Faculty Research Search Results
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Ashridge
Ashridge Business School
Ashridge
Berkhamsted
Hertfordshire HP4 1NS
United Kingdom
On the Use of Language in the Anti-Capitalist Debate
Journal of Business Ethics (vol: 59 issue: 4 pp: 319-325)
Poole, Eve
The anti-capitalist debate has traditionally drawn up battle lines between oppressed individuals on the one hand, and an oppressive system on the other. While this has high rhetorical value, it is based on imprecise use of language. The language confuses an amoral system with im/moral agents but at the same time uses anthropomorphic language to lend capitalism moral agency. This inevitably leads to a confused debate. Given that all opponents of capitalism want the reformation of what they see as a flawed system, precision in the use of the language employed would move the debate into arenas of action, and thus the debate is more likely to generate change.
AUDENCIA Nantes
School of Management
8 route de la Jonelière
BP31222
NANTES 44312
France
Are Codes of Conduct in Global Supply Chains Really Voluntary? from Soft Law Regulations of Labour Relations to Consumer Law
Business Ethics Quarterly (vol: 16 issue: 2 pp: 167-184)
Sobczak, Andre
Labour and employment law no longer has a monopoly on regulating labour relations and is facing a crisis as its effectiveness is questioned. Codes of conduct adopted by companies to recognise their social responsibility for the global supply chain are instruments that can usefully complement labour and employment law. The aim of this paper is to analyse in depth the legal nature of codes of conduct and their impact on labor and employment law. Will the use of codes of conduct reinforce the crisis of labour and employment law in the era of globalisation or will these codes be part of a solution to this crisis? Do we have to consider codes of conduct as competitors to labour and employment law or as an opportunity for rethinking the way that labour and employment law norms should be produced and applied?
Babson College
School of Management
Olin Hall - Babson College
Babson Park, MA 02457-0310
United States
Institutional Ownership and Corporate Social Performance
Journal of Management (vol: 32 issue: 1 pp: 108-131)
Neubaum, Donald O.; Zahra, Shaker A.
Scandals at Enron and WorldCom have thrust debates concerning corporate governance and corporate social performance (CSP) to the forefront of the minds of shareholders, managers, and public policy makers. Relying on the theory of stakeholder salience, the authors suggest that institutional owners' investment horizons, as well as the frequency and coordination of institutional owners' activism, moderate the institutional ownership-CSP relationship. Data collected in 1995 and 2000 from the Fortune 500 firms show that long-term institutional ownership is positively associated with CSP and that the frequency and coordination of activism interact with long-term institutional holdings to positively affect CSP 3 years later.
The Antecedents and Consequences of Top Management Fraud
Journal of Management (vol: 31 issue: 6 pp: 803-828)
Zahra, Shaker A.; Priem, Richard L.; Rasheed, Abdul A.
Fraud by top management is a topic that has stirred public interest, concern, and controversy. In this article, the authors analyze fraud by senior executives in terms of its nature, scope, antecedents, and consequences. They draw on the fields of psychology, sociology, economics, and criminology to identify societal-, industry, and firm-level antecedents of management fraud and the individual differences that enhance or neutralize the likelihood and degree of such fraud. The authors also review the consequences of management fraud on various stakeholder groups such as shareholders, debtholders, managers, local communities, and society.
Government's Dilemma
Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review (vol: 30 issue: 2 pp: 338-360)
Mahmood, Ishtiaq P.; Rufin, Carlos
The role of government in the process of technological development is considered, showing that the role in government regarding technological development varies over the development process. When a country is far from the technological frontier, the government can spur economic development through the centralization of economic and political control, but as the economy approaches the technological frontier, government's role must change considerably, political and economic freedom being necessary. In addition, domestic business groups can act as substitutes for governmental intervention, and multinational corporations can supplement governmental efforts. This article makes two main contributions. First, a microfoundation to the macroprocess of a specific, but fundamental, aspect of economic development is provided the process of technological development. Second, a model of technological development at the firm level is used to examine the implications of the role of government in the economic and political arenas.
