In this issue of the American Journal of Bioethics, Kraft and colleagues (2018) provide important insights into the role trust plays in donor's decisions to contribute data and samples to local bio...

The nature of the relationship between clinical investigator and research participant continues to be contested. The related discussions have largely focused on the doctor-researcher dichotomy thought to permeate the work of a clinical investigator with research participants, whom in turn occupy two corresponding roles: patient and subject. This paper contributes to current debates on the topic by providing a voice to research participants, whose perspectives have been largely invisible. It draws on 42 in-depth interviews conducted in (...) Ghana and South Africa with respondents at different stages of involvement in clinical research, ranging from no experience in clinical research to enrollment in several clinical trials. The perspectives of all respondents were largely congruent and rooted in the common view that clinical research contributed to the improvement of local health. They went beyond the researcher/participant versus doctor/patient dichotomy, long established in research ethics, and preferred to view participants and investigators as partners working together to find ways to address local health needs. The conceptualization of investigator-participant relations as a partnership reinforced expectations of care, transparency and accountability, which were viewed as necessary expressions of mutuality and respect within equal collaborations. It is important to engage with these views in order to avoid antagonizing societal expectations and to build up long-term public trust, crucial for the continuous operation of clinical research. (shrink)

There were c. 70 attendees at this conference.

In this article we explore ethical issues arising in a study of home Internet use by low-income families. We consider questions of our responsibility as educational researchers and discuss the ethical implications of some unanticipated consequences of our study. We illustrate ways in which the principles of research ethics for use of human subjects can be ambiguous and possibly inadequate for anticipating potential harm in educational research. In this exploratory research of personal communication technologies, participants experienced changes (...) that were personal and relational. These unanticipated changes in their way of being complicated our research relationships, testing the boundaries of our commitment to the principle of trustworthiness and forcing us to reevaluate our responsibilities. (shrink)

Despite a decade of federal regulation and debate over the appropriateness of financial ties in research and their management, little is known about the actual decision-making processes of university conflict of interest (COI) committees. This paper analyzes in detail the discussions and decisions of three COI committees at three public universities in California. University committee members struggle to understand complex financial relationships and reconcile institutional, state, and federal policies and at the same time work to protect the integrity of (...) the scientific process, the autonomy and intellectual freedom of their faculty colleagues and students, and the financial interests of the university. (shrink)

Recent years have seen psychoanalysis move out of the clinical area into the arena of empirical social research. This article uses a case study from a psychoanalytically informed media research project to explore conceptual, ethical, and methodological implications in research design in the light of this shift. The ideas of unconscious communication between interviewer and interviewee, the role of the researcher's subjectivity, and the impact of unconscious defences on the generation and interpretation of data are explored. In (...) addition the free association narrative interviewing (FANI) method is evaluated. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 31-33.

We know from the research literature that psychotherapy is effective, but we also know that hundreds of diverse therapies are being practiced that have not been subjected to scientific scrutiny; thus, in some circumstances iatrogenic effects do occur. Therefore, it is crucial that we recognize and implement therapeutic interventions that are evidence based rather than succumb to ethical dilemma, frustration, and complacency. Recommendations for family therapists are discussed, including the need to (a) keep abreast of research findings, (b) (...) translate research findings and developments as they apply to clinical practice, (c) prioritize techniques and intervention models, and (d) reexamine funding priorities and research foci. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a new account of the basis of medical researchers' ancillary care obligations. Ancillary care in medical research, or medical care that research participants need but that is not required for the validity or safety of a study or to redress research injuries, is a topic that has drawn increasing attention in research ethics over the last ten years. My view, the relationship-based approach, improves on the main existing theory, Richardson and (...) Belsky's ‘partial-entrustment model’, by avoiding its problematic restriction on the scope of health needs for which researchers could be obligated to provide ancillary care. Instead, it grounds ancillary care obligations in a wide range of morally relevant features of the researcher-participant relationship, including the level of engagement between researchers and participants, and weighs these factors against each other. I argue that the level of engagement, that is, the duration and intensity of interactions, between researchers and participants matters for ancillary care because of its connection to the meaningfulness of a relationship, and I suggest that other morally relevant features can be grounded in researchers' role obligations. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 72-74.

