Beyond Grey Pinstripes

     

U. of Texas (Dallas)

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U. of Texas (Dallas) 800 W. Campbell Road, SM 40
Richardson, TX, 75080-3021
United States
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Demographic Information

Number of full-time MBA students (2011): 

63

Number of part-time MBA students (2011): 

229

Total duration of full-time MBA program: 

16 months

MBA faculty (Fall 2010): 

204

Females as percent of student body: 

29%
Who Are the Students? See what percentage of the 2010-2011 graduating class came to this MBA program from the private sector, the non-profit sector and government jobs
 
Private Sector (86%)
 
Non-profit (11%)
 
Government (3%)


Description of MBA Program: 

'The University of Texas at Dallas started in 1961 as the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest, an outgrowth of technology giant Texas Instruments, and become part of the UT System in 1969.  Our heritage in research and technology continues with the majority of our 15,000 students enrolled in the School of Management or the Jonsson School of Engineering.  The mission statement for the university declares that we will transform ideas into actions that directly benefit the persona, economic, social, and cultural lives of the citizens of Texas.



Our Full-Time (Cohort) MBA program focuses on developing ethical leaders – business leaders with the necessary skills, tools, and competencies to lead socially responsible organizations in today’s global marketplace.  This selective program annually enrolls around 50 students with average GMAT scores over 650 and several years of work experience.  Beginning with orientation, students encounter sessions on ethics and corporate responsibility as well as the importance of social responsibility in decision making for leaders.  Throughout the full-time program, outside corporate speakers discuss how strategy and policy decisions may impact the environment and the community.  



The core MBA curriculum includes required courses that address social and environmental issues, in particular strategic management, business economics and international management.  In addition many of our 100+ electives offered each year also address these issues in, for example, corporate governance, advertising and promotion strategy, and power and politics in organizations.



Beyond the required core courses, students mold a concentration which may be from one of our traditional academic departments or an interdisciplinary combination of courses.  Two popular concentrations are in International Management and in Strategic Management.  Both of these offer courses related to social and environmental issues.  



The School of Management houses a dozen business research centers with two directly touching on social, ethical, and environmental issues.  The Center for Responsible Business and Sustainability and The Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance.



How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?: 

The 2010 hiring of Donna Riha, the University’s first energy conservation and sustainability manager, figured prominently in the move towards sustainable responsible pracitices on campus.  Actions include:

•Greening of Campus - planting of 6,000 native trees, particularly at the main entrance and exterior portions of campus. (fewer pollutants in our air, lower temperatures during sweltering summers, less street flooding, and studies show exposure to nature improves student performance).

•LEED Platinum Building – the new Student Services Building is the first academic structure — and the 11th statewide — to achieve the designation.  Also, is the first LEED Platinum facility in the UT System. It features a lighting system that adjusts itself to sunshine entering the space and a hot water system heated by solar panels.

•Administration - Appointed a sustainability commitee and new University policies.

•Climate Change & Energy - installing steam-trap systems in existing buildings on campus and adding LED lighting and lighting sensors.

•Food & Recycling - local purchases of milk, produce, baked goods and beverages and for composting food scraps for use in the community garden.

•Health & Safety of students, faculty and staff- Facilities Management is replacing its cleaning chemical supplies with safer environmentally friendly green cleaners.

Academic Department

Course Name: Advanced Auditing
Instructor: Mark Salamasick

1. Identify the key skills required for internal/external audit roles.

2. be able to identify and perform research of areas of internal audit or external audit not

previously explored.

3. Improve techniques and ability to network with all levels of internal and external audit

professionals.

4. Determine key strengths and weaknesses in performing audit engagements and how to

improve.

5. be able to recognize various roles with Sarbanes Oxley and its impact on audit.

6. Understand the impact of the current regulatory actions on the audit profession.

7. Learn ways to improve communication with all levels of management.

8. Improve writing techniques for audit reports and reporting to an audit committee.

9. Understand the relationship of various professional organizations, the benefits of an

extended network and how these groups inter-relate.

10. Understand the current state of Enterprise Risk Management and the use of Control Self

Assessment as a tool for risk evaluation.

