Moral managers and business sanctuaries

Richard Konrad claims that businessmen are guilty of adhering to a vicious form of ethical relativism. In practice, the relativism takes the form of doing an act which ordinarily would be called wrong and then claiming that the act is right or justified because it falls under a special set of codes (business ethics) which preempt ordinary ones. These codes or business ethics establish moral sanctuaries for businessmen. Konrad examines three versions of the sanctuary position, argues that they fail, and concludes that the position is untenable. In this article it is claimed that Konrad is in error, that upon closer examination the three versions do provide justification for businessmen claiming relief from moral criticism.David Roberts IV is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He presently holds a post as Assistant to the Dean of Humanities, Special Studies.     

Reliability performance of fault-tolerant digital control systems

This paper presents the results of a generic reliability analysis of fault-tolerant digital control systems (F-T DCS). This analysis differs from previous efforts at estimating the reliability performance of F-T DCS in the sense that this analysis relies extensively on actual experience with redundant computer systems rather than on theoretical evaluations. The dominant contributors to the frequency of failure of F-T DCS are (1) failures within common or shared equipment, (2) software failures, and (3) inadvertent operator actions. Other contributors include loss of electric power, spurious signals that originate from within the DCS, lack of coverage, common cause failure (CCF) of redundant hardware, CCF of instrument channels, and physical damage from externally initiated events (e.g., high temperature). Much variation is expected in the reliability performance of F-T DCSs. Although some systems may operate for 10 or 15 years without experiencing system failures, other systems may fail several times during the same time interval. This variation is expected among systems of different architectures as well as among systems of the same architecture. Because most failures of DCSs can be traced to some kind of CCF, particularly software failures and inadvertent operator actions, CCFs should probably receive more attention than they are presently given when selecting an F-T DCS.     

International Growth Spillovers,Geography and Infrastructure

There is significant academic evidence that growth in one country has a positive impact on growth in neighbouring countries. This paper contributes to this literature by analysing the heterogeneous strength of growth spillovers across world regions and by investigating the contribution of transport and communication infrastructure to explain this heterogeneity and promote neighbourhood effects. By defining neighbourhood on the basis of membership of regional trade agreements, we focus on spillovers that work through regional integration and trade. The analysis finds significant evidence for heterogeneity in growth spillovers, which are strong between OECD countries and essentially absent in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). We further find strong interaction between infrastructure and being a landlocked country. This suggests that growth spillovers from regional ‘success stories’ in SSA and other lagging world regions will depend on first strengthening the channels through which such spillovers can spread – most importantly connective infrastructure such as transport and telecommunication links.     

Psychosocial Influences on Children's Food Consumption

This exploratory study generated a grounded theory of factors influencing children's diets, particularly those that contribute to suboptimal eating and ultimately child obesity. The study involved 124 children (aged 6–12 years) and 39 of their parents from three separate junior schools (including a lower, middle, and higher socioeconomic school). Research methods included (i) interviews with children and parents and (ii) observations, drawings, and lunchbox audits with children. The findings suggest that children and parents prioritize psychosocial needs over physiological needs during food selection and consumption. This tendency toward psychosocial eating appears to be strongly reinforced by food advertising.     

Testing oligopolistic behavior

This paper develops an empirical model of short-run pricing behavior for firms in a homogeneous product oligopoly. It is based on the variable profit function and related output supply and factor demand equations and is used to analyze the behavior of firms in the coffee roasting industry. A parametric test of the dominant firm model is developed and applied. The hypothesis of dominant firm behavior and Cournot behavior are rejected. The hypothesis of price-taking behavior is rejected for the largest two firms in the industry but is not rejected for all other firms. Using the estimated pattern of firm behavior, an index of overall industry performance is constructed.