Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

To Believe In Black Stars Or Red Dragons?: Comparing The Foreign Direct Investment Climates Of Ghana And China, Theodore W. Briscoe Iii

William & Mary Business Law Review

When thinking of overseas business expansion, most think of China. This is for good reason: China commands a lion’s share of foreign direct investment money. It would shock readers to know that there are destinations that are far more suitable for overseas investment than China. It would shock readers even more to know that one of these destinations is in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ghana—the Black Star country—has quietly put together a legal regime that is extremely attractive for foreign direct investment. When comparing Ghana’s foreign investment policies to China’s, Ghana’s policies are indisputably more favorable to foreign investors. Ghana offers more …

Introducing A Writing Skills Intervention Into An Undergraduate Financial Accounting Course, Barbara M. Tarasovich, Benoit Boyer

WCBT Faculty Publications

This paper describes how integrating a research project into an undergraduate business school core accounting course provides opportunities to develop critical writing skills while reinforcing ethics as part of the business school curriculum. The paper discusses an end-to-end process from the overall goals and details of the assignment to assess student skills. After researching an ethical topic in business, students are challenged to complete a research paper examining the issue and stating and supporting their opinion and views of the issue. While writing courses or assignments are not unusual in business program, the unique approach described in this paper includes …

The Constitution, The Roberts Court, And Business: The Significant Business Impact Of The 2011-2012 Supreme Court Term, Corey Ciocchetti

William & Mary Business Law Review

The 2011–2012 Supreme Court Term created quite the media buzz. The Affordable Care Act cases and the controversial Arizona immigration law dominated the headlines. But the Term also included other fascinating yet less sensationalized cases. The Court heard its fair share of criminal law controversies involving derelict defense attorneys and prosecutors, as well as civil procedure disputes involving qualified immunity for witnesses in grand jury proceedings and private parties assisting the government in litigation. The Justices also entertained arguments on a federal law allowing United States citizens born in Jerusalem to have “Israel” stamped as their birthplace on a passport. …

A Statistical Analysis Of Public Sector Corruption And Economic Growth, Kaycea Campbell

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

This study reports on the results of a statistical analysis in which the relationship between the independent variable of corruption, as measured by the World Bank, and the dependent variable of economic growth, as measured by percentage of GDP growth per year, was examined. The purpose of this study is to apply empirical methods to the debate on corruption and growth, in which neoclassical theory predicts that corruption retards growth but in which other models, such as Lewis growth and the Kuznets Curve, suggest that corruption may actually speed up growth in underdeveloped countries. The main finding of the study …

The Business Ethics Curriculum: An Exploration Of External And Internal Influences, Academic Plan Elements, And Other Environmental Variables Comprising The Undergraduate Business Ethics Curriculum In Aacsb-Accredited Schools Of Business, Gerald Lee Plumlee

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the current undergraduate business ethics curriculum in AACSB-accredited business schools in the U.S. to determine what external and internal influences affected the curriculum, what academic plan elements and other environmental variables comprised the current business ethics curriculum, and what differences existed among the business ethics curriculum in programs based on institutional control, size, or approach to including business ethics in the undergraduate curriculum. A literature review in the areas of curriculum and curriculum design guided the conceptual framework for the study. A web-based survey was designed to collect quantitative and qualitative data …

Order On Plaintiff's Motion To Exclude Opinions And Testimony Of Purported Experts Disclosed By Defendants (United Community Bank), John J. Goger

Superior Court of Fulton County: Metro Atlanta Business Case Division Opinions

No abstract provided.

Order On Michael Macke's Motion For Attorney Fees And Expenses Of Litigation Pursuant To O.C.G.A. 9-15-14 Against Defendant Zions First National Bank (Macke_Cadillac Jack Inc. Et Al.), Elizabeth E. Long

Superior Court of Fulton County: Metro Atlanta Business Case Division Opinions

No abstract provided.

Agenda: What The Frack? How Your Investments Can Impact The Fracking Industry, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment. Intermountain Oil And Gas Bmp Project, Sustainable Impact Investment Advisors

What the Frack? How Your Investments Can Impact the Fracking Industry (March 13)

Sustainable Impact Investment Advisors, a professional association of investment advisors whose practices focus on sustainable and socially responsible investing, sponsored a panel conversation on hydraulic fracking. A panel of experts, including industry representatives and grass roots opponents, discussed the pros and cons of fracking. The panel provided an overview of fracking, and food for thought about whether you choose to include this industry in your investments, or influence companies to use this technology with only the utmost care.

Final Order And Judgment (Hatcher Management Holdings Llc Et Al.), John Goger

Superior Court of Fulton County: Metro Atlanta Business Case Division Opinions

No abstract provided.

Csr: Good Intentions And Wild Dreams Are Not Enough, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

When Mariam Al Foudery graduated over a decade ago, the people recruiting aggressively on campus were from investment banking and management consulting firms. But that’s changed, giving rise to more opportunities in corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship.

Journey Of A Peace Journalist, Robert Koehler

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Presented October 15, 2012. 2012 Winnie Veenstra Peace Lecture.

