Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Organizations have increasingly relied on team-based reward systems to boost productivity and foster collaboration. Drawing on the literature on ethics and justice as well as appraisal theories of emotion, we examine how team-based reward systems can have an insidious side effect: They increase the likelihood that employees remain silent when observing a team member engage in unethical behavior. Across four studies adopting different methods, measures, and samples, we found consistent evidence that people are less likely to report (i.e., speak up (...) or provide anonymous feedback about) a team member’s unethical behavior in team-based than in individual-based reward systems. Furthermore, our research reveals that this effect is primarily driven by a decrease in the experience of moral anger, which subsequently leads to a decreased likelihood of reporting unethical behavior when it benefits the team rather than the individual. We do not find support for perceived indirect benefit or envy as alternative explanations, suggesting that the decision to report a team member’s unethical behavior is not driven by calculative and selfish motives, but by moral motives. Finally, we establish that the effect is contingent on the observer and the perpetrator being members of the same team; it dissipates when the observer and the perpetrator are part of different teams. Our work contributes to research on reward systems and business ethics and provides practical implications for human resource practices. (shrink)

This study aims to provide an integrated perspective on job crafting and its antecedents through the exploration of the joint effects of individual-level and team-level job crafting on employee work engagement. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose that engaging in job crafting behaviors is promoted by the presence of job-related resources. In turn, job crafting is expected to result in higher levels of work engagement. We expect this reasoning to hold for the individual as well as the (...) team/collective levels. The hypotheses were tested using data from 287 medical professionals from 21 hospital units of a Chinese public hospital. Findings from two-level Bayesian structural equation modeling supported the idea that at the individual level, individual job crafting behaviors partially mediated the relationship from individual resources to individual work engagement. Further, collective crafting mediated the relationship from team resources to individual work engagement. In addition, a positive cross-level relation between collective crafting and individual crafting was found. We conclude that stimulated by resources, both job crafting processes at the individual-level and team-level can promote individual work engagement in Chinese employees. (shrink)

Ageism is a common phenomenon in the workplace, despite being unethical. Although previous studies have explored the many negative effects of ageism on employees, employee silence has rarely been empirically tested as a negative outcome. Therefore, we explored the positive relationship between ageism and employee silence and its underlying mechanism. A total of 416 working adults completed two time-lagged surveys, with items measuring ageism, work alienation, organizational commitment, and employee silence, administered four weeks apart. The results indicate that work alienation (...) and organizational commitment have serial mediating effects on the relationship between ageism and employee silence. Ageism led to employees experiencing more work alienation, leading to harmful consequences for their organizational commitment and to employee silence. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings in this paper. (shrink)

Biobanks are potential goldmines for genomics research. They have become increasingly common as a means to determine the relationship between lifestyle, environmental exposures and predisposition to genetic disease. More and more countries are developing massive national scale biobanks, including Iceland, the UK and Estonia. Now several large-scale regional and national biobanks are planned in China, such as Shanghai Biobank, which is defined as a key-element in Shanghai's twelfth five-year Development Plan of Science and Technology. It is imperative that the authors (...) who are in charge of the ethical aspect of Shanghai Biobank discuss the ethical aspects of these biobanks up front. Currently there is a great deal of heterogeneity in the approaches to informed consent taken by different countries. In the article, after briefly introducing the biobanks in China, we focus on the three most common approaches: classical informed consent, tiered consent, and one-time general (or blanket) consent, and propose a version of the latter for China, based on compelling arguments. (shrink)

Residual useful lifetime prediction plays a key role of failure prediction and health management in equipment. Aiming at the problems of residual life prediction without comprehensively considering multistage and individual differences in equipment performance degradation at present, we explore a prediction model that can fit the multistage random performance degradation. Degradation modeling is based on the random Wiener process. Moreover, according to the degradation monitoring data of the same batch of equipment, we apply the expectation maximization algorithm to estimate the (...) prior distribution of the model. The real-time remaining life distribution of the equipment is acquired by merging prior information of real-time degradation data and historical degradation monitoring data. The accuracy of the proposed model is demonstrated by analyzing a practical case of metalized film capacitors, and the result shows that a better RUL estimation accuracy can be provided by our model compared with existing models. (shrink)

