutionalisoitunut epäeettinen käytäntö, joka aiheuttaa vakavia haasteita monikansallisten yritysten toiminnalle kehitysmaiden markkinoilla. Myynnin etiikan ja kansainvälisen liiketoiminnan lahjontaa koskevat tutkimustraditiot korostavat organisaation sisäistä näkökulmaa lahjonnan kontrolloimiseen ja jättävät samalla laajemman sosiaalisen kontekstin huomioimatta. Organisaatiotutkimuksen institutionaalinen näkökulma puolestaan tutkii epäeettisten myyntikäytäntöjen sosiaalista ja dynaamista luonnetta, mutta keskittyy pääosin virallisiin instituutioihin. Epäviralliset ja näkymättömät instituutiot, kuten lahjonta, ovat saaneet vain vähän tutkijoiden huomiota osakseen. Näin ollen tämän väitöskirjan tarkoituksena on tutkia epäeettisten myyntikäytäntöjen sosiaalista luonnetta ja niiden kehittymistä ja kontrollointia kehitysmaiden markkinoilla. Tutkimusnäkökulma perustuu sosiaaliseen konstruktivismiin ja väitöskirjan teoreettinen viitekehys rakentuu kolmen teoreettisen näkökulman varaan: käytäntöpohjaiseen näkökulmaan, uusinstitutionaaliseen näkökulmaan ja teollisten verkostojen teoriaan. Tutkimuksen empiirisenä kontekstina on Pakistanin lääketeollisuudessa vallitsevat lahjontakäytännöt, joita tutkitaan laadullisilla menetelmillä. Väitöskirjatutkimus koostuu neljästä artikkelista. Ensimmäisessä artikkelissa tehdään systemaattinen kirjallisuuskatsaus myynnin etiikan tutkimukseen ja osoitetaan tarve tutkia epäeettistä käyttäytymistä sosiaalisena ja dynaamisena ilmiönä. Artikkeli esittelee käytäntöpohjaisen näkökulman nykytutkimuksen laajentamiseksi. Väitöskirjan toinen artikkeli tarkastelee lahjontakäytäntöjen kehittymistä pitkittäisten sosiaalisten tapahtumasarjojen pohjalta, ja tulokset paljastavat neljä vaihetta lahjontakäytäntöjen muodostumisessa: aikainen kehitys, ketjureaktio, laillistuminen ja uudistuminen. Artikkeli lisää ymmärrystä lahjontakäytäntöjen sosiaalisesta ja dynaamisesta luonteesta. Tutkimuksen kolmas ja neljäs artikkeli keskittyvät lahjontakäytäntöjen kontrollointiin. Kolmas artikkeli on käsitteellinen ja rakentaa käytäntöpohjaisen viitekehyksen monikansallisille yrityksille institutionalisoituneen lahjonnankontrolloimiseksi kehitysmaiden markkinoilla. Viimeinen, neljäs artikkeli perustuu jälleen empiiriseen materiaaliin ja keskittyy tarkastelemaan institutionalisoituneiden lahjontakäytäntöjen luomaa painetta yrityksille sekä monikansallisten yritysten reagointimalleja tähän paineeseen. Tulokset osoittavat, että monikansalliset yritykset seuraavat tarkasti markkinatoimijoiden lahjontakäytäntöjä ja että niillä on käytössään useita eri strategioita ja niihin kytkeytyviä toimintatapoja, joilla ne pyrkivät vastaamaan syvälle juurtuneeseen lahjontaan. Väitöskirja laajentaa myyntietiikan ja kansainvälisen liiketoiminnan lahjontatutkimusta hallitsevista organisaation sisäisistä näkökulmista kohti käytäntöpohjaista näkökulmaa. Tämä näkökulma auttaa korruptiokäytäntöjen monimutkaisen sosiaalisen ja dynaamisen luonteen ymmärtämisessä sekä lahjonnan kontrolloimisessa ja avaa uusia väyliä institutionaaliselle tutkimukselle epävirallisten instituutioiden ymmärtämiseksi ja hallitsemiseksi. Käytäntönäkö-kulmasta tuotetut tulokset tarjoavat myös organisaatioille ja päättäjille konkreettisia keinoja vastata lahjonnan monisyiseen ongelmaan

ATM Service Quality and its Effect on Customer Retention: A Case from Pakistani Banks

The concept customer retention has received a considerable attention from a few decades in both areas as academic and industry. In the dynamic market environment, customer retention is seen as much important factor to compete in the market. Banks deals very closely to their customers, find, and fulfill their needs. Due to the technological advancement, banks are offering technology based services to the customers, the aim is to have a competitive advantage in satisfying their customer needs and hence to retain their customers. This research attempts to find the technology based ATM service quality, that how the customer are satisfied with it and hence being retained with the bank. The study will find the factor of ATM service quality that are helpful in retaining the customers. Data was collected from different banks of Pakistan and result depicts that the satisfaction of the bank customers with ATM service quality leads to retain the customer with the bank. Hence, the manger should need to focus on the quality ATM service to their customers, to retain their customers with the Banks

