In view of the latest corporate collapses globally, the purpose of this thesis is an attempt to investigate and to theorise how managers make decisions when faced with an ethical dilemma.Philosophers over the years have proposed different moral theories. For example, Kantian’s Categorical Imperative (O’Neil 2001, Peters, 1971) suggests that there are laws that should apply universally. However, its principles are too abstract to guide action, in that it does not provide a detailed set of instructions for following them. Others such as Baier, (2001) suggest that people behave to satisfy their own self-interest. The literature review shows that there is no consensus to define what constitutes ethical behaviour. Kohlberg (1981) divides childhood moral development into six stages. He theorises that greater moral development will be related to the highest social responsibility of an individual. Lagon (2000), Seabright and Moberg (1998), Logsdon and Yuthas (1997) extrapolate Kohlberg’s model to incorporate into organisational and individual moral development.Based on the literature review, research questions were developed. The research methodology is qualitative, based on the realism paradigm using a case research design (Yin 1994). Face to face interviews were conducted with fourteen participants using critical incidents and the findings were triangulated using a semi-structured focus group.The research data analysis is based on grounded theory proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967). The findings confirm that there is no single theory or approach to business ethics. The findings indicate that a person’s ethical behaviour changes when his/her self-interest is affected. Whilst participants believed that business and ethics can be reconciled, most agreed that they can only be reconciled if the individual’s interest or business profit is not affected. Based on the findings, a new model is proposed in an attempt to theorise an individual’s business ethical behaviour and his/her ethical decision making process.This research also identifies important areas that require further research. These are:• Conflicts between personal values and business values• Should ethics be taught? And if so how?• Should an ethical programme be developed and incorporated in a company’s strategic plan?

This essay argues that social entrepreneurship is the most efficient means to generate lasting social change and permanently reduce poverty. Using the support of scholarly research, interviews with experts in the field, and my own qualitative observations, I conclude that traditional aid models that are economically dependent on outside funding, as well as those that simply provide monetary and product contributions in order to sustain the poor or marginalized communities they serve are inherently structured in a way that prevents them from resolving social ills. Despite the influx of aid organizations over past decades, chronic poverty and other serious social problems persist, and have not been significantly impacted on a global scale. Traditional aid models merely treat the fundamental issues that perpetuate global poverty. Ironically, these methods of aid actually sustain the inherent problems. Social entrepreneurship is one of the only models that has successfully initiated wide scale social development through promoting the economic independence and self-sustainability of the communities influenced by their initiatives. It has proven to incorporate the necessary tactics that, if implemented internationally and on a wide scale, has the potential to permanently and significantly impact global poverty.

Auditors review documented financial figures to test for their accuracy and materiality. Lawyers analyze evidential facts and records to build sound legal arguments. These parties work toward a mutual purpose: to present their clients as legitimate and compliant businesses. But what happens when the concrete facts upon which lawyers and auditors base their work are obscured by their inability to see into the future? In other words, how can these professions conjunctively handle potential future obligations brought about by contingent liabilities? This study will attempt to resolve the tensions that emerge between lawyers and auditors when tasked with estimating the likelihood and financial value of contingent liabilities. It considers the strict regulations set forth by the ABA and FASB and how each side might circumvent the guidelines to allow for better collaboration. Addressing a focal point of contention between the legal and financial professions for decades, this study will also look at past attempts at mediating the conflict as well as current proposals to alter the contingent liability disclosure process. Most importantly, it distinguishes itself from prior research by implementing firsthand arguments from professionals in each field to improve the cooperative landscape. Collectively weighing previously attempted solutions, current regulatory barriers, and professional guidance, this study proposes a three-step solution toward initiating reform between lawyers and auditors to enhance the visibility, precision, and ease of disclosing contingent liabilities.

This paper attempts to estimate the change in sales associated with pharmaceutical patent expiration. Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and patent expiration information from historical Orange Book publications, I estimated monthly sales associated with choice pharmaceutical patents. I then used a fixed-effects model to estimate the average change in sales before and after initial patent expiration, controlling for patent extension factors. My findings support that pharmaceutical patent expiration results in a statistically significant drop in sales by 38% on average within this sample, and further, that patent extensions had a negligible effect on this relationship. The question of patent expiration’s effect on sale is economically important for the sake of evaluating the efficacy of pharmaceutical patent law in protecting the interests of brand-name and generic drug manufacturers as well as paying consumers.

