Kaizen Weekly Review highlights activities of The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship and recent business ethics and entrepreneurship news.
Editor: Virginia Murr

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Netflix: Back from the Brink of Destruction
It was a business disaster. In 2011, Netflix rolled out Qwikster, which “tried to both raise prices and spin off its DVD-by-mail business.” The media wrote scathing reviews and Netflix shares plunged. How did a Netflix CEO Reed Hastings bring his company back from the brink of destruction? According to Richard Greenfield, a media analyst for BTIG, “He [Reed] dusted himself off, stood back up and started running.” Read more.

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The Rub with Workplace Ethics
What influences employees to speak out about ethical violations in the workplace? To find out, University of Michigan professor David Mayer and his colleagues conducted three studies. According to Mayer, the results “contradict conventional wisdom that the personal characteristics of an employee drive his or her decision to speak up.”

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The Watch of the Future
This Tech Crunch article reviews the Ressence Type 3, a liquid-filled mechanical watch with a nearly featureless face that winds automatically. The dials look like they are seamlessly embedded in the face surface, which spins. As well, a pressure valve compensates for temperature-related changes in the liquid. View the product page.

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Internet Ethics Problems from Silicon Valley
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics in Silicon Valley has a web page dedicated to ethics and the Internet. The site hosts a series of brief videos on key issues in Internet ethics, as identified by Silicon Valley leaders. Participants include the co-founders of Adobe and Reputation.com, as well as the CEOs of Symantec and Seagate.

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The Future of Art
In April, Stephen Hicks attended a meeting of minds in California to discuss key issues in representational aesthetics in preparation for next year’s Representational Art Conference (TRAC). TRAC 2014 will focus on the aesthetic principles and values implicit in the representational art of the twenty-first century. The conference will be held March 2 – 5, 2014 in Ventura Beach, California.

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Taking a Swing at the Designated Hitter Rule
The Sports Ethicist’s radio program recently covered the Designated Hitter Rule in MLB. The rule has been in place for 40 years, yet still remains as controversial as ever. Does it remove the need for managerial strategy? Does it add excitement and offense to the game? Listen here as Professor Shawn Klein, Zachary Wolf, Daryn Streed, as well as Professors Matt Flamm and Mike Perry discuss the DH rule and its effects on baseball.

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With summer upon us, we will be producing the Kaizen Weekly Review on a biweekly basis. See you in two weeks!

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Previous Issues of Kaizen Weekly Review.

Kaizen Weekly Review highlights activities of The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship and recent business ethics and entrepreneurship news.
Editor: Virginia Murr

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Ralph Lauren Displays Integrity in Bribery Scandal
Ralph Lauren discovered that one of its subsidiaries had been bribing Argentinian officials. Not only did the company report the violation to the SEC themselves, but it did so knowing that it would have to pay heavy fines for the subsidiary’s actions. According to the company’s attorney, Tom Hanusik, “Ralph Lauren did all the right things in this situation.” Read the article.

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Innovation in Connectivity
Our modern-era concern when a storm comes is not that we’ll lose light if the power goes out, but that we will lose the internet. Until now. Ushahidi, a non-profit technology company that builds open source software and digital tools, has created the BRCK, a convenient, portable, and durable device that can “provide failsafe internet connectivity in almost any situation.” Read more about the BRCK in this article from Forbes.

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William Thomas on the Virtue of Productiveness
William R. Thomas is currently a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University at Albany and the director of programs for The Atlas Society. In this video, Thomas discusses productive work as the central value of life, elements of the virtue of productiveness, and the entrepreneurial concept of responsibility.
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Is Classical Liberalism Compatible with Darwinian Evolution?
Professor Shawn Klein has contributed a chapter to the newly released Darwinian Evolution And Classical Liberalism: Theories in Tension, edited by Stephen Dilley. Klein states that Dilley “has pulled together an interesting and thought-provoking book,” which includes critical and dissenting opinions. Read the abstract of Klein’s chapter.