11. Understand key components of managing the audit group.

12. Understand the importance of technology in an audit group and the detection of fraud.

13. Identify best practices related to internal and external audit and what are the motivators.

14. Identify key components of being an audit consultant and able to perform an audit

consulting engagement

Course Name: Advertising and Promotion Strategy
Instructor: Abhi Biswas

Discussion of the increasing role of advertising and promotions in the formulation of public policy and their impact on businesses, consumers and the social environment at large. Caselets are used intermittently throughout the course to illustrate the effects of PSAs (public service announcements), deceptive advertising, Americanization of global consumption values, etc.

Lecture and presentation topics include examination of ethics in advertising, advertising’s affect on societal materialism, the appropriateness of advertising to children and senior citizens, increasing impact of ‘advertainment’ and product placements, the invasive and pervasive nature of advertising, etc. Also discussed are the regulatory aspects of advertising, the dangers of subliminal advertising and the power of industries, consumers and special interest groups as regulatory forces.

Course Name: Business Communications with Stakeholders
Instructor: Dennis McCuistion

A case can be made that virtually every major problem in a business is either caused or exacerbated by poor, ineffective or no communication. This course is designed to prepare the student to understand his/her own communication style and then teach him/her to address communication in a way that the receiver will best receive it. Emphasis will be placed on listening skills since often the problem is failing to hear or understand.

Businesses have stakeholders which include shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees, regulators, communities and

competitors. Communicating with each requires different skills and methods. Presentation skills with or without visual aids will be emphasized and extensive practice, role-playing and videotaping will be used. The principal learning objective is for the student to gain a robust understanding of the challenges and solutions in

communicating with corporate stakeholders including shareholders, customers, employees, regulators, suppliers and communities. The communication process includes listening, feedback, presentation and writing skills along with an understanding of different communication styles. A secondary objective is for the student to improve communication with

significant others.

Course Name: Business Strategy for Sustainability
Instructor: Padmakumar Nair

This is a highly interdisciplinary course where we bring together strategy, environmental sciences, energy engineering, ethics and organizational behavior in a single framework to think about sustainable ways of doing business. One of the major challenges of sustainable strategy development is to get various stakeholders to commit to the sustainability agenda. This commitment depends on how much one believes

in the need for developing sustainable strategies and its usefulness to the organization and the society. Therefore we will start the class with a discussion on expectancy and then transition to ethics.

Course Name: Corporate Governance and Accounting
Instructor: Constantine Konstans

This course views Corporate Governance as a structured system of policies and processes established and maintained by a board of directors to oversee an organization's strategic activities and resulting performance. The system is in place to ensure proper accountability, probity and openness in the conduct of an organization's business for the long-term benefit of its shareholders. As such, Corporate Governance focuses on and effectuates the relationships among a company's board of directors, top management, investors (particularly institutional investors), and other stakeholders. To enhance understanding, this course has two themes: first, issues are addressed academically; second, issues are addressed through the presentations by 12 prominent and knowledgeable speakers involved in various aspects of Corporate Governance.

Course Name: Corporate Restructuring & Turnarounds
Instructor: George DeCourcy

This course is one of a series offered through the Center for Finance Strategy Innovation. The Center was founded in 2008 to focus on

education and research programs in areas crucial to today’s economy. Working with businesses, the center addresses corporate

transformations, restructurings, turnarounds, and leveraged buyouts, as well as funding for innovation, project finance, and growth capital. It also has active programs centered on public-private partnerships.

Course Name: Corporate Taxation
Instructor: Steven Solcher, Kenneth L. Bressler

To determine how distributions affect the tax liabilities of both the shareholders and the

corporate entity.

To apply concepts to determine the best course of action for both the shareholders, all stakeholders, and the corporate entity.

To Understand the Ethical Considerations in Tax Practice.

To appreciate the requirements and concepts contained in the Statement on Responsibilities in Tax Practice.

To understand the ethical issues that confronts both individual taxpayers and tax

practitioners on a day-to-day basis.

To Enhance Communication Skills.

Students will prepare and submit a Federal Corporate Income.

Tax Return.

Course Name: Empirical Research in Financial Reporting
Instructor: Stanimir Markov

The Empirical Research in Financial Reporting presents current areas of research in the area of financial reporting. Emphasis is ongoing and recently completed ethical research studies, including understanding of their antecedents and research methodologies. Capital market based empirical research topics will be covered. In particular, the appropriate role of analysts as financial information intermediaries will be examined.

