This study examines factors impacting ethical behavior of 203 hospital employees in Midwestern and Northwestern United States. Ethical behavior of peers had the most significant impact on ethical behavior. Ethical behavior of successful managers, professional education in ethics and sex of the respondents also significantly impacted ethical behavior. Nurses were significantly more ethical than other employees. Race of the respondent did not impact ethical behavior. Overclaiming scales indicated that social desirability bias did not significantly impact the results of our study. (...) Implications of this study for researchers and practitioners are discussed. (shrink)

In 2022, students at North American universities with third-dose COVID-19 vaccine mandates risk disenrolment if unvaccinated. To assess the appropriateness of booster mandates in this age group, we combine empirical risk-benefit assessment and ethical analysis. To prevent one COVID-19 hospitalisation over a 6-month period, we estimate that 31 207–42 836 young adults aged 18–29 years must receive a third mRNA vaccine. Booster mandates in young adults are expected to cause a net harm: per COVID-19 hospitalisation prevented, we anticipate at least (...) 18.5 serious adverse events from mRNA vaccines, including 1.5–4.6 booster-associated myopericarditis cases in males (typically requiring hospitalisation). We also anticipate 1430–4626 cases of grade ≥3 reactogenicity interfering with daily activities (although typically not requiring hospitalisation). University booster mandates are unethical because they: (1) are not based on an updated (Omicron era) stratified risk-benefit assessment for this age group; (2) may result in a net harm to healthy young adults; (3) are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission; (4) violate the reciprocity principle because serious vaccine-related harms are not reliably compensated due to gaps in vaccine injury schemes; and (5) may result in wider social harms. We consider counterarguments including efforts to increase safety on campus but find these are fraught with limitations and little scientific support. Finally, we discuss the policy relevance of our analysis for primary series COVID-19 vaccine mandates. (shrink)

In this article, we illuminate how a consumption practice in an ephemeral religious organization subverts systems of economic inequality that otherwise prevail in, and structure, society. Drawing on a rich ethnographic study in Pakistan, we show how the practice of food consumption in the Tablighi Jamaat —an Islamic organization originating in South Asia that is practiced intermittently by its followers—represents temporal spaces of egalitarianism. Within these temporal spaces, entrenched economic hierarchies that are salient in organizing Pakistani society are challenged. We (...) found that while the fundamental principles of the Tablighi Jamaat advocate for subversion of the economic hierarchies that propagate myriad inequalities by demarcating local Muslims into spheres of different social and economic classes, it is in the practice of food consumption when ethical transgression from these hierarchies are rendered most intelligible. Finally, we consider the implications of this study to the emerging field of Islamic business ethics. (shrink)

Health Wearable Devices enhance the quality of life, promote positive lifestyle changes and save time and money in medical appointments. However, Wearable Devices store large amounts of personal information that is accessed by third parties without user consent. This creates ethical issues regarding privacy, security and informed consent. This paper aims to demonstrate users’ ethical perceptions of the use of Wearable Devices in the health sector. The impact of ethics is determined by an online survey which was conducted from patients (...) and users with random female and male division. Results from this survey demonstrate that Wearable Device users are highly concerned regarding privacy issues and consider informed consent as “very important” when sharing information with third parties. However, users do not appear to relate privacy issues with informed consent. Additionally, users expressed the need for having shorter privacy policies that are easier to read, a more understandable informed consent form that involves regulatory authorities and there should be legal consequences the violation or misuse of health information provided to Wearable Devices. The survey results present an ethical framework that will enhance the ethical development of Wearable Technology. (shrink)

Over the last decade, scholars across the wide spectrum of the discipline of sociology have started to reengage with questions on morality and moral phenomena. The continued wave of research in this field, which has come to be known as the new sociology of morality, is a lively research program that has several common grounds with scholarship in the field of business ethics. The aim of this thematic symposium is to open constructive dialogues between these two areas of study. In (...) this introductory essay, we briefly present the project of the new sociology of morality and discuss its relevance for business ethics. We also review the contributions to this thematic symposium and identify four specific domains where future research can contribute to fruitful dialogues between the two fields. (shrink)

