Modeling Support for Role-Based Delegation in Process-Aware Information Systems

In the paper, an integrated approach for the modeling and enforcement of delegation policies in process-aware information systems is presented. In particular, a delegation extension for process-related role-based access control (RBAC) models is specified. The extension is generic in the sense that it can be used to extend process-aware information systems or process modeling languages with support for process-related RBAC delegation models. Moreover, the detection of delegation-related conflicts is discussed and a set of pre-defined resolution strategies for each potential conflict is provided. Thereby, the design-time and runtime consistency of corresponding RBAC delegation models can be ensured. Based on a formal metamodel, UML2 modeling support for the delegation of roles, tasks, and duties is provided. A corresponding case study evaluates the practical applicability of the approach with real-world business processes. Moreover, the approach is implemented as an extension to the BusinessActivity library and runtime engine.     

Business experience and start-up size: Buying more lottery tickets next time around?

This paper explores the determinants of start-up size by focusing on a cohort of 6,247 businesses that started trading in 2004, using a unique dataset on customer records at Barclays Bank. Quantile regressions show that prior business experience is significantly related with start-up size, as are a number of other variables such as age, education and bank account activity. Quantile treatment effects (QTE) estimates show similar results, with the effect of business experience on (log) start-up size being roughly constant across the quantiles. Prior personal business experience leads to an increase in expected start-up size of about 50 %. Instrumental variable QTE estimates are even higher, although there are concerns about the validity of the instrument.     

Karma-Yoga: The Indian Model of Moral Development

A comprehensive model of moral development must encompass moral sensitivity, moral reasoning, moral motivation, and moral character. Western models of moral development have often failed to show validity outside the culture of their origin. We propose Karma-Yoga, the technique of intelligent action discussed in the Bhagawad Gita as an Indian model for moral development. Karma-Yoga is conceptualized as made up of three dimensions viz. duty-orientation, indifference to rewards, and equanimity. Based on survey results from 459 respondents from two large Indian organizations, we show that the dimensions of Karma-Yoga are related to moral sensitivity, moral motivation, and moral character.     

Alliances Between Corporate and Fair Trade Brands: Examining the Antecedents of Overall Evaluation of the Co-branded Product

This research investigates the potential for a “fair” co-branding operation. A major corporate brand is fictitiously allied with a Fair Trade labelling organization brand. The sample for the study is composed of 540 respondents, representative of the French population. By considering commercial brands and Fair Trade labels as dissimilar in terms of customers’ perceived Fair Trade orientations, this article studies (1) how this lack of similarity impacts perceived congruence between both entities (i.e. perceived relevancy and expectancy of the alliance) and (2) how prior brand attitudes and congruence influence customers’ evaluation of the co-branded product. The results of this research demonstrate that: (1) Consumer prior brand attitudes toward the partner brands influence very little customers’ evaluation. (2) Perceived similarity of the partner brands has a strong influence toward congruence of the co-branding operation. Results also indicate that congruence (measured as relevancy and expectancy) has a strong influence upon customers’ evaluation. (3) An inverted U-shaped relationship exists between perceived similarity and relevancy of the alliance, and between expectancy and customers’ evaluation. The results obtained through the test of a partial least square model, and inverted U-shaped hypothesis, represent a new insight into co-branding theory. The high discursive power of fair co-branding is a key issue: the corporate brand provides the alliance with its leading position, while the Fair Trade brand provides the ethical attribute.     

Challengers from Within Economic Institutions: A Second-Class Social Movement? A Response to Déjean,Giamporcaro, Gond,Leca and Penalva-Icher’s Comment on French SRI

In a recent comment made about my paper “A Social Movement Perspective on Finance: How Socially Responsible Investment Mattered” (J Bus Ethics 92:57–78, 2010), published in this journal, Déjean, Giamporcaro, Gond, Leca and Penalva-Icher (J Bus Ethics 112:205–212, 2013) strongly criticize the social movement perspective adopted on French SRI. They both contest the empirical analysis of the movement and the possibility for insiders to trigger institutional change towards sustainability. This answer aims to address the different concerns raised throughout their comment and illuminate the differences between both approaches. It first explains why SRI in France can be considered as a social movement, despite not being protest-oriented. It then reflects on the dangers of systematically associating societal change with radical activism. It concludes by elaborating on the importance of acknowledging the potential contribution of reformist movements from within the economic institutions to the enhancement of the social good.     

EC reform inch by inch

After ratification by member countries, the “Luxembourg reform package” worked out by the European Council at the end of 1985 is to provide the basis for the development of the European Community into the nineties. What are the challenges facing the EC? What opportunities do the Luxembourg reforms open up?     