In this article, I provide a new account of the basis of medical researchers' ancillary care obligations. Ancillary care in medical research, or medical care that research participants need but that is not required for the validity or safety of a study or to redress research injuries, is a topic that has drawn increasing attention in research ethics over the last ten years. My view, the relationship‐based approach, improves on the main existing theory, Richardson and (...) Belsky's ‘partial‐entrustment model’, by avoiding its problematic restriction on the scope of health needs for which researchers could be obligated to provide ancillary care. Instead, it grounds ancillary care obligations in a wide range of morally relevant features of the researcher‐participant relationship, including the level of engagement between researchers and participants, and weighs these factors against each other. I argue that the level of engagement, that is, the duration and intensity of interactions, between researchers and participants matters for ancillary care because of its connection to the meaningfulness of a relationship, and I suggest that other morally relevant features can be grounded in researchers' role obligations. (shrink)

One of the important determinants of development during the transition to adulthood is the undertaking of social roles characteristic of adults, also in the area of finishing formal education, which usually coincides with beginning fulltime employment. In the study discussed in this paper, it has been hypothesized that continuing full-time education above the age of 26, a phenomenon rarely observed in Poland, can be considered as an unpunctual event that may be connected with difficulties in the process of identity formation. (...) Relationships between identity dimensions and identity statuses, and age and educational context were analyzed. 693 individuals aged 19-35 took part in the study. The participants attended three types of educational institutions: full-time university studies, part-time university studies, and full-time post-secondary school. Among the students of full-time university studies predictable dependencies, also in respect of highlevels of indicators of identity crisis and a high frequency of diffused identity occurrence, were observed. Such dependencies were not found in the group of full-time post-secondary school students. (shrink)

With the growth of precision medicine research on health data and biospecimens, research institutions will need to build and maintain long-term, trusting relationships with patient-participants. While trust is important for all research relationships, the longitudinal nature of precision medicine research raises particular challenges for facilitating trust when the specifics of future studies are unknown. Based on focus groups with racially and ethnically diverse patients, we describe several factors that influence patient trust and potential institutional approaches to (...) building trustworthiness. Drawing on these findings, we suggest several considerations for research institutions seeking to cultivate long-term, trusting relationships with patients: Address the role of history and experience on trust, engage concerns about potential group harm, address cultural values and communication barriers, and integrate patient values and expectations into oversight and governance structures. (shrink)

In this study, the relationship between adolescents' perception of God, forgiveness inclination and anger was examined. For this purpose, it was determined whether the perception of God, forgiveness inclination, the trait anger and anger expression styles of the adolescents studying in different educational institutions differ according to demographic variables and the relationship between the adolescents' perception of God, forgiveness inclination and anger was determined. The sample of the study consists of 596 10th grade students studying in different types (...) of high schools in the city center of Ankara. The Demographic Information Form, The Forgiveness Inclination Scale, The God Perception Scale, The Trait Anger and Anger Expression Style Scale were used as data collection tools. The obtained data were analyzed with the unrelated samples t test when the scale scores of the two-category variables were normally distributed and with the Mann-Whitney U test when there was no normal distribution. For variables with more than two categories, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used in cases where the scale scores were normally distributed, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test was used in cases where the normal distribution could not be determined. As a result of the research, statistically significant differences were found in the scores of the sub-dimensions of the scales applied according to the demographic variables. In addition between the Forgiveness Inclination Scale distancing sub- dimension and trait anger, anger-out dimensions; It was determined that there was a positive, moderately statistically significant relationship between the forgiveness inclination scale revenge sub- dimension and trait anger, anger-in, anger-out dimensions. The findings were discussed in the light of the literature. (shrink)

The teacher-student relationship has long been of primary concern to educators and the focus of much educational research. While various theoretical understandings of this relationship exist, ontological understandings of the lived experiences of this relationship are not so prevalent, and there is thus a call for phenomenological studies aimed at uncovering the essential and ontological meanings of this taken for granted phenomenon. This paper reports on such a project and, in particular, some of the challenges encountered (...) in the process of phenomenologically researching the relationship which arises in the context of teacher education between the lecturer and the student teacher. The challenges of phenomenological research are both numerous and complex. These challenges relate to the intensity of the lived experience of the research itself, the meditative attunement of the researcher to the focal phenomenon, and the process of walking in a research process that is mindful of one's own historicity (Gadamer, 1960/1995). While the primary focus of this paper is on the challenges of researching the lecturer-student teacher relationship in a phenomenological way, it nevertheless reflects the unique capacity of a phenomenological approach to respect the centrality and humanity of relationship and to open understanding that affirms this. (shrink)