Course Name: Financial Statement Analysis
Instructor: Mark Anderson, Anthony J. LeVecchio

AIM 6344 Financial Statement Analysis-Analysis of financial statements for evaluating firm performance and risk. Topics include interpretation of financial statements and footnotes, managers' incentives for earnings manipulation, comparative analysis of firms, and ethics in financial reporting.

Course Name: Fraud Examination and Forensic Accounting
Instructor: Dana Bracy, Mark Salamasick

Fraud Examination and Forensic Accounting Investigations. This course will include a review of techniques used in solving financial crimes including: interviewing techniques, rules of evidence, sources of information, forensic accounting procedures and current issues in financial investigations. The course will include the criminal statutes related to financial crimes. Case studies will be used to discuss interviewing techniques and other indirect methods of proof in resolving financial crimes. Various financial documents and instruments will be discussed and reviewed as part of the documentary evidence to support financial investigations.

Pages

Type of Offering

Information Systems Development Risk Factors and Dispersed Teamwork: The Role of Empowering Leadership in Facilitating Team Member Well-being
Date: January, 2011

Information systems development (ISD) involves non-routine solutions requiring highly specialized expertise. Due to an increasingly competitive global marketplace, as well as advances in information and communication technologies, this work is increasingly accomplished via the use of globally dispersed project teams.

This leadership lens is well-suited to the dispersed team context because it involves both psychological motivation and the delegation of responsibility, both of which are necessary in a dispersed context due leaders’ lack of ability to closely monitor, direct, and engage with team members.

We develop a cross-level model of the effects of empowering leadership in mitigating the effects of project risk factors on dispersed software developers.

The model posits that empowering leadership will reduce the negative effects of project size, complexity, and requirements volatility on team role ambiguity and role conflict. IS developers’ role perceptions are important because they relate directly to an individual’s function in the team and their ability to accomplish work. We also examine the moderating impact of empowering leadership on the relationship between role perceptions and project-related stress.

Stress has been identified as a key proximal determinant of an individuals’ well-being and performance because it interferes with the self-regulation of emotions and cognitions. As ISD projects require non-routine solutions, cognitive regulation is key to producing functioning and high-quality information systems.

Empowering leadership also reduces the negative impact of role ambiguity on developer stress. The model explains 51% of the variance in role ambiguity, 37% of the variance in role conflict, and 22% of the variance in stress. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Annual Project Management Symposium
Date: August, 2010

A Dallas City Councilman and an executive with Parkland Health and Hospital System were among decision makers discussing new designs at the fourth annual Project Management Symposium at The School of Management in August. The largest of its kind in North Texas, the PM Symposium conferred up to 16 professional development units (PDUs) for practitioners. Headlining speakers included Walter B. Jones Jr., the senior vice president for facilities at Parkland Health and Hospital System, and David A. Neumann, chairman of the Dallas City Council's Trinity River Corridor Project Committee.

Mr. Neumann, Dallas District 3 councilman, talked about his role in keeping tabs on the decades-long Trinity River public works project. The multi-agency, multidisciplinary development (www.trinityrivercorridor.com and www.trinityrivercorridor.org/html/planning_development.htmlencompasses flood protection, recreation, environmental restoration, economic development and transportation projects.

Annual Fraud Summit
Date: March, 2010

In its fifth year, the annual Fraud Summit expanded by adding a full day of training workshops the day before the March 26 conference. Summit Features True Stories of Cybercrime and Corporate Misdeeds. Among the words of wisdom to students: "If you're asked to commit fraud, just say'no.' It shouldn't be a hard decision. You have to set a high standard of ethical behavior, or you will get into a mess." In concurrent afternoon sessions, experts delved into fraud detection, prevention and risk assessment. Those sessions also covered advanced techniques and case studies.

Nanotechnology and Alternative (Clean) Energy Possibilities
Date: January, 2011

Dozens of researchers gathered at UT Dallas to focus on ways nanotechnology can address challenging energy-related problems.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the UT Dallas Institute for Intelligent Energy Systems, the meeting involves members of the Computational Materials and Chemical Sciences Network (CMCSN), which fosters collaboration by groups at a variety of institutions on energy-related research projects.

Specific topics will include various aspects of technology supporting next-generation semiconductors, batteries and solar cells. Three days of presentations are taking place through Jan. 22 with participants from the University of Maryland, Georgia Tech, Princeton University, Sandia National Laboratories, Penn State, Rice University, Harvard University, UT Dallas and elsewhere.

