Marie McKendall

Ethical compliance programs and corporate illegality: Testing the assumptions of the corporate sentencing guidelines

This paper analyses the ethical performance of foreign-investment enterprises operating in China in comparison to that of the indigenous state-owned enterprises, collectives and private enterprises. It uses both the deontological approach and the utilitarian approach in conceptualization, and applies quantitative and econometric techniques to ethical evaluations of empirical evidences. It shows that according to various ethical performance indicators, foreign-investment enterprises have fared well in comparison with local firms. This paper also tries to unravel the effect of a difference in business culture and competitive market forces on ethical performance by comparing the behavior of foreign-investment enterprises with that of the indigenous state-owned enterprises and collectives on the one hand, and with that of the indigenous private enterprises on the other.

Teaching Groups to Become Teams

Abstract This article describes the format, objectives, and content of a course focused on teaching students how to function effectively as members of a work team through a semester-long, hands-on, application-based approach. It also offers guidelines for any instructor who allocates a significant portion of class time to teaching group skills. The article describes a semester project that I believe interests students more and teaches them a wider variety of group skills than the usual oral and written reports that student teams are required to do.

The tyranny of change: Organizational Development revisited

The premise of this paper is that planned organizational change, commonly known as organizational development, induces compliance and conformity in organizational members and thereby increases the power of management. These consequences occur because organizational development efforts create uncertainty, interfere with the informal organization, reinforce the position of management, and further entrench management purposes. These consequences occur regardless of the intentions of management and regardless of whether the goals of the organizational development intervention were achieved. Instead of examining these consequences, practitioners and theorists have engaged in self-deception and depoliticized the practice of induced organizational change by creating a field known as Organizational Development.

True Colors: The Response of Business Schools to Declining Enrollments

During the last several decades, business schools have increasingly portrayed themselves as the advocates and teachers of business ethics. In this context, educators have examined, criticized, and written about the questionable actions of many organizations. Business schools are, however, currently facing their own unprecedented crisis in the form of dramatically declining enrollments. This paper examines the morality of the various possible response strategies and argues that how business schools respond to this crisis will serve as a clear indication of their own organizational ethics and values.

Responses to the Discovery of Unethical Acts An Organizational Identity and Reputation Perspective

There has recently been a growth in research that examines how corporations respond to allegations of unethical actions. Although scholars have gained much insight about the range of responses available to and used by organizations, there has been almost no study of why firms choose one response over another. In this article, the authors present a framework of likely organizational response choices to allegations of wrongdoing; we propose that response choices are based on the degree of reputational risk from stakeholder withdrawal of support and on perceived threats to the firm’s primary or secondary identity.

Short- and Long-Term Share Price Reaction to Announcements of Financial Restatements

Purpose – This study examines both the short- and long-term share price reaction to announcements of financial restatements cited in the U.S. General Accounting Office (2006) database. Methodology – It uses the augmented four-factor Fama-French model for assessing share price reaction. Findings – The study finds that the average cumulative abnormal return (CAR) for a sample of 553 restatements (by 437 companies) is significantly negative (−1.58) for the three-day window surrounding the day of announcement. The average CAR for the one-year period prior to the announcement (−9.6%) and for each of the four years after the announcement is negative as well, with the average CAR for the four years adding up to −22%. The study also documents differences in CARs based on the entity prompting the restatement (company, auditor, and Securities and Exchange Commission), the reason behind the restatement (revenue, cost, reclassification of item, etc.), and for one-time versus repeat offenders. Social implications – Taken together, the findings indicate that financial restatements impose significant short-term as well as long-term costs on shareholders. Originality/Value – The evidence about long-term share price reaction to financial restatements is missing in prior research. The relationship between long-term and short-term share price reaction to financial restatements fails to suggest systematic over/underreaction by the market.