The Survey of Organizational Research Climate (SORC) is a validated tool to facilitate promotion of research integrity and research best practices. This work uses the SORC to assess shared and individual perceptions of the research climate in universities and academic departments and relate these perceptions to desirable and undesirable research practices. An anonymous web- and mail-based survey was administered to randomly selected biomedical and social science faculty and postdoctoral fellows in the United States. Respondents reported (...) their perceptions of the research climates at their universities and primary departments, and the frequency with which they engaged in desirable and undesirable research practices. More positive individual perceptions of the research climate in one’s university or department were associated with higher likelihoods of desirable, and lower likelihoods of undesirable, research practices. Shared perceptions of the research climate tended to be similarly predictive of both desirable and undesirable research practices as individuals’ deviations from these shared perceptions. Study results supported the central prediction that more positive SORC-measured perceptions of the research climate were associated with more positive reports of research practices. There were differences with respect to whether shared or individual climate perceptions were related to desirable or undesirable practices but the general pattern of results provide empirical evidence that the SORC is predictive of self-reported research behavior. (shrink)

This article presents the ethical implications for social science research emerging from our study on interpersonal communication after a laryngectomy. By tracing the evolution of our approach through specific research experiences and participant feedback, we provide empirical support for a flexible, multidimensional, and relational understanding of key ethical concepts, such as vulnerability and the researcher-participant relationship. Our approach has shifted from institutionally imposed rigid categorizations and somewhat stereotypical treatment of both the research group and the researcher-participant (...) relationship to an emphasis on building relationships founded on mutual care and rapport. We argue that this revised perspective fosters ethical collaboration that is beneficial and secure for all parties involved, and we offer practical examples of its implementation in research practice. (shrink)

To understand the relationship between kindergarten school-based research and preschool teachers’ teaching ability and identify the mechanism by which SBR affects teachers’ teaching ability, a survey of randomly sampled preschool teachers in Sichuan Province was conducted online using three scales assessing community learning, teaching ability and teaching philosophy. The survey results showed that the level of SBR reached the upper-middle level. The level of SBR positively predicted the teaching beliefs and teaching ability of preschool teachers. SBR influenced teaching (...) ability through direct and indirect effects, with indirect effects accounting for 23.5% of the total effect; however, only constructivist teaching beliefs played a mediating role in the relationship between SBR and teaching ability via an indirect effect. SBR focused on improvement in teaching ability should not only examine the connection between SBR and practical problems to promote improvement in teachers’ teaching ability but also should examine the role of teachers’ beliefs and influence teachers’ teaching abilities by changing teachers’ teaching beliefs. (shrink)

Background At the beginning of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, many non-Covid healthcare services were suspended. In April 2020, the Department of Health in England mandated that non-Covid services should resume, alongside the continuing pandemic response. This ‘resetting’ of healthcare services created a unique context in which it became critical to consider how ethical considerations did (and should) underpin decisions about integrating infection control measures into routine healthcare practices. We draw on data collected as part of the ‘NHS Reset Ethics’ project, (...) which explored the everyday ethical challenges of resetting England’s NHS maternity and paediatrics services during the pandemic. Methods Healthcare professionals and members of the public participated in interviews and focus group discussions. The qualitative methods are reported in detail elsewhere. The focus of this article is our use of Frith’s symbiotic empirical ethics methodology to work from our empirical findings towards the normative suggestion that clinical ethics should explicitly attend to the importance of relationships in clinical practice. This methodology uses a five-step approach to refine and develop ethical theory based on a naturalist account of ethics that sees practice and theory as symbiotically related. Results The Reset project data showed that changed working practices caused ethical challenges for healthcare professionals, and that infection prevention and control measures represented harmful barriers to the experience of receiving and offering care. For healthcare professionals, offering care as part of a relational interaction was an ethically important dimension of healthcare delivery. Conclusions Our findings suggest that foregrounding the importance of relationships across a hospital community will better promote the ethically important multi-directional expression of caring between healthcare professionals, patients, and their families. We offer two suggestions for making progress towards such a relational approach. First, that there is a change of emphasis in clinical ethics practice to explicitly acknowledge the importance of the relationships (including with their healthcare team) within which the patient is held. Second, that organisational decision-making should take into account the moral significance afforded to caring relationships by healthcare professionals, and the role such relationships can play in the negotiation of ethical challenges. (shrink)

