Who approves fraudulence? Configurational causes of consumers' unethical judgments

Corrupt behavior presents major challenges for organizations in a wide range of settings. This article embraces a complexity theoretical perspective to elucidate the causal patterns of factors underlying consumers’ unethical judgments. This study examines how causal conditions of four distinct domains combine into configurational causes of unethical judgments of two frequent forms of corrupt consumer behavior: shoplifting and fare dodging. The findings of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analyses indicate alternative, consistently sufficient ‘‘recipes’’ for the outcomes of interest. This study extends prior work on the topic by offering new insights into the interplay and the interconnected structures of multiple causal factors and by describing configurational causes of consumers’ ethical evaluations of corrupt behaviors. This knowledge may support practitioners and policy makers to develop education and control approaches to thwart corrupt consumer behaviors

Visitor Preferences for Visual Changes in Bark Beetle-Impacted Forest Recreation Settings in the United States and Germany

Extensive outbreaks of tree-killing insects are increasing across forests in Europe and North America due to climate change and other factors. Yet, little recent research examines visitor response to visual changes in conifer forest recreation settings resulting from forest insect infestations, how visitors weigh trade-offs between physical and social forest environment factors, or how visitor preferences might differ by nationality. This study explored forest visitor preferences with a discrete choice experiment that photographically simulated conifer forest stands with varying levels of bark beetle outbreaks, forest and visitor management practices, and visitor use levels and compositions. On-site surveys were conducted with visitors to State Forest State Park in Colorado (n = 200), Lake Bemidji State Park in Minnesota (n = 228), and Harz National Park in Germany (n = 208). Results revealed that the condition of the immediate forest surrounding was the most important variable influencing visitors’ landscape preferences. Visitors preferred healthy mature forest stands and disliked forests with substantial dead wood. The number of visitors was the most important social factor influencing visitor landscape preferences. Differences in the influence of physical and social factors on visual preferences existed between study sites. Findings suggest that both visual forest conditions and visitor use management are important concerns in addressing landscape preferences for beetle-impacted forest recreation areas