In the present research, we validated a new scale developed from self-determination theory to assess the functional meaning of cash rewards offered in the workplace. According to SDT, rewards can take on different meanings based on the way they are perceived by individuals. In a series of three studies in different socioeconomic contexts, we replicated the two-factorial structure of the scale measuring respectively workplace cash rewards’ informative and controlling meanings. In Study 1, we validated the English version of the scale (...) by exploring and then confirming its two-factor structure with two English-speaking employee samples. We further replicated its two-factor structure in a French-speaking employee sample of employees in Study 2 and in a Greek-speaking employee sample in Study 3, allowing us to validate its French and Greek version. Results from our three studies show how distinct meanings attributed to cash rewards, i.e., informative or controlling, relate differently to autonomous and controlled forms of motivation based on SDT. These findings suggest that workplace cash rewards differently influence employees’ motivation depending on whether they are perceived as informative or controlling, thus providing empirical evidence for the theoretical and practical implications of SDT’s concept of functional meaning of cash rewards. Our research contributes to the assessment and understanding of employees’ experience of workplace cash rewards and provides empirical evidence that the concept of the functional meaning of cash rewards is a distinct concept from other money-related concepts such as subjective pay satisfaction, performance-contingent rewards, and financially contingent self-worth. (shrink)

Le langage, comme moyen d’expression de la croyance religieuse, entretient un malentendu : il apparaît comme un discours sur des vérités d’une supériorité telle que le croyant peut s’autoriser à faire des jugements d’ordre éthique ou esthétique envers – ou à l’encontre – d’autres personnes. Pourtant, loin d’être un discours logique sur des faits de connaissance, le discours sur la croyance religieuse est un jeu de langage qui manifeste une adhésion à une forme de vie.

The study of business ethics has led to the development of various principles that are the foundation of good and ethical business practices. A corresponding study of Information Technology (IT) professionals’ ethics has led to the conclusion that good ethics in the development and uses of information technology correspond to the basic business principle that good ethics is good business. Ergo, good business ethics practiced by IT professionals is good IT ethics and vice versa. IT professionals are professionals in businesses; (...) a difficulty presented to these professionals, however, is the number and diversity of codes of ethics to which they may be held. Considering the existence of several formalized codes of ethics prepared by various IT professionals’ associations, a more harmonized approach seems more reasonable. This paper attempts to present a review of the purpose of codes of ethics, the persons who should be covered by such codes and to organize codes of ethics for business in general and IT professionals in particular and to make the argument that, once again, good ethics is good business practice, regardless of the profession or occupation concerned. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the recent revival of interest in structuralist approaches to science and, in particular, the structural realist position in philosophy of science . The challenge facing scientific structuralists is three-fold: i) to characterize scientific theories in ‘structural’ terms, and to use this characterization ii) to establish a theory-world connection (including an explanation of applicability) and iii) to address the relationship of ‘structural continuity’ between predecessor and successor theories. Our aim is to appeal to the notion (...) of shared structure between models to reconsider all of these challenges, and, in so doing, to classify the varieties of scientific structuralism and to offer a ‘minimal’ construal that is best viewed from a methodological stance. (shrink)