In Defence of ‘Demand’ Deposits: Contractual Solutions to the Barnett and Block,and Bagus and Howden Debate

This article contributes to a recent debate between Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4): 711–716, 2009), Bagus and Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3): 399–406, 2009), Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 100: 299–238, 2011), Cachanosky (J Bus Ethics 104: 219–221, 2011) and Bagus and Howden (J Bus Ethics 106: 295–300, 2012a) regarding the conceptual distinction between demand deposits and time deposits. It is argued that from an economic perspective there is nothing inherently fraudulent or illegitimate about deposit accounts that are available ‘on demand’, but that this relies on certain contractual provisions. Particular attention is drawn to option clauses and withdrawal clauses, which “solve” the problems raised by Barnett and Block, and Bagus and Howden. Previous authors have also neglected the asset side of banks balance sheets, and this is shown to further justify the legitimacy of fractional reserve banking.     

Simulated Negotiation Outcomes Through Recommendation Crowding

The goal of the paper is to propose a method for finding outcomes of negotiations of multiple parties with a multi-criteria decision outcomes evaluation. Firstly, the procedure for reduction of continuous set of options to large but finite crowd of compromise recommendations is presented. Next, the crowd is integrated to a single benchmark which is treated as a proposal of artificial auxiliary player called a lone wolf as presented by Kersten and Szapiro (Proceedings of the international conference of the society of systems and science. Budapest, 1987). The strategy of negotiation with this artificial player is proposed to generate a benchmark evaluations scheme for real negotiation. Finally, a multi-agent simulation approach for multi-lateral negotiation process modeling is presented in order to estimate possible negotiation outcomes.     

Ethical Outcomes and Business Ethics: Toward Improving Business Ethics Education

Unethical conduct has reached crisis proportions in business (Walker et al., Wall Str J East Edn, 258(37):A1–A10, 2011) and on today’s college campuses (Burke et al., CPA J, 77(5):58–65, 2007). Despite the evidence that suggests that more than half of business students admit to dishonest practices (McCabe et al. 2006), only about 5 % of business school deans surveyed believe that dishonesty is a problem at their schools (Brown et al., Coll Stud J A, 44(2):299–308, 2010). In addition, the AACSB which establishes standards for accredited business schools has resisted the urging of deans and business experts to require business schools to teach an ethics class, and fewer than one-third of businesses schools now teach a business ethics course at the graduate or undergraduate levels (Swanson and Fisher, Advancing Business Ethics Education, 2008). In this paper we briefly introduce the status of business ethics education and report the results of a survey of business students, deans of the top business schools, and business ethics subject matter experts about ten ethical outcomes. We then offer five specific recommendations to encourage business ethics faculty and decision makers to improve the teaching of business ethics.     

Ethics and HRM: Theoretical and Conceptual Analysis

Despite the ongoing consideration of the ethical nature of human resource management (HRM), little research has been conducted on how morality and ethics are represented in the discourse, activities and lived experiences of human resource (HR) professionals. In this paper, we connect the thinking and lived experiences of HR professionals to an alternative ethics, rooted in the work of Bauman (Modernity and the Holocaust, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1989; Theory, Culture and Society 7:5?C38, 1990; Postmodern Ethics, Blackwell, Oxford, 1991; Approaches to Social Enquiry, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1993; Life in Fragments, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995) and Levinas (Otherwise than Being, or, Beyond Essence, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1998). We argue that the study of HRM and ethics should be contextualized within the discourses used, the practices and activities of HR professionals. Through the analysis of interview data from 40 predominantly Canadian HR practitioners and managers we experiment with Bauman??s notion of ??moral impulse?? to help us understand how HRM is both a product and perpetuator of moral neutralization in organizations. We suggest that HRM as it is practiced is concerned with distancing, depersonalizing, and dissembling, and acts in support of the ??moral?? requirements of business, not of people. However, we also recognize that HR practitioners and managers are often confronted with and conflicted by actions and decisions that they are required to take, therefore opening possibilities and hope for an alternative ethical HRM.     

