There is significant discussion on ethics throughout the course, even though the syllabus reflects only one week.
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Beyond Grey Pinstripes
Arizona State University (W.P. Carey)
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Arizona State University (W.P. Carey)
P O Box 873406
Tempe, AZ, 85287-3406
United States
Tempe, AZ, 85287-3406
United States
Demographic Information
Number of full-time MBA students (2011):
88
Number of part-time MBA students (2011):
291
Total duration of full-time MBA program:
21 months
MBA faculty (Fall 2010):
298
Females as percent of student body:
23%
Private Sector (95%)
Non-profit (1%)
Government (4%)
Description of MBA Program:
The mission of the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University is to change lives through knowledge creation and business education. To this end, an integral part of our curriculum examines the interface between business and the social environment in which it operates. In fact, for years, courses centering on the social and political environment, as well as on ethics, have been part of the MBA curriculum as standalone courses. Over the last three years, however, these topics are not only addressed in separate courses, but have been integrated across the MBA curriculum. Courses in supply chain management, marketing, management, and economics, for example, all center attention on the social, ethical and environmental issues that affect business. In addition, beginning this year, students can receive an area of emphasis in sustainability, by enrolling in a set of MBA elective courses that include Sustainability and Social Responsibility, Renewal Energy, Business Value of Sustainability, and Sustainable Supply Networks. Furthermore, MBA students can also enroll in coursework in the ASU School of Sustainability's Master of Science in sustainability degree program.
In addition to social and environmental issues woven into classroom discussions, MBA students are provided extra-curricular opportunities that further add to their skills set to be better prepared to manage the social and environmental issues they will encounter as managers in today’s global business environment. These activities include participation in seminars, workshops, and speaker events sponsored by the ASU School of Sustainability, ASU Global Institute of Sustainability, and the W. P. Carey MBA - Sustainability Club (Net Impact), in particular. The MBA Volunteer Council is embedded in the local community through the various charity events in which they participate and coordinate, such as volunteering at the local Ronald McDonald House and Junior Achievement. The MBA Entrepreneurship Club in conjunction with AZ Technology Venture, offer opportunities to MBA students to participate in activities and research related to creating new business ideas with the environment in mind.
A Thought Leadership Speaker Series connects faculty and students outside the classroom for a discussion on major issues affecting the economy and businesses. Recent topics include current economic crisis - nationally and globally, implications of the oil spill in the Gulf, health care policy, leadership and diversity.
Finally, MBA students are involved with the university’s recycling initiative through participation in the recycling of paper, water bottles, and newspapers/magazines in their classrooms and Ford Graduate Student Suite. Our MBA students were instrumental in the revitalization and re-launch of the university-wide recycling initiative.
How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?:
Arizona State University takes an integrated approach to campus sustainability, impacting both how the campus operates and how students act. Some examples include:
Energy: Campus Metabolism(tm) provides an interactive web tool that enables users to examine real-time energy and water use on campus - by individual building, building type, or the entire campus.
Renewable Energy: ASU is committed to expanding solar installations across all four campuses to a total of 10 MW by the end of 2010, and 20 MW by 2020.
Recycling: Recycling efforts across ASU's four campuses have two main goals -- to increase recycling participation and to reduce contamination that can relegate an entire bin of recyclables to the landfill. With a community of more than 80,000, proper recycling can have a major impact on reducing our solid waste.
Buildings: ASU has 38 LEED-certified buildings (http://cfo.asu.edu/fdm-recently-completed-construction).
Transportation: The ASU U-Pass provides unlimited access to all four campuses and greater Phoenix on Valley Metro bus routes and the METRO light rail. U-Pass is available to students, faculty, and staff for a discounted rate.
Food Services: CSA partner Crooked Sky Farms provides fresh, local, organic produce to community members at ASU's Polytechnic and West campuses. Students, staff, faculty, and others purchase shares of high-quality, local produce, providing financial security to a local farm.
