Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Whistleblowing And Caterpillar Inc.’S Swiss Tax Strategy, Amy Lysak, Richard Marmon, Edward J. Schoen

Rohrer College of Business Departmental Research

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Mutual Funds In Corporate Social Responsibility, Zhichuan Li, Saurin Patel, Srikanth Ramani

Business Publications

This paper examines the role of mutual funds in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using a fund-level, holdings-based CSR score, we find that CSR-friendly mutual funds improve firms’ CSR standings. This effect is more pronounced for firms with higher mutual fund ownership and stronger corporate governance. We further show that while CSR-friendly mutual funds have influence on almost all CSR categories, they focus on increasing CSR strengths rather than reducing CSR concerns. We also discover that CSR-friendly funds are more likely to vote in favor of CSR proposals, and that firms owned by CSR-friendly funds are more likely to link their …

What's In A Wage? A New Approach To The Justification Of Pay, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this address, I distinguish and explore three conceptions of wages. A wage is a reward, given in recognition of the performance of a valued task. It is also an incentive: a way to entice workers to take and keep jobs, and to motivate them to work hard. Finally, a wage is a price of labor, and like all prices, conveys valuable information about relative scarcity. I show that each conception of wages has its own normative logic, or appropriate justification, and these logics can come apart. This explains some of the debate about wages and makes the project of …

On The Origin, Content, And Relevance Of The Market Failures Approach, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The view of business ethics that Christopher McMahon calls the “implicit morality of the market” and Joseph Heath calls the “market failures approach” has received a significant amount of recent attention. The idea of this view is that we can derive an ethics for market participants by thinking about the “point” of market activity, and asking what the world would have to be like for this point to be realized. While this view has been much-discussed, it is still not well-understood. This paper seeks to remedy this problem. I begin by showing, against some recent commentators, that McMahon’s view and …

Ideological Presuppositions In Media Coverage Of Corporation Tax Policy In The Uk And Ireland: A Critical Discourse Analysis, Ciara Graham, Brendan K. O'Rourke

Conference papers

The focus of this paper is to understand how the crisis of tax avoidance strategies is discursively treated, by looking at the representation of corporation tax in two mediated public discourses in the UK and Ireland. Specifically, it examines the coverage of two prominent, agenda-setting morning radio programmes: BBC’s Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme and RTE’s ‘Morning Ireland’. It does so by performing a Critical Discourse Analysis of the coverage of tax controversies of two high-profile global corporations, Google and Apple Inc, in order to demonstrate the embeddedness of ideology within mediated public discourses of the subject. Both of the tax …

Designing Business Forms To Pursue Social Goals, Ofer Eldar

Faculty Scholarship

The long-standing debate about the purpose and role of business firms has recently regained momentum. Business firms face growing pressure to pursue social goals and benefit corporation statutes proliferate across many U.S. states. This trend is largely based on the idea that firms increase long-term shareholder value when they contribute (or appear to contribute) to society. Contrary to this trend, this Article argues that the pressing issue is whether policies to create social impact actually generate value for third-party beneficiaries—rather than for shareholders. Because it is difficult to measure social impact with precision, the design of legal forms for firms …

Complex Compliance Investigations, Veronica Root Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

Whether it is a financial institution like Wells Fargo, an automotive company like General Motors, a transportation company like Uber, or a religious organization like the Catholic Church, failing to properly prevent, detect, investigate, and remediate misconduct within an organization’s ranks can have devastating results. The importance of the compliance function is accepted within corporations, but the reality is that all types of organizations—private or public—must ensure their members com­ply with legal and regulatory mandates, industry standards, and internal norms and expectations. They must police thousands of members’ compli­ance with hundreds of laws. And when compliance failures occur at these …

Turning The Tides - An Examination Of The Red Tide Epidemic In Florida, Dahlia Lilleslåtten

Honors Program Theses

Southwest Florida’s red tides are characterized by patches of maroon-colored water, respiratory irritants, and elevated levels of marine mortalities. While a natural phenomenon, red tide has a devastating impact on aquatic ecosystems that become overwhelmed with dense aggregations of unicellular organisms and the subsequent brevetoxins that are released into the air. ​This paper reviews recent research on the Gulf Coast’s red tide epidemic in an attempt to fully understand the cause of the heightened intensity, frequency, and duration of algal blooms. It goes on to highlight the Sanibel and Captiva Islands’ rich history in conservation, and how this foundation of …

