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The purpose of the chapter is to develop a typology of bad behaviors characteristic of governing boards and to compare the bad behaviors identified in the typology to the governing boards’ expected roles and responsibilities. Several examples of bad governing board behaviors that have occurred at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are explored through the lens of the typology. The author argues that the bad behavior of governing boards responsible for the nations’ HBCUs inhibits strategic planning, undermines growth and development, and threatens the long-term viability of these institutions. Finally, recommendations intended to minimize the impact of bad board behaviors are proposed.

This chapter proposes that tax education, proxied by Master of Science in Taxation (MST) degree, has substantial influence on chief financial officers’ (CFOs) knowledge, skill sets, values, and cognitive preferences and further influences their decisions in tax reporting. By empirically examining the relation between CFOs with MST degree and their companies' tax compliance based on US data between 2004 and 2016, we find that CFOs with MST degree are associated with improved tax compliance, suggesting that US MST education, beyond general accounting education, cultivates graduates with higher levels of professionalism and ethics in the field of taxation. Moreover, we find that CFOs' tenure, age, and compensation influence the relation between tax education and tax compliance, suggesting company's compensation and employee policies influence executives' tax decisions. Finally, we find that pressures from financial reporting and CEOs with accounting educational background could alleviate the role of CFOs with accounting educational background in tax reporting, while institutional owners could strengthen the role of CFOs. This chapter provides evidence regarding the social implication of MST program and has important managerial implication to tax compliance, executive recruitment, and corporate governance.

Matthew Wynia and his co-authors and Charmers Clark, in their two chapters, take on thorny issues concerning the moral responsibilities of physicians – and, by implication, all health care professionals – regarding preparation for and response to epidemics (Clark, 2006; Wynia, Kurlander, & Green, 2006). Their chapters are especially timely, inasmuch as they address ethical challenges associated with bioterrorism, which, should it occur, could create an epidemic of catastrophic proportions, at least for the locality or localities in which the bioterrorism occurs. In this commentary, I provide a critical assessment of their chapters. I begin with a review of the foundational concept of the Wynia et al. chapter, social-trustee professionalism, and of the Clark chapter, a covenant of public trust. I then take up four issues: the moral demands of social-trustee professionalism and how the social-contract theory of medical ethics advocated by the framers of the 1847 American Medical Association Code of Ethics (American Medical Association, 1847) should be understood; social-role related obligations as ethically-justified limits on fiduciary responsibility in bioterrorism events and how such obligations should be addressed in a preventive ethics fashion by health care organizations; legitimate self-interests as ethically-justified limits on fiduciary responsibility and how such interests should be distinguished from mere self-interests and be addressed in a preventive ethics fashion by health care organizations; and the nature and limits of the standard of care in the large-scale emergencies that bioterrorism events could create.

Making law in America is not a simple task. It can be legislated by Congress, enforced by the executive, interpreted by the courts, and augmented by a massive body of rules created by administrative agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) (Dodd-Frank was passed) with an eye to preventing future financial crises. Four years later, many details of Dodd-Frank have yet to be finalized as the SEC is still in the process of developing the regulations that the legislation required them to create. Even once the regulations are finalized by the SEC, the regulations will be challenged by various parties in the courts. The regulations will be either upheld or rejected. Those that are upheld will then face numerous challenges when applied in specific cases, while those rejected will have to be redone all over again. The process of developing these regulations is cumbersome and attracts many of the special interests that were present in the legislative phase of Dodd-Frank and who will also be present in the litigation phases of testing Dodd-Frank in the courts. This paper focuses on the requirement that investment advisors and broker-dealers be deemed as owing fiduciary duties to their clients as a case study for the entangled political economy theory. The paper shows how the development of a simple rule such as whether these fiduciary duties should be owed or not requires years of back and forth between the legislative, executive, administrative, and judicial branches.

Chapter X of The Social System is often cited as the “charter” for the specialty field of medical sociology. A notable feature of its analysis is the argument that the physician is an agent of social control in relation to the patient. This argument grounds the application to medical practice of Parsons’ general conception that social control is an aspect of all social relationships. Parsons started by addressing the situation of a patient who assumes the sick role and then becomes the patient of a physician. The sick role involves a suspension of at least some of the performance expectations associated with a person's everyday social life, such as expectations of working productively at one's job, attending the meeting of a civic association, or caring for one's family members. But in assuming the sick role, an individual encounters new expectations that he or she should try to get well. For minor illnesses this may involve only resting, drinking fluids, and avoiding stress. For more serious illnesses, given our culture's valuation of scientific medicine, it typically involves placing oneself in the care of a physician. It then becomes the physician's duty to offer treatment and guidance to restore one's health and enable one to return to meet expectations of everyday roles. Thus the physician becomes an agent of social control.

This chapter assesses the impact of socially responsible investing (SRI) in terms of its role in governance. Governance refers to the rules, incentives, institutions and philosophies for coordinating, controlling and supervising behaviour. The SRI sector purports to be a mechanism of market governance, such as through its codes of conduct and targeting of individual companies by engagement or divestment.

This subject-matter of the chapter is evaluated primarily through a conceptual and theoretical argument rather than empirical research.

Social investors’ capacity to ‘govern’ the market is constrained by gaps and deficiencies in the legal frameworks for the financial economy. Fiduciary law controlling institutional investors is the most important element of this governance framework. The SRI movement is starting to broaden its agenda and strategies to include advocacy for regulatory reform. But the SRI industry has devoted attention to its own voluntary codes of conduct, such as the UNPRI, which do not yet provide a sufficiently comprehensive or robust substitute for official regulation.

Paradoxically, whereas SRI once stood for taking action through the financial economy when governments had failed to act, the sector is also somewhat dependent on the state to provide an empowering governance framework. But state regulation itself may be strengthened by partnership with the SRI industry, such as by utilising its codes of conduct to supplement official legal standards.

The chapter deepens insights into the relationship between the SRI sector as a largely voluntary movement and its legal governance through the state or the market.

The 2008/2009 World Financial Crisis underlined the importance of social responsibility for the sustainable functioning of economic markets. Heralding an age of novel heterodox economic thinking, the call for integrating social facets into mainstream economic models has reached unprecedented momentum. Financial Social Responsibility bridges the finance world with society in socially conscientious investments. Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) integrates corporate social responsibility in investment choices. In the aftermath of the 2008/2009 World Financial Crisis, SRI is an idea whose time has come. Socially conscientious asset allocation styles add to expected yield and volatility of securities social, environmental, and institutional considerations. In screenings, shareholder advocacy, community investing, social venture capital funding and political divestiture, socially conscientious investors hone their interest to align financial profit maximization strategies with social concerns. In a long history of classic finance theory having blacked out moral and ethical considerations of investment decision making, our knowledge of socio-economic motives for SRI is limited. Apart from economic profitability calculus and strategic leadership advantages, this paper sheds light on socio-psychological motives underlying SRI. Altruism, need for innovation and entrepreneurial zest alongside utility derived from social status enhancement prospects and transparency may steer investors’ social conscientiousness. Self-enhancement and social expression of future-oriented SRI options may supplement profit maximization goals. Theoretically introducing potential SRI motives serves as a first step toward an empirical validation of Financial Social Responsibility to improve the interplay of financial markets and the real economy. The pursuit of crisis-robust and sustainable financial markets through strengthened Financial Social Responsibility targets at creating lasting societal value for this generation and the following.