Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and research. (...) Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs. (shrink)

This paper explores differences in national responses to foodborne disease outbreaks, addressing both the sources of policy divergence and their implications for public health and coordinated emergency response. It presents findings from a comparative study of two multi-state E. coli outbreaks, one in the United States and one in Germany, demonstrating important differences in how risk managers understood and responded to each nation’s first major outbreak associated with fresh produce. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of 36 semi-structured interviews with key (...) stakeholders and hundreds of archival documents, this paper traces how social constructions of the E. coli risk interacted with organizational dynamics among state and industry actors to produce divergent policy outcomes: the U.S. outbreak was understood primarily as an agricultural problem that led to an industry-led agricultural solution, whereas the German outbreak was understood as a human disease problem that did not result in a substantial policy response once the acute health crisis passed. The paper concludes by discussing how these policy processes generate partial solutions to foodborne contamination that expose modern societies to systemic vulnerabilities. (shrink)

Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and research. (...) Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs. (shrink)

Given the growing public concern and attention placed on cases of research misconduct, government agencies and research institutions have increased their efforts to develop and improve ethics education programs for scientists. The present study sought to assess the impact of these increased efforts by sampling empirical studies published since the year 2000. Studies published prior to 2000 examined in other meta-analytic work were also included to provide a baseline for assessing gains in ethics training effectiveness over time. In total, this (...) quantitative review consisted of 66 empirical studies, 106 ethics courses, 150 effect sizes, and 10,069 training participants. Overall, the findings indicated that ethics instruction resulted in sizable benefits to participants and has improved considerably within the last decade. A number of specific findings also emerged regarding moderators of instructional effectiveness. Recommendations are discussed for improving the development, delivery, and evaluation of ethics instruction in the sciences. (shrink)

Goal-directed spatial decision making video games combine spatial mapping, memory, and reward; all of which can involve hippocampal excitation through suppression of an inhibitory neurotransmitter, γ-aminobutyric acid. In this study, GABA was measured before and after 30 min of video game play within a voxel around the hippocampus. It was predicted that all participants would experience a decrease in GABA during gaming as a result of in-game rewards; and, those who were most competitive with the goal-directed spatial decision making game (...) would display lower hippocampal GABA concentrations after gaming. Those who were not competitive, because they were too skilled or not skilled enough, would demonstrate higher hippocampal GABA concentrations after gaming. While there were no significant differences in hippocampal GABA before and after gaming for gamers and non-gamers alike, there was a significant quadratic regression between performance on a spatial working memory task and post-gaming hippocampal GABA concentrations. (shrink)

Ethical decision making is of concern to researchers across all fields. However, researchers typically focus on the biases that may act to undermine ethical decision making. Taking a new approach, this study focused on identifying the most common compensatory strategies that counteract those biases. These strategies were identified using a series of interviews with university researchers in a variety of areas, including biological, physical, social, and health as well as scholarship and the performing arts. Interview transcripts were assessed with two (...) scoring procedures, an expert rating system and computer-assisted qualitative analysis. Although the expert rating system identified Understanding Guidelines, Recognition of Insufficient Information, and Recognizing Boundaries as the most frequently used compensatory strategies across fields, other strategies, Striving for Transparency, Value/norm Assessment, and Following Appropriate Role Models, were identified as most common by the computer-assisted qualitative analyses. Potential reasons for these findings and implications for training and practice are identified and discussed. (shrink)

Research misconduct is of growing concern within the scientific community. As a result, organizations must identify effective approaches to training for ethics in research. Previous research has suggested that biases and compensatory strategies may represent important influences on the ethical decision-making process. The present effort investigated a training intervention targeting these variables. The results of the intervention are presented, as well as a description of accompanying exercises tapping self-reflection, sensemaking, and forecasting and their differential effectiveness on transfer to an ethical (...) decision-making task. (shrink)

