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).     

Commonality in Codes of Ethics

We create a database of company codes of ethics from firms listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and, separately, a sample of small firms. The SEC believes that “ethics codes do, and should, vary from company to company.” Using textual analysis techniques, we measure the extent of commonality across the documents. We find substantial levels of common sentences used by the firms, including a few cases where the codes of ethics are essentially identical. We consider these results in the context of legal statements versus value statements. While legal writing often mandates duplication, we argue that value-based statements should be held to a higher standard of originality. Our evidence is consistent with isomorphic pressures on smaller firms to conform.     

On Licensing Under Bertrand Competition

This paper considers licensing by an innovating firm to its competitor in a differentiated duopoly with Bertrand competition. A principal finding is that royalty licensing may be superior to fee licensing for the innovating firm both when the innovation is drastic and when the innovation is non-drastic.     

Tourism environments and management

The Congress of the World Leisure and Recreation Association, held in Sydney, Australia 16–19 July 1991, had as its focus the theme of ‘Leisure and tourism: social and environmental change’. Among over 140 papers on varied management, research and education issues a number examined the frameworks used to understand tourism environments and their management. Bill Bramwell, of the Centre for Tourism at Sheffield City Polytechnic, assesses the new insights offered by these papers.     

海归派撑起中国IC业

中国籍工程师David Hu(胡祥)和JohnYu(于晓光)在美国接受了高中和大学教育,现在他们用所学到的知识在祖国创业。苹果公司的创始人Steve Jobs和Steve Wozniak毕业于美国加州硅谷的Homestead高中。整整一代过去了,现在,这所学校又为我们贡献了     

MECC:系统层上的奋斗

虽然嵌入式和标准格式底板可能没有集成电路(IC)那样的吸引力,但是它们有自己的市场驱动力和平衡法则。比如,他们更容易在设计与制造自己需要的产品和购买这样的产品上作出选择。     

WORLD OUTLOOK

At the end of 1982 output in the world economy was still falling, although there were signs that the decline had very nearly run its course. We expect a radual recovery to begin in the first half o f 1983. Unlike the recovery which began in the late summer of 1980, when inflation was still in double figures, any upturn in 1983 would be set against a background of declining inflationary expectations and weak oil prices. IJ. as we expect, a falling inflation rate proves a decisive factor in keeping interest rates on a downward path, we forecast that the output will gather pace in I983 and rise reasonably strongly in 1984. Of the 4 per cent rise in industrial production which we foresee in 1984. a large part is due to the fall in real oil prices.