In view of the latest corporate collapses globally, the purpose of this thesis is an attempt to investigate and to theorise how managers make decisions when faced with an ethical dilemma.Philosophers over the years have proposed different moral theories. For example, Kantian’s Categorical Imperative (O’Neil 2001, Peters, 1971) suggests that there are laws that should apply universally. However, its principles are too abstract to guide action, in that it does not provide a detailed set of instructions for following them. Others such as Baier, (2001) suggest that people behave to satisfy their own self-interest. The literature review shows that there is no consensus to define what constitutes ethical behaviour. Kohlberg (1981) divides childhood moral development into six stages. He theorises that greater moral development will be related to the highest social responsibility of an individual. Lagon (2000), Seabright and Moberg (1998), Logsdon and Yuthas (1997) extrapolate Kohlberg’s model to incorporate into organisational and individual moral development.Based on the literature review, research questions were developed. The research methodology is qualitative, based on the realism paradigm using a case research design (Yin 1994). Face to face interviews were conducted with fourteen participants using critical incidents and the findings were triangulated using a semi-structured focus group.The research data analysis is based on grounded theory proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967). The findings confirm that there is no single theory or approach to business ethics. The findings indicate that a person’s ethical behaviour changes when his/her self-interest is affected. Whilst participants believed that business and ethics can be reconciled, most agreed that they can only be reconciled if the individual’s interest or business profit is not affected. Based on the findings, a new model is proposed in an attempt to theorise an individual’s business ethical behaviour and his/her ethical decision making process.This research also identifies important areas that require further research. These are:• Conflicts between personal values and business values• Should ethics be taught? And if so how?• Should an ethical programme be developed and incorporated in a company’s strategic plan?

In view of the latest corporate collapses globally, the purpose of this thesis is an attempt to investigate and to theorise how managers make decisions when faced with an ethical dilemma.Philosophers over the years have proposed different moral theories. For example, Kantian’s Categorical Imperative (O’Neil 2001, Peters, 1971) suggests that there are laws that should apply universally. However, its principles are too abstract to guide action, in that it does not provide a detailed set of instructions for following them. Others such as Baier, (2001) suggest that people behave to satisfy their own self-interest. The literature review shows that there is no consensus to define what constitutes ethical behaviour. Kohlberg (1981) divides childhood moral development into six stages. He theorises that greater moral development will be related to the highest social responsibility of an individual. Lagon (2000), Seabright and Moberg (1998), Logsdon and Yuthas (1997) extrapolate Kohlberg’s model to incorporate into organisational and individual moral development.Based on the literature review, research questions were developed. The research methodology is qualitative, based on the realism paradigm using a case research design (Yin 1994). Face to face interviews were conducted with fourteen participants using critical incidents and the findings were triangulated using a semi-structured focus group.The research data analysis is based on grounded theory proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967). The findings confirm that there is no single theory or approach to business ethics. The findings indicate that a person’s ethical behaviour changes when his/her self-interest is affected. Whilst participants believed that business and ethics can be reconciled, most agreed that they can only be reconciled if the individual’s interest or business profit is not affected. Based on the findings, a new model is proposed in an attempt to theorise an individual’s business ethical behaviour and his/her ethical decision making process.This research also identifies important areas that require further research. These are:• Conflicts between personal values and business values• Should ethics be taught? And if so how?• Should an ethical programme be developed and incorporated in a company’s strategic plan?

Shareholder activism has exploded in popularity since the turn of the century, due in large part to impressive relative returns generated by its major participants. The result has thus been a surge in assets invested in the category, to in excess of $170 billion today up from less than $3 billion in 2000 (Inglis 2015; Romito 2015). This influx of capital, in absolute dollars and pace of growth, has caused many to wonder whether activists truly create shareholder value and, if so, if the value generated is sustainable. Numerous studies of activist interventions prior to 2009 reveal significant stock price gains around the time of activist arrival and positive longer term buy-and-hold abnormal returns as well. The question remains, however, whether those trends have continued as volume of transactions and number of activists have increased post the recent global financial crisis. In this report, we perform an empirical analysis focused on a hand-collected dataset of 1,088 activist interventions from 1995-present. This dataset includes all 13D filings, as well as Under the Threshold activist campaigns. First, we analyze stock price returns for this group over short- and long-term periods and find that activists continue to unlock shareholder value in recent deals comparable to that of earlier ones. We then perform a proprietary regression to identify which factors drive the most successful returns. Such insights should prove informative for investors employing an activist strategy and companies looking to manage areas of vulnerability.

