The Silent Samaritan Syndrome: Why the Whistle Remains Unblown

Whistle blowing programs have been central to numerous government, legislative, and regulatory reform efforts in recent years. To protect investors, corporate boards have instituted numerous measures to promote whistle blowing. Despite significant whistle blowing incentives, few individuals blow the whistle when presented with the opportunity. Instead, individuals often remain fallaciously silent and, in essence, become passive fraudsters themselves. Using the fraud triangle and models of moral behavior, we model and analyze fallacious silence and identify factors that may motivate an individual to rationalize fallacious silence. We use a survey of graduate accounting students to test hypothesized factors that contribute to fallacious silence rationalizations in an academic setting. We find evidence that the ability to rationalize fallacious silence is related to community influences and personal traits such as awareness and moral competence.     

Refractory Materials: The Global Market,The Global Industry

World demand for refractory products—heat-resisting ceramic materials used in metal refining, glass making, and other high-temperature industrial applications—will be slowing down considerably from an annual rate of 10.8 percent during 2002–07 to 3.5 percent during 2007–12. Such slower growth reflects many factors, but is due primarily to: unsettled economic conditions; better efficiencies in steelmaking (which accounts for about half of all end uses of refractories); and the preference of end-users for maintenance rather than new facilities. The four key markets or end uses for refractory materials are: iron and steelmaking; other metal-making; nonmetallic materials such as glass; and an all-other category. In 2007, world refractory demand was 38.1 million metric tons valued at $22.9 billion; the corresponding figures for 2012 are projected at about 45.2 million metric tons valued at $28.5 billion. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for about 45 percent of total weight in 2007; its share by 2012 should rise to about 69 percent, with China becoming the dominant producer and consumer of refractory materials.     

Intraday behavior of market depth in a competitive dealer market: A note

This study is the first to examine the intraday behavior of quoted depth in a competitive dealer market. In sharp contrast to previous research that focuses on specialist markets, quoted depth is lowest at the open of trading, plateaus around the middle of the day, and then dramatically increases in the final hours of trading, peaking at the close. This peak in quoted depth coincides with a narrowing in bid‐ask spreads, and is contrary to intraday patterns documented for specialist markets. The authors conclude that the increase in depth and narrowing of bid‐ask spreads at the close is driven by dealers rebalancing inventories to achieve target inventory levels in a competitive market. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28:294–307, 2008     

Overt sexuality in advertising: A discourse analysis of gender responses

Recent developments in advertising imagery often involve the use of overt sexuality. Consumer responses to advertisements using a range of sexual explicitness are explored using a discourse analytic approach. The dominant negative themes articulated across sex and age groups concerned the use of sex-role stereotypes and the objectification of women. Dominant positive themes shared by both sexes involved equality in sexual representations and sexuality as art. Younger consumers' discourse concerned how advertising can add symbolic value to consumption by investing the products with a romantic style of sexuality which becomes a potent cultural form drawing its energy from the desires of the body. The shared dominant themes were supported by gendered interpretive repertoires. The unexpected gender consistency in dominant themes is discussed in relation to the cultural function of advertising as art in allowing women to speak more easily of their desires through consumption choices.

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Zusammenfassung Offene Darstellung von Sexualität in der Werbung: Diskursanalyse geschlechtstypischer Reaktionen Die neuere Entwicklung werblicher Darstellungsformen ist gekennzeichnet durch hÄufigere Darstellung von Sexualität. Konsumentenreaktionen auf Werbeanzeigen mit variierender sexueller Deutlichkeit werden mit Hilfe eines diskursanalytischen Ansatzes untersucht. Dominante negative Themen, die bei beiden Geschlechtern und quer durch alle Altersgruppen zur Sprache kamen, betrafen die Verwendung von Geschlechterstereotypen und die Darstellung von Frauen als Objekten. Dominante positive Themen, die ebenfalls von beiden Geschlechtern genannt werden, sind die Gleichrangigkeit der Darstellung der Geschlechter und die Darstellung der Sexualität in künstlerischer Form. Jüngere Konsumenten beschÄftigten sich mit der Frage, wie Werbung den Konsum mit symbolischem Wert anreichern kann dadurch, da\ den Produkten eine romantische Sexualität angeheftet wird. Die eigentlich nicht erwartete übereinstimmung beider Geschlechter bei den dominanten Themen wird im Zusammenhang mit der kulturellen Funktion von Werbung als neue Kunstform diskutiert, die es Frauen erlaubt, ihre Bedürfnisse leichter durch Konsumakte zu Äu\ern.