Moving beyond ethical decision-making: a practice-based view to study unethical sales behavior

Changes in the business environment are rapidly transforming sales practice and pressuring the integrity of key actors in sales. Given that unethical sales behavior is a social activity produced and reproduced by various actors in a complex sales task environment, we introduce a novel research perspective to the study of unethical sales behavior, namely a practice-based view. With knowledge from a systematic literature review and a practice-based view from organization research, we suggest that unethical behavior should be studied as a practice formed through socialization and interaction with relevant others. This view provides an important alternative as well as a complementary perspective to the ethical decision-making paradigm that has dominated the field for several decades. The study answers scholars’ recent calls to strengthen the theoretical foundation of sales ethics research and further extend its perspective toward the social context of sales. With a focus on dynamics, social relations, and the enactment of practices, the practice-based view produces new types of knowledge on unethical behavior and potential new means for addressing it. The article makes suggestions for future practice-based research and proposes several theories for use in studying unethical behavior in currently important sales contexts.</p

Money laundering as a transnational business phenomenon: a systematic review and future agenda

Purpose – Money laundering continues to emerge as a transnational phenomenon that has harmful consequences for the global economy and society. Despite the theoretical and practical magnitude of money laundering, international business (IB) research on the topic is scarce and scattered across multiple disciplines. Accordingly, this study aims to advance an integrated understanding of money laundering from the IB perspective.Design/methodology/approach – The authors conduct a systematic review of relevant literature and qualitatively analyze the content of 57 studies published on the topic during the past two decades.Findings – The authors identify five streams (5Cs) of research on money laundering in the IB context: the concept, characteristics, causes, consequences and controls. The analysis further indicates six theoretical approaches used in the past research. Notably, normative standards and business and economics theories are dominant in the extant research.Research limitations/implications – The authors review the literature on an under-researched but practically significant phenomenon and found potential for advancing its theoretical foundations. Hence, the authors propose a 5Cs framework and a future agenda for research and practice by introducing 21 future research questions and two plausible theories to help study the phenomenon more effectively in the future.Practical implications – In practical terms, the study extends the understanding of the money laundering phenomenon and subsequently helps mitigating the problem of money laundering in the IB environment, along with its harmful economic and societal impacts.Originality/value – The authors offer an integrative view on money laundering in the IB context. Additionally, the authors emphasize wider discussions on money laundering as a form of mega-corruption.</p

Mindfulness and creative process engagement : the mediating role of workplace relational systems

We extend our sincere appreciation to the guest editor, Shlomo Y Tarba, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback, which significantly contributed to the refinement of the manuscript.Peer reviewe

Recent advancements in oxadiazole-based anticancer agents

Oxadiazole ring system occupies a significant position among heterocyclic templates for medicinal compounds due to its wide spectrum of biological activities. This article entails an in-depth review of the ability of oxadiazole derivatives to induce apoptosis of cancer cells. FDA has approved a number of drugs for the treatment of different types of cancer. There is, however, a continuing need for the development of new anticancer agents due to increasing cases of drug resistance. Moreover, medicinal chemists are continuously struggling to invent selective cytotoxic agents with minimum side effects. This work reviews the significance of oxadiazole ring system and its potential to act as a template for novel anticancer agents.Keywords: Oxadiazole ring system, Anticancer activity, Antitumor activity,  Cytotoxicity, Apoptosi

The influence of geometrical shapes of stenosis on the blood flow in stenosed artery

The present work was carried out to investigate the blood flow behavior and the severity of blockage caused in the arterial passage due to the different geometries such as elliptical, trapezium and triangular shapes of stenosis. The study was conducted with respect to various sizes of stenosis in terms of 70%, 80% and 90% area blockage of the arterial blood flow. The study was carried out numerically with the help of advance computational fluid dynamic software. It was found that the shape of the stenosis plays an important role in overall pressure drop across the blockage region of artery. The highest level of pressure drop was observed for trapezoidal shape of stenosis followed by elliptical and then by triangular shaped stenosis. The wall shear stress across the stenosis is great for trapezoidal shape followed by triangular and elliptical stenosis for same blockage area in the artery

Mindfulness and creative process engagement : the mediating role of workplace relational systems