Organizations today recognize that it is not only important to engage in corporate social responsibility, but that it is also equally important to ensure that information about CSR is communicated to audiences. At times, however, the CSR image perceived by audiences is not an accurate portrayal of the organization’s CSR identity and is, therefore, incongruent with the desired CSR image. In this paper, we build upon the nascent work on organizational impression management by examining CSR communication from an impression management (...) perspective. The model developed here proposes that incongruence between desired and current CSR images motivates an organization to decrease the incongruence through CSR communication. This relationship is moderated by four factors: importance of CSR image to the organization; power, status, and attractiveness of the target audience; importance of CSR image to the target audience; and media attention and public scrutiny. The model also identifies four dimensions of CSR communication structure and includes a feedback loop through which audience interpretation of the CSR communication can influence the organization’s CSR image incongruence. Two illustrative examples are provided to indicate how the model may be applied to organizations. This paper has several implications for research and practice. It draws connections between impression management theory and CSR and adds to the emerging literature on organizational impression management. It can also help organizations decide on the appropriate CSR communication structure to use in specific situations and be more effective in their CSR communication. (shrink)

In this study, 191 subjects, 93 male and 98 female undergraduate business students, were asked to respond to a 51 item questionnaire to examine their perception of what constituted a "just society". The subjects agreed on 16 characteristics which a just society would have. Out of 51 there were only 10 statements whereon average responses showed significant differences based on gender.

In times of crises, public health leaders may claim that trials of public health interventions are unethical. One reason for this claim can be that equipoise—i.e. a situation of uncertainty and/or disagreement among experts about the evidence regarding an intervention—has been disturbed by a change of collective expert views. Some might claim that equipoise is disturbed if the majority of experts believe that emergency public health interventions are likely to be more beneficial than harmful. However, such beliefs are not always (...) justified: where high quality research has not been conducted, there is often considerable residual uncertainty about whether interventions offer net benefits. In this essay we argue that high-quality research, namely by means of well-designed randomized trials, is ethically obligatory before, during, and after implementing policies in public health emergencies (PHEs). We contend that this standard applies to both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions, and we elaborate an account of equipoise that captures key features of debates in the recent pandemic. We build our case by analyzing research strategies employed during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding drugs, vaccines, and non-pharmaceutical interventions; and by providing responses to possible objections. Finally, we propose a public health policy reform: whenever a policy implemented during a PHE is not grounded in high-quality evidence that expected benefits outweigh harms, there should be a planned approach to generate high-quality evidence, with review of emerging data at preset time points. These preset timepoints guarantee that policymakers pause to review emerging evidence and consider ceasing ineffective or even harmful policies, thereby improving transparency and accountability, as well as permitting the redirection of resources to more effective or beneficial interventions. (shrink)

This article analyzes how the medical gaze made possible by MRI operates in radiological laboratories. It argues that although computer-assisted medical imaging technologies such as MRI shift radiological analysis to the realm of cyborg visuality, radiological analysis continues to depend on visualization produced by other technologies and diagnostic inputs. In the radiological laboratory, MRI is used to produce diverse sets of images of the internal parts of the body to zero in and visually extract the pathology. Visual extraction of pathology (...) becomes possible, however, because of the visual training of the radiologists in understanding and interpreting anatomic details of the whole body. These two levels of viewing constitute the bifocal vision of the radiologists. To make these levels of viewing work complementarily, the body, as it is presented in the body atlases, is made notational. (shrink)

How is social inequality reproduced through day-to-day practices? In this commentary, we use the geographical context of Mexico City to argue that social inequality is maintained by “class work” of elites. Specifically, we discuss how (1) urban planning crystallizes class boundaries, (2) private school education reproduces them, and (3) tipping prevents their disruption.