     

Professional Ethics and The Culture of Trust

The cause of ethical failure in organisations often can be traced to their organisational culture and the failure on the part of the leadership to actively promote ethical ideals and practices. This is true of all types of organisations, including the professions, which in recent years have experienced ongoing ethical problems. The questions naturally arise: what sort of professional culture promotes ethical behaviour? How can it be implemented by a profession and engendered in the individual professional? The answers to these questions are of interest to business ethicists since the causes of ethical problems in business are often the same and the professions, as ethically challenged organisations, make useful and informative analogues for the measures to be adopted or avoided when the attempt is made to raise the ethical standards of business. Given this focus on the professions, it will be argued that the usual, direct attempts to control unethical behaviour by using codes of ethics, legislation and self-regulatory regimes, are not successful. The answer, it will be argued, lies in using an enforced self-regulation model that aims for ethics indirectly. Such a strategy seeks to develop a goal-orientated professional culture which is actively promoted by the leadership of the profession as well as the members. Specifically, the culture is one that seeks to promote trust in the profession and trustworthiness as a virtue exemplified in each individual. It will be argued that in order to develop a professional culture that cultivates trust a profession will need to develop certain institutions, programs and structures within the profession. I conclude by setting out a model of these trust-cultivating structures.     

Boom and Bust in Power Plant Construction: Lessons from the California Electricity Crisis

This article argues that competitive electricity markets are prone to the same cycles of boom and bust that appear in commodity markets and in a specialized industry like real estate. The article then demonstrates how boom and bust might appear in the western electricity system using computer simulation. A “business as usual” simulation shows that the west might be at the crest of a building boom and on the verge of a bust in wholesale prices. Without fundamental changes in the wholesale markets, the next construction boom would come too late to prevent a decline in reserve margins and the reappearance of price spikes. If we continue with the current market structure, we run the risk of exposing the western electricity markets to another round of reliability alerts and price spikes. The article concludes with suggestions for alternative market structures in California and a discussion of whether these suggestions apply to other countries engaged in electricity restructuring.     

Business goals in market versus transition economies: An exploratory comparison of Hungarian and U.S. MBA students

Developed market economies and transition economies are characterized by radically different institutional, economic, and cultural environments, which we expected would produce differences in business goals among MBA students. We measured differences between 103 Hungarian and 454 U.S. part‐time MBAs and found that U.S. respondents placed more importance on growth of the business, short‐term profits, staying within the laws, and honor, face, and reputation. Hungarians placed more emphasis on game and gaming spirit, and family values. Although the results showed significant differences on some business goals, they were not as great as the literature would suggest, indicating that some convergence has occurred since transition began. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The impact of increasing non-agricultural market access on EU demand for imported fish: implications for Lake Victoria chilled fillet exports

Import demand functions for origin-specific chilled fish filletsto the EU using a Rotterdam-type production model are estimated.Results are used to project the impact of the EU expanding marketaccess to non-African countries. The preference erosion argumentsuggests that the lower tariffs will erode the competitive positionof African countries; however, when the total impact of pricesis considered, expanding preferential access may result in increasedimports from African countries. If tariffs are reduced to zero,the total EU imports are projected to increase by 4.1 per centresulting in a 2.2 per cent increase in chilled fillet importsfrom Lake Victoria.     

Brexit: How Will UK Agriculture Fare?

There is little doubt that Brexit would have significant implications for UK agriculture, a sector with strong trade links to the EU and strong reliance on CAP income support. This article reports preliminary results from employing a Computable General Equilibrium Model, a Partial Equilibrium Model and Farm Level Models to explore selected trade and domestic policy scenarios post‐Brexit. These allow for the estimation of changes in producer prices, production and farm incomes against a baseline scenario of continued EU membership. Under a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, agricultural impacts are relatively modest. By contrast, unilateral removal of import tariffs has significant negative impacts on prices, production and incomes. Adoption of the EU's WTO tariff schedule for all imports favours net importers (e.g. dairy) and harms net exporters (e.g. sheep). Given the strong dependence of most UK farms on direct payments, their removal worsens negative impacts of new trade arrangements and offsets positive impacts. Impacts vary across different types and sizes of farm, but also regionally. However, the period of adjustment to new trade and domestic policy conditions may prove very challenging for a large number of farm businesses.