Business Management

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether brand name can affect the public's evaluation of a product. All subjects smoked identical cigarettes. One group of subjects, however, knew the cigarettes by the name of “Frontiersman,” a masculine name, while the other group knew the cigarettes as “April,” a feminine name. Male and female subjects were asked to rate the cigarette on seven measures. Results show that women gave a more positive evaluation to the cigarette purportedly named “April,” while men gave a more positive evaluation to the identical cigarette when they thought it was named “Frontiersman.” In addition, women reacted more strongly than did men to brand name influence.

This paper examines the effect of product endorsement claims on a consumer's decision making processes. A simulated endorsement claim was made for a product after which a consumer was presented with the product. Endorsements tested were the three most common types in use: celebrity, expert, and typical consumer, with two control groups for experimental design. Three scales of measurement were used to assess the effect of the endorsement: a consumer's intent to purchase, his overall attitude towards the product, and his expected price of the product. The results show the strength of celebrity and typical consumer endorsers. They also show that the endorser effect is dramatically weaker than hypothesized. The Lavidge-Steiner hierarchy of advertising effects model is introduced in an attempt to explain this phenomenon. Guidelines for further research are provided.

The contention of this paper is that the marketing concept is but one aspect of a philosophy of business referred to by the authors as the framework for organizational success. This framework maintains that the marketing concept must work together with good management approaches and with ethical business practices in order to satisfy the needs and wants of the various publics of the organization — customers, employees, suppliers, society — and, in the long run, ensure the satisfaction of the needs of the organization itself. The authors propose that focusing on one concept, and ignoring the other two aspects, is not likely to promote organizational success.

The Talmud, the compilation of Jewish oral law, is over 1500 years old and includes extensive discussions of business ethics. This paper presents four levels of ethical behavior in business gleaned from the words of the Talmud. At the lowest level, an individual is just barely inside the law; the highest level is “the way of the pious”. The author has attempted to relate the ethics in ancient business situations to business practices today.

More than 100 of the 613 precepts of the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) deal with business ethics. This paper focuses on an overlooked precept: ensuring price stability. There is a
tendency to trivialize the law mandating that prices be kept low and affordable. Indeed, very few people are aware that the ninth blessing of the ancient Amida (also known as shemoneh
esrei) prayer, established by the 120 members of the Great Assembly in the 5th century BCE, is a prayer for divine protection against individuals who would raise prices unjustly. This paper illustrates the importance of this law and provides interesting stories and examples of individuals who protected the public against hoarders.

The secret of what it takes to be a great leader is revealed in Psalm 72. In this Psalm, King David informs Solomon of what it takes to be a truly successful leader. Unfortunately, Solomon did not heed his father’s advice and caused the destruction of the United Kingdom of Israel and the disappearance of the 10 tribes. Psalm 72 also provides important lessons for today’s political and corporate leaders who wish to build thriving countries and organizations.

Ideally, ethics should be an integral part of every legal system. The reality is, however, that law is not ethics and it is quite possible to have a legal system that is completely immoral. Moreover, it is possible to obey the law and yet cause much harm to society. Indeed, one lesson we learned from the Great Recession of 2008 is that many bankers, auditors, accountants, and CEOs bent the rules and wreaked financial havoc yet did not technically break the law. This paper describes several legal
devices used by the ancient sages of the Talmud to improve the law and make it more ethical; these include: use of moral judgments, allowing core values to trump law, use of stories including stories about Elijah the prophet – to illustrate how pious people would behave, and going beyond the strict requirements of the law.

Adam Smith demonstrated how self-interest and the “invisible hand” of the marketplace allocated scarce resources efficiently and promoted social welfare. Unfortunately, the invisible hand argument led to the belief that regulation is unnecessary and that “greed is good.” This paper uses the life of one of the greatest mass murderers of history, King Leopold II, who caused the death of 10 million people, to show how greed can actually result in great harm. Greed should not be confused with self-interest. In the long run, greed can destroy an organization or country.

This paper demonstrates how greed, incompetence, and misuse of the so-called corporate/business model are wreaking havoc with academe. College administrators create departments and schools in order to fatten their CVs, not to improve quality. They become more concerned about increasing their income and gaming the system so that they will look good for their next job. Administrative bloat has gotten out of hand so that tuition has to increase dramatically. In addition, salaries for the people at the top continues to increase while salaries for faculty has not kept pace with inflation. The one thing that the corporate model is not being used for is to make colleges more efficient and improving them so that students who graduate become successful.