Incentives, Risk and Regulation
Date: August, 2010

The School of Management's Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance (IECG) held "Incentives, Risk and Regulation" on August 27 and 28. The IECG's fourth annual symposium, brought together educators and business leaders to share research and experience on incentives -- such as executive-compensation models; risks -- such as professional judgments made in auditing and risk management; and regulation -- such as financial reform.

Corporate Governance Institute Conference: How Effective Boards Create Value
Date: October, 2010

Eighth Annual Corporate Governance Conference Money Well Spent: How Effective Boards Create Value

Conference Overview, October 7, 2010.

As we navigate an uncertain political-economic future, what changes should be contemplated and executed by directors, senior managers, lenders, institutional investors, and service providers to create additional stakeholder value? How must the system of Corporate Governance change to insure creation of stakeholder value? Come and learn from interactive discussions of boardroom practices how to increase board effectiveness and organizational performance.

Live Healthy North Texas 100-day Health Challenge
Type: Initiative for healthy lifestyle choices for students, faculty and staff
Date: January, 2011

In an effort to promote better health among students, faculty and staff, University President David Daniel and Senior Vice President for Business Affairs Calvin D. Jamison will help kick off the Live Healthy North Texas 100-day Challenge by leading a walk across campus Thursday, Jan. 20.

“We all should be proactive in improving our overall health and well-being. The Wellness Program and 100-day Challenge serve as catalysts for the promotion of healthy lifestyles while enhancing the productivity of our employees,” Dr. Jamison said.

Live Healthy North Texas is a team-based weight-loss and physical activity program that directs students and staff toward a healthier lifestyle.

Accounting Seminar:The Choice Between Audit and Consulting Services in the Post-SOX Environment
Date: January, 2011

Dr. Ronen Gal-Or examines factors influencing accounting firms’ and their clients’ decisions to pursue an auditing vs. consulting relationship. He employs the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) prohibition on providing both services to the same clients as a natural experiment. Because Deloitte & Touche was the only Big 4 firm to retain its consulting division post-SOX.

He compares Deloitte’s client switch and retention decisions to those made by its direct competitors. In this context, we will investigate how the decision to continue or terminate an audit relationship is influenced by auditor industry specialization, the historical provision of auditor-provided consulting services and the likelihood that the client will require consulting services in the future. There is a preference for auditing when the auditor is a specialist in the client's industry, and there is a preference for consulting when the auditor-provided consulting services in the past and the client is likely to require consulting services in the future (as proxied by high free cash flow, M&A activity, Debt and Equity issuance activity, and high growth opportunities).

Fraud Investigation Simulation
Type: Simulation
Date: April, 2010

The focus was on ethics and truth in reporting. A fraud investigation simulation, put SOM students under the tutelage of Internal Revenue Service agents April 23 for case studies in crime solving.

About 25 SOM students learned that working undercover, conducting surveillance, interrogating potential witnesses, combing accountingrecords, even rummaging through trash are all in a day's work for forensic accountants who work for the IRS Criminal Investigation unit.

The students participated in the IRS' Adrian Project, an exercise designed to give them hands-on experience solving hypothetical financial crimes. The Center for Internal Auditing Excellence and the IRS partnered to bring the Adrian Project -- held on college campuses nationwide since it piloted at Adrian College in Michigan in 2002 -- to the school.

The New Realities for Business in the Age of Conscious Capitalism
Date: February, 2011

Modern free market capitalism has delivered widespread prosperity, life altering technologies, medical breakthroughs and numerous other benefits over the past two centuries. But it has also devoured huge and irreplaceable chunks of our planet’s resources, created working conditions that are for many people stressful and unfulfilling, and fostered and fed unhealthy appetites and addictions for billions of customers.

It does not have to be that way. This seminar describes an emerging paradigm for business that simultaneously delivers multiple kinds of value and well-being for all stakeholders (including society): financial, intellectual, physical, ecological, social, cultural, emotional and even spiritual. We refer to this new “operating system” for business as “Conscious Capitalism.” It has four essential elements: Higher Purpose, Stakeholder Alignment, Conscious Leadership and Conscious Cultures. Our research has found that business operating in this manner deliver extraordinary financial performance while creating numerous others kinds of positive value for society.

