Economic Comparison of Alternative Tillage Systems under Risk.

Stochastic dominance efficiency criteria are used to rank the net farm return distributions for four different tillage systems under six different farm scenarios. Pairwise comparisons of tillage systems are carried over incremental upper and lower risk-aversion coefficient (RAC) bounds identified for each farm scenario, based on the size and spread of the outcome distributions to identify regions where dominance may switch between tillage systems. Ridge-till systems are generally the dominant tillage system for all farm scenarios considered. No-till systems on clay loam soils are more dominant in the risk-preferring range and less dominant in the risk-averse range, which relates to the relatively larger range of net return values and smaller mean net return values generated by this tillage system. Conversely, the moldboard plow and chisel plow systems are more dominant in risk-aversion intervals and less dominant in the risk-preferring intervals for clay loam soils. In sandy soil scenarios, the ridge-till and no-till systems are dominant over the two fall tillage systems for all farm sizes, indicating that these tillage systems are more competitive with conventional tillage systems in lighter soil type situations. A sensitivity analysis between moldboard plow and no-till systems indicates that no-till would dominate in risk-preferring intervals, and an increase in no-till net farm returns of 16 per acre would change dominance in favor of no-till in risk-averse interval space. On a utilisé les critères d'efficacitéà dominance stochastique pour classer les divers niveaux de recettes agricoles nettes dans quatre systèmes différents de travail du sol, selon six scénarios d'exploitation. Des comparaisons en paires des systèmes de travail ont été faites en regard de tranches croissantes des limites supérieures et inférieures du coefficient d'aversion du risque (CER), établies pour chaque scénario d'après l'importance et l'étendue des distributions du rendement, dans le but d'identifier les régions où la dominance serait susceptible de passer d'un système de travail à l'autre. Le système de travail sur billons était en général le système dominant dans tous les scénarios d'exploitation examinés. La culture sans travail du sol sur loam argileux était plus dominante dans les intervalles d'acceptation du resque et moins dominante dans les intervalles d'aversion du resque, cequi s'explique au fait que ce système de travail donne lieu à une fourchette relativement plus large, mais aussi à une moyenne plus faible du revenu net. À l'inverse, le labour à la charrue classique et au chisel dominait davantage dans les intervalles d'aversion du risque. Dans les sols sableux, le travail sur billons et la culture sans labour l'emportaient sur les deux autres régimes dans toutes les tailles d'exploitation, ce qui porte à croire que, dans les sols plus légers, ces régimes sont plus concurrentiels avec les systèmes classiques. L'analyse de sensibilité entre le labour à la charrue et les systèmes sans travail du sol montre que ces derniers dominent dans les intervalles d'acceptation du risque et qu'un accroissement du revenu agricole net de 16 /acre ferait glisser la dominance vers les intervalles d'aversion du risque.     

A reply to Thomas Mulligan's “critique of Milton Friedman's essay ‘The Social Responsibility of Business to Increase Its Profits’”

Professor Thomas Mulligan undertakes to discredit Milton Friedman's thesis that The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits. He attempts to do this by moving from Friedman's paradigm characterizing a socially responsible executive as willful and disloyal to a different paradigm, i.e., one emphasizing the consultative and consensus-building role of a socially responsible executive. Mulligan's critique misses the point, first, because even consensus-building executives act contrary to the will of minority shareholders, but even more importantly, because he assumes that the mandate of a shareholder majority brings legitimacy to efforts of corporate managers to utilize corporate wealth in solving social problems. It is the role of our democratic institutions to deal with national agenda issues such as inflation, unemployment, and pollution, not that of the private sector. Corporations and private individuals do have a role to play in enhancing the quality of the human environment, however, and the author suggests a coherent means of developing that role in an effort rescue corporate social responsibility from Mulligan no less than from Friedman. Bill Shaw, Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at the Jesse H. School of Administration, Rice University, is Professor of Business Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He is staff editor of the American Business Law Journal and the Midwest Law Review. Among his most recent publications are The Structure of the Legal Environment (with Art Wolfe), Environmental Law: Text and Cases, The Global Environment: A Proposal to Eliminate Marine Oil Pollution (With Frank Cross and Brenda Winslett, The Natural Resources Journal), and Comparable Worth and Its Prospects (The Labor Law Journal).     

Late entry,market shares and competitive survival: The case of synthetic fibers

This paper examines product policy in relation to the experience curve and product life cycle concepts in the context of the experience of the thirteen major firms in the Western European synthetic fibers industry. It examines the hypothesis based on Boston Consulting Group and the Profit Impact of Market Share (PIMS) evidence that late entrants to a market will be at a competitive disadvantage because they lack the accumulated experience of the pioneering firms. For each of the three main synthetic fibres, acrylic, nylon and polyester, it was found that the early entrants who established major market shares early in the growth phase of the product life cycle were able to maintain that leadership nearly twenty years later. In contrast not only did almost all the late entrants fail to achieve significant market shares but in the difficult market conditions between 1974 and 1981 they provided seven out of nine market withdrawals.     

Let the evidence speak again! Financial incentives are more effective than we thought

In this essay, the authors rejoin the debate about financial incentive effectiveness. They (a) briefly review the state of the literature in 1998, (b) highlight new meta‐analytic findings and update conclusions regarding the financial incentives–performance relationship, (c) address the myth that financial incentives erode intrinsic motivation, (d) provide explanations for the presumed failure of financial incentives and (e) offer some concluding thoughts and suggestions for future research.     

Enacting risk reduction: an examination of the volitional stages of smoking cessation within Scotland

This study examines an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) in the context of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) as an aid to smoking cessation. An attempt is made to address the intention–behaviour gap identified in the literature by specifically focusing on the role and interrelationships of volitional stages, namely intention, planning and anticipated effort. A convenience sample of 207 female smokers, aged 16–36, provided information about their views, attitudes and volitional behaviour regarding the use of NRT as an aid to smoking cessation. Results of this study show the TPB to be pertinent, accounting for 41% of the variance in intention to use NRT as an aid to smoking cessation. Furthermore, behavioural intention is found to mediate the relationship between the TPB antecedents (attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control) and each of the two volitional elements, planning and anticipated effort. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Business ethics today: A survey

This essay surveys the state of business ethics in North America. It describes the distinctive features of business ethics as an academic sub-discipline and as a pedagogical topic, and compares and contrasts three rival models of business ethics current among philosophers. William H. Shaw is professor of philosophy and chair of the philosophy department at San Jose State University. Among other writings, he is the author of Business Ethics (Wadsworth 1991) and, with Vincent Barry, of Moral Issues in Business, 6th ed. (Wadsworth 1995).