This research study surveyed 100 undergraduate teacher education students in a regional university in Australia, explored self-reported perceptions of their knowledge about students with exceptional needs, and their competence to be effective educators of these students in an inclusive classroom. Additionally, we included a measure of general attitude toward teaching in an inclusive classroom. What made this exploratory study atypical was broadening the concept of 'exceptionality' to the inclusion of items related to students with physical and cognitive challenges, superior academic gifts and those deemed to be twice exceptional. The results were unexpected in that teachers' age, parental status and exposure to units of study in special and inclusive education did not differentiate their knowledge, perceived competence, or general attitude.

This is an empirical study comparing the susceptibility of managers and students to a decision-making bias when making judgments about ethical business practices. The managers and students read through vignettes and made judgments about how ethical they perceived the described business actions to be. Half of the participants (half of the managers and half of the students) were exposed to three situations in which the actions being judged were clearly unethical. The other half of each group was exposed to situations in which the actions being judged were clearly ethical. All were exposed to the same fourth situation of a business decision. In this ambiguous situation it was not clear if the business decision being evaluated was ethical or unethical. The decision bias examined here addressed the question of ‘to what extent does exposure to prior unethical (or ethical) actions influence one’s evaluation of how ethical a particular business decision is when it is not a clearly right or wrong action. The results demonstrated that students’ ethical judgments about the action in the fourth scenario (the same scenario for everyone) differed depending on what they were previously exposed to. Significant assimilation effects were found in the student sample suggesting support for the perceptual readiness models. The managerial sample yielded differences in the opposite direction, one of a contrast effect, but these did not reach statistical significance. Assimilation effects occurred in the sample without domain relevant experience and contrast effects occurred with the experienced sample. Implications are discussed.

ABSTRACT In this paper we explore the effects of advertising substantiation information on consumers' attribute beliefs and judgments of product quality. We provide a brief background on the Federal Trade Commission's Advertising Substantiation Program. Secondly, we describe an experiment designed to examine the effects of a level of advertising substantiation information made available over the Internet on consumer evaluations of advertised products. This included testing the effects of varying levels of advertising substantiation information for two products on: 1) a claim-related belief (attribute discussed explicitly within the ad), 2) an inferred belief (attribute not discussed within the ad), and 3) overall judgments of brand quality. In all cases, consumer beliefs and judgments were measured in comparison to a major rival brand. We found that the series of attribute beliefs and judgments of quality differed significantly between the information-level treatments. Finally, we discuss implications for facilitating usage of advertising substantiation information via the Internet. INTRODUCTION Guide to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) states: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) works to ensure that the nation's markets are vigorous, efficient and free of restrictions that harm consumers. Experience demonstrates that competition among firms yields products at the lowest prices, spurs innovation, and strengthens the economy. Markets also work best when consumers can make informed based on accurate Companies provide advertising both to help inform consumers, and to encourage them to make purchases of their brands. Consumers often rely heavily on advertising as a major source of information about products. Unfortunately, the claims made in advertisements are not always backed by adequate substantiation (Wiseman & Rabino, 2002). For the past 35 years, the FTC has been interested in helping consumers obtain accurate information upon which to make informed choices. FTC's Advertising Substantiation Program, launched in 1971, focused on deterring companies from making claims that could not be substantiated. Specifically, the FTC aimed to assist consumers to make rational choices by being assured of a priori independent testing of product attributes which served as the bases of advertising claims. 1971 resolution requires advertisers, upon request, to submit to the FTC the results of a priori tests, surveys, and other data that purport to substantiate advertising claims (explicit or implicit) relating to product safety, efficacy, performance, quality, or comparative price. As such, the FTC strives to provide consumers with accurate and non-misleading information from the claims made in advertising. In this paper we address the idea of making advertising substantiation information available to consumers via the Internet. There would be minimal additional company cost (compiling, preparing, posting, and managing information) associated with posting ad-substantiation information on a website. This is because companies that are complying with the FTC Advertising Substantiation Program are already gathering substantiation information prior to releasing the related advertisements. benefits associated with better informed consumers would outweigh the marginal costs associated with making the information available via the Internet. In the pages that follow, we will discuss the Advertising Substantiation Program, describe our experiment, report the results, and discuss issues associated with alternative means of sharing the substantiation information. ADVERTISING SUBSTANTIATION AND INFORMED CONSUMERS In a 1984 policy statement on advertising substantiation, the FTC reaffirmed its commitment to the general requirements concerning advertising substantiation. Advertisers must have a basis for their expressed and implied claims. A basis for an advertising claim depends on the type of claim, the product, the consequences of a false claim, the benefits of a truthful claim, the cost of developing substantiation for the claim, and the amount of substantiation experts in the field believe is reasonable (FTC, 1984). …

