Business Judgments Research Articles

Criminal Responsibility Of Suspects And Victims Of Corruption In The Private Bribery Sector In Indonesia

Suspects and Victims of the Arbitrariness of Authorities in the Criminal Justice System Examining whether the Criminal Enforcement Process in the case of Corruption Crimes has been carried out correctly both in the order of Making Legal Norms and in terms of Law Enforcement. Correct and fair resolution of criminal cases is not only seen from the results of the verdict handed down by the judge. Rather, it is seen from the victim who is asked to be held accountable based on the principle of business judgments and is made a suspect for the business decisions he takes in the criminal justice system.. To realize the objectives of criminal justice within the framework of the criminal justice system, the criminal justice model that is guided is actually based on the due process of law. Whether the criminal justice is enforced from the start in accordance with the provisions of procedural law (due process of law) or not (undue process), if it has been implemented in accordance with the provisions of procedural law then the justice has implemented and upheld the ideology envisioned by the rule of law (Rechtstaat). and a democratic society. In order to uphold an honest criminal justice system from start to finish as a form of ideological commitment and justice for people who are dealing with criminal trials, whether suspects, witnesses or victims, this is the main or absolute goal. The aim of this research is to determine the responsibility of a suspect and victim as a manifestation of law enforcement ideology. The method used in writing this research is normative juridical using statutory and conceptual approaches.

Big Data Analysis for Supply Chain Management: Evidence from JD E-commerce, NongFu Spring, Tesla

Contemporarily, companies in this data era confront great opportunities and difficulties, and data is used as a measurement tool for value. Driven by the data era, this study briefly introduces big data analytics and supply chain management, and integrate several managements used for big data. This paper analyzes the implementation of three examples (i.e., JD e-commerce, NongFu Spring, Tesla), examine the principles involved, and explore the challenges and prospects of analytics. This paper focuses on the factors that influence big data work for supply chain and summarizes various aspects of big data analytics in supply chain management. According to the analysis, businesses that successfully apply big data and convert its value into productivity will have a significant competitive advantage and take the lead in their sector. The ability to use big data is a key driver for companies to use analytics to make supply chain decisions. In addition, companies can make business judgments through forecasting to achieve reform in the supply chain to obtain speed and thus get a profitable advantaged. These results shed light on guiding further exploration of the applicability of big data technology on the supply side.

Amazon's Artificial Intelligence in Retail Novelty - Case Study

Purpose: The provision of a method for thoughtful decision-making is the core purpose of artificial intelligence research and development. The primary goal of artificial intelligence (AI) is to give computers the ability to do intellectual tasks such as making decisions, solving problems, seeing their surroundings, and understanding human communication. Amazon is famous for using robots—roughly 30,000 of them—within its distribution centres. The company has gained mechanical autonomous organisation, which allows the robots to function independently. Kiva in 2012. Retailers can improve their demand estimates, make better pricing decisions, and optimise product placement with the aid of AI. The end result is that customers are connected with the proper products at the suitable time, in the appropriate place, and at the appropriate price. Utilizing predictive analytics may assist in determining the amount of a product that should be ordered to ensure that shops do not end up with either an excess or a shortage of inventory. Design/Methodology/Approach: The efficiency of our workplaces may be substantially improved by the use of artificial intelligence. When AI is utilised to do tasks that are boring or dangerous, human workers are given more time to concentrate on endeavours that need capabilities such as creativity and empathy, amongst other abilities. Artificial intelligence (AI) may be of assistance to a corporation in three different areas: the automation of corporate processes; the acquisition of insight through data analysis; and the interaction with consumers and staff. Findings/Result: As a result of AI, individuals will be freed up to focus on the 20% of non-routine jobs that account for 80% of the value they create. In the future, "intelligent automation of process change" (IAPC) will be used by smart machines to constantly examine and improve the whole process of a business's response to artificial intelligence. Automated and optimised everyday chores save your time and money and improves operational efficiency and productivity. The outputs of cognitive technology may help you make quicker business judgments and benefits the AI in the Workplace. Doing the same thing over and over again might take a toll on your workers' productivity. Automating and optimising these procedures will save you money. Employees will be able to concentrate on multiple areas at once, resulting in increased production. As AI processes data more quickly than humans, this leads to increased productivity. Originality/Value: It is essential to have a deeper comprehension of the differences between AI and human intelligence if we are to be adequately prepared for a society in which AI will play a much more pervasive role in our everyday lives in the foreseeable future. The process of reproduction is intricately connected to both biological and human intelligence. The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is significant for the reason that it paves the way for software to perform human activities and cost-effective than it was previously possible. Paper Type: Company Analysis.

