The work ethic of the bishops' pastoral on the economy

This paper describes the prevaling ideology of acquisitive materialism and shows that it values work only as a means for acquiring material goods. This is contrasted to the view of work in the traditional Protestant Ethic and in Catholic social teaching. The Pastoral argues that work is good in itself when the worker is aware of participating in and contributing to the life of the community. While Catholic social thought in the past has emphasized distribution, the Pastoral points out that active participation in production by all is essential to a just economic order. Richard P. Mullin Jr. is Professor of Philosophy at Wheeling College. He is the author of several articles which have been published in Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference on Value Inquiry, Philosophy in Context, and Ethics West Virginia Lecture Series.     

Values underlying personnel/human resource management: Implications of the bishops' economic pastoral letter

The economic pastoral letter states that employees have rights to employment, non-discriminatory treatment, adequate wages, health care, old age and disability insurance, healthy working conditions, rest and holidays, reasonable protection from arbitrary dismissal, notice of plant closings, unionization and collective bargaining. In addition, the bishops call for better cooperation between labor and management. This paper discusses how these rights can be protected by good personnel/human resource policies and procedures. Daniel J. Koys is Assistant Professor of Management at Marquette University. He is co-author of an article on employment, which has been published in Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal.     

公平理论在劳资管理中的运用

首先介绍一家中外合资企业薪资收入和人员流失的情况.该合资公司为了便于管理,不直接雇佣员工,而是通过劳务公司作为第三方来间接雇佣,这样,员工所有的保险、医疗以及其它由社会提供的福利保障都是由用人单位通过现金的形式直接支付给劳务公司,而其具体的管理和运作都是有劳务公司负责,这也是许多外国公司常用的一种管理员工的方法,这样,公司的员工就来自多家劳务公司.下表是该公司同一岗位、不同渠道来源的员工的薪资统计表.     

一个新的产品管理理念:品质管理

编者按:今年3月28日,中国啤酒界的目光齐聚山东烟台,一向不事张扬的烟台啤酒集团在这里郑重向外界宣布:烟台啤酒即日起全面实施纯生化战略. 这是"纯生化"首次出现在国人的视野中;这也是中国啤酒业的又一次重大变革,它带来的将是啤酒标准的重新定义和经营理念的全面刷新,并将引领中国啤酒工业步入一个新时代. 本文说的是啤酒,但其"品质提升"的管理理念对我国所有产品生产厂家都是有深刻的启迪作用的,我们能够从中悟出一些原先尚不十分清楚的发展思路.     

Application of distributive justice theory to the CEO pay problem: Recommendations for reform

An ethical analysis of chief executive officer (CEO) salaries can be approached via theory on distributive justice and an examination of some corporate codes of ethics. U.S. CEO salaries are compared with their Japanese and European counterparts, and factors behind the high U.S. CEO salaries are reviewed. The negative repercussions of high pay are discussed, including feelings of unfairness, declining morale and greater cynicism found in lower level employees. Reduced research and development budgets, and downsized organizations are related to the maintenance of high CEO salaries. After considering economic repercussions, recommendations for reform, which lead to the greatest expected benefit of the least advantaged, are made.Paul Wilhelm has a Ph.D. in Business in the area of Human Resource Management and is an Assistant Professor of Management at UTEP. He has taught Strategic Management, Compensation, Organization Behavior, Arbitration and Negotation, and Human Resource Staffing and Planning. He has published articles inJournal of Business Leadership, Journal of Social Psychology, Business Insights, Journal of Private Enterprise, andSAM Advanced Management Journal.     

The ideology of social justice in economic justice for all

Although both the American Catholic bishops and their commentators seem to agree that the economics pastoral is capitalist, if anything, in its ideology, a careful reading of the pastoral shows that the principle of social justice implicit in it is actually socialist, indeed communist, in nature. The bishops arrived at such a principle because of their interpretation of the biblical sense of justice as entailing a preferential option for the poor. To justify this option on a rational basis, they developed a theory of social justice that may be summarized in the principle, familiar from Marx's writings, From each according to one's ability, to each according to one's needs. Whether or not the bishops intended such a convergence in principle, this development sets them at odds with the capitalist ideology of the United States. William E. Murnion, S.T.L. (Gregorian University, 1958), Ph.D. in Philosophy (Gregorian University, 1970), is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he teaches an ethics course for the business school. Recent publications include The Logic of Learning, Foundations of Ethics, and Nuclear Violence: A Philosophical Framework for the Problem.     

