The study of business ethics: A case for Dr Seuss

This paper provides an example of how narrative literature can be used to teach management ethics within management education. The place of narrative literature in the study of organisations generally is considered, and it is suggested that such material can provide non‐traditional cases for teaching purposes. Dr. Seuss's The Lorax is chosen as an example of a story with which students can empathise. The 'case' is analysed using an ethical decision‐making framework. As part of this analysis a number of theoretically based ethical issues are discussed so as to illustrate the range and depth of ethical issues that can be raised by such a simple narrative. It is concluded that although The Lorax is not a novel, it contains a richness of texture which makes it very useful for management education. Arguments for the legitimisation of the use of narrative fiction in conjunction with traditional cases for management education are presented in conclusion.     

Combining filter design with model-based filtering (with an application to business-cycle estimation)

Filters used to estimate unobserved components in time series are often designed on a priori grounds, so as to capture the frequencies associated with the component. A limitation of these filters is that they may yield spurious results. The danger can be avoided if the so-called ARIMA-model-based (AMB) procedure is used to derive the filter. However, parsimony of ARIMA models typically implies little resolution in terms of the detection of hidden components. It would be desirable to combine a higher resolution with consistency of the structure of the observed series.We show first that for a large class of a priori designed filters, an AMB interpretation is always possible. Using this result, proper convolution of AMB filters can produce richer decompositions of the series that incorporate a priori desired features of the components and fully respect the ARIMA model for the observed series (hence no additional parameter needs to be estimated).The procedure is discussed in detail in the context of business-cycle estimation by means of the Hodrick-Prescott filter applied to a seasonally adjusted series or a trend–cycle component.     

Modeling the age and age composition of late 19th century U.S. immigrants from Europe

Using panel data on 12 European source countries that are followed for 26 years (1873-1898), this paper studies age-specific emigration rates and the age composition of U.S. immigration. Two age groups are the focus of attention, 15-40 and over 40. Emigration-rate models and compositional models that satisfy adding-up conditions are estimated by the Hausman-Taylor Instrumental Variable approach. Younger migrants responded more strongly to job opportunities than to wage differentials, whereas older migrants responded more strongly to wage differentials. Both age groups tended to follow recent past migrants to the U.S. Relatively many younger (and relatively fewer older) migrants came from countries with higher percentages of their work forces in agriculture. Higher source-country birthrates discouraged younger migrants, presumably by raising the cost of family migration.     

A New Control Variate Estimator for an Asian Option

There exist several estimators for valuing the Asian option on the arithmetic mean. Among all variance reduction estimators, the one with the control variate derived from the geometric mean has been shown by Boyle et al. (1997) to perform best so far. In this paper, a new improved control variate estimator for this type of Asian option is proposed and investigated. Simulation results confirm that it does perform better than the control variate derived from the geometric mean. The improvement becomes more significant as the volatility increases and/or as the time to expiration lengthens.     

The effect of within‐industry diversification on firm performance: synergy creation,multi‐market contact and market structuration

This paper examines the effect of diversification upon intra‐industry performance. We propose that intra‐industry diversification promises three sets of benefits, which, separately and in combination, provide firms with a competitive advantage: synergies arising from economies of scope; premiums from mutual forbearance enabled by multi‐market competition; and efficiencies derived from market structuration. The additive and integrative effects of the first two have not been explored. The benefits of market structuration remain untheorized and thus untested. The test of our theoretical model in the Canadian general insurance industry indicates that mutual forbearance provides advantage under specified conditions, that market structuration also provides advantages, but that diversification per se does not. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Schaffen wir das?

