I am attempting a scholarly article

I have written another article in a more scholarly approach and form that I have entitled "WHITHER THE QUEST OF BUSINESS ETHICISTS? Criminal law has received much attention; civil law liability should too".

My synopsis says:

The quest of business ethicists to promote ethical corporate behavior expands,
seemingly endlessly. Disagreements about what is ethical and about how
best to engender ethical behavior abound. Much attention has been paid to
how the criminal law should be applied to improve corporate behavior. In
the 1990’s the federal government initiated new approaches; business ethicists
have done extensive critical review of these; and important questions are
unresolved about how to apply the criminal law. Civil law liability also
affects corporate behavior and is a potential tool for promoting good behavior,
but ethicists have not devoted much attention to it. Ostensibly the
criminal law and civil law liability raise common questions about how they can
be employed most effectively to improve corporate behavior. There is a
significant difference that civil law liability has a compensatory objective as
well as a deterrence objective. Given the quest of business ethicists, it
is submitted that civil law liability is deserving of much more investigation
about how effective it is in improving corporate behavior, and whether it can or
should be changed to be more effective.

I submitted my manuscript to Business Ethics Quarterly, which declined. BEQ wrote me as follows:

Dear Mr. Shattuck:
Thank you for your submission to Business Ethics Quarterly, titled “Whither
thequest of business ethicists.” Your manuscript raises an interesting
questionabout the relationship of civil liability to business ethics practices
and programs.Moreover, as you note, attention to civil law has not been as
widespread withinthe field of business ethics as has been attention to criminal
law. However,despite those merits, I am very sorry to report that we are not
willing to publishyour manuscript, and that we also will not consider a revision
of it. Essentially,even though the questions you raise are interesting and
potentially important, themanuscript does not proceed at the level of detailed
argument and theorydevelopment that we look for at Business Ethics
Quarterly.Specifically, at BEQ we look for manuscripts that make substantial and
newcontributions to philosophical or social scientific theory and research in
waysrelevant to business ethics. Your manuscript, by contrast, raises an
interestingquestion, but does not engage in the kind of extensive theory
developmentneeded to make the kind of contribution in answering that question
that we lookfor at BEQ. Note, for example, how your main focus—the argument
thatbusiness ethics research needs to pay more careful attention to civil
law—doesnot begin until page 5, and the substance of the manuscript is over by
the top ofpage 9. As a result, complex issues end up being treated in rather
hasty form—for example, the issues of corporate moral agency and attributions
ofresponsibility have involved much attention by many scholars over
severaldecades, yet your consideration of those arguments involves rather
briefsummaries of a small selection of works. More important, perhaps, is the
factthat there is considerable literature in legal studies on the role of civil
liability asa behavioral corrective for corporations. One should assume that an
effort toaddress the relationship between civil liability and business ethics
theory wouldmake good use of that extensive legal literature, because doing so
would be away to make a substantial contribution to the business ethics
literature (see, for astarting example, Sally Simpson’s work, as in her
Corporate Crime, Law andSocial Contro, plus empirical studies by Simpson and
others on the ways civilliability does, and does not, influence corporate
behavior).
I realize that this negative decision is not the one for which you
were hoping.But I hope that you understand the reason for this decision. Thank
you again forconsidering Business Ethics Quarterly as an outlet for your
work.

I replied to BEQ with this email:

From: RDShatt
To: BEQ@udel.edu
Sent: 9/5/2009 7:47:48 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: BEQ decision letter MS 432

Dear ProfessorWeaver,
Thank you for the reply. I am disappointed, but I will
continue to prosecute my efforts on the various fronts I am working on, as I am
sure you would urge me to do. I will offer my manuscript to other scholars
in the field and see whether they can find a way to run with it.

Given the large amount of time and effort that has been dedicated
to the criminal law, I knew I could only try to make an initiation argument
that business ethicists should turn their attention to the civil law liability
front as well, with a starting point being the common questions that the civil
law liability system has with the criminal law and evaluating the application of
the learning and theorizing from the criminal law front to the civil law
liability front, and then proceeding to take account of the
differences. That and more, I think, will be grist for many
scholarly articles, plus a book or two. We will see where this all
goes.

