OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
We introduce ethical agents into an analysis of decision making in a profit-maximising firm. Agents can adopt a profitable new practice that may harm customers. Their decision reflects moral considerations, organisational culture, and compensation contracts. We analyse both utilitarian and deontological (duty-based) philosophical traditions. Cultural assimilation emerges as an equilibrium phenomenon. With sophisticated customers, the principal enables a culture that achieves the highest possible aggregate surplus and, under deontological ethics, both the principal and the customers would prefer to deal with less ethically committed agents. In contrast, the principal designs compensation to enable cultures that exploit na¨ıve customers.
