The Role of Communication in Business Decision Making

The contemporary world bears the mark of a great development process that triggers new challenges and opportunities. In order to evolve, organizations and their members must constantly adapt to this ever-changing environment and, in this regard, communication and feedback play a major role. This chapter deals with the importance of communication, in general, and of internal communication and feedback, in particular, within organizations. The theoretical part of the chapter tackles several important issues related to communication and feedback, such as definitions, models and types of communication, the main barriers to effective communication, and feedback within organizations. The second part of the chapter is focused on a study analyzing the answers to a questionnaire administered to the employees of an insurance company, in order to assess its internal communication and to find correlations between the satisfaction degree resulted from the communication process and the way of viewing the organization's efficiency.

Business Ethics and Cost Management in SMEs

This chapter illustrates aspects of business ethics and cost management applicable to small and medium-sized entities. The main objectives of this chapter are to identify and clarify ethical issues and business ethics theories applicable to small and medium-sized entities as well as to identify the functions and principles underpinning the cost management of small and medium-sized entities. Based on the literature, the authors also identify the factors that generate the ethical behavior, the organizational culture, the factors that influence the cost management of small and medium entities. There are also highlights of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility through which small and medium-sized entities align with the expectations and requirements of customers, the population and investors. Through the authors' contribution, a new conceptual and empirical framework is created to discuss other issues encountered in the business environment of small and medium-sized entities.

The Effects of Supervisor Performance Feedback on Employee Satisfaction in Romanian Enterprises

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of supervisor performance feedback, in terms of positive and negative communication behaviors and overall satisfaction, as perceived by the employees. The authors used a regression which revealed that the main purpose of the research model is to determine the best prediction for the dependent variable by giving a number of new values to the predictors. A clear additive effect of performance work on each of the employee perceptions on job intensity, stressors, and different forms of employee commitments is obtained by SPSS 13. At the same time, this model noted the necessity of explaining the behavior of a dependent variable, taking into account the factors that determine it. The results suggest that the supervisors' use of specific performance feedback may assist managers to implement a higher ratio of positive-to-negative communications with their employees. The implications of this study, as well as directions for future research, are also addressed.

Librarians and the Evolving Research Needs of Distance Students

Well-developed research skills are essential to a student's educational success. Students, who have not known a world without internet access often feel their research skills are good enough but usually fail to determine what the best information is and how to find it most efficiently. They have been raised in a world of instant access and instant gratification. Today we can book flights, buy cars and communicate across the globe with a keystroke. But asking Google for an answer is not equivalent to doing research. While these tools are constantly improving, and in our lifetimes will replace the need for research skills, the time has not yet come. Today our students still have a need for finding reliable scholarly information and online library research classes and services are the best methods for providing students with the skills they need to succeed. Designing, implementing, and teaching library research classes and embedding online research services into all online class offerings allows librarians to communicate research skills that meet our students at their point of need.

CSR Initiatives

The authors propose an analysis of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) concept together with an emphasis on the role it plays in the context of sustainable development. As this is a concept with a relatively brief history in the Romanian business environment, the authors include references to relevant papers in the specialised literature throughout this chapter. The chapter includes a synthesis of the various theoretical approaches to CSR, an overview of the CSR practices development at national and international level, certain authors' for and against arguments related to generalising these practices, trends regarding CSR practices at international level, as well as an analysis of the CSR practices in Romania. The research conclusions express own points of view on the development of corporate social responsibility initiatives at company level and the related benefits thereof.

Online Advertising

This study expands previous models of avoidance on online advertising, in particular, Cho and Cheon's (2004) model, and examines two new dimensions on why people avoid advertising on the Internet. The study presents a comprehensive theoretical model and examines seven exogenous latent variables based on structural equation modeling, SEM. By using SEM, we found that seven latent variables including user-perceived ad quality, internet life style, primary motives, gender differences (initial ad avoidance), perceived ad clutter, prior negative experience, and perceived goal impediment (further ad avoidance) collectively explain why people avoid advertising on the Internet. We found that avoidance has two key dimensions “initial ad avoidance” and “further ad avoidance.”

Ethical Dilemma of the Digital Divide in the Threshold of Social Inequalities in Africa

Despite the ubiquitous nature of the internet in our daily lives today, the digital divide discourse in Africa highlights the inequitable social distribution of ICT access. The failure to have equitable social access to ICT tools, or a lack of skills to operate them, clearly depicts a technological predicament and a metaphor that questions the social gaps between humans that can access and use the web, and those that cannot. Relying on content analysis of extensive literature on the digital divide, this paper explores the notion of digital divide social inequalities in Africa, especially as it concerns how it should be understood, valued and managed. Findings, reveals that though the new information technologies are rapidly changing lives of a small but growing number of people across Africa, decisions on content, knowledge and participation excludes Africans. The digital divide therefore, has the potential to create, perpetuate and exacerbate morally objectionable conditions that can replicate poverty, construct exclusion and foregrounds social inequality in many African societies.

The Typological and Psychological Features of the Entrepreneur and Their Impact on Ethical Behavior

Throughout the knowledge-based human society development, the human factor in organizational management has become a competitive factor due to its professional competence and social skills. The authors of this research have set the aim of characterizing the entrepreneur from the social-psychological perspective that influences his/her ethical behavior. The authors have dealt with the typological and psychological traits from a theoretical perspective, have summarized the concept of temperament and character showing that there is interaction between them; also, they have characterized and classified them into groups, providing several examples. In the practical part, the authors conducted tests on students at the Technical University of Moldova using psychological evaluation tests of temperament and character, proposed by scholars well-known in this field.

Regulatory Compliance, Ethical Behaviour, and Sustainable Growth in Nigeria's Telecommunications Industry

This chapter examines regulatory compliance, ethical behaviour and sustainable growth in Nigeria's telecommunications industry. It provides perspectives on the vexed issues of poor quality of service (QoS) that seems to have defied all practical solutions, unsolicited messages and the fleecing of subscribers by the mobile network operators, and other unfair business practices pervading the industry. The chapter wades through the controversy surrounding regulations and sanctions, and condemns the flagrant disregard for industry regulations by the mobile network operators whose actions are propelled by the runaway profit, which currently drives the stiff competition in the telecommunications industry. Based on the issues and problems articulated in this work, the chapter recommended among others, that the regulator should continue to engage the mobile network operators and other stakeholders in a robust dialogue aimed at finding lasting solution to the challenges impeding the growth of the telecommunications industry in Nigeria.

Ethical Behavior and the Development Paradigm

Marketplace ethical behaviour is quite difficult to practice because it stands at cross purposes with commercial objectives. Both companies and consumers look for short term benefits in preference over practices that are sustainable or planet friendly. The thinking that dominates development economics globally is to buy, use and throw. Companies like to launch new products all the time encouraging consumers to buy new and bigger models, packaged attractively, on which margins are higher, throwing away perfectly fine and working products. Ethical behaviour – whether it is sourcing of raw materials to paying workers adequately – entails additional costs and efforts. Modifying behaviour or inculcating long term thinking is not an easy task. This chapter looks at existing behaviour both of companies and consumers. It also describes ways in which business and government policy needs to change to encourage long-term thinking in society to change lifestyles across the board.