Modernization in China is accompanied by some specific features: aging, individualization, the emergence of the nuclear family, and changing filial piety. While young Chinese people are still the main caregivers for older adults, understanding the attitudes of young Chinese people toward aging and living independently in the context of modernization is important because it relates to future elderly care problems in China. By using in-depth interviews and qualitative methods, 45 participants were enrolled in the study, 38 were women and 37 (...) had no siblings. The ages ranged from 17 to 25 years. Results revealed that participants held diverse attitudes about older adults, but the general attitudes were that older adults are lonely, financially disadvantaged, have poor social support, lack hobbies, and care about their children more than themselves. Chinese college students were affected both by traditional filial piety and individualism; however, of the two, they seemed put greater value on independence. Moreover, traditional filial piety is changing in a modern direction, affected by Western ideas of individualism: the status of the senior is diminishing, and living with one’s parents is no longer regarded as a necessary component. Implications concerning age stereotypes, elderly care policies, and strategies are discussed. (shrink)

Biobanks are potential goldmines for genomics research. They have become increasingly common as a means to determine the relationship between lifestyle, environmental exposures and predisposition to genetic disease. More and more countries are developing massive national scale biobanks, including Iceland, the UK and Estonia. Now several large-scale regional and national biobanks are planned in China, such as Shanghai Biobank, which is defined as a key-element in Shanghai's twelfth five-year Development Plan of Science and Technology. It is imperative that the authors (...) who are in charge of the ethical aspect of Shanghai Biobank discuss the ethical aspects of these biobanks up front. Currently there is a great deal of heterogeneity in the approaches to informed consent taken by different countries. In the article, after briefly introducing the biobanks in China, we focus on the three most common approaches: classical informed consent, tiered consent, and one-time general (or blanket) consent, and propose a version of the latter for China, based on compelling arguments. (shrink)

Background Patient dignity is sometimes neglected in intensive care unit (ICU) settings, which may potentially cause psychological harm to critically ill patients. However, no instrument has been specifically developed to evaluate the behaviors of dignified care among critical care nurses. Aim This study aimed to develop and evaluate ICU Dignified Care Questionnaire (IDCQ) for measurement of self-assessed dignity-conserving behaviors of critical care nurses during care. Methods The instrument was developed in 3 phases. Phase 1: item generation; phase 2: a two-round (...) Delphi survey and a readability pilot study; phase 3: cross-sectional survey with model estimation. The questionnaire was evaluated by item analysis, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, assessment of internal consistency reliability, and test-retest reliability. The investigation was conducted using a convenience sample of 392 critical care nurses from 6 cities in Zhejiang Province, China, of which 30 participated in the test-retest reliability survey 2 weeks later. Ethical considerations The study was approved by ethics committee. All participants provided written informed consent before the survey. The questionnaire survey was anonymous. Results The results showed acceptable reliability and validity of the IDCQ. The 17-item final version questionnaire was divided into 2 dimensions: absolute dignity and relative dignity. These two factors accounted for 62.804% of the total variance, and model fitting results were acceptable. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.94, and the test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.88 after 2 weeks. Conclusions This study developed a brief and reliable instrument (IDCQ) to assess dignified care in ICU nursing. It can help critical care nurses identify their behaviors in maintaining patient dignity and discover their deficiencies. It may also serve as a clinical nursing management tool to help reduce patient disrespect experience in ICU. (shrink)