UN development strategy for the eighties

The recently held 11th Special Session of the UN General Assembly reached agreement on an international strategy for the Third Development Decade which is to be formally passed by the current 35th General Assembly. In the discussion it became obvious that the developing countries’ interest still focusses on a New International Economic Order. There are however grave doubts about the possibility of reaching, by institutional reforms, a real solution for the development problems to be faced in this decade.     

Why economic sanctions always fail — the case of Rhodesia

Demands for the imposition of economic sanctions under UN auspices on South Africa have been voiced for quite some time. Rhodesia was the first country ever to be subjected to a full obligatory embargo by the UN Security Council. An analysis of the embargo against Rhodesia will therefore help to answer the question whether an embargo on South Africa stands a chance of success.     

Entrepreneurship,innovation, and human flourishing

This essay uses Edmund Phelps’ new book Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change (Phelps 2013) as inspiration to discuss innovation and entrepreneurship. The book is laudable for its discussion of what constitutes a “good life”. Phelps argues that true life satisfaction cannot be achieved through a purposeless quest for wealth and material consumption, but rather through adventure, entrepreneurship, and creative endeavors. Weaknesses of the book include an overly glossy characterization of the period before World War II, a niggardly evaluation of European innovation, and the lack of convincing empirical evidence for the claim that the rate of innovation has slowed. These flaws are regrettable given the importance of the book’s main message: innovation and creative entrepreneurship are not merely the keys to economic growth, but to life satisfaction as well. This essay discusses topics in entrepreneurship research linked to the book, including the link between innovation and entrepreneurship, the role of institutions for entrepreneurship, and the tendency of national accounts to under-record the social value of innovation and entrepreneurship. If the measures used do not capture the full social value of innovation, we are likely to underestimate the genuine rate of innovation. Government policy may also be misguided. Finally, the challenge to entrepreneurial capitalism posed by the postmodernist research paradigm is discussed.     

Islamic Corporate Governance: Risk-Sharing and Islamic Preferred Shares

The recent financial crises (including the Asian and subprime crises) indicated the need to reinforce corporate governance mechanisms in emerging and developing market economies. Corporate governance refers to all the factors that affect firm processes (including, among others, financing strategies). Firms must avoid debt financing instruments and adopt financing instruments that allow for “risk-sharing” rather than “risk-shifting” because all recent financial crises were, in essence, debt crises. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the principles of risk-sharing promoted by Islamic finance and study their implications for corporate governance. The secondary objective of this paper is to propose a pricing model for a new risk-sharing financial instrument (Islamic preferred shares, IPS) that was recently discussed by Zarka and Al-Suhaibani (Shariah-compatible preference shares: The Sharia Basis and Economic Rationale. Working paper, SABIC Chair for Islamic Financial Market Studies, 2012). We study the implications of this new instrument as a powerful tool for corporate governance in the case of Islamic markets. We explain the possible contribution of IPS to agency cost reduction, Sharia screening costs and ethical corporate governance.     

The Harmonization and Convergence of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting Standards

The goal of this article is to evaluate the future of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting in terms of the harmonization of reporting standards. The evolution and convergence of financial reporting standards are compared to that of CSR reporting standards. In addition, four globally recognized CSR reporting standards are evaluated. The content of each standard is reviewed, a representative from each standard organization is interviewed, and the standards are evaluated for decision usefulness. This research suggests that the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) would be the best standard to provide decision useful information. This analysis is reinforced by recent events in the transformation of CSR reporting standards and provides insight into the possible future development of CSR reporting standards.     

A concept for an Open World Economy

One of the many new publications dealing with the reform of the International trade system is the report of the Trade Policy Research Centre “Towards an Open World Economy”. The following article analyses and criticlses the main proposals of the report.     

Attitudes Toward Ethically Questionable Negotiation Tactics: A Two-Country Study

Current research has identified five discrete US negotiation tactics, a traditional one considered to be ethical, and four considered to be ethically questionable. Scholars have independently used culture to explain how the endorsement of these five negotiation tactics varies across nations. They have also independently used interpersonal trust and ethics propensity to explain antecedents of the endorsement of those five negotiation tactics. This research combines all those variables into one model that investigates the influence of horizontal and vertical individualism–collectivism, ethical idealism, and trust propensity on employees’ attitudes toward ethically questionable negotiation tactics in Israel and Kyrgyzstan. A survey questionnaire was translated from English to Hebrew and Kyrgyz, and 615 responses were collected from employees in various industries in the two countries. We empirically confirmed three types of questionable negotiation tactics discovered in previous one-nation studies, namely, pretending, deceiving, and lying. Vertical individualism was found to be positively, and horizontal collectivism was found to be negatively, related to pretending, deceiving, and lying. Ethical idealism was found to be negatively related to the endorsement of the lying tactics, while trust propensity was negatively related to the pretending tactics. Compared with Israel, employees’ endorsement of ethically questionable negotiation tactics was significantly higher in Kyrgyzstan. Contribution to theory and practice is discussed.     

