Business Commons^™

Teaching Business Ethics: Plato Was Right, David F. Perri, Megan V. Teague

Management Faculty Publications

Ethical lapses in major corporations continue to draw public attention to the specter of corporate misconduct. This paper presents a pedagogical approach that is designed to enhance student understanding and appreciation of the challenges that business leaders face when confronted with the conflict between the profit-maximizing demands of capitalism and the ethical expectations of society. This is an approach that fully acknowledges the seductive nature of unethical conduct in search of corporate rewards. This paper presents a method which can be applied both in undergraduate and graduate coursework, facilitates the examination of two corruption cases (Enron and WorldCom), and highlights …

Nature Tech: A Nascent Ecosystem, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

When people talk about climate tech, they tend to mean carbon tech. It’s all carbon tunnel vision: Carbon footprint, carbon equivalent, carbon credit, carbon compensation, carbon emission reductions, carbon offsets, decarbonization and so on. By extension, the entire debate about energy transition, energy transformation, clean power and green energy is similarly a debate that is largely held within the carbon tunnel. Make no mistake about it. These are important topics to address. The energy transition will not only prevent catastrophic climate change but have massive benefits for human health by tackling fossil-fuel induced air pollution at the source.As the above …

Dynamic Disclosure: An Exposé On The Mythical Divide Between Voluntary And Mandatory Esg Disclosure, Lisa Fairfax

All Faculty Scholarship

In March 2022, for the first time in its history, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) proposed rules mandating disclosure related to climate change. The proposed rules are remarkable because heretofore many in the business community, including the SEC, vehemently resisted climate-related disclosure, based primarily on the argument that such disclosure is not material to investors. This resistance is exemplified by the current lack of any SEC disclosure mandates for climate change. The proposed rules have sparked considerable pushback including allegations that the rules violate the First Amendment, would be too costly, and focus on “social” or “political” issues …

Why Corporate Success Requires Dealing With The Past, Sarah Federman, Judith Schrempf-Stirling

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

Customers, employees, and citizens expect companies to address historic transgressions and work toward a positive legacy.

Businesses’ past involvement or complicity in atrocities and human rights abuses such as slavery and genocide is a pressing concern for stakeholders today. Managers who meaningfully engage with their companies’ past actions can address historic harms while simultaneously contributing to their companies’ future success. The authors examine the factors that are pushing companies to take action now, and they offer guidance to help leaders begin the process of moving forward.

Elmore Entrepreneurship Law Clinic Connects To Iu Ventures, Strengthens Reach In Venture Capital, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Elmore Entrepreneurship Law Clinic has strengthened its connection with a university affiliate designed to help students, faculty, staff, and alumni advance startups and new companies.

Professor Mark E. Need, director of the Elmore Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, has been appointed a Venture Legal Analyst-in-Residence with IU Ventures. Through the Executive in Residence Program, which IU Ventures launched last year, experts in a variety of startup areas help accelerate the development of new ventures by sharing insights and real-world experience with the founders and leaders of companies in the IU Ventures portfolio. They …

Is The 340b Hospitals Battle At The Supreme Court Over?, Casey W.. Baker, Susan W. Lanham, Alberto Coustasse

Accounting Faculty Research

Under the Federal 340B Program, hospitals and eligible health care clinics that serve low income or rural populations can qualify for federally negotiated manufacturer discounts on purchases of prescription drugs. Approximately 50,000 entities participate in the 340B program, where pharmaceutical manufacturers are instructed to supply outpatient medications to participating providers at discounted rates of 20% to 50%. Participating hospitals depend on profits from the differential between their reimbursement for these drugs and the discounted rates they disburse to finance affordable patient care in underserved communities. On June 15, 2022, the US Supreme Court ruled that major cuts to 340B payments …

Social Performance Feedback And Firm Communication Strategy, Heli Wang, Ming Jia, Yi Xiang, Yang Lan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although corporate social performance has become an important measure of firm performance, there is little understanding about how firms respond to social performance feedback and how impression management may function as an important firm response to the feedback. Building upon and extending the literature on the behavioral theory of the firm and the strategic use of language, we examine how discrepancies between firms’ social performance and their aspiration levels affect how firms use visual expressions in their CSR reports. In addition, we argue that the relationship between social performance discrepancies and the use of visual expressions in CSR reports is …

Does An Initial Public Offering (Ipo) Issuer's Securities And Exchange Commission Registration Fee Calculation Method Predict Pricing Revisions And Ipo Underpricing?, Patrick Corrigan

