Feature Channels: Business Ethics

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Elections are great for democracies, but a new study by a University of Iowa researcher finds they may not be so good for business.

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Bank of America’s plan to begin charging customers $5 a month for using its debit card has been met with resistance from citizens and members of Congress alike. In fact, there is some reputational capital at risk as a result of this kind of charge, says a banking expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

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While many Americans believe they, like George Washington, cannot tell a lie, a Mississippi State business researcher is finding that most have no problem fudging facts under the "right circumstances." While lie detection has been well documented in face-to-face communication, this study targeted computer-mediated communication, including e-mail, instant messaging, chat, and text messaging to judge the effect of these "distancing" technologies on lie detection. In an increasingly 'virtual' world, this research has more relevance than ever.

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A new study of stock trading during the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 found that hedge funds sold their stocks much more aggressively than mutual funds at the first signs of poor performance.

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Investors are highly interested in information regarding corporate political spending, says Hillary Sale, JD, securities and corporate governance expert and the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. “The SEC should address the need for transparency in political spending to better inform shareholders and allow them to protect themselves from hidden political agendas in corporate campaign spending,” she says.

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UAB social psychologist Rex A. Wright, Ph.D. explains why some people do not view phone hacking as unethical and why those that see it as unethical go along with the practice.

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New research from the University of New Hampshire Center for Venture Research shows that stereotypes about gender affect the investment decision-making of women, even among successful women.

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The phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed British newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch is starting to make waves in the United States as well, according to a media critic and former commentator for Fox News.

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A landmark editorial in the nation's leading spine journal is challenging the integrity of published industry-sponsored research involving a bone-growth product. The unusually blunt editorial notes that in 13 trials involving 780 patients, industry-funded researchers did not report a single adverse advent involving Medtronic's Infuse® Bone Graft.

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The greatest economic reason to support an ethics-based approach to safety management within a capitalistic system is that prosperity generates an environment where continuing improvement and reduced risk are affordable.

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In what law firms and academic blogs are calling a watershed case, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) has significantly expanded whistleblower protection under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) following successful arguments by a Salisbury University professor.

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Civil procedure expert Justin Buehler is available to comment on Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, et al. Buehler, professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law and a former clerk for Judge Alfred Goodwin on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has followed the case closely through trial and appellate stages. He has spoken extensively to the media and given several presentations on the case.

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A new study in the June issue of the American Sociological Review found evidence of how businesses engage in regulatory arbitrage and make decisions about where to open stores based on states’ regulatory policies. The study explored various states’ right-to-work (RTW) laws and Walmart store openings from 1998 through 2005.

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The August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research will feature a UofSC study that shows that dieters are misled by food names.

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The annual study of the impact of the Internet on Americans conducted by the Center for the Digital Future found that almost half of Internet users age 16 and older -- 48 percent -- are worried about companies checking their actions on the Internet.

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Criminal Law Professor Brian Gallini is available to answer questions and provide expert commentary regarding the Department of Justice’s recent indictment of the principals of the three largest internet poker companies.

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Communication researchers have found that if you receive a lot of email, habitually respond to a good portion of it, maintain a lot of online relationships and conduct a large number of transactions online, you are more susceptible to email phishing.

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When the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was repealed 11 years ago, financial institutions were allowed to engage in commercial and investment activities under the same roof. But a new study finds it’s difficult to maintain an information firewall between those activities when they are housed in the same financial institution.

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The federal financial bailouts of the last few years received tremendous publicity, but multiple sources of “hidden bailouts” eluded notice, says Cheryl D. Block, JD, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Some hidden sources of federal financial rescue include new, expanded tax credits, the more liberal IRS interpretation of regulations, and “off-off budget” bailouts by quasi-governmental agencies such as the Federal Reserve Bank, according to research by Block.

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Lucrative incentives for executives at the nation’s top banks encouraged them to take excessive risks prior to the financial meltdown that the country still is digging itself out of three years later, according to a new study from the University of New Hampshire.

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Most Ponzi schemes, like almost everything else these days, enjoy a limited life in the public eye. Despite its explosive nature, the same would have been true of the Madoff con, except that nobody cooled Bernie's marks out. University at Buffalo sociologist Lionel S. Lewis, PhD, who has conducted an extensive study of those who lost their shirts to Madoff, says that because they weren't "cooled," a lot of them simply will not accept any responsibility for what happened to them.

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In “Beyond Mechanical Markets,” Michael Goldberg, the Roland H. O'Neal Professor at the University of New Hampshire, offers a fresh, nontechnical appraisal of the reasons why economists’ ideas are so often flawed and how contemporary macroeconomic and finance theory made the recent financial crisis more likely, if not inevitable.

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A Facebook security vulnerability discovered by a pair of doctoral students that allowed malicious websites to uncover a visitor's real name, access private data and post bogus content on their behalf has been repaired, Facebook confirmed.

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Thirty-eight speeches by PR pioneer Arthur W. Page, whose approach to public relations has been translated into the well-known “Page principles,” are now available online, indexed and summarized for easy reference.

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Diane Swanson, a professor of management and the chair of the business ethics education initiative at Kansas State University, is considered one of the foremost experts in the field of corporate ethics.

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In his joint paper with Evan Offstein, Ph.D., “On the Virtues of Secrecy in Organizations,” Ronald Dufresne, Ph.D., an assistant professor of management at Saint Joseph' s University, argues that “secrets are necessary, if not essential, to organizational survival and competitiveness.”

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In recent years, the American workplace has been infused with unprecedented levels of hostility — and that’s largely due to the deterioration of supervisor-subordinate trust, according to Florida State University researchers.

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College students who exhibit narcissistic tendencies are more likely than fellow students to cheat on exams and assignments, a new study shows.

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Kathleen Reardon, Professor of Management and Organization releases Comebacks at Work: Using Conversation to Master Confrontation (Harper Collins, 2010). Book offers strategies to ensure success in the workplace by managing conversations with co-workers.

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When customers are allowed to pay what they want for a purchase, knowing a portion of the payment will go to charity, they become rather generous, according to a study by Associate Professor Leif Nelson of the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Nelson says the concept of “shared social responsibility," a term coined by the study’s authors, may provide the sustainability component often lacking in current corporate social responsibility strategies.

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Since the Enron scandal, questions have continually been raised about the business sector's ethics and its influence on future business executives. Two Kansas State University business professors recruited nationally and internationally recognized experts in business ethics to address these concerns in a book.

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People feel worse about a transgression that will take place in the future than an identical one that occurred in the past, according to new research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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CEOs often blame something other than their own performance when companies go out of business, but a new study by a University of Iowa researcher suggests they are more responsible than they like to think.

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Overturning more than 40 years of accepted practice, new research proves that the tools used to check tests of "general mental ability" for bias are themselves flawed. This key finding from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business challenges reliance on such exams to make objective decisions for employment or academic admissions even in the face of well-documented gaps between mean scores of white and minority populations.

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New research shows that the concept of corporate social responsibility was articulated and put into practice in the U.S. much earlier than previously thought.

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Explosive growth in CEO pay has led some critics to question whether firms are biased in how they determine executive compensation. In fact, companies that used compensation peer groups to determine executive pay did artificially inflate such compensation – but only by approximately ten percent, according to research from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

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Despite the proliferation of rewards programs and the enormous data collected through them, there is lack of evidence of their effectiveness in building customer loyalty. Retailers need to understand the psychology and desires of consumers and differentiate between particular groups.

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The need to “fix” or restate financial statements is an admission by corporate management that these reports (prior to their being corrected) to the government and the investing public misrepresented the corporations’ financial positions, Texas A&M University sociology professor Harland Prechel reports in a research paper published in the June 2010 issue of the American Sociological Review (ASR).

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The worldwide financial crisis in 2008, which led to what many in the United States now call the “Great Recession,” has caused researchers to rethink traditional economic theories of financial markets and the corporate world. Even renowned financial theorist Michael Jensen, whose widely cited work has laid the foundation for the broad use of stock options as an executive compensation tool, has called on his fellow researchers to incorporate “integrity” into their economic models.

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Paying employees to perform better can enhance their productivity, but can also entice them to cheat, finds a new study by Ryerson University and University of Guelph researchers.

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Charles K. Whitehead, Associate Professor at the Cornell University School of Law and former associate in a law firm representing Goldman Sachs, comments on the strength of SEC charges of fraud in a civil complaint against Goldman Sachs.

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While high-profile white collar crimes like Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme grab headlines, thousands of smaller crimes are being committed each day in offices across America. In an effort to raise awareness of the consequences of white collar crime at all levels and the importance of ethical business behavior, Wake Forest University’s Schools of Business hosted a panel discussion on March 26 entitled “Finding the Way Back: Impacts of White Collar Crime.”

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Landmark regulations designed to detect and deter financial fraud via anonymous whistle-blowers can be dysfunctional and ineffective, according to new research from the University of Hampshire.

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Darden School of Business Offers Course on Markets in Human Hope

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U professor explores why scandals of this decade like Enron may happen — and how to prevent them from recurring.

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Research has identified four distinct generations of employees in the workplace. Each generation brings their own set of attitudes and behaviors; managing expectations is a challenge for employers. However, if employers ignore differences between generations, there can be an adverse impact on staff motivation, engagement and retention according to management expert Claire Simmers, Ph.D.

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A business ethics class assignment in the University of Iowa's Tippie School of Management is showing MBA students how ethical decision making is an important part of a successful career, while providing real financial support for non-profit organizations.

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The current economic climate is the focus of the third annual Southern California Business Film Festival (Feb. 16-21, 2010), sponsored by the USC Marshall School of Business and the Center for Investment Studies.

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Two UofU faculty members offer their insights into the behavioral and operational questions involved in product recalls like that underway at Toyota.

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A business law professor and former AIG employee tells why the firm should not be boycotted.