An Ethical Approach to Lobbying Activities of Businesses in the United States

This paper presents an ethical approach to the use of lobbying within the context of the relationships among U.S. organizations, their lobbyists, and government officials. After providing a brief history of modern-day lobbying activities, lobbying is defined and described focusing on its role as a strategic marketing tool. Then ethical frameworks for understanding the impact of these practices on various external constituencies are delineated with an emphasis on the communitarian movement advanced by Etzioni. Consistent with the call for "informed advocacy" by Laczniak (1993), the paper closes with an examination of the ethics of specific lobbying activities.     

The Impact of the Multinational in the Development: An Ethical Challenge

Multinational enterprises have continued their increase during the last decades. What these companies do and how they do, determines not only the economic development of countries, but also their social and cultural development. This enormous power implies responsibility and new challenges.If we also take into account the role of multinational enterprises in what has been called sustainable development, we see that their importance is still more decisive.In order to guide the performances of multinational enterprises that operate in developing countries, several supranational organizations like the ILO, the OECD, the EU and the UN have elaborated some recommendations to unify criteria and to set out some minimum standards to favor an integral development of these countries. In this document we present three of those with the greatest impact and we analyze them from the approach of an ethical sustainable human development.     

Social Standards: Toward an Active Ethical Involvement of Businesses in Developing Countries

As a consequence of the changing conditions of doing business, we can observe the emergence of an increasing number of industrial and company-specific codes of conduct, as well as social and environmental standards. This paper considers these initiatives as being self-regulating governance mechanisms, which are characterized by a process of voluntary adherence on the part of firms to certain mechanisms or principles that seek to promote a “good society.” Two specific internationally established standards are discussed: Social Accountability 8000 (SA 8000) and AccountAbility 1000 (AA 1000). These institutionalized approaches are described and then contrasted in relation to a number of different factors, particularly the degree to which they foster “reflexivity,” in terms of how businesses think about these issues, and “dialog,” in terms of how businesses interact with stakeholders. Such questions are relevant to the ways in which these standards might be introduced and implemented, and which of these institutionalized approaches are the most promising for international businesses in developing countries. Dr. Thomas Beschorner is the head of the Social Learning and Sustainability Research Group in the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law, University of Oldenburg, Germany. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Dr. Martin Müller is an Associate Professor for Production and Environment in the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law, University of Oldenburg, Germany.     

On Ethical Violations in Microfinance Backed Small Businesses: Family and Household Welfare

Journal of Business Ethics - The microfinance business model focuses largely on lending to the woman in the household, rather than the man. The belief is that women are more trustworthy borrowers...     

中国企业如何应对美国零关税的挑战

美国提出的零关税计划将对发展中国家的工业造成很大冲击,对于加入世贸组织仅一年多的中国也不例外。本文论述了中国工业企业和进出口贸易将受到的影响和应对之策。     

浅议个体工商户向微型企业转型

近两年,随着微型企业成为独立的企业类型及其政策倾斜力度的持续加大,个体工商户的转型升级迎来了更优的政策空间。作为我国特殊经济体制下的个体工商户,在适当条件下稳步向企业转型,将会对个人、企业及国家带来积极的推动作用和深刻的社会意义。发展成熟的个体工商户应该把握机遇,积极进行微型企业转型,不断增强自身素质以及规范化运营体系,从而保持其长久生存与发展能力,更好地发挥在经济、社会中的重大作用。     

The Global Challenge to Advertising

Abstract

Written by several executives of the International Advertising Association, “The Global Challenge to Advertising” was first made public at the 23rd IAA World Congress in Dublin in early June of 1973. The study, with detailed examples from many areas, brings into focus the two main currents of world-wide opposition to advertising: mounting consumer dissatisfaction with product quality and claims, and increasing government regulation and control of advertising. It is reprinted here by permission of the International Advertising Association, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017.     

Pop-Ups, Cookies, and Spam: Toward a Deeper Analysis of the Ethical Significance of Internet Marketing Practices

While e-commerce has grown rapidly in recent years, some of the practices associated with certain aspects of marketing on the Internet, such as pop-ups, cookies, and spam, have raised concerns on the part of Internet users. In this paper I examine the nature of these practices and what I take to be the underlying source of this concern. I argue that the ethical issues surrounding these Internet marketing techniques move us beyond the traditional treatment of the ethics of marketing and advertising found in discussions of business ethics previously. Rather, I show that the questions they raise ultimately turn upon questions of technique and the ways in which technologies can transform the fundamental means by which relationships are established and maintained within a social environment. I then argue that the techniques of e-commerce are indeed transforming the means by which businesses relate to consumers, and that this transformation is affecting the applicability of our previous ways of demarcating the imperatives determining the limits of accessibility between consumers and businesses. Properly addressing the ethical status of the techniques of e-marketing as such necessarily moves us to consider the changes that Internet commerce are having upon the norms that govern individuals in their relations with others.     

会计业如何面对WTO

要：加入WTO后，我国的会计环境将发生很大的变化，会计业面临规范体系不完善、处理风险加大、核算内容增加等挑战。因此，建立统一的会计规范体系、改革会计教育体制、加速理论研究及实施会计现代管理势在必行。     

The Ethical Attribute Stigma: Understanding When Ethical Attributes Improve Consumer Responses to Product Evaluations

Although several articles have investigated ethical product attributes, earlier research has not empirically examined different benefits offered by ethical attributes (i.e., symbolic or utilitarian benefits). This study demonstrates that ethical attributes have functional benefits as well as symbolic benefits. More importantly, when the ethical attribute benefit is congruent with the product category benefit, ethical attributes improve product evaluations. In addition, products with a higher degree of physical contact with consumers are affected more positively by benefit congruity of ethical attributes. For products with lower degree of physical contact, benefit congruity of ethical attributes still has a positive impact, but not for consumers who have strong price–quality beliefs.     

