Although corporate social responsibility appears to be mutually beneficial for companies and consumers, the modern marketplace has left both parties in vulnerable positions. Consumers are increasingly subjected to incongruent CSR messages such as greenwashing, while companies are trapped in a strategic positioning dilemma with regard to how to most effectively and ethically approach CSR communication. This has led some companies to instead adopt a strategically silent approach, such as greenhushing. To capture this CSR positioning dilemma and test the positioning effects (...) on consumers’ attributions, this study applies attribution theory to conceptualize four distinct CSR positions which reflect varying combinations of congruence or incongruence between a company’s external CSR communication and its actual internal CSR actions. Using an online experiment, the effects of the CSR positions on consumer attributions for intrinsic and extrinsic CSR motivations and purchase intentions were tested across three CSR domains: environmental; labor; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusion. Overall, the findings attest to the significant effect of internal–external congruence-based CSR positioning on how consumers respond to CSR communication. Importantly, the results indicate that discreet positioning is perceived similarly to uniform positioning, while misleading and unethical tactics such as CSR-washing are sure to backfire. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Purpose The debate about the end-of-life care decision is becoming a serious ethical and legal concern in the Far-Eastern countries of Korea, China and Japan. However, the issues regarding end-of-life care will reflect the cultural background, current medical practices and socioeconomic conditions of the countries, which are different from Western countries and between each other. Understanding the genuine thoughts of patients who are critically ill is the first step in confronting the issues, and a comparative descriptive study of these perspectives (...) was conducted by collaboration between researchers in all three countries. Methods Surveys using self-reporting paper questionnaire forms were conducted from December 2008 to April 2009 in Korea (six hospitals in two regions), China (five hospitals in four regions) and Japan (nine hospitals in one region). The subjects were patients who were critically ill who had been diagnosed as having cancer. A total of 235 participants (Korea, 91; China, 62; Japan, 52) were eventually recruited and statistically analysed. Results Most respondents had sometimes or often thought of their own death, mostly fear of ‘separation from loved ones’. They wanted to hear the news regarding their own condition directly and frankly from the physician. A quarter of them preferred making end-of-life care decisions by themselves, while many respondents favoured a ‘joint decision’ with their family members. The most favoured proxy decision maker was the spouse, followed by the children. Most admitted the necessity of ‘advance directives’ and agreed with artificial ventilation withdrawal in irreversible conditions. The most common reason was ‘artificial prolongation of life is unnecessary’. Most respondents agreed with the concept of active euthanasia; however, significant differences were sometimes observed in the responses according to variables such as patient's country of origin, age, gender and education level. Conclusion Patients in Far-Eastern countries gave various responses regarding end-of-life care decisions. Although familial input is still influential, most patients think of themselves as the major decision maker and accept the necessity of advance directives with Westernization of the society. Artificial ventilation withdrawal and even active euthanasia may be acceptable to them. (shrink)

Past research suggested that when individuals feel that it is their free choice to perform a task, they are more likely to succeed. However, little has been known about the effect of perceived choice of self-control and the psychological processes underlying the benefits of this perception in everyday contexts. To fill this gap, a 7-day experience sampling study was conducted to test whether confidence in sustaining the current self-control activity and perceived value of current self-control could mediate the link between (...) perceived choice and success in the current self-control activity. The results of multilevel analysis suggested that the perceived choice can boost self-control success by increasing expectancy and value of self-control. These findings add mechanistic understanding of the effect of perceived choice on self-control success. (shrink)

The present study develops an artificial agent that plays the iterative chicken game based on a computational model that describes human behavior in competitive social interactions in terms of fairness. The computational model we adopted in this study, named as the self-concept fairness model, decides the agent’s action according to the evaluation of fairness of both opponent and self. We implemented the artificial agent in a computer program with a set of parameters adjustable by researchers. These parameters allow researchers to (...) determine the extent to which the agent behaves aggressively or cooperatively. To demonstrate the use of the proposed method for the investigation of human behavior, we performed an experiment in which human participants played the iterative chicken game against the artificial agent. Participants were divided into two groups, each being informed to play with either a person or the computer. The behavioral analysis results showed that the proposed method can induce changes in the behavioral pattern of human players by changing the agent’s behavioral pattern. Also, we found that participants tended to be more sensitive to fairness when they played with a human opponent than with a computer opponent. These results support that the artificial agent developed in this study will be useful to investigate human behavior in competitive social interactions. (shrink)

