Business Reality Research Articles

Should executives go to jail over cybersecurity breaches?

ABSTRACTThe Consumer Data Protection Act, a new bill introduced by Senator Ron Wyden, is proposing “jail time of up to 20 years for executives who knowingly sign off on incorrect or inaccurate annual certifications of their companies’ data-security practices.” The bill also recommends that companies be fined “up to 4 percent of their annual revenue.” While the critics consider the penalties too harsh and severe, the proposed legislation reflects two key realities – a) active involvement and commitment of senior management is essential to achieving a high level of cybersecurity preparedness; and b) legislation and fear of severe penalties (such as Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation) is often necessary to motivate desired organizational behavior. In an increasingly digital ecosystem characterized by high levels of electronic connectivity, vulnerability to cyberattacks is growing. Organizations are in a perpetual state of breach with rapidly expanding attack surfaces and evolving threat vectors. Protecting confidential data and related digital assets is becoming critical to survival and success. Senior management must come to terms with this new business reality and give strategic priority to cybersecurity preparedness and investments. Research finds active involvement of top management in cyber risk mitigation initiatives to be a critical success factor and best practice. The onus is also on senior management to create a high-performance security culture founded on three key cornerstones – commitment, preparedness, and discipline. They also must lead the charge in establishing a cybersecurity governance structure characterized by joint ownership, responsibility, and accountability.

Focus on process and outcome in footwear design education

Academic education has as one of the main objectives to provide tools that allow students to integrate the labor market. However, the labor market, mostly made up of companies, claims that students are not equipped with the tools necessary to the specifics of each type of industry. Footwear design is one of the areas where industry demands a closer approximation of theory and practice, taught in an academic environment, with business reality. In this context, a learning process was applied close to the business reality of the footwear industry and with the particularity of being focused not only on the know how to apply the process, but also on how to apply it so that results in academic environment are at the levels of the industry needs. In this context two questions were placed: How can we approach new graduates in footwear design to real needs of industry? And, how can we teach the design process based on practical exercises focused on the outcome? To find answers, a method was settled with seven operational phases where several knowledge of different areas work in a coordinated way in order to reach practical results in the different areas of intervention.

Corporate Governance in Manufacturing and Management with Analysis of Governance Failures at Enron and Volkswagen Corporations

Good corporate governance is important in management of all organizations. It gives direction to an organization in matters of accountability, integrity and quality of product and service offerings in the wake of stiff competition and conflicting stakeholder interests. Business challenges and realities create conditions that favor governance failure through unethical conduct hence the need for regulations in addition to self-governance. Business ethics in business and manufacturing helps organizations in making ethically critical decisions. Corruption is a significant indicator of governance failure and involves illegal activities, criminal activities that are both financial and non-financial abuses and benefits. Corporate governance should provide a framework upon which organizations are hence creates order and harmony between various stakeholders. Good corporate governance improves organization’s image as a self-policing institution that is responsible and honest. Whereas self-regulations looks more attractive for free market economies, legislation and control is necessary since not all managers believe and act within good corporate governance. The board of directors should set the strategic objectives and provide leadership for realization and supervise the management and report to shareholders on their leadership. The Enron Corporation and Volkswagen scandals demonstrated that severe consequences result from failed corporate governance in form monetary and non-monetary that affect both perpetrators and the innocent. Where corporate governance fails, major indicators include, manipulation of financial records, corruption, poor quality products and exaggerated quality specifications in manufacturing and engineering, high staff turnover, lack of transparency and accountability, poor stakeholder relationship, poor performance and low economic development leading widespread poverty and social disorder. External enforcement should be considerate to genuine stakeholder interests to avoid legislation that will encourage cheating for survival. Perpetrators of governance failure, should be punished both as individually and as organizations to set an example to others in the form of penalties that are reasonably high to discourage noncompliance.

