On Understanding the Human Nature of Good and Bad Behavior in Business: A Behavioral Ethics Approach

The numerous scandals in business, such as those at AIG, Tyco, WorldCom, Enron and Ahold, have made all of us concerned about the emergence of unethical and irresponsible behavior in organizations. Such widespread corruption in business and politics has, as result, prompted a growth of interest in the field of business ethics. At the same time, however, within the academic world it is also recognized that to tackle those unethical actions in an efficient way, the field of business ethics needs to integrate insights from behavioral science. In this inaugural address I focus more closely on the benefits that a behavioral approach can bring to the field of business ethics. In presenting these benefits, I draw a distinction between prescriptive and descriptive approaches and outline how the field of psychology can help in integrating these two perspectives so that we can move towards a more comprehensive understanding of behavioral business ethics. This integration is illustrated by my own research addressing how sanctioning and regulation systems affect behavior, the benefits of procedural fairness and the workings of trust repair strategies. Finally, I formulate some implications for academia, the government and economics.business ethics;behavioral ethics;descriptive;trust repair;sanctions;procedural fairness

Characterization of cells of amniotic fluids by immunological identification of intermediate-sized filaments: Presence of cells of different tissue origin

Antibodies against intermediate-sized filaments, of the prekeratin or vimentin type, were used to investigate the presence of these filaments by indirect immunofluorescence microscopy in cultured and non-cultured amniotic fluid cells, in frozen sections of the placenta and in isolated cells of the amniotic epithelium. Two major classes of cells can be cultured from amniotic fluids, namely cells of epithelial origin containing filaments of the prekeratin type and cells of different origin which contain filaments of the vimentin type but are negative when tested with antibodies to epidermal prekeratin. The presence of prekeratin type filaments correlates with the morphology of colonies of amniotic fluid cell cultures in vitro as classified by Hoehn et al. (1974). Cells of E-type colonies are shown to be of epithelial origin. In contrast our data indicate a different origin of almost all cells of F-type colonies and of the large majority of cells of AF-type colonies. Cells of epithelial origin and positively stained with antibodies to epidermal prekeratin are occasionally scattered in F-type colonies and in variable percentages (up to 30%) in AF-type colonies. Surprisingly, cryostat sections of the amniotic epithelium and isolated groups of amniotic cells showed positive reactions with both antibodies to vimentin and prekeratin. The possibility that amniotic cells may be different from other epithelial cells in that they contain both types of filaments simultaneously already in situ is presently under investigation

Give and you shall receive. Give more and you shall be honored. Experimental evidence for altruism as costly signaling.

In two studies, we measured the degree and manner of reciprocation of a public good in subsequent two-by-two interactions. Both studies consisted of two phases: a public good phase and a subsequent give some game (i.e. a gradual Prisoner's dilemma game). In the first study, the public good was a financial game in the lab. In the second study, the public good games were real life student projects. The observed behavior in the subsequent interactions was consistent with the reciprocity rule, but only up to the fairness norm of equality. Students who had invested more than their fair share, did not receive more financial returns than those who had invested a fair share. However, despite the lack of financial benefits, these high investors were preferred more as future team mates (Study 1), or received more social rewards (Study 2). We interpret these findings in terms of altruism as costly signaling.Altruism; Cooperation; Costly signaling; Prisoner's dilemma game; Reputations; Studies;

Why companies should value passionate leaders

In times of corporate scandals, companies have a strong motive to create ethical awareness among their employees and increase the effectiveness of fairness policies. Many companies agree with the idea that when establishing an ethical climate, the right type of leadership is needed

Leadership and Fairness: The State of the Art

Research in leadership effectiveness has paid less to the role of leader fairness than probably it should have. More recently, this has started to change. To capture this development, we review the empirical literature in leadership and fairness to define the field of leadership and fairness, to assess the state of the art, and to identify a research agenda for future efforts in the field. The review shows that leader distributive, procedural, and especially interactional fairness are positively associated with criteria of leadership effectiveness. More scarce and scattered evidence also suggests that fairness considerations help explain the effectiveness of other aspects of leadership, and that leader fairness and other aspects of leadership, or the leadership context, may interact in predicting leadership effectiveness. We conclude that future research should especially focus on interaction effects of leader fairness and other aspects of leadership, and on the processes mediating these effects.Leadership effectiveness;Fairness

Molecular and classical cytogenetic analyses demonstrate an apomorphic reciprocal chromosomal translocation in Gorilla gorilla

The existence of an apomorphic reciprocal chromosomal translocation in the gorilla lineage has been asserted or denied by various cytogeneticists. We employed a new molecular cytogenetic strategy (chromosomal in situ suppression hybridization) combined with high-resolution banding, replication sequence analysis, and fluorochrome staining to demonstrate that a reciprocal translocation between ancestral chromosomes homologous to human chromosome 5 and 17 has indeed occurred

Entropy production of cyclic population dynamics

Entropy serves as a central observable in equilibrium thermodynamics. However, many biological and ecological systems operate far from thermal equilibrium. Here we show that entropy production can characterize the behavior of such nonequilibrium systems. To this end we calculate the entropy production for a population model that displays nonequilibrium behavior resulting from cyclic competition. At a critical point the dynamics exhibits a transition from large, limit-cycle like oscillations to small, erratic oscillations. We show that the entropy production peaks very close to the critical point and tends to zero upon deviating from it. We further provide analytical methods for computing the entropy production which agree excellently with numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures and Supplementary Material. To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett.

Leadership and Fairness: The state of the art.

Research in leadership effectiveness has paid less attention to the role of leader fairness than probably it should have. More recently, this has started to change. To capture this development, we review the empirical literature in leadership and fairness to define the field of leadership and fairness, to assess the state of the art, and to identify a research agenda for future efforts in the field. The review shows that leader distributive, procedural, and especially interactional fairness are positively associated with criteria of leadership effectiveness. More scarce and scattered evidence also suggests that fairness considerations help explain the effectiveness of other aspects of leadership, and that leader fairness and other aspects of leadership, or the leadership context, may interact in predicting leadership effectiveness. We conclude that future research should especially focus on interaction effects of leader fairness and other aspects of leadership, and on the processes mediating these effects