Extremely thin models in print ads: The dark sides

To appeal to consumers as social beings, advertisers include social settings and human images in commercial messages. Extant empirical research shows that thin models are perceived as more attractive and that the use of attractive models results in higher ad effectiveness. However, this study offers empirical evidence of ‘dark sides’ of extremely thin models, such that they harm advertising performance. The negative effects of extremely thin models stem from their influence on consumers' psychological well-being, as well as their ethical judgements of the advertisement. Respondents in this study also regard an extremely thin model as less attractive than a more average model. These results suggest that organizations should reconsider the portrayal of extremely thin models in their promotional messages and, more generally, consider consumer ethics when developing marketing communication messages.     

Mining, Displacement and the World Bank: A Case Analysis of Compania Minera Antamina's Operations in Peru

The transformation in the structure of the world mining industry over the last decade has opened up enormous new regions for mineral exploration and development by transnational mining companies in countries in the South. This new access has inevitably brought mining companies into conflict with local communities. With the involvement of transnational advocacy networks and new global publics, these conflicts have prompted a growing transnational debate on the principles that ought to govern mining and community relationships. One effort to provide guidance on this question comes from the World Bank's Operational Directive 4.30 on Involuntary Resettlement. This paper examines the regulatory impact of this policy upon relationships between mining companies and communities, as well as its "legitimation effect" in providing standards which, once met, can serve to certify a degree of responsible behaviour on the part of the company. The analysis of the effects of the directive is taken up in the form a case study involving a transnational mining company operating in the Andes of Peru and the local communities impacted by its land acquisition project.     

Re-evaluating the Realist Conception of War as a Business Metaphor

The state of war is a popular metaphor employed by many business writers seeking to explain the imperatives of strategic decision-making. It is a metaphor which draws on a realist characterisation of war as a Hobbesian state of nature devoid of a moral dimension. However, the work of Walzer (1977) has demonstrated that rules of war, established over generations and across cultural divides, play a significant role in the conduct of warfare. Through identifying and analysing rules of war in parallel with ethical dilemmas in business life, such as whistleblowing, it is possible to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the war metaphor in place of simplified, state of nature realism. This alternative version of the war metaphor is a useful means of introducing students to Aristotlean virtues as well as challenging their preconceptions about the nature of business activity.     

Ethics as a Risk Management Strategy: The Australian Experience

This article addresses the connection of ethics to risk management, and argues that there are compelling reasons to consider good ethical practice to be an essential part of such risk management. That connection has significant commercial outcomes, which include identifying potential problems, preventing fraud, the preservation of corporate reputation, and the mitigation of court penalties should any transgression arise. Information about the legal position, examples of cases, and arguments about the potential benefits of ethics are canvassed. The orientation of this article is essentially Australian. It is hoped that it may provide some insights of value to other countries.     

Should you set up your own sales force or should you outsource it? Pitfalls in the standard analysis

Should you set up your own sales force or should you outsource it? The standard analysis is cost based and assumes that the direct sales force is a fixed cost and that the outsourced sales force's cost varies with sales. The standard analysis then calculates the sales volume at which the direct sales force's costs equal the outsourced sales force's costs and suggests that for sales volume above that quantity, firms should use a direct sales force. This analysis has two problems. First, several other cost factors are not considered in the standard analysis. Second, the standard analysis considers only cost, ignoring coverage efficiency and selling effectiveness differences between the two sales forces. Both problems will be detailed and developed in this paper.     

The Effect of Organizational Culture and Ethical Orientation on Accountants' Ethical Judgments

This paper examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture in two large international CPA firms, auditors' personal values and the ethical orientation that those values dictate, and judgments in ethical dilemmas typical of those that accountants face. Using an experimental task consisting of multiple judgments designed to vary in "moral intensity" (Jones, 1991), and unique as well as tried-and-true approaches to variable measurements, this study examined the judgments of more than three hundred participants in our study. ANCOVA and path analysis results indicate that: (1) Ethical judgments in situations of high moral intensity are affected by personal values and by environmental variables, such as the professional code of conduct (direct and indirect effects) and previous ethics instruction (direct effect only). (2) Corporate ethical culture, and a relatively strong firm rules-orientation, affect auditors' idealism but not relativism, and therefore indirectly affect ethical judgments. Jones' (1991) moral intensity argument is supported: differences in the characteristics of specific judgment tasks apparently result in different decision processes.     

Three Views on the Ethics of Tax Evasion

In 1944, Martin Crowe, a Catholic priest, wrote a doctoral dissertation titled The Moral Obligation of Paying Just Taxes. His dissertation summarized and analyzed 500 years of theological and philosophical debate on this topic, much of which took place in Latin. Since Crowe’s dissertation, not much has been written on the topic of tax evasion from an ethical perspective, with a few exceptions. In 1998 and 1999, a few articles were published on the ethics of tax evasion in the Journal of Accounting, Ethics & Public Policy. An edited book on this topic was published in 1998. The present paper summarizes, updates and expands on Crowe’s work and the other more recent work that has been published on this topic. Three basic views on the ethics of tax evasion have emerged over the centuries. This article presents and critiques those three views and raises some questions about points that have not yet been explored in the literature.     

Teaching Business Ethics: A Case Study Of An Ethics Across The Curriculum Policy

The faculty within the undergraduate businessdepartment at Nova Southeastern University hasinstituted an Ethics Across The Curriculum Policy. This paper shares the steps the faculty followed inthe development and adoption of this policy. It isour hope that sharing our experiences concerning thispolicy implementation will help others consider asimilar policy. Recommendations are provided forpolicy development.     

Better safe than sorry: Why organizations in crisis should never hesitate to steal thunder

When organizations are confronted with a crisis, they sometimes have the opportunity to decide whether or not to disclose that information. Organizations may hesitate to reveal such negative events out of fear of drawing unnecessary attention to the crisis, legal liability, or other related problems. The aim of this article is to discuss the pros and cons of self-disclosure and to offer tools to public relations practitioners that will help convince management of the advantages of self-disclosure in a time of crisis—what has been labeled stealing thunder. Research repeatedly has illustrated several valuable ways in which the self-disclosure of crises can benefit organizations in trouble, the most important of which is that it allows organizations to behave in an ethical manner. The article also lists and refutes several arguments often given in favor of crisis concealment and aims to clarify why organizations should never hesitate when they have the opportunity to self-disclose a crisis.     

Electronic Monitoring and Privacy Issues in Business-Marketing: The Ethics of the DoubleClick Experience

The paper examines the ethics of electronic monitoring for advertising purposes and the implications for Internet user privacy using as a backdrop DoubleClick Incs recent controversy over matching previously anonymous user profiles with personally identifiable information. It explores various ethical theories that are applicable to understand privacy issues in electronic monitoring. It is argued that, despite the fact that electronic monitoring always constitutes an invasion of privacy, it can still be ethically justified on both Utilitarian and Kantian grounds. From a Utilitarian perspective the emphasis must be on minimizing potential harms. From a Kantian perspective the emphasis must be on giving users complete information so that they can make informed decisions as to whether they are willing to be monitored. Considering the Internet advertising industrys current actions, computer users and government regulators would be well advised, both practically and ethically, to move to a user control model in electronic monitoring.