This website started as “The Gold Hat” in around 1999, using Geocities, but I changed the name to “The Krupnik Parlour” soon after (here’s a screenshot).
When this was transferred to google sites, in July 2009, I set up a free account with Weebly and registered the domain “anthonyjevans.com”.
In May 2010 I opened a WordPress.org account and transferred my server to (mt) media temple. In May 2014 I switched themes from Carrington to Twenty Twelve.
In January 2020 I switched themes to Atomic Blocks. My wife has her own web design consultancy, and she did a great job helping me update the site.
“Strategies emerge for coping. There are many, but in essence they all boil down to two: filter and search” Gleick, 2011, p.409
The Filter^ was created in a Birkenhead chippy, in January 2004. Stephen Lai and Anthony Evans were both recent graduates from the University of Liverpool, and wanted to present interesting and accessible academic ideas to a wider audience.
Created in July 2004, The Filter^ REVIEW is an online assembly of cultural essays. Encompassing opera, music, theatre, and architecture our range of reviewers provide honest and independent assessments of live events. Our motivation is enthusiasm, and providing our part of the social contract between audience and stage. My theatre reviews are available here.
In December 2020 one of my favourite teachers, Walter E. Williams, passed away. Although my research in pedagogy is focused on innovative methods I always try to remember the key lessons of (i) knowing your content; (ii) delivering it well; (iii) conveying empathy and passion. Walter excelled at all three.
I also believe that Cultural Theory can help to explain the fascinating social dynamics that occur in Office Christmas Parties. Just after the launch of ‘The Office‘ there was a fly on the wall documentary called ‘The Armstrongs‘. You can find some episodes on YouTube, but the pilot episode (filmed in 2003) isn’t available. After I blogged about the series I received a DVD through the post from one of the production team. This is important because it focused on the Christmas Party. It’s no coincidence that the high point of the UK series of ‘The Office’ was Tim and Dawn’s kiss, which occurred at the Christmas Party. And one of the best ever cinematic moments occurred during the Christmas Party scene in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. My ambition was to conduct an anthropological study of the Christmas Party. One day
Matthew Taylor, former head of the RSA, likes cultural theory. Notice the influence here:
Companies can and do build unique constitutional orders, and there’s lots of potential to apply the field of Constitutional Political Economy to the study of organisations. One example of constitutional management that I am especially interested in is Market-Based Management (R), which treats the institutions that generate economic prosperity as being analogous to the institutions that improve corporate performance.
I have also documented the spread of the Austrian school in Central and Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall, providing a rare history of “centre-right” political ideas in Eastern Europe; a chronology of the development and influence of libertarianism; cursory intellectual biographies of neglected Austrian economists; and empirical evidence that contributes to the epistemic communities approach to the study of idea diffusion.
My 2009 book, The Neoliberal Revolution in Eastern Europe, (co-authored with Paul Dragos Aligica) developed two research agendas: the study of the spread of ‘neoliberalism’ – as seen from the perspective of Eastern European post-communist evolutions; and the study of Eastern European transition – as seen from an ideas-centred perspective.
This is a list of ~80 minute sessions that I regularly teach across various general management programmes. The links provide access to lecture slides, cases, classroom activities, and additional resources that I make available to students once they’ve taken the class. If you are an instructor you can contact me directly for board plans and further advice.
Rules > Discretion. Most trips that I make fit into a particular category – e.g. 2 weeks summer holiday, 1 week skiing, 3 days teaching/conference. For each type of trip I have a packing list and take the same things each time. Perhaps not the exact same items, but the same type of items. This avoids having to think about what I should take. If I feel the need to alter the packing list I always do it at the end of a trip rather than before.
MY TOP PACKING HACK IS …
Duplicate toiletries. I have a toothbrush, deodorant, razor, etc that I keep in a toilet bag and only use on trips. It means that I never have to collect those items from around the house and risk forgetting anything. It also means I don’t have to unpack when I get home.
I PACK FOR A TRIP BY …
Finding my packing list and rigidly sticking to it.
MY ESSENTIALS FOR A WORK TRIP INCLUDE …
iPhone and all necessary chargers
A good book
Either decent earbuds for short haul, or noise cancelling headphones for long haul
Throat lozenges
Bottle opener
MY LUGGAGE IS …
A Rimowa Topas.
