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When can financial advisor conflicts of interest generate worse outcomes for clients? A regulation following from Dodd-Frank prohibits municipal advisors from simultaneously acting as bond underwriters. Using a difference-in-differences approach and 20,051 bond auctions, I test whether limited advisor privileges affect financial advice and borrower outcomes. Financing costs of bonds with potential dual advisor-underwriters fall by 11.4 basis points after the advisor is no longer allowed to underwrite. The decline follows from increases in standardization, third-party certification, and auction participation, all of which are consistent with limiting the adverse selection that arises from advisors withholding information from the market. (JEL D44, D53, G12, G14, G28, H74) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rare watches, fine wines and spirits, sports cars, designer sneakers, and many other luxury goods create massive enrichment opportunities for consumers if they resell them on secondary markets. This trend is part of the enrichment economy, a novel form of market arrangement wherein consumers use iconic goods to increase their capital. However, it creates challenges for brands, such as preserving their primary market desirability and avoiding cannibalization. To understand how brands can navigate the enrichment economy, the authors conducted an ethnographic study of the luxury watch industry. They draw on market system dynamics to theorize market processes that sustain a market within the enrichment economy, and they explain the shared discourses, norms, and practices that make the enrichment economy function. This research makes four contributions. First, the authors theorize primary–secondary market dynamics as a novel class of market dynamics. Second, they theorize the new role of luxury brands as enrichment curators. Third, they discuss the ethics of enrichment by highlighting inequalities and risks it creates. Fourth, this research introduces the enrichment strategy as a novel brand strategy that capitalizes on the market dynamics of enrichment. The authors offer recommendations for luxury and nonluxury brands on product portfolio management, customer relationship management, and ethical innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document explores the intersection of marketing and popular culture, using examples from pop stars like Dua Lipa to illustrate how brands can learn from their omnipresence in popular culture. It discusses the importance of incorporating popular culture into marketing strategies and highlights the need for marketing scholarship to keep up with this fundamental notion. The text also delves into the distinctions between 'popular' and 'populist' culture, emphasizing the impact of popular culture on brand meaning and consumer research. Additionally, it touches on the global diffusion of popular culture and the diverse cultural productions that influence contemporary marketing practices. [Extracted from the article]

Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) are legal means, alternative to trial, for the resolution of criminal business cases. Although DPAs are increasingly used in the US and are spreading to other jurisdictions, the ethics of DPAs has hardly been subjected to critical scrutiny. We use a multidisciplinary approach straddling the line between philosophy and law to examine the ethics of DPAs used to resolve cases of multinational enterprises' (MNEs) foreign corruption. Deontologically, we argue that the normativity of DPAs raises critical concerns related to the notion of justice as punishment, with serious cases of international corruption resolved with minimal retribution for offending MNEs. Taking a utilitarian ethical perspective, we also evaluate the effect of DPAs on MNEs' tendency to self-regulate or re-offend. Our conclusion, supported by critical analysis of the juridical literature and case evidence on MNEs' recidivism, is that DPAs do not foster ethical behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The review explores Grayson Perry's retrospective exhibition, Smash Hits, as a reflection on authenticity, craftsmanship, and character in art. Perry's work challenges the dichotomy between rationality and humanity, emphasizing the importance of technical skill and celebrating work as joyful creation. The exhibition prompts reflection on the implications for business ethics, advocating for a broader understanding of virtue ethics and virtuous character in management education. Perry's art serves as a beacon of hope, urging a focus on ethics and the art of being together in the resetting of business schools. [Extracted from the article]

In this article, I present a sociological approach to the problem of meaningful work that dwells on its broad social and cultural sources, as opposed to the focus on subjective and organizational factors currently prevailing in the field. Specifically, I consider two sociological perspectives, those of community and autonomy, as important conceptual tools for understanding the ambivalent character of modern culture in providing individuals with a sense of meaningfulness of their activities. I also review some of the existing research on meaningful work and interpret it through this conceptual distinction, both to show the latter's relevance for the field and to identify the gaps it might help fill. As a result, based on the sociological perspectives, I propose a general conceptual model and discuss five directions to further advance the theoretical comprehension of meaningful work, and I suggest some implications of these perspectives for normative business ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations can motivate and coordinate work by socializing members to internalize organizational values. Existing theories posit that organizations achieve normative control through encapsulation, wherein peers and managers are primary sources of members' socialization. Drawing on ethnographic data from a not-for-profit school, I show how an external actor—beneficiaries—can become a source of normative control. I develop a multistage process that explains how teachers were socialized by parents, specifically by hearing these parent beneficiaries narrate their needs; engaging in collective storytelling about beneficiaries; experiencing episodic shaming centered on how teachers' daily performance met (or did not meet) beneficiaries' needs; and receiving validation from beneficiaries. Because these sequential stages establish beneficiaries as sources of control through social interactions set in specific times and places, and establish shared emotional states among organizational members, I theorize that these stages compose a ritual of integration. Although teachers initially arrived at the school with heterogeneous values, this ritual led many of them to internalize the organizational value of self-sacrifice. Teachers who were unmoved by parents' stories or came to see parents as exploitative did not internalize this value, and they tended to exit the organization. This study reveals how normative control can arise not only through socialization from in-group members but also from ritual interactions with and about beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an abstract from the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, which covers various topics related to personal selling and sales management. The abstracts summarize recent research articles in these areas, providing valuable insights for researchers and practitioners in the field of sales and marketing. One article discusses the importance of considering cultural differences when conducting international sales force research and proposes a method called "response standardization" to improve the comparability of survey data. Another article explores the use of automation and technology in B2B salesperson pricing decisions, suggesting that a human-machine hybrid approach can improve pricing accuracy and efficiency. The collection of research articles covers a wide range of topics, including the impact of social media on B2B buying behavior, the role of AI in enhancing the customer experience, and the relationship between ethical leadership and salesperson creativity. [Extracted from the article]