A special report of The Hastings Center and the Association of American Medical Colleges addressed the ethical oversight of learning health systems, which seek to combine high‐quality patient care with routine data collection aimed at improving patient outcomes. The report contained two position papers, authored by a number of distinguished bioethicists, and several commentaries. The position papers urged two changes. First, they urged a rethinking of our approach to the regulation of human subjects research, so as to make it (...) easier in the future for learning health systems to function well. Second, they argued that the rethinking required dispensing with a strict distinction between research and therapy, which has been a major tenet of bioethics since the Belmont Report, which explicated basic ethical principles governing human subjects research. We fully support the objectives of the authors, and we agree that the learning health system is an important advance that serves patients well. Unnecessary regulatory burden ought not impede this progress. We disagree, however, that the best way to bring about these needed changes in the regulatory environment is to reject the basic distinction between research and treatment. Unfortunately, we find the arguments in favor of that strategy to be, in places, reminiscent of what we take to be basic conceptual errors that hampered the ethical understanding of human subjects research prior to adoption of the Belmont Report. To see why one need not reject the research‐treatment distinction in order to promote learning health systems, we first investigate in some detail the arguments offered for eliminating the distinction. We next turn to an issue not addressed by those authors, namely, the relationship between the physician or investigator and the patient or subject, to illustrate why the distinction is important and what is lost if it is jettisoned. (shrink)

I argue against the orthodox view of the relationship between propositional and doxastic justification. The view under criticism is: if p is propositionally justified for S in virtue of S's having reason R, and S believes p on the basis of R, then S's belief that p is doxastically justified. I then propose and evaluate alternative accounts of the relationship between propositional and doxastic justification, and conclude that we should explain propositional justification in terms of doxastic justification. If (...) correct, this proposal would constitute a significant advance in our understanding of the sources of epistemic justification. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus disease is impactful on all aspects of individuals’ lives, particularly mental health due to the fear and spirituality associated with the pandemic. Thus, purpose of this study was to identify the relationship among fear, spirituality, and mental health on COVID-19 among adults in Malaysia. This study also examines spirituality as a mediator in relationship between fear and mental health. The study involved around 280 adults in Malaysia. This research is a quantitative study. Data analysis (...) method has been used for data analysis. Based on descriptive analysis, mental health questionnaire indicated that 60.0% of them are at a poor level of mental health whereas 57.5% of respondents showed a moderate level of COVID-19 fear, and 60.4% of respondents owned moderate level of spiritual well-being. The results also demonstrated that respondents that have a high level of fear would have a high level of mental health; interestingly, those with a high level of spirituality will have a lower level of mental health. Findings indicated that spirituality significantly mediated the relationship between fear and mental health. This research will help to demonstrate how important spirituality values to control mental health to be more positive among adults in Malaysia. The main contributions of this study are to help come out with new intervention method for those who are mentally ill and need help. (shrink)