Water: ASU has reduced water consumption in many buildings around campus through the installation of low-flow water fixtures such as sinks, showers, toilets, and in some buildings, waterless urinals. On average, these efficient appliances use approximately 30 percent less water than their conventional counterparts.
Operations: Across the university, 95% of cleaning products are green certified, and in dining facilities, all cleaning products are certified by Ecolab's green seal.
Purchasing: ASU's comprehensive Green Purchasing Policy covers energy, water, toxins and pollutants, bio-based products, forest conservation, recycling, packaging, green building, and landscaping.
Course Name: Bargaining and Negotiations
Instructor: Kevin Corley
Significant discussion throughout this course on ethics in negotiating and bargaining.
Course Name: Creativity and Thinking
Instructor: Laurel Anderson
Idea generation, creating opportunities, in a socially responsible and corporate resonsibly manner.
Instructor: Paul Steinbart
Several of the cases and readings in this class address issues of ethics, social responsibility, etc. For example: Zero Tolerance - proper way to dismiss employees who violate security policies. Hackers Blackmail - should an executive pay hackers "ransom" to get back the system? Google and Internet privacy - ethical issues about privacy. iPremier - what should a company disclose about a security incident. In addition, some of the readings explicitly deal with ethical issues, such as the Culnan & Williams article (class 9).
Course Name: Entrepreneurial Management
Instructor: Gary Naumann
Social entrepreneurship case included is KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) that shows the evolution of the KIPP program developed by two young and enthusiastic Teach for America graduates and why it has become a great success story of changing the game for k-12 education. This is included in this course because it is a shining example of how many o the concepts and principles we discuss in 'for profit' ventures are critical for NPO's along with all of the difficult bureaucratic and political issues.
Course Name: Financial Accounting
Instructor: Artur Hugon
Analysis, interpretation, and reporting of a company's financial data involces discussion of ethics in interpretation and reporting and corporate responsibility in conducting a thorough analysis of data.
Course Name: Fundamental Analysis
Instructor: George Gallinger
The underlying theme of the course is "quality of earnings". Many topics covered in the course touch on management's propensity to "play games" to hype earnings. The issue is whether it is ethical behavior to do so or not. It is stressed with the students that it is necessary to "read between the lines" to understand what is being said by management.
Course Name: Health Care Supply Chain Management
Instructor: Eugene Schneller
In this class we discuss the extent to which health care organizations are among the major contributors to waste within their communities and the strategies employed, across the supply chain, to build sustainable environments through innovation in procurement. Primary examples include pointing out organizations that are committed to "buying green" -- and having someone from Catholic Healthcare West visit class to discuss this as part of their corporate strategy as well as discussing the trend to reprocessing "single use items" through compliance with the FDA rules. Also look at how innovations can reduce waste - such as "wipes" that can be used on patients as well as surfaces.
Course Name: Healthcare Finance
Instructor: William Katz
In this class we discuss the ethics of alternative decisions, where applicable, when discussing possible solutions to the financial cases and part of one class session to discussing the application of federal health care fraud and abuse laws and we discuss the application of specific rules of ethical practice when we cover topics in provider (physicians, hospitals, etc.) charges and billing and when we discuss the practices of health insurers.
Course Name: Integrated Supply Chain Management
Instructor: Joseph Carter
Relevant topics: environmental supply chains class session - HBS: McDonald's; and group topic presentation on environemtnal sustainability.
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Date: November, 2010
Matt Connely and Jennifer Berry from Earth 911 facilitated a discussion with MBA students on recyclying and thinking through the overall potential impact of product on the manufacturing side.