This paper conducts a textual analysis of earnings call transcripts to quantify climate risk exposure at the firm level. We construct dictionaries that measure physical and transition climate risks separately and identify firms that proactively respond to climate risks. Our validation analysis shows that our measures capture firm-level variations in respective climate risk exposure. Firms facing high transition risk, especially those that do not proactively respond, have been valued at a discount in recent years as aggregate investor attention to climate-related issues has been increasing. We document differences in how firms respond through investment, green innovation, and employment when facing high climate risk exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial in the October issue of Business Ethics Quarterly highlights changes in the editorial team, including new associate editors and board members. The journal also awarded Caleb Bernacchio the Outstanding Reviewer award and recognized Alexander Buhmann and Christian Fieseler for their article on AI innovation. Business Ethics Quarterly continues to maintain its position as a leading journal in the field, with an increasing number of submissions and a high impact factor. The editorial expresses gratitude to all contributors for their role in upholding the journal's excellence. [Extracted from the article]

"Diversity and Inclusion Matters: Tactics and Tools to Inspire Equity and Game-Changing Performance" by Jason R. Thompson is a practical guide for individuals leading diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives in organizations. Thompson, drawing from his experience as a DE&I practitioner, provides a roadmap for starting and measuring progress in DE&I programs, addressing systemic issues, and creating strong DE&I teams. The book emphasizes the importance of recruitment and retention in DE&I programs and offers templates, tools, and examples tailored to different industries. While the book lacks academic sources, it serves as a valuable resource for practitioners and can inspire future research in the field of DE&I. [Extracted from the article]

The book "Corporate Sustainability: Managing Responsible Business in a Globalised World" is a compilation of master classes on the topic of corporate sustainability. The chapters in the book are written by experts in the field and cover a range of topics, including stakeholder theory, sustainability business models, and sustainability standardization. The book is accessible and covers both the essentials and advanced developments in corporate sustainability. However, the book could benefit from including more perspectives from the Southern hemisphere and indigenous voices to further decolonize the business school. Overall, the book is a valuable resource for advanced Master of Arts students and offers an authoritative and easily digestible introduction to corporate sustainability. [Extracted from the article]

This article reviews and criticizes Joseph Heath's market failures approach (MFA) to business ethics. Our criticism is organized into three sections. First, we argue that, even under the ideal assumptions of perfect competition, when markets generate Pareto-efficient distributions, Heath's approach does not rule out significant harms. Second, we show that, under nonideal conditions, the MFA is either too demanding, if efficiency is to be attained, or not sufficiently demanding, if the goal of Pareto efficiency is abandoned. Finally, we argue that Heath's appeal to regulations and specific moral requirements as a remedy for market failures is unlikely to safeguard efficiency and exposes a number of general worries regarding the moral force of the MFA. We end this article with a constructive suggestion on how to adjust the MFA to avoid these problems while preserving its contractualist and Paretian spirit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we theorize humanness in organizations as a property of practice. We apply practice theory to examine how humanness becomes enacted in a business organization as people prioritize organizational and individual ends in their work activities. Our empirical case study examines the everyday interactions of development team members in an R&D organization of a large Nordic cooperative. Challenging the dominant individualist and structuralist approaches in humanness and human dignity studies, we identify and locate four different aspects of humanness in organizational practices. As a result, we show how the emergence of humanness is an ongoing process that transpires through two mechanisms: site shifting and reconciliation; that is, people shift between different sites of the social, consisting of different sets of practices with underlying disparate assumptions of humanness, which requires reconciliation. These findings provide a basis for an alternative theorizing of humanness in organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stephanie Collins' book, "Organizations as Wrongdoers: From Ontology to Morality," explores the concept of organizations as moral agents and their responsibility for wrongdoing. Collins defines an organization as a collective agent that coordinates labor through rules and hierarchical command relations. She argues that organizations are real and have agency, which makes them blameworthy for their actions. However, there are challenges in attributing blame to organizations, such as the role of individual members and power dynamics within organizations. Collins' theory requires further examination of the epistemic and political inequalities that exist in real organizations to properly attribute blame. [Extracted from the article]