The Importance Of Information Integrity: In A Data-Driven World, Unreliable And Inaccurate Information Can Lead To Bad Decision-Making, Sridhar Ramamoorti, Madhavan K. Nayar

Accounting Faculty Publications

What is information integrity? It is the trustworthiness and dependability of information. The credibility of information depends on whether we are getting it from sources we can trust. After all, the value of information to the decision-maker and problem-solver consists first in its integrity, and then in its usefulness and usability. Why? Because, even the best chef knows that you can't make a good omelet out of bad eggs! Consider the emerging trend of big data (see" Big Data" on page 34). According to IBM, people create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day (a quintillion is 1 followed by …

Land Grabs Still Plague Myanmar And Cambodia, Mahdev Mohan, Vani Sathisan

2008 Asian Business & Rule of Law initiative

No abstract provided.

Order On Plaintiff's Motion To Dismiss Certain Counts Of Defendant Mcdiapers Inc.'S Counterclaims (United Community Bank), John J. Goger

Superior Court of Fulton County: Metro Atlanta Business Case Division Opinions

No abstract provided.

A New Look At The Corporate Social-Financial Performance Relationship: The Moderating Roles Of Temporal And Inter-Domain Consistency In Corporate Social Performance, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors develop the argument that the establishment of good stakeholder relations is influenced not only by a firm’s having a high level of corporate social performance but also by its ability to deliver consistent social performance. Therefore, both level and consistency in corporate social performance should have significant financial implications. More specifically, the authors suggest that level and two types of consistency in corporate social performance—temporal consistency and interdomain consistency—interact positively to influence a firm’s financial performance. Using a sample of 622 firms and 2,365 firm-year observations based on the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini, & Co. data, the authors found …

Rules Or Consequences? The Role Of Ethical Mind-Sets In Moral Dynamics, Gert Cornelisson, Michael Ramsay Bashshur, Julian Rode, Marc Le Menestrel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Recent research on the dynamics of moral behavior has documented two contrasting phenomena—moral consistency and moral balancing. Moral balancing refers to the phenomenon whereby behaving ethically or unethically decreases the likelihood of engaging in the same type of behavior again later. Moral consistency describes the opposite pattern—engaging in ethical or unethical behavior increases the likelihood of engaging in the same type of behavior later on. The three studies reported here supported the hypothesis that individuals’ ethical mind-set (i.e., outcome-based vs. rule-based) moderates the impact of an initial ethical or unethical act on the likelihood of behaving ethically on a subsequent …

The Correlation Of Qualitative Behavior Assessments With Welfare Quality® Protocol Outcomes In On-Farm Welfare Assessment Of Dairy Cattle, S. N. Andreasen, F. Wemelsfelder, P. Sandøe, B. Forkman

Sentience Collection

The effort to develop methods for assessing animal welfare at farm level has grown dramatically since the end of the 1990s, culminating in the protocols developed by the European-wide project Welfare Quality® (WQ). However, these protocols are time consuming and lack transparency in how scores are aggregated into welfare outcomes. The current study investigates the potential of Qualitative Behavior Assessment (QBA), a much less time-consuming approach, to be used as a stand-alone integrative screening tool for identifying farms with compromised welfare before applying the full WQ protocol. QBA is a ‘whole-animal’ approach asking human observers to summarize animals’ expressive demeanor …

Free Markets With Caritas: A Transformational Concept Of Efficiency, Bruce D. Baker

SPU Works

The logic of caritas transforms conventional concepts of economic efficiency in a direction conducive to the health and sustainability of a market system, by distinguishing between economic activities which are additive or extractive toward the common good. The beneficent power of the market to serve human flourishing is based not in a morally tacit concept of economic efficiency as a cardinal good, but rather in a gift-bearing efficiency aligned with caritas. This thesis is explored through three business case studies: (1) patents related to pharmaceutical drug design and marketing; (2) “monetization” strategies in recent internet-based business models; and (3) …

Leadership And Communication, Michael Z. Hackman, Craig E. Johnson

Faculty Publications - College of Business

Overview:

Leadership: At the Core of Human Experience

Defining Leadership

The Nature of Human Communication

The Human Communication Process

Leadership: A Special Form of Human Communication

Leaders vs. Managers

The Question of "Bad" Leadership

The Leader/Follower Relationship

Viewing Leadership from a Communication Perspective

Willingness to Communicate

Storytelling as Leadership

Emotional Communication Competencies

Playing to a Packed House: Leaders as Impression Managers

Public-Private Regime Interactions In Global Food Safety Governance, Ching-Fu Lin

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

In response to an apparent decline in global food safety, numerous public and private regulatory initiatives have emerged to restore public confidence. This trend has been particularly marked by the growing influence of private regulators such as multinational food companies, supermarket chains and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who employ private standards, certification protocols, third-party auditing, and transnational contracting practices. This paper explores how the structure and processes of private food safety governance interact with traditional public governance regimes, focusing on Global Good Agricultural Practices (GlobalGAP) as a primary example of the former. Due to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of public regulation …

Private Governance, Public Implications And The Tightrope Of Regulatory Reform: The Isda Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees, John Biggins, Colin Scott

