In some cases, organizing a conference resembles a high-profit business. Some of these conferences are wolves in sheep's clothing. This article draws readers' attention to current examples of such unethical business conferences.
Panel dataset in this article contains information on the ethical commitment disclosures of Malaysian publicly listed companies. The data presented is related to the research article entitled "Ethical Practice Disclosure of Malaysian Public Listed Companies" [1]. In examining the level of ethical commitment disclosures, content analysis is performed involving 1,115 annual reports for five year periods (2012 - 2016). The annual reports are gathered from Main Market of Bursa Malaysia website. Information on ethical commitment disclosures are extracted from the annual reports. The data are collected using Ethical Commitment Index (ECI) comprising six themes; corporate ethics values, action to promote ethics, whistle-blowing policy, code of ethics, sustainability practices, and ethics committee. This dataset is useful as an indicator of the companies' ethical commitment reflecting ethical climate in Malaysian public listed companies.
Tobacco is a heavily pesticide-dependent crop. Because pesticides involve human safety and health issues, they are regulated nationally and internationally; however, little is known about how tobacco companies respond to regulatory pressures regarding pesticides. In this study we analyzed internal tobacco industry documents to describe industry activities aimed at influencing pesticide regulations. We used a case study approach based on examination of approximately 2,000 internal company documents and 3,885 pages of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. The cases involved methoprene, the ethylene bisdithiocarbamates, and phosphine. We show how the tobacco industry successfully altered the outcome in two cases by hiring ex-agency scientists to write reports favorable to industry positions regarding pesticide regulations for national (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) and international (World Health Organization) regulatory bodies. We also show how the industry worked to forestall tobacco pesticide regulation by attempting to self-regulate in Europe, and how Philip Morris encouraged a pesticide manufacturer to apply for higher tolerance levels in Malaysia and Europe while keeping tobacco industry interest a secret from government regulators. This study suggests that the tobacco industry is able to exert considerable influence over the pesticide regulatory process and that increased scrutiny of this process and protection of the public interest in pesticide regulation may be warranted.