This article focuses on reporting the relationship between research integrity and research supervision. Initially, it briefly discusses the positive research supervision. By following a detailed thematic analysis methodology, 66 published sources were compiled, disassembled, reassembled and interpreted. The findings of this study highlight that maintaining research integrity is the responsibility of all, and that more responsibility falls onto the shoulders of instructors and supervisors who need to ethically perform research supervision to maintain further (...) class='Hi'>research integrity. Further, they show crises related to how research supervision is at danger, and how danger at supervision exists. The insights reported in this study help raise further awareness towards effective research supervision that in return and in effect enhances the overall research integrity. The review also concludes with three critical messages for a practical implementation. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is a theoretical substantiation and empirical study of the psychological content parameters of the relationship between perfectionism and feelings of loneliness in youth. A new view of modern reality with its constant changes and increased requirements for the functioning of the individual in society has been substantiated. It is noted that such a view provokes the mass formation and spread of perfectionism and loneliness. It is noted that every day more and more people, especially (...) young people, suffer from the imperfections of this world and the feeling of isolation from others. It has been established that socially conditioned perfectionism, concern for mistakes, doubts about one’s own actions and self-criticism have a positive significant connection with the feeling of loneliness in youth. However, rigid perfectionism and self-centered perfectionism are inversely related to feelings of loneliness. It was found that young men are largely prone to self-centered perfectionism. A pronounced high level of loneliness was observed in n=18 subjects. Attention has been drawn to the fact that doubts about one’s own actions and concern for mistakes inevitably provoke feelings of loneliness. Emphasis has been placed on important areas of actualization of empirical results in order to develop constructive perfectionism. It has been noted that the results obtained should be operationalized in educational and professional training of students-psychologists. (shrink)

Publication pressure has been touted to promote questionable research practices (QRP) and scientific or research misconduct (RM). However, logically attractively as it is, there is no unequivocal evidence for this notion, and empirical studies have produced conflicting results. Other than difficulties in obtaining unbiased empirical data, a direct causal relationship between perceived publication pressure (PPP) and QRP/RM is inherently difficult to establish, because the former is a complex biopsychosocial construct that is variedly influenced by multiple personal and (...) environmental factors. To effectively address QRP/RM by tackling the sources of PPP would also be difficult because of the competitive nature of the reward and merit system of contemporary science. We might do better with efforts in enhancing knowledge in research ethics and integrity among the practitioners, as well as institutional infrastructures and mechanisms to fairly and efficiently adjudicate cases of QRP/RM. (shrink)

Since entering the new century, People’s living standards are constantly improving, with the continuous improvement of living conditions, people are becoming more and more important in education, which is the embodiment of the enhancement of national strength. The education level is getting higher and higher, and a good education level needs a good teacher–student relationship. To solve these problems, we use the emotional cognition of God’s network to study the teacher–student relationship, and collect and analyze the data of (...) the teacher–student relationship. In this chapter, we use GABP neural network algorithm DHNN algorithm and discrete Hopfield neural network to make the collected data more convenient to be analyzed. The research shows that there is a close relationship between the educational level and the relationship between teachers and students in China, and a good relationship between teachers and students will promote the improvement of educational level. According to the research data, “face-to-face” is the most important way of interaction between tutors and postgraduates in various types of teacher–student relationship. QQ WeChat is also one of the main ways of interaction between students and teachers, which shows that the interaction between students and teachers is talking about the interaction between online and Internet. The education industry is becoming more and more important, and the teacher–student relationship is the most important part of the education industry. Good teacher–student relationship is helpful to cultivate students’ healthy personality. In view of the cold relationship between teachers and students at present, we need to make some measures the relationship between teachers and students and effectively use the relationship between teachers and students to promote the better development of the education industry. (shrink)

The Chinese economy has developed rapidly since the reform and opening up, but economic growth in Northeast China has declined dramatically after the 21st century. In this context, exploring the characteristics of economic and industrial fluctuations in the northeast of China and their relationship is beneficial to alleviating economic fluctuations and promoting stable economic development from the perspective of industrial development. The relationship between economic and industrial fluctuations in the three provinces of Northeast China was reexamined from the (...) angle of fluctuation components with the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise algorithm. The results obtained are as follows: In the three northeastern provinces of China, economic fluctuations were almost free from the influence of the primary industry, most affected by the secondary industry, and gradually influenced by the tertiary industry after the 21st century. Regarding the short-term business cycle of each province, economic development was the most stable when the market and government participated in the development of the secondary industry simultaneously. The midterm business cycle of Jilin Province was affected by the investment of equipment in secondary and tertiary industries, while that of Liaoning Province was affected by the investment of equipment in the secondary industry. Investment in the equipment of the secondary industry and the construction of secondary and tertiary industries was the key to maintaining the stability of long-term business cycle in Heilongjiang Province, and that in the construction of secondary and tertiary industries was the key to maintaining the stability of long-term business cycles in Jilin and Liaoning Provinces. (shrink)