Recent success of Indian engineers, businessmen, as well as other technically qualified professionals has created an obsession with knowledge and creativity. Documents like India as a Knowledge Superpower have proliferated and we continually hear the mantra of investing in and harnessing of human capital. There are, however, several strands of human capital in India and not all of them harness knowledge and creativity. People on whom drugs are being tested represent one such human capital, which, even though it is being (...) energetically mobilized to provide India with a strategic advantage in the world market, also highlights the contradictions within India’s shifting imaginary, economy and politics. Drug trials in India, in the context of neoliberal globalization, not only challenge and complicate, but also operate within a constellation of divisions — labor/capital, west/non-west, colonial/sovereign, national/global and so on. In this article I analyze how the people on whom drug testing is being done in India are being ‘harnessed’ as human capital, which leads to politicization of ‘bare life’ through ‘inclusive-exclusion’. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDecisions that influence health and access to health care are necessarily a matter of ethics. This paper attempts to examine current budgetary allocations and policy shifts in India from the perspective of global ethical values. It also describes how global economic processes may increase health inequity nationally and argues that they should, therefore, be subject to global health ethics. Public health in India is in a state of crisis from a disinvestment in public health care services and persistent neglect, simultaneous (...) to the global push to enhance privatization. National health policies have remained oblivious to the unacceptably high inequity in access to health care on the one hand, and the cautionary analysis of the experience with currently chosen solutions through public-private- partnership and insurance models, which further marginalize the poorest. Global institutions such as the World Trade Organisation also influence national policies to benefit global business interests but often with detrimental effect upon equitable access to health and health care. The paper argues that the application of ethics must become more visible in the determination of national policies that are led by the dominant global paradigms of economic development to ensure that equitable access to health is prioritized. (shrink)

This study explores if managerial dependencies and organizational independence impact ethical behavior of employees. Survey data was collected from 203 employees working for three hospitals in Midwestern and Northwestern United States. Managerial dependencies like specialized expertise, political connections, and performance visibility significantly impacted ethical behavior. Organizational independence and ethical behavior of peers also had a significant impact on ethical behavior. Implications of this study for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

A case study in the kinds of problems to expect from this increasingly popular marketing tactic.

The perplexing relationship between two of the twentieth century’s most important philosophers, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, has been the subject of much speculation within academic circles. For Arendt, Heidegger was at once, her mentor, her lover, and her friend. In this paper, we juxtapose Arendt’s theory of the banality of evil against her relationship with Heidegger in an effort to consider the question: How does corporeality inform theorizing? In answering this question, we repudiate the conventional reading of the banality (...) of evil, which attributes the theory to Arendt’s analysis of Adolf Eichmann during the latter’s criminal trial for the actions that he perpetrated in the operation of the Holocaust. Instead, we argue that the theory is, more compellingly, reflective of Arendt’s deeply personal attempts at making sense of Heidegger’s decision to affiliate himself with the German Nazi Party in the years preceding, and during, the Second World War. Through this revisionist account of the banality of evil, we animate the idea that theorizing is the discursive corollary, and belongs within the phenomenological parameters, of corporeality. Finally, we contend that any constructive understanding of how corporeality informs theorizing will only be realized, when there is a collapsing of the seemingly impervious philosophical boundaries that demarcate between ontology and epistemology. (shrink)

In this paper, perhaps the first of its kind, an attempt is made to elucidate and examine the Vedantic theory of soul constructed on the basis of the experience of dreamless sleep which, being radically and qualitatively different from waking and dreaming states, is considered by the Vedantins as a state of temporarily purified individual soul (atman), a state of pure substantial consciousness. They take the experience of dreamless sleep as a model experience of the soul's final liberation from the (...) body and its internal as well as external faculties. The ultimate liberation, according to the Vedantins, is a state of total identification of the individual soul with the Universal Soul (Brahman), the summum bonum of every Vedantin. The paper also includes a critique of the Vedantic soul theory by the Buddhists who vehemently deny any autonomous and substantial soul whose essence is unchangingly permanent, pure consciousness and self-illuminating knowledge. The soul is instead interpreted by the Buddhists as a product of the functioning of a person's psycho-physical organism and a mere subject of knowing, thinking, desiring, etc. The analysis further shows that the Vedanta, especially the Advaita Vedanta, metaphysics of soul is inadequate in many respects and mainly based on a priori and scriptural arguments and emotive appeals, whereas the Buddhists deny any kind of autonomous and permanent agent of knowing, thinking and desiring by successfully reducing substantial consciousness to mere acts of knowing. (shrink)

Description: This is a first-hand study of such original texts as have been found important for this subject. It gives a connected and systematic account of the origin and development of the epistemologic thought in Indian philosophy from the beginning up to modern times. Due to difference of opinions of different commentators, the author directly analyses the interpretations of a number of original Sanskrit texts to bring out the exact philosophical import of these texts. The views held by various schools (...) of Indian philosophy are very critically assessed. The aim of this work has not been only to trace the problems of the theory of knowledge but also to study the epistemological position of important authors as a whole, so as to determine the contribution they made and the relations they stand to one another in the history of the subject. The last chapter of the work is attempted for the first time to synthesise Indian and Western thought. (shrink)