Power and organizational hierarchies are ubiquitous to social institutions that form the foundation of modern society. Power differentials may act to constrain or enhance people’s ability to make good ethical decisions. However, little scholarly work has examined perceptions of this important topic. The present effort seeks to address this issue by interviewing academics about hypothetical ethical problems that involve power differences among those involved. Academics discussed what they would do in these scenarios, often drawing on their own experiences. Using a (...) think-aloud protocol, participants were prompted to discuss their reasoning and thinking behind their ethical decisions. These interview data were content analyzed using a semantic analysis program that identified a number of distinct ways that academics think about power differences and abuses in ethical situations. Implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The paper studies the impact of informational ambiguity on behalf of informed traders on history-dependent price behaviour in a model of sequential trading in financial markets. Following Chateauneuf et al., we use neo-additive capacities to model ambiguity. Such ambiguity and attitudes to it can engender herd and contrarian behaviour, and also cause the market to break down. The latter, herd and contrarian behaviour, can be reduced by the existence of a bid-ask spread.

Predictive modeling in education draws on data from past courses to forecast the effectiveness of future courses. The present effort sought to identify such a model of instructional effectiveness in scientific ethics. Drawing on data from 235 courses in the responsible conduct of research, structural equation modeling techniques were used to test a predictive model of RCR course effectiveness. Fit statistics indicated the model fit the data well, with the instructional characteristics included in the model explaining approximately 85% of the (...) variance in RCR instructional effectiveness. Implications for using the model to develop and improve future RCR courses are discussed. (shrink)

The increasing interconnectedness of academic research and external industry has left research vulnerable to conflicts of interest. These conflicts have the potential to undermine the integrity of scientific research as well as to threaten public trust in scientific findings. The present effort sought to identify themes in the perspectives of faculty researchers regarding conflicts of interest. Think-aloud interview responses were qualitatively analyzed in an effort to provide insights with regard to appropriate ways to address the threat of conflicts of interest (...) in research. Themes in participant responses included disclosure of conflicts of interest, self-removal from situations where conflict exists, accommodation of conflict, denial of the existence of conflict, and recognition of complexity of situations involving conflicts of interest. Moral disengagement operations are suggested to explain the appearance of each identified theme. In addition, suggestions for best practices regarding addressing conflicts of interest given these themes in faculty perspectives are provided. (shrink)

The study of ethical behavior and ethical decision making is of increasing importance in many fields, and there is a growing literature addressing the issue. However, research examining differences in ethical decision making across fields and levels of experience is limited. In the present study, biases that undermine ethical decision making and compensatory strategies that may aid ethical decision making were identified in a series of interviews with 63 faculty members across six academic fields and three levels of rank as (...) well as across gender. The degree to which certain biases and compensatory strategies were used in justifications for responses to ethical situations was compared across fields, level of experience, and gender. Major differences were found across fields for several biases and compensatory strategies, including biases and compensatory strategies related to use of professional field principles and field-specific guidelines. Furthermore, full professors tend to differ greatly from assistant and associate professors on a number of constructs, and there were differences in the consistency with which biases and compensatory strategies were displayed within these various groups. Implications of these findings for ethics training and future research are discussed. (shrink)

Increased investment in ethics education has prompted a variety of instructional objectives and frameworks. Yet, no systematic procedure to classify these varying instructional approaches has been attempted. In the present study, a quantitative clustering procedure was conducted to derive a typology of instruction in ethics education. In total, 330 ethics training programs were included in the cluster analysis. The training programs were appraised with respect to four instructional categories including instructional content, processes, delivery methods, and activities. Eight instructional approaches were (...) identified through this clustering procedure, and these instructional approaches showed different levels of effectiveness. Instructional effectiveness was assessed based on one of nine commonly used ethics criteria. With respect to specific training types, Professional Decision Processes Training and Field-Specific Compliance Training appear to be viable approaches to ethics training based on Cohen’s d effect size estimates. By contrast, two commonly used approaches, General Discussion Training and Norm Adherence Training, were found to be considerably less effective. The implications for instruction in ethics training are discussed. (shrink)