Purpose. Despite widespread recognition of the importance of mindfulness in organizational science literature, little is known about how mindfulness motivates individuals to configure information processing and team member exchange relationships to increase creative process engagement. Drawing on motivated information processing theory, this study conceptualizes and empirically examines whether and how mindfulness motivates individuals toward creative process engagement. Design/methodology/approach. The authors collected data through an online survey from 311 respondents working in the Research and Development (R&D) departments of organizations in multiple industries in Pakistan. For analytical purposes, the authors have applied the structural equation modeling technique. Findings. This study advances a different view of individual mindfulness on the creative process engagement in the following ways. First, mindfulness enables individuals to self-regulate in specific situations and become effective in fostering creative process engagement. Second, this study extends research on relational information processing by linking it to mindfulness and creative process engagement. Relational information processing partially mediates the relationship between mindfulness and creative process engagement. Third, this study highlights that mindfulness motivates individuals to focus more on developing quality working relationships, but they seem less willing to participate in idea generation and problem-solving solutions. Originality/value. The study findings provide implications for research on mindfulness, creativity and motivated information processing to enhance individuals’ creative process engagements. The authors also discuss the implications for executives on the relational and creative benefits of mindfulness

Discovery of novel 1,2,4-triazole tethered β-hydroxy sulfides as bacterial tyrosinase inhibitors: synthesis and biophysical evaluation through in vitro and in silico approaches

In this study, a series of 1,2,4-triazole-tethered β-hydroxy sulfide scaffolds 11a–h was synthesized in good to remarkable yields (69–90%) through the thiolysis of oxiranes by the thiols in aqueous basic catalytic conditions. The synthesized 1,2,4-triazole-tethered β-hydroxy sulfides were screened against bacterial tyrosinase enzyme, and Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial cultures i.e., (S. aureus) Staphylococcus aureus & (E. coli) Escherichia coli. Among the synthesized derivatives, the molecules 11a (IC50 = 7.67 ± 1.00 μM), 11c (IC50 = 4.52 ± 0.09 μM), 11d (IC50 = 6.60 ± 1.25 μM), and 11f (IC50 = 5.93 ± 0.50 μM) displayed the better tyrosinase inhibitory activity in comparison to reference drugs ascorbic acid (IC50 = 11.5 ± 1.00 μM) and kojic acid (IC50 = 30.34 ± 0.75 μM). The molecule benzofuran-triazol-propan-2-ol 11c proved to be the most potent bacterial tyrosinase inhibitory agent with a minimum IC50 of 4.52 ± 0.09 μM, as compared to other synthesized counterparts and both standards (kojic acid and ascorbic acid). The compound diphenyl-triazol-propan-2-ol 11a and benzofuran-triazole-propan-2-ol 11c showed comparable anti-bacterial chemotherapeutic efficacy with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC = 2.0 ± 2.25 mg mL−1 and 2.5 ± 0.00 mg mL−1, respectively) against S. aureus bacterial strain in comparison with standard antibiotic penicillin (MIC = 2.2 ± 1.15 mg mL−1). Furthermore, among the synthesized derivatives, only compound 11c demonstrated better anti-bacterial activity (MIC = 10 ± 0.40 mg mL−1) against E. coli, which was slightly less than the standard antibiotic i.e., penicillin (MIC = 2.4 ± 1.00 mg mL−1). The compound 11c demonstrated a better binding score (−7.08 kcal mol−1) than ascorbic acid (−5.59 kcal mol−1) and kojic acid (−5.78 kcal mol−1). Molecular docking studies also validate the in vitro anti-tyrosinase assay results; therefore, the molecule 11c can be the lead bacterial tyrosinase inhibitor as well as the antibacterial agent against both types of bacterial strains after suitable structural modifications

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on knowledge, perceptions, and effects of telemedicine among the general population of Pakistan: A national survey

BackgroundTelemedicine is the provision of healthcare services through information and communication technology with the potential to mobilize all facets of the health sector to prevent the spread of COVID-19, provide quality healthcare, protect patients, doctors, and the public from exposure to disease, and reduce the burden on the healthcare system. This study aims to identify knowledge, perceptions, willingness to use, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on telemedicine awareness.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted from 27 May 2020 to 17 June 2020 using the convenient sampling technique in the general population of Pakistan. Data were collected by designing an online questionnaire consisting of demographic information, knowledge, attitude perceptions, barriers, utilization, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on telemedicine.ResultsOf the 602 participants included in the study, 70.1% had heard about telemedicine, 54.3% had a good understanding of the definition of “telemedicine,” 81.4% had not used telemedicine in the past, 29.9% did not know that telemedicine was available before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 70.4% responded that the COVID-19 pandemic had changed their attitudes toward telemedicine. Gender (p = 0.017) and family income (p = 0.027) had a significant association with the perception of the benefits of telemedicine.ConclusionThe knowledge and usage of telemedicine are lacking due to inadequate awareness and technology. The need of the hour is to maximize the application of telemedicine to overcome the deficiencies of the healthcare system. Hence, it is essential to increase awareness through various means and develop an appropriate infrastructure to attain maximum benefits from telehealth services