Using role play to integrate ethics into the business curriculum a financial management example

Calls for increasing integration of ethical considerations into business education are well documented. Business graduates are perceived to be ethically naive at best, and at worst, constrained in their moral development by the lack of ethical content in their courses. The pedagogic concern is to find effective methods of incorporating ethics into the fabric of business education. The purpose of this paper is to suggest and illustrate role play as an appropriate method for integrating ethical concerns.Dr. Kate Brown is a senior lecturer in the Department of Finance and Quantitative Analysis at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She teaches financial management and a course in entrepreneurship and venture capital. Her research interests include corporate finance, regulatory economics, and issues in the teaching of finance.     

Board composition,share ownership,and ‘underpricing’ of U.K. IPO firms

Using a sample of 251 IPOs in the United Kingdom, this paper examines interlinks between executive and nonexecutive characteristics, share ownership, and short‐term performance measured in terms of share offer ‘underpricing.’ It argues that executives' power and previous experience directly affect ex ante choice of nonexecutive directors and their ownership interests in the firm. These endogenously developed governance factors may be used by IPO teams strategically to reduce the extent of underpricing. However, there is a selective response of investors to different board characteristics and share ownership structure. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Legal Doctrine and Political Control

We model legal doctrine as an instrument of political controlby higher courts over lower courts and the case outcomes theyproduce. We focus on the choice between determinate and indeterminatedoctrines within a hierarchy of courts where political–ideologicalalignment between lower and higher courts varies. We show thatthe choice over doctrinal determinacy depends on the distributionof cases, the distribution of litigants, judicial types, andthe level of policy alignment between higher and lower courtjudges. The model suggests the optimal doctrinal choice fora high court, given the political–ideological alignmentbetween the high court and the lower court, the control characteristicsof doctrines themselves, and the matching of doctrines to litigantpools. This has implications regarding preference divergencewithin the judicial hierarchy, the interaction of differentdoctrines, and interplay between doctrinal specificity and doctrinalreach.     

“My God is Not Your God”: Applying Relationship Management Theory to Managing Ethnoreligious Crises in Sub-Saharan Africa

Historically, the world’s geopolitical landscape has been replete with conflicts, from those of Ancient Mesopotamia to those in today’s Middle East and Africa. As in other world regions, parts of sub-Saharan Africa have, for decades, been trapped in a vicious cycle of conflicts and violence—in ethnopolitical and ethnoreligious contexts, even as foreign direct investment on the continent has increased 50% since 2005 and as the gross national product has increased significantly in countries such as Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda, all of which are attracting international investors. This article examines the nation-building role of public relations by applying the general theory of relationship management, which is based on Grunig-Hunt two-way symmetrical model of public relations, to Sudan and Nigeria as a two-nation case study. It offers theory-informed guidelines that African states can use in managing conflicts and in developing communication strategies that engage stakeholders of disparate theological leanings at the individual level. The goal is to use communication strategies that emphasize mutually respectful Muslim-Christian dialogue on intractable, sensitive issues that have morphed into a bane of the economically burgeoning sub-Saharan African region, particularly.     

SMEs and the Potential for A Collaborative Path to Environmental Responsibility

Globally, the potential for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to collectively impact negatively on the environment is great. Therefore, the adoption, and maintenance, of environmentally responsible practices by this group of firms is especially critical. Studies of environmental practices successfully implemented by small firms have revealed that relationships with other firms, or other organizations, can contribute to greater awareness of the benefits of such activities and, therefore, enhance the possibility of environmental engagement. Collaborative relationships may provide opportunities for SMEs to overcome some of the barriers to implementing environmental initiatives associated with their size, and/or associated characteristics. This paper focuses on attitudes of SME owner‐managers to a variety of environmental issues (including regulation and voluntary standards), and to collaborating with other firms (in either a formal or informal sense). The data this paper draws upon are from two waves of an ongoing longitudinal survey of New Zealand SMEs. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Lessons from the Snowy Slope: Vision and Politics in American Social Insurance

The enactment of social insurance, a fundamental departure from means‐tested welfare programs, was born out of the crisis of the Great Depression. Policy options to strengthen Social Security are mathematically simple, but ideologically contentious. Arguments against the program, remarkably consistent since its inception, have been gaining traction in the current political climate. As the debate proceeds, it is useful to examine the history of opposition and review the case for universal social insurance.