The Relationship of Cognitive Effort,Information Acquisition Preferences and Risk to Simulated Auditor–Client Negotiation Outcomes

The auditor–client relationship is a legally-mandated relationship in which one party, the auditor, is hired and paid by the auditee (client) to inform third party stakeholders as to whether the client firm’s financial statements are presented in conformity with national financial accounting standards. When these statements do not meet the criteria for acceptable financial statements, a negotiation situation may arise in which the auditor is presumed to act in the best interests of shareholders and creditors who have no independent knowledge of the auditor’s findings. The client management may then feel forced to defend its numbers. The result is a negotiation between the auditor and client (e.g., Salterio in Account Financ 52:233–286, 2012; Brown and Wright in Account Horiz 22(1):91–109, 2008). This study examines cognitive factors and risk preference factors that may impact the negotiation both in the setting of each side’s negotiation position and on the outcomes of that negotiation using simulated auditor–client negotiations. Questionnaire and simulated auditor–client negotiations were used to generate the data, with MBA and MS in Accounting students playing the role of client CEOs and auditor partners. We further explore the use of a tool, Structural Equation Modeling, to test the data, in the process highlighting its usefulness in auditor–client negotiation research. We find that the cognitive characteristic of need for cognition is significantly and positively related to achievement of the negotiator’s desired income objectives and reported willingness to argue strongly for his/her position. Actively open-minded thinking, a second cognitive variable studied, was not significantly related to success in the negotiations, nor to a reported willingness to argue strongly for his/her position. Finally, we find that perceived aggressive tactics by the other party to the negotiation had a negative impact on the counterpart negotiator’s success in the negotiation, and satisfaction with it. As expected, risk assessment-related variables were not related to outcomes of interest.     

Compatibility Under Differentiated Duopoly with Network Externalities: A Comment

Chen and Chen (J Ind Compet Trade 11:43?55, 2011) analyze the effects of compatibility under system product Cournot competition with network externalities. They show that a firm’s optimal strategy is to set an incompatible system standard, even though perfect compatibility is socially optimal. In this case, a social dilemma arises. However, their result depends on a specific assumption about the network size. We use the framework of Shy (1995) to modify this assumption, and hence show that the social dilemma identified by Chen and Chen (J Ind Compet Trade 11:43?55, 2011) does not arise.     

Ethical Decision Making in a Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Situation: The Role of Moral Absolutes and Social Consensus

Individuals are downloading copyrighted materials at escalating rates (Hill 2007; Siwek 2007). Since most materials shared within these networks are copyrighted works, providing, exchanging, or downloading files is considered to be piracy and a violation of intellectual property rights (Shang et al. 2008). Previous research indicates that personal moral philosophies rooted in moral absolutism together with social context may impact decision making in ethical dilemmas; however, it is yet unclear which motivations and norms contextually impact moral awareness in a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing context (Shang et al. 2008). In sum, factors affecting the decision to share copyrighted material require further clarification and investigation (Shang et al. 2008). The purpose of this study was to use a consumer-based scenario and multiple ethics measures to explore how idealism, formalism, and perceived social consensus impact users’ propensity to recognize that the sharing of copyrighted media through P2P networks was an ethical issue and their subsequent ethical intentions. Results showed that high levels of idealism and formalism were associated with an increased recognition that file sharing was an ethical issue, but neither construct had a direct effect on ethical intention. Strong social consensus among respondents that other people consider file sharing to be unethical was also positively related to the recognition that file sharing was an ethical issue, and ethical recognition was a moderate predictor of intention not to engage in file sharing. Finally, a post hoc mediation analysis indicated that idealism, formalism, and social consensus operated through recognition of an ethical issue to impact ethical intention (indirect-only mediation).     