Needless to say, if you could recommend my article to
another publication with whom you have contacts and that uses different criteria
for publication decisions, I would be most appreciative.

Again, thank you for BEQ's consideration.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

From: RDShatt
To: hasnasj@georgetown.edu
Sent: 9/5/2009 11:56:47 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: WHITHER THE QUEST OF BUSINESS ETHICISTS?

Dear Professor Hasnas,

I wrote and submitted to Business Ethics Quarterly an article I entitled "WHITHER THE QUEST OF BUSINESS ETHICISTS?: Criminal law has received much attention; civil law liability should too."

In the article I cited you several times.

My article synopsis was this: [see above]

BEQ declined my article with this accompanying letter: [see above]

I replied to BEQ with this email: [see above]

I am attaching hereto my article, a Word document.

I would like to find another scholar who is interested in taking my article and "running with it" (i.e., revising, rewriting, and/or expanding it, and getting it published, with or without my name attached).

Would you be interested?

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

From: RDShatt
To: jboatri@luc.edu
Sent: 9/5/2009 11:58:46 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: WHITHER THE QUEST OF BUSINESS ETHICISTS?

Dear Professor Boatright,

[same as above email to Professor Hasnas]

From: JBOATRI@luc.edu
To: RDShatt@aol.com
Sent: 9/9/2009 3:44:35 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: WHITHER THE QUEST OF BUSINESS ETHICISTS?

I am sorry to hear that your article was rejected by BEQ. The acceptance rate of this journal is around 12%, so please do not take the news personally. Moreover, the review process at BEQ is very thorough, and it appears that your article received the usual careful consideration. As for your request, my own publication schedule and other demands on my time prevent me from collaborating in any way. But I encourage you to keep working this topic and perhaps exploring other publication outlets.

John Boatright

From: RDShatt
To: JBOATRI@luc.edu
Sent: 9/10/2009 6:53:37 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: WHITHER THE QUEST OF BUSINESS ETHICISTS?

Thank you very much, Professor Boatright. I am already doing as you suggest. I noted that you are on the editorial board of one journal I am looking at.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

From: RDShatt
To: lauferw@wharton.upenn.edu
Sent: 9/5/2009 12:00:55 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: WHITHER THE QUEST OF BUSINESS ETHICISTS?

Dear Professor Laufer,

[same as above email to Professor Hasnas]

From: RDShatt
To: Ssimpson@crim.umd.edu
Sent: 9/6/2009 7:30:52 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Why Managers Fail To Do The Right Thing

Dear Professor Simpson,

Professor Gary Weaver has cited your work to me and, as a result, I have read your co-authored article "Why Managers Fail To Do The Right Thing: An Empirical Study Of Unethical & Illegal Conduct."

The genesis of the reference to you that Professor Weaver made is that I wrote and submitted to Business Ethics Quarterly an article I entitled "WHITHER THE QUEST OF BUSINESS ETHICISTS?: Criminal law has received much attention; civil law liability should too."

My article synopsis was this: [see above]

BEQ declined my article with this accompanying letter in which Professor Weaver cited your work: [see above]

I replied to BEQ with this email: [see above]

In the abstract of your article, you summarize as follows:

Despite demands for increased sanctioning of corporate offenders, we find that
the threat of legal action does not directly affect the likelihood of
misconduct. Managers’ evaluations of the ethics of the act, measured using a
multidimensional ethics scale, have a significant effect, as do outcome
expectancies that result from being associated with the misconduct but not
facing formal sanctions. The threat of formal sanctions appears to operate
indirectly, influencing ethical evaluations and outcome expectancies. Obedience
to authority also affects illegal intentions, with managers reporting higher
prospective offending when they are ordered to engage in misconduct by a
supervisor.