EVA:炙手可热的新财务理念

EVA(Economicvalueadded,即经济增加值),是指在扣除产生利润而投资的资本的成本之后所剩下的利润。也就是被经济学家长期称之为“剩余收入”或者“经济利润”的一种概念,其理论渊源出自于诺贝尔奖经济学家默顿·米勒和弗兰科·莫迪利亚尼1958年至1961年关于公司价值的经济模型的一系列论文。EVA是对真正“经济”利润的评价,或者说,是表示净经营利润与投资者用同样资本投资其他风险相近的有价证券的最低回报相比,超出或低于后者的量值。因此,EVA公认的标准定义是指公司税后经营利润扣除债务和股权成本后的利润余额。作为公司治理和业绩评…     

西方国家维护社会公平的理论和实践对我国的启示

社会公平作为社会主义的本质要求,是衡量社会全面进步的重要尺度,也是社会主义和谐社会的深厚基础,文章通过论述西方国家维护社会公平的理论和实践经验,提出了实现我国社会公平的几点思考.     

Sin and the economic analysis of the pastoral: A class act?

The Pastoral contains a non-Marxist class based non-traditional analysis of sinful acts in economic life. Data on poverty, income distribution, unemployment and economic problems are used to assert the existence of a marginalyzed, economically disenfranchised class, victims of the sinful self-serving actions of individuals influential in economic and political institutions. Economic scarcity, the reality of risk, conflicting policy goals, imperfect economic policy insights, mistaken choices, and the consequences of sinful acts for the sinner are ignored as possible causes of imperfect economic outcomes as the bishops advocate solutions through an expanded agenda of government programs and power.James P. Egan is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire. He was awarded a faculty research sabbatical in 1986.     

对牧区桥梁养护管理的认识

多年来公路桥梁重建设、轻养护的现象特别突出,公路养护的缺失是公路使用品质下降的最主要的原因,特别是在牧区的公路管养部门必须对公路养护管理加强认识,做好公路桥梁的养护工作.     

International transfer pricing and subsidiary performance: The role of organizational justice

International intrafirm trade is increasingly important in the global economy. Intrafirm transactions are governed by transfer‐pricing policies mandated by parent companies. Economic and accounting theories have long prescribed policies that maximize the parent company's short‐term profits but may have other, unintended outcomes. These outcomes are explored in a single‐case study. Based on this case study and organizational justice theory, a theoretical framework is developed to show how frequently used transfer‐pricing policies, through their impact on subsidiary managers' perceptions of justice, can significantly affect the subsidiary's strategic performance. First, the conditions under which transfer‐pricing policies can be perceived as procedurally, interactionally, or distributively unfair are presented. Second, it is proposed that those justice perceptions have an impact on subsidiary managers' commitment, trust in the parent company, neglect, ethical behavior, productivity, work quality, and compliance, and that the magnitude of this impact is moderated by the quality of relations between the parent company and subsidiary managers. Finally, it is predicted that such attitudes and behaviors may generate important agency and transaction costs that jeopardize the expected outcomes of international strategies of vertical integration. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ethical principles of Catholic social teaching behind the United States bishops' letter on the economy

This article analyzes six ethical principles at work in the Pastoral Letter of the Roman Catholic Bishops on the United States economy. The first three principles derive from the Thomistic tradition with its attempt to avoid the extremes of collectivism and individualism. Human beings are by nature social and called to live in political society. The principle of subsidiarity guides the role of the state. Distributive and social justice furnish the criteria for a just distribution of human goods. The fourth ethical principle which is a later development in the Catholic tradition recognizes human rights including economic rights. In keeping with recent emphases in Catholic teaching the fifth principle insists that the goods of creation exist to serve all and stresses the social aspect of property. The sixth principle enunciates a preferential option for the poor and has come to the fore in the light of recent liberation theology. Charles E. Curran is Ordinary Professor of Moral Theology at The Catholic University of America and for the 1987–88 academic year Rachel Rebecca Kaneb Visiting Professor of Catholic Studies at Cornell University. He is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and of the Society for Christian Ethics. His two most recent books are Faithful Dissent (Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward, 1986) and Toward an American Catholic Theology (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).     