A study on audit report timeliness: The Macedonian Stock Exchange

Abstract Financial statements reflect important information about the entity's financial position, operating performance, and cash flows and must be made available in a timely fashion to all interested factions to stimulate opportune business judgments. Ergo, this paper examines the association of the audited annual report delay with eight entity and audit firm attributes. The sample includes 396 observations of 99 nonfinancial firms listed on the Macedonian Stock Exchange (MSE) for the period 2014–2017. The regression results designate a statistically significant relationship between the audit opinion, company liquidity, size, and industry with the audit opinion lag. Moreover, the publication period ranges from 43 days to 374 days suggesting that timeliness may be a significant concern for Macedonian entities regarding financial reporting policy. This is the first study to thoroughly assess the relationship between entity, auditor characteristics, and audit report timeliness on the developing Macedonian market.

What NCAA v. Alston Means for Professional Sports Leagues

The Supreme Court in Alston held that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its member conferences violated the antitrust laws by collectively restricting, in the name of amateurism, the education-related benefits offered to college athletes. While the Court accepted that NCAA amateurism serves consumers by offering a brand of athletic contests distinct from professional sports, it found the NCAA’s fluctuating and incoherent definition of amateurism insufficient to justify the breadth of its student-athlete compensation rules. As a result, student athletes will now have access to, for example, graduate or vocational school tuition, payments for academic tutoring, paid post-eligibility internships, and similar education-related benefits, as long as these benefits are not tantamount to a professional athlete’s salary. Despite this defeat for the NCAA joint venture, the Court recognized the value of joint ventures generally, and clarified the framework for evaluating their competitive impact. Specifically referring to sports leagues, the unanimous Alston Court warned the lower courts against reflexively condemning joint venture arrangements that are necessary to create a product and advised deference to the business judgments of venture participants. Mining that vein of thought, this essay identifies three significant take-aways for professional sports leagues from the Alston decision: (1) “quick look” review is generally not appropriate to summarily disapprove sports league coordinated conduct under the antitrust laws; (2) “rule of reason” antitrust analysis does not require sports leagues to structure their business in the “least restrictive” way; and (3) to the extent a professional sports league is more analogous to an individual college athletic conference, as opposed to the entire NCAA, member clubs may have more latitude to coordinate their conduct without violating the antitrust laws.

Shareholder Primacy and the Moral Obligation of Directors

The fiduciary obligations of corporate directors is one of the most written about and important topics in corporate law. Increasingly, critics of American capitalism have urged that corporations, and implicitly corporate directors, act in a more socially responsible fashion and thus eschew the notion of shareholder primacy is the exclusive guide to a director’s fiduciary duty. On this view, directors must consider the effect of their actions on “stakeholders” other than shareholders and be guided by morality – do the right thing – when making business judgments. When directors move away from shareholder primacy, however, decision-making becomes more difficult and problematic. This article analyzes the arguments that underpin a rejection of shareholder primacy, alternatives to shareholder primacy, and the utility of morality as a guide for directors making business judgments.

Business judgment and director accountability: a study of case-law over time

ABSTRACT It is often assumed that judges are reluctant to review directors’ business judgments, which contributes to a lack of director accountability, particularly in large companies. This claim has never been systematically interrogated. This paper therefore analyses English and Welsh cases to ascertain whether judges do review and impose liability for directors’ judgments, whether this has altered from the mid-nineteenth century until the present, or varies by cause of action, and what types of company or claimant are involved. It finds that challenges to business judgment have been successful over the whole time period, with a marked increase in legal liability since 2007. This cannot be linked to changes in substantive law, but probably a greater willingness by claimants in insolvent companies to mount challenges to business judgment. Nevertheless liability levels remain low, and largely confined to private companies.