Curbing Agricultural Exceptionalism: The EU's Response to External Challenge

From 1948 to 1994, the agricultural sector was afforded special treatment in the GATT. We analyse the extent to which this agricultural exceptionalism was curbed as a result of the GATT Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, discuss why it was curbed and finally explore the implication of this for EU policy making. We argue that, in particular, two major changes in GATT institutions brought about restrictions on agricultural exceptionalism. First, the Uruguay Round was a ‘single undertaking’ in which progress on other dossiers was contingent upon an outcome on agriculture. The EU had keenly supported this new decision rule in the GATT. Within the EU this led to the MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 1992, paving the way for a trade agreement on agriculture within the GATT. Second, under the new quasi‐judicial dispute settlement procedure, countries are expected to bring their policies into conformity with WTO rules or face retaliatory trade sanctions. This has brought about a greater willingness on the part of the EU to submit its farm policy to WTO disciplines.     

The E-Tailer Challenge to Store Retailers

Abstract

E-tailing threatens store retailers with more efficient forms of on-line sales. This threat is exaggerated if technology improves traditional intermediary efficiency as much as direct manufacturer-to-consumer efficiency. Channel remediation is an alternative hypothesis in which hybrid channels shift some retail functions on-line while maintaining many functions of traditional retailers.     

森工企业在发展中面临的困境及对策

目前国家对林业的发展高度重视,这为森工企业的发展提供了难得的机遇。但由于森工企业面临的资源危机、资金危机、人才危机、体制危机等多方面的困境,森工企业在发展中步履维艰。分析森工企业面临的困境,充分发挥林业的生态功能,以最快的速度实现森工企业可持续发展。     

Tobacco Targeting: The Ethical Complexity of Marketing to Minorities

In recent years, there has been heightened concern regarding the marketing of potentially harmful products (PHPs) to disadvantaged markets. Three issues which commonly dominate discussions in this controversy are: (1) the potential for exploitation of vulnerable markets, (2) the tradeoff between protection of disadvantaged consumers and their rights to make informed choices and (3) the appropriateness of using the commercial speech doctrine to settle the issue of targeting minority markets with PHPs. This paper examines the arguments raised in this debate so that interested parties will better appreciate the ethical complexity of marketing PHPs to minority segments.     

Marketing Professional Services to Family Businesses

ABSTRACT

Theory from the new field of family business studies, tested empirically here, indicates that family business procurement processes for professional services is significantly different from that of other companies. Family businesses engage in more informal processes, involve family members who are not employees as influencers in the buying center, require a greater investment on the part of their suppliers and take longer to reach a decision. As a result of these process distinctions, marketers of professional services targeting smaller to medium sized businesses should be prepared to address the special needs of family business owners.     

Ethical Attitudes in Small Businesses and Large Corporations: Theory and Empirical Findings from a Tracking Study Spanning Three Decades

This study offers a theoretical framework of ethical behavior and a comparative analysis of ethical perceptions of managers of large, mostly publicly traded corporations (those with 1,000 or more employees) and the owners and managers of smaller companies (those with fewer than 100 employees) across 17 years. The primary research provides basic data on the changing standards of ethics as perceived by leaders of large and small businesses where the cultures frequently fall into sharp contrast. Our findings reveal the extent to which the message of business integrity is gaining or losing ground within large and small companies. It does this by means of respondents’ judgments of acceptable responses to 16 scenarios profiling common business situations with questionable ethical dimensions. Based on responses from over 5,000 managers and employees (from firms of all sizes) to our scenarios at three points in time (1985, 1993, 2001), we tested two research questions. First, for firms of all sizes, have business ethics improved or declined between the years 1985 and 2001? Second, comparing responses of large and small firm executives across the 1985–2001 time frame, is there a discernible difference in their ethical standards? Our results suggest that business leaders are making somewhat more ethical decisions in recent years. We also found that small business owner–managers offered less ethical responses to scenarios in 1993 but that no significant differences existed with large firm managers in 1985 and 2001. Implications of our findings are discussed.     

Selling Research Services to Small Businesses

No abstract available for this article.     

中国面临绿色壁垒的挑战与对策

随着全球绿色消费浪潮的兴起和新兴的贸易保护主义的出现,绿色壁垒便应运而生．中国作为一个发展中国家,将面临绿色壁垒的巨大挑战,迎接挑战则必走可持续发展的道路．     

Availability of Credit to Family Businesses

The paper provides evidence that family own- ership is associated with greater availability of credit. This may be because family-owned businesses are seen by lenders as having fewer moral hazard problems than non-family-owned businesses. One reason for this could be that family owned businesses, by definition, have a controlling share in the equity of the firm. Other factors considered important by lenders may be the managerial characteristics, and the relatively conservative investment choices of family-owned businesses. In spite of these advantages, family ownership is not associated with a reduction in premiums on the loans. The research also highlights differences between outside equity holders and debt-holders in their decision to invest in a firm. Equity holders are known to prefer separation of ownership and control, and the possibility of takeovers, as this could increase the value of the firm. Debt-holders, on the other hand, prefer arrangements that ensure continuity and stability. Family Business, Small Business, Credit Rationing.