Hirschman’s Rhetoric of Reaction: U.S. and German Insights in Business Ethics

In recent times, representatives of American management science have been arguing increasingly for a functionalization of ethics to change economic thinking: what they are seeking is the systematic integration of ethics into the economic paradigm. Using the insights developed by Hirschman, I would like to show how one must first expose the rhetoric of those critics of change (referred to below as conservatives or reactionaries) in order then to implement that which is new (representatives of this approach are referred to below as progressives). Such an ‹unmasking’ works particularly well when one can defuse the arguments of the reactionaries – which is precisely what one achieves by strategically integrating ethics into economics. In his work The Rhetoric of Reaction Hirschman examines three basic forms of reactionary thought: the perversity thesis, the futility thesis, and the jeopardy thesis. According to the perversity thesis, intended goals are transformed into their opposites. The futility thesis argues that the setting of goals is useless since history runs its own course independent of those goals. The jeopardy thesis claims to preserve what already exists since change might substantially endanger that which has already been achieved. The importance of Hirschman’s ideas for the strategic interplay between the academic disciplines can be seen quite clearly in the example of German business ethics. This will be displayed below with reference to Hirschman’s three theses. Finally, implications will be drawn for business ethics in general and for management theory in particular.     

Public–private partnership—Development of long-term relationships in public procurement in Germany

Hybrid partnerships are well established in the private sector combining market efficiency with the possibility of hierarchical steering mechanisms. By implementing Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs), public authorities seek to benefit from cooperation with specialised suppliers. However, many complex factors, including legal regulations, have to be considered in relation to outsourcing activities in the public sector. The decision on public–private cooperation is not driven only by economic principles. This paper deals with the economic and legal decision process of PPPs. The theoretical and legal framework is then applied and illustrated through a case study of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V./DLR).     

Tracking bias against the selection of female expatriates: Implications and opportunities for business education

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate early formation and presence of an unfounded bias against female expatriate selection. Overall results found that freshmen exhibited less bias against female expatriate assignment viability than MBA students, and females were less biased than males. However, freshman males exhibited greater bias against females in expatriate assignments than did freshman females, and they did not differ significantly in their perceptions from their male MBA counterparts. Our results suggest that the unfounded bias against female expatriate selection can exist very early, particularly among male students, presenting an important educational challenge and opportunity for business educators. Recommendations are made for improving business education to counter bias formation and dispel negative stereotypes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Normal mixture GARCH(1,1): applications to exchange rate modelling

Some recent specifications for GARCH error processes explicitly assume a conditional variance that is generated by a mixture of normal components, albeit with some parameter restrictions. This paper analyses the general normal mixture GARCH(1,1) model which can capture time variation in both conditional skewness and kurtosis. A main focus of the paper is to provide evidence that, for modelling exchange rates, generalized two‐component normal mixture GARCH(1,1) models perform better than those with three or more components, and better than symmetric and skewed Student's t‐GARCH models. In addition to the extensive empirical results based on simulation and on historical data on three US dollar foreign exchange rates (British pound, euro and Japanese yen), we derive: expressions for the conditional and unconditional moments of all models; parameter conditions to ensure that the second and fourth conditional and unconditional moments are positive and finite; and analytic derivatives for the maximum likelihood estimation of the model parameters and standard errors of the estimates. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.