Conversations Across Continents: Teaching Business Ethics Online

The paper focuses on an online business ethics course that three professors (Painter-Morland, Fontrodona and Hoffman) taught together, and in which the fourth author (Rowe) participated as a student, from their respective locations on three continents. The course was conducted using Centra software, which allowed for synchronous online interaction. The class included students from Europe, South Africa and the United States. In order to assess the value of synchronous online teaching for ethics training, the paper identifies certain knowledge, skills and capacities that are crucial to the moral development process within individuals. The paper argues that the online teaching method succeeds in creating an environment within which important ethical knowledge and skills might be developed. It provides an in-depth reflection on the advantages and dis-advantages of online teaching and proposes improvements on the way forward. One of the major advantages relates to its ability to facilitate cross-cultural discussion and debate on ethical issues and foster insight into contextual influences on ethics management within an international arena.     

The cost of telephone service: An international comparison of rates in major countries

An exhaustive analysis of all 1979 telephone calls in the US Bell System determines market baskets of telephone services consumed by residential subscribers and by business subscribers. Individual calls are classified according to duration, distance, hour and day of week, and type of service. The annual cost of purchasing these market baskets is evaluated using the complete rate structures of nine countries. Telephone service is least expensive in the US and only slightly higher in Canada. Costs in Sweden, the UK and Italy are moderately higher than the USA. The highest rates are found in Japan, the FRG, France and Australia.     

The nature of Japan's comparative advantage, 1965-80

This paper compares the dynamic factor proportions theory to the product cycle theory in explaining Japan's comparative advantage for the 1965-80 period. Three tests were used: (1) domestic Japanese relative prices of more and less competitive export commodities; (2) trends in capital-labour ratios, skill ratios, R&D intensity and product turnover for Japan's manufactured exports; (3) price elasticities over time of Japan's exports. The results suggest that: (1) the product cycle must be considered along with the factor proportions theory for the pre-oil shock period; (2) the product cycle theory is superior for the post-oil shock period.     

Asset divestiture following horizontal acquisitions: a dynamic view

Business acquisition, resource redeployment, and asset divestiture are elements of a dynamic process in which firms change their businesses by recombining internal and external resources. Analyzing 253 horizontal acquisitions, we show that post‐acquisition resource redeployment leads to asset divestiture from the business that receives the redeployed resources, but not from the business that contributes the new resources. Consistent with scale economies rationales, we find that strategic similarity also leads to greater asset divestiture from the target firms. Many theoretical perspectives are skeptical about the positive rationale for acquisitions and many of these believe that asset divestiture is evidence of acquisition failure. Our arguments and analysis help refine the accepted wisdom. In particular, the pattern of resource redeployment and asset divestiture in our analysis suggests that acquisitions provide a means of reconfiguring the structure of resources within firms and that asset divestiture is a logical consequence of this reconfiguration process. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The individual investor in securities markets: An ethical analysis

In this paper we consider whether one type of individual investor, which we call at risk investors, should be denied access to securities markets to prevent them from suffering serious financial harm. We consider one kind of paternalistic justification for prohibiting at risk investors from participating in securities markets, and argue that it is not successful. We then argue that restricting access to markets is justified in some circumstances to protect the rights of at risk investors. We conclude with some suggestions about how this might be done.Robert E. Frederick is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bentley College and Assistant Director of the Center for Business Ethics. Before coming to Bentley College he worked at a large financial institution for nine years, where he was Vice President for Administrative Services. Dr. Frederick has authored or co-authored over fifteen articles and has co-edited four books. He has consulted on business ethics for several major corporations. W. Michael Hoffman is the founding Director of the Center for Business Ethics, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Bentley College, Waltham, MA. He was President of the Society for Business Ethics in 1989. He has authored or edited ten books, including Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality (McGraw-Hill, 1984; 1990) and published over thirty articles. He has consulted on business ethics for many major corporations and institutions of higher learning, and he serves on the board of several journals.     

Statistical Inference,Learning and Models in Big Data

The need for new methods to deal with big data is a common theme in most scientific fields, although its definition tends to vary with the context. Statistical ideas are an essential part of this, and as a partial response, a thematic program on statistical inference, learning and models in big data was held in 2015 in Canada, under the general direction of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute, with major funding from, and most activities located at, the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. This paper gives an overview of the topics covered, describing challenges and strategies that seem common to many different areas of application and including some examples of applications to make these challenges and strategies more concrete.     

Motivations of Australian Listed Companies Effecting Share Buy-Backs

The bulk of prior research on share buy-backs has been undertaken in the U.S. As the legislative environment and capital market perception of buy-backs in Australia are different to the U.S., it is both desirable and necessary to examine the motivations of Australian share buy-backs. Contemporary Australian financial press reports, the U.S. financial management literature and anecdotal evidence provide numerous feasible motivations for a company to undertake a buy-back. In an Australian context, this article considers the following: (a) the development of the legislative framework relating to share buy-backs and why some forms of buy-back are preferred over others; (b) a set of potential motivations (reasons) for Australian companies undertaking a buy-back; and (c) the actual motivations as provided in ASX announcements by forty-four listed companies effecting sixty-seven share buy-backs over the period 1990 to 1995. Results reveal that motivations differ depending on the type of buy-back and are reasonably consistent across time. The two prime motivations for on-market buy-backs are: (a) signalling of future expectations (underpricing), and (b) an attempt to increase financial performance (EPS) and/or position (NAB/share). For selective buy-backs, the main purpose is to remove specific shareholders from the share register. Employee buy-backs are generally seen as an off-market means of providing a market for the company's shares. Finally, the overriding motivation for equal access buy-backs is as an alternative to dividends.