Salary History And The Equal Pay Act: An Argument For The Adoption Of “Reckless Discrimination” As A Theory Of Liability, Kate Vandenberg

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The Equal Pay Act (EPA) purports to prohibit employers from paying female employees less than male employees with similar qualifications; however, the affirmative defenses provided in the EPA are loopholes that perpetuate the gender pay gap. In particular, the fourth affirmative defense allows for wage differentials based on a “factor other than sex.” Many federal circuits have read this defense broadly to include wage differentials based on salary history. That is, an employer can pay a female employee less than her male counterparts because she was paid less by her previous employer. While salary history was once viewed as an …

Relational Accountability In The Art Business : A Study Of Ethics, Theodore Soliman

MA Theses

The artworld's unethical practices are ubiquitous amongst its stakeholders, with a lack of moral responsibility that allows for continuous sexual, emotional, and racial abuse. As an industry that is unregulated and resistant to change, these issues have been passed down from one generation to the next, forming a vicious cycle of predatory behavior. By investigating various stakeholders' roles, this study critiques the handling of these moral injustices and proposes relational accountability as a solution. The art world’s traditional understanding of accountability only focuses on the aftermath without challenging the agreed-upon ethical standards that stakeholders hold each other to.

Debt In Just Societies: A General Framework For Regulating Credit, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

Debt presents a dilemma to societies: successful societies benefit from a substantial infrastructure of consumer, commercial, corporate, and sovereign debt but debt can cause substantial private and social harm. Pre- and post-crisis solutions have seesawed between subsidizing and restricting debt, between leveraging and deleveraging. A consensus exists among governments and international financial institutions that financial stability is the fundamental normative principle underlying financial regulation. Financial stability, however, is insensitive to equality concerns and can produce morally impermissible aggregations in which the least advantaged in a society are made worse off. Solutions based only on financial stability can restrict debt without …

Buyer Beware: Variation And Opacity In Esg And Esg Index Funds, Dana Brakman Reiser, Anne Tucker

Faculty Publications By Year

Evidence of the tremendous rise in the significance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing is coming from all quarters. Fund flows into ESG investment vehicles are growing at a sustained and sometimes exponential pace. Fund complexes are rushing to design products, creating and rebranding scores of mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs), including lower-cost indexed options. Industry leaders, critics, and commentators are all heralding the sea change as a shift in investing - and corporate governance - to more broadly consider environmental and social factors.

This Article provides vital context for this conversation. Its descriptive account of the …

Revisiting The Beneficiaries Of The Scotus Ruling Striking Down Paspa, Sam Fullerton, Ronald Dick, Michael Mccall

AMTP Proceedings 2020

A Supreme Court ruling in 2018 essentially rendered restrictions on sports gambling to run counter to states’ rights, thus in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. As a consequence, 13 states and the District of Columbia now have legalized sports gambling. Initial research into the consequences of this ruling identified 12 potential beneficiaries. Subsequent research entailing an assessment of new literature and a survey of executive opinion involving a number of marketing executives who work within the field of sports marketing expanded the findings from the earlier study. This extension of the preliminary study found 14 beneficiaries rather …

Cambridge Analytica: The Scandal On Data Privacy, Carissa Boerboom

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

Consumers need to understand the risks and consequences of sharing their lives with the world. For data analysts, even if you can create and implement a model, should you? This research paper discusses Cambridge Analytica’s methods using predictive analytics and Facebook to influence the 2016 US Presidential Election. Through examining the firm as a whole, key people involved in the scandal, methods of data collection, and Facebook’s role, the ethical boundaries of big data, predictive analytics, and data privacy are analyzed. Three perspectives were discussed in regards to ethical disparity: Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and the consumers. Overall, this research exposes …

The Layers Of Digital Financial Innovation: Charting A Regulatory Response, Teresa Rodriguez De Las Heras Ballell

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The increasing penetration of digital technologies in financial markets is evidenced by promising adoption rates among users, expanding presence of fintech firms and bigtech providing techfin services, and the growing use of fintech solutions by incumbents. The increasingly popular term "fintech" captures the accelerated transformation of contemporary financial markets driven and enabled by technology, and encapsulates its multifarious potential impact on services, market structures, and business models. This Article first aims to devise and propose an analytical framework to understand the digital challenges to financial regulation based on the "layers of digital financial innovation" theory. Accordingly, digital innovation (fintech) is …

