We recognize a paradox of power and promise in the context of legislative and organizational changes in nurse regulation which poses constraints on nursing's capacity to bring voice and influence to pressing matters of healthcare and public policy. The profession is at an important crossroads wherein leaders must be well informed in political, economic and legislative trends to harness the profession's power while also navigating forces that may put at risk its central mission to serve society. We present a critical (...) policy analysis of the impact of recent regulatory trends on what the International Council of Nurses considers nursing's three ‘pillars’ – the profession of nursing, socioeconomic welfare of nurses and nurse regulation. Themes surfacing from this analysis include regulatory discontinuity, a tightening of regulatory control, and an increasingly managerial governance culture. These themes illuminate insights and strategies required to renew and revitalize the social mandate of our profession amidst a climate of urgency in the questioning of nurse scholars with respect to the future of the profession. At this historic juncture, nurses must clearly understand the implications of legislative and organizational regulatory changes to ensure the profession contributes to full capacity in achieving health and health equity globally. (shrink)

In this study, we examine investor and firm response to the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010. The CTSCA requires large retail and manufacturing firms to disclose efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains and is a rare example of mandated corporate social responsibility disclosure. Based on a sample of 105 retail companies subject to the CTSCA, we find a significant negative market reaction to the passing of the CTSCA. Furthermore, we find that (...) the reaction is significantly more negative for larger firms and companies facing greater supply chain risks, suggesting that investors place a negative value on exposure to legitimacy threats in the social domain. With respect to company disclosure response, we document relatively high compliance with the legislation, although we also find that the disclosure response appeared to be more symbolic than substantive in nature. Finally, our analysis indicates that both disclosure choice and disclosure extensiveness were significantly higher for the high-supply chain risk companies, suggesting that the response was influenced by concerns with strategic legitimation. Overall, the limited quality of disclosure suggests that, without additional rules and guidance, mandates alone may not lead to meaningful social disclosure. (shrink)

Serious mental illness (SMI) has long posed a dilemma to society. The use of community treatment orders (CTOs), a legal means by which to deliver mandated psychiatric treatment to individuals while they live in the community, is a contemporary technique for managing SMI. CTOs (or a similar legal mechanism) are used in every province in Canada and in many jurisdictions around the world in the care and management of clients with severe and persistent mental illness (most frequently schizophrenia) who have (...) a history of treatment non‐compliance and subsequent relapse. Although there is ongoing controversy around CTOs, their use continues to be on the rise. René Girard's mimetic theory, in which he posits the social utility of the scapegoat mechanism, may shed some light on how established cultural patterns contribute to contemporary responses to SMI: how culture depends on the reproduction of certain narratives, and how these act to shape the identity of those involved. The CTO specifically can be seen to act as a scapegoating mechanism, wherein, by singling out and controlling individuals who appear to threaten social order, social order is restored. This paper reviews Girard's theory, looks at how it has been applied to SMI, and then considers how it may illuminate the social role of the CTO. This examination may provide mental health nurses with insight into the constructed identities of their patients, as well as the role of mental health care within broader cultural narratives. (shrink)

This study provides evidence on the governance of CSR policies and activities by Indian central government-owned companies [i.e. Central Public Sector Enterprises ] within a unique mandatory regulatory setting. We utilise the multi-level ‘Logic of governance’ conceptual framework and draw upon interview data collected from 25 senior managers in 21 CPSEs to assess the dynamics of CSR implementation within CPSEs. Our findings indicate most managers believe that a mandatory policy has enhanced the accountability and commitment of governing boards and senior (...) management to CSR. However, CSR policy implementation within Indian CPSEs is still nascent, fraught with bureaucratic hurdles, insufficient human and knowledge resources, limited stakeholder analysis and over-emphasis on CSR budget utilisation as an outcome. Several key areas for improvements include the need for better translation of national CSR policy goals to firm-level strategies, more formal assessment of stakeholder needs, clearer communication lines with external service providers, such as NGOs and local government agencies, and the better evaluation of CSR outcomes. The findings of this study have implications for both theory and policy development. (shrink)