Shifting business models in the electronic gaming industry - from publisher backing to co-creation and crowdfunding

The electronic gaming industry is in a process of massive change from publisher-based to artist-led-distribution. Still, insights into how this shift of paradigm plays out are largely absent from the academic literature. This paper studies the changing business model in the electronic gaming industry on the example of the game Rouge Stormers by the German indie game developer Black Forest Games. The studio worked on their title from 2006 to the present day during a time of far-reaching changes in the electronic game industry. The move-over to the new business reality led through turbulent times as publishers struggled to commercialise their projects and many went bankrupt. Also the technological change led to fading interests in consoles and required adjustments. The crowdfunding platform kickstarter was an entry point, but a previously failed project scared off potential publishers. Also, funding for the entire development process is impossible to acquire as the required capital is too high. A combination of crowdfunding with early access, a platform that specialises on early commercialisation of games, proved successful. The paper demonstrates that the paradigm shift especially for small game developers is a messy trial-and-error process that threatens their very existence.

Shifting business models in the electronic gaming industry - from publisher backing to co-creation and crowdfunding

The electronic gaming industry is in a process of massive change from publisher-based to artist-led-distribution. Still, insights into how this shift of paradigm plays out are largely absent from the academic literature. This paper studies the changing business model in the electronic gaming industry on the example of the game Rouge Stormers by the German indie game developer Black Forest Games. The studio worked on their title from 2006 to the present day during a time of far-reaching changes in the electronic game industry. The move-over to the new business reality led through turbulent times as publishers struggled to commercialise their projects and many went bankrupt. Also the technological change led to fading interests in consoles and required adjustments. The crowdfunding platform kickstarter was an entry point, but a previously failed project scared off potential publishers. Also, funding for the entire development process is impossible to acquire as the required capital is too high. A combination of crowdfunding with early access, a platform that specialises on early commercialisation of games, proved successful. The paper demonstrates that the paradigm shift especially for small game developers is a messy trial-and-error process that threatens their very existence.

Francisco de Vitoria, economista: comentario a la cuestión De usuris

En este trabajo se analiza el comentario de Francisco de Vitoria a la cuestión De usuris de la Suma de Teología. Conforme a la explicación aristotélica, el dinero es estéril por naturaleza por lo que la usura vulnera la equidad natural que debe regir todo contrato. La tensión entre la reprobación de la usura y la “realidad empresarial” que obtiene los recursos que precisa pagando un interés, produce, tanto los diversos subterfugios que Vitoria describe, como verdaderas innovaciones financieras que retan la capacidad analítica de la teoría escolástica sobre los títulos extrínsecos.

¿Fue escotista la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares? A propósito de una afirmación de Marcel Bataillon

El artículo estudia la fundación de la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares en el contexto de la reforma político-eclesiástica promovida por los Reyes Católicos y por el propio Cardenal Cisneros, su fundador. Posteriormente se presentan dos disputas suscitadas por Marcel Bataillon en relación con la Universidad de Alcalá: la primera, sobre el carácter eclesiástico o humanístico de la misma; la segunda, sobre la hipotética pretensión cisneriana de introducir por su medio el escotismo en España.

Sukuk model determinant as funding strategy of Islamic Bank in Indonesia

The Sukuk issued by Islamic banks in Indonesia has high flexibility and is a unique strategy in funding but in its implementation still faces many determinants that need to be identified. This research uses a qualitative approach and the type of research is exploratory with case study method. The research finds seven determinants of sukuk as an alternative source of fundraising. In fact, these 7 determinants are obstacles to the issuance of sukuk, so that Islamic banks in the issuance of sukuk tend to choose to become Special Purpose Vehicle and or as a selling agent of sukuk. If it is related to a special project, the Islamic bank will develop public fund raising with mudharabah-muqayadah contract. The sukuk model that is suitable and sought by investors in Islamic banks is sukuk based on revenue sharing which is partnership contract. It is since partnership sukuk yield reflects business reality and economic cycle so that it is fair for the owner of fund and fund manager.