Type: Business Plan Competition
Date: January, 2011
Our student chapter of Net Impact, in conjunction with the ASU Global Insitute of Sustainability, hosted the internal ASU competition in January the Walmart Sustainable business plan competition event to select a representative to compete in the 2009 Walmart Better Living Business Plan Challenge. The regional competition will be held in March; with the final competition event at Walmart Home Offices in Arkansas. This business plan competition encourages entrepreneurial expression and growth - sustainable product, business or service. The focus of business today must take into account not only the profit potential of a business venture or new product, but also the effect on environment and on people
Date: February, 2011
Coming up in the spring semester, a representative from Dixon Golf will speak with MBA students about starting a sustainable business. Dixon Golf is a company dealing in sustainable golf balls and will discuss the market, the opportunities, environmental impact, market impact, etc. and their experience in starting a sustainable busines.
Date: March, 2011
How to appropriately communicate sustainability. An alumnus of the MBA program who is now the sustainability communications officer at the local Intel facility will speak to MBA students about communicating sustainability appropriately.
Type: Faculty chat with students
Date: December, 2010
Professor Kevin Dooley, W. P. Carey School of Business, Supply Chain Management Department, and co-director of the Sustainability Consortium, which is an effort started by Walmart to develop sustainability index for all consumer goods, spoke with MBA students about jobs and careers in sustainability.
Type: Outreach Experience
Date: March, 2011
Unisource is working on developing sustainable packaging. An outreach experience is planned for spring for students to meet Travis Carter, Unisource Chief Sustainability Officer, tour the facility, and discuss and learn about this sustainable effort.
Career development activities are incorporated through the MBA Career Management Center. The MBA Career Management Center hosts professional panels, information sessions, on-campus recruiting events from the areas of sustainability, ethics, and social impact. In addition, Professor Angelo Kinicki conducts a value-add workshop for students that discusses the social impact of leadership. Professor Marianne Jennings conducts a value-add workshop for students on ethical leadership. The "Thought Leadership Series" invites guest speakers from the community to lead workshops that address issues of social impact, environmental management and ethical leadership. One of our full-time MBA graduates targeted a job in sustainability with a major company and has accepted the offer, which will allow him to dedicate his energies to sustainability.
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 2
Contact Name: Gary Naumann
Contact Email: gary.naumann@asu.edu
Our core values are thought leadership, real world application, technology, global perspectives, community, and ethics.
We apply those values every day. We bring together students and businesses to accelerate entrepreneurship within the communities we serve.
- For students, we create real-world experience that complements their comprehensive education at one of the top business schools in the nation.
- For businesses, we foster and strengthen entrepreneurship.
- For communities, we join them as advocates and partners as we work to make the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan region a leader.
In all we do, we celebrate the ethics, energy, and excellence in entrepreneurship. We showcase the best in Arizona business each year at the prestigious Spirit of Enterprise Awards.
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 3
Contact Name: Tom Rex
Contact Email: tom.rex@asu.edu
Enhancing productivity is the primary means of attaining economic prosperity. Productive individuals and businesses are the most competitive and prosperous. Competitive regions attract and retain these productive workers and businesses, resulting in strong economic growth and high standards of living. An overarching objective of P3's work is to examine competitiveness from the perspective of an individual, a business, a region, and a country.
The Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research is a research unit of the L. William Seidman Research Institute in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. The center administers the Productivity and Prosperity Project: An Analysis of Economic Competitiveness (P3), and the Office of the University Economist.
Specializing in applied economic and demographic research with a geographic emphasis on Arizona and the metropolitan Phoenix area, the center also conducts research projects under sponsorship of private businesses, nonprofit organizations, government entities, and other ASU units.
Formerly known as the Center for Business Research, the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research, along with the Economic Outlook Center, was created in 1986 from the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, which dates back to the 1950s.
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 2
Contact Name: Thomas Choi
Contact Email: thomas.choi@asu.edu
The mission of the Center for Supply Networks is to advance the science of supply networks and sustainability management. Our goal is to become the pre-eminent research institution in the discipline of supply chain management through a focus on studying supply networks and sustainability as complex adaptive systems. Components and theoretcial foundations central to the center's mission are: conducting supply network research; leading cutting-edge research in sustainable supply chains; taking the field beyond dyadic buyer-supplier relationships to triadic relationships and other network archetypes; and adopting complex adaptive systems theory as an overarching theoretical perspective.