I would like to pose three questions to you connected to your article in juxtaposition to my article (Word file attached) and to this related, self-published online article of mine Does the Civil Liability System Undermine Business Ethics? (I don't know how familiar you are with the class action litigation that I am addressing. If you would like some examples, you may find upwards of ten of them set out at the links on the left hand side here under J and J1 through J8.) My questions are:

First, would you say that the wrongdoing (if there is wrongdoing) in much class action litigation is generally less clear cut than the wrongdoing you have under consideration in your article?

Second, derived from your knowledge and understanding about how to achieve deterrence (or not) of the types of wrongdoing under consideration in your article, do you have a view about the deterrent effect of the class action litigation I am addressing?

Third, derived from your surveying and other studying of employee psychology, motivation and decision making, do you believe that such psychology, motivation and decision making are affected by any perceptions or views that employees have concerning class action litigation in general and particularly if their corporation has been sued and/or if they had personal involvement with the corporate acts that have been the subject of the class action lawsuit and/or they personally know other employees who have had such involvement?

I know this is a lengthy email and I thank you if you have read through to the end here. If you further send me a reply, I will be extremely grateful.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

From: SSIMPSON@crim.umd.edu
To: RDShatt@aol.com
Sent: 9/10/2009 10:43:44 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Why Managers Fail To Do The Right Thing

I think I know what you are asking, but if my answers seem offpoint let me know and I'll try again. I've replied to each question separately.

First, would you say that the wrongdoing (if there is wrongdoing) inmuch class action litigation is generally less clear cut than the wrongdoing you have under consideration in your article?
AS YOU KNOW, IN OUR ARTICLE WE HAVE THREE TYPES OF ILLEGAL BEHAVIORS(PRICE-FIXING,EPA EMISSIONS VIOLATIONS, AND BRIBERY). CLASS ACTION SUITS CONCEIVABLY COULD STEM FROM ALL OF THESE TYPES OF BEHAVIORS, BUT SO COULD CRIMINAL, TRADITIONAL CIVIL, AND ADMINISTRATIVE (REGULATORY) ACTIONS. IT WAS BECAUSE THE LEGAL STANDARDS VARY CONSIDERABLY, WE WANTED TO BE IN A POSITION TO ASSESS HOW LIKELY AND CONSEQUENTIAL RESPONDENTS THOUGHT THESE DIFFERENT LEGAL INTERVENTIONS WOULD BE GIVEN THE OFFENSE TYPES AND SCENARIO CONDITIONS. WE ASSUMED THAT CIVIL RESPONSES MIGHT INCLUDE CLASS ACTIONS, BUT DID NOT DISTINGUISH THIS OUTCOME FROM OTHER CIVIL MECHANISMS.BECAUSE CIVIL LITIGATION DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME LEVEL OF RIGOROUS LEGAL STANDARDS AND CORPORATE CRIME CASES ARE NOTORIOUSLY POOR IN THE EVIDENCE AREA (ESPECIALLY STABLISHING INTENT), IT IS OFTEN THE PREFERRED LEGAL STRATEGY EMPLOYED BY THE STATE. SO, TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION,THERE MAY BE EXAMPLES OF WRONGDOING THAT ARE LESS CLEAR IN THE CIVIL REALM BUT THERE ARE ALSO CASES THAT ARE PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD EXAMPLES OF WRONGDOING BUT THE EVIDENCE FALLS SHORT OF A CRIMINAL PROSECUTION.