The Relationship between the Integration of Faith and Work with Life and Job Outcomes

Gallup surveys consistently show that nine in 10 Americans express a belief in God (Nash, Business, religion, and spirituality: A new synthesis, 2003), while more than 45 % claim to have some awareness of God on the job (Nash and McLellan, Church on Sunday, Work on Monday: The Challenges of Fusing Christian Values with Business Life, 2001). Recently, Lynn et al. (Journal of Business Ethics 85:227–243, 2009) argued that the ability to integrate the specific beliefs and practices of one’s faith with the work one does represent an important although neglected area of research. As such, they developed and demonstrated convergent validity for the faith at work scale, designed to measure the extent to which individuals believe they are able to integrate their Judaeo-Christian beliefs and practices and their work. In a subsequent study, Lynn et al. (Human Relations 64:675–701, 2010) demonstrated that the faith at work scale was related to faith maturity, church attendance, age, and denominational strictness, and negatively associated with organizational size. No research, however, has examined the possible positive benefits of integrating faith and work. I therefore developed and tested hypotheses concerning the relationship between the faith at work scale and seven important life and work outcomes (satisfaction with life, intent to leave one’s job, self-rated job performance, job satisfaction, and three forms of organizational commitment). In all, four of seven hypotheses were confirmed.     

Vulnerability and the Basis of Business Ethics: From Fiduciary Duties to Professionalism

This paper examines the role of vulnerability in the basis of business ethics by criticizing its role in giving a moral substantial character to fiduciary duties to shareholders. The target is Marcoux’s (Bus Ethics Q 13(1):1–24, 2003) argument for morally substantial fiduciary duties vis-à-vis the multifiduciary stakeholder theory. Rather than proceed to support the stakeholder paradigm, a conception of vulnerability is combined with Heath’s 2004) “market failure” view of the ethical obligations of managers as falling out of their roles as professionals involved in the institution of the market. The result is the core of a theoretically defensible and managerially motivating and deployable ethic.     

Alternative Investment Market: A Way to Promote Entrepreneurship

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between firm performance after the IPO and its entrepreneurial orientation (EO). In our work we want to test if entrepreneurial oriented firms show a better market performance signalling that investors valuate it positively. To this purpose, we focus on a particular sample of entrepreneurial firms, i.e. companies that went public on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) through IPO during the period from 1995 to 2006. Along the lines of Miller (Manage Sci 29:770–791, 1983), Covin and Slevin (Entrep Theory Pract 16:7–25, 1991) and Lumpkin and Dess (Acad Manage Rev 21:135–172, 1996), firms’ entrepreneurial orientation is measured in terms of risk taking, innovation and proactivity. Following the literature in management on investor valuation we use the percent price premium as dependent variable of our model. Our findings confirm a positive impact of entrepreneurial orientation on investors’ valuation. The results of this work underline the relevance of secondary markets, such as the AIM, as a valuable alternative to traditional financial institutions in providing capital to small and entrepreneurial companies.     

Psychometric vs. C-OAR-SE measures of brand love: A reply to Rossiter

Rossiter (Marketing Lett 23: 905–916, 2012) provides a critique of the brand love measure from Batra et al. (J Marketing 76: 1–16, 2012) and offers a new measure of brand love to be used in its stead. In this reply, we argue that our measure is more consistent with the best available understanding on love and brand love. We also note several serious problems in the underlying definition of love used by Rossiter and problems in the way his definition is operationalized in his measure.     

Workplace Romance 2.0: Developing a Communication Ethics Model to Address Potential Sexual Harassment from Inappropriate Social Media Contacts Between Coworkers

This article examines ethical implications from workplace romances that may subsequently turn into sexual harassment through the use of social media technologies, such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, text messaging, IMing, and other forms of digital communication between office colleagues. We examine common ethical models such as Jones (Acad Manag Rev 16:366–395, 1991) issue-contingent decision-making model, Rest’s (Moral development: Advances in research and theory, 1986) Stages of Ethical Decision-Making model, and Pierce and Aguinis’s (J Org Behav 26(6):727–732,2005) review of workplace romance versus sexual harassment issues. The article makes a contribution by developing a new communication ethics model that includes response positive and response negative contingencies to guide decision-making about inappropriate social media contacts that spillover into the workplace. In addition, we recommend that human resource personnel take a more active role in communicating appropriate ethical rules of conduct concerning the use of social media technologies inside and outside the office.     