To encourage new research on the role of institutions in the entrepreneurial process in less developed countries, the authors propose a conceptual framework to investigate concurrent institutional constraints. The authors define these constraints as geopolitical contexts that encounter simultaneous challenges to well functioning formal and informal institutions. Systems of stronger institutions compensating for weaker institutions are hampered in these settings and such systems weigh heavier on local entrepreneurs and further challenge their ability to mobilize resources and access market opportunities. By (...) investigating the extreme operating conditions of these settings, scholars gain a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurs confront operational dilemmas and express agency through engaging with bricolage and cultural entrepreneurship. To animate these proposals, the authors consider a case illustration of a venture operating under such constraints. (shrink)

While it is known that reward induces attentional prioritization, it is not clear what effect reward-learning has when associated with stimuli that are not fully perceived. The masked priming paradigm has been extensively used to investigate the indirect impact of brief stimuli on response behavior. Interestingly, the effect of masked primes is observed even when participants choose their responses freely. While classical theories assume this process to be automatic, recent studies have provided evidence for attentional modulations of masked priming effects. (...) Most such studies have manipulated bottom-up or top-down modes of attentional selection, but the role of “newer” forms of attentional control such as reward-learning and selection history remains unclear. In two experiments, with number and arrow primes, we examined whether reward-mediated attentional selection modulates masked priming when responses are chosen freely. In both experiments, we observed that primes associated with high-reward lead to enhanced free-choice priming compared to primes associated with no-reward. The effect was seen on both proportion of choices and response times, and was more evident in the faster responses. In the slower responses, the effect was diminished. Our study adds to the growing literature showing the susceptibility of masked priming to factors related to attention and executive control. (shrink)

The COVID-19 vaccine has been a miraculous, life-saving advance, offering staggering efficacy in adults, and was developed with astonishing speed. The time from sequencing the virus to authorizing the first COVID-19 vaccine was so brisk even the optimists appear close-minded. Yet, simultaneously, United States’ COVID-19 vaccination roll-out and related policies have contained missed opportunities, errors, run counter to evidence-based medicine, and revealed limitations in the judgment of public policymakers. Misplaced utilization, contradictory messaging, and poor deployment in those who would benefit (...) most—the elderly and high-risk—alongside unrealistic messaging, exaggeration, and coercion in those who benefit least—young, healthy Americans—is at the heart. It is important to consider the history of COVID-19 vaccines to identify where we succeeded and where we failed, and the effects that these errors may have more broadly on vaccination hesitancy and routine childhood immunization programs in the decades to come. (shrink)

This article underscores the need for entrepreneurship research in extreme contexts to conceptualize the idiosyncrasies of the geopolitical dynamics under which entrepreneurs operate, and to consider the ethical implications emanating thereof. Undertaking such a task will illuminate the contextual challenges that local entrepreneurs must routinely placate, or otherwise navigate, to survive. Drawing on rich qualitative data from the Occupied Palestinian Territory of the West Bank, this paper demonstrates one avenue by which to capture the nuances of an extreme context in (...) relation to its effects on the entrepreneurial process. Specifically, it shows how data collected at myriad institutional sites—from actors that are not only directly, but also tangentially, connected to entrepreneurship in the local market—can effectively unveil the vicissitudes of the extreme context. This article further contends that a comprehensive and a holistic understanding of the extreme context will move toward revealing the nature of political embeddedness of entrepreneurs in their institutionally unstable environment—a concern that is especially conspicuous in geopolitical areas that would qualify as being extreme. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for management scholars to address large-scale and complex societal problems and strive for greater practical and policy impact. A brief overview of the most-cited work on COVID-19 reveals that, compared with their counterparts in other disciplines, leading management journals and professional associations lagged in providing a platform for high-impact research on COVID-19. To help management research play a more active role in responding to similar global challenges in the future, we propose an integrative framework (...) that emphasizes a phenomenon’s impact, the conditions that the phenomenon creates at multiple levels, and the responses of actors to such conditions, as well as the dynamic relationships and interactions among these actors. By shifting attention to phenomena and their overall impact, this framework can help scholars better position their work to address large-scale and complex problems and also to assess research for its contribution to generate impact beyond academia. (shrink)

