PurposeBusiness ethics has become a controversial topic as China integrates more closely into the world economy and there are signs of convergence within global professions. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to study guanxi and business ethics in China within the context of social capital development, with a view to creating a more balanced interpretation that provides insights for Westerners wishing to conduct business in China.Design/methodology/approachIn terms of methodology, the work is based on the results of a recent survey conducted among Chinese executives in southern China.FindingsThe major findings suggest that the processes of developing social capital and the nurturing of company‐to‐company relationships need to be planned carefully. Thus, no one individual should be responsible for the China connection, although the appointment of a team leader is essential, otherwise the Chinese side would become confused. Negotiations always are to be conducted on a team basis and always approved at the highest levels in the corporate structure.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of this paper include the difficulties of obtaining any research sample in China. Thus, we refer to the work of Weiss, (Learning From Strangers, Free Press, New York.) and use a snowball sample.Originality/valueThe practical implications of the paper are that guanxi (a type of social capital), can be managed and that corruption does not have to result from the use of guanxi‐based relationships. Thus, the originality arises out of the practical implications, in that for the first time, Western concepts of social capital and Asian concepts of guanxi have been compared, leading to practical recommendations for Western managers.

Whether the nature of the risks associated with climbing high-altitude (8000 m) peaks is in some sense "controllable" is a longstanding debate in the mountaineering community. Well-known mountaineers David Roberts and Ed Viesturs explore this issue in their recent memoirs. Roberts views the primary risks as " objective " or uncontrollable, whereas Viesturs maintains that experience and attention to safety can make a significant difference. This study sheds light on the Roberts-Viesturs debate using a comprehensive dataset of climbing on Nepalese Himalayan peaks. To test whether the data is consistent with a constant failure rate model (Roberts) or a decreasing failure rate model (Viesturs), it draws on Total Time on Test (TTT) plots from the reliability engineering literature and applies graphical inference techniques to them.

In ‘Exploring the Proof Paradoxes’, Mike Redmayne comprehensively surveyed the puzzles at the intersection of law and statistics, the most famous of which is the Blue Bus problem, which prohibits legal actors from ascribing liability purely on the basis of probabilistic evidence. DNA evidence, however, is a longstanding exception to Blue Bus. Like Blue Bus, DNA presents probabilistic evidence of identity. Unlike Blue Bus, DNA is widely accepted as legitimate, even when it stands alone as so-called ‘naked’ statistical evidence. Observers often explain such DNA exceptionalism in two ways: either that people break down in extreme cases, or relatedly, that modern DNA testing generates effectively unique (as opposed to probabilistic) identifications. While both explanations are understandable, they are unsatisfying in certain ways. Breakdown theory seems unprincipled and falls victim to slippery slopes. Uniqueness theory rests on a fiction and fails to delineate a threshold for when probabilities are sufficiently small to be considered ‘unique’. In this paper inspired by our reading of Professor Redmayne’s piece, we propose a quantitative explanation for DNA exceptionalism. Specifically, we argue that as random match probabilities become smaller, the probability of error (i.e. mistaken identification) sharply transitions from high to low. This sharp change in probability, which we label a ‘phase change’, explains why legal actors can treat DNA as non-probabilistic evidence. The phase change further avoids slippery slope problems and helps define when one can legitimately treat DNA—or any similarly qualified forensic identification method for that matter—as a form of direct evidence.

Law-and-economics scholars have recently argued that the legal system should set burdens of proof on the basis of ex ante welfare considerations. In this Article, we reject this welfarist approach, showing that it relies on contested normative principles, raises legitimacy concerns, and is nearly impossible to implement in practice. As an alternative, we propose a decision-theory model that we constrain to account for core legal values and the practical limitations of the trial process. Specifically, we require that the burden of proof prioritize accuracy (truth) over welfare, and that it be capable of operating without knowledge of the base rates or prior probabilities of activities. The resulting optimization problem can be solved using a minimax approach, which minimizes the maximum probability of error faced by each of the parties, and remarkably, the minimax solution turns out to be precisely the preponderanceof-the-evidence standard currently imposed by courts. We thereby not only refute recent welfare theories about the burden of proof, but also provide a new theoretical justification for the traditional preponderance standard.

No abstract