Creativity in Design Engineering and the Role of Knowledge: Modelling the Expert

The present study focuses on the relationship between the acquisition of design knowledge by novice design students and the quality of their designs. Design learning is typically based on action and reflection. Knowledge of solution processes, being part of this reflection, is found to be crucial in monitoring and controlling the design process and in reaching an optimal, creative result. The studies described in this article suggest a close relationship between the amount of process knowledge – knowledge of managing and monitoring the solution finding process – reported by novice designers, and the creativity of the designed product.     

Technology Education as Solo Activity or Socially Constructed Learning

There is a continuing perception that current educational arrangements for technology education in modern liberal democracies are at odds with its actual delivery in the classroom (Dakers & Doherty 2003). The technè versus poiesis tension (explained later) is one major contributor to this perception. Equally, the practice of transmission versus constructivist pedagogies contributes to the mismatch between policy and practice.This paper will investigate how factors relating to these two contributions affect the delivery of technological education. It will begin by discussing the derivation of the word technology and how its modern incarnation has become not only amorphous, but confusing for technology education, in that the term can be taken to mean production on the one hand or process on the other. It will then explore technology teachers perceptions (and misperceptions) of what constitutes technology education, and discuss why this can lead to confusion. It will further consider how this can affect the pedagogy adopted. It will then examine two pedagogical frameworks which result from teachers perceptions of technology education as either; a process of internalisation of technological skills and functions as representations exclusively within the mind and unique to the individual, thus solo, or; a process of technological skills and functions embedded in sociocultural activity in which cognition is distributed across the internal mind and the external environment. Finally, the paper will offer a framework for the delivery of technology education set within a community of learners paradigm.     

Capturing the Minds of a Lost and Lonely Generation

UNICEF states that in 88 countries studied ‘more than 13 million children currently under the age of 15 have lost both parents to Aids, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa’ (UNICEF 2002). The impact of this Aids pandemic cannot be overstated. Indeed the long-term impact of such statistics is scarcely imaginable and has not been experienced in the world to date. Sustainable, indigenous technology may be a way of providing a meaningful educational experience for such marginalised young people. However the concept of sustainable, indigenous technology is not always clearly defined. This paper seeks to discuss this concept in relation to education and in particular considers the impact of the HIV/AIDs pandemic in Tanzania. The paper will outline:

Doing Business with Rights Violating Regimes Corporate Social Responsibility and Myanmar’s Military Junta

Whether to do business with rights violating regimes is one of many dilemmas faced by socially responsible corporations. In this article the difficult case of Myanmar is considered. Ruled for decades by a closed and sometimes brutal military elite, the country has long been subject to informal and formal sanctions. However, as sanctions have failed to trigger political reform, it is necessary to review the policy options. The focus here is on the contribution socially responsible corporations might make to change. The article sketches contextual features of the case, examines the recent history and present pattern of business links with Myanmar, and assesses whether current approaches can stimulate reform. Concluding that they cannot, it considers fresh possibilities for corporate engagement. The argument is that socially responsible corporations, committed to improving individual life chances through engagement with developing societies, should undertake collaborative and principled direct investment in Myanmar. The underlying strategy and problems of codification and implementation are all analyzed. To close, the article contends that, by doing business with Myanmar’s rights violating regime, multinational corporations can extend the frontiers of global corporate social responsibility. Ian Holliday is Professor of Policy Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong     

A Preliminary Investigation into the Role of Positive Psychology in Consumer Sensitivity to Corporate Social Performance

Research on positive psychology demonstrates that specific individual dispositions are associated with more desirable outcomes. The relationship of positive psychological constructs, however, has not been applied to the areas of business ethics and social responsibility. Using four constructs in two independent studies (hope and gratitude in Study 1, spirituality and generativity in Study 2), the relationship of these constructs to sensitivity to corporate social performance (CSCSP) were assessed. Results indicate that all four constructs significantly predicted CSCSP, though only hope and gratitude interacted to impact CSCSP. Discussion focuses upon these findings, limitations of the study, and future avenues for research.     

