The Elephant in the Room: On the Absence of Corporations in Bernard Hodgson’s <Emphasis Type=Italic>Economics as a Moral Science</Emphasis>

In his book Economics as a Moral Science, Bernard Hodgson argues that economics is not value neutral as is often claimed, but is a value-laden discipline. In the long argument for this in his book, Hodgson never discusses or even mentions corporations. This article explains that corporations are absent from Hodgson’s discussion because he considers only the consumption side of general equilibrium theory (GET), and it shows that if Hodgson had included corporations and the production side, his overall argument would have been more complete and convincing. This article shows that Hodgson’s methodology, when applied to the production side of GET, has value implications for CEOs of large corporations, for shareholders and members of Boards of Directors, and for legislators and regulators of business. Hodgson’s claim that economics must consider the ability of economic agents to create or change the institutional, cultural, and organizational conditions of their own economic actions is supported and expanded.     

Anderson and Escher’s <Emphasis Type=Italic>The MBA Oath</Emphasis>: Review Essay

Max Anderson and Peter Escher’s The MBA Oath addresses the need for a set of ethical standards to provide guidance to MBA graduates as they go about their everyday professional business. Their oath is relevant to the concerns of others in business but clearly was inspired by the special problems they encountered in the classroom as members of the Harvard MBA class of 2009. The oath and the book itself evolved from the financial meltdown of 2008 for which MBAs often felt that they were being held accountable. Our review begins with the oath itself. Then we turn to the rest of the book in which we have organized our comments around its strengths and weaknesses.     

Business and the <Emphasis Type=Italic>Polis:</Emphasis> What Does it Mean to See Corporations as Political Actors?

This article addresses the recent call in business ethics literature for a better understanding of corporations as political actors or entities. It first gives an overview of recent attempts to examine classical issues in business ethics through a political lens. It examines different ways in which theorists with an interest in the normative analysis of business practices and institutions could find it desirable and fruitful to use a political lens. This article presents a distinction among four views of the relations between corporations and politics: corporations as distributive agents, corporations as political communities, corporate practices and policies as citizenship issues, and corporations as active participants in the political process. This article finishes with an examination of three challenges that need to be overcome by the theory of the firm as a political actor.     

Bernard Hodgson’s Trojan Horse Critique of Neoclassical Economics and the Second Phase of the Empiricist Level of Analysis

This article examines and assesses Bernard Hodgson’s critique of the Neoclassical concept of rationality and its place in the literature. It is argued that Hodgson’s Trojan horse critique is superior to the others because it addresses the role of empiricist epistemology in reducing reason to instrumental rationality and consequent disappearance of the human subject of political economy. The second phase of the empiricist level of analysis reintroduces the capacities for ethical deliberation, self-determination, and the socio-historical conditions and institutional setting of the economic agent. Because Hodgson’s solutions presuppose empiricist terrain, they are arbitrary. This occurs because the fundamental problem of Neoclassical rationality is its ontology. Yet by introducing the human subject into economic theory, Hodgson’s solutions move onto an ontological terrain adequate for economic analysis of human subjects.     

Rebuilding Trust: Ireland’s CSR Plan in the Light of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Caritas in Veritate</Emphasis>

This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion on national corporate social responsibility (CSR) plans from the perspectives of the three logics as articulated in Caritas in Veritate, by using the Irish national CSR plan as an example. Good for Business, Good for the Community: Ireland’s National Plan on Corporate Social Responsibility 2014–2016 maintains that CSR activities can enable organisations to build relationships and trust with communities. One of the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis was the decrease in trust in banking systems and in business more broadly. It is well recognised that relationships of trust are essential to the life of the market, the state and civil society. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate contends that corresponding to the life of the market, the state and civil society are three logics: the logic of exchange (i.e. giving to acquire), the logic of public obligation (i.e. giving through duty) and the logic of gift (i.e. giving due to solidarity). This paper proposes that the normative framework of the three logics of Caritas in Veritate can be read into the Irish national CSR plan. This paper argues that the examples of CSR initiatives proffered by the plan could point organisations in the direction of the logic of gift and therefore enable the rebuilding of relationships of trust with citizens and communities.     

Towards a Handbook on European Contract Law and Beyond: The Commission’s 2004 Communication “European Contract Law and the Revision of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Acquis</Emphasis>: The Way Forward”

The European contract law project has crossed the threshold between an intellectual exercise and concrete policy. The 2004 Communication on the way forward describes the procedure to implement the policy suggested by the 2003 Action Plan, and so it would now be timely to give some thought to the likely impact of the Common Frame of Reference (CFR) on future Community law. It is submitted that the CFR is indispensable for the planned crafting of full harmonisation consumer contract law. This article therefore focuses on the possible uses of the CFR for consumer legislation and attempts to make the case for a recasting of Community law on consumer protection as a first priority in the implementation of the project. Based on policy papers and policy considerations, this article suggests making a test case of the travel and tourism sectors. It also reflects further on the potential virtues of an optional instrument for consumer legislation.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">In</Emphasis>flexible Wages and Prices? Evidence in the Current Recession

The 2008/9 recession period brought the most massive and quickest response of fiscal and monetary policy in modern economic history. At the same time, small businesses (that produce half of private GDP) exhibited the most rapid adjustments in wages, prices, and inventories recorded in the past 35 years of data collected by the National Federation of Independent Business. The notion of “sticky” wages and prices plays a key role in arguments favoring government intervention to rebalance supply and demand for labor and output. The faster wages and prices (and therefore employment and output) adjust to a “shock” to the economy, the less the need for government intervention.     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">featuring</Emphasis> phenomenon in music: how combining artists of different genres increases a song’s popularity

The appearance of songs including featured artists on Billboard’s Hot 100 music charts has increased exponentially in the past two decades. This particular type of creative collaboration involves one artist integrating another artist’s contribution, either instrumentally or vocally, into their work and publicizing it with a “featuring” credit. According to broad literature in sociology on categorical boundaries, artists who deviate from existing genres are expected to be penalized for violating collective expectations and norms. We find songs featuring other artists actually have a greater likelihood of making it into the top 10 than songs not featuring other artists. Additionally, consistent with theorizing about congruency in the co-branding literature, we observe that the greater the difference (cultural distance) between the genres of the artists involved, the more likely the song is to reach the top of the charts. We argue that by combining the expertise of specialists in each genre, as well as comingling audiences while still maintaining each collaborator’s original positioning, artists who feature artists from other genres are able to produce more successful songs.