Journal Articles

This paper proposes a new proxy for the ex ante expectations of issuers and their underwriters about the direction of pricing revisions during the roadshows of an initial public offering (IPO): the way issuers elect to calculate the registration fees owed to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Consistent with fee-minimizing decision-making, I find that the choice of fee calculation method is associated with pricing revisions and IPO underpricing. This relationship suggests that issuers or their advisors may not incorporate economically significant private valuation information into the initial pricing range estimate and initial public offering price. The results provide empirical support …

Nevada Workforce Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Study 2022, Jan Jones Blackhurst, Becky Harris

International Gaming Institute Faculty Publications

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) metrics enable organizations to set concrete goals and self-monitor their performance. In 2021, Nevada’s legislature passed Senate Bill No. 267 (SB267), authorizing the University Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) to study DEI benchmarks in the State. The study is designed to produce actionable results capable of informing policy and employer best practices in Nevada. This study was piloted in 2021, with study participation taking place between January 3-April 30, 2022.

The questions in the study were crafted based on DEI public policy considerations as well as metrics for gauging the scope of offerings available to women …

The Influence Of A Company's Inherent Values On Its Sustainability: Case Study Of Portuguese Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Charlie Lynch

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

SMEs are a significant portion of global corporations and, while individually might not compare to larger corporations in total emissions, holistically have significant impact. Therefore, understanding how a company's inherent values influence its ability to be sustainable is necessary to help inform the field. Thus, the project was focused on the influence of social, environmental, and economic values on the sustainability of a company. The study compared founder and company profiles generated from an interview with the founder and triangulated through secondary sources. The study found that the inherent values of Veganism, Ethical Drive, and Ecological Consciousness influenced mainly the …

Doing Well By Doing Good: Analyzing The Dynamics And Effectiveness Of Corporate Engagement, Gillian Meyers

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Sustainable investing and corporate climate action have grown exponentially in the last decade, generating a simultaneous need for customers, investors, and policymakers to determine when companies are genuinely achieving positive impact related to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors. As a result, investors are increasingly employing ESG engagement, which typically takes the form of direct communication with holdings to determine and positively shape their impacts on their stakeholders. In this paper, I explore the reasoning for conducting ESG engagement and refute arguments against it. I fill an existing research gap by analyzing the benefits of ESG engagement to both …

Ethical Branding In A Divided World: How Political Orientation Motivates Reactions To Marketplace Transgressions, Thomas Allard, Brent Mcferran

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In today's marketplace, users (e.g., purchasers, influencers) are increasingly the “face” of brands to potential consumers, increasing the risk for brands should these users act poorly. Across seven studies, we document that political orientation moderates the desire for punishment toward users of ethical (vs. conventional) brands who commit moral transgressions. In response to identical marketplace transgressions, we observe that liberals punish ethical brand users less than conventional brand users. In contrast, conservatives punish the same users of ethical brands more than conventional brand users. We document that this bias stems from how people interpret the inconsistency between the ethical branding …

Purpose Proposals, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Repurposing the corporation is the hot issue in corporate governance. Commentators, investors and increasingly issuers, maintain that corporations should shift their focus from maximizing profits for shareholders to generating value for a more expansive group of stakeholders. Corporations are also being called upon to address societal concerns – from climate change and voting rights to racial justice and wealth inequality.

The shareholder proposal rule, Rule 14a–8, offers one potential tool for repurposing the corporation. This Article describes the introduction of innovative proposals seeking to formalize corporate commitments to stakeholder governance. These “purpose proposals” reflect a new dynamic in the debate …

Board Committee Charters And Esg Accountability, Lisa Fairfax

All Faculty Scholarship

We are currently witnessing a sharp increase in corporate attention on environmental, sustainability, and governance (“ESG”). The steep rise in corporate focus on ESG has prompted considerable criticism, not only from those concerned about how best to ensure that corporations are held accountable for their ESG commitments, but also from those who strenuously insist that corporate commitment to ESG is merely rhetorical or otherwise merely a passing fad. In an effort to shed light on the concerns around ESG accountability, and gain perspective about the potential illusory or short-term nature of ESG, I conducted my own survey of the committee …

Are All Risks Created Equal? Rethinking The Distinction Between Legal And Business Risk In Corporate Law, Adi Libson, Gideon Parchomovsky

All Faculty Scholarship

Should corporate legal risk be treated similarly to corporate business risks? Currently, the law draws a clear-cut distinction between the two sources of risk, permitting the latter type of risk and banning the former. As a result, fiduciaries are shielded from personal liability in the case of business risk and are entirely exposed to civil and criminal liability that arises from legal risk-taking. As corporate law theorists have underscored, the differential treatment of business and legal risk is highly problematic from the perspective of firms and shareholders. To begin with, legal risk cannot be completely averted or eliminated. More importantly, …

Yung Kee: A Roast Goose Chase, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

How a Hong Kong culinary landmark emerged stronger following a bitter family feud over succession disputes

The Effects Of Csr Reputation And Csr Crisis Response Strategy On Investor Judgments, Clarence Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

I use a controlled experiment to examine, in the context of CSR crises, whether investors’ investment judgments are influenced by a firm’s CSR reputation and CSR crisis response strategy. I find that for good CSR reputation firms, the use of a rebuild or deny crisis response strategy does not lead to improvements in investment judgments. However, for bad CSR reputation firms, the use of a deny response strategy leads to improvements in investment judgments while the use of a rebuild strategy does not.

Gender Equality And Women Empowerment For Sustainable Development: The Challenge Of Unpaid Work, Jessica Jaye Ranieses

Center for Business Research and Development

This article focuses on women – a sector that has been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic due to unpaid care work. Unpaid work refers to “all unpaid services provided within a household for its members, including care of persons and housework” (Elson, 2000, as cited by Xue & McMunn, 2021) and a phenomenon that women had already been bearing significantly even prior to the pandemic. With the COVID-19 pandemic where work has shifted remotely, women have now performed multiple roles more than ever. According to the United Nations (2020), among 38 nations, the amount of time spent by women …

Accounting Scandals And Implications For Directors: Lessons From Enron, Pearl Hock-Neo Tan, Gillian Yeo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We analyze the Enron case to identify the risk factors that potentially led to its collapse and specific issues relating to its aggressive accounting and high-light the lessons for independent directors. In Enron, the interactions between external stimuli, strategies, corporate culture, and risk exposures possibly created an explosive situation that eventually led to its demise. Much of the post-Enron reforms have been directed towards regulating the roles and responsibilities of executive directors and auditors. However, the role of independent directors has received relatively lesser attention. Independent directors should analyze the risks of their companies and understand the pressures that arise …

Bus 201: Legal Environment For Business Oer Curation, Erica L. Schiller, Matt Ruen

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course BUS 201: Legal Environment for Business.

Balancing Mission And Margins: What Makes Healthy Community Food Stores Successful, Sara John, Megan R. Winkler, Ravneet Kuar, Julia Deangelo, Alex B. Hill, Samantha M. Sundermeir, Uriyoán Colón-Ramos, Lucia A. Leone, Rachael D. Dombrowski, Emma C. Lewis, Joel Gittelsohn

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

Mission-driven, independently-owned community food stores have been identified as a potential solution to improve access to healthy foods, yet to date there is limited information on what factors contribute to these stores’ success and failure. Using a multiple case study approach, this study examined what makes a healthy community food store successful and identified strategies for success in seven community stores in urban areas across the United States. We used Stake’s multiple case study analysis approach to identify the following key aims that contributed to community store success across all cases: (1) making healthy food available, (2) offering healthy foods …

Forms Of Community Engagement In Neighborhood Food Retail: Healthy Community Stores Case Study Project, Ravneet Kuar, Megan R. Winkler, Sara John, Julia Deangelo, Rachael D. Dombrowski, Ashley Hickson, Samantha M. Sundermeir, Christina Kasprzak, Bree Bode, Alex B. Hill, Emma C. Lewis, Uriyoán Colón-Ramos, Jake Munch, Lillian L. Witting, Angela Odoms-Young, Joel Gittelsohn, Lucia A. Leone

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

Community engagement is well established as a key to improving public health. Prior food environment research has largely studied community engagement as an intervention component, leaving much unknown about how food retailers may already engage in this work. The purpose of this study was to explore the community engagement activities employed by neighborhood food retailers located in lower-income communities with explicit health missions to understand the ways stores involve and work with their communities. A multiple case study methodology was utilized among seven retailers in urban U.S. settings, which collected multiple sources of data at each retailer, including in-depth interviews, …

Is Corporate Law Nonpartisan?, Ofer Eldar, Gabriel V. Rauterberg

Articles

Only rarely does the United States Supreme Court hear a case with fundamental implications for corporate law. In Carney v. Adams, however, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to address whether the State of Delaware’s requirement of partisan balance for its judiciary violates the First Amendment. Although the Court disposed of the case on other grounds, Justice Sotomayor acknowledged that the issue “will likely be raised again.” The stakes are high because most large businesses are incorporated in Delaware and thus are governed by its corporate law. Former Delaware governors and chief justices lined up to defend the state’s “nonpartisan” …

Consumer Protection Of Persons With Disabilities Amidst The Covid-19, James Keith C. Heffron

Center for Business Research and Development

The Persons with Disabilities (PWD) sector was one of the most overlooked and affected sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. As consumers, PWDs have suffered difficult challenges in the access of essential goods and services, including healthcare, and these challenges have been unduly aggravated because of the crisis. The article exposes and examines the negative impact of the crisis on the consumer rights and behavior of PWDs with a special focus on the novel barriers brought about by the pandemic on their right to access. The current pre-pandemic legislation is not adequate to protect PWDs from these novel barriers as there …

Socially Oriented Shareholder Activism Targets: Explaining Activists’ Corporate Target Selection Using Corporate Opportunity Structures, Abhijith G. Acharya, David Gras, Ryan Krause

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine whether and when socially oriented shareholder activists use firms’ corporate social performance (CSP) to identify them as attractive targets for their activism. We build on the research in social movements theory and stakeholder theory to theorize how firms’ engagement with primary and secondary stakeholders reflected in their technical and institutional CSP respectively allows socially oriented shareholder activists to identify targets. We develop a theoretical model by identifying corporate targets’ degree of (1) receptivity to and (2) need to comply with activist demands as two key dimensions of their corporate opportunity structure that explains the variance in firms’ attractiveness …

An Ethical Discussion About The Responsibility For Protection Of Minors In The Digital Environment: A State-Of-The-Art Review, Charles Alves De Castro, Aiden Carthy, Isobel Oreilly Dr

Articles

Many ethical questions have been raised regarding the use of social media and the internet, mainly related to the protection of young people in the digital environment. In order to critically address the research question "who is responsible for ethically protecting minors in the digital environment?", this paper will review the main literature available to understand the role of parents, the government, and companies in protecting young people within the digital environment. We employed a holistic process that covers a state-of-the-art review and desk research. The article is divided into four sessions; (1) Government Policies from the European Union (EU) …

The Effect Of Decreased Government Funding On University Policy To Attract International Students, Lauren Elizabeth Gateley

Haslam Scholars Projects

The United States has maintained a dominant role in International Higher Education for decades. However, changes to public university budgets and difficulties in retaining international students after graduation has caused the United States to lose its grip in this industry. Data from 690 public 4-year or above institutions were accessed through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to measure the effect of decreases in state appropriations as a percent of core revenues on the number of international students enrolled each year from 2008-2018. After controlling for tuition and fees as a percent of core revenue, land grant status of …

Why Should Christians Care About Bitcoin?, Jesse L. Veenstra

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Given the strong stances and opinions on Bitcoin and the religious language often attached to it, it’s clear we should continue to analyze Bitcoin from a particularly Christian perspective."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­handling cryptocurrencies responsibly from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/why-should-christians-care-about-bitcoin/

Impact Of The Quality Of Esg Reporting On Profitability Of Trucking And Oil Companies, Diane Meng

Honors Scholar Theses

A growing number of companies have been providing disclosures regarding ESG issues and goals in their financial reports. Studies have investigated the association between the quality of ESG reporting and the financial performance of various companies, which showed various results. However, the association between the two factors remains unclear. In this study, I examine the relationship between the quality of ESG reporting and the profitability of companies in the trucking and oil industries from 2011 to 2020. I predict that greater quality of ESG reporting results in higher profitability of companies in both industries. Overall, the results of this study …

The Uncertain Stewardship Potential Of Index Funds, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Regulators and commentators around the world are increasingly demanding that institutional investors engage in stewardship with respect to their portfolio companies. Further, the demand for stewardship has broadened from an expectation that investors engage to reduce agency costs and promote economic value to a call for investors to demand that companies serve a broader range of societal interests and objectives. This chapter considers calls for stewardship in the context of the U.S. capital markets specifically as applied to index funds. It argues that, irrespective of the merits of institutional stewardship generally, the structure of index funds and the business environment …