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 4
Contact Name: Julie Smith David
Contact Email: julie.smithdavid@asuedu
The Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology (CABIT) is a research center housed in the W. P. Carey School of Business. Its mission is to foster collaboration between industry and academics to help identify, implement, and evaluate technology innovations that can optimize firm performance.
CABIT meets this objective through a wide range of activities. It sponsors events which attract industry-wide experts to the Phoenix Valley to explore a wide range of issues from collaboration and innovation through governance and security. It coordinates research projects which match leading scholars with in depth knowledge with organizations facing emerging issues. Finally, it supports activities to incorporate "real world" issues into the curriculum by facilitating the identification of business leaders who can present to executive lectures, classroom meetings, and sponsor student competitions.
CABIT's strength lies in its ability to work with cross-functional teams with strategic initiatives, and we take pride in creating and disseminating knowledge about the power of IT in today's global business environment.
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 8
Contact Name: Kevin Burkhard
Contact Email: kevin.burkhard@asu.edu
The Center for Services Leadership (CSL) is the leading provider of research and education in the areas of: Services Marketing, Services Research, Services Management, and Service Science. The CSL was founded in 1985 to pioneer the study of services when business schools were focusing primarily on products and manufacturing enterprises. Since then, the CSL has established itself as a globally recognized authority on how to compete strategically through the profitable use of services.
Three areas distinguish the center from other centers and consultancies:
- Science - We are in the business of the science of services and base our understanding of effective services on research and objective criteria.
- Significance - We are in the business of developing and sharing what works in the real business world.
- Symbiosis - We are in the business of building a cross-industry and cross-functional network of companies and academics who can help each other discover fresh ways to compete through service.
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 1
Contact Name: Lee Mcpheters
Contact Email: lee.mcpheters@asu.edu
The JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center was established in 1986 as the economic forecasting unit of the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. It is founded upon the premise that individuals and corporations make better decisions if they are well-informed as to the likely course of business and economic events. Because most individuals and many corporations lack the financial and human resources to engage in sophisticated statistical modeling and computer-based planning, the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center provides these forecasts as a public service.
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We report the results of a study that examines the association between gender and individuals’ intentions to report fraudulent financial reporting using non-anonymous and anonymous reporting channels. In our experimental study, we examine whether reporting intentions in response to discovering a fraudulent financial reporting act are associated with the participants’ gender, the perpetrator’s gender, and/or the interaction between the participants’ and perpetrator’s gender. We find that female participants’ reporting intentions for an anonymous channel are higher than for male participants; the fraud perpetrator’s gender and the interaction with participants’ gender were not significantly associated with anonymous channel reporting intentions. Neither of the two factors nor the interaction between the two factors was associated with reporting intentions to a non- anonymous reporting channel. Results from an additional analysis indicate that male and female participants differ in the extent to which they judge the reduction in personal costs of an anonymous reporting channel compared to a non-anonymous reporting channel and that the reduction in personal costs mediates the relationship between participant gender and anonymous reporting intentions.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX, Sec. 301) requires audit committees of public companies to establish procedures for employee anonymous reporting of concerns regarding questionable accounting, internal control, or auditing matters. Audit committees have great flexibility in their implementation of this requirement. To address this issue, this paper reports the results of two experimental studies. Our first experimental study examines whether an anonymous hotline possessing stronger procedural safeguards, including external administration and related procedural safeguards, increases fraud-related reporting intentions in comparison with one possessing weaker procedural safeguards, including internal administration. Respondents' intentions to report a fraudulent act were greater under the weaker safeguards condition as compared with the stronger safeguards condition. These results were not anticipated, and an ancillary study was conducted examining internal versus external anonymous hotline administration, holding constant other procedural safeguards. The results show that respondents' intentions to report a fraudulent act were stronger under an internally administered hotline. Thus, our results suggest that an externally administered anonymous hotline may not increase fraud reporting. Our findings have implications for those who oversee and evaluate the operating effectiveness of controls.