This paper indicates how continental philosophy may contribute to a diagnostics of contemporary life sciences research, as part of a “diagnostics of the present”. First, I describe various options for an oblique reading of emerging scientific discourse, bent on uncovering the basic “philosophemes” of science. Subsequently, I outline a number of radical transformations occurring both at the object-pole and at the subject-pole of the current knowledge relationship, namely the technification of the object and the anonymisation or collectivisation of (...) the subject, under the sway of automation, ICT and big machines. Finally, I further elaborate the specificity of the oblique perspective with the help of Lacan’s theorem of the four discourses. Philosophical reflections on contemporary life sciences concur neither with a Master’s discourse, nor with university discourse, nor with what Lacan refers to as hysterical discourse, but rather with the discourse of the analyst, listening with evenly-poised attention to the scientific files in order to bring to the fore the cupido sciendi which both inspires and disrupts contemporary life sciences discourse. (shrink)

Review of extant research on the corporate environmental performance (CEP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) link generally demonstrates a positive relationship. However, some arguments and empirical results have demonstrated otherwise. As a result, researchers have called for a contingency approach to this research stream, which moves beyond the basic question “does it pay to be green?” and instead asks “when does it pay to be green?” In answering this call, we provide a meta-analytic review of CEP–CFP literature (...) in which we identify potential moderators to the CEP–CFP relationship including environmental performance type (e.g., reactive vs. proactive performance), firm characteristics (e.g., large vs. small firms), and methodological issues (e.g., self-report measures). By analyzing these contingencies, this study attempts to provide a basis on which to draw conclusions regarding some inconsistencies and debates in the CEP–CFP research. Some of the results of the moderator analysis suggest that small firms benefit from environmental performance as much or more than large firms, US firms seem to benefit more than international counterparts, and environmental performance seems to have the strongest influence on market-measures of financial performance. (shrink)

Research on employees’ responses to corporate social responsibility has recently accelerated and begun appearing in top-tier academic journals. However, existing findings are still largely fragmented, and this stream of research lacks theoretical consolidation. This article integrates the diffuse and multi-disciplinary literature on CSR micro-level influences in a theoretically driven conceptual framework that contributes to explain and predict when, why, and how employees might react to CSR activity in a way that influences organizations’ economic and social performance. Drawing on (...) social identity theory and social exchange theory, we delineate the different but interdependent psychological mechanisms that explain how CSR can strengthen the employee–organization relationship and subsequently foster employee-related, micro-level outcomes. Contributions of our framework to extant literature and potential extensions for future research are then discussed. (shrink)

Trust is a fundamental aspect of the moral treatment of stakeholders within the organization–stakeholder relationship. Stakeholders trust the organization to return benefit or protections from harm commensurate with their contributions or stakes. However, in many situations, the firm holds greater power than the stakeholder and therefore cannot necessarily be trusted to return the aforementioned duty to the stakeholder. Stakeholders must therefore rely on the trustworthiness of the organization to fulfill obligations in accordance to Phillips’ principle of fairness (Business Ethics (...) Quarterly7(1), 1997, 51–66), particularly where low-power stakeholders may not be fully consenting (Van Buren III, Business Ethics Quarterly11(3), 2001, 481–499). The construct of organizational trustworthiness developed herewith is presented as a possible solution to the problem of unfairness in organization–stakeholder relations. While organizational trustworthiness does not create an ethical obligation where none existed before, stakeholders who lack power will likely be treated fairly when organizational trustworthiness is present. (shrink)

Recent, well-publicized scandals, involving unethical conduct have rekindled interest in academic misconduct. Prior studies of academic misconduct have focussed exclusively on situational factors (e.g., integrity culture, honor codes), demographic variables or personality constructs. We contend that it is important to also examine how␣these classes of variables interact to influence perceptions of and intentions relating to academic misconduct. In a sample of 217 business students, we examined how integrity culture interacts with Prudence and Adjustment to explain variance in estimated frequency of (...) cheating, suspicions of cheating, considering cheating and reporting cheating. Age, integrity culture, and personality variables were significantly related to different criteria. Overall, personality variables explained the most unique variance in academic misconduct, and Adjustment interacted with integrity culture, such that integrity culture had more influence on intentions to cheat for less well-adjusted individuals. Implications for practice are discussed and future research directions are offered. (shrink)