U.S. Supreme Court Amicus Brief of Professor D. Theodore Rave in Support of Appellees, Rucho v. Common Cause, No. 18-422

In Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109 (1986), this Court held that political gerrymandering claims are justiciable. A majority of this Court reaffirmed that holding in Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267 (2004). But in Vieth, several members of this Court raised legitimate concerns about whether the federal courts are well suited to police such an inherently political process as redistricting. Reaffirming the justiciability of political gerrymandering claims and affirming the district court in this case will not inevitably involve the federal courts in supervising every redistricting decision. The purpose of this amicus brief is to explain how the Court can create incentives for states to adopt independent redistricting processes to which the federal courts can safely defer. As this Court, the Framers, and foundational political theory have recognized, elected officials, such as Members of Congress and state legislators, are fiduciaries who have a duty to loyally serve the interests of the people they represent, not their own interests. This commitment to fiduciary government is embedded deep in the constitutional structure. But the process of redistricting is rife with conflicts of interest where incumbent legislators can manipulate the process to entrench themselves and their political allies — a breach of their fiduciary obligation. Courts are no better at reviewing business judgments than political ones. But when faced with the analogous problem of self-dealing directors in corporate law, courts do not just throw up their hands and declare the whole matter nonjusticiable. Instead, corporate law creates a two-track system of judicial review. Decisions made by conflicted fiduciaries are subjected to exacting scrutiny, but corporate law creates a safe harbor for decisions made or ratified through independent processes. When conflicted directors run their decisions through an independent process, the taint of self-dealing is cleansed, and reviewing courts can safely defer to the substantive outcome so long as they ensure that the process was independent. Finding an unconstitutional political gerrymander in this case will not plunge the federal courts ever deeper into the political thicket if this Court creates a safe harbor for redistricting decisions made through independent processes. State legislatures are insufficiently independent from their co-partisans in Congress. But the threat of litigation and skeptical judicial review of districts drawn by conflicted state legislatures will create a powerful incentive for those legislatures to adopt independent processes — like the citizens redistricting commissions in Arizona and California — to engage in the complex and delicate task of redistricting without the temptation to manipulate district lines for partisan entrenchment. Courts can safely defer to the substantive redistricting decisions of these institutions and confine their review to ensuring that the process was fair and independent — a task for which courts are well suited. If, however, the Court decides to overrule Bandemer and Vieth, the Court should limit its holding to congressional gerrymandering and not reach the justiciability of political gerrymandering claims involving state legislative districts. Neither this case nor Lamone v. Benisek, No. 18-726, involves state districts, and the contexts are sufficiently different that the Court should not reach the question here.

Reasons of Application of the Business Judgment Rule

[full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English]
 The reasons which led to the formation of the business judgment rule and its implementation are discussed in the present article. The courts usually have the competence to rule on the legality of the defendant’s actions and (or) their civil liability. Courts’ competence is being limited when the legality of the business decisions is analyzed and (or) the case of civil liability of the board members‘ or chief executive officer‘s of the private legal entities is decided. Due to the application of the business judgment rule the courts should abstain from evaluating the legality of the business judgments of the private legal entities, if they turned to be unprofitable or profitable not enough where such decisions were made by complying with the duties applied to the board members or chief executive officers. Motives, which justifies special civil liability regime of the directors are analyzed in the article.
 Summary
 Although the courts usually have the competence to rule on the legality of the defendant’s actions and (or) their civil liability, Courts’ competence is being limited when the legality of the business decisions is analyzed and (or) the case of civil liability of the board members‘ or chief executive officer‘s of the private legal entities is decided due to the appli- cation of the business judgment rule. As the business judgment rule has been identified by the case law of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, in this article author analyzes the reasons which led to the formation of the business judgment rule and its implementation in the jurisdiction of its origin – United States of America. Conclussions demonstrate that business judgment rule was implemented in the US case law with the purpose to guarantee and declare clearly that the ultimate decision maker within the private legal entity are board members or chief executive officers and not the courts. Business judgment rule works as a guarantee for the executives that they will not be held liable or criticized for the well-informed and fair decisions they make in the course of the company’s management. It encourages board members and chief exec- utive officers to take the risk needed for the development of company.

Business Judgment and Director Accountability: A Study of Case-Law Over Time

It is often assumed that judges are reluctant to review directors’ business judgments, which contributes to a lack of director accountability, particularly in large companies. Yet this claim has never been systematically interrogated. To address this, this paper analyses English and Welsh cases to ascertain the extent to which judges review and impose liability for directors’ judgments, whether this has altered from the mid-nineteenth century until the present, or varies by cause of action, and what types of company or claimant are involved. It finds that challenges to business judgment have been successful over the whole time period, with a marked increase in legal liability since 2007. This cannot be linked to changes in substantive law, but probably a greater willingness by claimants in insolvent companies to mount challenges to business judgment and by judges to impose liability. Nevertheless liability levels remain low, and largely confined to private companies.

