Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Toward A New Theory Of The Shareholder Role: A Sacred Space In Corporate Transactions, Robert B. Thompson, D. Gordon Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Corporate law expresses a profound ambiguity toward the role of shareholders. Courts announce that shareholders are critical to the theory that legitimates the exercise of power - by directors and officers over vast aggregations of property that they do not own. At the same time shareholders have a very difficult time actually making any corporate decisions. In this Article, we strive to define a new role for shareholders by drawing on economic theories of the firm and the structure of corporate law. More particularly we examine the role of shareholders in hostile corporate takeovers, the area where the interests of …

Teaching Students How To Become In-House Counsel, Christian C. Day

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

When Hope Unblooms: Chance And Moral Luck In The Fiction Of Thomas Hardy, Jil Larson

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Paper presented at the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society at Western Michigan University, September 20, 2001.

Why Can't We Wait (To Spend) And The Law Of Unintended Consequences: Potential Negative Impact On Minority Employees From Well-Intentioned Organizational Compensation Practices, James R. Jones

Marketing and Management Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

In this time of increasing uncertainty about business viability and stability, many organizations are looking to gain control of their "bottom line" by strengthening the link between organizational outcomes and employee rewards. Long gone are the days of steadily and automatically increasing worker salaries as a hoped-for method of expanding productivity. Indeed, there is a school of thought that suggests that automatic pay increases act as a "demotivator" for many individuals. The more common approach currently is to utilize incentives (i.e., additional compensation/rewards given for performance beyond normal expectations) as a way of enhancing employee work motivation, thereby leading to …

Center For Professional Ethics, Volume 3, Issue 1, [2001], Case Western Reserve University

Center for Professional Ethics

Table of Contents:

• Helping Others to Help Yourself: The Value of Community Service
• Director's Corner: One Tough Guy by Robert P. Lawry
• We Do! We Can't? A Discussion of Same Sex Marriage
• Tom Anderson, Ethics Fellow: Teacher for All Seasons
• Volume 3, Number 1: News, Notes, and Future Events

Lies, Damn Lies, And Misleading Advertising: The Role Of Consumer Surveys In The Wake Of Mead Johnson V. Abbott Labs, Thomas W. Edman

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Alternative Corporate Governance Systems In Japanese Firms: Implications For A Shift To Stockholder-Centered Corporate Governance, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In Asia, the recent catastrophic decline in regional stock markets, continuing currency crisis and failures of major financial institutions and industrial corporations have increased domestic and international interest in corporate governance. Nowhere is this greater than in Japan where financial institution reform has catapulted this to the fore. Agency theory and institutional theory, together with comparative case examples, are used in a study to derive some propositions on the dynamics of changing corporate governance systems in Japanese firms. The study argues for the co-existence of stakeholder and shareholder-centered corporate governance systems in Japan. This argument has an important implication for …

The Search For Middle Ground: Towards A Harmonized Interpretation Of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act's New Pleading Standard, Ann Morales Olazábal

Business Law Articles and Papers

Amid much hue and cry, in 1995, Congress passed the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act ("PSLRA," "Reform Act," or "the Act"). The battle over reform had been waged for years. Proponents of the Act promised to put an end to vexatious strike suits and thus reduce the cost of capital formation; critics countered that the proposed law would eliminate all but the most egregious securities fraud suits, thereby shielding corporate wrongdoers and depriving deserving plaintiffs of their day in court. The bill had its checkered history in legislative committee, and, ultimately, the PSLRA was enacted over President Clinton's veto on …

The Ethics Of Making The Body Beautiful: Lessons From Cosmetic Surgery For A Future Of Cosmetic Genetics, Sara Goering

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

This piece was originally published in the Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly, Spring 2001 issue (from the Maryland Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy).

