Moral rules and moral ideals: A useful distinction in business and professional practice

The distinction between moral rules and moral ideals is presented and explained in various ways. The authors propose that people in business are required to obey the moral rules and have a choice with respect to ideals. Thus, they are not in a different position from that of anyone else in society.Four case studies are presented and discussed. The analytical approaches used by the authors' students are summarized and evaluated. The moral rules/ideals paradigm is described as helping discussants of the cases to establish congruence between business ethics and their personal set of values. Other values of the classroom discussion of ethics cases are considered.John W. Hennessey, Jr., is Jones Professor of Management at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, Dartmouth College. Previously he was Dean of this school and President of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business. Bernard Gert is Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at the Dartmouth College. From 1971 until 1974 and from 1979 until 1981 he was Chairman of the Philosophy Department and he was awarded the NEH-NSF Sustained Development Award 1980–1984. His most important publications are: The Moral Rules: A New Rational Foundation for Morality, Harper and Row, 1970, Harper Torchbook 1973, 2nd edition 1975, and Philosophy in Medicine: Conceptual and Ethical Issues in Medicine and Psychiatry, Oxford University Press, 1982 (co-authored with Charles M. Culver).Prof. Gert acknowledges support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Grant RII-8018088 A03.     

Buyer-supplier relational characteristics and joint decision making

This paper explores propositions dealing with the influence of buyer-supplier relational characteristics on their joint decision making. Specifically, the proposed conceptual framework focuses on the link between three relational constructs (trust, commitment, relationship maturity) and two types of joint decision making (strategic and tactical). Strategic decisions are those that “expand the pie” for both parties (integrative decisions), and tactical decisions are those that “divide the pie” between the two parties (distributive decisions). We propose that the effect of relational characteristics on joint decision making is likely to be moderated by the characteristics of the supplier organization (such as team orientation) and its environment (such as competitive intensity). We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications and possible extensions of the theoretical model.     

Improving the speed of adoption of agricultural technologies and farm performance through farmer groups: evidence from the Great Lakes region of Africa

The article examines the effect of membership in farmer groups (MFG) on adoption lag of agricultural technologies and farm performance in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. We use duration and stochastic production frontier models on farm household data. We find that the longer the duration of MFG, the shorter the adoption lag and much more so if combined with extension service delivery. Farmer groups function as an important mechanism for improving farm productivity through reduced technical inefficiency in input use. We discuss policy implications under which farmer groups are a useful channel to reduce adoption lag, and the means through which improved farm performance can be achieved.     

The Impact of Perceived Ethical Culture of the Firm and Demographic Variables on Auditors’ Ethical Evaluation and Intention to Act Decisions

Studies into corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have suggested that small businesses are different to the large companies on which CSR research usually focusses. Extending this argument, this article raises the question what differences in approaches to CSR there are within the SME category. Analysing the CSR strategy and performance of a medium-sized fashion retailer in the United Kingdom through manager interviews as well as customer and employee surveys, the article develops an analytical framework of CSR in small, medium and large firms. The argument is developed that medium-sized firms occupy a transition stage, where some CSR features that are reminiscent of small enterprises are still important but get overlaid with aspects that are more typical of large companies.     

Applied futures research in France : Some critical views

Professor Cazes critically examines the futures studies conducted in France as part of the VIth Plan (1971–1975). He identifies three classes of research—vertical, horizontal and synthetic— and analyses the strengths and weaknesses of each as they relate to policy planning.     

Entry and capital structure mimicking in concentrated markets: The role of incumbents’ financial disclosures

We examine whether the public availability of product market incumbents' financial disclosures leads to greater capital structure mimicking of incumbents by entrants. Exploiting a change in disclosure enforcement for German private firms in the mid-2000s, we find entrant-incumbent mimicking rises substantially in concentrated markets once incumbents' financial statements are publicly available. Additional tests exploring potential mechanisms are more consistent with interfirm learning underlying the effect than alternative channels. Our findings shed light on the effects of competitor financial statement disclosure on private firms’ initial financing decisions and highlight how capital structure dependencies among peer firms arise.     

Ambiguity and the process of knowledge transfer in strategic alliances

This research examines the role played by the ‘causally ambiguous’ nature of knowledge in the process of knowledge transfer between strategic alliance partners. Based on a cross‐sectional sample of 147 multinationals and a structural equation methodology, this study empirically investigates the simultaneous effects of knowledge ambiguity and its antecedents—tacitness, asset specificity, prior experience, complexity, partner protectiveness, cultural distance, and organizational distance—on technological knowledge transfer. In contrast to past research that generally assumed a direct relation between these explanatory variables and transfer outcomes, this study’s findings highlight the critical role played by knowledge ambiguity as a full mediator of tacitness, prior experience, complexity, cultural distance, and organizational distance on knowledge transfer. These significant effects are further found to be moderated by the firm’s level of collaborative know‐how, its learning capacity, and the duration of the alliance. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Meta-ethical Reasoning: Applied to Economics and Business Principles

A bstract . Ethics and ethical thinking involve two primary and interdependent elements of analysis: the individual and the society. Economic thought dichotomized these two elements into the individual (competitive capitalism ) or the society (Marxist socialism ), with one element being the cause, and the other the effect. Views of economic reality were developed not on the basis of the interdependence of the individual and the society but their mutual antagonism.
Economic thought is based on the scientific reasoning of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its abstract definition of reality narrowed the significance of the concrete appearances of things in favor of the rules (science) that define things. Science requires both an objective causal order (independent of human definitions and beliefs) and the development of laws (independent of the human observer or participant) that explain the nature of the objective world. Ethical reasoning requires that economic causality be defined to include both the individual and the society. Ethical reasoning is needed to bring together both the scientific and the metaphysical for human meaning. The science of means must be joined to the human purposes of ends.     

Insurance Market Effects of Risk Management Metrics

We extend the classical analysis on optimal insurance design to the case when the insurer implements regulatory requirements (Value-at-Risk). Presumably, regulators impose some risk management requirement such as VaR to reduce the insurers’ insolvency risk, as well as to improve the insurance market stability. We show that VaR requirements may better protect the insured and improve economic efficiency, but have stringent negative effects on the insurance market. Our analysis reveals that the insured are better protected in the event of greater loss irrespective of the optimal design from either the insured or the insurer perspective. However, in the presence of the VaR requirement on the insurer, the insurer's insolvency risk might be increased and there are moral hazard issues in the insurance market because the optimal contract is discontinuous.