The concept of business judgment

AbstractCategorising something as a business judgment can provide directors with a powerful shield from accountability. It has been said that the courts in England and Wales defer to directors’ business judgments and directors’ decisions are protected from review in other jurisdictions by a business judgment rule. Yet what a business judgment is has never been addressed, and so precisely what is being protected, and why, is unclear. This paper analyses case law in England and Wales and key Australian and US cases to answer this question. It argues that the courts use the term judgment in two senses: an ability, and a decision sense, and that business judgment in both senses can be linked to Knight's concept of entrepreneurial judgment, and directors’ wealth creation function. Conversely, decisions that are linked to directors’ corporate governance function and are less easy to categorise as entrepreneurial are less likely to be viewed as business judgments.

U.S. Supreme Court Amicus Brief of Professor D. Theodore Rave in Support of Appellees, Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161

As this Court, the Framers, and foundational political theory have recognized, elected officials, such as legislators, are fiduciaries who have a duty to loyally serve the interests of the people they represent, not their own interests. This commitment to fiduciary government is embedded deep in the constitutional structure. When fiduciaries act in the face of a conflict of interest—like by drawing the electoral districts in which they will run for reelection—they bear the burden of showing that their actions are fair and in the best interest of those they represent. Appellants did not meet that burden here. As the district court found, Appellants acted with the intent to entrench themselves, benefit their political allies, and frustrate potential challengers when they drew electoral districts for the Wisconsin legislature. And the maps they drew had that effect. As Appellees and their amici have shown, the Wisconsin legislature acted unconstitutionally in gerrymandering its own districts. In Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267 (2004), several members of this Court raised legitimate concerns about whether the federal courts are well suited to police such an inherently political process. But reaffirming the justiciability of political gerrymandering claims and affirming the district court in this case will not inevitably involve the federal courts in supervising every redistricting decision. The purpose of this brief is to explain how the Court can create incentives for state legislatures to adopt independent redistricting processes to which the federal courts can safely defer. Courts are no better at reviewing business judgments than political ones. But when faced with the analogous problem of self-dealing directors in corporate law, courts do not just throw up their hands and declare the whole matter nonjusticiable. Instead, corporate law creates a two-track system of judicial review. Decisions made by conflicted fiduciaries are subjected to exacting scrutiny, but corporate law creates a safe harbor for decisions made or ratified through independent processes. When conflicted directors run their decisions through an independent process, the taint of self-dealing is cleansed, and reviewing courts can safely defer to the substantive outcome so long as they ensure that the process was independent. Finding an unconstitutional political gerrymander in this case will not plunge the federal courts into the political thicket if this Court creates a safe harbor for redistricting decisions made through independent processes, like the independent redistricting commissions in Arizona and California. Instead, the threat of litigation and skeptical judicial review of districts drawn by conflicted state legislatures will create a powerful incentive for those legislatures to adopt independent processes to engage in the complex and delicate task of redistricting without the overwhelming temptation to manipulate district lines to their own advantage. Courts can safely defer to the substantive redistricting decisions of these institutions and confine their review to ensuring that the process was fair and independent—a task for which courts are well suited.

Neuropsychologist Experts and Civil Capacity Evaluations: Representative Cases.

Clinical neuropsychologists accept more forensic referrals now and spend more time in forensic consulting than ever before. Recent surveys show weekly hours devoted to forensic consulting increased 97% in the past decade. During the same time period, the number of board certified neuropsychologists more than doubled. Under recently published Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology, clinical neuropsychologists practice forensic psychology when applying scientific, technical, or specialized knowledge of neuropsychology to the law to assist in addressing legal, contractual, or administrative matters. Among those increasingly varied forensic referrals, clinical neuropsychologists are conducting more civil competency and capacity evaluations. Representative cases from three jurisdictions demonstrate how neuropsychologists provide expertize in matters involving testamentary capacity, contractual capacity, business judgments, and job capacity. Case presentations illustrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of neuropsychological evaluation of civil capacities. The article concludes with a "battle of experts" case involving five neuropsychologists with opposing opinions recently heard in a Federal Appellate court. Implications for neuropschology training and forensic competencies are considered. In offering quality services to the legal profession, neuropsychologists support the truth-seeking function of the judiciary, promote justice, protect the profession, and serve public policy.