Clasificación de las empresas familiares en base a sus valores

Tradicionalmente se ha clasificado a las EF en función de su estructura, tamaño, propiedad, etc.; pero han sido pocos los estudios basados en los valores de la empresa familiar, aspecto clave y determinante para establecer el grado de familiaridad de estas organizaciones. Por ello planteamos una tipología propia centrada en los valores del grupo familiar dominante sobre tres dimensiones fundamentales (propiedad, dirección y continuidad) que nos ha permitido clasificar a las EF en tres grandes grupos diferenciados: pura, mixta (propietaria y directiva) y profesionalizada. Utilizando una muestra de 112 empresas familiares españolas, nuestros resultados demuestran que las EF se diferencian en función de los valores del grupo familiar dominante, siendo la propiedad el atributo más definitorio. La importancia de esta clasificación radica en que de esta manera se facilita la homogeneización de las conclusiones en las investigaciones sobre EF permitiendo establecer conclusiones generales por tipos de empresa.

A Multivariate Proposal for a National Corporate Social Responsibility Practices Index (NCSRPI) for International Settings

This paper proposes a National Corporate Social Responsibility Practices Index (NCSRPI) that determines the level of penetration of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in 29 different countries, considering each nation as a set of institutional factors. The NCSRPI is built through a statistical aggregation process of 22 CSR practices categorized into the social and environmental dimensions that are individually observed for each company. The composite indicator summarizes and synthesizes the entire business reality at the country level, providing pertinent information to evaluate factors related to CSR performance and a vision of national commitment to company sustainability. The results provided by the NCSRPI show that companies around the world adopt similar patterns of behaviour in relation to their CSR practices, but with different levels of evolution. Thus, European countries present themselves as the leaders in issues of social responsibility, the countries of America give preference to ethical issues, and countries belonging to the Asian continent, specifically to Southeast Asia, are shown to be the most laggardly in this regard. In conclusion, the institutional environment in each country establishes for firms a series of opportunities and barriers in their decision to adopt or improve their CSR practices.

Applying (EU) Competition Law to Online Platforms: Reflections on the Definition of the Relevant Market(s)

Abuse of dominance cases under Article 102 TFEUconcerning online platforms will require revisiting the process of the market definition in light of the complexities that are likely to arise due to the two- or multi-sided nature of such platforms. This distinctive nature will firstly require determining the number of relevant markets that need to be defined in each case before the scope of such markets can be accurately delineated. Unfortunately, however, the current approaches to this first, new step, of the market definition process are incompatible with business reality. Therefore this article provides an alternative approach to this complexity, which is better suited to guarantee the trueness of the market definition findings. Accordingly, this article indicates that the number of relevant markets in each case should be determined based on the typology of the interactions facilitated by the online platform and the degree of substitutability of such online platform with other non-platform undertakings from the perspective of its customers groups. This approach allows reaching findings of market power in a manner that adequately reflects the business reality of such platforms in the digital economy and the degree of competitive pressure they may experience in practice.

Before Machines Consume the Consumers: High-Level Takeaways from the Artsy Project

Business is using artificial intelligence in essentially all sectors of the economy: machine learning is employed to generate knowledge out of big (consumer) data, to optimize processes and to undertake new, previously impossible tasks. This might come with benefits for the consumers and the society, but definitely poses numerous challenges. In this short note, we provide an overview of challenges for EU consumer law and policy stemming from the business’s use of AI, and sketch a plan for action. We argue that AI will need to be tackled case-by-case, bottom-up, though with the big picture in mind. It needs to be tackled soon, but we do need to take our time to reconsider the assumptions that have been challenged, and not rush to political conclusions. Moreover, we argue that the role of law is not just to minimize the risks, but also to enable developments in consumer-empowering AI tools. These tools, however, will not be given to us by business. Civil society must take action and fight for them. We cluster the challenges and takeaways by the type of actors that are affected by the business’s use of AI. Consumers face the risk of undue influence on their behavior (by targeted personalized commercial practices), exclusion from access to goods and services (ad delivery & price discrimination) and lower quality of information and services in the interaction with artificial agents. Regulators need to revise their governance toolbox, taking into account the specificity of AI’s operations (stealth infringement, wide-spread-by-minor damage, automation of reasoning). Also, regulation needs to strike a correct balance between specific cases and the bigger picture, and between commanding and enabling. In EU consumer law, the concepts of unfair commercial practices and unfair contractual terms should be revisited, to take into account the reality of business using AI. In addition, we should consider the usefulness of adopting special data protection rules to supplement the GDPR, by stating what purposes of data processing are lawful in what markets. Civil society should strive to seize the opportunities of AI in the medium-term, making the best use of the exiting legal instruments (UCPD, UCTD, GDPR) in the short-term, and lobby for societal and legal change in the long-term. Finally, academia, in particular legal scholars, must re-consider their role in the debate on AI governance: they should ground their research in empirical findings, acknowledge the limitations of sectoral knowledge and remedy such limitations by engaging in an interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder dialogue. We argue that the competitive advantage of scholars goes beyond offering concrete policy recommendations. Instead, it concerns a critical reflection on the ways in which the mass deployment of AI challenges the basic assumptions and presuppositions of the existing legal and regulatory theory and practice.

MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING. FEATURES AND CONTROVERSY

Multi-Level Marketing is a kind of novelty in the business reality. The greatest popularity gained in Western countries, where it functions as a kind of hybrid method in distribution of the goods with the design of the sales network. It is one of the most secure business models. In Poland the awareness of this type of activity is still small and remains a wide spectrum of scientific research. This situation has led to the creation of this article. The aim of the publication is to highlight the problems of Multi-Level Marketing, an indication of the essence of this phenomenon, and show how far is different than traditional marketing. The article presents the system of functioning of this kind of business, how it works a system of charging commissions and indicated a practical example of this system. Considerations based on literature studies and case studies.

ETIKA INDIVIDU DAN ORGANISASI DALAM BISNIS

Business is a business activity wich is conducted by individuals and organizations for produce and sell goods or services in order to get profit to fulfill basic needs of society. In business by individuals and organizations nowadays are also influenced by moral values so that resulting different economic behavior or especially who applying the moral principles in business. The emergence of the discourse of business ethics thought was encouraged by business reality who ignore moral or moral values. From some parts, business is human economic activity that looking for profit only. Therefore, anything methods may be used to achieve that goal. The moral aspect of business competition, is considered an obstacle to success. In other side, business activity intended to seek the biggest profit, while the moral principles “limiting” business activity. Competition in the business world is capital strength competiton. Businessmen with big capital try to enlarge the reach of his business, so that small businessmen (small financier) are getting dragged. Similarly collusion practice, corruption, and nepotism (KKN) have played an important role in theat process. A prolonged monetary crisis in Indonesia, in fact can’t be released from the process of such economic activity, namely the depletion of moral values in its activitiess.
 Contrast with first group, the second group argues that business can be united with ethics. These circles reasoned that ethics are rational reasons for all human actions in all aspects of life, business aspects are no exception. The thinking of business ethic in islam ccurrently surfacing, on the grounds that Islam is a perfect religion. It’s a collection of rules of doctrine and values wwhich can deliver humans in their life toward the goal of happiness in life both in the world and the hereafter. Islam is a religion that provide a integrated way of life on the rules of social, cultural, economic, civil and political aspects. It’s also a system for all aspects of life, including the spiritual system as well as the system of economic behavior.
 
 Keywords: individual ethic, organization ethic, business.

장애인생활체육지도자의 현장경험과 갈등

In order to create an environment in which sports for all instructors of the disabled can perform their profession adequately with dedication and professionalism, it is necessary to deepen our understanding of the variety of different situations they face every day. The system and policy measures for realistic professional improvement can be derived if we investigate how the sports for all instructors of the disabled may grow up through trials and errors in the area of principle, knowledge, membership management, administrative affairs, difficulty in human relations and adaptation process, and what role they play in the process. Towards this end, semi-structured interviewing method was used mainly as a data collection method and the data collected as such were then analyzed through a qualitative research method. Seven sports for all instructors of the disabled who have been practicing in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Chungnam for more than 3 years participated in the study. According to the analysis results of the field experiences and difficulties of the sports for all instructors of the disabled, the main difficulties they face were ‘experience and adaptation’, ‘difficult business reality’,‘lack of communication’, ‘calling (vocation)’, and ‘lost passion, and concerns about career transition’.