On the basis of a self-efficacy framework, the authors present a theoretically sound model explaining the behavioral intentions of students to apply teamwork skills they learn in business courses. The model links variables at least partially controllable by faculty in a classroom setting to students' behavioral intentions to use teamwork skills. The authors empirically tested the theoretical model. The results show that vicarious team experience and team member support significantly affected team conflict self-efficacy. Team conflict self-efficacy influenced career outcome expectancy and current team outcome expectancy. Both outcome expectancies affected behavioral intentions to use team skills in a significant way. The authors also discussed the pedagogical implications of the results.

How managers 'manage' employees influences important firm outcomes. Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger contend that the level of internal support for service workers will influence consumer satisfaction. This study empirically explores how skilled nursing facility (SNF) managers affect consumer satisfaction by encouraging employee effectiveness and listening to employees to determine how to improve employee effectiveness. We extend previous research by proposing management as a form of internal support and demonstrating its relationship to service process integration, as a distinct form of internal support. The results of our individual-level investigation of 630 nursing assistants from 45 SNFs provide support for our two-part hypothesis. First, active management support and process integration, as elements of internal support, do lead to increased employee satisfaction and employee effectiveness. Second, the increased employee satisfaction and effectiveness was positively related to consumer satisfaction, as evaluated by the service workers. Thus, there is a positive influence of management's internal support of nursing assistants on perceived consumer satisfaction.

This study investigates investment decision behavior. Specifically, the effects of a person’s “experienced regret” and “anticipatory regret” are compared to the effects of an individual’s risk tolerance on investment decision behavior. An individual’s risk tolerance and “experienced regret” significantly influenced decisions. Anticipation of potential future regret did not predict subsequent investment decision behavior. The experience of regret with a particular type of investment did reduce one’s tendency to make a similar investment. The individual’s risk tolerance was predictive of participants’ investment decision behavior regardless of regret condition. Practical implications of these findings for financial counseling are presented.

The recent retirement plan debacle of the Enron employees has caused regulators and lawmakers to think about new ways to protect and help retirement plan participants. When investigating participant investment decisions, researchers have traditionally studied the retirement plan characteristics and employee characteristics. More recently, some researchers have extended the analysis to social influences, such as social norms and peer affects. Others have expanded into behavioral finance and examined the role of various psychological biases. This paper combines and summarizes these four sets of influences so that researchers and policy makers can better understand all the influences affecting an employee when making retirement plan contribution and investment decisions.

ABSTRACT A model is developed that identifies individual and dyadic antecedents and outcomes for a construct we have named service encounter emotional value (SEEVal). Service encounter emotional value is defined as the net emotional value the customer experiences added to the net emotional value the service provider employee experiences. Individual cognitive and affective antecedents are identified. Emotional dyadic antecedents are identified and include rapport, emotional contagion, co-production of emotional labor, and relationship quality. The customer outcomes associated with SEEVal broadly include satisfaction, loyalty, and customer voluntary performance. Service employee outcomes include satisfaction, organizational loyalty, and organizational citizenship behaviors. We use existing research to logically support the model and the relationships therein. Fourteen propositions are developed and additional suggestions for future research are provided.

The mission-linked AACSB accreditation standards suggest the importance of the strategic management process for business schools. The standards also emphasize customer-driven curriculum changes. This article presents an application of strategic management literature for consideration in the strategic management process of business schools. Specifically, the distinction between market-oriented and customer-led strategies is described, and the particular relevance and importance of this for business schools is explained.

ABSTRACT ABSTRACT While the service quality literature suggests the importance of courteous service agents, the emotional labor literature has shown that there are important negative personal consequences associated with emotional work requirements. In this study, a survey which evaluated employee responses to the emotional labor involved in serving difficult customers is detailed and significant consequences for the organization are considered. Some of these consequences have the potential to negatively impact several determinants of service quality.

In this article, the author suggests the use of a professional/client metaphor for conceptualizing the relationship of professors and students. The framework suggested by the use of this metaphor provides a useful and explicit alternative to the problematic student-as-customer metaphor. The advantages of invoking this metaphor are illustrated by discussing the professional/client relationship in general and by discussing four specific cases of professional/client relationships. Suggestions are provided for inculcating a professional/client atmosphere in the classroom.

This study investigated the effect of gender stereotypes on evaluator judgments of unethical behavior. Subjects were working adults who completed a mailed survey in which they evaluated unethical behavior depicted in written scenarios. Sex of the transgressor in the scenarios was manipulated. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that there are no stable differences in evaluations of men and women across scenarios. These results suggest that evaluators do not hold different standards of ethical behavior for men and women, they do not make different causal attributions for the behavior of men and women, nor do evaluators treat men and women differently when an ethical transgression has been committed.

When a person engages in a "game," that person may reason and behave in a manner that is inconsistent with non-game-situation moral reasoning. In this study we measured moral reasoning with the Defining Issues Test (DIT). We then engaged the students in a competitive game and collected accounts of their "reasoning" by having them explain their decisions with a forced choice inventory. The results indicate that there were significant inconsistencies in moral reasoning between non-game and game situations. The implications of this for business ethics are discussed.

Individual scapetribing is identified as pointing the finger of blame at organizations (or groups, institutions, and systems) as a means of excusing or inaccurately ascribing responsibility for one's own actions and their consequences. This type of behavior is shown to be related to corporate scape-goating as described by Wilson (1993). The paper addresses responsibility ascriptions and the importance of corporate responsibility as a significantly influential multi-person system.

Group activities, a common feature of business education, are expected to continue to increase in popularity. This article explores the formulation of groups and “social-engineering” methodology. The formulation process differs from the more traditional random assignment or self-selection in that it attempts to create groups with diverse backgrounds, talents, abilities, perspectives, and so forth. The results of an experiment suggest that for certain task types, social engineering and groups can be more effective than random assignments or self-selection.

This research tests the relative efficacy of a number of predictors of academic achievement in a business college setting. Correlational and discriminant analyses were used to examine records of 483 students who graduated between 1989 and 1992. The results suggest that business colleges can set standards that adequately predict the future success of students seeking admittance to the business program.

This project was designed as a laboratory study to investigate the effects of organizational social cues (OSC), decision framing, and justice on managerial decision making in ethical situations. The OSC (ethical/ unethical), the framing (gain/loss), and the justice conditions (fair/unfair) were manipulated within a managerial in‐basket exercise. Participants read information about the organization and their situation within it. Next, they read scenarios and made several decisions involving ethical considerations. Results suggest that OSC and the experience of fairness or unfairness significantly influenced the managerial ethical decisions. Ethical OSC resulted in significantly more ethical decisions. Also, those in an “experienced fairness” justice condition made significantly more ethical decisions. The gain/loss framing did not significantly influence ethical decisions.

The present study examined several psychometric issues relevant to the use of a favored technique (the Angoff method) used to set standards in criterion referenced testing. The research was conducted within a setting which allowed (a) confident identification of expert and non‐expert judges, and (b) estimation of “true” scores for items judged so that accuracy of judgments in addition to reliability could be examined. Results suggested that expertise of judges does make a difference in producing more accurate and reliable data, underscoring the importance of using true subject matter experts (SMEs) in the judgment process. A rater analysis technique (rater‐total correlations) was illustrated, which might prove useful in improving the quality of data obtained using the Angoff method, particularly when there is some question regarding the internal consistency of ratings and expertise of some of the raters. Finally, a rater accuracy adjustment/calibration technique was examined and proved to be a potentially useful method to maximize accuracy of a standard derived using the Angoff method in settings where archival normative test data can be obtained. Other methods that could potentially be used to improve Angoff data were discussed.