Top 10 Audit Deficiencies, Mark S. Beasley, Joseph V. Carcello, Dana R. Hermanson

Faculty Articles

The article focuses on financial statement fraud based on cases wherein the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sanctioned auditors for their association with fraudulent financial statements. All of the cases involved public companies, most of which engaged ill fraudulent financial reporting. Only a few engaged in misappropriation of assets or defalcation. The most common problem, alleged in 90% of the cases, was the auditor's failure to gather sufficient evidence. In some instances, this failure was pervasive throughout the engagement while in other instances the allegations were more specific. For example, many of the cases involved inadequate evidence in the areas …

Local Television Journalism: Developing Ethics Through Discussion, Chris W. Allen, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz, Michael L. Hilt

Communication Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of local television news producers about ethical policies and situations they face. A majority of respondents agreed that it was important for a television newsroom to have a code of ethics or discussion of ethics in the newsroom. Most often producers perceived that their newsrooms were involved in discussions of fairness, balance, and objectivity; allocating air-time to opposing interest groups or political candidates; and, providing right of reply to criticism. Producers support a written code of ethics, or occasional discussion of ethics in the television newsroom, but see the competitive …

The Role Of Boards And Stakeholders In Corporate Governance, Victor C. S. Yeo, Pearlie M. C. Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper was written specifically for the OECD Third Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance, held in Singapore in April 2001, the theme of which was "the Role of Boards and Stakeholders in Corporate Governance". It goes without saying that a significant part of corporate governance is about managerial control and accountability. The duties imposed on directors, how Board members are chosen, Board composition, the interaction between members, the roles and responsibilities that Boards undertake, both as a whole and by their individual members, all have significant impact on the efficacy and propriety of the Board in fulfilling its functions. This …

Corporate Caregiver, Dipali Sikand

IIMB Management Review

My career as a Human Resources manager had led me to specialising in HR in the telecom business, first with the Essar group, then with JT Mobiles and the Northern Telecom group in Singapore as a Resourcing Director. I saw that people mainly took time off during office hours to do personal jobs - small jobs like paying their bills or buying tickets. This took up a major chunk of their time and it cost the organisation. I began to realize how vital it was for companies to find new ways of retaining employees and helping them use their office …

Morality And God, John Hare

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Paper presented at the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society at Western Michigan University, January 18,2001 with the title, "Does Morality Need God?"

The Drama Of Dysfunction: Value Conflict In Us Managed Care, Diana D. Mrotek

WCBT Faculty Publications

The transformation of the American health care environment from retrospective fee-for-service to managed care has been both rapid and chaotic. This period of change has been infected by value conflict, evoking unconscious processes in system participants as they have attempted to cope with personally threatening situations. This article attempts to elucidate this process by presenting an account of events and accompanying value conflict as it occurred over time. It also includes a systems analysis of the rapidly changing mosaic of unconscious processes that resulted from the divergent values held by the public and health care professionals, using various organization behavior …

Farm Animals And Their Welfare In 2000, David Fraser, Joy Mench, Suzanne Millman

State of the Animals 2001

Farm animals have been a traditional concern of the modern animal protection movement. In the early 1800s, when the movement emerged as a significant sociopolitical force in the United Kingdom, its first priority was protection of farm animals, with particular emphasis on cattle and horses. Subsequently priorities changed, and throughout most of the 1900s, animal protectionism in Europe and the English-speaking world focused more strongly on the use of animals for scientific research and on the rescue of abandoned or ill-treated companion animals. Today, however, with vigorous public debate over animal agriculture and its effects, farm animals are re-emerging as …

Qualitative Assessment Of Animal Behaviour As An On-Farm Welfare-Monitoring Tool, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Alistair B. Lawrence

Sentience Collection

There is a growing need to monitor the health and welfare of farm animals, and to develop methods which do so efficiently and reliably. A crucial problem with current methods is the integration of separate measurements taken during farm visits into accurate judgements of an animal’s overall welfare state. This paper proposes that the qualitative assessment of animal behaviour may serve as an integrative methodology which could guide the interpretation of other, more detailed welfare measurements. Recent research has demonstrated qualitative behaviour assessment to be reliable and repeatable under controlled experimental conditions. The paper concludes with a discussion of ways …

Employee Relations Ethics And The Changing Nature Of The American Workforce, Chong W. Kim, Dennis Emmett, Andrew Sikula Sr.

