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The Coming Managerial Class: Generation Z Women and Their Ethics
Full text linkPeer-Reviewed Journal Article. 22 pagesA seemingly endless series of high-profile incidents involving the actions of some prominent
United States and European corporate and government individuals have occurred in recent
years, weakening faith in leaders, intuitions and the marketplace. This has fueled discussions
concerning ethical behavior in business by those in leadership positions. These events have
brought more attention to post-secondary schools of business that seek to prepare future
business professionals for situations and circumstances they may face. Yet, students do not
come to post-secondary intuitions as blank slates. With regard to ethics and other aspects of
their moral foundation much has already been shaped and determined. The current study
explores a specific cohort of these students, namely women of Generation Z who will soon
begin their careers in industry and government. A good number of these women will eventually
rise to significant leadership positions in their chosen fields. Results from over 250 Generation
Z women participating in a Research Lab housed at a medium sized university in the southern
part of the United States are presented and discussed. Specifically, the study reports on: (1)
research from a number of fields addressing ethical development and systems, (2) the ethical
influences on these individuals, (3) self-reported knowledge of various moral perspectives and
ethical issues, and (4) their evaluations on the severity of a number of behaviors. Results are
discussed in the context of how Generation Z women may manage differently than those
currently holding positions of power and authority in our society
Netnography: A Pocket Guide to Conducting Research in Closed Virtual Communities
Full text linkPeer-Reviewed Journal Article. 14 pagesThis paper defines closed virtual communities and outlines a brief guide for researchers (academics and students) who wish to engage in ethnographic studies of online communities, commonly known as a netnography. Although netnographies are relatively common in marketing research but represent a useful methodology for information systems research and business research in general. Additionally, this study outlines the major steps involved in a netnography, including entrée into the community, the gathering of data, and the analysis and interpretation of the gathered data. This study concludes with suggested guidelines depending on the sensitive nature of the closed virtual community
Perceptions of Competency Norms in the Workplace: A Scale Development
Full text linkPeer-Reviewed Journal Article. 25 pagesThis study developed and tested a theory-based measure of an individual’s perceptions of social norms of showing competency at work (i.e., perceptions of competency norms) with 644 working professionals in two samples. Following item generation and content adequacy assessment, exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence of its construct validity, resulting in a multidimensional instrument comprising four conditions under which perceptions of competency norms may be elicited: toward profession, toward stakeholders, when competent, and when incompetent. Finally, structural equation modeling demonstrated predictive validity for the measure of perceptions of competency norms with three impression management tactics: self-promotion, ingratiation, and exemplification. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed
City of Davenport v. Martin, Brief for the Appellee (Martin et. al.)
No full textLegal Brief. 59 pages2020 Supreme Court Celebration Competition Problem:
The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Article I, Section 17 of the Iowa Constitution does the same. Litigants usually invoke those constitutional provisions to challenge the method of punishment or the severity of punishment. But there is a third type of challenge, which is very rare: a claim that the government is prosecuting someone and imposing punishment for something that these constitutional provisions will not allow it to punish at all.
The seminal case on this is Robinson v. California, where the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a California penal statute that defined a crime in a way that violated the Eighth Amendment: it made it a crime to be addicted to narcotics. The U.S. Supreme Court held that buying narcotics, possessing narcotics, and selling narcotics were all acts, and there's no constitutional problem with criminalizing and punishing conduct. But being an addict is a status, and it would be cruel and unusual punishment to impose any amount of punishment for simply existing (especially when a person may have come by their status as an addict through lawful use of prescription drugs, or simply by being born to a mother suffering from a similar addiction). However, in Powell v. Texas, a fractured court held that it did not violate the Eighth Amendment for Texas to criminalize public intoxication, even as applied to an alcoholic who claimed that he was compelled to get drunk and then had no control over where he went after that. A concurrence by Justice White suggested that, if Powell had been homeless, then this would be a stronger constitutional challenge: for a homeless person, this law would criminalize being drunk, which would threaten to run afoul of Robinson (although it would still be different from criminalizing the status of being an alcoholic, which would clearly be unconstitutional).
