CEO Pay and the Argument from Peer Comparison

Journal of Business Ethics - Chief executive officers (CEOs) are typically paid great amounts of money in wages and bonuses by commercial companies. This is sometimes defended with an argument from...     

The role of accident theory in injury prevention - time for the pendulum to swing back

Injury prevention is a branch of safety sciences. While comprehensive theoretical developments occurred in the wider field in the last decades, little of these developments reached and influenced the injury prevention community. Instead, a clear retro trend 'back to basics' is seen among injury prevention scholars, especially to Dr William Haddon's pioneering work some 50 years ago. This paper intends to draw attention to this polarisation and discuss possible explanations. It is argued that the strong campaign against the accident concept among leading injury prevention groupings became a serious hindrance for theoretical exchange. The underlying process is interpreted in terms of a struggle for ownership over this truly interdisciplinary field of research, unfortunately at the expense of theoretical stagnation in injury prevention circles and lessened interest in collaboration from other scientific areas. This paper is written as a tribute to Professor Leif Svanstr?m and his scientific contributions, with special regard to his genuine interest in interdisciplinary research.     

Measuring Price Effects of Concentration in Mixed Oligopoly: An Application to the Swedish Beef-slaughter Industry

Empirical studies of market power focus exclusively on industries with private firms. Yet, it is not uncommon to find private firms competing with public firms or cooperatives (coops) within the same market. We develop an empirical procedure for measuring market-power and cost-efficiency effects of concentration in mixed oligopoly consisting of coops and investment-owned firms (IOF) and apply the procedure to the Swedish beef-slaughter industry. We find that the cost-efficiency effect of coop concentration more than offset its market power effect, resulting lower beef prices. IOFs are found to be price-takers in both cattle procurement and beef sales.      

Should I invest with my conscience?

This paper discusses the idea that investors have moral reasons to avoid investing in certain business areas based on their own moral views towards these areas. Some have referred to this as 'conscience investing', and it is a central part of the conception of ethical investing within the socially responsible investment (SRI) movement. The paper presents what is taken to be the main arguments for this kind of investing as they are given by those who have defended it, and discusses the plausibility of these arguments from the point of view of moral philosophy. The paper argues that focusing on the moral views of individual investors is not very fruitful – there are strong reasons to think that investors do not have moral reasons to invest 'with their consciences', or, to the extent that such reasons are allowed, that they are very weak compared with other sorts of moral reasons pertaining to ethical investing.     

Managing policy lapse risk in Sweden’s life insurance market between 1915 and 1947

Abstract

We examine the challenges that Swedish life insurers faced in managing the lapse risk of policies written on the lives of the industrial urban working class between 1915 and 1947. We observe that with the threat of State socialisation of insurance in the 1930s, industrial life insurers modified their business practices to better control policy lapses. Using firm-level data, we also analyse the effect of socio-economic changes, such as rising real wages, interest rate fluctuations and unemployment on life insurance policy lapses. Our results support contemporary tests of the emergency fund and interest rate explanations for the voluntary premature termination of life insurance policies.     

The IB/ IHRM interface: Exploring the potential of intersectional theorizing

Although the core concepts underlying IB and IHRM provide a common lexicon and epistemology, this commonality is often more implicit than explicit. We highlight not only the common ground but also the lack of critical dialogue between the two fields. This paper asks: What can each field learn from the other? What do scholars from IB learn from IHRM and vice versa? We identify a possible agenda and concerns regarding theory building as a basis for dialogue between the two fields.     

Microfinance Traps and Relational Exchange Norms: A Field Study of Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania

In interdependent social groups, microfinance traps occur when conflicts arise between borrowers’ affective ties related to family needs and instrumental ties related to obligations toward their loan group. Thus, the social capital that facilitates microfinancing can lead to conflicting obligations toward business needs and economic obligations toward family. Building on an inductive field study among female entrepreneurs in Tanzania, we conceptualize microfinance traps. By using relational contract theory to interpret the qualitative data, we argue that microfinance traps can be reduced by balancing role integrity, preserving norms and reciprocity, and harmonizing the social matrix toward the family and loan group.     

Normative,authentic, and altruistic fruit and vegetable consumption as weblog discourses

The Internet is a growing information and communication channel for health- and diet-related issues. Keeping updated on the fruit- and vegetable-related (F&V) discourses among laypeople is important for health communicators in order to promote F&V consumption through tailored health messages. The aim of the present study was to identify F&V-related discourses in weblogs that were maintained, obviously, to influence diet. A theoretically chosen sample of weblogs were analysed applying critical discourse analysis. The analysis showed three partly overlapping F&V-related discourses: (1) normative consumption with a focus on single nutrients and physiological mechanisms; (2) authentic consumption with a desire for naturalness; and (3) altruistic consumption where ethical responsibilities are enhanced. Bloggers have clear perceptions on ideal F&V consumption, but it is a challenge for the reader to make a synthesis of the discourses presented. Filtering contradictory instructions requires health literacy, which may need more support from dietetic professionals.     

Balancing the trade-off between learning prospects and spillover risks: MNC subsidiaries’ vertical linkage patterns in developed countries

This paper investigates local vertical linkages of foreign subsidiaries and the dual role of such linkages as conduits for learning as well as potential channels for spillovers to competitors. On the basis of data from 97 subsidiaries, we analyze the quality of such linkages under varying levels of competition and subsidiary capabilities. Our theoretical development and the results from the analysis document a far more complex and dynamic relationship between levels of competition and MNCs’ local participation in knowledge intensive activities, i.e. learning and spillovers, than previous studies do. We find a curvilinear relationship between the extent of competitive pressure and the quality of local linkages confirming our argument of a trade-off between learning prospects and spillover risks. Furthermore, the level of subsidiary capabilities moderates this relationship.     

On the epidemiology of injury in developing countries: A one-year emergency room-based surveillance experience from León,Nicaragua

Background Regularly available data has been shown to be inadequate for developing, implementing, and evaluating injury prevention and control programs in Nicaragua. A specific prevention-oriented local injury surveillance system has therefore been set up in the city of León. Objectives The aim of this paper is to describe the epidemiology of fatal and non-fatal injuries over a one-year period in a well-defined local population in Nicaragua, as emerging from the perspective of emergency room and inpatient treatments over a one-year period. Methods A hospital-based injury surveillance system was established to collect data for different levels of severity. All treated unintentional and intentional injuries were registered, including information on the external causes according to the ICD-9. Results Of all emergency room visits, 15.9% (9,970) were injuries. For every death due to injuries, there were 31 hospital admissions and 253 emergency room visits. Home and street/roads were the main arenas for the accidents. The estimated underreporting rate was about 6%, and in 20.3% of the cases, no E-code was assigned. The overall incidence and mortality rates were 56.2 per 1,000 and 20 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. However, comparison with a parallel household survey showed that the reporting rate of the surveillance system is only about 9%. The overall ratio of male to female injury rates was 2.1 to 1. The main causes of non-fatal injuries were falls, whereas the main cause of death was traffic accidents. Conclusions Hospital discharge and emergency room data systems are effective and feasible means for collecting the data needed to prevent injuries. However, in a country like Nicaragua with limited access to hospital health services, it is necessary to supplement such a system with additional sources of information in order to gain a more comprehensive picture of injury occurrence.