MY TOP CARRY ON TIP …
A glossy magazine, such as The Week or The Economist. It’s often rude to plug into an iPhone as soon as you sit down and it’s hard to relax until the plane’s moving anyway. So it’s good to have something light and easy to read for take off/landing.
I NEVER BOARD A FLIGHT WITHOUT …
Touching the outside of the aircraft at the exact moment I step on board.
MY OUTFIT WHEN I TRAVEL …
Comfort. It used to be cargo trousers or sometimes jeans. But as dress standards have steadily fallen I’ve followed suit and so now it’s either tracksuit bottoms or shorts. A hoody and/or baseball cap helps to shut out the world. I sometimes wear a gilet so that I have accessible pockets but without getting too stuffy.
MY WASH BAG STAPLES INCLUDE …
Indigestion tablets, especially if I’m in Eastern Europe where the food is rich and the Rakija is tempting.
I USED TO PACK …
Too many pairs of trousers. They’re rarely worth the bulk and a pair can be worn on consecutive days.
MY BIGGEST PACKING MISTAKE WAS …
Believing I would need smart shoes but not wanting to wear them to travel.
MY GO-TO TRAVEL APP IS …
I used to use a fantastic flight app called Flight Track Pro, but it doesn’t work anymore. So I don’t really use anything.
I MAKE A HOTEL ROOM FEEL LIKE HOME BY …
The best part of a hotel room is that it doesn’t feel like home! I clear the desk so that I can lay out my own items (i.e. knoll) and then bask in the neutrality.
I’M DETERMINED TO IMPROVE MY PACKING HABITS BY …
At some point I may give up on checking my bag. I’d need to rethink my toiletries and perhaps pack even lighter. But for now I’m happy to spend a few minutes at the baggage reclaim, reflecting on the flight, and waiting.
Mural – visual collaborative software that is easy to use and allows students to directly contribute to a discussion
Here’s a list of some websites/apps that I recommend for tests/quizzes/forms:
sli.do – very useful for quick feedback, generated wordclouds, anonymous Q&A, and doesn’t require students to log in
Kahoot! – a fun quiz template best for in class experience
Google Forms – easy to build and monitor, can be used as a graded quiz
These are options that I used to use, but switched to Google Forms:
Socrative – a nice way to present quizzes and measure student performance. Can be teacher paced so that you ensure all students have answered before moving on to the next question
Typeform – a way to generate longer forms that are tailored to student responses
Qualtrics and Survey Monkey are great for running a survey, and purport to allow you to create a quiz, but in my experience lack the functionality required to be used in a classroom setting. I am very keen to find an intuitive quiz builder that allows students to see their score, and allows instructors to batch grade open ended questions and then export the results. So far it seems that Google Forms are the best option.
Here’s a list of some resources that have been recommended to me, but I don’t currently use:
Nearpod – allows interaction and student participation
Mentimeter— presentation software to encourage fun workshops
How can we identify, understand and solve the ethical dilemmas that emerge in a business situation?
This is a short course that surveys a number of frameworks and models that can be used to cope with moral and ethical dilemmas. Famous cases will be used to provide a realistic grounding to the content, and participants will be tasked to apply those concepts and discuss their insights. The course is heavily group-focused and includes case discussion and role playing activities.
Preliminary tasks
Before attending the module you should read about these mini cases:
“Who’s Responsible for the Drawbridge Drama?” by Mueller, U., and Schaefer, U., European School of Management & Technology, 2010Learning objective: The case introduces students to topics such as “responsible leadership” and “responsible business”. It also provides an engaging illustration of how people look at the same context or phenomenon, but reach very different interpretations and judgments.
Additional cases (for 2 day version)
Healy, P., and Soltes, E., “Rajat Gupta” Harvard Business School case no. 9-117-004, January 2018
Waytz, A., and Kilibarda, V., 2014, “Through the Eyes of a Whistle-Blower”, Kellogg School of Management
One of those most famous cases of insider trading is Martha Stewart. This podcast episode doesn’t go into detail on the issue (it points that that ultimately she was jailed for obstruction of justice and not insider trading) but I found it an enlightening explanation of her life, her business model and how that relates to shifting cultural dynamics in America. Stewart was entirely self made and provided a wholesome service of showing people how to make beautiful crafts, or – more likely – give them pleasure from watching her make them instead. The claim made in the podcast is that Stewart’s wealth was a function of being personally underestimated and capitalising on how neglected the value of domestic labour and household management had become. Both of these have a clear gender angle. The podcast host is clearly sympathetic to Stewart, but laments the necessity of having to embrace capitalist institutions for her talents to be recognised and rewarded. (Personally I would use this as evidence for the triumphs of capitalism, and how it liberates women from servitude). Regardless of whether Stewart knowingly dumped shares, or whether she was scapegoated and being made an example of (by men!) to bring her down a peg, her story is a fascinating one to reflect on.
This episode attempts to explain the low rates of prosecution and conviction for “white collar crime” in the US. It provides an interesting discussion of the discovery of lead paint in Mattel’s children toys, as a result of an outsourced supply chain with inadequate monitoring, and lack of US consumer protection checks. The data it provides on the lack of resources at the disposal of the government is incredible. One thing I believe it misses is the assumption that “corporate wrongdoing” necessarily involves individual (and criminal) wrongdoing. In many cases executives were making decisions under conditions of uncertainty with genuine conflict over the amounts of risk that people were exposed to. I believe that the systemic problems are due more to the regulatory system than any individual or particular corporation behaviour. We should also consider why limited liability exists and what would be lost if we erred on greater flexibility to use individual scapegoats. (Just because some communities lack the resources to adequately defend themselves, and just because society seems willing to make examples of certain types of criminal, does not make that a model to apply more broadly). For further resources on the financial crisis see here.
Textbook
Crane, A., Matten, D., Glozer, S., and Spence, L., 2019, Business Ethics (Oxford University Press, 5th Edition)
I would add that a key aspect of how we deal with Nazism is to recognise how efforts to deal with the legacy drew upon “the very same mental habits, social disciplines and cultural appeals”; “those fateful ‘secondary virtues’ – duty, loyalty, punctuality, cleanliness, hard work.” (Garton Ash, 1997, p.201)
Dando was killed (and at first it was thought to have been a stabbing) in a seemingly random attack, and police arrested the local “madman”. More recently, there is a theory that her murder was a hit ordered by Serbian warlord Arkan, in retaliation for the NATO bombing of Belgrade. The main argument against this, however, was that he was meeting BBC journalist John Simpson on the same day, which would have presented a more obvious and much easier target . I think Barry George is our best suspect, but it seems clear that he was initially apprehended and convinced on very weak evidence in part because he served as an easy target. As soon as police found a weird loner the desire for a simple explanation – a scapegoat – appeared very strong.
An Inspector Calls is the classic literary depiction of how responsibility can be shared among many people. Although I find the social commentary to be frustratingly simplistic, there is a 2015 BBC Drama version that you may find worth watching. The 2017 Netflix Series, ‘13 Reasons Why‘ explores similar themes, but I haven’t watched it.
The 1957 movie, ‘12 Angry Men‘ is a classic. It shows how a natural drive to reach consensus can mask important insights, and that the role of Devil’s Advocate can be important in team settings.
The 2022 Netflix documentary “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” is a compelling account of how the company attempted to pass blame for the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on pilot error, instead or recognising the risks caused by modifications to the aircrafts autopilot (which were underplayed in order to avoid additional and expensive pilot training). The trailer is here:
For more on “Dieselgate” see this BB article and this YouTube video:
For more on Theranos see here:
I didn’t include Carlos Ghosn’s actions at Nissan as an example of corporate wrongdoing because the accusations about him imply that the company was being wronged. Such cases of fraud and embezzlement are not a key part of our course, but there is a good Netflix documentary about Carlos Ghosn here.
Here is the DuPont Conaco Double-Hulled Oil Tankers Seal Clapping Commercial (1991), here is a discussion of Cecil the lion, and here is the Wikipedia article about Harambe. This article provides a list of greenwashing. I used to accuse L’Oreal of greenwashing in the lecture because they claim to be “natural” while using carcinogen ingredients (e.g. Titanium dioxide in eye shadow; formaldehyde-releasing preservatives in kids shampoo). Technically those ingredients are “natural” in the sense that they exist in nature, and in low doses are not considered to be particularly harmful. I think the main point is that it is harder to remove trace amounts of cancer-causing chemicals from bananas than it is to just stop using them in cosmetic products. But still, much of the campaign against L’Oreal may be over the top. Judge for yourself.