Management Faculty Research

Much is being written today about the changing nature of the American workforce. This article summarizes 10 of these changes: (a) global competition; (b) the changing skills of work; (c) the declining impact of unions; (d) the altered human composition of the workforce; (e) the effects of continuous improvement, downsizing, and reengineering; (f) the growing use of part-time employees; (g) the widening income gap; (h) lessened employer and employee loyalty and commitment; (i) early retirement programs; and (j) telecommunications and virtual employees. Rather than just identifying and documenting these trends, this article discusses the ethical implications of such movements. In …

Changing Role Of The Company Secretary In Malaysia, Cheng Luan Ooi

Student Works (2000-2009)

The role and responsibilities of the company secretary may not be so well known as that of the other profession like the accountants, advocates and solicitors, architects and doctors. It is also not well defined in company legislation nor does the Act in its present state distinguish between full time and professional company secretary. Thus the role of a company secretary in this context is somewhat confusing to outside parties as far as the scope of responsibilities is concerned. From the traditional role as a mere keeper of company's documents, in recent years, the role of company secretary calls for …

Corporate Governance And Political Ownership, David Seong Wei Lo

Student Works (2000-2009)

This paper makes an attempt to study the concept of corporate governance in a political ownership environment. It emphasizes the relationship between political objectives and governance objectives. The paper first gives a preliminary view of corporate governance and political ownership. It investigates whether political ownership will restrict the functioning of the governance mechanism. By making a case study of several privatised firms with strong political ownership, it shows that there is a strong possibility that political objectives will undermine the governance objectives without a proper check and balance system in place. There are indications that the situation is starting to …

Job-Related Ethics Of Four-Star Hotel Employees In Kuala Lumpur, Syed Sabeer Ali Ahmed Khan

Student Works (2000-2009)

This research aims to investigate the job-related ethical beliefs of four - star hotel employees in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The results show that the four­dimensional factors model as suggested by Vitell and Muncy (1992) can explain hotel employees' job-related ethics. The result revealed that employees working in departments, which have direct contact with hotel guests such as Food & Beverage, have higher tolerance for unethical behaviours. Significant differences were observed when analyzing the demographic variables (i.e. sex and education level) with the four factors identified including: no harm; unethical behaviours; actively benefiting; and passively benefiting. There were no significant differences …

A "New" Theory Of Management, Andrew Sikula Sr., Kurt Olmosk, Chong W. Kim, Stephen Cupps

Management Faculty Research

This article presents a "new" theory of management for the new millennium: "new" not because singularly the ideas are recent, but because the combination of these older ideas collectively is novel. To some extent, this article represents the reestablishment of previously existing employment ethics that for various and sundry reasons lapsed into disuse in the past several decades. This article discusses employee relations ethics (ERE) in terms of an ERE credo and a set of assumptions. The modern millennium mission states that all organizations (public and private) should primarily be employee centered, not owner or administrator controlled, customer or client …

A Comparative Analysis Of Conventional Insurance And Islamic Insurance (Takaful) In Malaysia : An Emphasis On Pricing Issues, Kamaruzaman Noordin

Student Works (2000-2009)

The existence of commercial contract of insurance since long time ago has greatly alleviated the impact of fortuitous happenings upon unfortunate community. This is due to its primary objective which is to provide a necessary economic security against unexpected catastrophes through the concept of risk sharing and mutual co-operation. Nevertheless, the conventional contract of insurance, which is based on the contract of sales, has been declared by most Muslim jurists as invalid from the sight of Shari'ah. Alternatively, they have come up with the idea of takaful which is based on the contract of donation (tabarru). Yet, many Muslims are …

Wage Discrimination Against Working Women, Sarah M. Ganasegeram

Student Works (2000-2009)

This research generally sets out to study wage discrimination against working women. Specifically, the study has three objectives. First, it examines sex-role stereotypes resulting from a colonial background, as a cause of wage discrimination. Second, the study explores gender-related job segregation existing in government policies, as a cause of wage discrimination. Lastly, it examines gender differences in human capital resulting from lack of access to education, as a cause of wage discrimination against working women. The study uses legal research methodology. The nature of this method incorporates advocacy and persuasion. Case studies based of decided equal pay claim cases are …

Mekanisme Al-Murabahah Dan Al-Bay Bi-Thaman Ajil Dalam Sistem Pembiayaan Di Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (Bimb), Mazran Mohd. Nazim

Student Works (2000-2009)

This dissertation will discuss the mechanisme of interest-free financing applied in the famous islamic financial institution in Malaysia, Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB). The two important mechanisme discussed are al-murabahah and al-bay bi-thaman ajil. The discussion will comprise the whole concept of the mechanisme fr.om the Islamic perspective and their application in the operation of Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB).