Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: A legal and moral analysis

The author examines the categories of bribes that are prohibited under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act from the perspective of three significant moral theories: utility, rights and justice. He concludes that the Act does not go too far in demanding ethical behaviors from U.S. business people doing business in foreign markets, therefore, it is not in need of a major revision. With regard to accounting provisions, movement from a reasonableness standard to one of materiality would be appropriate however. Bill Shaw is Professor of Business Law at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests are in the area of business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and environmental law. During the Spring Semester, 1987, he held the Lynn S. Autrey Visiting Chair of Business Ethics, Rice University. His articles have appeared in various journals and he is the author of Environmental Law: People Pollution and Land Use (1976) and The structure of the Legal Environment (1987) (with Art Wolfe).     

Drug prohibition: A legal and economic analysis

This paper argues the case for the legalization of addictive drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. It maintains that there are no market failures which could justify a banning of these substances, and that, as in the earlier historical case of prohibition of alcohol, our present drug policy has increased crime, decreased respect for legitimate law, and created great social upheaval.A member of the faculty of the Economics Department of the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, Dr. Walter Block is Adjunct Scholar at the Fraser, Cato, and Mises Institutes. His professional affiliations include the American Economic Association, and Western Economic Association, the British Columbia Association of Professional Economists, the Canadian Economic Association, the Canadian Association for Business Economics and the American Law and Economics Association. He has previously taught at Stony Brook (S.U.N.Y.), Baruch (C.U.N.Y.) and Rutgers Universities, and has worked in various research capacities for the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Tax Foundation,The Financial Post, Western Report, andBusiness Week. Dr. Block has published numerous popular and scholarly articles on economics and writes a syndricated column forSterling newspapers. An economic commentator on national television and radio, he lectures widely on public policy issues to university students, service, professional and religious organizations.Nothing in this article should be taken as an indication that the author favours the use of the drugs discussed herein. Actually the very opposite is the case. While he opposes prohibition, he advocates all non-coercive methods — arguments, counselling, advertising, etc. — which lead to decreased or zero usage of these pernicious and immoral materials and substances.     

大股东侵害与中小股东利益保护:一个模型分析

大股东侵害中小股东利益的现象已引起社会的广泛关注,但已有文献缺乏对大股东侵害成因和程度的研究。依据公共选择理论和产业组织理论,本文模型指出实施监督职能但没有得到相应投资收益是大股东侵害中小股东利益的重要原因,大股东的侵害包括以补偿监督成本为目的的第I类侵害、要求监督成本的支出取得合理投资回报为目的的第II类侵害和大股东利用公司内部信息以最大化其收益为目的的第III类侵害,且不同类型的侵害对大股东和公司的意义不同。为有效解决大股东侵害问题,并提高大股东的监督水平,就应对大股东的第I类和第II类侵害进行补偿,并对第III类侵害进行惩罚。     

Technical analysis and computer trading

The efforts of the central banks of Western industrial countries to stabilize exchange rates following the Louvre Agreement demonstrated yet again how difficult it can be to influence events in the foreign exchange markets. What factors are currently affecting exchange rates? What significance attaches to technical analysis in this context?     

Non-Libertarianism and Shareholder Theory: A Reply to Schaefer

Libertarianism and the shareholder model of corporate responsibility have long been thought of as natural bedfellows. In a recent contribution to the Journal of Business Ethics, Brian Schaefer goes so far as to suggest that a proponent of shareholder theory cannot coherently and consistently embrace any moral position other than philosophical libertarianism. The view that managers have a fiduciary obligation to advance the interests of shareholders exclusively is depicted as fundamentally incompatible with the acknowledgement of natural positive duties – duties to aid others that have not been acquired by some prior commitment or transaction. I argue that Schaefer is mistaken. Positive duties are incompatible with the shareholder model only if we must contribute to their fulfilment in the corporate context; only if we have some reason to think that it is not possible or not permissible to discharge these obligations entirely in our private lives or through our various other roles and capacities. But we have no good reason to accept this. I argue that individuals are presumptively free to decide how and when to discharge their positive duties, and that buying shares does not cause this presumption to lapse. Hence a non-libertarian moral theory can be held without incoherence by a proponent of the shareholder model.     

The relationship between moral decisions and their consequences: A tradeoff analysis approach

While at one level, the literature in ethics for some issues is broad, deep, and complex, for others it appears limited and lacking in sophistication. This cross — cultural study deals not only with the moral reasoning behind moral dilemmas in business but also with the magnitudes these dilemmas in concert with their possible outcomes and consequences. While many studies discuss the effect of these outcomes, we have found none that have explicitly examined them.The methodology and analysis use a novel approach for this topic, and is a major contribution of the paper: that of tradeoff analysis. Tradeoff analysis is capable of revealing both the nature of an individual's moral reasoning as well as interactions between this and the rewards or consequences for the moral action. These interactions are illustrated with a cross — cultural pilot study conducted in Singapore and the United States, which reveal noteworthy differences in moral decision making.William R. Swinyard is a Professor of Business Management at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA, 84602.Thomas J. Delong is a Professor of Education at the same university.Peng Sim Cheng is a Senior Tutor at the National University of Singapore, School of Management, Singapore 0511. Correspondence should be addressed to the first author.     

Entrepreneurial enterprise and ‘image’ in the nineteenth-century trading firm: Shaping the legal environment for business

Jardine Matheson & Company, a 200-year-old Hong Kong trading company that began as a house of agency, has evolved to become a contemporary Asian multinational. This article focuses on the entrepreneurial ambition of founders William Jardine and James Matheson, the importance of reputation both to legitimacy and the survival and growth of the firm, with emphasis on the role played by the founders in shaping the legal environment for trade with China. The study uses Edith Penrose's Theory of the Growth of the Firm as a principal interpretive framework and draws its evidence from the founders' original letters and a previously unexamined resource, the free trade treatise of James Matheson called Present Position and Prospects of the British Trade with China.     

Goodwill,going concern,stocks and flows: A prescription for moral analysis

This paper projects the decision making dilemma faced by managers when assessing moral consequences associated with planning proposals. A case is made for viewing the results of moral behavior as a capital asset. Accepting the idea that moral business behavior proportionally influences the firm's goodwill value, the author advances the recommendation that current U.S. accounting practices become involved with determining the moral wellness of the firm. The suggestion is made that stocks and flows are useful concepts in the development of a financial information system that incorporates benefits associated with morally accepted behavior. As a necessary part of the going concern operational strategy, a case is made for the preservation and advancement of the firm's moral capital. Overall, the intent of this paper is to offer a proposal which links moral behavior with financial decision making.     

Calendar trading of Taiwan stock market: A study of holidays on trading detachment and interruptions

We analyze the influence of the Chinese lunar calendar and superstitions on holiday preferences using theories on time and mood to identify investor sentiment. Trading interruptions caused by Thursday holidays negative significantly influence investor sentiment for trust companies and individual investors. Trading detachment derived from cultural holidays in June positive significantly influences investor sentiment for dealers and individual investors. Trust companies and the market exhibit significantly positive sentiments toward winter holidays. The stock exchange indicates negative and positive sentiments toward winter holidays and holidays in January. Cultural holidays and superstition in Taiwan indicate strong support for holiday preferences in Asia.     

Insider trading in futures markets: A discussion

“…Every man in the War Department, and the Executive Mansion, who was so situated as to be able to communicate valuable information in advance of the newspaper dispatches was approached by the gold operators, and in most instances an arrangement existed between the former and the latter, for mutual profit.…”     

Alienation and moral imperatives: A reply to Kanungo

Rabindra Kanungo's position that alienation at work can be eliminated within capitalism is critically evaluated. My argument is that Kanungo only emphasizes the psychological aspect of Marx's view of alienation. The failure to include the ontological element of alienation results in the confused position that alienation can be eliminated while workers are still being separated from their work by capital. The role that the right to private property plays in the maintenance of this separation is also seen to be a part of Marx's conception of alienation that is missing from Kanungo's analysis. The clarification of Marx's conception of alienation results in the position that organizations within capitalism cannot live up to the moral imperative to be socially responsible in removing alienation at work.Robert T. Sweet is an instructor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton. His research interests include: Marxist philosophy, business ethics, and philosophy of mind. HisMarx, Morality and the Virtue of Beneficence (Peter Lang), was published in November of 1991.     

海外代购法律问题分析与研究

随着经济贸易和科学技术的发展,购物模式进入海外代购时代,但这种模式只是初具雏形,仍存在许多现实问题。本文从税收、反不正当竞争行为、消费者维权三个法律层面对海外代购进行初步的风险分析并为规范海外代购市场给予意见。     

Rational interaction for moral sensitivity: A postmodern approach to moral decision-making in business

Moral dissensus is a distinct feature of our time. This is not only true of our post-modern culture in general, but also of business culture specifically. In this paper I start by explaining how modernist rationality has produced moral dissensus without offering any hope of bringing an end to it in the foreseeable future. Opting for a form of post-modernist rationality as the only viable way of dealing with moral dissensus, I then make an analysis of a number of ways proposed by both specialists in the field of business ethics, as well as philosophers to deal with moral decision-making in this situation of moral dissensus. The conclusion reached is that none of these attempts succeeds in coming to terms with moral dissensus. I then formulate an alternative approach to moral decision-making which I call: Rational interaction for moral sensitivity. After explaining this approach, I defend it against some of the most obvious objections that might be raised against it in a business environment.

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Corporate moral agency: A case from literature

I analyze a well-known and moving passage from John Steinbeck's novelThe Grapes of Wrath. This passage provides an excellent illustration of one of the central questions about corporate moral agency: Is corporate moral agency anything over and above the agency of individual human beings? The passage in question is a debate about whether or not the actions of a particular company are anything over and above the actions of individual human beings.     

Tips in business transaction: A moral issue

Has one the right to expect favor because he or she has given tip? Or is one obligated to bend the rule of law in favor of his friend from whom he has received tip or favor? The paper undertakes an analysis of the different tip situations, the different forms of tip and attempts to show in what sense the term tip is applicable and finally examines the usefulness of tip and its possible effect on a moral conscience. The paper argues that tip considered as a transaction wherein money or favor is offered for the purpose of gaining an advantage illegally is nothing but bribery and as such immoral. Tip as a “forced gratuity” is argued to be an organized exploitation. The paper then concludes that tip in its proper sense of voluntary and gratuitous transaction can maximize individual utility and enhance social solidarity, noting at the same time, that its possible adverse effect on the moral conscience is worth taking cognizance of.