To mitigate risk, should companies signal a broad range of environmental, social, and governance initiatives or instead focus on only a few ESG issues? Drawing on signaling theory, we propose that a broad array of ESG initiatives generates not only signal consistency but also accelerating signal costs. Our empirical results support the resultant hypothesis of a curvilinear relationship between ESG scope and equity risk. In addition, this U-shaped curve seems to become steeper when firms face multiple media-reported ESG controversies. Overall, (...) our study qualifies the conventional wisdom that firms can reduce equity risk by attending to a wide variety of stakeholders and highlights the moderating impact of the firm’s media environment. (shrink)

This essay critiques Professor Martha Nussbaum's book, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality . Nussbaum's thesis is that the entire tradition of religious liberty in America can be both best understood and justified by recourse to the overarching principle of equal respect —that “[a]ll citizens have equal rights and deserve equal respect from the government under which they live.” Nussbaum insists that equal respect pervades the tradition and that all other values of religious liberty are (...) subordinate to it. She examines various free-exercise and establishment issues in light of this principle, concluding that the tradition of religious equality is under threat and calling for renewed vigilance in its defense. This essay criticizes Nussbaum's elevation of the principle of equal respect to supreme normative status. It claims that Nussbaum's single-minded focus on equal respect distorts and misunderstands the conflicts actually at issue in many religious liberty disputes. The essay focuses specifically on the inadequacies of her assessment of two prominent religious liberty cases, one in the free exercise and the other in the established context. This essay concludes that there are reasons for deep skepticism about Nussbaum's approach as a comprehensive theory of the religion clauses. (shrink)

Building on earlier work on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and a firm’s financial performance, this integrative empirical study supports the theoretical argument that the higher a firm’s CSP the lower its financial risk. Specifically, the relationship between CSP and risk appears to be one of reciprocal causality, because prior CSP is negatively related to subsequent financial risk, and prior financial risk is negatively related to subsequent CSP. Additionally, CSP is more strongly correlated with measures of market risk (...) than measures of accounting risk. Of all CSP measures, reputation for social responsibility appears to be the most important one in terms of its risk implications. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This study examines whether the empirical evidence on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) differs depending on the publication outlet in which that evidence appears. This moderator meta-analysis, based on a total sample size of 33,878 observations, suggests that published CSP-CFP findings have been shaped by differences in institutional logics in different subdisciplines of organization studies. In economics, finance, and accounting journals, the average correlations were only about half the magnitude of the findings published (...) in Social Issues in Management, Business Ethics, or Business and Society journals (mean corrected correlation coefficientof.22 vs..49, respectively). Specifically, economists did not find null or negative CSP-CFP correlations, and average findings published in general management outlets (=.41) were closer to Social Issues in Management, Business Ethics, and Business and Society results than to findings reported in economics, finance, and accounting journals. (shrink)

There has been some theoretical and empirical debate that the positive relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and firm financial performance (FFP) is spurious and in fact caused by a third factor, namely large firm size. This study examines this question by integrating three meta-analyses of more than two decades of research on (1) CSP and FFP, (2) firm size and CSP, and (3) firm size and FFP into one path-analytic model. The present study does not confirm size as a (...) third factor which would confound the relationship between CSP and FFP. That is, even if firm size is controlled for across studies (comprising, on average, over 15 000 observations), CSP and FFP remain positively correlated, showing a "true-score" corrected path coefficient p of 0.37. (shrink)

This article explores the role of financial markets for sustainable development. More specifically, the authors ask to what extent financial markets foster and facilitate more sustainable business practices. The authors highlight that their current role is rather modest and conclude that, on the old paths, a paradoxical situation exists. On one hand, financial market participants increasingly integrate environmental, social, and governance criteria into their investment decisions, whereas on the other hand, in terms of organizational reality, there seems to be no (...) real shift toward more sustainable business practices. The authors identify two main challenges within the field of sustainable investments that are relevant for entering new avenues that may help overcome this situation. First, a reorientation toward a long-term paradigm for sustainable investments is important. Second, ESG data must become more trustworthy. From a theoretical point of view, the authors finally highlight the potential market consequences when ESG investment criteria are used. (shrink)