Which brings us to Davenport, Iowa, where city ordinances prohibit folks from sleeping or camping in public spaces. Violations are punishable as simple misdemeanor offenses; usually, this means a citation or arrest, and then a small fine and/or a sentence to time served. A group of individuals is challenging those ordinances as unconstitutional, arguing that they violate both the Eighth Amendment and Article I, Section 17 of the Iowa Constitution. The argument is that, as applied to folks who cannot find shelter, the ordinances criminalize the status of homelessness, just like Robinson criminalized the status of addiction. While there are homeless shelters in the Davenport area, they are often full (and some of them have religious affiliations or other rules that make them unavailable to certain people). The Iowa district court determined that these ordinances were criminalizing conduct, not status, so it granted the City's motion for summary judgment. But the Iowa Court of Appeals reversed and remanded with orders to grant the plaintiff's cross-motion and to enjoin the City from enforcing these ordinances against anyone without their own options for shelter at any moment when there is no available bed space in a local homeless shelter.
The City applied for further review before the Iowa Supreme Court, which granted review. To resolve this case, the Iowa Supreme Court must decide whether it violates the Eighth Amendment to criminalize sleeping or camping in public when a person is homeless. Is this conduct, which a local government can criminalize? Or is this the status of homelessness, which cannot be criminalized? Or is it both status and conduct, somehow intertwined? What then? What does the fractured opinion in Powell v. Texas really stand for? And then, after answering all of those questions by applying federal law that interprets the Eighth Amendment, the Iowa Supreme Court must step back and ask: is all of that analysis equally valid and persuasive in applying Article I, Section 17 of the Iowa Constitution? Is any of it? What other criminal laws in Iowa will become unenforceable if the plaintiffs prevail? What other status-adjacent conduct could be criminalized in Iowa, if the City prevails? And does either result actually help alleviate the pressing problem of homelessness?Simmons Perrine Moyer & Bergmann, PL
The Winds of Change: How Wind Energy Impacts Local Economies in Iowa
Full text linkPeer-Reviewed Journal Article. 12 pagesAs renewable energy has become less costly over time, chiefly since the mid-2000s, the wind
energy industry has been expanding rapidly. This is especially true in Iowa, which has become
a leading producer of wind energy in the United States. Most wind farms are built in rural
communities, and many people rely on them for employment and income, but studies examining
the effects on an economy-wide scale have been mixed. This paper seeks to determine how
much the wind energy industry affects economies on a county-level scale in Iowa. Panel data
was collected including the number of wind turbines in a county and annual retail sales from
1995 to 2019. Regressions were run with and without using wind speed as an instrument for the
number of turbines. The results indicate that the presence of wind turbines in a county has a
small, but positive, impact on the amount of retail sales in the county. This would suggest that
wind energy not only benefits the environment but also the community
Behavioral Economics and the Demand for Insurance
Full text linkPeer-Reviewed Journal Article. 16 pagesWhile neoclassical economic models have provided significant insight into policy and economic
behavior, these models fail to take into account actual human behavior outside of what is
defined as rational. These anomalies in human behavior from what neoclassical models predict
creates problems when looking to implement effective policies in practice. Through examining
one such application of this problem in the demand for insurance, this paper examines the work
of several behavioral economists in an attempt to understand where current consumer behavior
strays from what neoclassical economists predict. This paper pinpoints the resulting difference
in consumer behavior and seeks to understand its specific causes. Following a discussion of the
literature, this paper argues that there remains a need to investigate the root causes of this
anomalous behavior in order to effectively influence insurance policy to ensure consumers are
purchasing both the right type and amount of insurance to best fit their needs
Up Close and Friendly: A Study of Compassion and Favoritism by Human Resource Professionals
Full text link20 pagesWe assess differences in human resource professionals’ displays of compassion and
favoritism by observing the rigor with which participants in an experiment enforce an
organizational rule. In our experiment, participants must decide to report (be rigorous) or
not report (be lenient) a rule violation committed by an employee. Participants are