The Impairment of Long-Lived Assets and Reversing Revaluation Review under US GAAP VS. IFRS Models in the United States

The impairment valuation of assets plays a central role in the accounting and operating decisions of the multinational companies. Although these techniques based on a similar theory, they may generate different results in application. This study incorporates an empirical approach to compare the outcomes of the two valuations: under US GAAP and IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards). The aim of this study it to make the observation whether these valuation methods result in different values and to contribute to the understanding of why these two valuations, although similar in theory, may generate different results when applied to real life companies. In addition, this study will respond to readers this article, what kind of the management decision should make CEO before the first-time adoption IFRS in the U.S.A from management accounting perspective. This article will help the audience develop and internalize a model for making business judgments.

Witnessing Your Own Cognitive Bias: A Compendium of Classroom Exercises

ABSTRACTAccounting and auditing professors continually stress the importance of effective judgment and decision making (JDM), yet few accounting programs or textbooks discuss the biases that may impact an individual's ability to exercise high-quality professional judgment. In recent years, KPMG (Ranzilla, Chevalier, Herrmann, Glover, and Prawitt 2011) and the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (KPMG, Glover, and Prawitt 2012) addressed this gap at the corporate level by publishing guidance for accounting professionals and board members on how to identify and mitigate common judgment biases, yet there remain few resources designed for accounting students. This collection of exercises enables instructors to introduce the topic of effective JDM in the classroom. It provides students with the opportunity to identify bias in their own judgments by highlighting five frequently occurring biases that adversely impact business judgments (i.e., availability, anchoring, overconfidence, confirmation, and rush to solve). This compendium gathers exercises from psychology literature that may be used to pique student interest and encourage discussion of how each bias impacts judgments made by accounting professionals and how individuals may reduce their impact.

Using Social Identity Theory to Predict Managers’ Emphases on Ethical and Legal Values in Judging Business Issues

The need to fill three gaps in ethics research in a business context sparked the current study. First, the distinction between the concepts of “ethical” and “legal” needs to be incorporated into theory building and empiricism. Second, a unifying theory is needed that can explain the variables that influence managers to emphasize ethics and legality in their judgments. Third, empirical evidence is needed to confirm the predictive power of the unifying theory, the discernable influence of personal and organizational variables, and the importance of the issue to the managers in determining their emphasis on the ethical and legal values of their judgments. Focused on these needs, the current research combines social identity theory with empirical findings from business ethics research. This theory building initiative framed hypothesis-driven research to investigate the influences on managers’ emphasis on ethical and legal values in making business judgments. An empirical research study was conducted involving 252 practicing managers who judged 12 newsworthy business events. Data was collected on the managers’ individual factors, on the groups that influence their judgments, and on the importance that the managers place on ethics and legality in judging the 12 scenarios. The research findings contribute to theory development (1) By successfully utilizing a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories to understand managers’ judgments, and (2) By providing evidence on the relationships between the perceived importance of an issue and the emphases managers place on ethical and legal values in their judgments. The analysis of the data was extended to provide insights on the needs of employers to tailor management training on legal and ethical decision-making. The participating managers were clustered according to their emphases on Ethical Importance and Legal Importance in judging business situations. Analysis of Variance was then combined with Scheffe Multiple Comparison Tests to assess whether the factors derived from a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories were significantly different across the clusters. The product of this analysis is unique sets of attributes that describe each cluster of managers, and provide an empirical basis for determining training priorities. Finally, the carefully constructed and thoroughly tested 12 research scenarios that form the core of the survey instrument enable their redeployment in subsequent research and their use by practicing executives who wish to compare data provided by their managers to results from the study participants.

Slaying the Starving Artist Paradigm and Teaching Professionalism in the Entertainment Business: The Entertainment Law and Professionalism Clinic