The question of what drives corporate social performance has become a vital concern for many managers and researchers of large corporations. This study addresses this question by adopting a multilevel, multistakeholder, and multimethod approach to theorize and estimate the relative influence of macro, meso, and micro factors on CSP. Applying three different methods of variance decomposition analysis to an international sample of 2060 large public companies over a time span of 5 years, our results show that firm-level factors explain the (...) largest proportion of variance in aggregate CSP as well as CSP oriented toward communities, the natural environment, and employees. These results support our hypotheses according to which CSP is not primarily driven by macrolevel or mesolevel factors, except for shareholder-oriented CSP, which is relatively more influenced by country-level factors. As a whole, our findings also point to the value of subdividing CSP into its stakeholder-specific components as this disaggregation allows for a more careful examination of distinct drivers of distinct aspects of CSP. (shrink)

In this preliminary study, the authors extend Swanson's concept of normative myopia (the propensity of executives to downplay or ignore the values at stake in their decision making) by using it as a point of reference for studying executives' preference for high pay dispersion. Specifically, the authors designed a survey to examine hypothesized relationships among myopia, personality, and executives' preference for highly stratified organizational pay structures. Data from 133 executive respondents suggest that myopic executives tend to prefer top-heavy compensation systems. (...) In addition, the findings point to an inverse relationship between the personality factor Agreeableness and normative myopia, with the former offsetting the latter. The authors reject the alternative hypothesis that gender influences both agreeableness and myopia and conclude with some implications for business and society, including Swanson's proposition that normative myopia at the top contributes to a neglectful form of corporate social performance. (shrink)

Whenever we grasp and lift an object, our tactile system provides important information on the contact location and the force exerted on our skin. The human brain integrates signals from multiple sites for a coherent representation of object shape, inertia, weight, and other material properties. It is still an open question whether the control of grasp force occurs at the level of individual fingers or whether it is also influenced by the control and the signals from the other fingers of (...) the same hand. In this work, we approached this question by asking participants to lift, transport, and replace a sensorized object, using three- and four-digit grasp. Tactile input was altered by covering participant's fingertips with a rubber thimble, which reduced the reliability of the tactile sensory input. In different experimental conditions, we covered between one and three fingers opposing the thumb. Normal forces at each finger and the thumb were recorded while grasping and holding the object, with and without the thimble. Consistently with previous studies, reducing tactile sensitivity increased the overall grasping force. The gasping force increased in the covered finger, whereas it did not change from baseline in the remaining bare fingers. Digit placement and object tilt were not systematically affected by rubber thimble conditions. Our results suggest that, in each finger opposing thumb, digit normal force is controlled locally in response to the applied tactile perturbation. (shrink)

Management of organizational tensions can facilitate the simultaneous advancement of economic, social, and environmental priorities. The approach is based on managers identifying and managing tensions between the three priorities, by employing one of the three strategic responses. Although recent work has provided a theoretical basis for such tension acknowledgment and management, there is a dearth of empirical studies. We interviewed 32 corporate sustainability managers across 25 forestry and wood-products organizations in Australia. Study participants were divided into two groups: those considered (...) effective at corporate sustainability and a status-quo group. Contrary to current theory, our findings showed that acknowledgment of organizational tensions was widespread in the Australian forestry and wood-products industry and not limited to those managers who are effective at managing corporate sustainability. What differed was the degree to which managers did something about the perceived tensions—with the effective group more consistently acting to manage and resolve paradoxical scenarios. Our findings suggest that existing theoretical constructs of tension management may not adequately capture the individual-level complexity involved with managing tensions in practice. (shrink)

