Is this the right time to come out? Case study

In this fictional case study, Adam Lawson is a promising young associate at Kirkham McDowell Securities, a St. Louis underwriting and financial advisory firm. Recently, Adam helped to bring in an extremely lucrative deal, and soon he and a few other associates will be honored for their efforts at the firm's silver anniversary dinner. George Campbell, vice president in mergers and acquisitions, is caught unprepared when Adam tells him that, after serious reflection, he has decided to bring his partner, Robert Collins, to the banquet. George is one of Adam's biggest supporters at the firm, and he personally has no problem with Adam being gay. But it is one thing for Adam to come out of the closet at the office. It is quite another to do so at a public company-client event. After all, Kirkham McDowell's client roster includes some very conservative companies--one of the country's largest defense contractors, for example. George is concerned with how Adam's openness about his sexual orientation will play with their clients and, as a result, how senior management will react. Adam has not come to George for permission to bring Robert to the dinner. But clearly Adam wants some sort of response. George has never faced sexual diversity issues in the workplace before, and there is no company policy to guide him. Just how negative an effect could Robert have on Adam's career with the firm and the firm's relationship with its clients? Isn't it possible that even the firm's most conservative clients will simply decide that Adam's choice of guest is a personal matter--not a business one?(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

When times get tough, what happens to TQM? Case study

When Mueller Chemical Company's biggest customer, Ameriton, demanded that MCC install a total quality management system five years ago, the effort seemed worth it. Morale improved dramatically at the German company, as did quality and productivity. But now, in this fictional case study, Ameriton has gone bankrupt. As a result, MCC has had to cut its work force, and senior managers are meeting to decide whether TQM should be part of the downsized MCC. Horst Koblitz, director of TQM, and Division Manager Eva Stichen both vote yes. Stichen's division, which never supplied Ameriton, has turned its process-control system into the company's best thanks to TQM. The division is more cost-efficient, product defects are nearly nonexistent, and its safety record is spotless. As Koblitz notes, Ameriton's failure is no reason to abandon all that MCC has built. Furthermore, shareholders and customers would think that MCC was panicking. MCC just needs to tailor its TQM program to a smaller organization. But CFO Georg Becker doesn't think MCC has the time or resources for fine-tuning. And as he sees it, that might be just as well. The distractions that came with TQM took MCC away from its goal of becoming the chemicals market leader in Europe. While the company organized teams, developed measurement systems, and filled out quality reports, its competitors took away much of the market share MCC was after. TQM was a good long-term approach, but it didn't come with a plan for MCC's current situation. And CEO and Chairman Dieter Mueller won't compromise; TQM must either stay or go.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Lessons from the transition process

The illusions that market mechanism would transform former communist countries easily into welfare states were gradually replaced by disappointments. Major problems are common to all countries in transition; they all endured an unprecedented fall in measured output and rise of unemployment. Four countries: former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia constitute a group in which the fall was the lowest and which also have reached the bottom. While the mechanisms of depression in these countries differ basic links of the vicious circle seem to be similar. The transition is reflected in constitutional provisions on property rights; new constitutions depart radically from their socialist predecessors, return to the principles of French revolution, and provide more than adequate protection of private property. Equally important are legal frameworks for market activities, and privatization aimed to improve efficiency, enable fairness, and serve in the abolition of the monoparty system.     

Persuasion and economic efficiency. The cost-benefit analysis of banning abortion

A simple cost-benefit approach to the abortion debate is unlikely to be persuasive if efficiency arguments conflict with widely held concepts of justice or rely on improbable notions of consent. Illustrative of the limitations of economic analyses are the models proposed by Meeks and Posner to make a case against abortion on demand. Meeks posits a tradeoff between the consumer surplus women gain from access to abortion and the expected loss of earnings that would have accrued to the aborted conceptuses. From here, Meeks derives the critical price elasticity that equates welfare gains and losses and argues that a ban on abortion represents a Kaldor-Hicks improvement in welfare if the price elasticity of demand falls above the critical level. Basic to his model are several questionable assumptions: an independence of ability to pay for an abortion and income, all women who select abortion have the same linear demand for the procedure, an abortion ban would eliminate the practice of abortion, economic efficiency generally requires slavery, and the morally relevant population includes the unborn. Posner, on the other hand, argues that an abortion ban would be efficient if the average surplus lost by a woman who chooses not to break the law is less than half the average value of the fetus saved. He assumes that it takes 1.83 abortions avoided to increase the population by 1 individual and favors reducing the current abortion rate by 30% rather than banning the procedure. Although Posner's model does not require specification of any particular value for the fetus, it neglects the increased health risk for pregnant women of illegal abortion. Moreover, Posner assumes that all women obey the law if it is in their economic interest to do so. Detrimental to both models is an assumption that sound normative judgments can be made on the basis of average values for observable data and the goal of maximizing wealth is logically prior to the specification of individual rights. It is concluded that economic arguments can be persuasive on the abortion issue only if there is agreement that cost-benefit analysis is an appropriate basis for decision making.