We present two studies that examine the effects of guanxi on multiple social groups from the perspective of Chinese business people. Study 1 (N = 203) tests the difference in perceived effects of six guanxi contextualizations. Study 2 (N = 195) examines the duality of guanxi as either helpful or harmful to social groups, depending on the contextualization. Findings suggest guanxi may result in positive as well as negative outcomes for focal actors and the aggregate.

One challenge that globalization has brought to business is that firms, as they expand their market globally through cross-border alliances, need to deal with partner firms from countries of different religious background. The impact of a country’s dominant religion on its firms’ international market entry mode choices has not been examined in traditional approaches. Focusing on hypothesizing the influence of Christian beliefs and atheism (i.e., the absence of belief in any deities), this research aims to fill the gap by exploring (...) religion’s role in providing moral restraint on managers’ propensity for opportunism, which in turn affects these managers’ choices of their firms’ international market entry via non-equity alliances or joint ventures. A study of 22,156 cross-border alliances formed in 48 industries world-wide over 9 years provides new insight toward understanding religion’s influence on firms’ international market entry mode decisions through the ethical dimension of strategic leadership. (shrink)

A major challenge in global sales research is helping managers understand sales ethics across countries. Addressing this challenge, our research investigates whether a few demographic variables and psychographic variables reduce unethical sales behaviors (USBs) in Canada, Mexico, and the USA. Further, using literatures associated with business ethics, national culture, and customer orientation advocacy, we hypothesize why sales managers should expect similarities and differences in USBs between countries. We tested hypotheses using a sales contest scenario and six USBs, examining survey responses (...) from 948 business-to-business salespeople of a multinational company’s sales force in Canada, Mexico, and the USA. The results reveal that several psychographic variables (such as commitment, relationship to sales manager, and achievement need) affect salespeople’s tendency to engage in USBs differently in each country. In addition, business ethics, individualism, and customer orientation advocacy associated with each country can be used to anticipate similarities and differences in USBs between countries. This research offers important theoretical contributions and implications for more effectively managing sales forces and reducing USBs across countries. (shrink)

A line of research is emerging investigating the private sector impacts and dependencies on critical biodiversity and ecosystem services, and related business risks and opportunities. While the ecosystem services narrative is being forwarded globally as a key paradigm for promoting business sustainability, there is scarce knowledge of how these issues are considered at managerial level. This study thus investigates managerial views of corporate sustainability after the ecosystem services concept. We analyse interviews conducted with 20 managers from domestic and international forestry (...) companies operating with a plantation-based business model in China. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data, with a focus on four key areas: interviewee familiarity with the ecosystem services concept; their views of corporate dependencies and impacts on ecosystem services; related business risks and opportunities; and viability of existing instruments and practices that can be employed in detecting and addressing business impacts and dependencies on ecosystem services. Through an inductive approach to the empirical findings, we refined a framework that holds operational value for developing company response strategies to ecosystem services impact/dependence assessment, ensuring that all issues are addressed comprehensively, and that related risks and opportunities are properly acknowledged. (shrink)

This paper recounts the efforts of a Bioethics student to understand the experience of human subjects of medical research in Kenya. Although the endeavor resulted in more questions than answers, it served to highlight areas where the current system of protections has failed to secure the well-being of those involved. It concludes that, in addition to existing considerations, ethical review ought to include another kind of information: that which can be gained only from listening to the feelings and experiences related (...) by subjects themselves. (shrink)

Our research in China does not show gender differences in insecure attachment patterns. We believe that cultural differences between Chinese and Western societies may help to explain this phenomenon. Mating and parenting circumstances in China do not allow males to adopt a zero-investment strategy. In addition, attachment styles are transmitted across generations and last for the whole lifespan. Here, we argue that the influence of mating and parenting on the well-developed attachment patterns in childhood is relatively small.

The propositional nature of human associative learning is strongly supported by studies of trace eyeblink and fear conditioning, in which awareness of the contingency of a conditioned stimulus upon an unconditioned stimulus is a prerequisite for successful learning. Studies of animal lesion and human imaging suggest that the hippocampus is critical for establishing functional connections between awareness and trace conditioning.

Humor and social dilemmas are two disparate areas that have been linked to emotions. However, they tend to have been studied apart from considerations of emotion and emotional expression. We provide an overview of how such areas might be illuminated by Vigil's socio-relational framework, and how capacity and trustworthiness are communicated in humor and social dilemmas.

Dynamical simulations of male and female mating strategies illustrate how traits such as restrictedness constrain, and are constrained by, local ecology. Such traits cannot be defined solely by genotype or by phenotype, but are better considered as decision rules gauged to ecological inputs. Gangestad & Simpson's work draws attention to the need for additional bridges between evolutionary psychology and dynamical systems theory.

An experiment examined goal understanding and how perceivers’ suspiciousness was associated with the accuracy, valence, and certainty of their inferences about a pursuer’s goal. In initial interactions, one dyad member was randomly assigned as the pursuer, and the other was the perceiver. The congruency of the perceiver’s and the pursuer’s conversation goals and the perceiver’s cognitive busyness were manipulated. Results confirmed that accuracy decreased as perceivers’ suspiciousness increased only for not-busy perceivers in the goal-discord condition because perceivers’ inferences were negatively (...) valenced. Results also supported the hypotheses that certainty decreased as perceivers’ suspiciousness increased only for not-busy perceivers in the goal-discord condition and that certainty increased as perceivers’ suspiciousness increased both for not-busy perceivers in the identical-goal condition and for busy perceivers in the goal-discord condition. (shrink)