This article contextualises current debates over human rights and transnational corporations. More specifically, we begin by first providing the background to John Ruggie's appointment as 'Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises'. Second, we provide a brief discussion of the rise of transnational corporations, and of their growing importance in terms of global governance. Third, we introduce the notion of human rights, and note some difficulties associated therewith. Fourth, we (...) refer to Ruggie's scholarly work on 'embedded liberalism', the 'global public domain' and 'social constructivism'. Following this, we refer to the other five papers contained in this "Journal of Business Ethics" special issue, 'Spheres of Influence/Spheres of Responsibility: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights', and consider some of the potential obstacles to Ruggie's recent suggestion that a 'new consensus' has formed, or is forming, around his 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' framework. We conclude by raising questions regarding the processes of consensus-building around, and the operationalisation of, Ruggie's 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' framework. (shrink)

This article sets out a new conception of ‘property as an asset of resilience’. Building on Fineman’s emphasis on ‘webs’ of resilience, and applying insights from Actor-Network Theory and Resilient Property Theory, we examine how the rhetorical claims asserted by owners and non-owners, individually and collectively, and the ways that law recognizes and endorses those claims, affect the production of property-as-resilience. Applying Fineman’s framework, we argue that the ‘embodiment’ and ‘embeddedness’ of human vulnerability is revealed by the necessary and inevitable (...) relationship we have with land, housing and place. Everyone—including homeless people—must ‘be’ somewhere (embodiment); however, it is our ability to access ‘assets of resilience’ through our social embeddedness in institutional structures and relationships that mitigates (or not) our experience and life opportunities. In this article we analyze the nature of real property as an asset of resilience, the consequences of exclusionary concepts of ownership for how resilience is allocated, and the implications for how we think and talk about ‘exclusion’ and ‘inclusion’ in property theories and property law. We consider the roles that states perform in the allocation of property as an asset of resilience: both directly, through the protection and enforcement of private property rights and official narratives about the nature of private property; and indirectly, as owners leverage the hinterland of privilege extended to ‘ownership’ and owners to deepen their own networks of resilience. (shrink)

When people are performing a task, it is hard to know whether they are about to make a mistake. Klaproth, Halbrügge, Krol, Vernaleken, Zander, and Russwinkel address this by recording EEG signals while people are performing a flight control task, and show that by examining the EEG signal they can determine when people failed to notice particular stimuli, which could lead to better assistive tools.

The Catholic Church proscribes methods of birth control other than sexual abstinence. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognizes abstinence as an acceptable method of birth control in research studies, some pharmaceutical companies mandate the use of artificial contraceptive techniques to avoid pregnancy as a condition for participation in their studies. These requirements are unacceptable at Catholic health care institutions, leading to conflicts among institutional review boards, clinical investigators, and sponsors. Subjects may feel coerced by such mandates to (...) adopt contraceptive techniques inconsistent with their personal situation and beliefs; women committed to celibacy or who engage exclusively in non-heterosexual activities are negatively impacted. We propose principles to insure informed consent to safeguard the rights of research subjects at Catholic institutions while mitigating this ethical conflict. At the same time, our proposal respects the interests of pharmaceutical research agencies and Catholic moral precepts, and fully abides by regulatory guidance. (shrink)

The collection presents a variety of promising new directions in Royce scholarship from an international group of scholars, including historical reinterpretations, explorations of Royce's ethics of loyalty and religious philosophy, and contemporary applications of his ideas in psychology, the problem of reference, neo-pragmatism, and literary aesthetics.