With the development and support of modern technologies such as digital media and online live stream, it has become an effective way to promote the online transaction of museum cultural and creative products. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model combined with the Post-Acceptance Model of Information System Continuance and the theories on customer satisfaction index, this research introduces perceived interest and media richness as variables and constructs a model of the influencing factors of online consumers’ persistent purchase of museum (...) products. The research model and related hypotheses were verified through structural equation modeling. The research found that perceived value and satisfaction are the key variables that have impact on the PP of consumers. Perceived quality, brand trust, MR, PI, and perceived usefulness have significant effects on PV and SAT. Involvement in purchasing decisions positively moderates the impact on SAT of PV. The conclusion can be referred to for operators and product developers. (shrink)

In clinical research – whether pharmaceutical, genetic or biomarker research – it is important to protect research participants’ autonomy and to ensure or strengthen their control over health-related decisions. Empirical–ethical studies have argued that both the ethical concept and the current legalistic practice of informed consent should be adapted to the complexity of the clinical environment. For this, a better understanding of recruitment, for which also the physician–patient relationship plays an important role, is needed. Our aim (...) is to ethically reflect communication processes by identifying patterns used by physicians to motivate patients’ participation in clinical research and to assess whether patients also use these patterns in formulating their own research motivation. We conducted a secondary analysis with empirical data from a research project involving physicians and patients in a clinical research setting of a biomarker study for rectal cancer treatment. Our empirical data included observations of physician–patient consultations and semi-structured interviews with patients. Overall, we collected 93 interviews. We found two dominant communication patterns, which physicians applied for motivating patients to take part in this research study. Some forms of these patterns tend to mislead patients’ understanding, while others could justifiably be applied in this consultation setting without undermining patients’ autonomy. This insight that the physician–patient communication has a strong influence on patients increases the importance to strengthen physicians’ ethically acceptable communication patterns regarding research participation. We further suggest that there is a need for a critical reflection of the ethics committee’s requirements for information regarding research participation. (shrink)

Scholarly research largely converges on the argument that trust is of paramount importance to drive economic agents toward mutually satisfactory, fair, and ethically compliant behaviors. There is, however, little agreement on the meaning of trust, whose conceptualizations differ with respect to actors, relationships, behaviors, and contexts. At present, we know much better what trust does than what trust is. In this article, we present an extensive review and analysis of the most prominent articles on trust in market relationships. Using (...) computer-aided content analysis and network analysis methods, we identify key, recurring dimensions that guided the conceptualization of trust in past research, and show how trust can be developed as a multifaceted and layered construct. Our results are an important contribution to a convergence of research toward a shared and common view of the meaning of trust. This process is important to ensure the body of trust research's internal theoretical consistency, and to provide reliable and common principles for the management of business relationships — a context in which opportunism and imperfect information may induce economic actors to cheat and stray from fair and ethically compliant behaviors. (shrink)

The article clarifies the way in which ‘the aesthetic’ is conceptualised in relation to business ethics in order to assess its potential to inform theory building and developmental practices within the business ethics field. A systematic review of relevant literature is undertaken which identifies three ontologically based accounts of the relationship between the aesthetic and business ethics: ‘positive’ ones, ‘negative’ accounts and ‘Postmodern’ renderings. Five epistemologically based approaches are also made explicit: those in which the aesthetic is thought to (...) develop enhanced perceptual discernment, those in which the aesthetic catalyses emotional sensitivity, those in which the aesthetic contributes to imaginative capacity, those in which the aesthetic prompts integrative apprehension and those in which the aesthetic is seen to foster critical reflexivity. The review reveals two key findings: firstly, the dearth of empirically based research to substantiate claims made about the aesthetic’s ability to foster ethical capabilities, which leads to proposals for further research; secondly, the analysis indicates the significance of critical reflexivity both in resolving the apparent dichotomy between ontologically based perspectives asserting the aesthetic’s ability to lead to ethically sound or egregious behaviour, and in underpinning the capacities of perceptual discernment, emotional connectivity, imagination and integrative apprehension which epistemologically based approaches assert the aesthetic can foster. (shrink)

Ethical issues in biomedical research are traditionally examined as distinct from those of clinical care. However, this traditional framing may obscure questions of equity and fairness in both rese...