Baruch College-The City University of New York
The Zicklin School of Business
One Bernard Baruch Way
Box B 13-280
New York, NY 10010
United States
Organizational attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder
Journal of International Business Studies (vol: 37 issue: 5 pp: 666-686)
Newburry, William; Gardberg, Naomi A.; Belkin, Liuba Y.
The analysis of 4605 individual evaluations of the 60 companies in the Reputation Quotient Annual 2000 study suggests that foreign-headquartered companies are less attractive employers, whereas more international companies are more attractive. Moreover, it is found that gender, race, respondent age and educational level significantly interact with the foreignness variables in predicting company attractiveness.
Corporate Citizenship
Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review (vol: 31 issue: 2 pp: 329-346)
Gardberg, Naomi A.; Fombrun, Charles J.
We argue that citizenship programs are strategic investments comparable to R&D and advertising. They can create intangible assets that help companies overcome nationalistic barriers, facilitate globalization, and outcompete local rivals. Program content selection reflects a balance between legitimation and differentiation, and choices are influenced both by local institutional environments that shape expectations of corporate commitment to citizenship and by the degree of customization required because of institutional distance. Citizenship profiles therefore enable the sociocognitive integration that global companies require to operate effectively across diverse local markets.
Three Proposed Perspectives of Attitude Toward Business' Ethical Responsibilities and Their Implications for Cultural Comparison
Business and Society Review (vol: 111 issue: 1 pp: 15-36)
Schepers, Donald H.
Culture and ethical decision making in business have been related both theoretically and empirically for a number of years. At the individual level, two models of ethical decision making that have been developed have posited culture as an exogenous variable affecting the individual decision maker's judgment. Both models proposed that culture would effect judgment through its impact on an individual's awareness and reasoning processes, while Hunt and Vitell further proposed that the situational outcomes would affect intention formation. There have been a number of attempts to asset cultural differences regarding the ethical responsibilities of business. This current research contributes to this cross-cultural effort by first proposing a set of dimensions on which cultural attitudes toward the ethical responsibilities of business can be compared. It is proposed that these three proposed dimensions might give stability to the research effort so that a valid and reliable scale might be developed, enabling cross-cultural comparisons. To further this argument, these dimensions are discussed in reference to Hofstede's research on the dimensions of culture.
The Impact of NGO Network Conflict on the Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies of Multinational Corporations
Business and Society (vol: 45 issue: 3 pp: 282-299)
Schepers, Donald H.
Multinational corporations (MNCs) are the frequent target of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in their advocacy efforts. In this article, the author examines NGO advocacy as it occurs in the NGO network and, using insights from the political science literature in conjunction with the resource-based view of the firm, posits that NGO intranetwork conflict will result in a skewing of corporate social responsibility practices by the multinational corporation toward the MNC's developed country stakeholders. This skewing is a product of the asymmetric accountability of NGOs (upwardly accountable to donors, downwardly accountable to recipients). Developing country government and MNC strategies in the face of such skewing are discussed.
The Marketing of Opioid Medications Without Prescription Over the Internet
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (vol: 25 issue: 2 pp: 133-146)
Robert F. Forman and Lauren G. Block
No-prescription Web sites are online pharmacies that supply controlled substances without a valid prescription. The authors present a comprehensive investigation and content analysis of no-prescription Web sites, including a review of the legal environment, an in-depth critique of policy and interventions, and suggestions to help monitor and shut down these illegal sites.
Bentley College
McCallum Graduate School of Business
175 Forest Street
Adamian Academic Center 315
Waltham, MA 02452
United States
Financial Reporting Transparency and Earnings Management
The Accounting Review (vol: 81 issue: 1 pp: 135-157)
Hunton, James E.; Libby, Robert; Mazza, Cheri L.
