Holistic Information Support For Virtual Business Organization

Assessing and implementing a virtual organizational provides an organization a template for increasing the control and viability of its operations. Under circumstances of restricted availability of factors and presently restrictive conditions of business operation, results can be improved by adequate information support for business operation. Various solutions are available to improve information support quality, while a primer example of important improvement of business is provided by a holistic information support of business, its management and basic processes. The business process is based upon the information basis with which we represent important characteristics of the examined field and the requisite additional knowledge (from both the content and methodological aspects). Holistic information support for business by means of a virtual organization presents an important viewpoint of its consideration, which, to a great extent, determines the quality of the entire business, and it also has a major impact on the results of business operation

Innovativeness of IT Managers - Exploring Influences of Personal Values on IT Managers’ Innovativeness

AbstractOur research aims to establish the influence of IT managers’ personal values on their innovativeness. We examine the directions and intensities of considered influences related with the survey which included 208 IT managers’ responses from Slovenian enterprises, obtained in 2012. Schwartz values survey questionnaire was used for measuring IT managers’ personal values and typical behavior of managers in most innovative IT enterprises was used for measuring IT managers’ attitudes toward innovativeness. Exploratory factor analysis reveals proposed measure as reliable. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the selected influence. Findings from hierarchical regression analysis reveal that the values on the level of high-order dimension of self-transcendence have positive association with typical innovative behavior. Values’ sub- dimension of power has negative association with typical innovative behavior, while achievement has positive association with innovative behavior. High importance of ambition, success, freedom, and helpfulness has a positive association with typical innovative behavior, while a high importance of wealth, detachment, and accepting ‘my portion’ in life, has a negative association with typical innovative behavior

Toward a holistic perception of socially responsible ethics

Cel - propozycja holistycznej definicji społecznie odpowiedzialnej etyki biznesu rozumianego jako system. W artykule rozważany jest podstawowy problem: Jak interesariusze rozumieją społecznie odpowiedzialną etykę? Z tego punktu widzenia biznes powinien być badany pod kątem współczesnej etyki. Holizm w percepcji społecznie odpowiedzialnej etyki w biznesie jest nieunikniony; może on wynikać z badań dotyczących wzajemnych zależności pomiędzy praktyką biznesową, ogólną etyką i etyką społecznie odpowiedzialną. Projekt/metodologia/podejście: w artykule prezentowane jest podejście jakościowe opierające się na etyce, etyce biznesu oraz teoriach dialektycznych i systemowych. Wyniki - Etyka może być rozumiana jako subiektywny element punktu wyjścia każdego ludzkiego procesu, włączając w to biznes. Etyka biznesu jest tak samo kluczowa jak innego rodzaju wiedza oraz znajomość zewnętrznych/ obiektywnych warunków, ponieważ ludzie są zarówno bytami racjonalnymi, jak i emocjonalnymi i to połączenie tworzy synergię. Żeby uściślić i wykorzystać w odpowiedni sposób społecznie odpowiedzialną etykę, należy zrozumieć relacje pomiędzy globalizacją a biznesem jako systemem, wziąć pod uwagę nowe koncepcje rozwoju biznesu i społecznie odpowiedzialnej etyki. Badania/ograniczenia/implikacje: Badanie ogranicza się do hipotez i analizy jakościowej. Praktyczne doświadczenie jest zakładane implicite. Hipotezy są testowane przez informację zwrotną pracowników na temat ich percepcji wybranych elementów społecznie odpowiedzialnej etyki w firmach słoweńskich. Do badania przypadków wykorzystano analizę zależności, elementy opisowej statystyki i przedstawiono wyniki graficznie. Praktyczne implikacje: Jest to krok w kierunku rozwijania biznesu z uwzględnieniem koniecznego holistycznego podejścia bazującego na intuicji całości. Zasugerowano bardziej szczegółowe i zorientowane na cele rozumienie i badanie społecznie odpowiedzialnej etyki biznesu jako systemu, funkcjonującego we współczesnym otoczeniu. Oryginalność/wartość: Zaprezentowano nowe podejście dotyczące bardziej holistycznego rozumienia i rozważań w etyce biznesu, które jest rzadkie w głównym nurcie literatury, jak również nowe rozumienie i definicję społecznie odpowiedzialnej etykiPurpose - To offer a new requisitely holistic definition of socially responsible ethics (SRE) of Business systems (BSs). The contribution considers a basic problem: How do stakeholders understand and think about SRE? Therefore business should be investigated from the viewpoint of modern ethics. Requisite holism of perceiving SRE in business reality is unavoidable; it can result from findings and considerations of the interdependence between business practice, general ethics, and SRE. Design/methodology/approach - In this paper qualitative research is performed based on Ethics, Business Ethics, Business, and Dialectical Systems Theories. Findings - Ethics can be viewed as the subjective part of the starting points for any human process, including business. Business ethics (BE) are equally crucial as knowledge and outer/objective conditions are, because humans are both rational and emotional and spiritual beings, and are so in synergy. To clarify and beneficially use SRE, one must understand relations between globalization and characteristics of BSs, new and prevailing development concepts of BSs, and SRE and prevailing BE in BSs. Research limitation/implications - Research is limited to hypotheses and qualitative analysis by means of desk research. Practical experience is considered implicitly. Postulated hypotheses are tested by employees' feedback about their perception of selected factors regarding SRE in Slovenian organizations. For case investigation we used factorial analysis, elements of descriptive statistics, and graphical representation of results. Practical implications - This is a step toward development of business with a requisitely holistic approach founded on requisite wholeness of insight. We suggest a more specifically created and target-oriented approach to understanding and research of SRE of BSs in the current environment. Originality/value - We offer a fresh approach for more holistic understanding and consideration of BE, rarely found in main-stream literature. A new perception and definition of SRE is offere

How Socially Responsible Are Business Students – Evidence from Slovenia?