The inter-generational correlation of education in the U.S. is tremendous. For instance, in PSID data from 1990, young males with college-educated parents had a 70% chance of attending college. But those with high school drop-out parents had only a 15% chance. In this paper, we analyze the impact of college attendance bonus schemes designed to increase college attendance rates (and PV of lifetime income) of youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. Of course, policies that increase the supply of skilled labor may reduce the college wage premium (see Heckman et al. [Heckman, James, Lochner, Lance and Taber, Christopher, Explaining rising wage inequality: explorations with a dynamic equilibrium model of labor earnings with heterogeneous agents, Review of Economic Dynamics, 1 (1998a), 1–58; Heckman, James, Lochner, Lance and Taber, Christopher, General-equilibrium treatment effects: a study of tuition policy, American Economic Review, 88:2 (1998b), 381–386]). This may have the unintended consequence of wiping out most of the gains to the targeted groups. The strength of such equilibrium effects on wages depends on the substitutability between different types of labor. Thus, it is important to evaluate education subsidies within an equilibrium framework that allows for flexible patterns of substitution across factor inputs. This is exactly what we do here, using an overlapping generations equilibrium model of the U.S. labor market fit to PSID data from 1968 to 1996. The model allows for imperfect substitution among types of labor differentiated by education, gender, age and ten (1-digit level) occupations — a much finer differentiation than has been considered in prior work. We find that very large college attendance bonuses are necessary to equate college attendance rates between youth whose parents had only high school degrees or were high school dropouts and youth whose parents attended at least some college. The size of these bonuses far exceeds any reasonable measure of college costs; suggesting the “costs” the bonuses overcome are primarily psychic or effort costs. For example, youth from disadvantaged backgrounds may be poorly prepared for college. This suggests that bonuses targeted at college age youth are probably a very inefficient way to reduce inequality. Earlier intervention is likely called for.
Insider trading encompasses the buying or selling of stocks based on non-public information about the securities in question. Engaging in insider trading is particularly unethical for a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who holds a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and also typically is ethically obligated by his or her professional responsibilities. Although the Securities and Exchange Commission (1934) has expressly forbidden insider trading, the business press suggests insider trading continues. An application of Cooter's [Cooter, R., 1997. Normative failure theory of law. Cornell Law Review 82 (5), 947-979; Cooter, R., 2000. Three effects of social norms on law: Expression, deterrence and internalization. Oregon Law Review 79 (1), 1-22] theory of the law and norms suggests that one explanation for the continuation of insider trading is that although illegal, norms may fail to consider insider trader to be unethical. Nevertheless, our knowledge of the norms regarding insider trading is limited. To address this gap, we examine the ethical norms regarding CFOs' insider trading, and consider the extent to which contextual variables are associated with ethical perceptions of CFO insider trading. We find that insider trading by CFOs is generally perceived to be unethical but not by all participants, nor all ethical measures. Moral equity is particularly informative for understanding the ethicality of CFO insider trading. When relying on the multidimensional ethics scale (MES) measure of moral equity, our results reveal that contextual factors, including trading method used (stock options or share equity) and the direction of earnings surprise (favorable or unfavorable) are significant. We also found that participants that possessed more work experience or financial expertise had a greater tendency to consider CFO insider trading to be unethical than those with less work experience or financial expertise, which suggests the importance of training and education of the general public. In addition, our findings suggest that tougher sanctions will encourage compliance with existing insider trading laws. Implications of our findings for public policy are discussed.
