Kamal Haddad

Are Articles in “Top” Management Journals Necessarily of Higher Quality?

This study investigates the appropriateness of using publication of an article in a top (specifically, top five) management journal as a proxy for its quality. Social Science Citation Index citation counts were collected over 7-year event windows for articles published in 34 management journals in 1993 and 1996. Overall, the authors found that articles published in the five journals most often considered to be the top ones in management tend to be cited more often than ones published in the other journals. Far more important, however, across three different criteria for placing articles into top versus non-top categories, there were substantial classification errors from using journal ranking as a proxy for quality. This finding suggests that both administrators and the management discipline will be well served by efforts to evaluate each article on its own merits rather than abdicate this responsibility by using journal ranking as a proxy for quality.

Human Resource Management, Job Satisfaction, Morale, Optimism, and Turnover

ABSTRACT This article examines the usage of nine human resource management (HRM) practices among 46 hotels in San Diego. Results showed that the hotels in the sample use training and development to bring employees up to an acceptable level of performance, and then rely on allowing employee a voice to keep them engaged. Usage of HRM varied by hotel types (e.g., resorts vs. economy), and the practices had a statistically significant relationship with job satisfaction, morale, and optimism about the future of the hotel. These attitudes, in turn, were significantly related to turnover intentions. Implications of the results are discussed.

Continuous Improvement in Business Education: Insights From the For-Profit Sector and Business School Deans

Abstract Like the enterprises that hire their graduates, business schools are facing rising pressure to increase the value added by their services. To meet this challenge in an era of tightening resources, business schools will need to undergo fundamental changes in the way they operate and continuously seek ways to create future value. This article explains the balanced scorecard approach to stimulating and sustaining continuous improvement. It also reports the opinions of 38 business school deans on the structure of a potentially useful balanced scorecard for a business school. Favorable results were reported in the for-profit sector, and business schools will likely find this approach to be worthy of serious consideration.

Corporate culture and its relation to performance: a comparative study of Taiwanese and US manufacturing firms

This study contributes exploratory evidence on the relationships between corporate culture and company size, competitive environment and corporate performance in the U.S. and Taiwan. The findings indicate that environmental uncertainty – one aspect of industry dynamics – failed to uncover any widespread effects of this variable on Taiwanese firms’ corporate culture. In contrast, not only did we find that the corporate cultural aspects most valued differed from country to country, but that they related to corporate performance in different ways.

Opportunities for Finance Faculty to Obtain Experience for Teaching and Research Enrichment

Abstract Firsthand practical business experience is an important element of teaching. The demands of a teaching post, however, make it difficult to devote an extended period of time to obtaining practical experience. Shortterm opportunities such as consulting, outside teaching, and corporate internships may bridge the gap, but there is no database to assist faculty in locating such opportunities. Reported here is a survey that collected data from a sample of finance faculty regarding the ways in which finance academics have obtained experience in these three areas and their evaluation of the contribution these experiences have made to their roles as educators.

To what extent do articles published in other than “top journals” have impact on marketing?

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the relevance and limitations of using a top journal approach as a proxy for an articles value or contribution. Design/methodology/approach – The authors determined the citations for all articles published in 2001 and 2003 in 26 key marketing journals included in the Social Science Citation Index and 50 journals included in Google Scholar to rate the impact of a specific article. They also assessed these articles to examine the source of citations, as a way of measuring impact. Findings – This study indicates that articles published in the journals most often considered the top three or four in marketing are cited by others significantly more often than the ones published in the other journals. However, the authors found substantial misclassification errors from using publications in these “top” journals to infer a top article status across three different criteria for defining a top article. Originality/value – These findings strongly support the need to...

The roles of self‐interest and ethical reasoning in project continuance decisions: a comparative study of US and the People’s Republic of China

This study aims to advance the understanding, in a cross‐cultural context, of the roles that ethical vs. self‐interest considerations play in project continuation decisions. Fifty‐eight executive MBA students from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) completed a project continuation decision using an instrument previously employed by Harrell and Harrison (1994) on U.S. subjects, and Harrison, Chow, Wu and Harrell (1999) on Chinese nationals from Taiwan. Results indicated that while the PRC subjects generally had a lower tendency than these other groups to continue an unprofitable project, they still tended towards continuance. Further analysis revealed that the PRC subjects’ decisions were motivated by an emphasis on their self‐interest as well as ethical considerations. The role of self interests in the PRC subjects’ decisions seems consistent with recent claims that China’s new market ethic is shifting people towards emphasizing their own economic welfare over that of the collective entity. Also of substantive interest was that as compared to their U.S. counterparts, the PRC subjects’ ethical reasoning had a different structure. The relative impacts of their ethical reasoning dimensions also differed from those from their U.S. counterparts.

The efficiency and effectiveness of commonly used cost variance investigation rules

Abstract Most large manufacturing firms select cost variances for investigation by using cutoffs of fixed amounts or fixed percentages of the standard. This paper reports simulation results that these two commonly used rules are effective, but not efficient, in identifying out-of-control situations. Also, both rules are susceptible to an ex post selection bias and tend to erroneously indicate shifts in cost means. In contrast, while random sampling was neither effective nor efficient, it provided a much more accurate picture of the underlying cost means. These results suggest that it may be desirable to use different selection rules to support different aspects (e.g., standard setting versus performance evaluation) of the control process.

A CROSS-NATIONAL TEST OF THE ROLE OF SELF-INTEREST ON PROJECT CONTINUATION DECISIONS

Prior escalation research (Harrison & Harrell, 1993; Harrell & Harrison, 1994) has supported the prediction that when a project manager has private information and an incentive to shirk (i.e. To protect his/her reputation) he/she will have a greater tendency to continue an unprofitable project than a manager who faces only one or neither of these conditions. Harrison et al. (1999) extended this line of research across cultures to Chinese nationals in Taiwan. The purpose of this paper is to extend the cross-national direction of this line of research by: (1) determining if Mexican nationals who have private information and an incentive to shirk have this same general propensity to continue an unprofitable project when compared to Mexican nationals who experience neither condition, and (2) comparing this general tendency with a sample of U.S. Subjects. The results of this study indicate that the Mexican subjects in the private information, incentive to shirk group also had a tendency to continue unprofitable projects at a rate similar to their U.S. Counterparts. The implications of these results are discussed.