Gini coefficients, which measure gross inequalities rather than their unfair components, are often used as proxy measures of absolute or relative distributive injustice in Western societies. This presupposes that the fair inequalities in these societies are small and stable enough to be ignored. This article presents a model for a series of ideal, perfectly just societies, where comfortable lives are equally available to everyone, and calculates the Gini coefficients for each. According to this model, inequalities produced (...) by age and other demographic factors, together with reasonable choices under equal opportunity, can raise the Gini coefficients for perfectly just societies to levels at least as high as those of any current Western country, and can as easily account for differences in Gini coefficients between such societies or within one such society over time. If Gini coefficients at these levels are possible for ideal societies without distributive injustice, then they should not be used as proxy measures of distributive injustice in real societies. (shrink)

One of the unintended consequences of the New Public Management (NPM) in universities is often feared to be a division between elite institutions focused on research and large institutions with teaching missions. However, institutional isomorphisms provide counter-incentives. For example, university rankings focus on certain output parameters such as publications, but not on others (e.g., patents). In this study, we apply Gini coefficients to university rankings in order to assess whether universities are becoming more unequal, at the level of (...) both the world and individual nations. Our results do not support the thesis that universities are becoming more unequal. If anything, we predominantly find homogenisation, both at the level of the global comparisons and nationally. In a more restricted dataset (using only publications in the natural and life sciences), we find increasing inequality for those countries, which used NPM during the 1990s, but not during the 2000s. Our findings suggest that increased output steering from the policy side leads to a global conformation to performance standards. (shrink)

This note presents a very simple way of interpreting the Gini coefficient of inequality, in `equivalent' welfare terms, as the proportion of a cake of given size going to the poorer of two individuals in a two-person cake-sharing problem.

The pervasiveness of lying -- Why the lie? The reasons and justifications for lying -- How and why different types of people lie -- Taking the Lie-Q test : learning where you fit -- Everyday social lies -- Lying in public -- Lying at work -- Lying in business -- Lying to friends & relatives -- When men & women lie-the dating game -- Lies with husbands, wives, & intimate others -- The lies of parents & children -- Lying to (...) oneself -- The strategy of deceiving and perceiving (or how to detect when someone is lying) -- Conclusion (or how to deal with different kinds of lies and liars). (shrink)

Humor, laughter, joke telling can be frivolous fun or it could act as a sword and a shield to defend and protect us against life. Humor can, at times, illuminate if not completely explain, some of the irresoluble problems and mysteries that individuals face. And, if all else fails, humor can hold off our fear of the unanswerable and the unacceptable. Historically it can be argued that during times of trial, tribulations, and suffering, Jewish communities and individuals have used humor (...) as a way to cope with and deal with reality. (shrink)

In My Job My Self, Gini plumbs a wide range of statistics, interviews with workers, surveys from employers and employees, and his own experiences and memories, to explore why we work, how our work affects us, and what we will become as a nation of workers. My Job, My Self speaks to every employed person who has yet to understand the costs and challenges of a lifetime of labor.

In a field dominated by books that focus exclusively on the perspective of business in large corporations or that assume that business has a moral deficiency in need of reform, Al Gini and Alexei Marcoux offers students and business people alike a concise guide to what everyone ought to do when doing business. Where other books are organized topically, Gini and Marcoux look at the moral features of business that recur across topical areas, stressing the considerations that bear (...) on business people whether they be corporate functionaries, principals in family businesses, or solo entrepreneurs who do it all, end to end. They present to students the essential concepts, ideas, and issues involved in ethics in business and emphasize the individual acting person and what it means to have character and integrity when doing business. (shrink)

Drawing upon in-depth case studies of vacation habits and the observations of philosophers, writers, and sociologists such as Aristotle, Mark Twain and Thorstein Veblen, Al Gini argues why vacations are so venerated and why 'doing nothing' is a fundamental human necessity. From shopping sprees and extreme sports to the ultimate vacation - retirement - The Importance of Being lazy demonstrates that without true leisure, we are diminished as individuals and as a society.  .

Although the particular cases and dilemmas regarding business ethics alter and change with time, the underlying principles and theoretical issues rarely do. Business ethics is about doing "the right thing for the right reason" in our private and public lives, especially in our work and on the job. Business ethics asks: What ought we do in relation to others? Beyond rules and requirements, what do I owe the people I work with (fellow employees), work for (managers-owners), and the people I (...) come to work to serve (customers)? Given the basic fact of change, textbooks, like the times, also need to change. The fifth edition of Case Studies in Business Ethics offers a series of new and updated cases and essays on some of the most pertinent ethical issues in today's business environment. This edition has replaced 80 percent of the cases and essays and offers two entirely new sections entitled "Privacy, Ethics, and Technology" and "Leadership." New Cases/Essays: Sex, Lies, and Advertising Racism in the Workplace Is Your Family Wrecking Your Career? Enron: Paragon to Pariah? The Good Old Boys at WorldCom Ford-Firestone Edible Rugs, Anyone!? Sweatshops Rippers, Portal Users, and Profilers Moral Leadership/Moral Mazes Besides a number of cases that are drawn from current news headlines, this edition continues to offer a selection of classical cases and essays that exemplify a number of perennial topics and questions in the field: Tylenol's Rebound Ford Pinto Sex Discrimination at Eastern Uptown, Dakota, and Powermaster Let the Buyer Beware Truth Pays Deceit, Denial, Cover Up Gender Bias, Public Image Advertisement Profits versus Principles. (shrink)

In _My Job My Self,_ Gini plumbs a wide range of statistics, interviews with workers, surveys from employers and employees, and his own experiences and memories, to explore why we work, how our work affects us, and what we will become as a nation of workers. _My Job, My Self_ speaks to every employed person who has yet to understand the costs and challenges of a lifetime of labor.

