Business, Government & Society

Ethics Unwrapped won a 2014 Silver CASE award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. The winning video, "Fundamental Attribution Error," was written and narrated by Robert Prentice and features MBA and undergraduate students from UT. The animated video explores a fundamental flaw in our thinking that can cause us to misjudge and misinterpret unethical behavior in ourselves and in others.

Dean Bredeson was recently promoted to Distinguished Senior Lecturer. Dean teaches Business Ethics courses for the  Business, Government & Society Department.

Come elections in November, the city of Denton could be split between two very different futures. The Denton Drilling Awareness Group (DAG) recently got enough signatures on a petition to place an ordinance banning fracking within city limits on local ballots. Though other communities in Texas have passed restrictions on fracking, a moratorium on drilling activity within Denton could spur the rise of similar legislation across the state. If the ban passes it will likely provoke a precedent-setting legal battle that would help clarify the authority of local governments over oil and gas operations in Texas.

Professors Fran Pedersen, Dean Bredeson, and Robert Prentice of BGS were among 12 McCombs faculty members named to this year’s BBA Faculty Honor Roll, based on their Fall 2013 course instructor survey results. 

BGS Professor Tim Werner presented two papers at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago, April 3-6.  The first paper with Professor Brian Roberts of UT's Government Department develops a measure of sensitive individual industries are to changes in politics and uses that measure to explore how and why firms engage in politics.  The second paper with fellow BGS Professor Brian Richter examines whether or not Congressional candidates suffer in terms of either their vote or fundraising totals when they refuse contributions from political action committees.

BGS Professor David Spence spoke about the regulation of oil and gas production to the spring meeting of the American College of Trial Lawyers in Palm Springs, California on March 8th.  Professor Spence has published several articles on the subject, and his remarks focused on the psychological roots of the polarized public debate over hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), and how to overcome that polarization.   Fracking is a technique for extracting hydrocarbons from otherwise impermeable rock, usually deep shale layers more than a mile underground. Professor Spence’s articles and papers concerning fracking can be found here.

On March 1, Professor Timothy Werner conducted a Q&A with the Washington Post regarding the role of business in the defeat of Arizona Senate Bill 1062.  Drawing upon research in his recent book, Werner discussed why big businesses, due to their commitments to non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, put pressure on the governor of Arizona to defeat the bill.

On March 1, Robert Prentice presented a paper on teaching behavioral ethics using Ethics Unwrapped videos at the Association for Professional and Practical Ethics (APPE) annual meeting in Jacksonville, FL.