Many commentators suppose that the principles of Aristotle’s Politics are received from his theoretical works. Yet this way of understanding the Politics does not sufficiently appreciate Aristotle’s division of sciences, and it obscures the relevance of his political reflections for our time. We argue that Aristotle’s treatment of the polis and all it entails does not require his natural science and the principles of theoretical fields. Instead, despite wording that recalls theoretical treatises, Aristotle is careful to develop his political argumentation (...) without any such dependence. (shrink)

English summary: It seems that reason is less a universal principle than something inherently bound to the contexts in which it appears. These contributions to a conference held on the occasion of Christoph Schwobel's 60th birthday explore the character of reason's manifold contexts: the grounding of reason in the inner word of God 's Trinitarian life as well as the disclosure of reason and and its limits in human conversation. German description: Vernunft scheint in der Gegenwart weniger ein allgemeines Prinzip (...) als eine in Kontexte eingebundene Grosse zu sein. Die Beitrage einer Tagung anlasslich von Christoph Schwobels 60. Geburtstag, gehen der Frage nach dem Charakter dieser Kontextbindung nach: der Begrundung der Vernunft im trinitarischen Gesprach wie der Erschliessung und Problematisierung der Vernunft im menschlichen Gesprach. Mit Beitragen von V. Brummer, G. van den Brink, C. Drobe, H. J. Eckstein, D.-M. Grube, J. Halfwassen, S. Heine, F. Hermanni, E. Herms, W. Harle, W. Homolka, W. Jeanrond, R. W. Jenson, D. Kelsey, A. F. Koch, A. Kupsch, V. Leppin, P.-C. Lai, P. Lo, A. Min, J. Moltmann, M. Muhling, P. Peterson, M. Sarot, F. Schweitzer, A. Torrance, J. Webster, M. Welker, M. Wendte, M. Wisse, H. Wisskirchen und L. Zak. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concept and role of ‘institutional racism’ in contemporary discussions of race should be reconsidered. It starts by distinguishing between ‘intrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their constitutive features, and ‘extrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their negative effects. It accepts intrinsic institutional racism, but argues that a ‘disparate impact’ conception of extrinsic conception faces a number of objections, the most serious being that it (...) has no plausible account of what it is that makes extrinsically racist institutions racist. It also argues that claims about the explanatory indispensability of institutional racism are overstated (individual racism is at least as important), critiques structural approaches to racial inequality, and suggests that there is reason to doubt whether institutional reform can provide us with all that morality may require in the racial domain. (shrink)

In The Quantum Self, Danah Zohar argues that the insights of modem physics can illuminate our understanding of everyday life -- our relationships to ourselves, to others, and to the world at large. Guiding us through the strange and fascinating workings of the subatomic realm to create a new model of human consciousness, the author addresses enduring philosophical questions. Does the new physics provide a basis by which our consciousness might continue beyond death? How does the material world (for instance, (...) ugly inner cities) impinge upon our sense of self? Is there a subatomic wellspring from which our creativity, our empathy with others, and our feelings of unity with the inanimate world originate?Most important, Zohar shows how the vitality of the new physics combats the alienation and fragmentation of twentieth-century life, and replaces it with a model of reality in which the universe itself may possess a type of consciousness, of which human consciousness is one expression. (shrink)

As humans, we frequently engage in mental time travel, reliving past experiences and imagining possible future events. This study examined whether similar factors affect the subjective experience associated with remembering the past and imagining the future. Participants mentally “re-experienced” or “pre-experienced” positive and negative events that differed in their temporal distance from the present , and then rated the phenomenal characteristics associated with their representations. For both past and future, representations of positive events were associated with a greater feeling of (...) re-experiencing than representations of negative events. In addition, representations of temporally close events contained more sensorial and contextual details, and generated a stronger feeling of re-experiencing than representations of temporally distant events. It is suggested that the way we both remember our past and imagine our future is constrained by our current goals. (shrink)