This paper reports about research examining social responsibility of business students through students’ perception about corporate social responsibility (CSR). Study exposes the behavior and CSR theories and analyzes answers from 183 business students from Slovenia. Authors established a model, to examine students’ perception about the impact of the economic CSR - considered through the “primary concern for economic results” and “devoting resources for CSR”, to the “natural CSR” and “social CSR”. Among student the interest for the natural CSR prevailed, while the economic aspect of CSR is the least appreciated. In the considered sample, associations between CSR aspects reveal significant and negative association between the concern for economic results and the natural and social CSR. In addition, positive and significant impact of devoting resources for CSR to the natural and social CSR exists between students. Devoting resources contributes more to the concern for social than for the natural CSR. The economic CSR explains significantly more variance in the social than in the natural CSR. Findings could help improving students’ CSR behavior as future employees, but also development of education about CSR in the higher education organizations and society

THE INFLUENCE OF TRUST ON COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN SUPPLY CHAINS

In this paper we theoretically discuss and empirically examine the infl uence of trust on collaborative behavior in supply chain relationships. These concepts are very important in today’s interorganizational business world, and therefore in supply chains. In theoretical part of this article we presume that establishment and development of relationships in supply chain depends on development of trust. Trust is defi ned as a willingness to rely on a partner in a supply chain in whom one has confi dence. The stress is on expectation that another partner can be relied on to fulfi ll obligations and at the same time previous experience with partners in exchange relationships are taken in the consideration. Collaborative behavior is defi ned as a concept where two or more organizations, which work together in a supply chains, can through complementary characteristics gain shared means and goals that could not be achieved individually. Logistics managers, purchase and sales managers, project managers and employees in logistics department were included in our survey made on primary, secondary and tertiary sector of Slovene economy. We included companies of all sizes, both local and foreign companies present in Slovenia. 118 questionnaires were completed and involved in our research. According to the demographic data, our sample is comparable to population in terms of economy branch and size of companies. The Pearson correlation coeffi cient and linear regression analysis demonstrate statistically signifi cant strong correlation between trust, shared values and communication and strong negative correlation between trust and opportunistic behavior. At the end we can confi rm that there is a statistically signifi cant infl uence of trust on collaborative behavior in supply chains. The results clearly indicate that all factors included in research are very important for today’s supply chain management

Values, environmental concern and economic concern as predictors of enterprise environmental responsiveness

This article reports on examination of the relationships between manager’s personal values, their attitudes toward concern for environment, concern for economic results and enterprise environmental responsiveness. Schwartz’s list of values and statements about the environmental and economic concerns is used. We analyzed 1179 managers’ answers from Slovenian enterprises with structural equation modeling. Manager’s concern results: (a) for environment positively and significantly and (b) for economics negatively and insignificantly, in influence on enterprise environmental responsiveness. Two value dimensions significantly influence enterprise environmental responsiveness and one negatively. Environmental concern mediates the effect of three, and concern for economic results mediates the effect of two value dimensions on enterprise’s environmental responsiveness. Generalization can be limited due to the focus on one Central Europe country; future examination is needed. Findings are useful for the development of enterprises’ pro-environmental behavior and development of enterprise value system. A model of enterprise’s environmental responsiveness is developed

Intellectual agility and innovation in micro and small businesses: The mediating role of entrepreneurial leadership

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between intellectual agility, entrepreneurial leadership (measured through future orientation and community building) and the innovativeness of micro and small businesses in an efficiency-driven economy. Building on nexus of entrepreneurial leadership, human capital and economics of innovation literature, a theoretical model has been developed and tested empirically on a sample of 110 micro and small businesses from Serbia, a country with an emerging efficiency-driven economy by means of the structural equation modelling. Intellectual agility of employees positively influences the innovativeness of micro and small businesses, but this effect is strongly mediated through entrepreneurial leadership. Future orientation contributes significantly to innovativeness and the ability to build community links; in turn it is affected by the intellectual agility. The main theoretical contribution of this research lies in the emphasized role of intellectual agility of employees in micro and small businesses’ innovativeness, in the context of the emerging concept of entrepreneurial leadership. The findings are useful for managers and owners of micro and small businesses in their efforts to enhance the innovation of their firms, which will rely on the potential of intellectual agility of employees and the central role of entrepreneurial leadership in the future

The impact of gender-role-orientations on subjective career success: a multilevel study of 36 societies

International audienceWe investigate the relationships between gender-role-orientation (i.e., androgynous, masculine, feminine and undifferentiated) and subjective career success among business professionals from 36 societies. Drawing on the resource management perspective, we predict that androgynous individuals will report the highest subjective career success, followed by masculine, feminine, and undifferentiated individuals. We also postulate that meso-organizational culture and macro-societal values will have moderating effects on gender role's impact on subjective career success. The results of our hierarchical linear models support the hypothesized hierarchy of the relationships between gender-role-orientations and subjective career success. However, we found that ethical achievement values at the societal culture level was the only variable that had a positive moderating impact on the relationship between feminine orientation and subjective career success. Thus, our findings of minimal moderation effect suggest that meso- and macro-level environments may not play a significant role in determining an individual's perception of career success

A Twenty-First Century Assessment of Values Across the Global

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societallevel analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self- transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s a statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and withinsociety agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research