Customers have obvious occupational gender stereotypes for service employees. In recent years, intelligent service robots have been widely used in the hospitality industry and have also been given gender characteristics to attract customers to use them. However, whether and when the usage of gendered service robots is effective remains to be explored. This research focuses on customers' occupational gender stereotypes and the gender of service robots, examining the influences of their consistency on customers' willingness to use service robots through three (...) scenario studies. The findings suggest that: The consistency between occupational gender stereotypes and service robot gender positively affects customers' willingness to use service robots. Performance expectancy and trust are two psychological mechanisms underlying the above effect. In the context of service failures, the consistency backfires and brings negative effects on willingness to use. This research extends the literature on customers' acceptance of anthropomorphized robots from the perspective of gender stereotypes and identifies the mechanisms behind the stereotype consistency effect. For practical implications, hotels should design and deploy gendered robots consistent with corresponding occupational gender stereotypes. (shrink)

The ordering tendency in binary f -Ti solid solution containing 3sp or 4sp simple-metal or 3d transition-metal solute is investigated systematically by the linear muffin-tin orbital method within the atomic sphere approximation . We demonstrated that the effective pairwise interaction energy in a solid solution is equal to half the solute-solute interaction energies and can be evaluated by a supercell total energy approach. The calculations of EPI energy both with and without volume relaxation of the supercells and local density of (...) states show that the EPI energies of Ti-SM and Ti-TM solutions are dominated by different factors. For Ti-SM solutions, the EPI energies are of large absolute values with a negative sign, indicating strong ordering tendency in these solutions. The volume relaxation does not alter the EPI energy substantially. The calculated LDOS shows that the ordering tendency in Ti-SM solutions may be related to the hybridization between the electrons of the SM atoms when they are close to each other. For most Ti-TM solutions, if calculated without relaxation, the absolute EPI energies are very small; however, if calculated with relaxation, they are of relatively large positive values, indicating a clustering tendency in these solutions. By combining the calculated EPI energy and Flinn's model for short-range order strengthening, the increase in critical shear stress ‰ sro due to SRO is estimated for Ti-SM alloys, and the results qualitatively agree with experiment. (shrink)

This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known as the “Wu songs” in the early Southern dynasties. I argue that, through their cultivation of these songs, the émigré elite in the Eastern Jin and Liu-Song dynasties created an image of a “cultural other” and attempted to domesticate this other, experienced as southern, local, and feminine. A gender discourse—the ascription of femininity to the local—was employed as a crucial approach in this domestication. I also explore (...) the unexpected outcome of this cultural encounter in the subsequent centuries, i.e., the merging of the northern elite and southern local music and cultural traditions. (shrink)

This study aims at contributing to literature by investigating characteristics of Generation Z's social media uses and gratifications and the moderation effect of economic capital. Specifically, we employed online survey as the main research method to examine the connections between the young generation cohort's online motivations, social media practices, and economic capital. A total of 221 Chinese Generation Z social media users were recruited in the survey. Results indicated that Generation Zs have different social media engagements depending on whether they (...) were connected for daily routine alternatives or socialization; the young cohorts from upper-mid-income families demonstrated a more instrumental-rational habitus to use social media more frequently as a communicative tool than those from low-income families; and motivations and family income interacted to influence Generation Z's social media practices. Findings here provide empirical reference to deepened understandings of the interactions between social media and digital generations, and their connections with digital social inequalities. (shrink)

In special application scenarios, such as portable anesthesia depth monitoring, portable emotional state recognition and portable sleep monitoring, electroencephalogram (EEG) signal acquisition equipment is required to be convenient and easy to use. It is difficult to remove electrooculogram (EOG) artifacts when the number of EEG acquisition channels is small, especially when the number of observed signals is less than that of the source signals, and the overcomplete problem will arise. The independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm commonly used for artifact removal (...) requires the number of basis vectors to be smaller than the dimension of the input data due to a set of standard orthonormal bases learned during the convergence process, so it cannot be used to solve the overcomplete problem. The empirical mode decomposition method decomposes the signal into several independent intrinsic mode functions so that the number of observed signals is more than that of the source signals, solving the overcomplete problem. However, when using this method to solve overcompleteness, the modal aliasing problem will arise, which is caused by abnormal events such as sharp signals, impulse interference, and noise. Aiming at the above problems, we propose a novel EEG artifact removal method based on discrete wavelet transform, complete empirical mode decomposition for adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) and ICA in this paper. First, the input signals are transformed by discrete wavelet (DWT), and then CEEMDAN is used to solve the overcomplete and mode aliasing problems, meeting the a priori conditions of the ICA algorithm. Finally, the components belonging to EOG artifacts are removed according to the sample entropy value of each independent component. Experiments show that this method can effectively remove EOG artifacts while solving the overcomplete and modal aliasing problems. (shrink)

