Using ERG Theory as a Lens to Understand the Sharing of Academic Tacit Knowledge

This chapter provides a direct view of the higher education environment in a transition economy. It reports research findings on barriers to sharing knowledge among Vietnamese academic and managerial colleagues, focusing on three factors: time, capital, and management capacity. It draws on data from focus groups and from in-depth interviews of Vietnamese members of faculty from six major universities. A key finding of this study is that work-overload leaves little time for collaborative research. Together with insufficient English skills and bureaucratic management, it contributes to measurable levels of cheating and corruption in education that in turn lead to low quality and quantity of international academic publications and of patents. This finding indicates that there is a strong link with both Existence, Relatedness, and Growth (ERG) theory and Maslow's theory of need with both the quality and quantity of international publications produced by Vietnamese academics.

Corruption, Business Climate, and Economic Growth

Corruption is globally pervasive. Defined as abuse of entrusted power for private gain (Transparency International, 2013), corruption represents a set of economic, social, cultural, and political practices that are secretive and rooted in greed, ambition, or quest for power. This chapter reviews causes of corruption including the macro- and micro-level determinants of corruption such as leadership, management, and organizational culture. Various subjective and objective measures of corruption are discussed. Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index (EFI) are reviewed. The World Bank's Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), Doing Business Indicator (DBI), and World Bank Institute's Governance Indicator (WBI-GI) are also reviewed, as is the role of global anti-corruption agencies and various instruments. Additionally, the relationship between corruption and foreign domestic investment, economic growth, and economic and political institutions are considered, as are anti-corruption intervention strategies for corruption and business ethics training.

A Matter of Justice

A crucial aspect of a fair allocation of scarce resources in hospital is the close cooperation of hospital executives and physicians. This chapter has three aims. Firstly, it provides an analysis of basic elements of medical and hospital executives' ethics. Secondly, it discusses the role of concepts of justice in hospital decision-making. Thirdly, it reflects on process criteria and structures that might support coping with allocation conflicts in hospitals. While hospital executives mainly act according to economic, legal, and strategic considerations, physicians are traditionally obliged to professional ethics codes. These include patient welfare as the primary concern with economic aspects a secondary priority. Therefore, implementing and applying ethical principles for the allocation of scarce resources requires an ongoing constructive discourse between hospital managers and physicians. Furthermore, in order to build trust between the two stakeholders, an effective structure for solving ethical conflicts and a fair decision-making process is paramount.

Risk-Based Selection of Portfolio

This chapter examines the closeness between the optimum portfolio and portfolio selected by an investor who follows a heuristic approach. There may be basically two ways of arriving at an optimum portfolio – one by minimizing the risk and the other by maximizing the return. In this chapter, the authors propose to strike a balance between these two. The optimum portfolio has been obtained through a mathematical programming framework so as to minimize the portfolio risk subject to return constraint expressed in terms of coefficient of optimism (a), where a varies between 0 to 1. Simultaneously, the authors propose to develop four heuristic portfolios for the optimistic and pessimistic investors, risk planners, and random selectors. Given the optimum portfolio and a heuristic portfolio, City Block Distance has been calculated to measure the departure of the heuristic solution from the optimum solution. Based on daily security wise data of ten companies listed in Nifty for the years 2004 to 2008, the authors have obtained that when the value of a lies between 0 to 0.5, the pessimistic investor's decision is mostly closest to the optimum solution, and when the value of a is greater than 0.5, the optimistic investor's decision is mostly near to the optimum decision. Near the point a = 0.5, the random selectors and risk planners' solutions come closer to the optimum decision. This study may help the investors to take heuristic investment decision and, based on his/her value system, reach near to the optimum solution.

