A majority of the countries in the world are still considered "developing," with a per capita income of less than U$1,000. Hahn (2008, Journal of Business Ethics 78, 711–721) recently proposed an ambitious business ethics research agenda for integrating the "bottom-of-the-pyramid" countries (Prahalad and Hart, 2002, Strategy and Competition 20, 22–14) through sustainable development and corporate citizenship. Hahn's work is among the growing field of research in comparative business ethics including the global business ethics index (Michalos, 2008, Journal of Business (...) Ethics 79(1), 9–19; Scholtens and Dam, 2008, Journal of Business Ethics 75(3), 273–284; Tsalikis and Seaton, 2008, Journal of Business Ethics 75(3), 229–238). This article is complementary to Hahn's work and it advocates an urgent need for business ethics researchers to globally integrate the bottom-of-thepyramid countries through a fundamental re-definition of the global economic triad, including the United States, Western Europe, and Japan [Ohmae, 1985, Triad Power: The Coming Shape of Global Competition (New York: Free Press)]. The definition that we propose is based on business systems and institutional perspectives that include the bottom-of-the-pyramid countries. We also propose to broaden the research in business ethics to enable comparisons across business systems indifferent income levels. (shrink)

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted prosocial behavior as a professional healthcare core competency. Although medical students are expected to work in the best interests of their patients, in the pandemic context, there is a greater need for ethical attention to be paid to the way medical students deal with moral dilemmas that may conflict with their obligations.MethodsThis study was conducted in the spring semester of 2019 on 271 students majoring in health professions: medicine, dentistry, and veterinary medicine. All participants provided (...) informed consent and completed measures that assessed utilitarian moral views, cognitive reflections, cognitive reappraisal, and moral judgment.ResultsThe healthcare-affiliated students who scored higher on the instrumental harm subscale in the measurement of utilitarian moral views were more likely to endorse not only other-sacrificial actions but also self-sacrificial ones for the greater good in moral dilemma scenarios. In particular, those engaged in deliberative processes tended to make more self-sacrificial judgments. The mediation analysis also revealed that the effect of deliberative processes on self-sacrificial judgments was mediated by cognitive reappraisal.ConclusionsThese findings suggested that cognitive reappraisal through deliberative processes is involved when the students with utilitarian inclination make prosocial decisions, that it is necessary to consider both moral views and emotional regulation when admitting candidates, and that moral education programs are needed in the healthcare field. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate brand credibility, corporate brand equity, and corporate reputation. Structural equation modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses from a sample of 867 consumers in South Korea. The results showed that CSR has a direct positive effect on corporate brand credibility and corporate reputation. In addition, the results indicate that corporate brand credibility mediates the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation. Moreover, corporate brand credibility mediates (...) the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation. Finally, the relationship between CSR and corporate brand equity is sequentially and fully mediated by corporate brand credibility and corporate reputation. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results and limitations are discussed, and future research directions are suggested. (shrink)

This descriptive study was undertaken to identify the degree of ethical sensitivity of staff nurses and to analyze the differences in ethical sensitivity in terms of both general and ethics-related characteristics. Participants were 236 staff nurses working in general hospitals in Korea. Ethical sensitivity was measured by means of an instrument developed by the researchers. The results showed that the mean score for the degree of ethical sensitivity was 0.71 out of a possible maximum score of 1 (range 0.30 to (...) 0.97). For general characteristics, there was a significant difference in ethical sensitivity according to age (F (df 2233)-3.99, P-0.02). For characteristics related to ethics, there was a significant difference in ethical sensitivity according to attitude towards the nursing profession (F (df 4231)-2.94, P-0.03). It is therefore recommended that a training program reflecting these variables be developed to enhance staff nurses’ ethical sensitivity. (shrink)

This longitudinal study examined the development of moral judgement in 37 nursing students attending a university in Suwon, Korea. The participants completed the Korean version of the Defining Issues Test to allow analysis of their level of moral judgement. The development of moral judgement was quantified using ‘the moral development score’ at each stage (i.e. the six stages detailed by Kohlberg) and the ‘P(%) score’ (a measure of the overall moral judgement level). The results were as follows: (1) the moral (...) development score for stage 5A was consistently the highest across the four years of the students’ course, showing significant differences in some sociodemographic factors including home, birth order and monthly income; and (2) the P(%) score was higher in fourth-year (47.47 ± 11.21) than in first-year (46.13±9.73) students. There was no significant difference in the P(%) score according to sociodemographic factors. Further studies will examine in detail the correlation between curriculum and moral judgement development. We suggest that courses in ethics education should be made more relevant. (shrink)

