Philip DesAutels

The impact of country connectedness and cultural values on the equity of a country’s workforce: A cross-country investigation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the impact that country connectedness and cultural values have on the equity afforded to a country’s workforce in today’s global economy. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing upon a number of large international surveys of national-level metrics, e-readiness is identified as a proxy measure for country connectedness. Cultural variables are proxied by the World Values Survey’s national-level scores on “survival/self-expression” and “traditional/secular-rational” values. Workforce equity is captured via three measures: per capita Gross National Income (GNI) based on purchasing power parity (PPP), a Gini-coefficient, and the prevalence of child labor. Stepwise regression analysis is employed to investigate expected relationships. Findings – Results suggest an interesting link between the constructs investigated. A negative and significant effect of e-readiness and a negative and significant effect of traditional/secular-rational values on workforce equity a...

It is emergent: five propositions on the relationship between creative consumers and technology

Drawing on four research papers and case studies, this paper explores the interaction between creative consumers and technology. While prior research has taken either a technology ‘push’ stance (technology shapes consumers) or a ‘pull’ posture (technology results from identifying consumer needs), the view adopted here is that the interplay between technology and consumers is mostly non-linear and emergent. From Facebook, where the consumer is the product, to user generated information systems (UGIS) where the consumers creates the product; and from Rev Billy who uses technology to creatively deconstruct consumption to mobile phones where technology is enabling the creative consumer, there is much to learn about how technology and creative consumers interact. Using these case studies five researchable propositions regarding technology and creative consumers are developed and illustrated, and it is hoped that these propositions can serve as guides to future research in this interesting and important developing domain of scholarship.