This Work Analyses Some Basic Concepts Of Indian Ethics. It Shows That A Varnadharma Cannot Be Both Natural And Obligatory, The Prescription Of Acting Desirelessly Makes Any Desireless Action Justified, The Jivan-Mukti Concept Is Inapplicable, Etc.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's drug advisory committees provide expert assessments of the safety and efficacy of new therapies considered for approval. A committee hears from a variety of speakers, from six groups, including voting members of the committee, FDA staff members, employees of the pharmaceutical company seeking approval of a therapy, patient and consumer representatives, expert speakers invited by the company, and public participants. The committees convene at the request of the FDA when the risks and harms of (...) novel products are not immediately clear, and their final decisions carry significant weight, as most therapies that receive advisory committee approval are subsequently approved by the FDA. In recent years, across a series of diverse publications, the financial conflicts of interest of each category of participants in the meetings have been investigated. Here, we summarize these findings and their ethical implications, focusing on the FDA Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee, and we suggest ways to move toward more transparent and impartial advisory committee meetings. (shrink)

Bruno Latour equates criticism with an iconoclastic urge that is underpinned by the project of modernity. Latour's attack on iconoclastic criticism is therefore closely linked to his rejection of the modern framework. This paper examines Latour's analysis of modernity and the ways in which he connects criticism to the project of modernity. Through our analysis of Latour's reading of an episode from U.R. Anantha Murthy's novel Bharathipura, we argue that critique is actually an integral part of a truly democratic knowledge-making (...) process as well as politics. (shrink)

As the title of the present article shows, it highlights the three philosophically integrated areas – (1) pramāṇa-epistemology (theory of comprehensive knowledge involving both perception and inference), (2) logic (although a part of pramāṇa-epistemology, it has two modes, namely, inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning), and (3) language (or semantics, i.e. the double negation theory of meaning, which falls under inference). These are interconnected as well as overlapping within the Buddhist mainstream tradition of the process philosophy as opposed to the substantialist (...) philosophy. The same is the case with the three celebrated Buddhist thinkers – Vasubandhu, Dignāga (also spelt as Diññāṇa), and Dharmakīrti – who develop their radical and critical views focusing on these areas in historical-cum-philosophical order. It is worth noting that within the same mainstream Buddhist tradition, each one of the three thinkers picks up the problematic issues from their predecessors – from the Buddha to their immediate predecessors respectively – for their solutions against the backdrop of the two conflicting mainstream traditions – Buddhist and non-Buddhist. The central focus of these thinkers is first to identify the crucial issues, doctrinal principles, terminology, and methodology in their own ways and conceptual frameworks, which generate not only the mutual conflicts in the course of dialogues but also strengthen their positions by means of their new radical ideas, innovations, terminologies, methodologies, and doctrinal principles. As a result, the three selected areas and their crucial issues are explained, elaborated, and interpretated for better understanding. All of which are rooted in the Buddha’s path of wisdom, ethics, and liberation from the human predicament (duḥkha-nivṛtti). In this grand project of the deepest concerns, the Buddha utilized multiple strategies like understanding and controlling the problematic nature of the mind (Pāli citta, manasa) and its concomitance (Pāli cetasika, dhammā) by means of the concentrative meditation (Pāli jhāna, Sanskrit (hereafter Skt., dhyāna), cultivation of knowledge (Pāli vijjā, Skt. vidyā) and conduct/moral purity (Pāli caraṇa, Skt. ācaraṇa), destruction of afflictions/defilements (Pāli kilesa, Skt. kleśa), critical and logical thinking with valid arguments, and so on. His disciples also treat him as the possessor of valid method, arguments, meaning, practice, and purpose (Skt. pramāṇabhūta, the term used by Dignāga). He believed in the common humanity as the community of sufferers and the autonomy of every human being (Pāli attakāra), but strongly rejected the hierarchy of humanity on the basis of caste, birth, and dogmatic religious identity. For these reasons, following the Buddha and his celebrated followers like Vasubandhu, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti, my task in this article is how to clearly and elaborately discuss the above identified issues and theories, first to understand them for myself and then logically prove the whole process of knowledge and the designed purpose through communication to those who have the intention to hear and understand the framework of common language for their benefits. I wish the readers like students and young teachers benefit from my research work. Further, since my learning of the Tibetan language is zero, but comfortable in Sanskrit and Pāli, I have been heavily dependent on three great modern thinkers who have widely written independently and also translated the Buddhist Tibetan texts, which were translated from the original Sanskrit texts now lost, into English in the areas of Buddhist epistemology, logic, and semantics. These modern scholars are Masaaki Hattori, Shoryo Katsura, and Richard Hayes. Besides them, I have also little benefitted from some other scholars who have worked in the same areas. (shrink)