Objective—To determine the prevalence of, and attitudes towards, observed and personal research misconduct among newly appointed medical consultants. Design—Questionnaire study.Setting—Mersey region, United Kingdom.Participants—Medical consultants appointed between Jan 1995 and Jan 2000 in seven different hospital trusts (from lists provided by each hospital's personnel department). Main outcome measures—Reported observed misconduct, reported past personal misconduct and reported possible future misconduct.Results—One hundred and ninety-four replies were received (a response rate of 63.6%); 55.7% of respondents had observed some form of research misconduct; 5.7% of (...) respondents admitted to past personal misconduct; 18% of respondents were either willing to commit or unsure about possible future research misconduct. Only 17% of the respondents reported having received any training in research ethics. Anaesthetists reported a lower incidence of observed research misconduct (33.3%) than the rest of the respondents (61.5%) (p<0.05). Conclusion—There is a higher prevalence of observed and possible future misconduct among newly appointed consultants in the UK than in the comparable study of biomedical trainees in California. Although there is a need for more extensive studies, this survey suggests that there is a real and potential problem of research misconduct in the UK. (shrink)

It was proposed that the data from Monte Carlo statistical investigations be subjected to analysis of variance methods rather than the conventional techniques of tabling, graphing, and inspecting the data. Two examples in which analysis of variance methods were applied to published Monte Carlo studies were presented. It was suggested that balanced factorial designs should be used whenever possible in Monte Carlo studies so that analysis of variance methods would be directly applicable. Finally, three advantages of analysis of variance methods (...) over conventional techniques were described and analysis of variance methods were contrasted with a possible alternative analytical method, multiple regression analysis. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is devoted to the analysis of the urgent problem of the information society: the overload of a person with information and, as a result, the impossibility of adequate formation and development of the personality; as well as the problem of "digitization" of human existence and the formation of a new reality of dataism. Theoretical basis. A lot of modern scientific works are devoted to the analysis of the information society, its problems and features. The information society is (...) a logical continuation of the scientific and technological revolution, which led to the rapid growth of scientific knowledge and the technology development. In the 20th century, technologies have touched the sphere of knowledge and information, as a result of which the formation and development of the information society, or "knowledge society", takes place. Information becomes the main resource in it, and, one way or another, a person’s life is inextricably connected with the information space. With the information society formation, the problem of information search and processing becomes one of the most urgent. It turns out that despite the abundance and availability of information, it is very difficult to determine its relevance. A lot of effort is spent on developing information retrieval algorithms. Another problem is related to the person’s inability to process large amounts of data. This situation begins to influence not only the education process and professional activity, but also the formation of a person’s personality. A person is "lost" in the information space and gradually loses his/her "I". Algorithms for data analysis come to the rescue, but gradually, instead of giving a person material for thought, they begin to make decisions on their own, and therefore, live life instead of a person. With the advent of Big Data processing algorithms, a new ideological paradigm appears – dataism, which predicts the merger of a person with the general data flow. Originality. The authors make assumptions that the dataistic future is "natural". A lot of works, including in the framework of philosophy, are focused on the problem of "dissolving" a person in the information space and finding ways to overcome it. But, in our opinion, this process is a completely logical continuation of human evolution. Conclusions. Existence of a person as a data flow is not a problem and a threat, but a new dimension of his/her being, and, therefore, requires a careful study and formulation of the main principles of this form of existence. (shrink)

Appropriate information and consent has been one of the most intensely discussed topics within the context of biobank research. In parallel to the normative debate, many socio-empirical studies have been conducted to gather experiences, preferences and views of patients, healthy research participants and further stakeholders. However, there is scarcity of literature which connects the normative debate about justifications for different consent models with findings gained in empirical research. In this paper we discuss findings of a limited review of socio-empirical research (...) on patients’ and healthy research participants’ experiences and views regarding consent to biobank research in light of ethical principles for appropriate information and consent. (shrink)

