Reconciling Traditional Morality and the Morality of Competition

It is commonly believed that the moral norms of “everyday” or “traditional” morality apply uniformly in all business contexts. However, Joseph Heath has recently argued that this is not the case. According to Heath, the norms of everyday morality apply with respect to “administered” transactions but not “market” transactions. Market transactions are, he argues, governed by a distinct, “adversarial” morality. In this article, I argue that Heath's attempt to show that competitive contexts are governed by a distinct, adversarial morality does not succeed. I then undertake the task of showing that, contrary to what is commonly thought, competitive actions can be reconciled with the norms of traditional morality.     

Enteignende Besteuerung durch steuerfreie Eink��nfte? �C Paradoxe Wirkungen des Progressionsvorbehalts aus theoretischer und empirischer Sicht

This paper analyzes the progression reservation (Progressionsvorbehalt) theoretically and empirically. At the beginning the historical development of the progression reservation is presented. Thereafter requirements on a systematic tax scale are defined and applied to the progression reservation. It turns out that the negative progression reservation does not meet these requirements, because marginal tax rates can occur over 100%. Moreover distortions are observed within a large range of the tax base. After this the paper presents a micro simulation on basis of individual tax statistics data from the Federal Statistical Office. As a result of this the theoretically analyzed distortions can also be found in reality.     

Von der Kundenintegration 1.0 zur Kundenintegration 2.0 – Implikationen für Praxis und Forschung

Customer integration has become an established topic in management research with specific attention given by marketing researchers. The term refers to a new definition of a customer’s role in market exchange. While previously the customer was considered a merely passive recipient of goods and services only he now takes over the function of active supplier of input before, while and after a market transaction. Currently, four different research lines on the topic can be identified: Each of these research lines also mirrors a distinct manifestation of practical application: (1) the business of solutions, (2) mass customization, (3) service co-creation and (4) value co-creation. For the future we expect more stimulation for both the practical and the conceptual advancement of customer integration particularly to stem from new technologies to be summarized under the label of web 2.0. For web 2.0 we distinguish between moderator centered approaches such as crowdsourcing, swarm creativity and open innovation on the one hand and community centered approaches such as social network sites on the other hand. In order to advance and substantiate our understanding of the new implications from web 2.0 on customer integration we propose to resort to the theory of social capital and the concept of the borderless organization.     

Towards a socio-oecotechnology

The paper will attempt to demonstrate that within the broad ambit of the socio-technical model there is scope for development and for a degree of innovation. Two aspects of the model will be progressed and to some extent integrated. Firstly, I will argue that the joint optimisation (JtO) concept has not been elaborated and emphasised as much as it deserves and it needs to be sharply differentiated from the widely used notion of maximisation. Secondly, using JtO, I will extend the two system socio-technical model to a troika model by including the impact of technology on the oecological environment.¹ To obtain the best overall results, JtO has to be achieved between three systems: the social, the technical and the oecological. In this way, the extended model will engage with the public’s rapidly growing awareness of environmental hazards for which it frequently blames technologies. This extension also raises the socio-technical model from the micro- to the meso- and macro-level which was always the intention of the early pioneers. These theoretical developments will be treated heuristically and briefly illustrated by two case examples from recent research.     

Deception in simple voting games

The calculations of sophisticated voters who successively eliminate undesirable strategies are analyzed in three-person voting games in which one voter with complete information can, as a deceiver, induce the other two voters with incomplete information to vote in such a way as to ensure a better outcome than the deceiver could ensure in a game of complete information. Deception which is “tacit,” wherein a deceiver votes consistently with his announced preference scale, is distinguished from deception which is “revealed,” wherein a deceiver's action deviates from his announced preference scale. Among the conclusions drawn from the study is that revealed deception is generally a more potent tool than tacit deception in securing a more-preferred outcome, and deception opportunities are greater the more disagreement there is among the nondeceivers.     

联合国在国际社会中的作用

联合国自创立伊始就成为国际关系中的一项核心制度.从联合国对使用武力的限制、维和和监督行动的迅速扩展、围绕安理会改革的争议及其对国际标准和准则的倡导等四个方面来看,联合国发挥了不可替代的作用,而且仍将在国际社会的转型过程中发挥重要作用.     

用作色谱固定相的二氧化锆微球的制备

从氧氯化锆出发制备二氧化锆溶胶,在二氧化锆溶胶中,通过甲醛和尿素在酸性条件下的聚合反应,利用聚合诱导胶体团聚法(PICA)制备二氧化锆微球。分别利用扫描电镜(SEM)和光学显微镜研究了聚合反应条件、二氧化锆水溶胶的质量和烧结温度等对氧化锆微球的最终形态、机械强度和空隙度等的影响。通过对上述因素的控制,可以得到符合要求的ZrO2微球。     

A multi-criteria approach to fair and efficient bandwidth allocation

In systems which serve many users there is a need to respect some fairness rules while looking for the overall efficiency. This applies among others to network design where a central issue is how to allocate bandwidth to flows efficiently and fairly. The so-called max–min fairness is widely used to meet these goals. However, allocating the bandwidth to optimize the worst performance may cause a large worsening of the overall throughput of the network. In this paper we show how the concepts of mult-criteria equitable optimization can effectively be used to generate various fair and efficient allocation schemes. We introduce a multi-criteria model equivalent to equitable optimization and we develop a corresponding reference point procedure to generate fair and efficient bandwidth allocations. Our analysis is focused on the nominal network design for elastic traffic that is currently the most significant traffic of IP networks. The procedure is tested on a sample network dimensioning problem for elastic traffic and its abilities to model various preferences are demonstrated.     

Independence in assisted living

The aims of this study were to understand the meaning of independence for residents of assisted living and to identify factors influencing the operationalization of independence in this setting. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 providers and 55 residents in 17 assisted-living facilities in Georgia. Data were analyzed by using the grounded theory method. Findings show that assisted-living residents retained a strong value for independence and that independence had multiple dimensions of meaning. Whereas independence in most cases was reduced to performing everyday activities of daily living (ADLs), the multidimensional nature of meaning allowed residents with significant disability both to continue to perceive themselves as independent and to find satisfaction in their remaining abilities. Resident self-care requires significant effort from both residents and providers, but it also has far-reaching potential to help residents maintain intact identities and may hold the key to extending their stay in the assisted-living facility (ALF) environment.