Clinical ethics support, in particular Moral Case Deliberation, aims to support health care providers to manage ethically difficult situations. However, there is a lack of evaluation instruments regarding outcomes of clinical ethics support in general and regarding Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) in particular. There also is a lack of clarity and consensuses regarding which MCD outcomes are beneficial. In addition, MCD outcomes might be context-sensitive. Against this background, there is a need for a standardised but flexible outcome evaluation instrument. The (...) aim of this study was to develop a multi-contextual evaluation instrument measuring health care providers’ experiences and perceived importance of outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation. (shrink)

It is a contradictory argument to say on the one hand that social systems are always open and that there is nothing between closed and open systems, and on the other that there are pseudo-closed systems. Further, Petter Næss has shown that multivariate regression analysis can be used to help uncover mechanisms, something that should be impossible if social systems were always open. He has in addition found that the meaningful activity of urban planning requires for its existence the possibility (...) to make crude, qualitative predictions, which should also be impossible for the same reason. Critical realists therefore need to rethink the whole question of closed and open social systems. (shrink)

Theorizing and writing social theory -- Basics of displays -- The use of displays in theorizing -- Basics of property spaces -- Reduction of property spaces in theorizing -- Expansion of property spaces in theorizing -- The model of argumentation: chain of reasoning, chains of argument and arguments -- Examples of using the model of argumentation -- Theorizing and writing.

ABSTRACTMargaret Archer defines Corporate Agency as involving both formulating goals and actively organizing in order to reach them. Primary Agency does not show either of these characteristics. In this article, I further refine this classification according to a typology of agential properties – that is, I create a ‘property space’ – based on the two properties of ‘stated aims’ and ‘active co-ordination’, which results in a four-fold table of properties. Specifically, this typology is as follows: Formal Corporate Agency ; Informal (...) Corporate Agency ; Withdrawn Agency ; and Primary Agency. The fruitfulness of the distinction between Formal Corporate Agency and Informal Corporate Agency is demonstrated through an empirical example taken from Sverre Lysgaard’s analysis of the ‘worker collectivity’. I also discuss how my classification of agency advances Archer’s theoretical work in this arena. (shrink)