Prior research indicates that greater transparency in reporting formats facilitates the detection of earnings management. The current study hypothesizes and demonstrates that greater transparency in comprehensive income reporting also reduces the likelihood that managers will engage in earnings management in the area of increased transparency. In our experiment, 62 financial executives and chief executive officers decide which available-for-sale security to sell from a portfolio. We manipulate the transparency of comprehensive income reporting and the relationship of projected earnings to the consensus forecast in a 2 * 2 between-subjects design. When projected earnings are below (above) the consensus forecast, participants sell securities that increase (decrease) earnings. However, the rarely used, more transparent format for reporting comprehensive income significantly reduces both income-increasing and income-decreasing earnings management. Participants in the less transparent setting indicate that earnings management attempts will not be obvious to readers, will improve stock prices, and have no effect on management's reputation for reporting integrity. Conversely, respondents in the more transparent condition suggest that earnings management will be obvious to readers, harmful to stock prices, and damaging to reporting reputation. Results of this study suggest that more transparent reporting requirements will reduce earnings management in the area of increased transparency or change the focus of earnings management to less visible methods.
Consuming Technology
California Management Review (vol: 48 issue: 1 pp: 110-128)
Berthon, Pierre; MacHulbert, James; Pitt, Leyland
Marketing tends to view technology as a means to meeting customer needs and desires. This view has led some marketers to focus perhaps too exclusively on the customer to the detriment of a deep understanding of technology and its interaction with society. Drawing on the ideas of the philosophers Heidegger and Popper, this article contends that technology is more than a means to the end of satisfying consumer needs and wants, it is an active force which frequently escapes the control of the marketer. The article explores the ways in which technologies, firms, customers, and society interact, and it suggests how firms might adopt different strategies towards technology to take advantage of these emergent interactions.
Stakeholder Perspectives and Business Risk Perception
Journal of Business Ethics (vol: 64 issue: 4 pp: 327-342)
Schwarzkopf, David L.
Stakeholder theory calls for decision makers to balance stakeholder interests, but before this can happen, management must understand how other parties view its decisions. Effective stakeholder dialogues convened to reach this understanding require management to appreciate how others perceive the risks posed by their decision. Although understanding others' risk perception is crucial for effective communications, we do not have a clear idea of how viewing a situation from multiple stakeholder perspectives affects risk perception. Based on a technique derived from risk perception studies of health and environmental issues, an experiment with 224 business students examined how an individual's risk perception can account for both managerial and customer perspectives. Factors described as customer participation, extent of the effect, and management input, together with the respondent's self-assessed understanding of the decision process, help categorize overall risk perceptions and are shown to be associated with behaviors based on the decision's riskiness. Discussion includes implications for designs of business communications, including their content and transparency, and for understanding the audience for these communications.
On the constitution of audit committee effectiveness
Accounting, Organizations and Society (vol: 31 issue: 3 pp: 211-239)
Gendron, Yves; Bedard, Jean
Pressures to perform and be effective are significantly influential within contemporary society, including within the realm of corporate boards of directors and audit committees. This paper adopts a social constructivist approach to better understand the process by which meanings regarding audit committee effectiveness are internally developed and sustained, within the small group of people who attend audit committee meetings. We conducted the investigation through interviews in three large Canadian public corporations listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Our analysis indicates that attendees' reflective acts upon processes and activities surrounding audit committee meetings play a key role in configuring meanings of effectiveness. Moreover, every attendee's configuration of meaning consists of an amalgamation of a more or less heterogeneous set of emotions regarding the committee's formal duties - emotions that vary from confidence to hopefulness to anxiety. As such, the paper problematizes several assumptions that underlie corporate governance literature.
Reputation, Relationships and Risk
Business and Society Review (vol: 111 issue: 4 pp: 441-455)
Rowe, Mark
Terms like corporate responsibility, sustainability, corporate citizenship, corporate social performance, the triple bottom line, and numerous others have proliferated and are often used interchangeably, even though they can mean different things. Without attempting to untangle myriad technical concepts, this article argues that they all point in the same direction throughout the industrialized world and in many developing countries, there has been a sharp escalation in the social roles corporations are expected to play and in the number of stakeholder groups to whom they are expected to be accountable, in addition to shareholders.