Three experiments investigated the relationship between subjective experience and attentional lapses during sustained attention. These experiments employed two measures of subjective experience to examine how differences in awareness correspond to variations in both task performance and psycho-physiological measures . This series of experiments examine these phenomena during the Sustained Attention to Response Task . The results suggest we can dissociate between two components of subjective experience during sustained attention: task unrelated thought which corresponds to an absent minded disengagement from the (...) task and a pre-occupation with one's task performance that seems to be best conceptualised as a strategic attempt to deploy attentional resources in response to a perception of environmental demands which exceed ones ability to perform the task. The implications of these findings for our understanding of how awareness is maintained on task relevant material during periods of sustained attention are discussed. (shrink)

The placozoan Trichoplax adhaerens is a tiny hairy plate and more simply organized than any other living metazoan. After its original description by F.E. Schulze in 1883, it attracted attention as a potential model for the ancestral state of metazoan organization, the “Urmetazoon”. Trichoplax lacks any kind of symmetry, organs, nerve cells, muscle cells, basal lamina, and extracellular matrix. Furthermore, the placozoan genome is the smallest (not secondarily reduced) genome of all metazoan genomes. It harbors a remarkably rich diversity of (...) genes and has been considered the best living surrogate for a metazoan ancestor genome. The phylum Placozoa presently harbors three formally described species, while several dozen “cryptic” species are yet awaiting their description. The phylogenetic position of placozoans has recently become a contested arena for modern phylogenetic analyses and view‐driven claims. Trichoplax offers unique prospects for understanding the minimal requirements of metazoan animal organization and their corresponding malfunctions. (shrink)

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

The placozoan Trichoplax adhaerens has been bridging gaps between research disciplines like no other animal. As outlined in part 1, placozoans have been subject of hot evolutionary debates and placozoans have challenged some fundamental evolutionary concepts. Here in part 2 we discuss the exceptional genetics of the phylum Placozoa and point out some challenging model system applications for the best known species, Trichoplax adhaerens.

Qu'y a-t-il de commun entre le personnage du Marchand de Venise de Shakespeare, Portia, le philosophe de la démocratie moderne, Spinoza, et le penseur de l'inconscient, Freud? Ils inventent tous les trois une manière " marrane " d'être juif, en jouant la comédie de l'universalité pour laquelle ils cryptent ce qu'ils cherchent. Persécutés par l'inquisition, obligés de mimer la vie chrétienne, les Marranes portent en eux et au-delà un double jeu, une comédie judéo-chrétienne. Il ne s'agit pas pour eux d'une (...) nouvelle religion, mais d'un secret et de nouvelles Lumières qui constituent peut-être un signe adressé aux temps à venir. La scène judéo-chrétienne, habitée par les Marranes, est comme l'inconscient de la démocratie européenne, elle a été enterrée par l'histoire et on a tenté d'effacer les traces. Les Marranes déjouent le trait d'union judéo-chrétien, en rejouant les équivoques des épîtres de Saint Paul. Ils nous invitent à repenser et à subvertir le théâtre qui commande, depuis ces épîtres, la pensée politique (notamment celle du sacrifice et de la guerre) et à libérer une tout autre idée de la démocratie : une vie libérée de la politique religieuse et de la religion politique (qui se développent, aujourd'hui, sur l'économie abyssale de la dette, de la pauvreté et de la misère). Les Marranes nous obligent aussi à interroger la philosophie contemporaine qui oscille entre l'anamnèse et l'amnésie du théâtre judéo-chrétien de la pensée politique. (shrink)

Darwin offered an intriguing answer to the species problem. He doubted the existence of the species category as a real category in nature, but he did not doubt the existence of those taxa called ‘‘species’’. And despite his scepticism of the species category, Darwin continued using the word ‘‘species’’. Many have said that Darwin did not understand the nature of species. Yet his answer to the species problem is both theoretically sound and practical. On the theoretical side, DarwinÕs answer is (...) confirmed by contemporary biology, and it offers a more satisfactory answer to the species problem than recent attempts to save the species category. On the practical side, DarwinÕs answer frees us from the search for the correct theoretical definition of ‘‘species’’. But at the same time it does not require that we banish the word ‘‘species’’ from biology as some recent sceptics of the species category advocate. Ó The Willi Hennig Society 2010. (shrink)