Canada has a marked shortfall between the supply and demand for kidneys for transplantation. Median wait times for deceased donor kidney transplantation vary from 5.8 years in British Columbia, 5.2 years in Manitoba and 4.5 years in Ontario to a little over 2 years in Quebec and Nova Scotia. Living donation provides a viable option for some, but not all people. Consequently, a small number of people travel abroad to undergo kidney transplantation by commercial means. The extent to which they (...) are aware of the potential risks to their health and the health of the kidney vendors is unclear. Travel abroad to obtain a kidney commercially i.e. transplant tourism (TT), raises ethical issues which include the exploitation of the poor, uncertainty of donor informed consent to nephrectomy, poor clinical care and lack of follow up for the donor, commodification of the body and inequity of access to medical care for donors. Also, TT widens socioeconomic disparities in access to transplantation, differing from the Canadian system of universal coverage for healthcare. The Canadian transplant community has discussed how to respond to patients who plan to travel abroad for TT or return with a purchased kidney. Unease rests in the tension between the duty to care for legitimate Canadian residents and the unwillingness to enable TT. This paper discusses three anonymized cases and the Canadian responses to TT as recorded in academic literature and a formal statement by relevant professional bodies. (shrink)

We thank Leo Lam and Taylor Nichols for their response 1 to our paper ‘COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults: a risk–benefit assessment and ethical analysis of mandate policies at universities’. 2 In our paper, we demonstrate that the risk–benefit calculus to mandate boosters for young adults aged 18–29 is a net risk intervention. The authors assert that we have made three inappropriate comparisons of benefits versus risks of the mRNA vaccine booster dose in this age group. We provide our (...) response to each below. We erred on the side of overestimating benefits of the booster dose against severe COVID-19 in this age group and still found net harms to outweigh net benefits. The conclusion of our paper holds, and university booster mandates for young people were—and remain—unethical. COVID-19 hospitalisations prevented versus booster serious adverse events (SAEs) For the first comparison, we weighed predicted hospitalisations prevented... (shrink)

The challenges presented by sustainable development are broadly accepted, yet resource use increases unabated. It is increasingly acknowledged that while technical solutions may play a part, a key issue is behaviour change. In response to this, there has been a plethora of studies into how behaviour change can be enabled, predominantly from psychological and sociological perspectives. This has resulted in a substantial body of knowledge into the factors that drive behaviour change and how they can be manipulated to achieve desired (...) social goals. In this paper, we describe a study that draws on this body of knowledge to design an intervention to drive behaviour change across the hairdressing sector, and by the process of diffusion, across the vast social networks of this occupational group to influence domestic hair-care practices. The intervention was successful: hairdressers indicated positive intentions to adopt more sustainable practices within their salons and pass them onto their customers. The customer survey confirms this: customers surveyed after their hairdresser attended the Green-Salon-Makeover intervention were significantly more likely to report that environmental issues had been considered in their salon visit and that they themselves would consider such issues in their hair-care practices at home than customers who were surveyed before the intervention. (shrink)

Over one-third of the white working class in America vote for Republicans. Some scholars argue that these voters support Republican economic policies, while others argue that these voters’ preferences on cultural and moral issues override their economic preferences. We draw on in-depth interviews with 120 white working-class voters to defend a broadly “economic” interpretation: for this segment of voters, moral and cultural appeals have an economic dimension, because these voters believe certain moral behaviors will help them prosper economically. Even the (...) very word “conservative” is understood as referencing not respect for tradition generally, but avoidance of debt and excessive consumption specifically. For many respondents, the need to focus on morality and personal responsibility as a means of prospering economically—what we call “walking the line”—accords with the rhetoric they associate with Republicans. Deindustrialization may have heightened the appeal of this rhetoric. (shrink)