The simple fact is every utterance has the potential to offend. The issue pursued in this paper is not whether a joke is ethically correct or ethically objectionable. Rather, the issue is, how is it possible that an utterly tasteless joke, a joke that many consider to be crude, rude, inappropriate, highly offensive and even harmful be considered to be funny? Even though I will argue that given the right context, the right audience, any joke can be considered funny, I (...) am not saying that they are acceptable, correct, or ethical. The issue here is an epistemic one and not normative. Depending upon who's telling the joke and the audience to whom it's told, ethnic and racial jokes can either prove to be delightful and delicious or dehumanizing and disgusting. However, I want to point out that good ethnic humor need not and should not be this way. (shrink)

In _My Job My Self,_ Gini plumbs a wide range of statistics, interviews with workers, surveys from employers and employees, and his own experiences and memories, to explore why we work, how our work affects us, and what we will become as a nation of workers. _My Job, My Self_ speaks to every employed person who has yet to understand the costs and challenges of a lifetime of labor.

Political humor and satire are, perhaps, as old as comedy itself, and they are crucial to our society and collective sense of self. In a poignant, pithy, but not a ponderous manner, Al Gini and Abraham Singer delve into satire’s history to rejoice in its triumphs and watch its development from ancient graffiti to the latest late night TV talk show.

Political humor and satire are, perhaps, as old as comedy itself, and they are crucial to our society and collective sense of self. In a poignant, pithy, but not a ponderous manner, Al Gini and Abraham Singer delve into satire’s history to rejoice in its triumphs and watch its development from ancient graffiti to the latest late night TV talk show.

In a series of brief chapters, Al Gini lays out ideas for 'stepping out of the shadow of the self' - an argument for stopping thinking of yourself as the centre of the universe. It's hard to be good, he explains, until we realize that being good only has meaning in relation to other people. Ideas of justice, fairness, and ethical behavior are just that - abstract ideas - until they are put into action with regard to people outside (...) ourselves. We may worry too much about good versus evil - big concepts that give us plenty of room to sit on the right side of the equation, he argues. Instead, we need to be thinking about how being good involves an active relationship toward others. Being good all by yourself may not be good enough. This warm and generous book is for anyone who wants to know how to use ethical thinking as way to live, work, and be with others. (shrink)

In a series of brief chapters, Al Gini lays out ideas for 'stepping out of the shadow of the self' - an argument for stopping thinking of yourself as the centre of the universe. It's hard to be good, he explains, until we realize that being good only has meaning in relation to other people. Ideas of justice, fairness, and ethical behavior are just that - abstract ideas - until they are put into action with regard to people outside (...) ourselves. We may worry too much about good versus evil - big concepts that give us plenty of room to sit on the right side of the equation, he argues. Instead, we need to be thinking about how being good involves an active relationship toward others. Being good all by yourself may not be good enough. This warm and generous book is for anyone who wants to know how to use ethical thinking as way to live, work, and be with others. (shrink)

Although we need the good witness of others to form our best selves, an argument can be made that we need to study the dark side of the equation as well. The understanding and analysis of bad leaders/misleaders is an important component of leadership studies. However, we argue that bad leaders should never be defined as leaders. Leadership aims at the good of its communities, while misleaders do not. Ethics, therefore, is not only essential to the practice of leadership but (...) to the very meaning of the term. (shrink)

Butte Montana, located in the south-west quarter of the state, is and always has been a company town. Butte is situated on what has been called the richest hill on earth. The mining rights to this fabulous hill belong to the Anaconda Copper Company. By 1892 the Anaconda Company had become the world's largest producer of copper achieving an output of 100 million pounds. By 1978 the company proudly claimed that over 20 billion pounds of copper had been mined from (...) the richest hill on earth.In the past Anaconda has employed approximately one-third of Buttes work force, paid 58% of the county property tax and annually pumped millions of dollars into the local business community. While it is clear that Anaconda and Butte are inextricably wed, since the early 1970's the residents of Butte have come to resent their nearly 100 year marriage of convenience to the copper giant. At present the major area of contention between the company and the citizens of Butte found themselves confronting the following predicament: What personal property and fiduciary rights can an ordinary citizen expect to maintain in the face of the needs and requirements of advancing industrial progress? (shrink)

Butte Montana, located in the south-west quarter of the state, is and always has been a company town. Butte is situated on what has been called the "richest hill on earth." The mining rights to this fabulous hill belong to the Anaconda Copper Company. By 1892 the Anaconda Company had become the world's largest producer of copper achieving an output of 100 million pounds. By 1978 "the company" proudly claimed that over 20 billion pounds of copper had been mined from (...) the "richest hill on earth." In the past Anaconda has employed approximately one-third of Buttes work force, paid 58% of the county property tax and annually pumped millions of dollars into the local business community. While it is clear that Anaconda and Butte are inextricably wed, since the early 1970's the residents of Butte have come to resent their nearly 100 year marriage of convenience to the copper giant. At present the major area of contention between "the company" and the citizens of Butte found themselves confronting the following predicament: What personal property and fiduciary rights can an ordinary citizen expect to maintain in the face of the needs and requirements of advancing industrial progress? (shrink)