Roche and Sober have offered a new argument for the view that a hypothesis H is not confirmed by its capacity to explain some observation O. Their argument purports to work by showing that O screens H off from the fact that H would explain O. This paper offers several objections to this argument. Firstly, the screening-off test cannot identify whatever evidential contribution Hs explanatoriness may make. Secondly, that H would explain O may be logically necessary, eluding the screening-off test. (...) Thirdly, the test cannot detect an important difference that Hs explanatoriness often makes to Hs confirmation. (shrink)

Siguiendo su idea de la tarea del crítico, Walter Benjamin hace surgir imágenes de felicidad de Calderón en el paisaje “originario” en ruinas de Gryphius: la estrella fugaz del barroco español brilla, intermitente, en las tinieblas demoníacas del barroco silesio. El barroco no encuentra así su verdad sino en la inversión dialéctica de su melancolía alegórica en el momento simbólico de la redención. Intento demostrar cómo se manifiesta, en Origen del drama barroco alemán, una dialéctica figurativa suspendida entre símbolo y (...) alegoría, melancolía y redención, precursora das “imágenes dialécticas” que van a polarizar las fantasmagorías capitalistas entre alegoría y utopía. (shrink)

Antes que económicos, éticos, o estrictamente sanitarios, los desafíos de la actual coyuntura son, sobre todo, políticos. Los sistemas de salud puestos en tensión, la coordinación entre los múltiples niveles de la gobernanza sanitaria, los planes de urgencia y de prevención que fueron o han debido ser puestos en marcha son todos constructos políticos, el fruto de mecanismos colectivos de decisión, el resultado de un conjunto de elecciones políticas. No basta, sin embargo, con detenernos a auditar un sistema tras un (...) choque planetario, más real que todos los simulacros que hubiéramos podido siquiera imaginar. También nuestra inteligencia colectiva ha sido aporreada. La urgencia y el pánico ante la subestimación de los riesgos y la falta de preparación para ellos han conducido a medidas drásticas, inéditas, que nos han hecho recordar los tiempos más sombríos del siglo XX. Algo ha cambiado radicalmente y todavía no estamos en condiciones de nombrarlo; lo presentimos, evidentemente, lo sabemos en parte en relación con la puesta en cuestión de las certezas y con la obligación de adoptar otras costumbres, otros modos de relacionarnos, otros hábitos de trabajo, de vida y aun de amar a nuestros seres queridos. (shrink)

Data from the World Values Survey shows that generalized trust in Mainland China—trust in out-group members—is very low, but generalized trust in Taiwan is much higher. The present article argues that positive interactions with out-group members in the context of Taiwan’s export-oriented economy fostered generalized trust—and so explains this difference. This line of argument provides evidence for Albert O. Hirschman’s doux commerce thesis, that market interaction can improve persons and even stabilize the social order. The present article defends this point (...) by separating two theses that Hirschman combines under that label, a countervailing forces thesis and a doux commerce thesis narrowly understood. These theses offer different explanations (or mechanisms) for how commerce could have those positive effects. The data about Taiwanese trust practices provides evidence for the latter. (shrink)

