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Researchers have proposed a variety of models to depict, explain, and understand ethical decision-making processes. Rest (1986) proposed a four-stage, individually oriented model, in which a person who makes a moral decision must (1) recognize the moral issue, (2) make a moral judgment, (3) establish moral intent, and (4) make moral decisions. Similarly, Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrich (1989) developed a five-stage model that included awareness, cognitions, evaluations, determination, and actions. Finally, Trevino (1986) proposed a slightly different model that begins with the recognition of an ethical dilemma and proceeds to a cognition stage in which individuals make moral judgments that further affect their ethical or unethical decisions (see Jones, 1991, for a review).

Mises (1949[1963], p. 692) explains that market-failure justifications for state actions, such as economic regulation “ascribe to the state not only the best intentions but also omniscience.” He then points out that neither assumption is valid: government is not benevolent since both, those who are employed by the state and those who demand state actions, have subjective self-interests, and it is not all knowing since knowledge is widely dispersed and the cost of coordination is infinitely high, particularly without market profits and prices as coordinating mechanisms. Furthermore, Mises suggests that dropping either assumption undermines the conclusions that state intervention is necessarily desirable even if some sort of market failure is actually identified. Austrian economists in the Mises tradition have tended to focus on the knowledge problem in their challenges to regulation, however. Many Austrians obviously recognize the interest problem, of course, but they often assume it away in order to illustrate that government interference with markets is not desirable even if it is well intended. In contrast, public-choice analysis tends to focus on the interest problem as source of government failure, although some public-choice analysts also obviously recognize the knowledge problem. Indeed, this difference in perspective is so pronounced that Ikeda (1997, p. 240) explicitly distinguishes between Public Choice and Austrian political economy by suggesting that the Austrian approach assumes benevolence on the part of government officials, while the public-choice approach assume narrow interests.¹ Ikeda (1997, p. 150) also suggests that the separation of these two approaches is justified because “Austrian political economy and public choice are each capable of standing on their own [so] public-theorists…find it optimal simply to continue to pursue their research along the line of either the former or the latter approaches.” The following presentation questions this assertion. Instead, both assumptions should be dropped, and the resulting integrated Austrian-public-choice model should be expanded to include assumptions about the relationships between regulations, property rights security, and both market and political behavior.²

This research investigates how the value creation interests and activities of different stakeholder groups within one open source software (OSS) project influence the project's development over time.

The authors conducted a case study of OpenSimulator using textual and thematic analyses of the initial four years of OpenSimulator developer mailing list to identify each stakeholder group and guide our analysis of their interests and value creation activities over time.

The analysis revealed that while each stakeholder group was active within the OSS project's development, the different groups possessed complementary interests that enabled the project to evolve. In the formative period, entrepreneurs were interested in the software's strategic direction in the market, academics and SMEs in software functionality and large firms and hobbyists in software testing. Each group retained its primary interest in the maturing period with academics and SMEs separating into server- and client-side usability. The analysis shed light on how the different stakeholder groups overcame tensions amongst themselves and took specific actions to sustain the project.

The authors extend stakeholder theory by reconceptualizing the focal organization and its stakeholders for OSS projects. To date, OSS research has primarily focused on examining one project relative to its marketplace. Using stakeholder theory, we identified stakeholder groups within a single OSS project to demonstrate their distinct interests and how these interests influence their value creation activities over time. Collectively, these interests enable the project's long-term development.

A central mechanism of European integration is the relationship between the European institutions and European‐level interest groups. This paper reviews the ability of interest groups to contribute to European integration by providing an overview of their numbers, support factors, resources, capacities and organisation, as well as identifying the change agents in their organisational environment.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of stakeholder dynamics and to show how stakeholders demonstrate their dynamic nature in the power/interest matrix. This, in turn, should assist project management and stakeholder management practitioners predict the behavior of different stakeholder groups in their projects, and strategize their stakeholder management approaches accordingly.

The findings in this paper are based on data collected from 12 diverse projects from five different business sectors executed in Norway by means of an online, closed-question questionnaire, which was analyzed using various statistical approaches.

Stakeholder dynamics is a contextual phenomenon, which takes different forms and shapes from one stakeholder group to the other, from one industry or business sector to the other, and even from one project to the other within the same industry or business sector. The stakeholder group of user(s) was the most dynamic in Norwegian projects based on their continuous repositioning on the power/interest matrix from one project phase to the other. Environmental activists/organizations were the least dynamic stakeholder group in the full sample of projects.

This paper presents the first more comprehensive empirically based findings about stakeholder dynamics in projects the authors have been able to find. The study gives project management practitioners insights from various industries and business sectors into how stakeholders change position over time. It also shows that the two attributes of power and interest are strongly connected and affect one another, which might make it possible to control and design a safer and less complex stakeholder environment for future projects.

Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which explains how individual organisms can become exquisitely adapted to their environments, does not explain the evolution of adaptive societies with equal ease. To understand the nature of the problem, imagine a mutant individual who behaves in a way that increases the survival of everyone in her society, including herself, to an equal degree. Such a “no-cost public good” might not appear very feasible (and will soon be amended), but is useful for illustrative purposes. By increasing the fitness of everyone, the mutant trait will not increase in frequency within the society (other than by drift, which can equally cause a decrease in frequency). This example illustrates the elementary fact that natural selection is based on relative fitness. It’s not enough for a mutant trait to increase its own survival and reproduction; it must do so more than alternative traits in the population. The relative nature of fitness makes the evolutionary forces within a population insensitive to the welfare of the population as a whole.