Understanding the development and practice of power based on an in-depth observation of human psychology has been a part of traditional Chinese thought for thousands of years and is considered a prerequisite for mastering the arts of strategy and leadership. "Thunder in the Sky" presents two secret classics of this ancient Chinese tradition. The commentary by Thomas Cleary the renowned translator of dozens of Asian classics highlights the contemporary application of these teachings.

As far as I’m concerned, Korean moral education is facing the new challenge and new era. I’m teaching Korean secondary school studens as an Ethic teacher in high school and EBS lecturer as well. I’m worried about Korean education especially in middle and high school. There was missing thinking those parts cause an entrance examination, only for university in Korea. In this a serious worry, I found some exits from significant experience. First, I’d like to mention about P4C (Philosophy for (...) children) Program which was learned from Professor Mattew Lipman of Mont Clair State University in New Jersey, U.S.A. This program is emphasizing upon thinking skill including creative, critical, and caring thinking. The huge shift from knowledge based education to thinking based education inKorea contemporarily. Also Student-based education is new stream of Korean education system. Teachers think students come to school to get knowledge, parents think children can learn judgment at school which was "lost area.”All this things come from philosophy, when we ask for reason it is a philosophical question. For example, "Why is he a hero?”, “He is brave.” "Why is he brave?" Which is philosophical conceptualization? Every day life gives us some questions and concepts like: love, freedom and philosophy gives us answers to those question so without philosophy we cannot have happy life. In reality of Korean education system there is no independent class for philosophy. So philosophy can be taught in Korean language classes or social studies. I started using P4C program from Lipman: I taught students making questions or making stories. These exercising result was remarkable and amazing. So questions are thebeginning of discovering new knowledge. Even if the knowledge is known by other people students can enjoy the process of discovering new knowledge. They could also get thinking skills. (shrink)

Diese Untersuchung wendet sich gegen die verbreitete Interpretationstendenz, Platons Anamnesislehre als Lehre von einer Art gelingender Identifikation auszulegen. Dabei wird behauptet, Platon habe geglaubt, der Mensch besitze auf eine mythisch unerklärliche Weise die Begriffe aller Dinge apriori in sich und brauche sich beim Anblick eines konkreten Einzeldings nur an diesen vorgeburtlichen Besitz zu erinnern, um dieses Ding begrifflich richtig zu identifizieren. Durch eine sorgfältige, dem Wortlaut im einzelnen folgende Interpretation zeigt Lee, daß der Mensch nach Platon lediglich in der Lage (...) ist, die allgemeinen Kriterien und Prinzipien des Denkens analytisch aufzudecken. Erst die methodische Erschließung und Anwendung dieser - apriorischen, d.h. in jeder Erfahrung vorausgesetzten - Kriterien ermöglicht ein Fortschreiten des Erkennens auch in Bezug auf Einzeldinge. Die Anamnesislehre erweist sich dadurch als eine immer noch bedenkenswerte kritische Reflexion auf die Bedingungen der Sicherheit des Erkennens. (shrink)

Turnover is an important career decision that influences both individual employees and their organizations. While human resource management scholars have long sought to understand critical components of a workplace where employees want to stay, ethics has become a primary factor of interest in public sector turnover intention studies only in recent years. This article contributes to this growing line of research by investigating if and how ethical work environment influences public employees’ turnover intentions, and how this relationship is moderated by (...) an employee’s position of power measured by supervisory status. The findings suggest that ethical work environment is a critical determinant of public employees’ turnover intentions and that supervisory status can moderate this relationship. (shrink)