Does Higher Education Make the Grade in Institution-wide Ethics and Compliance Programs?
Business and Society Review (vol: 110 issue: 3 pp: 249-267)
Sheldon, Tina S.; Hoffman, W. Michael
A number of government investigations have meted out multimillion dollar fines and penalties to higher education institutions, and in some cases, suspension of federal research dollars. This increased scrutiny prompted the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College in Waltham, MA, to launch a national survey to examine the state of institution-wide ethics and compliance programs at 4-year colleges and universities. The survey results reveal that the majority of institutions believe that they should have the elements of an ethics and compliance program in place. Although a fair percentage of institutions have had some components for years, many campuses lack all of the elements necessary for meeting the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Overall, the data show that higher education still has work to do in the ethics and compliance arena.
Early Evidence of How Sarbanes-Oxley Implementation Affects Individuals and Their Workplace Relationships
Business and Society Review (vol: 110 issue: 1 pp: 21-45)
Schwarzkopf, David L.; Miller, Hugh M.
Written at a time of heightened awareness of the role that corporate financial reporting plays in society, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the Act) drew immediate attention thanks to its wide range or reforms. Although public companies must comply with the Act's provisions as a matter of federal law, the question of whether the Act accomplishes the legislators' goal of restoring consumer confidence in financial markets has yet to be settled. This article focuses on efforts to implement Section 404 of the Act, which requires corporate management to assess the effectiveness of the company's internal controls and mandates that auditors report on this assessment. This section has brought about a surge in activity involving many levels of company management and staff as well as a number of service providers. As such, it is a bellwether for changes in significant relationships within and among those groups.
Affecting Adolescence
Business and Society (vol: 44 issue: 3 pp: 318-345)
Nairn, Agnes; Berthon, Pierre
The ethical credentials of advertising in regard to young people have been questioned for some time. It is thus intriguing that the same scrutiny has never been directed at the concomitant practice of segmentation. Market segments are usually assumed to exist quite independently of the targeting process and are thus not considered within the same agenda as advertising. But what if advertisers influence the formation of segments? In this postulate, firms are not creating a product for a segment but instead are creating a segment for a product. Advertising and segmentation become interlinked and the ethical concerns expressed over advertising must also be applied to segmentation. The article highlights the link between advertising and segmentation and presents empirical evidence that adolescent attitude/value-based segments can be influenced by advertising. If this result can be generalized, the ethical debate on advertising needs to be widened to include the commercial practice of segmentation.
Trust Diffusion
Business and Society (vol: 44 issue: 3 pp: 357-368)
Williams, Cynthia Clark
This study presents an organizational model to explain when and how trust permeates an organization, when it is constrained and to what extent it informs the perceptions of transparency among stakeholders. Through the use of qualitative research, resulting in five corporate case studies, and a separate quantitative analysis, it was possible to demonstrate ways in which trust can be diffused among organizational layers. These findings add to the literature by analyzing trust in organizational settings via reciprocal dyadic relationships in a social-structural context. These findings suggest that functional elements and informal network position contributed to the dyad's ability to establish positive trust climates and specific communication and cooperative behaviors were critical in diffusing trust to the group level; the degree of organizational transparency positively correlated to the degree of dyadic and group-level trust.
A Longitudinal Assessment of Online Privacy Notice Readability
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (vol: 25 issue: 2 pp: 238-249)
George R. Milne, Mary J. Culnan and Henry Greene
This study evaluates the readability of a set of 312 online privacy notices across two periods and finds that the readability has declined and notices have grown in length over the period. The authors assess these findings against the public policy backdrop and make recommendations for improving current online privacy notices based on the study results.