The instrumental benefits of firm’s CSR activities are contingent upon the stakeholders’ awareness and favorable attribution. While social media creates an important momentum for firms to cultivate favorable awareness by establishing a powerful framework of stakeholder relationships, the opportunities are not distributed evenly for all firms. In this paper, we investigate the impact of CSR credentials on the effectiveness of social media as a stakeholder-relationship management platform. The analysis of Fortune 500 companies in the Twitter sphere reveals that a higher (...) CSR rating is a strong indicator of an earlier adoption, a faster establishment of online presence, a higher responsiveness to the firm’s identity, and a stronger virality of the messages. Incidentally, the higher CSIR rating is also found to be associated with the stronger virality. Our findings also suggest that socially responsible firms can harvest proactive stakeholders’ participation without investing more resources. As the first study that conceptualizes the social media as a proponent of CSR, this paper contends that “being socially responsible” makes more practical sense for firms with the rise of social media. (shrink)

The ethical governance of the global Internet is an accelerating global phenomenon. A key paradox of the global Internet is that it allows individual and collective decision making to co-exist with each other. Open source software (OSS) communities are a globally accelerating phenomenon. OSS refers to groups of programs that allow the free use of the software and further the code sharing to the general and corporate users of the software. The combination of private provision and public knowledge and software, (...) and the seeming paradox of economic versus social motivations have stimulated a wide debate between researchers and policymakers. In this article, we analyze OSS communities from the viewpoint of "intrinsic motivation," knowledge creation, and collective Internet governance. We believe that the growth of global OSS has fundamental implications for business ethics and the governance of the global Internet in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In this essay, I qualify Jean-Luc Marion's anti-ontological interpretation of Anselm's argument. Marion claims that the argument is not ontological but in line with Dionysian apophatic theology. To substantiate his anti-ontological reading, Marion suggests that the main regulative idea of the Proslogion is bonum. The final regulative idea, however, is gaudium, since gaudium, not bonum, leads the argument to the beatific vision. If we reformulate the Proslogion focusing on gaudium, we find that Marion's analysis misses the evident ontological aspects of (...) the argument, such as the tradition of prayer and hermeneutics. Since Anselm promulgated the argument within the Benedictine tradition of Bec, the practice of prayer or meditation is the legitimate context of the argument. However, because of his emphasis on the structure of call and response over the ontological and hermeneutical aspects of revelation, his analysis neglects the importance of the hermeneutic relation within which the Proslogion is born. (shrink)

The topic of women and globalization raises fundamental questions on the impact of globalization on women, ethnic minorities and other socio-demographically under-represented actors in global organizations. This article seeks to integrate theories of procedural justice, psychological contracts, motivation and psychological ownership in knowledge transfer in global organizations, and the implications for women, and other under-represented actors. Our analysis concurs with current research on the need for a relativist perspective in business ethics research and one that encompasses the critical processes of (...) exchange from a cognitive perspective. Our contribution is to show that globalization is a complex process, that has different impacts on actors, an impact that can vary widely depending on, whether the actors are in a dominant situation, or as in the case of women and ethnic minorities, in a relatively socio-demographic and geo-politically under represented situation. (shrink)

Unlike in Western academia, Japanese studies in Korea have not receded, but rather have rather vigorously refocused on Japan during the last two decades. This paper examines the rapid development and governing dynamics of the Japanese politics studies (JPS), with a particular focus on Japanese international relations studies (JIRS). It answers the following four questions. How does JIRS perceive, measure, and interpret Japan? What are the outstanding features of JIRS? What are the internal dynamics in the JPS community? How does (...) the JPS community interact with the real political world? The study results emphasize the policy-oriented research style, prevailing realistic nationalism, and vigorous interaction between academia and politics in JPS/JIRS behind the refocusing on Japan. (shrink)

There has been an intellectual debate at least since the 1960s in business ethics on the role of the media in relation to consumer choice driven by either habits or rationality. If consumers are totally rational, then the global media and global corporations provide just information and knowledge. If consumers are influenced by habit then large corporations and global media can greatly influence consumer choice and create problems of self-control (Ainslie, 1992, Pico Economics: The Strategic Interaction of Successive Motivational States (...) Within the Person, Cambridge University press, Cambridge). In this article, we provide a synthesis and integrated approach to this continuing debate. We provide a more institutional approach to consumer choice based on social conventions, rather than just on individual habits and lapses in self-control. (shrink)