International raw material policy in the agricultural and industrial sphere

The demands in the sphere of raw material policy are a cardinal element of the “New International Economic Order” on which the developing countries are insisting. Dr Hermes, Secretary of State in the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, discusses the Common Fund and other issues concerning raw material policy from the German point of view.     

OECD and consumer policy

This paper briefly surveys the work being done by the OECD Committee on Consumer Policy. The Committee, which has existed for more than twenty years, has produced a wide variety of reports on subjects ranging from product safety to general economic issues, financial services, and marketing practices. The discussion of product safety has been one of the Committee's standing tasks.     

The “pipeline” problem in bilateral financial cooperation

It has been observed since about 1976 that financial commitments to developing countries have been disbursed more slowly than in the past. At the same time there have been increasing complaints from recipients that the commitment, appraisal and disbursement procedures of the donor countries were excessively complicated, resulting in a delay of disbursements. The Western industrialized countries, both individually and jointly in the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD, therefore initiated investigations into the importance to be assigned to this phenomenon as well as into the question of whether there are any possible ways of simplifying the administrative procedures. The following article sums up the results of such a study by the German Institute for Development Policy in respect of the Federal Republic of Germany.     

Leadership,Pragmatism and Grace: A Review

Leadership takes a central role in the public affairs agenda. This article is a review of published works on leadership focusing on the concept of grace. It discusses the role of compassion and kindness in current leadership theory and practice and whether these attributes have value in sustainable models. Findings indicate that there is conceptual confusion regarding the definition of compassion and its application in leadership practices. Kindness is not discussed within the concept of compassion and kindness itself may be viewed as a weakness in contemporary self-selected leadership characteristics. The conclusions suggest there is disconnect between contemporary models of leadership and calls for sustainable ethical leadership in the spheres of public and business environments. Compassion and kindness remain in the side-lines yet the implications for future trust and commitment are neglected in times where discretionary effort of workers and volunteers is crucial to goal achievement.     

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Why It Fails to Deter Bribery as a Global Market Entry Strategy

Recent studies (Cragg and Woof, Bus Soc Rev 107(1):98–144, 2002; Weismann, J Bus Ethics 88:615–66, 2009) revealed that in the first 28 years of its existence, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was not enforced by the federal government. The Weismann study further concluded that the FCPA, designed by Congress as a self-regulatory model of corporate governance, failed to achieve the regulatory goal of deterring global bribery by U.S. companies. The current article addresses the reasons that the FCPA remains an ineffective measure to control bribery as a global market entry strategy despite the highly publicized 2006 Department of Justice initiative to increase prosecutions and tighten enforcement efforts. The failure arises out of both the increased use of informal dispositions of case prosecutions, (including non-prosecution and deferred prosecution agreements), which has made “getting caught” merely an increased “cost of doing business” and the failure to close the regulatory gaps in the statute that permit violators to slip through the enforcement net. The article updates and compiles the case prosecution data for every reported case prosecuted between 1977 and 2011. That data are then compared to the results of a 2010 integrity risk survey performed by Deloitte Financial Advisory Services and Forbes which reveal a widely held global business perception that compliance and integrity risks appear to be rising sharply and that the FCPA is ineffective in deterring bribery and corruption in foreign markets. The article aims to serve as a predictive tool for policy makers and business professionals in assessing risk in the global markets, particularly as commerce intensifies in the BRIC countries, notable for bribery and corruption.     

The Relationships of Empathy,Moral Identity and Cynicism with Consumers’ Ethical Beliefs: The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement

This study examines the relationships of empathy, moral identity and cynicism with the following dimensions of consumer ethics: the passive dimension (passively benefiting at the expense of the seller), the active/legal dimension (benefiting from questionable but legal actions), the ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension (actions that do not harm anyone directly but are considered unethical by some) and the ‘doing-good’/recycling dimension (pro-social actions). A survey of six hundred Australian consumers revealed that both empathy and moral identity were related to negative beliefs regarding the passive and the active/legal dimensions of consumer ethics and were related to positive beliefs regarding the ‘doing-good’/recycling dimension. Cynicism was related to positive beliefs regarding the passive dimension of consumer ethics and was related to negative beliefs regarding the ‘doing-good’/recycling dimension. The role of moral disengagement in mediating these relationships was examined. Empathy and moral identity were only indirectly negatively related to the ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension of consumer ethics through moral disengagement, while cynicism was indirectly positively related to this dimension through moral disengagement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

GATT’s role in East-West trade

After a phase of stagnation in East-West trade lasting several years, both sides have more recently been at pains to intensify economic relations between East and West, the reasons being both economic and political. What part can the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) play in this regard?