Much recent philosophical literature on happiness and satisfaction is based on the belief that empirical research is relevant to philosophical conclusions. In his2010 book What is This Thing Called Happiness? Fred Feldman begs to differ. He suggests that there is no evidence that empirical research is relevant to long-standing philosophical questions; consequently, that philosophers have little reason to pay attention to the work of psychologists or economists; and that philosophers need not fear embarrassing themselves by being ignorant of (...) important scientific findings that bear directly on their work. Relying on an example invoked by Feldman himself, this paper makes the case that all three theses are false. The argument suggests a picture according to which science and philosophy stand in a symbiotic relationship, with scientists and philosophers engaging in a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas for the advancement of thegeneral knowledge. (shrink)

Scholarly research largely converges on the argument that trust is of paramount importance to drive economic agents toward mutually satisfactory, fair, and ethically compliant behaviors. There is, however, little agreement on the meaning of trust, whose conceptualizations differ with respect to actors, relationships, behaviors, and contexts. At present, we know much better what trust does than what trust is. In this article, we present an extensive review and analysis of the most prominent articles on trust in market relationships. Using (...) computer-aided content analysis and network analysis methods, we identify key, recurring dimensions that guided the conceptualization of trust in past research, and show how trust can be developed as a multifaceted and layered construct. Our results are an important contribution to a convergence of research toward a shared and common view of the meaning of trust. This process is important to ensure the body of trust research’s internal theoretical consistency, and to provide reliable and common principles for the management of business relationships – a context in which opportunism and imperfect information may induce economic actors to cheat and stray from fair and ethically compliant behaviors. (shrink)

There is considerable confusion regarding the ethical appropriateness of using incentives in research with human subjects. Previous work on determining whether incentives are unethical considers them as a form of undue influence or coercive offer. We understand the ethical issue of undue influence as an issue, not of coercion, but of corruption of judgment. By doing so we find that, for the most part, the use of incentives to recruit and retain research subjects is innocuous. But there are (...) some instances where it is not. Specifically, incentives become problematic when conjoined with the following factors, singly or in combination with one another: where the subject is in a dependency relationship with the researcher, where the risks are particularly high, where the research is degrading, where the participant will only consent if the incentive is relatively large because the participant's aversion to the study is strong, and where the aversion is a principled one. The factors we have identified and the kinds of judgments they require differ substantially from those considered crucial in most previous discussions of the ethics of employing incentives in research with human subjects. (shrink)

The seven articles included in the AJOB Neuroscience special issue map important ethical issues that have and will continue to emerge with advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology. A critical c...

Experience marketing plays an important role in improving the quality and upgrading tourism services in cultural tourism cities and helps guide the planning and development, commodity design, and business management of cultural tourism products. However, the urgent problems that need to be solved are as follows: How does experiential marketing in cultural tourism cities affect tourists' consumption behavior? How to adjust consumption emotion in tourist experience and revisit intention? Starting from the experience needs of tourists, this study selected Jinan city, (...) represented by “Qilu culture,” as the research object; discussed the relationship between experiential marketing, consumption emotion, and revisit intention; and used a structural equation model to verify the relationship between the three. This study divided the perception of experiential marketing into four dimensions—sensory experience, action experience, emotional experience, and thinking experience, and divided tourists' revisit intention into two dimensions— “revisit” and “recommendation”. Totally, 305 tourists were randomly selected to participate in the questionnaire survey, and they came from 34 provinces in China. The results showed that cultural tourism cities can enhance tourists' positive consumption emotion through experiential marketing over time, and high-quality tourist consumption experience directly motivates tourists to revisit intention and then promotes tourists to go to cultural tourism cities for secondary consumption. These results suggest that cultural tourism cities should start from Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, pay attention to the needs of tourists at different levels, and adopt effective experiential marketing strategies from tourism experience to improve the quality of tourists' travel experience and promote tourists' revisit intention. (shrink)