This paper is an empirical analysis of how culture, specifically tradition, affects well-being, i.e., happiness, life satisfaction, and financial satisfaction, along with socioeconomic factors in East Asia. Ordered probit regression model results show that women have higher happiness and satisfaction levels than men even in Confucian cultures in which men generally receive more favourable conditions than women. Additionally, marital status or the impact of religion had strong and positive effects on happiness and sometimes on life satisfaction but not on financial (...) satisfaction. Interestingly, tradition has a statistically significant and important effect on both life and financial satisfaction. Finally, the results show that individuals who value tradition greater also have higher levels of financial satisfaction. (shrink)

Are the first principles in the philosophy of Thomas Reid derived inductively from particular experience, or are they self-evident? Is Reid an epistemic particularist, or a methodist? Some scholars interpret him as an epistemic particularistic, while others hold that he is a methodist like other philosophers of his time. This debate was central to an exchange between Roderick Chisholm and Keith Lehrer. Taking the general belief in personal identity as an example, this paper aims to show which interpretation is more (...) consistent with Reid's whole philosophical system. Although Reid believes that the general belief is self-evident without reasoning, it is not self-evident in the way that beliefs in particular cases are. Reid's overall philosophical method makes the self-evidence of particular beliefs more basic, the self-evidence of general beliefs being transferred from particular beliefs by means of habit. I conclude that the particularistic interpretation is more consistent with his whole philosophical sys.. (shrink)

The paper aims to show how Japanese theoretical physics groups emerged between the First and Second World Wars. First, it will be argued that by the early 1930s the Japanese physics community had been predominantly inclined towards experimental physics and that several academic, cultural, and social factors had worked for the maintenance of this status quo. Next, how the situation slowly changed during the early 1930s, and how the young theoretical physicists successfully established a bridgehead during the mid-1930s will be (...) analysed. Four different elements are suggested: the dazzling success of quantum mechanics and its spread in the West; the dominance of experimental physics and its effect on the university system; cultural/social influence; and the emergence of the research network. (shrink)

Bidirectional trans‐synaptic signaling is essential for the formation, maturation, and plasticity of synaptic connections. Synaptic cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) are prime drivers in shaping the identities of trans‐synaptic signaling pathways. A series of recent studies provide evidence that diverse presynaptic cell adhesion proteins dictate the regulation of specific synaptic properties in postsynaptic neurons. Focusing on mammalian synaptic CAMs, this article outlines several exemplary cases supporting this notion and highlights how these trans‐synaptic signaling pathways collectively contribute to the specificity and diversity (...) of neural circuit architecture. (shrink)

AimHealthcare workers have directly provided care for COVID-19 patients, and have faced many additional sources leading to poor mental health. The study aimed to investigate the mental health problems and related factors among healthcare staff in Vietnam.MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional mixed methods study, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, was performed among 400 healthcare workers working at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases and Ninh Binh General Hospital from the first day of treatment for COVID-19 patients to May 01, 2020.ResultsThe results (...) showed that 8.0% of participants had stress, 17.5% of participants had anxiety, and 14.8% of participants had depression. Approximately 50% of participants reported that they had at least one of these symptoms. The findings illustrated that stress, anxiety, and depression were associated with the position in a hospital, health status during the COVID-19 pandemic, family members/relatives infected with COVID-19, physical and mental support from friends, family, and community, department, years of working, and the average work hours per day of healthcare workers exposed to COVID-19.ConclusionDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers who worked in the hospital providing treatment and care for COVID-19 patients dealt with mental health problems such as stress, anxiety, and depression. It is necessary to promote mental health among healthcare workers, to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak in Vietnam. (shrink)

The global corporate scandals such as Enron, Worldcom and Global Crossing have raised fundamental issues of business ethics as well as economic, social and anthropological questions concerning the nature of business competition and global capitalism. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to introduce the concept of "welfare exchange" to the existing notions of economic, social and anthropological notions of business and exchange in markets and society in the 21st century. Global competition and business success in the 21st century continue (...) to raise the nature of economic value and the interaction among diverse actors in international markets, institutions and society. We believe that the nature of such exchange between consumers and organizations, which can also be termed social marketing, need to increasingly take into account a welfare and ethical component. In this paper, we introduce our concept of welfare exchange to emphasize the importance of such welfare and ethical issues in the global business environment of the 21st century. (shrink)