Meaning Making by Managers: Corporate Discourse on Environment and Sustainability in India

The globally generated concepts of environment and sustainability are fast gaining currency in international business discourse. Sustainability concerns are concurrently becoming significant to business planning around corporate social responsibility and integral to organizational strategies toward enhancing shareholder value. The mindset of corporate managers is a key factor in determining company approaches to sustainability. But what do corporate managers understand by sustainability? Our study explores discursive meaning negotiation surrounding the concepts of environment and sustainability within business discourse. The study is based on qualitative interpretive research drawing from symbolic interactionism (Blumer, Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1969) which postulates that meaning in discourse is an essentially contested domain dependent upon negotiation in the Habermasian tradition of mutually respectful dialogue (Habermas, The theory of communicative action: lifeworld and system: a critique of functionalist reason. Beacon Press, Boston 1987). Data from semi-structured intensive interviews of a small sample of senior corporate managers was analyzed to examine how corporate elites in India frame their approach to sustainability issues and respond to external pressures for deeper corporate responsibility. The findings point to the existence of a distinctively local narrative with strong potential for the discursive negotiation of personal and collective understanding of ethical and socio-cultural values that may help internalize broader sustainability considerations into corporate decision-making processes.     

Media Effects on the Formation of Negotiator Satisfaction: The Example of Face-to-Face and Text Based Electronically Mediated Negotiations

Recently, scholars have highlighted the importance of subjective negotiation outcomes such as negotiator satisfaction for future negotiations and the relationship between negotiators. This study considers the major antecedents of satisfaction formation in negotiation and analyses how the communication medium, i.e. the face-to-face (FTF) and the text based electronically mediated (TBEM) mode, influence satisfaction formation. Drawing on grounding in communication (Clark and Brennan in Perspectives on socially shared cognition. American Psychological Asociation, Washington DC, pp 127–149, 1991), hypotheses are developed and tested in an experimental gaming simulation in which graduate students negotiated in n = 52 dyads. The empirical analysis supports the notion that the communication medium has a mediated and a moderating effect on negotiator satisfaction. Aspirations, individual profit and positive relational messages mediate the medium’s effect on satisfaction. Furthermore, the impact of contentious behaviour and positive relational messages on negotiator satisfaction is stronger in TBEM than in FTF negotiations. This study also contributes to the wider negotiation literature by employing a context-rich gaming simulation for experimental purposes.     

The Positive Impact of Individual Core Values

The role of values in organizations has been a highly researched topic (Collins in Good to Great, HarperCollins, New York, 2001; Collins and Porras in Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, HarperCollins, New York, 1997; Frederick and Weber 1990; Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge, 4th ed, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2007; Pattison et al. Emerging Value in Health Care: The Challenges for Professionals, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Philadelphia, 2010). However, little research has focused on values in health care settings. In addition, the research that has been done has focused on values from an organizational perspective, not from an individual perspective. Based on these two factors, in addition to the maturation and growth of the hospice industry and the researcher’s prior studies on hospice leadership and organizational practices, a research study was conducted to evaluate the core values of hospice professionals. Another key driver of the research was the expressed difference identified by leaders within the hospice industry that values of individuals new to hospice were different than those who have worked in the industry longer. A web-based survey was utilized to gather core values and demographic data from hospice professionals. Data were collected over a one-year period and involved 531 hospice professionals from 33 states. The demographic information collected was similar to comparative data from previous hospice studies. The top three core values identified in the study were family, faith, and love, and represented 76 % of all responses. No statistically significant identifiable differences, based on demographic variables, were found. Based on the findings, no support was found for the perceived differences noted by leaders working in the hospice industry. However, it identified that hospice professionals regardless of demographic characteristics appear to hold similar values as being important. Based on the findings, core values appear to be an area of commonality versus difference among hospice professionals and could serve as a focal point for building a positive organizational culture. Further research is suggested to evaluate the unique meaning of the key values identified by hospice professionals in the study. In addition, replication of the study in other health care settings would be encouraged.     

A Way to Play Claims Problems

Commitment among agents is always difficult, especially when a scarce resource is to be shared. On the one hand, there are many possible ways to assign the available amount; on the other hand, each agent is motivated to propose a distribution that maximizes her award. In this paper, we propose a mechanism that combines the diminishing claims (Chun in Math Soc Sci 17(3):245–261, 1989) and the unanimous concessions (Herrero in Advances in economic design. Springer, Berlin, 2003) procedures, thereby obtaining a new justification of rules based on averaging.     