In 2015, Germany sheltered about 900,000 refugees—more than ever before. This development led to political and public discussions in the country which changed between creating a culture of welcome for refugees and the danger of foreign infiltration through refugees. On the one hand, this article investigates, if patterns could be identified in the public debate about the so-called refugee crisis in the regional press in Germany in 2015. On the other hand, it concentrates on the solution orientation of the regional news coverage concerning this topic. The reporting pattern of solutions journalism supposes this kind of journalistic reporting and it is strongly discussed in communication sciences and journalism at the moment.The two aims of this study are based on four theoretical aspects: the responsibility of journalism, the reporting pattern of solutions journalism, the state of research concerning the image of migration and immigrants in the German media and the concept of framing. The responsibility of journalism roots in its function of information and its ethical foundation. In carrying out their work, journalists have to balance ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility: Providing full information about a topic and the (ethical) consequences of this full information is the field of conflict in which journalism lies. In the case of media coverage about the so-called refugee crisis, it is not easy to report and not proliferating prejudice and resentments against immigrants.Generally, negative reasons of reporting are often picked up by the media. In contrast to this trend, the reporting pattern of solutions journalism focusses solutions for negative reasons of reporting. Not only the problems are discussed in this reporting pattern, also solutions are presented which should encourage the recipients to act. The journalist is accredited with the role of a mediator in public debates in the pattern of solutions journalism. This role is discussed critically in journalism and communications science.Regarding the image of migration and immigrants in the German media, communication studies do not describe this coverage in a positive way. Media reports often connect immigrants to crime, foreign infiltration or describe them as an expense factor. Also, terror and Islamic faith are topics appearing since 2011 in the German media linked with immigration. Concerning the so-called refugee crisis, the few existing studies show that this situation is described as threat. In its coverage the regional press follows the argumentation of the national press and concentrates on politics when reporting about this topic.This state of research leads to the assumption that negative patterns will dominate in the regional press concerning the so-called refugee crisis, although this topic could be the chance to implement some characteristics of solutions journalism. This hypothesis was investigated in this study by a quantitative content analysis of the regional press in Germany concerning the topic of the refugee crisis. The concept of framing was used in the methodological design of this article. To frame means to extract several aspects of reality and to emphasize some of them more than others. A frame consists of a problem definition of a topic, a causal interpretation, a moral evaluation, and a treatment recommendation. Based on this definition, frames can be seen as clusters of about four elements. To identify frames, this study uses an approach considering frames as clusters of these elements. In a quantitative content analysis these single elements were operationalized and after data collection investigated by hierarchical cluster analyses to create groups of elements which often appear together. For the content analysis, a stratified sample of eight regional newspapers in seven federal states in Germany was drawn to analyze the coverage of the year 2015. Altogether, the final sample consisted of 1231 articles.The results of this analysis show that the biggest frame in the regional press is the one of “social challenge” of the so-called refugee crisis. It deals with the social and cultural problems the so-called refugee crisis causes and replaces the dominant topic of crime in the then current state of research. Further frames are the ones of “integration”, “capacity”, “demonstration” and “solution”. The frame “integration” concentrates in a positive way on the chance of integration and is astonishingly quite equally sized in comparison to the one of “social challenge”. The frame “capacity” is smaller. It deals with the problem of accommodation of refugees. The frames of “demonstration” and “solution” appear not very often and focus the problems of protest against refugees and their supporters or political solutions for the so-called refugee crisis.But not only the widely spread frame of integration in the regional press is surprising, also its significant dominance in the coverage of the regional newspapers in East Germany is noteworthy. As more hostility against refugees can be observed in the eastern parts of Germany in 2015, it is an astonishing fact, that the regional press accents the frame of integration. Maybe the newspapers wanted to be the public counterpart to the hostile atmosphere in this region.Solution orientation as it is focused by solutions journalism could be identified in this analysis by the frame element of treatment recommendation. In sum, only few treatment recommendations exist in the regional press coverage: The widely spread frames “social challenge” and “integration” are the ones which provide the fewest treatment recommendations. The small frames “capacity” and “demonstration” are those which show the largest solution orientation. The solution proposals are oriented towards politics. These findings show that the solution orientation in the regional press coverage is not very strong, but the widely spread frame of integration demonstrates that the regional press reports in a more positive way than expected—especially in Eastern Germany.