The integration of Corporate social responsibility with BusinessStrategy has been identified as a central Corporate social responsibility concept. Corporate social responsibility, it is important to understand the Key Drivers and Building Blocks that is integral to this phenomenon and which will impact the Civil Society at large. If the Indian government and private companies are serious about meeting Sustainable Development Goals, Mandated CSR has to be used as a Strategic Vehicle not only to reduce the substantial financial (...) shortfall but Corporate social responsibility as an integral part of a company’s Strategy, to help companies achieve Competitive Advantage. The paper lists down five strategic Building Blocks of Mandated CSR namely—Shared vision, Key Drivers, Dialogue, measuring impact, and Governance which provide a mental framework to think about mCSR in a novel way. The paper emphasizes the importance of Shared vision, Problem Identification, utilizing Board’s Expertise, Innovation, building network, Best Practice sharing, managing failure risk, Shareholder’s Activism, Government’s Intention, and Capacity Building. (shrink)

Abstract : This article makes the case that teacher’s personal qualities should be considered to be of great importance to being a teacher and that pre- and in- service teacher education has a social responsibility mandate. Developing personal qualities in teacher education is an important way in which teacher education can address its social responsibility mandate and, conversely, this mandate can provide the perspective from which the value of teacher’s personal qualities for teaching can be (...) judged. Finally, the article discusses the role of reflective thinking and reflective practice in addressing the social responsibility mandate of teacher education and identifies characteristics of reflective practices that seem particularly suitable for developing a teacher’s personal qualities relevant for addressing the social responsibility mandate of teacher education. Résumé : Cet article fait état des qualités personnelles de l’enseignant qui doivent être considérées comme d’une grande importance pour être un enseignant et que l’éducation initiale des enseignants et la formation continue a un mandat de responsabilité sociale. Le développement de qualités personnelles dans la formation des enseignants est un moyen important par lequel la formation des enseignants peut s’acquitter de son mandat de responsabilité sociale et, inversement, ce mandat peut fournir la perspective selon laquelle la valeur des qualités personnelles de l’enseignant pour l’enseignement peut être jugé. Enfin, l’article examine le rôle de la réflexivité et de la pratique réflexive à travers ce mandat de responsabilité sociale de la formation des enseignants et identifie les caractéristiques des pratiques réflexives qui semblent particulièrement appropriées pour le développement des qualités personnelles de l’enseignant pertinents pour atteindre les objectifs de ce mandat de responsabilité sociale de la formation des enseignants. -/- . (shrink)

Can mandated adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) improve firm value? Most CSR adoption is purely voluntary. However, governments regularly encourage CSR adoption with soft regulations that vary from simply endorsing and symbolically supporting CSR to requiring the adoption of specific practices. Governments have resisted fully mandating CSR because there is some concern universally that mandated CSR may reduce firm value. There is, however, no empirical clarity as to whether mandated CSR impedes or improves firm value. We address this (...) uncertainty by analyzing the effects of the mandated adoption of CSR that the government of India legislated in 2014. Drawing on a sample of 1,526 publicly traded firms and deploying a combinative analytical framework comprising an event study, regression discontinuity design, and a difference-in-differences technique, we conclude that India’s CSR mandate did, in fact, increase value for all firms bound by the mandate. This value-enhancing effect was greater for foreign firms relative to domestic firms. Our results refute previous research showing that India’s CSR mandate diminished firm value. (shrink)

This content analysis examines the ways that genocide is included in the high school world history content standards of eleven states with legislative mandates requiring genocide education, as well as if the content standards in those states differ from those of states without mandated genocide education. The null curriculum theorizes that the content that is not taught may be as important as what is taught; this lens allows for a nuanced analysis of the ways that genocide is included and excluded (...) in state standards. The findings suggest that states with legislative mandates requiring genocide education do not necessarily have high school world history content standards that require genocide education. The content standards in states with legislative mandates often omit acts of genocide, refrain from using the term “genocide,” and frame genocides as less important than the Holocaust, perpetuating the null curriculum of genocides. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to re-establish the concept of 'law' in Christian ethics without at the same time sacrificing any of the gains in moral freedom that have come from the concept of situation ethics. Michael Keeling argues that there is a common human search for morality in which the specific contribution of Christians is the idea of freedom as the primary gift of God to human beings. However, within this freedom it should be possible to define certain (...) guidelines or 'mandates' which correspond both to the divine life revealed in Jesus Christ and to the human realities described by the natural and the social sciences. (shrink)

Informed by Critical Race Theory, this quantitative study supports civic educators in understanding the role of classroom climate and racial identity in students’ civic engagement during a statewide middle school civics mandate (n = 4707). Findings reveal that students of color experience higher civic engagement and lower civic attitude scores than white-identifying peers, after controlling for school, classroom, and affluence indicators. Students’ perception of whiteness (or perhaps majority status) appeared to correlate with positive civic knowledge and civic attitude, but (...) relative civic inaction. These findings suggest differences in civic outcomes as early as middle school between white-identifying students and students of color. Such differences offer implications for civic education interventions that address not only effective instruction, but civic inequities, students’ perceived agency, and curricular content. (shrink)

