International Journal of Global Management Studies
(IJGMS)

Volume 1, Number 1

CONTENTS

International Journal of Global Management Studies - Volume 1 Issue 1 2009

Technological Servicing as a Restructuring Strategy after the Financial Meltdown: Insights from Pre-reform China, Vipin Gupta

An Evaluation of the Consumer Ethnocentric Scale (CETSCALE) Among Chinese Consumers, Yujie Wei, Beverly Wright, Haizhong Wang and Chunling Yu

Job Security and Other Employment Considerations as Predictors of the Organizational Attitudes of IT Professional, Michael Harris, Timothy Klaus, J. Ellis Blanton and Stephen C. Wingreen

International Accounting Curriculum: IFRS Now, IEG 11 Later, Randy M. Reed and Diana K. Pence

Structuring Training for IT Professionals and the Firm: An Application of the Q-Methodology, Stephen C. Wingreen, Cynthia LeRouge and J. Ellis Blanton

Role of Internet Penetration Rate on the Determinants of Website Traffic in Asian Countries, Amit Bhatnagar, Sanjoy Ghose and Vikas Lachhwani

ABSTRACTS

Technological Servicing as a Restructuring Strategy after the Financial Meltdown: Insights from Pre-reform China

Vipin Gupta
Simmons College School of Management, Boston, USA
vipin.gupta@simmons.edu

ABSTRACT
The global financial meltdown has left corporations faced with survival and restructuring challenges of historical proportions. Such challenges are typically faced only once or twice a century, and therefore recent history and experiences of existing leading firms offer limited guidance out of the quandary. One must reach further back in the past to unravel strategies that allowed an entire generation of firms in large nations to evolve. Towards this end, I review models of technological servicing and how they evolved over time, using the case of Pre-reform China between 1644 and 1978. Our findings suggest that institutional efforts to develop technological servicing hindered personalization and value addition. I show how market exchange can build consumer oriented capacity and thus enable more inclusive and sustainable capacity building.

An Evaluation of the Consumer Ethnocentric Scale (CETSCALE) Among Chinese Consumers

Yujie Wei
The University of West Georgia, USA
jwei@westga.edu

Beverly Wright
East Carolina University, USA
wrightb@ecu.edu

Haizhong Wang
Sun Yat-Sen University, P. R. China
wanghzh.05@alum.sem.tsinghua.edu.cn

Chunling Yu
Tsinghua University, P. R. China
yuchl@sem.tsinghua.edu.cn

ABSTRACT
Existing studies use CETSCALE in a variety of research contexts, though the complete scale rarely has been used with Chinese consumers. Drawing on previous consumer ethnocentrism research, this study assesses the internal consistency of the 17-item scale and its relationship with selected demographic variables (age, income, and education) across three groups of consumers from three cities in mainland China. The study also examines the dimensionality of CETSCALE for three types of consumer products (refrigerators, personal computers, and cell phones) made in China and other countries. The results suggest that CETSCALE is valid for use among Chinese consumers. Age, income, and education all influence consumer ratings of CETSCALE. Chinese consumers provide significantly lower ratings of domestic personal computers and cell phones compared with a foreign alternative. However, in this context, the scale is not unidimensional but rather consists of two factors, which casts some doubt on its dimensionality in emerging economies. The study thus contributes to a greater understanding of Chinese consumers’ ethnocentric tendencies.

Job Security and Other Employment Considerations as Predictors
of the Organizational Attitudes of IT Professionals

Michael Harris
Indiana University – Southeast, USA
harris60@ius.edu

Timothy Klaus
Texas A&M- Corpus Christi, USA
tklaus@cob.tamucc.edu

J. Ellis Blanton
University of South Florida, USA
eblanton@coba.usf.edu

Stephen C. Wingreen
Northwestern State University of Louisiana
wingreen@bellsouth.net

ABSTRACT
The globalization of the Information Technology workforce has created a labor market with fluctuating demand. This poses questions both for researchers concerned with the organizational impacts of changing labor markets and for managers who face new challenges over how to manage their internal IT workforce. Labor market changes such as outsourcing and off-shoring can create concerns about job security, which in turn may affect IT professionals’ organizational attitudes, which are known to have positive impacts on productivity and retention, among others. Within the framework of psychological contract theory, this study employs field survey methods with SEM analysis, this paper demonstrates that job security and beliefs about compensation and external job opportunities of IT professionals are predictors of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The results have implications for both researchers and practitioners with regard to the structure of employment arrangements.

Key Words: Job Security, Employment Considerations, Organizational Attitudes, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment

INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING CURRICULUM: IFRS NOW, IEG 11 LATER?

Randy M. Reed
Northwestern State University of Louisiana
reedr@nsula.edu

Diana K. Pence
University of Houston-Downtown
penced@uhd.edu

ABSTRACT
The internationalization of business has now been extended to accounting. The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently studying the International Financial Reporting Standards to determine if and when to implement them. Speculation exists as to whether international Information Technology (IT) concepts will follow. One group that has addressed this topic is the International Federation of Accountants. They issued a series of International Educational Guidelines 11 (IEG 11) in 1995, 1999, and 2003. Are American academics familiar with the international IT guidelines for accountants? This paper addresses the question by surveying systems professors about their perceptions of IT needs as addressed by components of IEG 11.

Structuring Training for IT Professionals and the Firm: An Application of the Q-Methodology

Stephen C. Wingreen
Northwestern State University of Louisiana, USA
wingreen@bellsouth.net

Cynthia LeRouge
Saint Louis University, USA
lerougec@slu.edu

J. Ellis Blanton
University of South Florida, USA
eblanton@coba.usf.edu

ABSTRACT
Both IT professionals and the firms that employ them are constantly and pervasively challenged by the rapid pace of technology innovation. IT professionals must assess and continuously maintain their competencies with a view toward both the dynamic landscape of the IT profession and their own long-term career goals. However, it is difficult to prescribe and set standard, fixed training and career paths in a dynamic IT profession. Since any given IT training program represents the catalyst by which IT professionals develop the necessary competencies for their chosen career goals, it is of primary significance to establish whether distinctive training preferences exist among IT professionals, and how these preferences are related to desired roles (e.g. database administrator, systems analyst, project manager) in their career path. Hence, our research goals are to 1) identify the distinct training preferences among the IT profession and 2) determine how training preferences are related to IT career paths. The Q-methodology is employed to determine how IT professionals manifest their training priorities and preferences in shared training types. The Q-methodology is preferred in research where subjective opinion is to be explored with the goal of developing a typology, since it correlates the individual viewpoints of people rather than correlating variables selected in advance by the researchers. The results demonstrate the existence of five unique IT training "types", and that these training types are correlated with IT career paths.

Role of Internet Penetration Rate on the Determinants of Website Traffic in Asian Countries

Amit Bhatnagar
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
amit@uwm.edu

Sanjoy Ghose
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
sanjoy@uwm.edu

Vikas Lachhwani
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
vikas@uwm.edu

ABSTRACT

An important task of website administrators is to draw consumers to their websites. Resource constraints may require choosing between online advertising through links on third party websites or enhancing the range of product/information on the website to draw more customers. In this paper we hypothesize that the first approach would succeed in countries that are at a later stage of Internet adoption and the second approach would succeed in countries that are at an early stage of Internet adoption. We use secondary data regarding top websites from several Asian country websites to provide empirical support to our hypotheses.