The Basic Principles of Competitive Strategy

Firms operate in a more and more complex, dynamic, less predictable environment. This situation requires following different approaches of strategic positioning and strategic planning and developing new patterns of strategic thinking. There are several strategic models and tools. Most of them have advantages and disadvantages. In spite of these limitations, these models must be examined. The purpose of this chapter is to conduct a strategic analysis (external and internal diagnoses). It familiarizes the reader with the forces that shape competition in a company's external environment and then analyzes internal strategic capabilities for identifying strategic sustainable competitive advantage.

Electronic Voting System

Mongolia introduced a new electronic voting system for the first time for the 2012 parliamentary election. E-voting empowers citizens by making voting simpler and providing better opportunities for certain groups of citizens to participate in the election process. The electoral reform was one of the major steps the parliament carried out in order to restore public trust lost in the violent protests against the 2008 parliamentary election results. A free, transparent, and fair electoral system was important to correct the fraud in the old election system. This chapter examines the effectiveness of the mixed system of election, the electronic voting system, and other changes to the electoral system in Mongolia.

Privacy, Trust, and Business Ethics for Mobile Business Social Networks

New information and communication technologies and their integration extend possibilities for high-level human collaboration. Various groups of people can come together according to their private or business interests forming a virtual community through social networks. However, in addition to the positive effects of this technical breakthrough there are dangerous potential side effects using these high-level networked systems; the sensitive personal or business data can be misused. Therefore, privacy has an increasingly important role in social networks and is becoming a significant area related to business ethics taking into consideration the close connection between trust and privacy. The goal of this chapter is to discuss the role and relationships between trust and privacy in mobile (business) social networks and to introduce the possible types of privacy threats and countermeasures in case of online social networks. A short summary on future trends in mobile social networks is also presented.

Technological Mediation in Odissi Dance

The practice of teaching in an online composition class might potentially eliminate interpersonal interactivity in a classroom community. Digital mediation can be problematic for functional collaboration in a virtual class. The problem that online instructors might face is one that some traditional Odissi dance teachers also experience. In order to explore the conflict between tradition and mediations with technology, this study focuses on Odissi, an Indian classical dance, and examines how digital technologies of teaching, like CDs, DVD, online videos, and synchronous videos, are transforming the practice and teaching of this traditional dance. A qualitative research of the field of Odissi dance revealed that technologizing the dance might be unavoidable, but to some practitioners it may be disrupting Odissi's traditional values. This chapter reasserts the position of the teacher in an online pedagogic space and argues that the presence or simulated presence of bodies might be vital in learning and composing collaboratively.

Business Ethics in the Information Age

The Information Age ushered in significant transformations in the manner in which business is done. In particular, the growth of various forms of e-business, from Internet sales and marketing to online financial processing, has been exponential in recent years. Internet technologies provide businesses with the potential to more effectively distribute products and services, to more efficiently manage operations, and to better facilitate the processing of business transactions. The scope of information available to businesses using digital technologies has also radically expanded, allowing companies to better target consumers and market products. However, e-business activities can raise ethical issues as well. As such, scholars and business persons have a responsibility to be aware of the ethical implications of e-business and to promote ethically appropriate forms of e-business. The aim of this chapter is to aid in those enterprises by mapping out some of the major ethical issues connected to e-business.

Mixed Methods Research Online

Contributing to the ongoing debate in research on sensitive issues such as business ethics, this chapter provides a discussion of mixed methods research design, examining the processes and challenges of developing and deploying an online survey tool using technology within an interpretive mixed methods design. This chapter provides pointers on how to deploy this approach through technology to research business ethics using the example of researching ethical mindsets and its components, including spirituality and aesthetics. It is found that mixed methods research is an effective approach because it allows often sensitive issues (i.e. business ethics, aesthetics, spirituality) relating to questioning individuals' inner values and ethical propensities, which are usually subtle and difficult to measure and analyze constructs. While this tool was developed in the Australian context, it has the potential to form a foundation for wider examination and research in business ethics. The chapter contributes to the collective discussion of research methods using a framework that has both practical relevance and theoretical rigor.