>>Institute News Releases  l  Media Kit

2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
 

>> Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | July | Aug | Sep | Oct l Nov l Dec

April, 2005

 

NIKE LIST IGNITES INTENSE DEBATE ON LABOR ISSUES Footwear News, April 18, 2005 By Lydia Sargent
	Nike has raised the bar again. The athletic giant became the first global footwear company to publicly reveal the names of all its 700 overseas factories last week. Reebok spokesman Dan Sarro said the names and locations of its footwear and college-apparel factories have been on the company's Website for several years. (The company has not released its additional factories.) That could soon change, however, according to experts. Thomas Donaldson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, said factory disclosure will become an even larger issue for apparel and footwear companies now that Nike has opened the door. "The stakes are very high because these are products that are image conscious," he said.
Book asks what amount of success is satisfying South Jersey Business, April 13, 2005 By William Price
	Question: How much is enough? Your answer may tell you that you need to make some changes in your life. This is not a book review, but the central idea is based on a book titled Just Enough, written by Harvard Business School's Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson, and featured in an article in CIO magazine.
Official: Buffett bolstered case A New York insurance official says Berkshire's chairman confirmed some details of a questionable reinsurance case. Insurance questions Omaha World-Herald, April 12, 2005 By Lori Nitschke
	About 40 financial reporters and cameramen converged on Warren Buffett, encircling him and asking what he had known about insurance transactions at General Reinsurance, one of his company's subsidiaries, which is now part of an investigation. Patricia Werhane, a business ethics professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, said not enough details of the situation are public to provide the full picture of Buffett's role. The fact that a Berkshire company is involved in a suspect transaction has brought broader attention to the investigation because of Buffett's international reputation as the world's most astute investor and as an advocate of ethical conduct in business.
Newscast: Investigators to meet with Warren Buffett regarding his previous dealings with AIG Minnesota Public Radio: Marketplace Morning Report, April 11, 2005 By Amy Scott
	AMY SCOTT reporting: Warren Buffett is known not only for his business prowess as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, but also for his ethics. Thomas Donaldson at the University of Pennsylvania says the stakes in today's meeting with regulators are high. Mr. THOMAS DONALDSON (University of Pennsylvania): He told his son, `It takes 20 years to build a solid ethical reputation and only a few minutes to destroy it.'
Newscast: Repapering in the insurance industry Minnesota Public Radio: Marketplace, April 8, 2005  By Amy Scott
	DAVID BROWN, anchor: Repapering, it's not just for fixing the fleur-de-lis pattern in the breakfast nook anymore. On this April 8th, The New York Times reports allegations of repapering in the insurance industry. AMY SCOTT reporting: Investigators have been looking at a suspicious transaction between AIG and the Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Company, General Re. The question is whether General Re employees rewrote the terms to make it look as though AIG made more money than it actually did. If so, that could spell more trouble for Berkshire Hathaway and its chairman, Warren Buffett. The company says Buffett knew nothing about the details or propriety of the transaction. Wharton Professor Thomas Donaldson would be very surprised if he did. Professor THOMAS DONALDSON (Wharton): My sense is betting against Warren Buffett here is a little like betting against Warren Buffett financially. You're probably going to lose.
Medicine or marketing? Long Island Newsday, April 6, 2005  By Kathleen Kerr
	Is it a marketing ploy or a wonder pill designed to stop heart disease dead in its tracks - or a little bit of both? By packaging the torcetrapib and Lipitor in one pill, Pfizer could ensure future use of its blockbuster statin. Pfizer's strategy raises the question of "who's writing the prescription - the drug company or the doctor?" says George Annas, chairman of the health law department at Boston University. "On the surface of it, it looks like they're promoting Lipitor. It looks more like a marketing move than a public health move." Pfizer insists that's not so. The company says torcetrapib must be combined with Lipitor to provide maximum benefit for patients. Thomas Donaldson, a business ethics expert at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, says both arguments have merit. "On the one hand, the obviously wrong practice often made by pharmaceutical companies is to bundle products and earn more money without real customer benefit," Donaldson says. "And on the other hand, the genuine advantage can sometimes come by adding elements to an existing drug."
Business leaders can learn from pope USA TODAY.com, April 5, 2005
	"Be not afraid," was one of Pope John Paul II's favorite sayings, words that should give more leaders the courage and backbone to carry out their mission, says Laura Nash, senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School and co-author of Church on Sunday, Work on Monday. (Also appeared in Yahoo! News and Asbury Park Press.)
Scandal casts a shadow over the sage of Omaha The Sunday Times, April 3, 2005 By Dominic Rushe
	An insurance deal threatens to tarnish investment guru Warren Buffett's reputation, writes Dominic Rushe. Until now, Buffett has sailed above the financial scandals that have sunk a flotilla of other American business heroes. Now he too is in trouble. Last week, Berkshire Hathaway issued a statement denying media accounts that Buffett, its chief executive, had been briefed on the "nature" and "structure" of the controversial $500m deal that has already ended the career of another American titan.  Thomas Donaldson, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who leads a PhD programme in ethics and legal studies, said he was recently at a Berkshire Hathaway seminar. "Their continuing mantra was 'What would Warren do?'" he said. Donaldson finds it almost impossible to believe Buffett has personally done anything wrong. "But this is a lose-lose situation for him," he added.
"THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL" AND HAWTHORNE'S ETHICAL REFUSAL OF RECIPROCITY: A LEVINASIAN PARABLE  Renascence, April 1, 2005 By N.S. Boone
	LET me make this clear from the start: Hawthorne does not prefigure Levinas, nor was Levinas significantly influenced by Hawthorne. I make no explicit links between the two writers. This essay is merely a parable in the Greek sense of parablos - to place side-by-side. At least a few critics have written about the breakup of symmetrical relations, or about resistance to reciprocity as a defining element of Levinas's thought, but these critics do not explore the possible limitations such a view of reciprocity places on communication and community. Patricia Werhane describes Levinas's skeptical view of reciprocity well when she says, "Levinas is critical of the notion of reciprocity because it implies that humans are interchangeable, that one may substitute one person for another, trade off rights for goods, justifying exploitation or worse"
Book Review Essay: Taking Stock of Stakeholder Management Academy of Management Review, April 1, 2005 By James P. Walsh
	The following books are comparatively reviewed: 1. Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, by R. Edward Freeman, 2. Redefining the Corporation: Stakeholder Management and Organizational Wealth, by James E Post, Lee E Preston, and Sybille Sachs, and 3. Stakeholder Theory and Organizational Ethics, by Robert Phillips.

 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
 
>> Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | July | Aug | Sep | Oct l Nov l Dec