The vital data about the electrical activities of the brain are carried by the electroencephalography signals. The recordings of the electrical activity of brain neurons in a rhythmic and spontaneous manner from the scalp surface are measured by EEG. One of the most important aspects in the field of neuroscience and neural engineering is EEG signal analysis, as it aids significantly in dealing with the commercial applications as well. To uncover the highly useful information for neural classification activities, EEG studies (...) incorporated with machine learning provide good results. In this study, a Fusion Hybrid Model with Singular Value Decomposition Based Estimation of Robust Parameters is proposed for efficient feature extraction of the biosignals and to understand the essential information it has for analyzing the brain functionality. The essential features in terms of parameter components are extracted using the developed hybrid model, and a specialized hybrid swarm technique called Hybrid Differential Particle Artificial Bee algorithm is proposed for feature selection. To make the EEG more practical and to be used in a plethora of applications, the robust classification of these signals is necessary thereby relying less on the trained professionals. Therefore, the classification is done initially using the proposed Zero Inflated Poisson Mixture Regression Model and then it is also classified with a deep learning methodology, and the results are compared with other standard machine learning techniques. This proposed flow of methodology is validated on a few standard Biosignal datasets, and finally, a good classification accuracy of 98.79% is obtained for epileptic dataset and 98.35% is obtained for schizophrenia dataset. (shrink)

In the age of artificial intelligence, writing machines or robot authors have already begun to produce narrative texts in a variety of genres, including short stories and poetry, as well as journalistic articles. This article is based on the prospect that the narrative ecosystem is in a transitional period of decisive disconnection as it enters the era of artificial intelligence. The primary force driving this transition is the formidable execution of artificial intelligence algorithms, which fully automate narrative communication and narrative (...) works. This article attempts to lay the groundwork for building a new paradigm of post-narrativity through a critical examination of several detailed themes in narrative semiotics and non-anthropocentric narratology. The process of narrative creation based on artificial intelligence algorithms is a key condition that constitutes post-narrativity. This presupposes a non-anthropocentric view. In the landscape of post-narrativity, human writers, paper books, computer screens, and invisible narrative algorithms are all agents with equal influence. Automated narrative production by algorithms accelerates the repositioning of other existing media and actors, and changes the narrative ecosystem by incorporating new elements into activities such as production, distribution, and reception of narratives. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify how older Korean people seek information and their desire to participate in decision making about their health care. A total of 165 elderly people living in Seoul, South Korea, participated in the study. Data were collected during individual interviews using the Autonomy Preference Index. The mean information-seeking score was high. The mean score for their desire to participate with a physician in decision making was lower, but this was higher when family members (...) were involved. The study indicates that many older people want to receive information about their health care. Families (or guardians), as well as older people themselves, should be included in the decision-making process. Nurses can encourage older people to express their wishes, while treating each individual with respect. (shrink)

Efficient management of low energy states is vital for cells to maintain basic functions and metabolism and avoid cell death. While autophagy has long been considered a critical mechanism for ensuring survival during energy depletion, recent research has presented conflicting evidence, challenging the long‐standing concept. This recent development suggests that cells prioritize preserving essential cellular components while restraining autophagy induction when cellular energy is limited. This essay explores the conceptual discourse on autophagy regulation during energy stress, navigating through the studies (...) that established the current paradigm and the recent research that has challenged its validity while proposing an alternative model. This exploration highlights the far‐reaching implications of the alternative model, which represents a conceptual departure from the established paradigm, offering new perspectives on how cells respond to energy stress. (shrink)

아리스토텔레스와 헤어의 윤리이론에서 도덕적 가치 개념은 공통적으로 규정적 속성을 갖는 것으로 이해되지만, 문제의 ‘규정적 속성’을 바라보는 그들의 관점은 다소 상이하다. 헤어가 도덕적 기술(旣述)의 논리적 형태에 착안하여 도덕적 가치들이 규정적이라고 주장하는 반면, 아리스토텔레스가 바라보는 도덕적 가치의 규정적 속성은 주어진 상황 속의 도덕적 요건 및 변수들을 향한 ‘인간의 인지적 본성’에 기인한다. 따라서 사실상 우리가 오늘날 현대 윤리학에서 이해되는 바와 정확히 같은 의미로 아리스토텔레스를 규정주의자로 부를 수는 없을 지도 모른다. 그러나 이 글은 비록 아리스토텔레스와 헤어가 ‘도덕 가치의 규정성’에 대한 동일한 논증을 도출하지는 않는다고 (...) 하더라도, 도덕적 가치에 대한 개념적 이해나 도덕 판단을 바라보는 이 두 철학자들의 기본적 관점에는 우리가 주목할 만한 정도의 공통분모가 있다고 주장한다. 그리하여 우리는 이들 사이의 공통적 요소들을 보이면서, 도덕 판단에 대한 아리스토텔레스의 논의 역시 비록 다소 제한적 이긴 하지만, 여전이 의미 있는 방식으로 ‘규정주의적’이라고 논증할 것이다. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 210 Seiten: 1-34.