Access to justice for consumers: A perspective from common law countries

The paper examines techniques suggested in recent times by the “access to justice” movement for overcoming the inadequacy of traditional means of consumer protection, which are very dependent upon the individual consumer's initiative and financial resources. The jurisdictions discussed are the United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada. The author first examinesclass actions. They have found recognition only in the United States, and even there, courts have begun to follow a more restrictive line. There is little reason to believe that the introduction of the institute into other jurisdictions — as recommended in Australia — will have great impact upon the consumer's position.Small claims courts have become popular, both in the United States and the other countries discussed, due to the cumbersome and expensive procedures in ordinary courts. The main deficiency of small claims courts lies in the fact that they may be used by enterprises for cheap debt collection. The procedure of awarding monetarycompensation to consumers who have experienced loss as a result of an offence — instituted by law reform in certain places — has a very limited scope. Finally, the author discussesactions by consumer organizations and agencies. They are not very frequent in common law countries, and if consumer organizations do no get public funding, such a system will hardly turn out to be adequate. In his conclusion, the author is rather skeptical of the role of the courts in the improvement of consumer protection: They have too little input from consumer quarters and they are limited to a case-by-case reasoning. Courts have only a supplementary role to play in consumer protection.     

The contingency theory of management: A path out of the jungle

Management theory has taken divergent paths in recent years. The author discusses each of these as well as the movement to unify existing schools of thought. The process approach, traditional and classical, has been supplanted by the quantitative, the behavioral, and the systems approaches. The author defines these and explains their role in management theory and their function in actual practice. Singly, none of these theories can be applied to every organization and management problem, and currently a theory is emerging that can be used to draw the disparate elements together. This new approach is the contingency theory of management, which can be applied situationally.     

The role of self-service technologies in restoring justice

As an increasing number of customers choose to interact with service firms via technology, there is an urgent need to understand whether consumers react differently to technology-based failures/recovery efforts than human failures/recovery efforts. Using resource exchange theory as a framework, the present investigation examined the role of failure mode (SST vs. face-to-face encounter) and recovery mode on customers' fairness perceptions. Results from Study 1 suggest that compensation offered by a front-line employee might be more effective in restoring justice with traditional failures (match condition) than with SST failures (mismatch condition). Findings from Study 2 further support the matching hypothesis in terms of distributive justice. On the other hand, human touch seems more effective in restoring interactional fairness than on-line recovery. The follow-up study extends the matching hypothesis to satisfaction with problem handling and repurchase intent. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.     

Productivity and the economic pastoral: Implications for growth

This paper identifies the fundamental principles and ethical norms presented in the first draft of the U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy which apply to the issue of economic productivity. These principles are compared with accepted managerial principles for improving productivity and the similarities noted. Finally, the new challenge of the Economic Pastoral is identified as extending the scope of application of these principles beyond those persons who are working in an enterprise to those persons who are affected by the enterprise. Robert L. Armacost is Assistant Professor of Management Science at Marquette University, and chairperson of the planning committee for Archdiocesan-wide hearings on the Economic Pastoral. He is published in Operations Research and Mathematical Programming.     

Trade and labour standards: theory and new empirical evidence

Recent trade negotiations, both at the regional and multilateral level, have seen a resurgence of the issue of trade and labour standards. Labour interests in high-standards countries argue that low labour standards are an unfair source of comparative advantage, and that increasing imports from low-standards countries will have an adverse impact on wages and working conditions in high-standards countries, thus leading to a race to the bottom of standards. For low-standards countries, there is the fear that this is just a form of disguised protectionism and that the imposition of high labour standards upon them is equally unfair since it will erode their competitiveness, the latter being largely based on labour costs. Our objective in the present paper is to cast some light on the above debate from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. In particular, we first discuss some possible theoretical links between labour standards and comparative advantage through their effects on the terms of trade. We then investigate empirically the relationship between labour standards, comparative advantage and export performance. Overall, our empirical results suggest that caution should be exercised before drawing broad conclusions on the magnitude and direction of these effects.