In the era of FinTech, many countries are currently exploring the viability of their own digital currencies due to the vast potential in terms of efficiency, security and accessibility. Some digital currencies have been under rapid development and real-world trials have recently been deployed. The purpose of this paper is to understand the main factors that could affect people’s intention to use digital currency via an empirical study. A survey was employed to collect data and the final sample consisted of (...) 408 respondents in China. The responses were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results showed that financial knowledge, perceived value, openness to innovation and perceived convenience positively impact people’s intention to use digital currency. It was also found that perceived value can be significantly anteceded by perceived monetary value, perceived functional value, and perceived emotional value. In addition, the mediating effect of perceived value on the influencing path between financial knowledge and intention to use was also confirmed. The findings can be utilized by governmental related authorities or FinTech companies to enhance the perception of users and develop effective strategies for increasing their intention to use digital currency. (shrink)

Knearest neighbor search is an important problem in location-based services and has been well studied on static road networks. However, in real world, road networks are often time-dependent; i.e., the time for traveling through a road always changes over time. Most existing methods forkNN query build various indexes maintaining the shortest distances for some pairs of vertices on static road networks. Unfortunately, these methods cannot be used for the time-dependent road networks because the shortest distances always change over time. To (...) address the problem ofkNN query on time-dependent road networks, we propose a novel voronoi-based index in this paper. Furthermore, we propose a novel balanced tree, namedV-tree, which is a secondary level index on voronoi-based index to make our querying algorithm more efficient. Moreover, we propose an algorithm for preprocessing time-dependent road networks such that the waiting time is not necessary to be considered. We confirm the efficiency of our method through experiments on real-life datasets. (shrink)

Diffusion plays an essential role in the distribution of predator and prey. We mainly research the diffusion network’s effect on the predator-prey model through bifurcation. First, it is found that the link probability and diffusion parameter can cause Turing instability in the network-organized predator-prey model. Then, the Turing stability region is obtained according to the sufficient condition of Turing instability and the eigenvalues’ distribution. Finally, the biological mechanism is explained through our theoretical results, which are also illustrated by numerical simulation.

As a rapidly growing emerging capital market, China has attracted the attention of both investors and scholars. To alleviate the expectation of external users of listed companies’ financial statements to “discount” items in levels 2 and 3 of the fair value measurement, listed companies will treat these items as conditional conservatism. It refers to the conservatism of companies when confirming bad news of unrealized gains and losses sooner than confirming good news. A sample was selected for empirical analysis to verify (...) the existence of this relationship. The results are as follows: the higher the proportion of levels 2 and 3 fair value measurements, the stronger the conditional conservatism of the company’s profit and loss; the higher the proportion of cash holding of operating activities in a company’s operating profit and the higher the audit quality, the higher the proportion of levels 2 and 3 fair value hierarchy measurements, and the stronger the conditional conservatism of the company’s profit and loss; and the lesser the internal control defects in a company, the higher the proportion of levels 2 and 3 fair value hierarchy measurements, and the stronger the conditional conservatism of its profit and loss. The findings provide empirical evidence to identify listed companies adopting conditional conservatism to alleviate discounting expectations of fair value items of financial statements’ external users and provide a reference for improving the standards and regulation of listed companies. (shrink)