Report on Business Ethics in North America

Although many challenges remain, business ethics is flourishing in North America. Prominent organizations give annual business ethics awards, investments in socially screened mutual funds are increasing, ethics officers and corporate ombudspersons are more common and more influential, and new ideas are being tested in practice. On the academic side, two major journals specializing in business ethics are well-established and other major journals often include articles on business ethics and new organizations emphasizing ethics have been initiated. Within business schools, the number of endowed chairs is growing and the ethics curriculum is expanding. Canada is a major player in the business ethics discipline while business ethics in Mexico is just beginning to emerge as a focus of interest in both the business and academic communities.     

Search and Liquidity in Single-Family Housing

A two-stage least squares model of housing prices is estimated with data collected from 3358 single-family home transactions. The results provide evidence for an optimal marketing period and indicate that a liquidity premium is priced in single-family home sales. Consistent with the hypothesis derived from economic search models, the model shows higher selling prices for houses having longer expected marketing periods. The model also shows a price premium for houses that sell faster than expectations. This effect supports the concept that liquidity is a value-enhancing characteristic.     

Corporate Board Composition, Protocols, and Voting Behavior: Experimental Evidence

We examine voting by a board designed to mitigate conflicts of interest between privately informed insiders and owners. Our model demonstrates that, as argued by researchers and the business press, boards with a majority of trustworthy but uninformed “watchdogs” can implement institutionally preferred policies. Our laboratory experiments strongly support this conclusion. Our model also highlights the necessity of penalties on insiders when there is dissension among board members. However, penalties for dissent appeared to have little impact on the experimental outcomes.     

Current and future changes in corporate attitudes to national identity

This commentary is a revised version of a speech that was delivered by the Honorable Thomas Harris to the Thunderbird community at the Glendale campus on February 6, 2001. Although the speech was delivered in 2001, its attendant concerns and arguments endure and are germane in today's global business considerations. Ambassador Harris is presently Her Majesty's Consul General and Director General of British Trade and Investment in the United States. Following his graduation from Cambridge University, Ambassador Harris joined the Board of Trade in 1966, and subsequently the British Diplomatic Service. His diplomatic career included stints in Tokyo, Washington, and Lagos. He has also held various appointments in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. His most recent overseas posting was as British Ambassador to Korea between 1993 and 1997. He was later appointed Director General for Export Promotion in the Department of Trade and Investments (now known as British Trade International), before taking on his present assignments in New York. As Director General of British Trade and Investment, he has overall responsibility for the promotion of British trade throughout the U.S. and for securing investment by U.S. firms in the United Kingdom. In 1995, Ambassador Harris was appointed by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, to be a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.