Business ethics: Restrictive or empowering?

There is a tendency in the business ethics literature to think of ethics in restrictive terms: what one should not do, and how to control this. Drawing on Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development, the paper focuses on, and draws attention to, another more positive aspect of ethics: the capacity of ethics to inspire and empower individuals, as well as groups. To understand and facilitate such empowerment, it is argued that it is necessary to move beyond Kohlberg's justice reasoning so as to appreciate the value and importance of feeling and care. Accordingly, we draw upon case study material to review the meaning of Kohlberg's higher stages — 5, 6 and 7 — to question the meaning of ethical reasoning. With such deeper understanding of particular ethical codes or practices, it is thought that members of organisations may come closer to thespirit, as opposed to the letter, of ethical conduct in organisations. This, we argue, is consistent with the degree of trust and integrity demanded by leaner, post-bureaucratic ways of organizing and conducting business as well as being personally beneficial to the people involved.Bjørn Kjonstad has recently completed his Masters dissertation. He has subsequently been ordained in the Western Buddhist Order and is currently devoting himself full-time to the work of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.Hugh Willmott is Reader in the Manchester School of Management having previously held appointments at the Aston Business School and Copenhagen Business School. He has taken refuge in the Kagyu Order of Tibetan Buddhism. His most recent books have beenLabour Process Theory (Macmillan, 1990 co-edited with David Knights),Critical Management Studies (Sage, 1992, co-edited with Mats Alvesson) andSkill and Consent (Routledge, 1992, co-edited with Andrew Sturdy and David Knights) andMaking Quality Critical (Routledge, 1994 co-edited with Adrian Wilkinson). Their common theme has been a critical examination of the changing organization and management of work in modern society.     

Book Reviews

Ross H, McLeod (ed.), Indonesia Assessment 1994: Finance as a Key Sector in Indonesia's Development, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1994, pp. 353. $25.00; S$35.00; A$30.00.

Miranda S. Goeltom, Indonesia's Financial Liberalization: An Analysis of 1981–88 Panel Data, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1995, pp. xii + 93.

Joan Hardjono and Charles Warner (eds), In Love with a Nation: Molly Bondan and Indonesia, published by Charles Warner, Picton, NSW, 1995, pp. 256. A$16.95.

ln Love with a Nation is privately published and obtainable from the following Australian suppliers: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe 2037; Nusantara Bookshop, 72 Maroondah Hwy, Croydon 3136; or from Charles Warner, PO Box 194, Picton 2571. (If ordered from Charles Warner, price including postage is AS20 within Australia; A$25 to Europe, America or Africa; A$23 to Asia, Pacific.)     

Exploring the boundaries of the framing effect: The moderating roles of disparate expected values and perceived costs of judgmental errors

Framing effects on retail store choice decisions were investigated in four experiments. Subjects preferred the store that guaranteed (a sure option) good prices (experiment 1), product availability (experiment 2), or a rebate (experiment 3) when consequences were framed in terms of gains; subjects preferred the risky option when consequences were framed in terms of losses. Consistent with fuzzy-trace theory, framing effects were reduced when the expected values of options were disparate in a direction that disfavored sure gain or probabilistic loss options (experiment 2) and when the perceived costs of committing a judgmental error were high (experiment 3). Experiment 4 shows that the moderating effects of disparate expected values and costs of judgment errors generalize to within-subject designs.     

Finding a lasting cure for U.S. health care

In "Making Competition in Health Care Work" (July-August 1994), Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg, Michael E. Porter, and Gregory B. Brown ask a question that has been absent from the national debate on health care reform: How can the United States achieve sustained cost reductions while at the same time maintaining quality of care? The authors argue that innovation driven by rigorous competition is the key to successful reform. A lasting cure for health care in the United States should include four basic elements: corrected incentives to spur productive competition, universal insurance to secure economic efficiency, relevant information to ensure meaningful choice, and innovation to guarantee dynamic improvement. In this issue's Perspectives section, eleven experts examine the current state of the health care system and offer their views on the shape that reform should take. Some excerpts: "On the road to innovation, let us not forget to develop the tools that allow physicians, payers, and patients to make better decisions." I. Steven Udvarhelyi; "Health care is not a product or service that can be standardized, packaged, marketed, or adequately judged by consumers according to quality and price." Arnold S. Relman; "Just as antitrust laws are the wise restraints that make competition free in other sectors of the economy, so the right kind of managed competition can work well in health care." Edward M. Kennedy "Biomedical research should be considered primarily an investment in the national economic well-being with additional humanitarian benefits." Elizabeth Marincola.     

Problem-solving in teaching/learning packages for Technology

In the project Technology in Secondary Education: Problem-solving in Teaching/learning Packages, two experiments regarding a construction problem and an explanation problem were conducted, in which two variants of a teching/learning package (strongly structuredvs. weakly structured) were compared. Only with the strongly structured instructional variant of the package for the explanation problem did the pupils come to a quick solution of the problem. In both experiments, the factors that influenced the problem-solving processes of the pupils were investigated. The results are of importance for curriculum developers and the authors of teaching/learning packages for Technology but further research into the factors influencing the problem solving process of pupils is necessary.     

Training,migration, and regional income disparities

"It is assumed that there are two regions, that production requires both skilled and unskilled labour, and that one region is innately more productive than the other. Workers, who differ in their migration or training costs, make individually rational decisions. In equilibrium the ratio of skilled workers to unskilled workers is always higher in the more productive region. Average incomes differ between regions because regional differences in wage rates are reinforced by regional differences in the structure of employment. The model is also used to analyse the effects of policies intended to equalize the distribution of income."     

“Down and out” in D.C.: How Georgetown M.B.A. students learn about leadership through service to others

This article describes a community service project in which M.B.A. students learn about and experience directly the dynamics of leadership and power. The purposes of this project are to help students better understand the social reality of powerlessness, and how they, through their political activism and influence management skills, can improve the situations and lives of powerless people in the local community. In so doing, students begin to see the connection between political action and moral ends, the fundamental learning objective of this project.Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Virtue is doing it.(David Starr Jordan) Robert J. Bies is Associate Professor Management in the School of Business at Georgetown University. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research interests include leadership and power, the delivery of bad news, the litigation mentality, and organizational justice. He edited (with S. Sitkin) the book, The Legalistic Organization (Sage Publications, 1993).