Examples of ridiculous occupational licensing include (h/t Russ Roberts):
Interior designers in Florida need 6 years of education or experience (source)
Cosmetologists in New York need 2,100 hours of training (source)
Florists in Louisiana need to be licensed (source – which also shows which other professions need licenses)
Eyal Press’s 2012 book ‘Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times‘ is a rich and engaging collection of stories about people refusing to adhere to authority. It shows how whistleblowers are not typically anarchists who enjoy flouting rules, but people who value those rules so highly they insist on holding their superiors to them. It includes the story of a Serbian man who, in 1991, risked his own life to protect captured Croatians from execution, as well a Swiss police official who broke the law by giving entry permits to Jewish refugees in 1938.
In Episode 2 of Season 5 of Fargo, Sheriff Roy Tillman provides a strong argument against being driven by the “law”, as opposed to a constitutionally infused sense of right and wrong (it takes place around 20 minutes, as he’s getting out of the hot tub!)
Regarding the importance of involving the local community in a company’s strategy, see Steve Jobs; testimonies to Cupertino city council, in 2006:
…and again in June 2011
For a contrarian view on sweatshops, see here:
My favourite documentary on Lance Armstrong is ‘The Armstrong Lie‘ (2013)
Learning objective: The case helps students to gain experience resolving ethical dilemmas in which two values may conflict, such as professional duty and personal ethics. It enables students to identify behaviors that help a whistle-blower be effective and discuss how incentive structures, management, and culture play roles in promoting or hindering ethical behavior in organizations.
I define whistleblowing as “the unauthorised revelation of wrongdoing”. The German Spy Museum define it as “someone who reveals confidential information about the illegal or immoral practises of their employer.”
The most famous whistleblowing case of recent times is Edward Snowden. Here is a nuanced account of Snowden’s actions and motivations, and the key part is “I found it hard to determine when, in Snowden’s own mind, he graduated from being the emotionally immature and naive person he disdainfully describes himself as at the beginning of his development to being the sophisticated person who could make sound decisions about what is good for humanity he claims to be when he takes the NSA documents.” Citizenfour is a critically acclaimed documentary:
“Reality” is a slow paced but engaging drama that uses the actual FBI transcripts to reveal the case of former NSA translator Reality Winner.
“Official Secrets” is based on a true story, featuring whistleblower Katharine Gun. I found it interesting that she made no attempt to escalate issues internally before going outside the organisation. The fact that she worked for the UK security services added more weight to the magnitude of her actions, but also calls into question whether we should treat people with security clearance differently to dissent in other contexts.
Insider trading
“Rajat Gupta“, by Healy, P.M., and Soltes, E., Harvard Business School, 2019
Learning objective: The case explores how a prominent and successful executive can engage in misconduct. In addition, the case explores the nature of illicit insider trading.
In 2011 Raj Rajaratnum was given an 11 year prison sentence for insider trading. According to Philip Mirowski (2013) this makes him just one of two people (the other being Bernie Madoff) to have gone to jail for their roles in the 2007-08 global financial crisis. Martin Wolf (2023) claims that the only banker to go to prison from wither the US or the UK was Kareem Serageldin (whereas in Iceland 25 bankers were convicted, 11 in Spain, and 7 in Ireland.
Here is a New York Post article explaining how Nancy Pelosi (and her husband) have benefitted from trading off the stocks of companies that she regulates, and why she is resisting efforts to stop Congressional lawmakers from being able to continue to do so. You can track her trades here. Here is a funny halloween costume.
Here is a case that links insider trading with working from home – a man bought stock in a company that BP were intending to buy and made a $1.8m profit after they did so. His wife worked in M&A at BP, and had been discussing the deal on zoom calls within the family home. For more see here.
Quiz
Finally, you can test your understanding of the content, and provide me with useful feedback, by completing this quiz:
The Filter^ was created in a Birkenhead chippy, in January 2004. Stephen Lai and Anthony Evans were both recent graduates from the University of Liverpool, and wanted to present interesting and accessible academic ideas to a wider audience.
Created in July 2004, The Filter^ REVIEW is an online assembly of cultural essays. Encompassing opera, music, theatre, and architecture our range of reviewers provide honest and independent assessments of live events. Our motivation is enthusiasm, and providing our part of the social contract between audience and stage. My theatre reviews are available here.
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