Issues Worthy of Our Attention: Perspectives on Current Business Ethics Issues from Accounting, Finance, Management and Marketing Scholars

Business: Reflections from the Business Academic Community" conference and those thoughts are captured in the collection of papers in this issue. Drawn from the accounting, finance, management, and marketing fields, these scholars were asked to identify ethical issues within their domain of study. Key to this identification is that they are not "ethicists" by training but rather are noted academics within their discipline. As will be evident as you read their papers, the discussions provide a fresh perspective on the issues that are in critical need of attention, discussion, and future research. In the "Distribution of IPO Holdings across Institutional Funds" Johnson and MariettaWestberg examine initial public offerings (IPO) and their distribution across a sample of fund families. In doing so, several important ethical issues are identified, including the practice of holding IPOs outside of the fund's objective, a practice that could be argued to misleading to investors who rely on the stated objectives of the fund to achieve their investment objectives, such as balancing their account. The implications of these issues are important not only for investors but also for identifying improvements in the practices at investment and non-investment banks. Forster, Loughran, and McDonald, in "Commonalities in Codes of Ethics" highlight the similarities in ethics codes between firms. The similarities noted raise concern over the potential impact that such "rubber stamped" value statements have, if in fact, they are not developed within a specific organizational culture but rather are "copied" from firm to firm. In addition, the possibility that regulation is at least partly responsible for these similarities suggests that we need to consider the implications of "mandating" ethics to organizations. In "The Use of Scents to Influence Consumers: The Sense of Using Scents to Make Scents" Bradford and Desrochers analyze the ethical issues associated with scent marketing. Such a practice, which involves the use of scents to influence consumers, is argued to raise troubling ethical issues in the marketing field because of the subliminal, "unstoppable," and unobserved nature of the sense of smell. As discussed, these issues are not limited to retailers but need to be addressed by researchers as well. The connection between religiosity and ethical judgments is explored in VitelPs, "The Role of Religiosity in Marketing and Consumer Ethics Research" Vitell provides an overview of the incorporation of religiosity in ethics research in the marketing field, noting the growing influence of the religiosity construct and its relationship to ethical judgments. Vitell's review suggests that additional research is needed in this area, particularly in understanding the relationships between religiosity and moral philosophy, moral awareness, and moral behavior. In "Protect My Privacy or Support the Common Good? The Ethical Dilemma of the Opt-in versus Optout Decision related to Electronic Health Information Exchanges," Angst raises the very timely topic of electronic health information exchange and the important ethical issues it raises. Argued to provide a common good, an electronic health information