Do Environmental And Financial Performances Affect Environmental Disclosures? Evidence From Listed Companies In Indonesia, Indah Fajarini Sri Wahyuningrum, Mochamad Arief Budihardjo, Fadel Iqbal Muhammad, Hadrian Geri Djajadikerta, Terri Trireksani

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by author(s) and VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center. The number of companies in Indonesia that have participated in environmental-related activities continues to grow. Some of these companies have also engaged and implemented an assessment program called Program for Pollution Control, Evaluation, and Rating (PROPER). This assessment program was initially launched by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment in 1995 to measure and rate the environmental performance of companies in Indonesia. They have also administered an environmental management system as part of their environmental protection initiatives. However, the level of environmental disclosure by these companies is still low. This may …

It’S Who You Know That Counts: Board Connectedness And Csr Performance, Abu S. Amin, Lamia Chourou, Syed Kamal, Mahfuja Malik, Yang Zhao

WCBT Faculty Publications

Highlights:

• We examine whether and how board connections affect the firm's corporate social responsibilities (CSR).
• We find that board connectedness is positively associated with CSR performance.
• Our findings suggest firms that operate in a complex business environment or require more advising benefit more from a well-networked board.
• Firms that are poorly governed, have high stock return volatility, low market capitalization, or low institutional ownership tend to benefit more from the well-connected board when the cost of acquiring information is higher.
• In addition, we show that independent directors’ abilities to gather information and resources from their networks can facilitate the transmission …

How Access To Finances Affects Gender Inequality Across Cultures, Allison Muntin

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

While many studies of financial inclusion have been undertaken, very few discuss the inclusion of women. Financial inclusion plays a large role in unlocking resources for the disadvantaged, resulting in higher economic growth and development. The economic opportunity allows individuals and businesses to have a greater contribution to society as a whole, enhancing all aspects of the economy. This paper furthers the conversation of women’s access to financial institution accounts across cultures and what underlying factors play a key role. The results indicate that the female demographic has fewer financial institution accounts in comparison to men when: (i) a country’s …

An Evaluation Of A Transorganizational Development Process Promoting Positive Social Change, Erin Hall

Theses and Dissertations

Humanity's largest and most complex social problems are not going to be adequately addressed by one organization working alone. This study addressed two research questions: (1) what ingredients enable successful transorganization collaboration seeking positive social change? and (2) what roles does trust play? Using a case study methodology, participants and observers were interviewed. The data was analyzed using Ainsworth and Feyerhem's diagnostic model of transorganzational systems and Vangen and Huxham's trust-building and trust-sustaining theory. The findings emphasize the interdependence of transorganizational system (TS) design components and, in particular, of trust with each of the components.

A Business Plan For The Fitzgerald Institute, Elaine M. King, Matthew G. Deibel, Matthew J. Bulgrin, Alex Skeen, Stephanie N. Kieke

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This piece seeks to develop a business strategy for the University of Akron's Fitzgerald Institute for Entrepreneurship. The recommendations given were developed utilizing research on entrepreneurial education and the desires of students at the university.

Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr) Programs In Philippine Libraries, Joseph Marmol Yap, Martin Julius Villangca Perez, Elijah John Fernando Dar Juan

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Libraries are sometimes the least priority of a public school, a state university, a local government unit or an enterprise. With the efforts of its administrators and help of the innovative librarians, these libraries could solicit book donations and other information products, collaterals, library equipment and furniture if they have the right contact person – the CSR managers from the generous donors. More often than not, these libraries try to squeeze in the meager funds they get from their institutions and try to work it out based from their day-to-day needs.

This paper presents 14 organizations / corporations that are …

The Determinants Of Tax Non-Compliance: Evidence From Malaysia, Gul Zaman Khan Azman

Student Works (2020-2029)

Tax non-compliance is an act of disobeying the tax laws provided by the legislation either intentionally or unintentionally. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship of four independent variables; tax knowledge, ethics, government quality and change in government to the dependent variable; tax non-compliance. The research framework of this study is developed based on five variables and employed theory of planned behavior. Four hypotheses are tested based on the research framework. The research instrument of this study is structured questionnaire. The questionnaires are distributed to taxpayers in Klang Valley. A total of 415 samples were collected from …

Corporate Social Responsibility And Corporate Financial Performance: An Examination Into Fortune 500 And Djsi Firms Within Consumer-Facing Industries, Samantha Lee

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the relationship between a firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) in nine consumer-facing industries classified by the Fortune 500. Unlike prior research on the matter, the firms investigated in this study consist only of firms on both the Fortune 500 for the year 2018 and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) between the years 2005-2018 in order to define a clear measurement of CSR. In order to gauge investor and market sentiment, CFP is measured primarily by the firm’s stock performance in comparison to the S&P 500 as a basis. The results …

Three Essays On The Effect Of Pain-Of-Payment On Consumers' Financial Decisions, Farnoush Reshadi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the past few years, we have witnessed a growing level of consumer debt. Although being in debt increases consumers’ stress and reduces their financial well-being, many consumers still take on high levels of debt and hold on to it even when they have financial resources to pay off the debt. Thus, it is of utmost importance to study factors that may influence consumers’ debt repayment. In this dissertation, I study consumers’ debt repayment behavior through the lens of the double-entry mental accounting theory (Prelec and Loewenstein 1998). This theory argues that consumers’ debt repayment behaviors are driven by pain-of-payment--negative …

Collaborative Regulatory Development In The Mobile Money Sector: A Case Study In Sri Lanka, Suwandaarachchi Chaminda Methsiri

Student Works (2020-2029)

Providing financial services for the unbanked has been challenging, mainly due to relatively high operational costs and the difficulty of reaching remote areas. Mobile money has brought bank-like facilities to the unbanked communities, through its low-cost operations and widespread agent network, thus making them financially included. Regulatory response and support are essential for this advancement, where they necessitate significant changes to the current regulatory practices. This task is difficult for regulators due to their limited technical knowledge and resources in the field of financial technologies. Regulators collaborate with industry to overcome these challenges. However, studies on such collaborations are scarce. …

Enhancing Rescue In Chapter 11: Lessons From Reform Efforts In The United Kingdom, Robert J. Landry Iii

Research, Publications & Creative Work

This is a dynamic time for insolvency law. Many jurisdictions have or are considering reforms to their insolvency regimes. The U.K. has proposed a new standalone restructuring mechanism that incorporates many attributes of Chapter 11, including a cross-class cram down and the absolute priority rule. A distinctive feature of the U.K proposal is the infusion of judicial discretion permitting courts to deviate from the absolute priority rule. This discretion is not permitted in the U.S. This judicial discretion addresses a key problem with the application of the absolute priority rule in the U.S. – it serves as an impediment to …

Superseding Money Judgments In Texas: Four Proposed Reforms To Help The Business Litigant And To Further Improve The Texas Civil Justice System, James Holmes

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Editors' Comments: Is Corporate Social Responsibility Research Undertheorized?, Heli Wang, Cristina Gibson, Udo Zander

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has brought about both progress and controversy. Under the banner of CSR, we have made progress in addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges, yet corporations still struggle to figure out where, how, and when to devote their social efforts, and doubts abound as to whether corporate efforts are truly in the public’s best interest. Scholarly interest in CSR research has also flourished. As a pervasive topic in the business literature, CSR is being addressed not only in the management field but also in the domains of economics, finance, marketing, operations, …

More Meaningful Ethics, Veronica Root Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

Firms have exponentially increased their investment in the creation and implementation of ethics and compliance programs over the past fifteen years. The convergence of more robust corporate enforcement actions and more sophisticated industry standards and practices surrounding compliance efforts has created a booming compliance industry with commonly accepted standards and responsibilities. Within these efforts is a formal acknowledgment by the government, industry leaders, and academics that ethics has a role to play in helping to prevent misconduct within firms and that compliance without concern for ethics is insufficient. The reality, however, is that within firms’ efforts to implement effective ethics …

Political Ideology Of The Board And Ceo Dismissal Following Financial Misconduct, Uisung Park, Warren Boeker, David Gomulya

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Why do some boards refuse to take serious action against CEOs who have committed financial misconduct? Past work has directed attention to the antecedents of misconduct while largely overlooking this question. The relatively few studies to examine it have typically revolved around the capacity of boards to take action, or their relationships to their CEOs. This study instead examines how the beliefs and values held by board members can influence their actions following financial misconduct. Focusing on political ideology, we argue and find that politically conservative boards are more likely to respond by dismissing the CEO than are liberal boards. …