Comment on Acs and Varga: Entrepreneurship, agglomeration and technological change

Acs and Varga (Small Bus Econ 24:323–334, 2005) employ GEM cross-national, industrial-level data for nine selected European countries in order to investigate the link between entrepreneurship, agglomeration and technological growth. Testing the knowledge production function in the spirit of Jones (J Polit Econ 103:759–784, 1995), they find that both agglomeration and entrepreneurship exhibit a statistically significantly positive effect on technological change. This comment mainly argues that this investigation only focuses on the growth rates but leaves out the effects induced by agglomeration and entrepreneurship on the level of knowledge. This might lead to biased estimates.     

Challenges to Legitimacy at the Forest Stewardship Council

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a global private governance system overseeing the sustainability and biodiversity of the world forestry system through certification of forests and forestry processes and products, and is perceived as the strongest of the various certification schemes available (Domask, Globalization and NGOs: Transforming Business, Government, and Society, 2003; Gulbrandsen, Global Environmental Politics, 2004). It has seen more success in developed than developing countries in terms of amount of forest certified and number of chain-of-custody certificates issued, raising questions as to its ability to promote biodiversity Gulbrandsen, Global Environmental Politics, 2004). A number of challenges have risen to the pragmatic and moral legitimacy of the FSC as a global governance system: alternative certification schemes, output and market access, cost of certification, plantations, and illegal logging. I examine each of these challenges as they pertain to the dimensions of pragmatic and moral legitimacy of the FSC. I conclude with a discussion of theoretical implications for global governance systems using ecolabel schemes, as well as a discussion of practical implications for the FSC in particular.     

Bayesian multi-resolution spatial analysis with applications to marketing

Marketing researchers have become increasingly interested in spatial datasets. A main challenge of analyzing spatial data is that researchers must a priori choose the size and make-up of the areal units, hence the resolution of the analysis. Analyzing the data at a resolution that is too high may mask ??macro?? patterns, while analyzing the data at a resolution that is too low may result in aggregation bias. Thus, ideally marketing researchers would want a ??data-driven?? method to determine the ??optimal?? resolution of analysis, and at the same time automatically explore the same dataset under different resolutions, to obtain a full set of empirical insights to help with managerial decision making. In this paper, we propose a new approach for multi-resolution spatial analysis that is based on Bayesian model selection. We demonstrate our method using two recent marketing datasets from published studies: (i) the Netgrocer spatial sales data in Bell and Song (Quantitative Marketing and Economics 5:361?C400, 2007), and (ii) the Pathtracker^? data in Hui et al. (Marketing Science 28:566?C572, 2009b; Journal of Consumer Research 36:478?C493, 2009c) that track shoppers?? in-store movements. In both cases, our method allows researchers to not only automatically select the resolution of the analysis, but also analyze the data under different resolutions to understand the variation in insights and robustness to the level of aggregation.     

Consumer Social Responsibility (CnSR): Toward a Multi-Level,Multi-Agent Conceptualization of the “Other CSR”

Despite considerable debate as to what corporate social responsibility (CSR) is, consumer social responsibility (CnSR), as an important force for CSR (Vogel in Calif Manag Rev 47(4):19–45, 2005), is a term that remains largely unexplored and under-theorized. To better conceive the role consumers play in activating CSR, this paper provides a multi-level, multi-agent conceptualization of CnSR. Integrating needs-based models of decision making with justice theory, the article interpretively develops the reasons (instrumental, relational, and moral) why variously positioned agents leverage consumers as a force for corporate social responsibility. The paper theoretically expands currently limited conceptions of CnSR by exploring the levels at which diverse agents engage with CnSR (Who and What?) and the needs driving these agents (Why?). The paper suggests that the so-called “consumer side of CSR” (Devinney et al. in Stanf Soc Innov Rev:29–37, 2006) is contingent upon the presence, absence, and varying intensities of underlying agent needs. Academic and managerial implications are drawn in the paper’s conclusion.