The dissertation consists of two essays. In the first essay we compare the performance of Islamic and conventional stock returns in Saudi Arabia in order to determine whether the Saudi market exhibits characteristics that are consistent with segmented markets and investor recognition effects. We sample the daily stock returns of all Saudi firms from September 2002 to 2015 and calculate important measures, including idiosyncratic volatility (Ang et al, 2006), market integration (Pukthuanthong and Roll, 2009), systematic turnover (Loughran and Schultz, 2005), and stock turnover and liquidity (Amihud, 2002). Integration tests report that Islamic stocks are more sensitive to changes in global and local macroeconomic variables than conventional stocks, supporting the hypothesis that the Islamic and conventional stock markets are segmented in Saudi Arabia. In addition, our results show that Islamic stocks have larger number of investors, lower idiosyncratic risk, higher systematic turnover, and more liquid than conventional stocks, which supports the investor recognition hypothesis. Our results provide new evidence on asset pricing in emerging markets, the evolving Islamic financial markets, and the potential impact of other implicit market barriers on global financial markets. In the second essay we examine the effects of shared beliefs and personal preferences of individual investors on their trading and investment decisions. We anticipate that the process of classifying stocks into Shariah compliant (Islamic) and non-shariah compliant (conventional) has an effect on investibility and acceptance of the stock especially by unsophisticated or individual investors. The wide acceptance of Islamic stocks between individual investors promote and facilitate the circulation of firm-specific information between certain groups of investors. Our results indicate that stock classification has an effect on the stock price comovement through increased stock trading correlation between the groups of Islamic investors. The commonality in preferences between Islamic stocks’ holders generate commonality in trading activity and in stock liquidity. We find that classifying a stock as an Islamic stock increases its price comovement with other Islamic stocks and also increases its commonality in liquidity.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the antecedents and reinforcements of fairtrade purchase intention and to examine the effect of reporting good fairtrade practices on consumers’ punishment behavior. A stratified sample of 240 English-speaking, American, adult subjects was collected online. First, the Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM) (Foxall, G., 2007) was modified and four manipulations varying luxury/commodity product type and open/closed purchase settings were presented. The results of paired-sample t-tests demonstrated closed purchase settings did not increase luxury purchase intention by itself. A split-plot ANOVA combining closed setting and the participant’s fairtrade learning history did not produce significant results, but post-hoc testing revealed a significant effect of positive learning history on purchase intention. Two separate, repeated-measures ANOVA found that utilitarian reinforcement was not affected by purchase setting, but informational reinforcement was significantly increased by the presence of others. Second, four manipulations of good/bad press events were presented without/without the firm’s fairtrade performance history mentioned in a news article. A two-way, between-subjects ANOVA produced insignificant results for the effect of information on willingness to pay. Importantly, the type of event significantly affected willingness to pay, accounting for 18% of the variation, with positive events generating higher willingness to pay than negative, regardless of whether fairtrade performance information was included. This study suggested firms would benefit from including cues for the social reward aspect of luxury fairtrade purchasing in marketing efforts and from preventing missteps rather than bragging about past practices. Future research suggestions included further analyzing the effect of information on punishment of bad corporate actors, investigating the credibility of self-declaration of fairtrade certification versus independent certification labels, and incorporating the effect of culture into the BPM.

This study examines the triple bottom line of sustainability, in the context of both profit-oriented and non-profit oriented organizations. Sustainability is a compound result of interaction between economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Sustainability cannot be achieved without balance between all three dimensions, which has implications for measuring sustainability and prioritizing goals. This study demonstrates a method for measuring organizational sustainability achievement in these three dimensions of sustainability. Content analysis of the annual reports of corporations from the United States, Continental Europe (and Scandinavia), and Asia reveals that the economic dimension remains the preeminent aspect, and corporations still have a long way to go to reach comprehensive sustainability by maintaining a balance between the three dimensions of sustainability. The analysis also shows a high level of isomorphism in the sustainability practices of corporations, suggesting that even the most sustainable corporations are taking a somewhat passive role in prioritizing sustainability goals. A list of 25 terms for each dimension of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social) has been developed which can be used by corporations to develop and communicate their sustainability practices most effectively to the maximum number of their stakeholders. In contrast, botanical gardens demonstrate more balance among the three dimensions of sustainability.