Boston College
Carroll School of Management
Fulton Hall 315
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3808
United States
From the Critics' Corner
The Journal of Management Studies (vol: 42 issue: 5 pp: 1031-1055)
Glynn, Mary Ann; Lounsbury, Michael
Drawing on an analysis of critics' reviews of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) performances, we investigate how broader shifts in institutional logics shape the discourse of critics and their judgment of performances. We highlight how the aesthetic logic that traditionally informs the practices of the symphony yielded, in the face of declining orchestral resources, to a more commercially oriented market logic. As institutionalists have argued, shifts in logics are often catalysed by exogenous shocks. In the ASO, this blending of aesthetic and market logics became salient in the wake of a pivotal organizational event, the 1996 musicians' strike. Qualitatively comparing pre- and post-strike reviews of ASO performances, we find that the discourse of critics shifted to capture the changing logic of the symphony post-strike reviews were more attuned to market than aesthetic aspects of the symphony. Nonetheless, their reviews suggested that judgments based on notions of cultural authenticity were virtually unaffected. Although our results echo existing claims that art world critics often act in a ritualistic fashion, serving as gatekeepers for the authenticity of cultural genres, we extend scholarship by highlighting how critics' stories are embedded in broader discursive fields that reveal how they patrol the boundaries of genres.
Online Brands and Trademark Conflicts
Business Ethics Quarterly (vol: 16 issue: 3 pp: 343-367)
Spinello, Richard A.
The Internet presents opportunities for corporations to efficiently build their brands online and to enhance their global reach. But there are threats as well as opportunities, since anti-branding and free-riding activities are easier in cyberspace. One such threat is the unauthorized incorporation of a trademark into a domain name. This can lead to trademark dilution and cause consumer confusion. But some users claim a right to use these trademarks for the purpose of parody or criticism. Underlying these trademark conflicts is the familiar tension between property rights and free speech rights. While some trademark scholars are reluctant to consider a trademark as property, we find strong support for the property paradigm in Hegel's philosophy. Assuming that a trademark is an earned property right, we propose that a trademark owner should be allowed to control the permutations of its trademark incorporated into domain names unless a reasonable person would not confuse that domain name with the company's mark. But we also conclude that there must be latitude to employ a domain name for negative editorial comment, so long as the source and purpose of that domain name is plainly apparent.
Management of Financial Information in Charitable Organizations
The Accounting Review (vol: 81 issue: 1 pp: 159-178)
Jones, Christopher L.; Roberts, Andrea Alston
Charities that use direct mailings or other activities that combine a public education effort with fundraising appeals must allocate the joint costs related to these activities to programs, fundraising, and administration. This study investigates whether charities use joint-cost allocations to manage the program ratio-a widely used measure of spending efficiency. Using a hand-collected dataset of 708 organization-year observations from 1992 to 2000, we find evidence that charities use joint costs to mitigate changes in the program ratio.
Can Ethical Organizational Character Be Stimulated and Enabled?
Journal of Business Ethics (vol: 57 issue: 4 pp: 311-326)
Nielsen, Richard P.; Dufresne, Ron
Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organization's ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian "upbuilding" dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organization's tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical foundations of an organization's tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of "upbuilding" dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a nonprofit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerry's, a business organization.
Competing Fairly in the New Economy
Journal of Business Ethics (vol: 57 issue: 4 pp: 343-361)
Spinello, R. A.
The browser wars case is a useful springboard for considering the principle of positive competition and the proper regulation of platform technologies. There are lessons to be culled about policy, the application of antitrust law, and the parameters of fair competition. We argue that despite Microsoft's opportunistic exploitation of its proprietary code, policy makers should resist the temptation to mandate an open source code model. Vigilant anti-trust enforcement is a preferable alternative. But courts must refrain from using antitrust law to favor small innovators or to constrain the economic protections inherent in intellectual property rights, since those rights are still needed to encourage innovation. On the other hand, despite the exigencies of competition, platform leaders should respect the norm of fair competition and refrain from the impulse to tilt the platform in their favor. Preservation of robust intellectual property rights, deft application of antitrust statutes, and principled competition represent the best prescription for social wealth in the New Economy.