The paper seeks to identify and map groups, organizations, and individuals chief executive officers refer to in annual report letters, and propose a method for identifying those appearing to be stakeholders. Identifying who those stakeholders are could provide clues to competitors' corporate strategies or other issues drawing the attention of executive managers. Annual report letters of all 19 public restaurant franchisors on the 2007 Franchise Times top 200 list were analyzed with concordance software. Stakeholders were identified and mapped according to their linkages with franchisors. Significant differences were found between international and domestic franchisors. An industry-specific approach was used. A small sample, focused on a single industry, was used. The study could be replicated using the procedures discussed. Groups, organizations, and individuals referred to in annual reports are identified and mapped. A method for determining which groups, organizations, and individuals are stakeholders is presented.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as nine million people have their identities stolen every year. This article examines the organizational risks to CPAs and their clients or corporate employers of improperly managed data throughout the data life cycle. It also discusses best data management practices and proper procedures for responding to a data breach. According to a study by the Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a data breach in 2007 was $6.3 million. The organization typically spends additional money in data protection enhancements. Identity theft concerns are focused on the security and necessity of the collection process. An organization faces many personal information protection challenges in today's business environment and technological world. Developing protection strategies throughout the data life cycle is one such method organizations can use to move their data protection strategies along the privacy maturity curve.
This study tests the influence of servant leadership on 2 group climates, employee attitudes, and organizational citizenship behavior. Results from a sample of 815 employees and 123 immediate supervisors revealed that commitment to the supervisor, self-efficacy, procedural justice climate, and service climate partially mediated the relationship between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. Cross-level interaction results revealed that procedural justice climate and positive service climate amplified the influence of commitment to the supervisor on organizational citizenship behavior. Implications of these results for theory and practice and directions for future research are discussed.
Agency theory suggests that governance matters more among firms with greater potential agency costs. Rational investors are unlikely to value safeguards against unlikely events. Yet, few studies of the relation between governance and firm value control for investor perceptions of the likelihood of agency conflicts. Shleifer and Vishny [Shleifer, A., Vishny, R.W., 1997. A survey of corporate governance. Journal of Finance 52, 737-783] identify investment-related agency conflicts as the more severe type of agency conflicts in the US. We measure the perceived likelihood of this type of agency conflict using free cash flow (Jensen, M.C., 1986. Agency costs of free cash flow, corporate finance, and takeovers. American Economic Review 76, 323-329). We find that firm value is an increasing function of improved governance quality among firms with high free cash flow. In contrast, governance benefits are lower or insignificant among firms with low free cash flow. We show that not controlling for this conditional relation between governance and firm value could lead to erroneous conclusions that governance and firm value are unrelated.
This study examines how advertisements containing thin or heavy models influence the self-esteem of overweight, normal, and underweight consumers. Previous research has mainly examined the influences of variations of the comparison standard on self-evaluative outcomes, whereas we examine how the relative position of the self on the comparison dimension may moderate these effects. Three studies manipulated the size (thin vs. heavy) and extremity of the size (moderate vs. extreme) of advertising models and exposed these images to individuals differing in Body Mass Index (BMI) levels. Our findings indicate that social comparison processes and subsequent self-evaluative and behavioral outcomes are different for individuals differing in their BMI.
The Market Effects Of Going Green: Evidence From California'S Wholesale Reformulated Gasoline Market
This paper analyzes the market changes that occurred in California's refining industry following the 1992 implementation of the California Air Resources Board's Phase II reformulated gasoline regulations. This paper uses monthly panel data to determine the impact that these regulations have had on the disparity between California's finished gasoline rack prices and that in other regions of the country. The findings suggest that large refiner compliance to Phase II increased the rack price of finished gasoline in California as compared with other regions. This relative price increase, which was likely triggered by the increased production costs associated with Phase II, is consistent with similar results found throughout the literature. However, as small refiners were required to comply with these regulations, this analysis finds that the premium paid for finished gasoline in California increased significantly. This additional increase in the rack price differential, along with trends in industry concentration, suggests that Phase II may have disproportionately disadvantaged California's small refiners, causing increased profits and market share for larger competitors.
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