Identifying as an outsider: implications for nonfamily in small family firms

Family businesses are held in high regard the world over for their impact on employment, credited in part to their longevity and abundance. In spite of this omnipresence, we have only begun to understand the day-to-day realities of the family business as an employer. In this work, I look to further this understanding by investigating what it means to work for a family business. Nonfamily employees contribute greatly, however, they are not closely coupled to the identity of the family unit. I ask how they see, understand and deal with their identity as outsiders in a close family business. A social constructivist approach is used to paint a picture of how nonfamily identity is formed, using qualitative data and inductive analytical methods. Findings highlight the identity of nonfamily as developed through their relationship with the family business. This relationship is explained as a function of social identity theory and the implications forfamily business management are explored.

Quale metodologia di ricerca sulle tematiche di Management Control?

The aim of the article is to discuss how to strenghthen the process of internationali-zation of research, but preserving the basic values of Italian accounting thought, also in the methodological side, i.e. maintaining the integrated inductive-deductive method of research. Specific reflections are carried out on the more and more relevant role played by the analytical demonstrations of the research hypotheses, with an experimental approach typical of the hard sciences. In particular, the research hypotheses are often based on cause-effect relationships in a true-false logic, with reference to the available data bases or to data collected on a sample basis, often neglecting the accuracy of such a data. Even the language used is more and more the mathematical one, not suitable for the scientific communication in our community, because it neglects the qualitative variables, the interpretation of the data and the understanding of the multiple non-linear cause-effect relationships. With regard to the contents, the relevant issues seem to be no more those related to the understanding of the business complexity, but those that may lent best to the correlation analysis; in fact, the focus is on the quantitative methods, considered a priori better, and this increasingly determines the detachment from the business reality.

The Balance between Exceptional Cases and the Risk of Fake: An Ever Present Theme

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show that the false in the budget is due to false accounting and not false evaluation.Design/methodology/approach: Research articles from the most relevant Italian and foreign journals, from the period when this phenomenon was studied by the doctrine, in favor of or against the reformed subject, to ensure a complete analysis of the case. Practical case refers to work experience from the author of the paper. The methodology used in the paper is that of qualitative analysis.Originality: The author proposes this paper because on this reform most of the doctrine has expressed often divergent opinion and the author wanted to clarify the phenomenon.Findings: The author demonstrates, by the case, that there are several ways to represent the business reality correctly and therefore that the false in the budget can be objectively present in the accounting and not in the valuation.

Editorial: business evolution across organisational types and sectors in the Euro-Mediterranean Region

Amidst an incessantly changing business environment, characterised by the constant shape-shifting of all macro- and micro-environmental forces, organisations in the Euro-Mediterranean region are struggling to evolve in a manner that befits their individual and collective contextual developments. While this strategic aspiration has traditionally been associated with business, it is now increasingly being adopted across an array of organisational types, including government departments, public utilities and universities. Much like industry practice itself, scholarly research has inescapably turned its attention to both these phenomena and significant works are ceaselessly being published in an effort to descriptively comprehend and/or prescriptively adapt organisations to the new business reality. In this vein, a multi-perspective outlook is called upon to view the matter in terms of varied managerial functions, but also in relation to different organisational types. To be continued …..

The Agile Innovation Pendulum: Family Business Innovation and the Human, Social, and Marketing Capitals

This article constitutes the first of two parts of a research aiming to investigate innovation in family businesses (FBs) and to present a consumer-focused conduit to agility in the strategic marketing multicultural context. The current article studies FBs’ innovativeness in the context of their “familiness,” focusing on the question of how FBs’ human, social/multicultural, and marketing capitals fare in comparison to non-FBs. The research findings are supportive of FBs’ potentialities, indicating an inherent “genetic” disposition towards agile innovation. The research further underlines the need for a new agility framework for FBs, to bear into consideration their transformed (agile) innovation factors and the marketing realities of contemporary business, a task undertaken by the second part of this study. Methodologically, the research retains a scientifically founded exactitude, balancing the primary, the theoretical, and the conceptual countenances through a mixed inductive-deductive approach. The current article is based on a narrative theoretical and quantitative primary data (survey) analyses. The research’s contribution relates to its uncovering of the true FBs’ innovation potentialities; its theoretical linkage to the subjects of agility, strategic marketing and consumer behavior; and their conceptual incorporation into a unified framework (the “Agile Innovation Pendulum”) with explicit scholarly and executive implications.