Reason as a Nexus of Natural Law and Rhetoric

Although the pages of Journal of Business Ethics have hosted an ongoing dialogue on the ethics of rhetoric and persuasion, the debates have been unable to account for the underlying morality of the human propensity to engage in rhetorical discourse as a part of living in society. In this paper, I offer natural-law ethical theory as a moral paradigm in which to examine rhetoric. In this context, I assert that rhetoric services reason, which in turn services our dispositions or inclinations that are one ideological foundation of natural-law theory. As rhetoric affects the apprehension of these dispositions it subsumes a related morality in which rhetorical endeavors can be seen as “natural”. So endowed, I believe that this conception of rhetoric offers a number of philosophical and practical implications, one of which is a new way to assess the morality of commercial manifestations of rhetoric such as spin and the use of puffery in advertising.     

Agency Theory,Reasoning and Culture at Enron: In Search of a Solution

Applying evidence from recently available public information on Enron, I defined Enron’s culture as one rooted in agency theory by asserting that Enron’s members were predominantly agency-reasoning individuals. I then identified conditions present at Enron’s collapse: a strong agency culture with collectively non-compliant norms, a munificent rare-failure environment, and new hires with little business ethics training. Turning to four possible antidotes (selection, objectivist integrity, integrity capacity, and stewardship reasoning) to an agency culture under these conditions, I argued that the currently available ethics literature would have made little difference toward averting Enron’s collapse if any of the recommendations from the relevant ethics literature had been implemented. I conclude by identifying new directions for business ethics literature in order to make it more implementable under the conditions identified at Enron. Essentially, we need a way to clearly determine (1) the difference between connivance and commitment, (2) what is meant by balance with regard to the multiple dimensions of ethics and legal theories, and (3) the proper balance between agency and stewardship reasoning. Brian E. Kulik is a Ph.D. candidate in Management at Washington State University’s School of Business. His work focuses on the prevention of corporate corruption, corporate governance and ethics, teamwork and diversity, and research methods. His research to date has appeared in the Western and National Academy of Management conference proceedings and the journal Organizational Analysis. He earned M.S. degrees from Washington State University and The University of Cincinnati, and M.B.A. from The University of Denver.     

On the microstructure of price determination and information aggregation with sequential and asymmetric information arrival in an experimental asset market

Summary. Experiments were conducted on an asset with the structure of an option. The information of any individual is limited, as if only the direction of movement of the option value known for a single period without information of the value from when movement was initiated. However, if all information of all insiders were pooled, the value of the option would be known with certainty. The results are the following: (1) Information becomes aggregated in the prices as if fully informative rational expectations operated; and (2) The mechanism through which information gets into the market is captured by a path dependent process that we term The Fundamental Coordination Principle of Information Transfer in Competitive Markets. The early contracts tend to be initiated by insiders who tender limit orders. The emergence of bubbles and mirages in the markets are coincident with failures and circumstances that prevent the operation of the Fundamental Principle.The financial support of the national science foundation and the Caltech Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Political Science are gratefully acknowledged. The authors have benefited from helpful comments of David Grether, Kerry Back, Ivana Komunjer and Pete Kyle.     

A risk assessment model for banks

Summary. This paper proposes a model to assess risk for banks. Its main innovation is to incorporate endogenous interaction among banks, where the actual risk an individual bank bears also depends on its interaction with other banks and investors. We develop a two-period general equilibrium model with three active heterogeneous banks, incomplete markets, and endogenous default. The model is calibrated against UK banking data and therefore can be implemented as a risk assessment tool for regulators and central banks. We address the impact of monetary and regulatory policy, credit and capital shocks in the real and financial sectors.We are grateful to Lea Zicchino, an anonymous referee, seminar participants at the Bank of England, and the third Conference in Research in Economic Theory and Econometrics, Syros, for helpful comments. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of England.This revised version was published online in January 2005 with corrections to the Cover date.