Ownership, Privacy and Monitoring in the Workplace: A Debate on Technology and Ethics

A panel held at the International Conference on Information Systems, December 5–7, 1993, addressed the importance and ethicality of several issues relating to ethics and information technology use. The substance of the debate and results of audience votes on the issues are presented in this paper as a means of initiating a broader debate on the issues, for it is with debate that we reach a group consensus on acceptable behavior and practice. With consensus, we can begin to develop codes and policies that are feasible and practical for ethical computer use.Specific dilemmas debated involved the issues of privacy and ownership, including the ethicality of using company resources for personal use and monitoring compliance to company policies about computer use. In general, we found little consensus about ethicality of any of the types of conduct, although we found a high degree of consensus that the debated issues were important and should continue to be discussed. The final question concerned policies and codes. While policies and codes were believed to be necessary, they were also perceived as ineffective. Several suggestions for practical action to enhance the efficacy of ethical codes are presented.     

Organizational Commitment and Ethical Behavior: An Empirical Study of Information System Professionals

IS professionals have been reported to have one of the highest turnover rates. They have also often been accused of unethical conduct, specifically, pirating software, hacking, giving professional opinion that exceeds their knowledge, and not protecting people's privacy. In a sample of 71 IS professionals and 250 members of other professions we found that IS professionals were more committed to their organizations than the other professionals, and that IS professionals were, indeed, less ethical with respect to software piracy and hacking. However, we found that they were not less ethical regarding professional opinions that exceed one's knowledge and protecting people's privacy.     

Refunds and collusion in service industries

This paper investigates industry-wide agreements on joint refund policies, and how they influence price competition. We compute the profit of fully-colluding, competing, and semicolluding service providers who offer refunds to those consumers who do not show up at the time of service. Our main findings are that both a monopoly serving all consumer types, and semicollusive service providers offer full refunds. In contrast, competing service providers offer only partial refunds. Finally, refund policies are investigated under moral hazard behavior.     

Partial outsourcing, monitoring cost, and market structure

Abstract.  We investigate firms' outsourcing decisions when production requires a large number of inputs. The novelty of our approach is that it provides a testable framework to characterize the equilibrium fraction of outsourced inputs. We demonstrate that intensified competition in a Cournot market for the final good typically enlarges the set of outsourced components relative to those produced in‐house. The proportions of outsourced inputs are found to be strategic substitutes independently of whether firms compete with respect to quantities or prices in the market for the final good. JEL classification: D20, L22     

A Short Survey of Network Economics

This article surveys a variety of topics that are related to network economics. Topics covered include: consumer demand under network effects, compatibility decisions and standardization, technology advances in network industries, two-sided markets, information networks and intellectual property, and social influence.     

Common ownership,institutional investors,and welfare

This study evaluates the effects of institutional investors' common ownership of firms competing in the same market. Overall, common ownership has two opposing effects: (a) it serves as a device for weakening market competition, and (b) it induces diversification, thereby reducing portfolio risk. We conduct a detailed welfare analysis within which the competition‐softening effects of an increased degree of common ownership is weighted against the associated diversification benefits.     

Expressions of anger in Israeli workplaces: The special place of customer interactions

We examine norms regarding displays of anger in interactions with different target persons in Israeli organizations. Israeli university students who had been employed in the last year were asked about displaying anger to managers, subordinates, coworkers, customers and customer service representatives. For comparison, data about displays of another negative emotion—fear—were also collected. Our predictions—that anger expression is influenced by the power of the target person—were supported. There was stronger agreement that anger should be suppressed with managers than with coworkers and subordinates. Agreement that anger should be suppressed was also stronger regarding displays toward customers than toward coworkers, subordinates and managers. Norms of suppressing anger were particularly strong for displays toward customers, and far stronger than the parallel of customers' displays toward customer service representatives. These finding are suggested to imply the penetration of global customer service norms to the Israeli economy.     

A Strategic Approach to Software Protection*

This paper demonstrates that there is a strategic reason why software firms have followed consumers' desire to drop software protection. We analyze software protection policies in a price-setting duopoly software industry selling differentiated software packages, where consumers' preference for particular software is affected by the number of other consumers who (legally or illegally) use the same software. Increasing network effects make software more attractive to consumers, thereby enabling firms to raise prices. However, it also generates a competitive effect resulting from feircer competition for market shares. We show that when network effects are strong, unprotecting is an equilibrium for a noncooperative industry.     

Did SFAS 166/167 decrease the information asymmetry of securitizing banks?

Beginning in 2010, mandated Financial Accounting Standards No. 166 and 167 (SFAS 166/167) changed the consolidation rules of securitization entities and required more information about their securitization activities. I find that securitizing banks experienced a decrease in information asymmetry from the pre- to the post-SFAS 166/167 periods, and that more visible securitizing banks are less sensitive to SFAS 166/167. These inferences are robust to a number of sensitivity analyses. This study is one of the first to provide evidence of the effects of SFAS 166/167 on the information asymmetry of securitizing banks.