Ethical Marginality: The Icarus Syndrome and Banality of Wrongdoing

This study proposes a conceptual model to explain persistent, accepted-as-normal corporate wrongdoing (hereafter banality of wrongdoing), particularly for high performance organizations. The model describes five explanatory variables: the culture of competition, ends-biased leadership, missionary zeal, legitimizing myth, and the corporate cocoon. Our thesis is that the nature of competition drives both legitimate and illegitimate goal-seeking to adopt an iconoclastic (rule-breaking) orientation. High performance organizations are favorable hosts for wrongdoing because high performance requires aggressive behavior at the ethical margins of what is acceptable. The way leadership reacts to competition sets the stage for ethical or unethical cultures to develop. Ends-biased leadership will project strong vision, using ideology and legitimizing myth as tools to inspire and motivate. The resulting missionary zeal justifies using questionable means because of the perceived value of the end. One critical method for building strong culture is creating a sense of being separate and apart from the ordinary. This cocoon effect may create a self-referential value system that is significantly at odds with mainstream culture and in which wrongdoing is banal. We intend an empirical study of the variables described in this model.     

Competition in the Pay-TV Market

This paper discusses competition in the emerging pay-TV market. Economic features of the industry are described, and the current state of the market in the UK is summarized. Two simple formal models of the industry are analyzed: First the danger of two vertically integrated pay-TV networks entering into collusive agreements to exchange programming with each other is discussed; second, the private and social incentives for signing exclusive contracts for premium programming are analyzed. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 1999, 13(4), pp. 257–280. Nuffield College, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D43, L13, L41, L82.     

The Ethical Environment of Tax Practitioners: Western Australian Evidence

This study examines Australian tax agents' perceptions of the ethical environment in which they practice, within the context of an income tax system based on self-assessment principles. The research identifies and ranks an inventory of ethical issues in terms of perceived frequency of occurrence and importance to Western Australian tax agents. In addition, the extent and influence of ethical concerns in the profession are evaluated.The study has determined that the most frequently cited ethical issue is the failure to make reasonable enquiries where information or documentation provided by a client appears to be inaccurate or incomplete. The most important ethical problem is a failure to ensure confidentiality with regard to privileged client information. When the frequency of occurrence and importance means are compared, inadequate technical competence, failure to make reasonable enquiries/conduct research, continuing to act for a client where there is incorrect information, and conflicts in distinguishing between tax planning and tax avoidance emerge as the high frequency/high importance issues. Although acknowledging the potential for unethical actions in tax practice, Western Australian tax agents consider that they carry out their professional activities within an ethical environment.     

Measuring something real and useful in consumer involvement in health and social care research

Actively involving service users, patients and carers in the creation and development of health research in the UK has recently come under pressure to articulate why involvement is a good use of resources. This has led to a growing interest in creating ways to measure the impact of involving patients, service users and carers in research. However, there is a concern that fundamentally important issues about why we should meaningfully involve service users, patients and carers are missing from the current measurement discourses and activities undertaken in relation to measurement. This paper argues three distinct points, and is based on the experience of the authors working with Folk.us as well as other fields of involvement. Firstly, there should be an open and honest debate about what is meant by the need to measure and assess the effects of involving people in research, addressing issues such as who benefits from the measurement and assessment and why the involvement is being done. Secondly, if at the conclusion of the debate it is deemed necessary to measure and assess, there must be a full and frank discussion about what criteria are appropriate for the proper reporting of involvement activities. This discussion would need to include the less obvious activities that are crucial to active involvement, such as administrative tasks, and where such activities would sit within these criteria. Thirdly, we will consider when such criteria should be applied, at the beginning or end of projects and, indeed, whether one can categorize the ‘beginning’ or ‘end’ of involvement.     

Price Discrimination by a Many-Product Firm

Determining the optimal selling strategy for a multiproduct firm facing consumers with unobservable tastes is a difficult task. This paper aims to show how almost optimal nonlinear tariffs can often be found when the number of products is large. Moreover, such tariffs take a simple form: (i) when taste parameters are independently distributed across products, the almost optimal tariff is a single cost-based two-part tariff which can extract virtually all consumer surplus; (ii) when tastes are correlated across products, perhaps because of income differences across consumers, the almost optimal tariff can be implemented as a menu of two-part tariffs each of which has prices proportional to marginal costs.