Global Sustainability Governance and the UN Global Compact: A Rejoinder to Critics

This article takes the critique by Sethi and Schepers (J Bus Ethics, 2013, in this thematic symposium) as a starting point for discussing the United Nations (UNs) Global Compact. While acknowledging the relevance of some of their arguments, we emphasize that a number of their claims remain arguable and are partly misleading. We start by discussing the limits of their proposed framework to classify voluntary initiatives for corporate sustainability and responsibility. Next, we show how a greater appreciation of the historical and political context of the UN Global Compact puts several of their claims into perspective. Finally, we demonstrate that the alleged promise–performance gap rests on a selected and one-sided reading of the initiative. We close by pointing to some challenges that the initiative needs to address in the future.     

Progressive Reduction of Economic Inequality as a Macromarketing Task: A Rejoinder

SUMMARY

This is a response to Capaldi's reflections on our article in the same volume. Since reduction of global inequality is a necessary condition for global sustainability, our rejoinder focuses on global in-equality. Accordingly, our response: (a) defines inequality generally and specifically, (b) determines that the macromarketing effects of global inequality are the inadequate consumption by many and an unacceptable quality of human life for many, and hence (c) argues that the progressive reduction of global inequality is a challenge for macromarketing.     

Easy-Come-Easy-Go: Moral Hazard in the Context of Return to Education

This empirical study advances the understanding of the theory of investment in human capital by outlining limitations to its applicability in the context of return to education. The study uses the concept of moral hazard to examine circumstances when financial support for education purpose generates less desirable post-graduation incomes. This study explores the relationship between financial support and post-graduation incomes using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation that is designed to measure the economic situation of individuals. Results suggest that students are less likely to engage in moral hazardous behavior to the degree to which they are older and to the degree to which they receive costlier financial assistance.     

Adopting International Entrepreneurial Finance Education to a Local Context

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to consider an approach to teaching entrepreneurial finance using proverbs. It explores a process framework with teaching strategies that provides prescribed guidelines on the key aspects that assist in teaching using this approach. This article demonstrates that teaching with proverbs creates the construct for linking prior knowledge (proverbs) to new entrepreneurial finance concepts in a meaningful way. It further highlights that entrepreneurial finance education in different regions around the world is most effective for students when it is tailored to the local culture of the region. The authors present five main entrepreneurial finance topics with two to three subheadings, each with proverbs accompanied by their related entrepreneurial finance concept. The article concludes that the use of proverbs in entrepreneurial finance instruction provides several benefits and that proverbs have the potential to become an effective teaching instrument in the fields of entrepreneurship and finance.     

The Moderating Effect of the Boundary Spanning Role on Perceived Supervisory Support: A Meta-Analytic Review

This article is a meta-analytic study examining the moderating effect the boundary spanning role has on the relationship between perceived supervisory support (PSS) and other important constructs within the marketing domain, including: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, performance, and turnover intentions. There was a positive relationship between PSS and every construct except turnover intentions, which was negative. Along with this, three out of the four relationships were stronger for boundary spanners as compared to non-boundary spanners. Overall, managers aimed at meeting organizational objectives (e.g. performance; turnover) should provide supervisory support to boundary spanning employees.     

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 Morality of Bluffing: A Reply to Allhoff

In a recent paper that appeared in this journal Fritz Allhoff addresses the morality of bluffing in negotiations¹. He focuses on cases in which people misstate their reservation price in negotiations, e.g., suppose that I am selling a house and tell a prospective buyer that $300,000 is absolutely the lowest price that I will accept, when I know that I would be willing to accept as little as $270,000 for the house rather than continue to try to sell it. Allhoff criticizes my (qualified) defense of bluffing in my paper Second Thoughts on Bluffing,² and offers what he takes to be a more plausible defense of bluffing. Allhoffs criticisms rest on several serious misinterpretations of my views. He ascribes to me several arguments that I dont make. He also attributes to me an unqualified defense of bluffing that I explicitly reject. I briefly document this in Section 1. In Sections 2 and 3 I explain and criticize Allhoffs positive views about bluffing and the morality of bluffing.Thomas Carson is professor of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of Value and the Good Life and The Status of Morality. He is the co-editor of Moral Relativism and Morality and the Good Life. He is the author of numerous papers on ethical theory and business ethics and is a member of the editorial board of Business Ethics Quarterly and Journal of Business Ethics. He is currently working on a book entitled Lying and Deception: Theory and Practice.     