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Business Ethics Case Study: Minimum Wages
Stephen Hicks has released another case in his Business Ethics Cases series. This video lecture examines the moral, economic, and political arguments for and against minimum wage laws.

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New Issue of Kaizen Featuring Entrepreneurship in Brazil
This issue’s feature interview with entrepreneur André Loiferman, president (CEO) of the construction company Brasília Guaíba, takes us to the south of Brazil and the challenges of infrastructure as Brazil upgrades its airports, roads, ports, and other facilities in preparation for soccer’s World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016 to be held there. We also report on our recent activities at Rockford College.

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Join Us in Our Mission
The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship focuses on the ethical infrastructure of an entrepreneurial society, as we believe that this is essential to human flourishing. Please join us by making a donation today through the PayPal link or send a check via snail-mail. Thank you for your support.

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See you next week!

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Previous Issues of Kaizen Weekly Review.

Kaizen Weekly Review highlights activities of The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship and recent business ethics and entrepreneurship news.

Editor: Virginia Murr

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Entrepreneurship and Public Policy
Guest speaker Dr. Robert Salvino recently spoke on “Entrepreneurship and Public Policy” at Rockford College. Salvino received his Ph.D. from Georgia State University in 2007 and currently teaches in the Department of Economics at Coastal Carolina University, South Carolina. In the video below, Salvino discusses highlights from his lecture.

This Scientific Discovery Could Change the World
Imagine giving your smart phone a long-lasting charge in just a couple seconds. Now imagine that this technology is scalable, which can lead to manufacturing and wide-scale technological implementation. Two scientists believe they have discovered a supercapacitor that can provide all of this and much more. Read more about the revolutionary supercapacitor “accidentally” discovered by chemist Richard Kaner and researcher Maher El-Kady.

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Regulations that Strike the Heart of Entrepreneurship
While undergoing cancer treatment, Lauren Boice learned how difficult it is to receive cosmetology services while home-bound. Determined to help others in her situation, Boice started a dispatch business to set up appointments for home-bound individuals with cosmetologists. According to the Arizona Board of Cosmetology, however, Boice was practicing cosmetology and needed a license as well as a brick and mortar store. Read attorney Timothy Sandefur’s comments on the case.

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Crowdfunding: Lessons for Entrepreneurs
Kauffman Dissertation Fellow Ethan Mollick examined almost 47,000 projects on Kickstarter and identified the factors that influence whether a project will succeed or not, such as having a strong geographic tie-in (e.g., pitching country music in Nashville, film in Los Angeles, etc.). Read the full article.

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Postmodernism versus Reason
Stephen Hicks has released two more chapters from his Explaining Postmodernism audiobook. Listen to Chapter Two: “The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason” and Chapter Three: “The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason.”

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Join Us in Our Mission
The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship focuses on the ethical infrastructure of an entrepreneurial society, as we believe that this is necessary to human flourishing. Please join us by making a donation today through the PayPal link or send a check via snail-mail. Thank you for your support.

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See you next week!

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Previous Issues of Kaizen Weekly Review.

Kaizen Weekly Review highlights activities of The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship and recent business ethics and entrepreneurship news.

Editor: Virginia Murr

Blasting Crony Capitalism
University of Chicago professor Luigi Zingales recently gave a lecture sponsored by the Pope Foundation in which he highlighted the arguments from his new book, A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity. According to Zingales, “The goal should not be to kill the free-market system, but to kill the crony component of the free-market system.” Read more.

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The Tragedy of the Commons
In his latest Business Ethics series release, Stephen Hicks examines the classic tragedy of the commons. The video-lecture includes a comparison and contrast between the free market and socialist solutions to the tragedy. For more cases in the series, click here.

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Radio Review of Fantasy and Fandom
The Sports Ethicist sat down with Chad Carlson, John Harney, Trisha Phillips, Aaron Harper, Andrew Koehl, Carl Robinson, and Mike Perry on Rockford College Radio to discuss the themes of the April 19th Sports Symposium dedicated to Fantasy and Fandom. Listen to or download the show.

