Susan H. Godar

Going international without going international: multinational virtual teams

This case study of a multinational virtual team project tells how students have collaborated to write a paper in country dyads. Spanning our experience over five semesters, the paper shows how students can participate in an actual cross-cultural learning alliance within the normal curriculum. In this project, students are partnered with students from another country and jointly analyze the marketing of a product in the two countries. Communicating by E-mail and the Web, they work together in virtual teams to complete this task. Analyzing the benefits--and the problems--such collaborative efforts present for our students, we offer suggestions for professors who might like to design and administer a similar project. We find that the effectiveness of such projects is dependent on the professor/instructors ability to help students overcome barriers to successful intercultural communications, not on mastery of technology.

USE OF COLOR AND RESPONSES TO COMPUTER-BASED SURVEYS '

Mean answers by 217 students to an affective questionnaire, the Mach IV survey, did not vary with the use of different background and font colors when the survey was presented online in a computer lab. They indicated, however, that background color may be associated with rate and within-condition variability of response.

How Not to Make Ethical Decisions: Guidelines from Management Textbooks

Since 1974, business programs have responded to the AACSBs requiring enhancement of instruction in ethics. One way has been through the integration of ethics coverage across departments. In Management, the introductory textbooks that provide coverage of ethics often attempt to simplify for students the process of making ethics decisions by presenting guidelines or tests. We examine two such guidelines, the TV and significant others tests, and discuss their myriad severe deficiencies. Specific ways in which four of the stakeholders in this issue – authors, publishers, instructors, and business schools – can respond to these deficiencies are suggested.

Competing Against DIY

Abstract In some professional Services markets, the consumer is faced with the decision of whether to use a professional provider or perform the task him self. In this paper we explain the drivers for a consumer to use a professional Service provider rather than choosing to become a do-it-yourselfer. Using immigration law as an example, we suggest some of the ways in which the provider of a Service can market when the competition is a potential-DIY.