Appreciating Anonymity: An Exploration of Embarrassing Products and the Power of Blending In

While most research suggests using ostentatious packaging as a strategy to increase sales, using such packaging for embarrassing products can actually decrease purchase intentions. Five studies explore two components of packaging that influence product anonymity and the relationship between anonymity, embarrassment, and purchase intentions. The studies use a variety of methods including one field study, three scenario-based experiments, and one virtual reality video study with a behavioral component. This research contributes to retailing literature by examining the effect of packaging dimensions on product anonymity and the subsequent impact on embarrassment and purchase intentions. We consistently show more anonymously packaged products are perceived as less embarrassing and are more likely to be purchased than less anonymously packaged products. Consumers are able to circumvent undesirable stigmas associated with embarrassing products by selecting products that are more anonymously packaged and positioned in the store. Additionally, increased sales due to product packaging differences are more likely when an embarrassing product is positioned in an aisle versus on an endcap. Promotional incentives, such as coupons, in-store discounts, or bonus buys, can mitigate the negative effect of embarrassment onto purchase intentions. These findings have important implications to our understanding of shopper behavior when threatened with embarrassment.     

Thinking and Acting Outside the Neo-classical Economic Box: Reply to McMurtry

This paper responds to Professor John McMurtry, primarily to his critique (Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 44, 2003) of my recent book, Economics as Moral Science (Springer-Verlag, 2001). Although agreeing with my attribution of a moral a priorism to orthodox or neo-classical economics, McMurtry takes issue with my conversion thesis, that ana priori, ethically committed theory can be transformed into a testable empirical science of actual behaviour through the application of institutional constraints to individual motivations. McMurtry views such a thesis as logically possible but morally abhorrent. In so doing, he ascribes a version of economic determinism to me which, he claims, leads me to mistakenly understand the neo-classical paradigm as circumscribing the boundaries of reality itself and thereby entrenching the life-destructive values presupposed by this paradigm. I reject such a reading of Economics as Moral Science and explain the manner in which it is inconsistent both with the theoretical substance and practical agenda of my work. I propose that the irreducible basis of disagreement remains one wherein I believe that a more radical reform of the capitalist market order is mandatory to establish more defensible moral ideals than does McMurtry. My reply closes by recommending a constitutional partitioning of material goods such that we may more securely act outside the ethical constraints of neo-classical theoryBernard Hodgson is Professor of Philosophy at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. He received his B.A. (Philosophy and Economics) from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. (Philosophy) from the University of Western Ontario. Dr. Hodgson has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge and, recently, has been the author of Economics as Moral Science (Springer-Verlag, 2001), and the editor of The Invisible Hand and the Common Good (Springer-Verlag, 2004)     

Technological Centers as a Negotiated Context to Combine Technological Capabilities

Recent perspectives on a capabilities view of the firm often recognize the need for firms to develop an external organization. From a relational view of the industry, the external organization may include economic and non-economic exchange relationships. The decision to combine both types of relationships and its relevance for the firm can be linked to their role for accessing, generating and diffusing knowledge. More often than not, these decisions are however not unilateral. This paper discusses the potential role that Technological Centers (TC’s), created by the collective initiative of some local firms, can play as part of firms’ external organizations and emphasizes TC’s role in connecting economic and non-economic exchange relationships. It is further suggested that the diverse motives and benefits perceived by firms in relating in and across the TC’s and, in general, the relevance of sharing experiences within these contexts, should be seen in the wider context of firms’ specific and idiosyncratic trajectories.     

Normative Marketing Ethics Redux, Incorporating a Reply to Smith

Author of "Does Marketing Ethics Really Have Anything to Say? – A Critical Inventory of the Literature," responds to Smith's comment. Content is mostly of a reply orientation, targeting Smith's general and specific objections sequentially and in appropriate detail. Because Smith also introduces material not directly derived from the original Gaski article, subject matter here eventually ranges into a corresponding breadth of issues.