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Competition is Good for You
According to Stanford’s Bill Barnett, your strategy professor was wrong. Competition is not bad for your company. On the contrary, competition can be the key to your company’s success. In this article, Barnett explains the many benefits to competition and why many business schools get it wrong.

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Lessons from Pixar
In this interview (pdf) with The McKinsey Quarterly, Pixar’s Academy-Award-winning director Brad Bird explains how Pixar’s management philosophy and dedication to innovation helped them to grow from a small computer-animation studio to a multi-billion dollar company.

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Join Us in Our Mission
In our mission, we give special focus to the ethical infrastructure of an entrepreneurial society, as we believe that this is necessary to human flourishing. Please join us by making a donation today through the PayPal link or you can find information on snail-mail at our website.

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See you next week!

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Previous Issues of Kaizen Weekly Review.

On April 23, Robert Salvino will speak on the topic of “Entrepreneurship and Public Policy.” Dr. Salvino received his Ph.D. from Georgia State University in 2007 and currently teaches in the Department of Economics at Coastal Carolina University, South Carolina.

All of the campus community is welcome to attend. Scarborough Hall, Rm 212 from 11:00am – 12:15pm.

Kaizen Weekly Review highlights activities of The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship and recent business ethics and entrepreneurship news.
Editor: Virginia Murr
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9 Dangerous Things You Were Taught in School
We didn’t just learn reading, writing, and arithmetic in school; we learned innumerable life lessons along the way. This Forbes article argues that school subtly teaches us such lessons as blindly following authority, never questioning the status quo, and that individual value can be standardized. As the author states: “Be aware of the insidious and unspoken lessons you learned as a child. To thrive in the world outside the classroom, you’re going to have to unlearn them.”

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Do We Have the Ability to be Heroes?
Who is a hero? Achilles? John Galt? Luke Skywalker? Ironman? While certainly heroic, these are fictitious figures, not real people. So can real people be heroic? Can we be heroes? Author and Professor of Leadership, Fred Kofman, suggests that “[h]eroes are not just mythical characters. They are examples of you at your best.” Read the article.

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John Chisholm and Stephen Hicks Give Talks at APEE Conference
Stephen Hicks and Kaizen interviewee John Chisholm spoke at the Association of Private Enterprise Education’s annual conference this week. Read more about Hicks’s discussion. Below is John Chisholm’s TedX talk “Release Your Inner Company.”

Business Ethics
A part of Hicks’s Business Ethics Case Studies video series, Introduction: Case Study Method, has been released. See the previously released video on Rent Control. Forthcoming case studies will include: The Tragedy of the Commons, Laetrile and Experimental Cancer Drugs, The FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine”, and Minimum Wages.

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Sports Symposium at Rockford College
Today, Professors Shawn Klein and Michael Perry are hosting a symposium on “Fandom, Fantasy, and Play.” According to professor Klein, “This year’s symposium seeks to explore and examine [the] aspects of the relationship between fan and sport.” The first panel addressing fandom will include such papers as “The Popovich-Stern Issue and Normative Implications for Professional Sports.” The second panel on fantasy will include such papers as “Fantasy Sport and Aristotelian Flourishing.” Read the abstracts.

See you next week!

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Previous Issues of Kaizen Weekly Review.

On April 15, Hicks gave a talk at the annual conference for the Association of Private Enterprise and Education. The subject of his talk was “What Makes Capitalism Good: Are Hayek’s, Rand’s, and Friedman’s Answers Compatible?” Hicks also chaired a session on “Recent Work on Morality and Capitalism” with papers by John Thrasher (University of Arizona), Peter Martin Jaworski (Georgetown University), Douglas B. Rasmussen (St. John’s University), and Jared Meyer (St. John’s University).