IntroductionThis article describes the Entertainment Law and Professionalism (hereafter Clinic or Clinic1), an initiative designed to expose students to the practice of professionalism while serving their entertainment industry legal needs. The moves instruction outside the boundaries of the classroom by requiring students to exercise self-directed judgments about the use of business advisors. The first part of the article discusses general notions of professionalism and proposes a definition that may be applicable to training a corps of entertainment business professionals through a service project approach. Part two describes how the ELP Clinic, currently in use at Belmont University, was developed from my observations and student interactions as a teaching practitioner of law to: (a) serve student business and legal needs by providing cost-free legal advice; (b) teach students how, when, and whether to seek advisors and use the members of an advisory team; and, (c) teach and promote professionalism in the entertainment industry outside the classroom. An exhaustive study of professionalism is outside the scope of this article; rather, my objective is to examine the contours of professionalism within the framework of the Clinic, and to summarize insights from its implementation and underlying principles.Defining ProfessionalismPlying one's trade in the arts can be both rewarding and unsympathetic, invoking images of starving artists and ruthless jungles, language coined to depict an exploitative industry that preys upon the martyrdom associated with artists whose preoccupation with producing art appears to supersede business judgment. The starving artist paradigm finds it roots in the realm of the visual arts, which has yielded some of our most inspiring cultural contributions, yet many of the artists who gave us these treasures often died in ignominy, recognized posthumously as cultural icons whose achievements often failed to reflect financial success during their lives. For example, Van Gogh, the preeminent Dutch master, relied heavily on his family for ongoing support during his lifetime, though his Sunflowers painting sold for $39 million in 1987, and others have fetched similar sums.2 Though the types of transactions that drive the entertainment industry distinguish it from the fine arts, the entertainment business likewise boasts accounts of artists and composers mired in archetypal penury.However, it is an archetype that entertainment and music business programs are poised to deem as little more than a caricature of the unwary, or germane to this discussion, the unprofessional. There are stories we celebrate, in which the scales are tipped to reverse the usual leverage scenarios that would otherwise beget inequities. In the area of copyright ownership of audio recordings, Ray Charles' business judgments resulted in calculated label affiliations and unprecedented (at the time) ownership of his masters as an example of what can properly be characterized as professionalism.While I do not purport to suggest that dying penniless is the hallmark of a lack of professionalism, or that financial solvency is the penultimate measure of success,3 deriving a livelihood from performing a set of activities is fundamental to delineating the minimal parameters of behavior. Indeed, I would argue that endeavoring to produce more Ray Charles-like conduct (in terms of business acumen) is a legitimate driver in designing the entertainment business curriculum, i.e., to train a cadre of professionals. Webster's dictionary defines professional as participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often in by amateurs; and, engaged in by persons receiving a financial return.4 This definition comports with entertainment business course offerings that develop core knowledge in accounting, finance, economics, marketing, artist management, intellectual property, contract law, and related courses-all fields that engage monetary outcomes founded on theories for developing not mere economic viability, but profitability as well. …

Business School Research: Some Preliminary Suggestions

Recent critiques of business schools have led to the formulation of three interconnected problems: the problem of research; the problem of the use of knowledge; and, the normative problem. At the heart of the issue is what we have called the separation thesis or the separation fallacy, most powerfully seen as the exclusion of ethics from business judgments, but generalizable to a duality between the worlds of management and humanity. If we give up this fallacy, we can gain a different and more pluralist view of the role of research in business school, and as the nature of meaningful research. We lay out five main modes of research, and suggest how each can escape the separation fallacy. We then show how the problem of the use of knowledge can be ameliorated by giving up the separation fallacy. Finally, we suggest how we can re-define and re-discover the disciplines of business by thinking about more thick moral conceptions.

A Note on Five Traditional Theories of Moral Reasoning

Business decisions, by their nature, involve ethical considerations because (1) most economic decisions are choices where the decision-maker could have done otherwise, (2) every decision or action affects people, and (3) every decision or set of decisions is embedded in a belief system that presupposes some basic values or their abrogation. The task of justifying moral beliefs and integrating them into business situations and the process of applying ethical standards to everyday decision-making are incomplete and can be exasperating. But the business manager has recourse to the long tradition of ethical study. This note outlines some of the basic terms used in the study of ethics and describes the task of business ethics. Most important, the text describes five theories of moral reasoningutilitarianism, rule-based morality, a rights approach, a contemporary Aristotelian approach to virtuous character, and social justice. They lay out minimum standards for an acceptable moral decision that can serve as criteria for moral business judgments.

Patents and Standards in the ICT Sector

This article examines the role of law reform in promoting the development of technical standards for the authentication of parties engaged in Internet commerce. Law reforms intended to improve the security of Internet commerce can only succeed if they address business, technical and legal issues simultaneously. The EU has used commercial law reform and formal standard development to coordinate work on authentication standards, while the U.S. has allowed the market to determine what type of authentication technology is appropriate and has left the development of standards to private consortia. While the EU approach may solve collective action problems more effectively, the U.S. approach may discover end user requirements and may allow business judgments about risk to inform the law more effectively. Neither approach has yet resolved the authentication problems facing businesses engaged in online commerce.