Many physicians are involved in relationships that create tension between a physician's duty to work in her patients’ best interest at all times and her financial arrangement with a third party, most often a pharmaceutical manufacturer, whose primary goal is maximizing sales or profit. Despite the prevalence of this threat, in the United States and globally, the most common reaction to conflicts of interest in medicine is timid acceptance. There are few calls for conflicts of interest to be banned, and, (...) to our knowledge, no one calls for conflicted practitioners to be reprimanded. Contrast our attitudes in medicine with public attitudes toward financial conflicts among government employees. When enforcement of rules against conflict of interest slackens in the public sector, news organizations investigate and publish their criticism. Yet even when doctors are quoted in the media promoting specific drugs, their personal financial ties to the drug maker are rarely mentioned. Policies for governmental employees are strict, condemnation is strong, and criminal statutes exist (allowing for corruption charges). Yet the evidence that conflict is problematic is, if anything, stronger in medicine than in the public sector. Policies against conflicts of interest in medicine should be at least as strong as those already existing in the public sector. (shrink)

We investigate the justifications provided by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board when sanctioning audit firms and individual auditors, as disclosed in the publicly released Settled Disciplinary Orders. Employing responsive regulation theory, we seek to gain an understanding of violating behaviors by audit firms and individual auditors that attract regulatory responses ranging in nature from persuasive to punitive sanctions. Using 298 SDOs issued by the PCAOB from 2005 to 2020, we find that the frequency and severity of PCAOB sanctions at (...) the firm level are positively associated with auditing standards violations, independence issues, and reckless behavior. At the individual auditor level, integrity violations and reckless behavior are positively associated with the frequency and severity of PCAOB sanctions. Our findings indicate that significantly higher financial penalties for individual auditors arise from manipulation of audit evidence. Further, the PCAOB financially penalizes Big 4-affiliated auditors and firms significantly more than their non-Big 4 counterparts. Other factors such as multiple individuals being implicated in an SDO and whether a firm and individual are both implicated in the SDO are important considerations in sanction imposed by the PCAOB. Overall, our findings suggest that the PCAOB adopts a responsive enforcement strategy when monitoring the auditors in their ethical and audit compliance efforts. (shrink)

The switch from the Command-and-Control to Learning Organisation paradigm in the area of organisational theory is well understood. It is less well appreciated that learning organisations cannot operate effectively if supported by centralised data processing systems. The paper argues that there is a need for synergy between organisational structures and organisational information systems. Learning must be supported by the so-called new information technology. To obtain desired synergy it is necessary to design organisations and organisational information systems concurrently.

Many physicians are involved in relationships that create tension between a physician's duty to work in her patients’ best interest at all times and her financial arrangement with a third party, most often a pharmaceutical manufacturer, whose primary goal is maximizing sales or profit. Despite the prevalence of this threat, in the United States and globally, the most common reaction to conflicts of interest in medicine is timid acceptance. There are few calls for conflicts of interest to be banned, and, (...) to our knowledge, no one calls for conflicted practitioners to be reprimanded. Contrast our attitudes in medicine with public attitudes toward financial conflicts among government employees. When enforcement of rules against conflict of interest slackens in the public sector, news organizations investigate and publish their criticism. Yet even when doctors are quoted in the media promoting specific drugs, their personal financial ties to the drug maker are rarely mentioned. Policies for governmental employees are strict, condemnation is strong, and criminal statutes exist. Yet the evidence that conflict is problematic is, if anything, stronger in medicine than in the public sector. Policies against conflicts of interest in medicine should be at least as strong as those already existing in the public sector. (shrink)

Like several other classes of hormones, the class of plant hormones called auxins exert myriad effects on cell development. While auxins are most noted for inducing cell elongation, they are also involved in cell division, cell differentiation, cell and organ polarity, and wound responsiveness. Consistent with this pleiotropy, is the recent identification of several putative auxin receptors that in theory could represent the primary elements of more than one auxin signal pathway leading to distinct responses or leading in parallel to (...) a single response. Our current working hypothesis is that some auxin‐mediated responses may be mediated by multiple receptors. We describe some of what is known about each of the new putative receptors and elaborate on the hypothesis using the example of cell elongation. Specifically for auxin‐induced elongation, we propose that two rapid events, specific gene transcription and cell wall acidification, are separately mediated by at least two receptors, acting in the nucleus and at the plasma membrane, respectively. (shrink)