Truth commissions are increasingly common after conflict and authoritarian rule, yet we know little about the different ways they are being used. Despite recent efforts to bridge conceptual gaps and resolve disagreement over the universe of cases, TCs are notoriously undertheorised and proponents have yet to answer why their record is so inconsistent. Through developing a typological approach to TCs, the article lays the groundwork for exploring the forms they need to take to have an impact. It argues for a (...) more nuanced understanding of the term that captures both the breadth of current practice and recasts conceptual debates on the spectrum of design options that are available to policymakers but are often overlooked. The findings are important as they offer a first set of impressions on emerging spatial and temporal patterns and trends that are developing due to the purported transnational diffusion and social learning of ideas about TCs. (shrink)

Perhaps the most contentious part of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been the decision by governments to mandate—or effectively mandate—the shutdown of certain businesses. The justification for doing so is broadly consequentialist. The public health costs of not shutting down are so great that potential benefits from allowing businesses to open are dwarfed. Operating within this consequentialist framework, this paper identifies an underappreciated set of social costs that are a product of the present public policy (...) that pairs mandated shutdowns with government subsidies. Such policy is prone to being an instance of what Robert Higgs calls the ratchet effect. Given that ratchets tend to be both costly and sticky, it is best to avoid allowing them to come into existence. This paper identifies a way of circumventing this particular ratchet; namely, by replacing governmental subsidies with support from private charitable funds like The Barstool Fund. (shrink)

I critically examine a common liberal egalitarian view about the justification for, and proper content of, mandatory health insurance. This view holds that a mandate is justified because it is the best way to ensure that those in poor health gain health insurance on equitable terms. It also holds that a government should mandate what a representative prudent individual would purchase for themselves if they were placed in fair conditions of choice. I argue that this common justification for (...) a mandate is incomplete. A further reason for mandated insurance is that it helps secure social egalitarian public goods that would be underprovided if insurance were optional. I also argue that rather than mandating what a representative individual would choose for themselves, we should design the mandatory package by appealing to a pluralistic egalitarian view, which cares about improving people’s well-being, reducing unfair inequality, and maintaining egalitarian social relations. (shrink)

This special issue of Philosophy and Social Criticism is dedicated to James Bernauer, S.J. on the occasion of his retirement from full-time teaching. It contains original essays from Bernauer’s stu...

Nayan Mitra and René Schmidpeter, Corporate Social Responsibility in India: Cases and Developments after the Legal Mandate. Cham: Springer, 2016, 238 pp., ₹135.19. ISBN: 978-3-319-41781-3.

Several social and cultural developments have led to a rethinking of the place and meaning of friendship within the life of the Church, not least its relation to family. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology has great potential for informing such renewed reflection. At face value, he appears to count both Church and family among the divine ‘mandates’, leaving friendship to a realm of ‘freedom’ outside the mandates. Yet closer reading of his writings—not least his correspondence with Bethge—reveals, first, a more singular (...) role of the Church vis-à-vis the mandates ; and secondly, congeniality between friendship and the ‘vicarious representative’ practices that lie at the heart of Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology. Together, these findings allow us to recognise family and friendship as complementary expressions of discipleship, each supporting the other precisely by setting a limit to the specific type of ‘vicarious representative’ responsibility entrusted to each. (shrink)

Many proposals to reform health care finance and delivery require individuals or private employers to pay for private health insurance. Senators Ron Wyden and Robert Bennett’s Healthy Americans Act, for instance, would require every adult person who is not covered by a public program to purchase health insurance. Similarly, President Obama’s campaign proposal requires that parents arrange for coverage of their minor children and that all but small employers pay a tax if they do not provide their workers health insurance.This (...) paper addresses the constitutionality of such proposals. Compulsory health insurance might raise constitutional concerns because there is no existing social legislation that serves as a perfect legal analogy to an individual mandate for private health insurance. Insurance mandates are familiar in other contexts, such as automobile liability, but they present an easier case for constitutionality because they are a condition of exercising a privilege, such as driving a car. (shrink)

This article describes a heuristic argument for understanding certain physical systems in terms of properties that resemble the beliefs and goals of folk psychology. The argument rests on very simple assumptions. The core of the argument is that predictions about certain events can legitimately be based on assumptions about later events, resembling Aristotelian ‘final causation’; however, more nuanced causal entities must be introduced into these types of explanation in order for them to remain consistent with a causally local Universe.