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Kaizen Weekly Review highlights activities of The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship and recent business ethics and entrepreneurship news.
Editor: Virginia Murr
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John Mackey’s Conscious Capitalism
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has made waves with his book Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business. According to this Forbes review, the theme of conscious capitalism is “that business is good because it creates value, it is ethical because it is based on voluntary exchange, it is noble because it can elevate our existence, and it is heroic because it lifts people out of poverty and creates prosperity.” Below is a Mackey’s discussion of Conscious Capitalism with Tucker Carlson at the Cato Institute.
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Business Ethics Case Studies: Rent Control
Stephen Hicks has released Rent Control, the first in his Business Ethics Case Studies series. Forthcoming cases will include Minimum Wages, The Tragedy of the Commons, Laetrile and Experimental Cancer Drugs, and the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine.”

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Audiobook Version of Explaining Postmodernism
Hicks’s Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault is being released as an audiobook. Listen to the first chapter, “What Postmodernism Is.” Explaining Postmodernism has been translated into three languages, with a Spanish translation forthcoming. It is also available in e-book format.

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The Sports Ethicist Takes on the Miami Heat
The Miami Heat recently caused a stir when the players refused the traditional after-game handshake with the Chicago Bulls. This prompted announcer Jeff Van Gundy to state that sports “shouldn’t be warm and friendly.” Shawn Klein, aka “the Sports Ethicist,” disagrees. According to Klein, “[T]he very essence of good sportsmanship is that when the game is over, you step outside that frame of mind.” Read the rest of his critique.

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Magatte Wade: Model of Leadership
Da Promoter hails Tiossan owner Magatte Wade as a female model of leadership. This article states that Wade’s story “is proof that with determination, determination, courage, and boldness, we can achieve everything.” Wade was the subject of a recent CEE interview in which she shares her personal successes and challenges as well as her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

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How to Measure Innovation
How should innovative companies be evaluated? Currently, there is no industry consensus on what factors best demonstrate the success of innovation. According to this article, there isn’t even agreement on such fundamental questions as “what defines an idea?” or “what does ‘success’ mean?” The author of the article believes there should be one standardized methodology. What do you think?

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See you next week!

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Previous Issues of Kaizen Weekly Review.

Kaizen Weekly Review highlights activities of The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship and recent business ethics and entrepreneurship news.
Editor: Virginia Murr

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Lessons on Leadership from Mark Cuban
Not all of Mark Cuban’s bosses appreciated his ambitious, entrepreneurial nature — he was often criticized for it. Speaking about one of his former bosses, the billionaire entrepreneur states, “He was my mentor, but not in the way you’d expect. Even now I think back to things he did, and I do the opposite.” Read the full article.

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The Virtuous Entrepreneur
Dr. Terry Noel gave the following CEE-sponsored talk on “The Virtuous Entrepreneur” at Rockford College. Noel’s research has been published in journals including the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Business Ethics, and the Journal of Entrepreneurship Education.
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The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship Celebrates 25 Years
On April 23, Steve Mariotti’s NFTE celebrates 25 years of programs that inspire young people from low-income communities to stay in school, to recognize business opportunities, and to plan for successful futures. For more information about the gala event, click here. Read CEE’s interview with Mariotti.

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The Year’s 23 Most Innovative Startups 2013
Every year the World Economic Forum releases its picks of the top technology pioneers. According to the WEF, “These startups are expected to drastically alter their particular fields over the next year.” In previous years, successful startups such as Kickstarter and Foursquare were members of the prestigious list. See this year’s list.

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Innovations in Payment Systems Helping Small Businesses
Gaps in cash flow “can make it difficult for business owners to focus on expansion rather than, say, managing payrolls or paying other bills.” This article explains how small businesses are making their cash flow smoother with innovative payment systems.

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Marx’s Philosophy and the “Necessity” of Violent Politics
In this post, Stephen Hicks considers why Marx and Engels rejected achieving socialism by democratic and reformist methods. As Marx stated, “[T]here is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.”

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See you next week!

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Previous Issues of Kaizen Weekly Review.

Professor Stephen Hicks, CEE’s Executive Director, interviewed guest speaker Terry Noel, Associate Professor of Management and Quantitative Methods at Illinois State University, about virtuous entrepreneurship. Watch the interview below.
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