Search results

This chapter examines the interrelationships among pre-merger acquisition strategy, target resistance and post-merger integration and the effects of these interrelationships on post-merger performance. Perspectives from financial and strategic management theory are combined to suggest that an interaction effect of pre-merger and post-merger activities more fully explains merged firm performance, especially in cases in which the acquiring'firm is related to the target. Relatedness between acquiring and target firms is more likely to lead to operating synergy, which may increase performance. However, potential positive effects from synergy are likely to be offset by resistance from target firm executives, which may lead to premium-increasing tactics, such as bidder solicitation or holding out for a higher price, or, in the post-merger stage, integration difficulties.

There are many reasons for the changes in the way nursing ethics has been taught in recent decades. The technological advances in all areas of medicine requires nurses to have not only better clinical and technical skills but also the ability to think critically about the challenges posed by new technologies. The following narrative discusses the ways in which nursing ethics has moved from being a subsidiary branch of bioethics to an autonomous discipline with its own conceptual frameworks and exposes the ethical challenges faced by nurses globally, particularly nurses providing end-of-life care. Nurses can meet the ethical challenges posed by end-of-life care best if they are well educated, not only during their undergraduate training but their ethics education must be ongoing throughout their careers. The need to integrate sound theory to evidence-based clinical practice remains an unrealisable ideal, yet it is an ideal worth striving for.

China’s social credit system features a central database, the assignment of social credit scores for individuals and businesses, and the meting out of rewards and punishments, including a form of public shaming. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to develop the system in an effort to promote virtue and trustworthiness. While the idea that a government can ‘legislate morality’ is often scorned, it is not one that we dispute. Our focus is on how the social credit system promotes virtue, how the CCP’s thinking compares with that of certain relevant philosophers, and whether the system is in violation of human rights. As we readily acknowledge, there is a sense in which practically all of us face an informal kind of social credit system; as individuals in society, we expect to be subject to a kind of feedback loop in which good behaviour is rewarded and poor behaviour is punished. Yet China’s social credit system is a remarkably centralised kind of effort, and it enables the CCP to play an extraordinarily dominant role in both controlling and contributing to the feedback loop that people and businesses in China face. In harmony with a chorus of human rights groups, we argue that China’s social credit system is indeed in serious danger of violating certain human rights, particularly certain rights relating to freedom of opinion and expression. Moreover, we contend that this human rights critique of the system is reasonably robust because the kind of human rights involved are liberty rights as opposed to rights to goods and services. As we explain, liberty rights tend not to impose a material burden on others, which helps to give them an especially strong claim for recognition as human rights.

The Covid-19 crisis has coerced organisations and business schools to rethink and reflect their practices about well-being and purpose individually and collectively. While this discourse was existent within academic and professional sphere, it was rather muted or isolated in the quest of pursuing traditional indicators of progress in terms of economic productivity. It is within this context we revisit our past interaction with the leader who has been advocating for responsible leadership which encompasses well-being and purpose amidst Covid-19. Arianna Huffington is the Founder and CEO of Thrive Global, which is a platform to help corporations in promoting individual and collective well-being. Formerly she was also the Co-founder and the President and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. In 2014, she received the Tesla Sustainable Leadership Award, after which one of the authors had an opportunity to interview her for the Sustainable Leadership Blog.¹ A staunch advocate of issues like climate change, gender equality, work-life balance and youth empowerment, Arianna exemplifies the commitment to articulate and implement purpose-led corporations, proposing the People–Planet–Profit approach to leadership . By shedding light on Arianna’s perspective this chapter suggests reflective pointers for decision-makers in management education, these are follows: (a) business schools can lead integrating sustainability in their purpose and practice; (b) relevance of the spiritual dimension and its significance in business schools and organisations; and (c) proposing a holistic view in comparison with a traditional view of business education. Finally, we also posit that her practice as role model for responsible leadership during Covid-19 reflects consistent adherence in her past and present discourse about responsible management issues. Thus, her insights can help leaders of public, private and social organisations to grapple with complex organisational issues arising due to of Covid-19.