Second, derived from your knowledge and understanding about how to achieve deterrence (or not) of the types of wrongdoing under consideration in your article, do you have a view about the deterrent effect of the classaction litigation I am addressing?
I BELIEVE (SEE SIMPSON, CORPORATE CRIME, LAW, AND SOCIAL CONTROL) THAT CIVIL LAW, BECAUSE OF THE POTENTIAL FOR CLASS ACTION SUITS AND PUNITIVE DAMAGES, HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE AN IMPORTANT DETERRENT--ESPECIALLY FOR THE CORPORATION. MY RESEARCH HAS SHOWN THAT MANAGERSBELIEVE THAT DISCOVERY RISKS ARE HIGHER FOR CIVIL LAW THAN CRIMINAL (FOR BOTH THE INDIVIDUAL AND THECOMPANY) AND, ALTHOUGH THE CONSEQUENCES OFDISCOVERY ARE PERCEIVED TO BE MORE SEVERE FOR INDIVIDUALS THAN FIRMSAND FOR CRIMINAL THAN CIVIL LAW, DETERRENCERESEARCH TYPICALLY PRIVILEGES CERTAINTY OF SANCTION OVER SEVERITY INTERMS OF CRIME INHIBITION. SO, IF THE RISKS OFDISCOVERY ARE THOUGHT TO BE GREATER UNDER CIVIL (THAN CRIMINAL) LAW,ONE COULD ARGUE THAT CIVIL LAW MAY BEA BETTER DETERRENT THAN CRIMINAL LAW. JUST TO REITERATE, HOWEVER, IHAVE NOT EXAMINED CLASS ACTIONS AND DETERRENCE DIRECTLY.

Third, derived from your surveying and other studying of employee psychology, motivation and decision making, do you believe that such psychology, motivation and decision making are affected by any perceptions orviews that employees have concerning class action litigation in general and particularly if their corporation has been sued and/or if they hadpersonal involvement with the corporate acts that have been the subject of the class action lawsuit and/or they personally know other employees who have had suchinvolvement?
NOTHING THAT I CAN SAY DIRECTLY ABOUT CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS. I CONDUCTED INTERVIEWS WITH SOME CORPORATE EXECUTIVES AT A TIRE COMPANY WHO HAD BEEN THROUGH AN UNSAFE PRODUCT CASE. THEY SUGGESTED THAT THE EXPERIENCE OF JUST GETTING CALLED BEFORE THE GRAND JURY WAS A DETERRENT ("DON'T WANT TO EVER GO THROUGHSOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN" BUT I DON'T KNOW IF IT AFFECTED THEIR FUTUREBEHAVIOR). THE CRIMINOLOGY LITERATURE SUGGESTS THAT PRIOR EXPERIENCE WITH ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR AND SANCTIONS (PERSONAL AND THOSE AROUND YOU) AFFECTS ONE'S PERCEPTIONS OF SANCTION RISK WHICH THEN AFFECTS BEHAVIOR. I MAY BE BETTER ABLE TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION WHEN I ANALYZE A NEW DATA SET THAT ASKED ABOUT PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE SPECIFIC TYPES OF ILLEGAL BEHAVIORS DESCRIBED IN THE VIGNETTES.

Sally S. Simpson
Professor and Chair
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice

From: RDShatt
To: SSIMPSON@crim.umd.edu
Sent: 9/10/2009 7:07:08 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Why Managers Fail To Do The Right Thing

Thank you very much for answering my questions, Professor Simpson. I will try to assimilate your answers into my thinking. Ultimately, I would like to dialogue with (survey?) corporate ethics officers, employees, and senior management relative to my questions, but I don't think that opportunity will be afforded me anytime soon. I will just keep plugging away on various fronts I am trying to push on.

Sincerely.
Robert Shattuck

From: RDShatt
To: SSIMPSON@crim.umd.edu
Sent: 9/12/2009 9:28:15 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Why Managers Fail To Do The Right Thing

Thank you very much for replying again, Professor Simpson.

I have reread your article.

I would like to react to your four categories of formal sanctions, outcome expectancies, moral evaluation and obedience to authority.

I consider formal sanctions as a subset of outcome expectancies (which I think you do too), but I understand your interest in treating it separately to try to measure its strength (directly or indirectly) as an outcome expectancy. Obedience to authority seems to be part a moral evaluation factor (i.e., may result in diminution of moral evaluation) and part an outcome expectancy factor (i.e., doing what your superior wants will help your position in the corporation), but I can understand your interest in treating that one separately too.

