Conflicts of Interest: Challenges and Solutions in Business, Law, Medicine, and Public Policy

by Edited by Don A. Moore , Daylian M. Cain , George Loewenstein , Max H. Bazerman

• ISBN13: 9780521143462
• ISBN10: 0521143462
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-10
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This collection explores the subject of conflicts of interest. It investigates how to manage conflicts of interest, how they can affect well-meaning professionals, and how they can limit the effectiveness of corporate boards, undermine professional ethics, and corrupt expert opinion. Legal and policy responses are considered, some of which (e.g., disclosure) are shown to backfire and even fail. The results offer a sobering prognosis for professional ethics and for anyone who relies on professionals who have conflicts of interest. The contributors are leading authorities on the subject in the fields of law, medicine, management, public policy, and psychology. The nuances of the problems posed by conflicts of interest will be highlighted for readers in an effort to demonstrate the many ways that structuring incentives can affect decision making and organizations' financial well-being.

Table of Contents

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Business:

Managing conflicts of interest within organizations: does activating social values change the impact of self-interest on behavior?

Commentary: on Tyler's 'Managing conflicts of interest within organizations'

A review of experimental and archival conflicts-of-interest research in auditing

Commentary: conflicts of interest in accounting

Bounded ethicality as a psychological barrier to recognizing conflicts of interest

Commentary: bounded ethicality and conflicts of interest

Coming clean but playing dirtier: the shortcomings of disclosure as a solution to conflicts of interest

Commentary: psychologically naive assumptions about the perils of conflicts of interest

Medicine:

Physicians' financial ties with the pharmaceutical industry: a critical element of a formidable marketing network

Commentary: how did we get into this mess?

Why are (some) conflicts of interest in medicine so uniquely vexing?

Commentary: financial conflicts of interest and the identity of academic medicine Scott

Law:

Legal responses to conflicts of interest

Commentary: conflicts of interest begin where principal-agent problems end

Conflicts of interest and strategic ignorance of harm

Commentary: strategic ignorance of harm Daylian

Public Policy:

Conflicts of interest in public policy research

Commentary: conflicts of interest in policy analysis: compliant pawns in their game?

Conflict of interest as an objection to consequentialist moral reasoning

Commentary: conflict of interest as a threat to consequentialist reasoning

Index

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