Labor Relations Commons^™

Risk Analysis & Management In Student-Centered Spacecraft Development Projects, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Fevig, James Casler, Om Yadav

Jeremy Straub

Student involvement in any engineering project introduces an element of risk. This risk is particularly pronounced with small spacecraft projects, as a failure of the spacecraft on-orbit can result in a complete failure of the mission. However, student involvement in these projects is critical to allow research aims to be accomplished, in a university setting, and to train the next generation of spacecraft engineering professionals. The nature of risks posed by student involvement is discussed and a framework for assessing and mitigating these risks presented.

Managing Nigeria’S Transformation Agenda: The Leadership Challenge, Professor Ben C Osisioma, Professor Hilda Osisioma

Prof Ben Chuka Osisioma

Nigeria’s President won the 2011 Federal Government elections on the groundswell of popular support and the promise of a transformation agenda. Transformation is a strong word that portends a radical, structural and fundamental reappraisal of the basic assumptions that underlie our reforms and developmental efforts. The challenge before government is how to move the nation away from an oil-dominated economy, institute the basics for a private-sector driven economy, build the local economy on international best practices, transform a passive oil industry to a more pro-active one, and restructure the country along the lines of a more decentralized federalism. But beyond …

Special Edition Of Journal Of Business Ethics, Marilynn P. Fleckenstein Ph.D., Patrick Flanagan, Victoria Shoaf Ph.D., Patricia Werhane Ph.D.

Patrick Flanagan

DePaul University hosted the 14th Annual International Conference Promoting Business Ethics, at The Standard Club in Chicago, November 1–3, 2007. Academic and business leaders came together to explore the important ethical issues facing the business community in the twenty-first century. The articles in this special volume of The Journal of Business Ethics have been selected from the many presentations at this conference. Sponsored annually by the Vincentian Universities in the United States (DePaul University, in Chicago, Illinois; Niagara University in Niagara Falls, NY; and St. John’s University in Queens, NY) this conference promotes the mission of St. Vincent DePaul, the …

Special Edition Of Journal Of Business Ethics, Patrick Flanagan, Marilynn P. Fleckenstein Ph.D., Victoria Shoaf Ph.D., Patricia Werhane Ph.D.

Patrick Flanagan

The articles in this special volume of Journal of Business Ethics have been selected from the many presentations at this conference and represent a cross section of the topics and issues covered at the Vincentian Business Ethics Conference at the Manhattan campus of St. John's University in the fall of 2009. Sponsored annually by the Vincentian universities in the United States (DePaul University, in Chicago, Illinois; Niagara University in Niagara Falls, NY; and St. John’s University in Queens, NY), this conference promotes the mission of St. Vincent DePaul, the seventeenth-century Roman Catholic saint who serves as the patron of these …

Special Edition Of Journal Of Business Ethics, Patrick Flanagan, Marilynn P. Fleckenstein Ph.D., Patrick D. Primeaux Ph.D., Victoria Shoaf Ph.D., Patricia Werhane Ph.D.

Patrick Flanagan

Niagara Falls, New York was home to the 13th Annual Vincentian International Conference Promoting Business Ethics sponsored by DePaul University (Chicago, IL), Niagara University (Niagara, NY), and St. John’s University (New York, NY), the three American universities sponsored by the Congregation of the Mission (the Vincentians). Conferences in the past had specific themes and corresponding paper presentations focused on a particular topic. This one intentionally did not have a central organizing subject matter to allow for greater diversity. Leaders from the academic and corporate sectors, representing 30 countries, submitted excellent papers on a broad range of ethical issues. This rich …

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …