Feature Channels: Business Ethics

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Law requiring Internet posting of feds’ finances will not prevent Congressional insider trading, Kathleen Clark says.

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Some hedge funds manipulate stock prices at the end of the month to improve the returns that they report to their investors, a new study suggests.

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Many consumers sacrificed their Thanksgiving dinners this year to grab that ultimate pre-Black Friday deal that they can spend the rest of the season bragging about. But according to Saint Joseph’s University sociologist Keith Brown, Ph.D., more and more shoppers are seeking something greater than saving a buck.

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The holidays are a busy time for engagements, and Trina Hamilton, a University at Buffalo expert in corporate responsibility, says socially minded consumers have a lot to think about when it comes to finding the right rock.

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As a corporate responsibility consultant, Kellie McElhaney publicly criticized Apple’s recent appointment of another man to an already all-male executive team. McElhaney’s new research goes one step further, indicating that the number of women on a corporate board correlates with a firm’s sustainability performance.

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A strike planned by Wal-Mart workers on one of America’s busiest shopping days has significance on many levels, according to Cornell University ILR School labor experts Ken Margolies, an associate in The Worker Institute in New York City; and Kate Bronfenbrenner, ILR’s director of Labor Education Research in Ithaca.

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Although some scholars have suggested that the income gap between men and women is due to women’s reluctance to negotiate salaries, a new study shows that given an invitation, women are just as willing as men to negotiate. Men, however, are more likely to ask for more money when there is no explicit statement in a job description that wages are negotiable.

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Despite evidence supporting boardroom diversity as a driver of corporate performance, “the percentage of women directors on U.S. boards stagnated some years ago and remains at or near 12 percent, with fewer than 10 percent of boards having three or more women,” says Hillary A. Sale, JD, the Walter D. Coles professor of law at Washington University School of Law. “The pressure to add women directors is, however, growing.” Sale discusses options to grow board diversity.

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Arbitration clauses are critical components of many contracts for consumer financial products. A panel of experts discusses the issues raised by the prevalence of arbitration clauses, and how they are used.

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Georgia Tech Professor Seletha Butler has recommendations on how corporate America can be more inclusive.

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A company’s share price and its CEO’s compensation can be influenced by third-party endorsements of the CEO, as well as the strategic options, called managerial discretion, that executives have at their disposal to manage the company, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Business Research.

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The maker of everything from iPhones to PlayStations can’t simply manufacture worker self-worth through pay raises, a new University of Nebraska-Lincoln study suggests.

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Charles K. Whitehead, professor at the Cornell University School of Law and a former Wall Street attorney, comments on the lawsuit leveled against Facebook, Morgan Stanley and other banks that underwrote Facebook’s initial public offering.

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Women serve as CEOs of just 17 of the Fortune 500 top companies in the United States. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi has been quoted as saying, “The glass ceiling will go away when women help other women break through that ceiling.” However, that may not necessarily be happening. Research from Washington University in St. Louis finds that women often do not support qualified female candidates as potential high-prestige work group peers.

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Research by a University of Iowa law professor and corruption law expert suggests that reaching an out of court settlement for Mexican bribery allegations might not be best for Walmart.

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As details of the Walmart bribery scandal in Mexico plays out, the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law offers two expert sources for comment.

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Stephen B. Wicker, Cornell University professor of electrical and computer engineering, comments on obsolete federal data privacy laws. He conducts research on wireless information networks, and focuses on networking technology, law, sociology, and how regulation can affect privacy and speech rights. He is the author of “Cellular Convergence and the Death of Privacy,” a book to be published by Oxford University Press at the end of 2012.

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Mutual fund families routinely and purposely use the capital in affiliated funds of mutual funds -- AFoMFs -- as "insurance pools" to offset or prevent cash shortfalls in other funds in the family. Further, this practice, which sacrifices performance by the AFoMF for the benefit of the fund company, is not outlined in prospectuses and may be in direct conflict with AFoMF shareholder interest.

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In the wake of the Enron and other corporate scandals, new research from Binghamton University suggests that strengthening parts of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act would improve corporate performance and shareholder value.

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The Credit CARD Act of 2009 was signed into law in May 2009. The reform legislation was intended to establish fair practices for extending credit to consumers. Many of the provisions were to protect college-age consumers. UofSC law professor Eboni Nelson has completed an analysis to determine whether the CARD Act has been successful in protecting these young consumers.

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The political beliefs of corporate CEOs strongly influence the tax-avoidance strategies of the firms they run, and those firms with Republican chief executive officers show a significantly higher level of tax avoidance than do companies with CEOs of no obvious political preference

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Why do some people behave morally while others do not? Sociologists at UC Riverside and CSU Northridge have developed a theory of the moral self that may help explain the ethical lapses in the banking, investment and mortgage-lending industries that nearly ruined the U.S. economy.

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Research by two faculty members from The University of Alabama in Huntsville were published in the prestigious journal Science for their investigation of the unethical practices of some journal publications.

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According to an Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor who testified last month before both houses of Congress, the STOCK Act eliminates what many regard as an uncharted gray area in existing law. The Senate is considering the act this week.

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Sending a text message leads people to lie more often than in other forms of communication, according to new research by David Xu, assistant professor in the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University.

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A study found that the more information companies disclose about their sustainable practices, the more they are viewed as being environmentally friendly -- even if their actual environmental performance is not strong.

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A conversation on the ethics of hiring with local business leaders.

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Research published in the December 2011 issue of the academic journal Business & Society recognizes the University of Virginia Darden School of Business as the leading MBA program in the field of Business Ethics.

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A new study by finance researchers at the University of Arkansas shows that U.S. banks are losing anywhere from $3.8 billion to $5.3 billion in annual revenue due to the Federal Reserve’s 2010 changes to overdraft policy. The lower fee revenue may further impair the ability of banks to lend money.

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A professor who specializes in fair trade issues says what Bloomberg News uncovered in Victoria's Secret's African supply chain is a symptom of a larger problem.

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A study by economists at Indiana University and the U.S. Treasury Department finds that corporations owned by individuals from countries with high levels of corruption are more likely than others to evade taxes in the United States.

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A decade ago this week, the collapse of once high-flying energy company Enron in the wake of massive accounting fraud soon became a symbol of an era that also saw major bookkeeping-related shenanigans at U.S. corporate giants WorldCom and Tyco International. With the 10th anniversary of Enron’s bankruptcy filing on Friday, Dec. 2, three Florida State University faculty members with expertise on the Enron saga are available to speak with the news media regarding the accounting scandals of the early 2000s, the long-term impacts of resulting regulatory reforms, and the continuing need for companies to incorporate ethics into their business models.

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Vanderbilt University economist Joni Hersch has calculated the first measures of sexual harassment risks at work by industry, age group, and sex. Hersch finds that female workers are six times more likely than male workers to experience sexual harassment on the job. In analyzing workers' wages, Hersch finds that firms must pay workers more for exposure to the risk of sexual harassment.

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Crowd funding, in which a group of investors pools money to fund a project or startup business — often online through social media and sites such as Kickstarter.com — has gained attention recently as a possible source for stimulating economic growth. But an expert on entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis says crowd funding may not be all its cracked up to be.

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A content analysis of local TV news finds agreements between stations mean less original content and possible monopoly violations. The report was filed with FCC; its author,a professor at the University of Delaware, says the FCC needs to consider these agreements' effects. The FCC is set to make decisions in 2011 about media ownership, during its quadrennial review. However, none of the studies the FCC commissioned for the review examine these agreements.

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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.