Banking Technology to Scale Microfinance: The Case of Correspondent Banking in Brazil
Date: January, 2011

Dr. Diniz is an Internationally-recognized Academician and expert on Development and Micro Finance. He also serves a Editor of Brazil’s largest and most prestigious journal of Sociology. He will be sharing his work on a public-private initiative to bring a banking system to the Amazon.

Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE)
Date: September, 2010

SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) is an organization that was created with the mission of offering all college students (regardless of major) the opportunity to give back to their communities. Students in SIFE partner with business and education leaders to take lessons learned in the classroom out to local communities in need of assistance. Working with the community, the students develop quality community outreach programs that focus on one or more of six core areas: (1) market economics, (2) entrepreneurship, (3) financial literacy, (4) success skills, (5) environmental sustainability, and (6) business ethics. These projects will be developed and applied with the intent of creating a better business or educational situation for the community. The target group for these projects will be aspiring entrepreneurs, struggling business owners, low-income families, and school children.

Cost-Containment Strategies: new Health Care Bill
Type: Healthcare Forum
Date: March, 2010

McCracken, clinical professor of health care management, made his forecasts at a forum that the School of Management Advisory Council presented two days after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law.

The council asked top local experts to explore health care cost-containment strategies at the March 25 event. Besides McCracken, the panel included J. Darren Rodgers, the president of BlueCross BlueShield of Texas; Britt R. Berrett, the president of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas; and Mike Haefner, Atmos Energy's senior vice president of human resources.

The law firm of Haynes and Boone LLP hosted the speakers at its Dallas headquarters. SOM Advisory Council chairman Terry Conner, the firm’s managing partner, gave welcoming remarks.

KIPP Truth Academy
Type: Outreach to Disadvantaged Youth
Date: March, 2010

The School of Management played host to nearly 50

seventh-graders in March 2010 as members of the Full-Time

MBA shared their skills — and their stories

— with students from the Knowledge Is

Power Program (KIPP) Truth Academy in Dallas. The

one-day event, which included team-building and

networking exercises, was designed to inspire the

KIPP students while showcasing UT Dallas.

“The [MBA] students worked hard to put together

a program that really meant something,” Lisa

Shatz, director of the Full-Time MBA program, said.

“We thought about what skills they might be lacking

that we could help them with.”

The MBA students chose to work on networking

and presentation skills to help the KIPP students

prepare for interviews with high schools.

The KIPP Truth Academy is one in a national network

of free, open-enrollment college preparatory

schools designed to meet the needs of disadvantaged

youth underserved by public school systems. Besides

attending school during the week, students go four

hours on Saturdays and three weeks during the summer.

The Dallas KIPP academy includes fifth- through eighth-graders. Jim Young, a member of the SOM Advisory Council as well as a KIPP board member, introduced Ms. Shatz and

others at SOM to the academy.

UT Dallas Business Idea Competition
Type: Annual Competition
Date: November, 2010

Students at The University of Texas at Dallas can turn their business savvy and initiative into cash every fall by competing in the first UT Dallas Business Idea Competition. The competition offers $36,000 in prizes to student teams that create the best, original new business ideas. The Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE) at UT Dallas is sponsors the contest.

Public Agency Career Fair

School of Management students (graduate and undergraduate) students are invited each Spring to participate in the Public Agency Career Fair. The Career Fair attracts dozen of not-for-profit and governmental agencies seeking new hires.

Career Management Center

The School of Management's Career Management Center is focused on helping each student gain internships or employment in the industry of their choice. Advisors work closely with students, using a variety of assessments, to help the student understand how their backgrounds and interests fit into a variety of business related fields. Advisors are not remiss in helping students seek employment in the not-for-profit sector and are sensitive to students who want positions in companies that incorporate social impact and environment management standards into their operations.

The Leadership Center
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 2
Contact Name: Jerry Hoag
Contact Email: jhoag@utdallas.edu

The mission of the Leadership Center is to establish a globally recognized center for leadership that embodies the core belief that effective and ethical leadership skills and practices can be learned and shared. Also, the center strives to bring together the academic structure and body of knowledge with the practical life experiences of leaders to create an effective learning environment, and to stimulate and fund multidisciplinary research that will advance knowledge and understanding of effective leadership.

Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 8
Contact Name: Constantine Konstans
Contact Email: konstans@utdallas.edu

Programs and research at the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance enhance the abilities of corporate directors, senior management, and institutional investors to effectively and ethically protect and promote the interests of their stakeholders. IECG addresses the inherent conflicts of interest facing corporate directors and senior management. These conflicts often suppress the flow of clear communications between organizations and their stakeholders. One result is the highly visible failures of corporate governance that profoundly undermine investor confidence and depress the capital markets.