randomly assigned to three scenarios varying in affective and psychological closeness:
the employee violating the rule is a co-worker, a co-worker experiencing serious difficulties
at home, or a close friend experiencing the same difficulties. We observe that staff and
senior human resource managers act with compassion towards co-workers facing severe
difficulties at home. We also observe that human resource professionals (with the
exception of senior managers) tend to be more lenient towards their friends. Our model
suggests that moral reasoning is a fundamental driver of compassion when participants
have information about extenuating circumstances. However, moral reasoning seems to
be inhibited in the presence of friendship, so that favoritism, when it exists, is produced
entirely by the direct effect of adding friendship to the decision context
Organizational Stigma: Sources and Outcomes
Full text linkEditorially-Reviewed Journal Article. 13 pagesOrganizational stigma is a useful adaptation of the concept of social stigma, which can be
used to understand why some organizations are saddled with the image of being socially
unsavory or undesirable. In this paper, we define the concept of organizational stigma and
review it in relation to established theory and similar organizational constructs. We argue
how organizational stigma is developed, and discuss various outcomes from
organizational stigma. We conclude with a discussion of implications for practitioners and
academics
Sioux County Parks Commission v. American Humanist Association, Brief for Appellant (Sioux County Parks Commission)
No full textLegal Brief. 83 pages2019 Supreme Court Celebration Competition Problem:
A 40-foot tall monument has stood (and still stands) in the median of an intersection in a small Iowa town, since its completion in 1925. It memorializes local residents who died in combat in World War I. The Sioux County Parks Commission now owns the land and maintains the monument, which is in proximity to other war memorial monuments and serves as a venue for the county’s Memorial Day and Veterans Day events. County resources have been used to maintain and light the “Peace Cross,” including $100,000 recently budgeted to repair and restore the cross itself.
The plaintiffs allege that ownership, maintenance, and display of the Peace Cross monument on public property is unconstitutional because it violates the Establishment Clause, which says Congress, states, and local governments “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Under the Lemon test, government action survives this type of challenge if it is driven by a secular purpose (at least in part), has a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion or any particular sect, and does not excessively entangle the government with religion. The District Court found that the Peace Cross monument passed this test, but a majority of judges on the Court of Appeals disagreed. Beyond that clash, there are concerns that Lemon does not provide useful guidance in cases involving monuments—like Van Orden, which applied “legal judgment” and relied on history and tradition to uphold the placement of a Ten Commandments monument on state capitol grounds. Of course, various judges to rule on this claim also disagreed on whether it passed the Van Orden test.
The two questions before the Supreme Court are:
(1) When faced with a claim that a monument or display violates the Establishment Clause, should courts apply the Lemon test, or should they apply Van Orden—or something else entirely?
(2) Does this Peace Cross monument survive the applicable test? Does it violate the Establishment Clause for the Sioux County Parks Commission to own and maintain this 40-foot cross, as a war memorial for local residents who fought in World War I?Simmons Perrine Moyer & Bergmann, PL
Generations at Work: A Review of Generational Traits and Motivational Practices Impacting Millennial Employees
Full text linkEditorially-Reviewed Journal Article. 13 pagesThere are currently five generations operating in today’s workforce, yet only one that is
causing a disturbance amongst traditional managerial practices: Millennials. Commonly
referred to as Generation Y, Millennials are generally representative of those persons born
between 1985 and 1999 (Alsop, 2008). Growing up in the technology bubble and
experiencing unique cultural events has greatly impacted the perception of work,
motivation, and satisfaction for this generation compared to their counterparts from former
eras. The paradigm shift surrounding Millennial motivation in the workplace leaves
employers presuming the generation is entitled, selfish, and disloyal. This paper seeks to
refute and add context to those assumptions, highlight shared tendencies and habits,
examine the motivational theories applicable to Millennials, and offer practical
recommendations for managers to create a culture cultivating exemplary employee
performance and desired outcomes