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Regulatory relationships in financial markets exemplify the importance and changing nature of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI). These interactions involve reciprocal forces of influence between private and public regulators. This paper examines one key case of private governance in financial markets: the emergence, structures and decision-making of Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees (DCs) of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). The paper highlights the mechanisms or 'pathways' of interaction between ISDA, governments, courts and public regulators. Interactions between state and non-state actors are shown to occur in both operational and policy spheres. ISDA is found to be a particularly resilient …

A System Of Transnational Business Interactions: The Case Of The Living Wage, David J. Doorey

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

The subject of transnational business governance (TBG) interactions is an emerging field of study. These interactions are complex, involving multiple public and private actors crossing vast geopolitical spaces, with sometimes shared, but often conflicting interests. This complexity makes TBG interactions both an exciting new field of inquiry for scholars, but also an extremely challenging one. In these early days of theory development, it is useful to engage in a mapping exercise that will help scholars identify and test the relationships between the many inputs and outputs of TBG interactions. This new systems framework is demonstrated by reference to the complex …

The Tort Foundation Of Duty Of Care And Business Judgment, Robert J. Rhee

Faculty Scholarship

This Article corrects a misconception in corporation law – the belief that principles of tort law do not apply to the liability scheme of fiduciary duty. A board’s duty of care implies exposure to liability, but the business judgment rule precludes it. Tort law finds fault; corporation law excuses it. The conventional wisdom says that the tort analogy fails. This dismissal of tort prinicples is wrong. Although shareholder derivative suits and ordinary tort cases properly yield systemically antipodal outcomes, they are bound by a common analytical framework. The principles of board liability are rooted in tort doctrines governing duty, customs, …

Show Me The Money!, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Governments worldwide are accumulating reserves to guard against financial turmoil. Could they be contributing to it?

Ethics In The Accounting Curriculum, James H. Thompson

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

The number of corporate debacles in recent history has been a great concern to the financial community. From Enron to Bear Stearns, the events have highlighted that greed, incompetence, and deception exist systemically. After these and other similar events, the importance of professional ethics intensified. Has the concern for improved ethical behavior compelled academic institutions to provide greater emphasis on ethics in accounting degree programs?

Several findings emerged in this study. First, ethics is more commonly part of the course description than it is to be part of the course title. Second, there is greater emphasis on ethics in undergraduate …

Corporate Historical Responsibility (Chr): Addressing A Past Of Forced Labor At Volkswagen, Claudia Janssen Danyi

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This article introduces corporate historical responsibility (CHR), a concept that can guide organizations when addressing dark corporate histories. CHR holds that organizations have responsibilities toward victims of past corporate practices and toward present reconciliatory discourse. Volkswagen’s discourse about its history of forced labor during WW II serves as an example of CHR. The rhetorical analysis illustrates that CHR hinges on the recognition of the past as a moral issue and on the organization’s ability to create historical accountability, take responsibility, make public acknowledgements, and remember its past. It further illustrates that CHR creates sustainable policies that can strengthen corporate citizenship …

What Is Character And Why It Really Does Matter, Thomas A. Wright, Tyler L. Lauer

Business Faculty Publications

Conclusion:

In presenting our overview of character, we set out to challenge the increasingly prevalent (and narrow) self-interest perspectives of character considered as merely freefloating values and cults of personality. One can almost hear Theodore Roosevelt’s eloquent call for a renewal of more traditional views of character. Our take-away point is simple. As with the impending financial debacle, we find ourselves in a similar moral dilemma. The time is now to carefully consider the many benefits of character and character-based leadership

Texas Puppy Seller Investigation, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL INFORMATION

Over a five-month period in 2013, HSUS staff visited 16 pet stores and three flea markets across the state with hidden cameras to find out where they get their puppies and to check on the puppies’ conditions. HSUS staff also studied hundreds of shipping documents representing more than 1,400 puppies shipped into Texas between May 2012 and August 2013 from out of state, representing just a sampling of the thousands of puppies shipped into Texas every year for resale. Between the document research and in-person visits, investigators studied a total of 34 pet stores and flea markets. HSUS investigators found …

A Horrible Hundred 2013: Problem Puppy Mills In The United States, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL INFORMATION

This report is a list of some of the nation’s dog breeding kennels that are of high concern to The HSUS due to repeated problems with animal health or animal care. It is not a list of all puppy mills, nor a list of all problematic facilities. The list does not include other problematic puppy mill dealers, such as brokers and pet stores, unless the operators are also breeding dogs.

Equine Welfare As A Mainstream Phenomenon, Bernard E. Rollin

Equine Husbandry and Welfare Collection

The 20th century has witnessed a bewildering array of ethical revolutions, from civil rights to environmentalism to feminism. Often ignored is the rise of massive societal concern across the world regarding animal treatment. Regulation of animal research exists in virtually all Western countries, and reform of “factory farming” is regnant in Europe and rapidly emerging in the United States. In 2012, a series of articles in The New York Times focused welfare attention squarely on the horse industry. Opponents of concern for animals often dismiss the phenomenon as rooted in emotion and extremist lack of appreciation of how unrestricted animal …