Editorial M Hume vol 17 4
BUILDING BUSINESS COMMUNITIES: COMMUNITY
SPECIAL ISSUE THREE: BUSINESS
This Building Business Community: Community Special Issue is designed to advance the
current knowledge in the area of sustainable communities and business and is focused on
developing business theory. This issue focuses on some of the associated business related
areas of sustainability and offers contribution to the discourse in business practice in workers’
religious affiliations and organisational behaviour, developing a sustainable wine industry,
carbon mitigation and consumer behaviour. A call for papers for a special edition in the IJOB
was circulated on the IJOB page, through the USQ Building Sustainable Communities
conference and was posted on the web. In addition, colleagues active in the field of
sustainability were invited to contribute to the special editions. This is the third special issue.
Authors, as well as independent reviewers, were requested to review submissions and the
editors also contributed comments. This edition contains five conceptual papers with
reflections on business sustainability and community in the areas of local council, non-profits
and charitable organisations.
Examining and advancing the understanding of sustainability and advising business groups
accordingly has been slow with the multiple perspectives that surround the concept (Peattie &
Collins 2009; Tukker 2008) often argued as the reason for this. Sustainability is best viewed
as an umbrella term that incorporates environmental, social and economic dimensions and
takes on such ideas as reducing environmental impact, enhancing quality of life and
wellbeing, minimising waste, taking a life cycle approach and looking at ecological
preservation for future generations (Kemp 2008; UNEP 2002). The goal of business
sustainability is to embed sustainable living objectives into practices and supply chain
elements to ensure that society is able to be maintained over time. This special issue offers a
unique combination of communities’ needs, practices and behaviours. The following papers
are included in this issue.
Paper One by Seth Ayim Gyekye, Department of Psychology, Buckinghamshire New
University and Mohammad Haybatollahi, Department of Social Psychology University of
Helsinki, Finland discuss in the paper titled’ Workers' religious affiliations and organizational
behaviour’, the increased and sustained importance of religion in the workplace and how it
has made religiosity an important area of interest in organizational psychology. The current
study examined the impact of religion on organizational behaviour in three different religious
groups in Ghana: Christianity, Islam, and Traditional African Religion. Organizational
behaviour of workers affiliated with these groups was assessed with standardized research
instruments that measured their perceptions of workplace safety, compliance with safety
management procedures, perceived organizational support (POS), job satisfaction, and
participation in organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB). Their accident involvement
during the past 12 months was also examined. Preliminary analyses with ANOVA indicated
that workers affiliated with the Christian faith had the best perspectives on the organizational
variables understudy. Chi-square and MANOVA revealed that the results were due more to
education and socio-economic factors than religious affiliation. After controlling for these
confounding effects via multiple regressions, workers of all three religious groups indicated
identical scores on the measured items. The results have implications for organizational
behaviour and are discussed.
International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 17(4)
Guest editor’s introduction
ISSN 14410 5377
International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 17(4)
Guest editor’s introduction
Paper Two by Mehryar Nooriafshar from the University of Southern Queensland,
Queensland, Australia and Conor Vibert from Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada titled
‘A Heuristic Model to Determine the Perception of Success in a Nascent Wine Industry’. The
main purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors which contribute to the perceptions
of success in the wine industry of Nova Scotia, Canada. Commercial winemaking in Nova
Scotia is a nascent industry. An investigation into this regional industry can certainly benefit
the local winemakers and help identify commonalities for further research in other similar
regions. The data used in the study is based on 17 different case studies related to this regional
industry. These case studies are in the form of interviews with winemakers, winery owners
and industry stakeholders. Local demand, expansion opportunities and growing conditions are
amongst the main identified factors.
Paper Three by Heather Zeppel and Narelle Beaumont titled ‘Carbon Mitigation by
Queensland Tourism Enterprises’ reports on carbon mitigation by environmentally certified
Queensland tourism enterprises (n=83). The survey results profile attitudes to climate change,
emissions auditing, carbon mitigation actions, and motives for emissions reduction. The main
reasons for carbon actions were marketing climate friendly tourism, attracting green tourists,
and cost savings.
Paper Four by Dr Mustafa Ally and Mr Michael Gardiner is titled ‘Application and device
characteristics as drivers for Smart Mobile Device adoption and productivity’. This paper
presents findings on research conducted to determine factors influencing the uptake of Mobile
Integrated Media Devices (MiMDs). Smart devices offer advanced computing ability and
connectivity, and typically combine the functions of a personal digital assistant (PDA),
mobile phone, portable media players and camera phones with high-resolution touchscreens,
e-book readers, GPS navigation, Wi-Fi and mobile broadband access using third-party and
proprietary applications. This changing technology and environment has given rise to a
number of competing mobile operating systems that support an integrated touch-screen
application environment of which the three dominant players in the marketplace are Google
(Android), Apple (IOS) and Microsoft (Windows Phone) This paper discusses the issues
related to these applications and how they provide increased functionality, flexibility and
scalability.
Paper 5 by Paul Allen Salisbury titled ‘Pay to Protect the Environment: Two Consumer
Issues—Pros & Cons’ offers the perspective that all organizations need to acquire new
customers to maintain and grow revenue, as well as to replace customers lost through
attrition. This paper offers the notion that cost-effective marketing requires a targeting
strategy to focus on appropriate candidates for acquisition. Organizations that are marketing
green products and services, or plan to do so, need to know who they should target for
acquisition. This paper examines this issue for two similar green issues on who will pay more
to protect the environment examining that everyone is never a prospect for a given product or
service.
Collectively, these papers offer a cross discipline, collaborative approach to the development
of sustainable communities and related business issues. This special issue of the International
Journal of Organisational Behaviour is designed to advance the current knowledge in the
areas of sustainable communities and focus sustainability discourse to include business
networks and firms.
2
SPECIAL ISSUE THREE: BUSINESS
This Building Business Community: Community Special Issue is designed to advance the
current knowledge in the area of sustainable communities and business and is focused on
developing business theory. This issue focuses on some of the associated business related
areas of sustainability and offers contribution to the discourse in business practice in workers’
religious affiliations and organisational behaviour, developing a sustainable wine industry,
carbon mitigation and consumer behaviour. A call for papers for a special edition in the IJOB
was circulated on the IJOB page, through the USQ Building Sustainable Communities
conference and was posted on the web. In addition, colleagues active in the field of
sustainability were invited to contribute to the special editions. This is the third special issue.
Authors, as well as independent reviewers, were requested to review submissions and the
editors also contributed comments. This edition contains five conceptual papers with
reflections on business sustainability and community in the areas of local council, non-profits
and charitable organisations.
Examining and advancing the understanding of sustainability and advising business groups
accordingly has been slow with the multiple perspectives that surround the concept (Peattie &
Collins 2009; Tukker 2008) often argued as the reason for this. Sustainability is best viewed
as an umbrella term that incorporates environmental, social and economic dimensions and
takes on such ideas as reducing environmental impact, enhancing quality of life and
wellbeing, minimising waste, taking a life cycle approach and looking at ecological
preservation for future generations (Kemp 2008; UNEP 2002). The goal of business
sustainability is to embed sustainable living objectives into practices and supply chain
elements to ensure that society is able to be maintained over time. This special issue offers a
unique combination of communities’ needs, practices and behaviours. The following papers
are included in this issue.
Paper One by Seth Ayim Gyekye, Department of Psychology, Buckinghamshire New
University and Mohammad Haybatollahi, Department of Social Psychology University of
Helsinki, Finland discuss in the paper titled’ Workers' religious affiliations and organizational
behaviour’, the increased and sustained importance of religion in the workplace and how it
has made religiosity an important area of interest in organizational psychology. The current
study examined the impact of religion on organizational behaviour in three different religious
groups in Ghana: Christianity, Islam, and Traditional African Religion. Organizational
behaviour of workers affiliated with these groups was assessed with standardized research
instruments that measured their perceptions of workplace safety, compliance with safety
management procedures, perceived organizational support (POS), job satisfaction, and
participation in organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB). Their accident involvement
during the past 12 months was also examined. Preliminary analyses with ANOVA indicated
that workers affiliated with the Christian faith had the best perspectives on the organizational
variables understudy. Chi-square and MANOVA revealed that the results were due more to
education and socio-economic factors than religious affiliation. After controlling for these
confounding effects via multiple regressions, workers of all three religious groups indicated
identical scores on the measured items. The results have implications for organizational
behaviour and are discussed.
International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 17(4)
Guest editor’s introduction
ISSN 14410 5377
International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 17(4)
Guest editor’s introduction
Paper Two by Mehryar Nooriafshar from the University of Southern Queensland,
Queensland, Australia and Conor Vibert from Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada titled
‘A Heuristic Model to Determine the Perception of Success in a Nascent Wine Industry’. The
main purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors which contribute to the perceptions
of success in the wine industry of Nova Scotia, Canada. Commercial winemaking in Nova
Scotia is a nascent industry. An investigation into this regional industry can certainly benefit
the local winemakers and help identify commonalities for further research in other similar
regions. The data used in the study is based on 17 different case studies related to this regional
industry. These case studies are in the form of interviews with winemakers, winery owners
and industry stakeholders. Local demand, expansion opportunities and growing conditions are
amongst the main identified factors.
Paper Three by Heather Zeppel and Narelle Beaumont titled ‘Carbon Mitigation by
Queensland Tourism Enterprises’ reports on carbon mitigation by environmentally certified
Queensland tourism enterprises (n=83). The survey results profile attitudes to climate change,
emissions auditing, carbon mitigation actions, and motives for emissions reduction. The main
reasons for carbon actions were marketing climate friendly tourism, attracting green tourists,
and cost savings.
Paper Four by Dr Mustafa Ally and Mr Michael Gardiner is titled ‘Application and device
characteristics as drivers for Smart Mobile Device adoption and productivity’. This paper
presents findings on research conducted to determine factors influencing the uptake of Mobile
Integrated Media Devices (MiMDs). Smart devices offer advanced computing ability and
connectivity, and typically combine the functions of a personal digital assistant (PDA),
mobile phone, portable media players and camera phones with high-resolution touchscreens,
e-book readers, GPS navigation, Wi-Fi and mobile broadband access using third-party and
proprietary applications. This changing technology and environment has given rise to a
number of competing mobile operating systems that support an integrated touch-screen
application environment of which the three dominant players in the marketplace are Google
(Android), Apple (IOS) and Microsoft (Windows Phone) This paper discusses the issues
related to these applications and how they provide increased functionality, flexibility and
scalability.
Paper 5 by Paul Allen Salisbury titled ‘Pay to Protect the Environment: Two Consumer
Issues—Pros & Cons’ offers the perspective that all organizations need to acquire new
customers to maintain and grow revenue, as well as to replace customers lost through
attrition. This paper offers the notion that cost-effective marketing requires a targeting
strategy to focus on appropriate candidates for acquisition. Organizations that are marketing
green products and services, or plan to do so, need to know who they should target for
acquisition. This paper examines this issue for two similar green issues on who will pay more
to protect the environment examining that everyone is never a prospect for a given product or
service.
Collectively, these papers offer a cross discipline, collaborative approach to the development
of sustainable communities and related business issues. This special issue of the International
Journal of Organisational Behaviour is designed to advance the current knowledge in the
areas of sustainable communities and focus sustainability discourse to include business
networks and firms.
2