We use a lab experiment to examine whether and how leaders influence workers’ (un)ethical behavior through financial reporting choices. We randomly assign the role of leaders or workers to subjects, who can choose to report an outcome via automatic or self-reporting. Self-reporting allows for profitable and undetectable earnings manipulation. We vary the leaders’ ability to choose the reporting method and to punish workers. We show that workers are more likely to choose automatic reporting when their leader voluntarily does so and (...) can assign punishment. Even workers who choose self-reporting tend to cheat less when their leader chooses automatic reporting. Nonetheless, most leaders do not opt for automatic reporting in the first place: they often choose self-reporting and punish workers who rather choose automatic reporting. Collectively, our results reveal a dual effect of leadership on ethical behaviors in organizations: workers behave more ethically if their leader makes ethical choices, but often leaders do not make ethical choices in the first place. Hence, leading by example can backfire. (shrink)

This paper seeks to establish whether the categories of MacIntyrean virtue ethics as applied to business organizations are meaningful in a non-western business context. It does so by building on research reported in Moore : 363–387, 2012) in which the application of virtue ethics to business organizations was investigated empirically in the UK, based on a conceptual framework drawn from MacIntyre’s work. Comparing these results with an equivalent study in Sri Lanka, the paper finds that the categories are meaningful but (...) that there are both similarities to and considerable differences in the content of these categories from the UK study. The paper draws on aspects of institutional theory to explore and explain these findings. Overall, there is supportive evidence that the categories of MacIntyrean virtue ethics are generalizable, and so can be used to characterize problems of organizational virtue and vice around the world, while providing evidence that there may be polities which are more conducive to the ‘practice-like conduct of production’ : 77–91, 2008). (shrink)

We show that if G is a definably compact, definably connected definable group defined in an arbitrary o-minimal structure, then G is divisible. Furthermore, if G is defined in an o-minimal expansion of a field, k ∈ ℕ and pk : G → G is the definable map given by pk = xk for all x ∈ G , then we have |–1| ≥ kr for all x ∈ G , where r > 0 is the maximal dimension of abelian (...) definable subgroups of G. (shrink)

The following essay argues that the Husserlian idea of the epoché could be expanded to cover all aspects of practical life. The first part summarizes the extensive debate developed on this issue in English speaking Phenomenology in the 1970s, one that focused on the relation between the notions of epoché and reduction. In fact, the notion of reduction seems to run counter to the idea of expanding the epoché, insofar as it confines the latter within the narrow horizon of a (...) transcendental subjectivism. But Husserl himself cherished the ambition to return to the world. The second part emphasizes that reduction is an act that operates in the practical world in order to introduce a new type of action. According to the author, the phenomenon of ritual can be considered a sort of action in abeyance, i.e. action free from the burden of natural life. Thus the notion of “relief” could prove the most appropriate for introducing a phenomenological theory of rituals as rules without meanings. The third part deals with the relation between Husserl and the Japanese journal “Kaizō,” which asked him for some contributions. The upshot of this proposal was a certain misunderstanding between the Husserlian emphasis upon the idea of new and the perspective of Japanese culture, that tends to overcome the opposition between innovation and repetition through the juxtaposition of the new and the old. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Einstein’s physical geometry, the geometry of space and the uniformity of time are taken to be non-conventional. However, due to the stipulation of the isotropy of the one-way speed of light in the synchronization of clocks, as it stands, Einstein’s views do not seem to apply to the whole of the Minkowski space-time. In this work we will see how Einstein’s views can be applied to the Minkowski space-time. In this way, when adopting Einstein’s views, chronogeometry is a (...) physical chronogeometry. (shrink)

El presente artículo es una breve aproximación al contexto legal y político de las comunidades judías catalanas entre 1240 y 1391. A través del uso combinado de fuentes hebreas y cristianas, se ofrecerá una síntesis de la compleja red de factores, reglas y teorías que moldearon el ecosistema social de las comunidades hebreas en Cataluña. En este sentido, el autogobierno comunal era el resultado de la convergencia entre la legislación real y la producción normativa y teórica de las comunidades. Nuestro (...) objetivo es presentar el carácter poliédrico de esta realidad a través de los privilegios concedidos por los monarcas aragoneses a sus súbditos judíos, los modelos políticos desarrollados por los intelectuales hebreos, la legislación interna de las comunidades y el conjunto de factores sociales e históricos que impulsaron la evolución del sistema comunal. (shrink)