John B. Cullen

The Organizational Bases of Ethical Work Climates.

Using a modification of a recently developed measure of ethical climates, this paper presents evidence from a survey of 872 employees of four firms that ethical cork climates are both multidimensional and multidetermined. The study demonstrates that organizations have distinct types of ethical climates and that there is variance in the ethical within organizations by position, tenure, and workgroup membership. Five empirically derived dimensions of ethical climate are described: law and code, caring, instrumentalism, independence, and rules. Analyses of variance reveal significant differences in ethical climates both across and within firms. A theory of ethical climates is developed from organizational and economic theory to describe the determinants of ethical climates in organizations. In particular, the sociocultural environment, organizational form, and organization-specific history are identified as determinants of ethical climates in organizations. The implications of ethical climate for organizational theory are also discussed.

Success through commitment and trust: the soft side of strategic alliance management

This article argues that the success of international strategic alliances requires attention not only to the hard side of alliance management (e.g., financial issues and other operational issues) but, also, to the soft side. The soft side refers to the development and management of relationship capital in the alliance. Relationship capital consists of the socio-psychological aspects of the alliance that are positive and beneficial to the alliance. Two important areas of relationship capital are mutual trust and commitment. Based on our findings from two major studies of Japanese strategic alliances, we develop a dynamic model of trust and commitment based on mutual adjustments of alliance partners. We also show how the dynamics of trust and commitment affect the performance of international strategic alliances with the Japanese. The article concludes with a discussion of the managerial implications of our findings and the dynamic model.

The Effects of Ethical Climates on Organizational Commitment: A Two-Study Analysis

Although organizational commitment continues to interest researchers because of its positive effects on organizations, we know relatively little about the effects of the ethical context on organizational commitment. As such, we contribute to the organizational commitment field by assessing the effects of ethical climates (Victor and Cullen, 1987, 1988) on organizational commitment. We hypothesized that an ethical climate of benevolence has a positive relationship with organizational commitment while egoistic climate is negatively related to commitment. Results supported our propositions for both a benevolent climate and an egoistic climate. We also hypothesized that a principled climate is positively related to organizational commitment for professional workers but has no relationships for nonprofessional workers. Results supported this hypothesis.

The Ethical Climate Questionnaire: An Assessment of its Development and Validity

The Ethical Climate Questionnaire measures the ethical climates at individual and organizational levels of analysis. With 1,167 individuals tested across three surveys the results at the individual level have suggested strong support for the validity and reliability of the questionnaire However, given the limited number of organizations (n = 12) surveyed, the presence of organizational-level ethical climates remains contestable. This paper reports on the development of the Ethical Climate Questionnaire, includes the results of the latest survey, and contrasts these results with previous findings.

Attribution, Salience, and Attitudes toward Criminal Sanctioning:

Building upon the work of Stinchcombe, Taylor et al., the present research attempts to assess the impact of victimization, salience, and attribution on four measures of criminal sanctioning: general punishment, rehabilitation, capital punishment, and the punishment of white-collar crime. Utilizing a sample drawn from Galesburg, Illinois, our analysis revealed that attitudes were not significantly influenced by being a victim or by crime salience. In contrast, our measure of attribution (what a person “attributed” the cause of crime to) had consistent effects across the scales, with those having a positivist orientation being less punitive and more in favor of rehabilitation. When members of criminal justice related occupations were included in the analysis, these results generally continued to persist. These findings thus suggest that attributional processes and, in particular, the way in which people explain crime may be important determinants of the attitudes that those both inside and outside the criminal justice system hold toward sanctioning policy.

Social Institutions and Work Centrality: Explorations Beyond National Culture

In spite of the popularity of institutional explanations of organizational form, most international management research uses dimensions of national culture to explain cross-national differences in individual work centrality. In this study, we show that social institutions explain variance in work centrality in addition to Hofstedes (2001) dimensions of national culture. Using individual-level data from 30,270 interview respondents from the World Value Survey and institutional data for their 26 countries, we developed hypotheses to investigate whether selected social institutions (i.e., socialism, union strength, educational accessibility, social inequality, and industrialization) affect individual work centrality. We tested our cross-level hypotheses using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Findings showed that all of the social institutional variables studied predicted lower work centrality.

Administrative Reorganization and Configurational Context: The Contingent Effects of Age, Size, and Change in Size

The administrative reorganization of top-level managers in 200 colleges and universities was examined over a ten-year period. Findings showed that organizational size, age, and change in size work in configurations to affect administrative reorganization. Arguments focusing on competing forces for structural change and stability provide explanations for differences in levels of reorganization. These forces originate in countervailing pressures from increased complexity associated with large size, the inertia of old age, and stimuli for change during growth and decline.

Is child saving dead? Attitudes toward juvenile rehabilitation in Illinois

In recent times, juvenile rehabilitation has been attacked both by liberals seeking to insert greater due process rights and protections into the juvenile justice system and by conservatives calling for more stringent handling of serious youthful offenders. The apparent pervasiveness of this attack raises the question, Is the philosophy of child saving dead? Data drawn from a survey conducted in Illinois suggest, however, that juvenile rehabilitation continues to receive support both from the public and from various groups associated with criminal justice practice and policy making. At the same time, there is also support for the notion that young criminals are responsible for their actions and are currently being treated too leniently by our courts. Finally, child saving is embraced most firmly by judges, lawyers, correctional administrators, and prison inmates and least strongly by legislators, prison guards, and the general public.

Does National Culture Affect Willingness to Justify Ethically Suspect Behaviors? A Focus on the GLOBE National Culture Scheme

In this article, we examine the relationship of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness national culture dimensions with the willingness of 27,459 individuals located in 21 nations to justify ethically suspect behaviors. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM), a technique well suited for cross-level studies, is employed to test the hypothesized relationships from data made available by the World Values Survey. Results support our hypotheses with regard to performance orientation, assertiveness, institutional collectivism and humane orientation. However, results surprisingly reject our hypotheses on power distance and uncertainty avoidance. We discuss these counterintuitive findings and elaborate on the study’s implications for both research and practice.

Relational exchange in US‐Japanese marketing strategic alliances

Purpose – To develop and test a new model of relational exchange in marketing‐oriented non‐equity international strategic alliances.Design/methodology/approach – The model is tested using a sample of 97 matched dyads of US and Japanese firms in the electronics industry. The model was tested using three stage least squares.Findings – The data generally support the proposed model for both nations/cultures. The results suggest that the benevolence dimension of trust is a more important determinant of managerially assessed alliance marketing performance for the Japanese firms relative to their US partners.Research limitations/implications – While strong inferences are inhibited by the nature of our data set, our research implies that cultural sensitivity is an important determinant of the credibility and benevolence dimensions of trust and quality information exchange. Also, exchanging quality information is a strong mediator of the trust‐performance relationship.Practical implications – International marketi...