Este artículo se basa en el texto nº1 del tomo XXIII de Husserliana, Phantasia, conciencia de imagen, recuerdo. En primer lugar entendemos que Husserl es el mayor crítico de la filosofía de la representación que ha dado el siglo XX. No sólo en punto a la percepción; también, como se verá, en punto a la phantasia. Sin embargo, por la misma razón, probablemente ha sido también el más fino analista del fenómeno de la representación entendido, ahora sí, como conciencia de (...) imagen. Husserl estudia el fenómeno de la conciencia de imagen en el texto principal de Hua XXIII, diseccionándolo, con una acribia sin precedentes, en sus componentes de soporte físico (ausente en el caso de la Imagination o la Einbildungskraft, a distinguir de la phantasia), Bildobjekt y Bildsujet. Mención especial merece el escurridizo estatuto ontológico (de innúmeras consecuencias, por ejemplo en psicopatología) del Bildobjekt que se entiende, en términos de Husserl, como Fiktum. Phantasia de un lado, imaginación y conciencia de imagen de otro, constituyen dos tipos esencialmente distintos de acto, con estructuras distintas. La phantasia es un acto tan directo e inmediato como la percepción, y carece de toda mediación por un Bildobjekt. A la luz del texto nº1 de Hua XXIII recogemos las características del no presente de la phantasia (distinto del no presente de la imaginación): la phantasia, amén de no presente, es proteiforme, intermitente y discontinua. Las paradojas relativas a los phantasmata de las apariciones de phantasia (Phantasieerscheinungen) nos conducirán a proponer una nueva interpretación de la representificación (Vergegenwärtigung) phantaseante como retemporalización en presencia (sin presente asignable). Por último analizamos el proceso de transposición arquitectónica de la phantasia en imaginación para terminar retomando la crítica, esbozada al principio del texto, de la perspectiva de las neurociencias en el análisis de la conciencia. tent and discontinuous. The paradoxes which then emerge with regard to the phantasmata of the phantasia appearances (Phantasieerscheinungen) will lead us to propose a new interpretation of the phantasizing presentification (Vergegenwärtigung) as retemporalization in praesentia (without any assignable present). Last but not least, an analysis is provided of the process of architectonical transposition of. (shrink)

En la primera parte de este artículo Marc Richir plantea el problema fenomenológico central de la Crisis de las ciencias europeas y la fenomenología trascendental de Edmund Husserl y que encuentra en El origen de la geometría su prueba concreta: el problema del irreductible hiatus o laguna en la continuidad fenomenológica entre la Lebenswelt y la ciencia. La exposición de este problema se desarrolla en la segunda parte mostrando que el primer problema fenomenológico fundamental de la Krisis es el (...) del movimiento de la formación de sentido originario (Sinnbildung), es decir del despliegue de la temporalidad concreta de una conciencia irreductible a la presencia, conciencia de la que es coextensivo un fenómeno-de- lenguaje consistente en fases de presencia de sentido originariamente plurales y múltiples, en un tiempo lacunar originariamente estallado. En la tercera parte, y en relación esta vez con la institución simbólica como el segundo problema fenomenológico fundamental de la Krisis, Richir problematiza el paso de la Sinnbildung originaria a la sedimentación con el que Husserl, en un gesto metafísico clásico de estructuración, compromete a la fenomenología. Finalmente, en la cuarta parte Richir se aventura a explicar, con el ejemplo concreto del Origen de la geometría, las condiciones fenomenológicas bajo las cuales nace la institución simbólica de la geometría como ciencia al encajarse en la institución simbólica del mundo de la pre-geometría, es decir en el orden de una Sinnbildung originaria en operación en un trazado de figuras que no conduce ipso facto a la institución propiamente geométrica. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se toma como punto de partida la distinción que condensa la concepción husserliana de la Historia en la Krisis, a saber, la formación del sentido y la sedimentación, entendidas la primera como campo fenomenológico y la segunda como institución simbólica. El hiato entre ambas manifiesta el carácter problemático de la Historia que se profundiza enseguida sobre la base de una radicalización de la formación del sentido, como presencia sin presente. Y se vuelve altamente problemática ante la (...) posibilidad de una reflexión fenomenológica no teleológica, sino estética, de los sentidos por sí mismos. La reflexión richiriana se va a detener en la conversión de la reflexión fenomenológica en reflexión teleológica, es decir en la subsunción conceptual del sentido, propio de la institución simbólica. Finalmente, comprendemos por qué el desajuste originario entre el presente y las fases de presencia no vuelve al presente un presente histórico (así en el caso del pensamiento mítico). El nacimiento de la Historia se identifica con la experiencia de lo sublime como relación con la muerte o puesta en juego del orden simbólico. (shrink)