Thomas Aquinas on the conduct of sales

In the Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas treated the conduct of sales. Aquinas took into consideration writings on the subject in the Bible, Antiquity, and early Christianity. Aquinas differentiated between selling and mis-selling; showed that sales intermediation was an integral component of an economy; and concluded that salespeople were entitled to earn profit. Aquinas overturned a consensus that had obtained in Stoicism and early Christianity regarding duties to disclose private information on volatility of price. Aquinian disposition of the sales process anticipated the economics of information asymmetry.     

美国商业伦理教育的困境及其对中国商学院的启示

在美国，绝大多数商学院都开设商业伦理课程，几十年来一直遭受师资配备不足与教学效果欠佳两大因素困扰，商业伦理环境恶化、教师缺少认同、学生课堂参与降低是导致这种困境的原因。美国商业伦理教育实践给中国商学院的启示有四点：认清商业伦理的价值，秉持商业伦理可以传授的理念；推动商业伦理研究，培养优秀师资；挖掘自身伦理教育资源，编写本土案例；积极借鉴先进经验，创新教育方法。     

基于企业信息生成和披露的经济学思考

面对新经济改头换面的挑战,传统企业信息失真失衡,不但无法反映真实的经济现象,反而可能误导管理层和投资者进行宏观和微观方面的决策。立足经济学的视野,尝试从金融信息产权、金融信息披露中的道德问题以及信息的均衡与管制方面探讨经济学的作用机理,以挖掘出影响企业信息的真正根源所在,淘滤和组合完善企业信息的路径选择。     

Estimating the extent of deceitful behaviour using crosswise elicitation models

Eliciting deceitful behaviour is a daunting task. Respondents oftentimes conceal wrongdoings and refrain from truthfully responding to sensitive questions. In this work, we employ advancements in randomized response techniques to overcome the neglect of respondents to truthfully reveal deceitful behaviour. Our results report that the studied crosswise elicitation model reveals high levels of deceitful behaviour (around 60% admitted deceit by respondents). If respondents can be convincingly assured of their anonymity, the crosswise models (CMs) outperform several variants of elicitation techniques such as direct questioning and item-sum. We also emphasize the use of CMs to generalize findings from laborious experiments to larger populations.     

Ethics of autonomous weapons systems and its applicability to any AI systems

Most artificial intelligence technologies are dual-use. They are incorporated into both peaceful civilian applications and military weapons systems. Most of the existing codes of conduct and ethical principles on artificial intelligence address the former while largely ignoring the latter. But when these technologies are used to power systems specifically designed to cause harm, the question must be asked as to whether the ethics applied to military autonomous systems should also be taken into account for all artificial intelligence technologies susceptible of being used for those purposes. However, while a freeze in investigations is neither possible nor desirable, neither is the maintenance of the current status quo. Comparison between general-purpose ethical codes and military ones concludes that most ethical principles apply to human use of artificial intelligence systems as long as two characteristics are met: that the way algorithms work is understood and that humans retain enough control. In this way, human agency is fully preserved and moral responsibility is retained independently of the potential dual-use of artificial intelligence technology.     

How bad is your company? Measuring corporate wrongdoing beyond the magic of ESG metrics

Most attempts to measure corporate wrongdoing rely on data and indices sold by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data providers. Developed for investors and market players, ESG data have been widely used in academia, but so far, little research has been conducted to assess and overcome the limitations of ESG indices. In this article, we take a first step in this direction and propose using an M-quantile regression approach to develop an index of corporate wrongdoing, understood as firms' involvement in controversies over universal human rights. We apply our proposed methodology to a novel and unique hand-collected dataset of 380 large publicly-listed firms from both advanced and emerging economies, covering the period 2003–2012. We discuss the importance of these indices for managers and practitioners.     

Reproducibility in Accounting Research: Views of the Research Community

We have little knowledge about the prevalence of irreproducibility in the accounting literature. To narrow this gap, we conducted a survey among the participants of the 2019 JAR Conference on their perceptions of the frequency, causes, and consequences of irreproducible research published in accounting journals. A majority of respondents believe that irreproducibility is common in the literature, constitutes a major problem, and receives too little attention. Most have encountered irreproducibility in the work of others (although not in their own work) but chose not to pursue their failed reproduction attempts to publication. Respondents believe irreproducibility results chiefly from career or publication incentives as well as from selective reporting of results. They also believe that practices like sharing code and data combined with stronger incentives to replicate the work of others would enhance reproducibility. The views of accounting researchers are remarkably similar to those expressed in a survey by the scientific journal Nature. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and provide several potential paths forward for the accounting research community.     

The megamarketing of microfinance: Developing and maintaining an industry aura of virtue

The current socio-economic climate is marked by an increased focus on corporate responsibility and the role of business in society. In this climate, megamarketing – efforts to develop and sustain an industry or market by gaining the cooperation and support of various stakeholders and publics – is an increasingly relevant approach. Current research in megamarketing focuses on understanding how various industry actors and stakeholders establish the legitimacy of a given industry by accommodating prevailing regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive structures. In contrast, this paper examines megamarketing efforts that go beyond such attempts to establish legitimacy towards establishing an industry as a virtuous entity displaying qualities that surpass minimal accepted standards and ‘business-as-usual.’ Inspired by work on virtue ethics in organisational studies, we develop the concept of industry aura: a ‘halo’ of unique and authentic virtues that characterise an industry. We explore the development of industry aura by surveying the discursive megamarketing tactics through which microfinance has been established as a virtuous industry. We conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of 589 articles about microfinance appearing in five selected newspapers between 1986 and 2016. Our findings reveal three sets of megamarketing discursive tactics: 1) diagnostic framing and social mission framing, deployed to establish microfinance as a virtuous entity; 2) virtue anchoring and frame bridging, used to defend the industry’s aura in times of authenticity crisis; and 3) diagnostic and social-mission reframing aimed at recovering the tarnished aura of microfinance. Our paper enriches megamarketing research by charting relevant terrain that stretches beyond the established vectors of legitimacy theorizing and offers important implications for megamarketing practitioners.     

Dualistic Discourse and Immigration Policy

Abstract:

The central question in immigration policy is whether to support less immigration through more “restrictive” laws and procedures or whether to support more immigration through a “relaxation” of existing laws. Recently, however, a second debate has arisen on one side of this debate regarding the appropriate types of arguments that may be used to support “restrictive” immigration. Ross Douthat refers to this dispute as the “race versus economics” question: using “race-based” arguments is not legitimate; while an “economic” or a “fact-based” argument is regarded as legitimate. We argue that this distinction in anti-immigration rhetoric is more apparent than real. Using the two most common historical “tropes” in immigration policy, “criminal” and “worker,” we find that racist, anti-ethnic, and classist assumptions pervade U.S. immigration law and policy and have been far more influential in formulating actual policy than either economic or “fact-based” analysis. The central problem with restrictive immigration policy is that its primary purpose is to determine who is eligible to be an American, and who is not; in other words, immigration policy is, by its fundamental intent, invidious. The question is whether it is possible to exclude individuals on these “legitimate” grounds without relying on “illegitimate” invidious distinctions?