Center for Finance Strategy Innovation
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 5
Contact Name: David Springate
Contact Email: spring8@utdallas.edu

The Center for Finance Strategy Innovation focuses on the increasing integration of finance, business strategy, innovation, and on current developments in capital formation and investment. CFSI specializes in business transformations important to the economy, including new ventures, ethics and financial reporting, growth, turnarounds, restructurings and public-private partnerships.

Activities of CFSI involve working with organizations outside the university in search of innovative, strategic, and more productive finance and economic development solutions. We also work with outstanding faculty members. CFSI has attracted policymakers, corporate executives, and administrators alike to its programs, forums, courses, business roundtables and center events.

Pages

A Field Experiment in Charitable Contribution: The Impact of Social Information on the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods
Author(s): Croson, R.; Shang, J.

We study the effect of social information on the voluntary provision of public goods. Competing theories predict that others’ contributions might be either substitutes or complements to one's own. We demonstrate a positive social information effect on individual contributions, supporting theories of complementarities. We find the most influential level of social information is drawn from the 90th to 95th percentile of previous contributions. We furthermore find the effect to be significant for new members but not for renewing members. In the most effective condition, social information increases contributions by 12% ($13). These increased contributions do not crowd out future contributions

Journal Title: Economic Journal Volume: 540 Edition: 119 Page Numbers: 1422-1439
Corporate Lobbying and Injury Claims in Antidumping Cases: Looking into the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act.
Author(s): Lee, S.- H. ; Baik, Y.

Is protection for sale? In this research, we examine the effect of corporate lobbying on the disbursement of proceeds of the recent antidumping petitions under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, the so-called Byrd amendment. With the use of novel U.S. Customs Service data on the disbursements of the antidumping duties to the injured firms, we find that the petitioning firms that spend more on lobbying gain larger proceeds. We conclude that firms that lobby are the ones that get protection, not necessarily the healthy ones.

Journal Title: Journal of Business Ethics Volume: 3 Edition: 96 Page Numbers: 467-478
Current Debates in Global Strategy
Author(s): Mike W. Peng; Erin G. Pleggenkuhle-Miles

Debates help drive research forward. This paper is unique in its review of four currentdebates in the global strategy arena: (1) cultural vs institutional distance; (2) global vs regional geographic diversification; (3) convergence vs divergence in corporate governance; and (4) domestic vs overseas corporate social responsibility. For each debate, the history is tracked and the emerging tension highlighted. By introducing both sides of four lively and timely debates, the paper provides an innovative way of reviewing the literature and helping to advance the field. It is argued that an underlying theme connecting these four diverse debates is the institution-based view of global strategy

Journal Title: International Journal of Management Review Volume: 1 Edition: 11 Page Numbers: 51-68
Influence of ethical beliefs, national culture and institutions on preferences for HRM in Oman
Author(s): Anastasia A. Katou; Pawan S. Budhwar; Habte Woldu

Purpose – The paper seeks to investigate the association between ethical beliefs, aspects of national culture and national institutions, and preferences for specific human resource management practices in the Sultanate of Oman. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 712 individuals working in six organisations (both private and public sectors) responded to a self-administered questionnaire in the Sultanate of Oman. To test the raised research questions of the proposed framework, the methodology of structural equation models was used. Findings – The results highlight significant differences in the belief systems on the basis of different demographic characteristics. The findings also confirm impact of ethical beliefs, and aspects of national culture and national institutions on preferences for human resource management (HRM) practices. Research limitations/implications – Although the goodness-of-fit indexes confirmed the validity of the proposed operational model, some indices were attained at rather flexible levels. Practical implications – Studies on managerial beliefs and values can offer important insights into the extent that work is viewed as an integral life activity. Such information can help differentiate among managerial styles in various cultures, and in predicting managerial behaviour such as ethical decision-making. Based on such understanding, the findings can be used to educate government officials and outside consultants interested in Oman. Originality/value – The study contributes to the accumulation of knowledge about under-researched developing countries such as Oman, as limited data are available on HRM, value orientations and ethical beliefs' issues in this region.