In my view, outcome expectancies should be analyzed by reference to the individual employees only, and outcome expectancies for the corporation should be considered only as and to the extent the employee considers himself affected in assessing outcome expectancies for the employee personally. To the extent an individual employee takes into account the interests of others in outcome expectancies for the corporation (such as consideration that committing a corporate crime may adversely affect the jobs of other employees), I would put that off into the moral evaluation category. In short, in the context of business wrongdoing, I would inject the terminology "calculated self-interest" (outcome expectancies for the employee personally) and "altruism" (which is the taking into account the interests of others independently of your own interest, perhaps equivalent to moral evaluation), and I would consider the determinants of employee decisions to be a mix of calculated self-interest and altruism.

The foregoing would lead me to want to try to measure separately the effect of criminal and financial sanctions against the corporation as compared to the effect of criminal and financial sanctions against the individual employee. In this regard, I think corporate crime results from actions of individual employees to commit the crime, it is the employees that must be deterred, and deterrence of them by criminal and financial sanctions will be differentially achieved (I believe) depending on whether the sanctions are imposed against the corporation or against the individual employee.

If you have not read my articles, I play up greatly in my analysis of class actions the difference between costs and penalties imposed on the corporation versus on individual employees.

Also, your article makes reference to how the law can be supportive of social condemnations of an act, and also possibly not supportive, if others have negative views of the law (such as because it is intrusive, unfair, or irrelevant to business). A large part of my argumentation that the civil law liability system undermines business ethics is because I believe it has engendered disrespect and contempt growing out if its exploitation by lawyers to benefit themselves financially to the detriment of the social interests that are supposed to be served by the law.

I believe the civil law liability system is deserving of much greater attention by business ethicists than it has received (which seems to me to be virtually nil). I am, however, having a hard time making headway in persuading other business ethicists of that.

Again thank you for your replies.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

From: RDShatt
To: weaverg@lerner.udel.edu
CC: LTrevino@psu.eduSent: 9/6/2009 8:34:13 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Managing ethics in business organizations.

Dear Professor Weaver,

Your citation of the works of Professor Simpson prompted me to read her co-authored article "Why Managers Fail To Do The Right Thing: An Empirical Study Of Unethical & Illegal Conduct," and I found in her list of sources this: Trevino, L.K. & Weaver, G.R., 2003. Managing ethics in business organizations. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.

I sent Professor Simpson a long email (appended below) in which I asked three questions as follows:

In the abstract of your [Professor Simpson's] article, you summarize as
follows:
"Despite demands for increased sanctioning of corporate offenders, we
find that the threat of legal action does not directly affect the likelihood of
misconduct. Managers’ evaluations of the ethics of the act, measured using a
multidimensional ethics scale, have a significant effect, as do outcome
expectancies that result from being associated with the misconduct but not
facing formal sanctions. The threat of formal sanctions appears to operate
indirectly, influencing ethical evaluations and outcome expectancies. Obedience
to authority also affects illegal intentions, with managers reporting higher
prospective offending when they are ordered to engage in misconduct by a
supervisor."

I would like to pose three questions to you connected
to your article in juxtaposition to my article (Word file attached) and to this
related, self-published online article of mine Does
the Civil Liability System Undermine Business Ethics? (I don't
know how familiar you are with the class action litigation that I am
addressing. If you would like some examples, you may find upwards of
ten of them set out at the links on the left hand side here under J and J1 through
J8.) My questions are:

First, would you say that the wrongdoing (if there is wrongdoing) in much class action litigation is generally less clear cut than the wrongdoing you have under
consideration in your article?

Second, derived from your knowledge and understanding about how to achieve deterrence (or not) of the types of wrongdoing under consideration in your article, do you have a view about the deterrent effect of the class action litigation I am
addressing?

Third, derived from your surveying and other studying of employee psychology, motivation and decision making, do you believe that such psychology, motivation and decision making are affected by any perceptions or views that employees have concerning class action litigation in general and particularly if their corporation has been sued and/or if they had personal involvement with the corporate acts that have been the subject of the class action lawsuit and/or they personally know other employees who have had such involvement?

I don't know whether your book Managing ethics in business organizations has any discussion of the topic I am interested in. I obviously think my topic warrants some mention in your book. If Professor Trevino and you put out another edition of your book, I hope my writings on my topic will influence you in what you put in a further edition of your book.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck