Value (ethics)

About: Value (ethics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 21347 publications have been published within this topic receiving 461372 citations.

Privacy: Its Meaning and Value

Abstract: Bodily privacy, understood as a right to control access to one’s body, capacities, and powers, is one of our most cherished rights − a right enshrined in law and notions of common morality. Informational privacy, on the other hand, has yet to attain such a loftily status. As rational project pursuers, who operate and flourish in a world of material objects it is our ability control patterns of association and disassociation with our fellows that afford each of us the room to become distinct individuals. Privacy, whether physical or informational, is valuable for beings like us. Establishing the truth this claim will be the primary focus of this article. Providing reasons, evidence, and support for this claim will take us into the historical and cultural dimensions of privacy.

Accounting history and accounting progress

Abstract: The "new" accounting historians that emerged from the mid-1980s characterised their predecessors as relying heavily on a view of accounting as progressive and accounting change as evolutionary. From a social science perspective, progress is a problematic concept, as it implies not just change but also improvement, and thus seems to imply the making of a value judgement. As accounting has become an object of study less as a technical and more as a social phenomenon, consensus as to what constitutes an improvement becomes harder to secure. However, from a perspective grounded in historiography, this paper reviews the use of a concept of progress in the writing of history from the eighteenth century, and analyses its use, together with that of a concept of evolution, in "traditional" accounting history. Appealing to recent developments in the understanding of the role of narrative in history, the paper suggests that the use of narratives of accounting progress should not be ruled out on a priori grounds.

Creating Economic Value Through Social Values: Introducing a Culturally Informed Resource-Based View

Abstract: The resource-based view (RBV) has historically privileged the firm's internal resources and capabilities, often at the exclusion of its institutional context. In this paper, we introduce a culturally informed RBV that explains how cultural elements in the firm's institutional context shape the economic value associated with a firm's strategy. We posit that a firm's institutional context may create or destroy economic value. If the strategy inadvertently becomes associated with a social issue, it poses a risk for the firm. Firms that recognize the dynamic interplay between their resources and their institutional context in the face of social issues can engage in important cultural work, and thereby preserve their strategy's economic value.

Work Ethic, Employment Contracts, and Firm Value

Abstract: We analyze how the work ethic of managers impacts a firm’s employment contracts, riskiness, growth potential, and organizational structure. Flat contracts are optimal for diligent managers because they reduce risk-sharing costs, but they attract egoistic agents who shirk and unskilled agents who add no value. Stable, bureaucratic firms with low growth potential are more likely to gain value from managerial diligence. Firms that hire from a virtuous pool of agents are more conservative in their investments and have a horizontal corporate structure. Our theory also yields several testable implications that distinguish it from standard agency models. EVER SINCE BERLE AND MEANS (1932) recognized that the separation of ownership and control impacts firm value, economists have focused on ways to mitigate the agency problems that arise between shareholders and managers. Agency theory is now ubiquitous in corporate finance as an important determinant of

Measurement in Social Stratification

Abstract: Valid measurement involves a process of theoretical conceptualization and opera­ tional definition based on rules of correspondence between the theory and the scaling techniques selected. The requirement of prior conceptual clarity is a major obstacle in the measurement of social stratification: theories in this field are complex, contra­ dictory, diverse, and "as difficult to express operationally as they are grand" (Jack­ son & Curtis 1968: 112). It is not the purpose of this paper to review the theoretical issues; that has been well done by others in recent years (Svalastoga 1964, 1965; Bottomore 1966; Lenski 1966; Tumin 1967; Allardt 1968; Runciman 1968; Parsons 1970; Eisenstadt 1971). Rather, the major objective is to present and critically review some of the measurement devices that have been developed by US, Canadian, and British researchers. Fortunately, there are some core concepts in social stratifi­ cation that have permitted these attempts at measurement, even in the absence of an agreed-upon theoretical base, or as Bottomore suggests (1966:10), "some general features of social stratification which are not in dispute." In the first place, social stratification is virtually synonymous with social inequal­ ity.1 Strata are not simply nominal categories, but hierarchically arranged sets with distinctions by ordinal rank. These distinctions indicate a second general feature, namely that stratification is social, the ranks based on societal definitions or attribu­ tions of differential value. The arenas and grounds for these value judgments, however, are subject to some controversy. There is little disagreement concerning the existence of at least two types of characteristics generating such judgments: biological distinctions, such as age, sex, or race, and acquired distinctions, such as power, wealth, or prestige. But there is no theoretical consensus as to which of these