A guide for scientists who would like to contribute to the professional development of science teachers for elementary schools. Based on information from over 180 programs, describes what activities work and why, and suggests how to identify programs teachers have found to be effective and take the initial steps to become involved. Also provides vignettes illustrating the daily work of science teachers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The physician-patient relationship has changed over the last several decades, requiring a systematic reevaluation of the competing demands of patients, physicians, and families. In the era of genetic testing, using a model of patient care known as the family covenant may prove effective in accounting for these demands. The family covenant articulates the roles of the physician, patient, and the family prior to genetic testing, as the participants consensually define them. The initial agreement defines the boundaries of autonomy and benefit (...) for all participating family members. The physician may then serve as a facilitator in the relationship, working with all parties in resolving potential conflicts regarding genetic information. The family covenant promotes a fuller discussion of the competing ethical claims that may come to bear after genetic test results are received. (shrink)

This paper's purpose is to assess how management's perceptions regarding certain aspects of environmental reporting relate to the firm's actual reporting strategy. Toward that end, we propose a model where a firm's environmental disclosure is conditional upon executive assessments of corporate concerns. The study relies on a survey that was sent to environmental management executives from European and North American multinational firms enquiring about the determinants of corporate environmental disclosure. Responses from these executives were then contrasted with their firms' actual (...) environmental reporting practices, which was measured using a comprehensive multi-criteria grid. Results show that there is a relationship between environmental managers' attitudes toward various stakeholder groups and how those managers respond to the stakeholders via the decision to disclose and the actual disclosures made. Our model provides a perspective as to how a firm responds to the numerous stakeholders to whom it must be accountable. This accountability in turn relates to how the company communicates its actions to society in order to achieve or maintain its social legitimacy. (shrink)

This paper suggests that empirical educational research has not, on the whole, been treated well by philosophers of education. A variety of criticisms have been offered, ranging from triviality, conceptual confusion and the impossibility of empirically studying normative processes. Furthermore, many of those who criticise, or dismiss, empirical research do so without subjecting any specific examples to careful scholarly scrutiny. It is suggested that both philosophy of education, and the empirical research enterprise, stand to profit if philosophers pay more attention (...) to real cases—and this attention is especially important at present, when research funding is being based on spurious scientistic criteria such as the use of ‘gold standard’ randomised experimental research designs. (shrink)

This paper suggests that empirical educational research has not, on the whole, been treated well by philosophers of education. A variety of criticisms have been offered, ranging from triviality, conceptual confusion and the impossibility of empirically studying normative processes. Furthermore, many of those who criticise, or dismiss, empirical research do so without subjecting any specific examples to careful scholarly scrutiny. It is suggested that both philosophy of education, and the empirical research enterprise, stand to profit if philosophers pay more attention (...) to real cases—and this attention is especially important at present, when research funding is being based on spurious scientistic criteria such as the use of ‘gold standard’ randomised experimental research designs. (shrink)

The question of ‘who owns genetic information‘ is increasingly a focus of ethical inquiry. Applied to predictive testing, several recent critiques suggest that persons with a genetic disorder have a moral duty to disclose that information to other family members. The justification for this obligation is that genetic information belongs to and may benefit not only a single individual, but also members of a biological kinship. This paper considers this issue from a different vantage point: How does gender intersect with (...) the moral duty to disclose genetic information? Scholars have argued that gender is partly comprised of distinct assignments and assumptions of responsibility. Thus, there is a danger that gendered patterns of socialization will make women feel that they should take primary responsibility for disclosing genetic information to others. This article explores issues of responsibility and disclosure of risk information by drawing on an empirical study of women and men who have undergone genetic testing for hereditary breast/ovarian cancer. The research study suggests that disclosure of genetic information is a gendered activity, with both the benefits and burdens of this task falling primarily on women. It also illustrates that when disclosure is understood contextually, it is a far more complicated matter than when viewed through a theoretical lens. The article considers the relevance of these findings on ethical debate and genetic counselling practices. (shrink)