Journal Title: Personnel Review Volume: 6 Edition: 39 Page Numbers: 728-745
Is Doing Good Good for You? How Corporate Charitable Contributions Enhance Revenue Growth
Author(s): Baruch Lev; Christine Petrovits; Suresh Radhakrishnan

This study examines the impact of corporate philanthropy growth on sales growth using a large sample of charitable contributions made by U.S. public companies from 1989 through 2000. Applying Granger causality tests, we find that charitable contributions are significantly associated with future revenue, whereas the association between revenue and future contributions is marginally significant at best. We then identify the mechanism underlying our findings. Our results are particularly pronounced for firms that are highly sensitive to consumer perception, where individual consumers are the predominant customers. In addition, we document a positive relationship between contributions and customer satisfaction. Overall, our evidence suggests that corporate philanthropy, under certain circumstances, furthers firms' economic objectives. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Journal Title: Strategic Management Journal Volume: 2 Edition: 31 Page Numbers: 182-200
The Adoption of Supermajority-Independent Boards in the Post-Enron Era
Author(s): Harrrison, R.

Combining insights from the agency theory and sociopolitical perspectives, this study examines the extent to which factors such as ownership structure, CEO power, and firm performance influence firms' adoption of board independent reform advocated by shareholder activists. Event history analysis using extensive data on 1083 Standard & Poor's 1500 companies from January 2002 to December 2004 shows that firms with more powerful CEO were less likely to adopt supermajority-independent boards, while both poorly performing firms and large firms were more likely to adopt such board structure. We also find that higher institutional block holder ownership increased the likelihood of the adoption in firms managed by less powerful CEOs, while external non-institutional block holder ownership decreased the likelihood of the adoption.

Journal Title: Corporate Ownership and Control Volume: 2 Edition: 8 Page Numbers: 46-62
Trust in Forecast Information Sharing
Author(s): Özer, Özalp; Zheng, Yanchong; Chen, Kay-Yut

This paper investigates the capacity investment decision of a supplier who solicits private forecast information from a manufacturer. To ensure abundant supply, the manufacturer has an incentive to inflate her forecast in a costless, non-binding, and non-verifiable type of communication known as "cheap talk.'' According to standard game theory, parties do not cooperate and the only equilibrium is uninformative -- the manufacturer's report is independent of her forecast and the supplier does not use the report to determine capacity. However, we observe in controlled laboratory experiments that parties cooperate even in the absence of reputation-building mechanisms and complex contracts. We argue that the underlying reason for cooperation is trust. The extant literature on forecast sharing and supply chain coordination implicitly assumes that supply chain members either absolutely trust each other and cooperate when sharing forecast information, or do not trust each other at all. Contrary to this all-or-nothing view, we determine that a continuum exists between these two extremes. In addition, we determine (i) when trust is important in forecast information sharing, (ii) how trust is affected by changes in the supply chain environment, and (iii) how trust affects related operational decisions. To explain and better understand the observed behavioral regularities, we also develop an analytical model of trust to incorporate both pecuniary and non-pecuniary incentives in the game-theoretic analysis of cheap-talk forecast communication. The model identifies and quantifies how trust and trustworthiness induce effective cheap-talk forecast sharing under the wholesale price contract. We also determine the impact of repeated interactions and information feedback on trust and cooperation in forecast sharing. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of our results for developing effective forecast management policies..

Journal Title: Management Science Volume: Edition: Forthcoming Page Numbers: Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1477563
Why do firms bribe? Insights from residual control theory.
Author(s): Lee, S.- H. ; Oh, K.; Eden, L.

This study answers the questions of why firms bribe government officials and why some firms pay higher bribes than other firms. Using insights from residual control theory, we examine how governments exercise residual rights of control through regulation or state ownership of firms, and how these rights affect the payment and size of bribes by firms. We argue that firms vary in their exposure and vulnerability to residual rights of control by government officials, depending on the firms’ characteristics and circumstances. Differences in firms’ exposure and vulnerability to corruption affect their threat point (i.e. ability to walk away) and thus affect which firms pay bribes and bribe size. Our results show that, at the firm level, bribe size depends on how much a government can exercise residual rights of control and the firm’s threat point. At the same time, at the country level, the type of corruption matters; pervasive corruption is positively related, while arbitrary corruption is negatively related, to bribes paid.

Journal Title: Management International Review Volume: 6 Edition: 50 Page Numbers: 775-796