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

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 Don A. Moore, George Loewenstein, Daylian M. Cain, and Max H. Bazerman; Part I. Business: 1. Managing conflicts of interest within organizations: does activating social values change the impact of self-interest on behavior? Tom R. Tyler; 2. Commentary: on Tyler's 'Managing conflicts of interest within organizations' Robyn Dawes; 3. A review of experimental and archival conflicts-of-interest research in auditing Mark W. Nelson; 4. Commentary: conflicts of interest in accounting Don A. Moore; 5. Bounded ethicality as a psychological barrier to recognizing conflicts of interest Dolly Chugh, Max H. Bazerman and Mahzarin R. Banaji; 6. Commentary: bounded ethicality and conflicts of interest Ann E. Tenbrunsel; 7. Coming clean but playing dirtier: the shortcomings of disclosure as a solution to conflicts of interest Daylian M. Cain, George Loewenstein and Don A. Moore; 8. Commentary: psychologically naive assumptions about the perils of conflicts of interest Dale T. Miller; Part II. Medicine: 9. Physicians' financial ties with the pharmaceutical industry: a critical element of a formidable marketing network Jerome P. Kassirer; 10. Commentary: how did we get into this mess? Peter A. Ubel; 11. Why are (some) conflicts of interest in medicine so uniquely vexing? Andrew Stark; 12. Commentary: financial conflicts of interest and the identity of academic medicine Scott Y. H. Kim; Part III. Law: 13. Legal responses to conflicts of interest Samuel Issacharoff; 14. Commentary: conflicts of interest begin where principal-agent problems end George Loewenstein; 15. Conflicts of interest and strategic ignorance of harm Jason Dana; 16. Commentary: strategic ignorance of harm Daylian M. Cain; Part IV. Public Policy: 17. Conflicts of interest in public policy research Robert J. MacCoun; 18. Commentary: conflicts of interest in policy analysis: compliant pawns in their game? Baruch Fischhoff; 19. Conflict of interest as an objection to consequentialist moral reasoning Robert H. Frank; 20. Commentary: conflict of interest as a threat to consequentialist reasoning David M. Messick; Index.

Review :
"This books is a genuine public service, above all because it shows how human psychology can make conflicts of interest quite intractable. Often, for example, people believe that it is enough for those with a conflict simply to disclose it. Unfortunately, disclosure often does little or no good. Filled with insights and highly relevant to public policy, this outstanding book is must reading for anyone interested in the role of conflicts of interest in both private and public sectors." Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago "This skillfully edited volume takes social-science analysis of conflicts of interest well beyond the traditional confines of principal-agent theory. Readers are guaranteed to come away with a sharper appreciation for why, so often, what one observer decries as a shameful conflict of interest, another observer applauds as blissful symbiosis." Philip E. Tetlock, University of California, Berkeley