Michael W. Maher

A comparison of bribery and bidding in thin markets

Abstract This paper compares bribery to competitive bidding in a government purchasing context. While competitive bidding is one method of procurement, bribery is a common alternative in many Third World countries. Although bribery is often considered to be the ethical antithesis of competitive bidding, the analysis shows there is a fundamental isomorphism between bribery and competitive bidding on the supply side of the transaction.

A normal accident analysis of the mortgage meltdown

We use normal accident theory to analyze the financial sector, especially that part of the financial sector that processed home mortgages, and the mortgage meltdown. We maintain that the financial sector was highly complex and tightly coupled in the years leading up to the mortgage meltdown. And we argue that the meltdown exhibited characteristics of a system or normal accident; the result of a component failure (unusually high mortgage defaults) that, in the context of unique conditions (which included low interest rates and government policy encouraging home loans to less credit-worthy households), resulted in complex and tightly coupled interactions that financial elites and government officials were ill-equipped to control. We also consider the role that agency and wrongdoing played in the design of the financial system and the unfolding of the mortgage meltdown. We conclude that a fundamental restructuring of the financial system, so as to reduce complexity and coupling, is required to avert future similar financial debacles. But we also conclude that such a restructuring faces significant obstacles, given the interests of powerful actors and the difficulties of labeling those responsible for the meltdown as wrongdoers.

Evaluating on-line learning on campus

Two different pilot courses have been taught online, using a Web-based approach in which the context is contained in an Oracle database and Web pages are built dynamically on demand. The content includes animated graphics, sound (voice) and tests, which are displayed in the browser together in short modules, or learning objects, under the control of the student. The content is linked to other online facilities stored in the database, including the glossary, self-test questions, and supplementary materials. Access over the phone line requires an Internet connection but the large multiple media files can be accessed automatically from a local CD. The resulting interactive learning environment has led to improved or comparable student learning relative to the traditional on-campus teaching methods. When given the choice, many students opted for the online course in preference to the traditional offering even though these students were present on campus. Confirmation of these results would allow the University to increase enrollment in classes now limited by lecture hall size. These conclusions are now being tested on a much wider range of courses in different subject areas.

The managerial revolution revisited: the moderating impact of top managers’ social class position:

This article draws on early sociological critiques of the managerialist thesis to develop a new conceptualization of corporate ownership and control which is used here to inform an analysis of the propensity of large corporations to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. We categorize firms on the basis of the social class position of their top managers, focusing primarily on three types of firms, those run by: established capitalist owners, new capitalist owners and autonomous professional managers. We develop theoretical arguments that lead to two sets of predictions. First, we predict that firms run by new capitalist owners and autonomous professional managers exhibited a greater tendency than firms run by established capitalist owners to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. Second, we predict that the relationship between a firm’s financial, organizational and managerial capacities to pursue diversifying acquisitions, on the one hand, and the rate at which it completed such acquisitions, on the other, was stronger among firms run by new capitalist owners and autonomous professional managers than among firms run by other types of top managers. Finally, we conduct discrete-time event history analyses of the likelihood that firms completed diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s, which generate results that are largely consistent with our predications.

Analyzing Newspaper Costs in Predation Lawsuits

Using relative sales value to allocate costs between circulation and advertising is safer if a newspaper faces a court challenge on pricing.