In 2022, students at North American universities with third-dose COVID-19 vaccine mandates risk disenrolment if unvaccinated. To assess the appropriateness of booster mandates in this age group, we combine empirical risk-benefit assessment and ethical analysis. To prevent one COVID-19 hospitalisation over a 6-month period, we estimate that 31 207–42 836 young adults aged 18–29 years must receive a third mRNA vaccine. Booster mandates in young adults are expected to cause a net harm: per COVID-19 hospitalisation prevented, we anticipate at least (...) 18.5 serious adverse events from mRNA vaccines, including 1.5–4.6 booster-associated myopericarditis cases in males (typically requiring hospitalisation). We also anticipate 1430–4626 cases of grade ≥3 reactogenicity interfering with daily activities (although typically not requiring hospitalisation). University booster mandates are unethical because they: (1) are not based on an updated (Omicron era) stratified risk-benefit assessment for this age group; (2) may result in a net harm to healthy young adults; (3) are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission; (4) violate the reciprocity principle because serious vaccine-related harms are not reliably compensated due to gaps in vaccine injury schemes; and (5) may result in wider social harms. We consider counterarguments including efforts to increase safety on campus but find these are fraught with limitations and little scientific support. Finally, we discuss the policy relevance of our analysis for primary series COVID-19 vaccine mandates. (shrink)

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU confirms the protection of personal data as a fundamental human right and affords data subjects more control over the way their personal information is processed, shared, and analyzed. However, where data are processed by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, asserting control and providing adequate explanations is a challenge. Due to massive increases in computing power and big data processing, modern AI algorithms are too complex and opaque to be understood by most data (...) subjects. Articles 15 and 22 of the GDPR provide a modest regulatory framework for automated data processing by, among other things, mandating that data controllers inform data subjects about when it is being used, and its logic and ramifications. Nevertheless, due to the phrasing of the articles and the numerous exceptions they allow, doubts have arisen about their effectiveness. In this paper, we empirically evaluate the quality and effectiveness of AI disclosures as mandated by the GDPR. By means of an online survey (N = 835), we investigated how data subjects expect to be informed about the automated processing of their data. We then conducted a content analysis of the AI disclosures of N = 100 companies and organizations. The combined findings reveal that current GDPR-mandated disclosures do not meet the expectations and needs of data subjects. Explanations drawn up following the guidelines of the generic formulations of the GDPR differ widely and are often vague, incomplete and lack transparency. In our conclusions we identify a path towards standardizing and optimizing AI information notices. (shrink)

Resumen: De las muchas posibilidades de lectura de Antígona de Sófocles destacamos la naturaleza del conflicto trágico, que tiene sus raíces en valores anteriores al orden social establecido y que puede considerarse material útil para una refundación del estatuto político en la posmodernidad. A partir del comentario de texto señalamos que Antígona no atenta contra el orden social, sino que espera consolidarlo en un fundamento imperturbable; que encarna la crítica de la racionalidad instrumental, inaugurada por la sofística y (...) reavivada sucesivamente en la modernidad; que afirma existencialmente una ética del amor fraterno como humanización del orden del universo. Proponemos ampliar la noción de hermano consanguíneo y extenderla a la idea de hermano como “el otro” en el marco de las sociedades posmodernas, espacios de intención multicultural, para tener un principio de rescate ético. En esta re-lectura se actualizan las nociones arcaicas de religiosidad, honra fúnebre y piedad familiar.: Of the many possible readings of Sophocles' Antigone, we highlight the nature of the tragic conflict, which has its roots in previous values to the established social order, and which can be considered useful material for re-founding the political status in postmodernity. From the text commentary, we note that Antigone does not attack the social order, but she hopes to consolidate it on an imperturbable basis that embodies the critique of instrumental rationality, inaugurated by sophistry and revived successively in modernity. This affirms existentially the ethics of fraternal love as a humanization of the order of the universe. We propose to extend the notion of consanguineous brother and extend it to the idea of brother as “the other” in the framework of postmodern societies, spaces of multicultural intention, to have a principle of ethical rescue. In this re-reading, the archaic notions of religiosity, funeral honor, and family piety are updated. (shrink)

The concepts of human nature, the main themes of original Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism, are the problems that must be overcome through human character education, namely the recovery of human nature according to the absence of conscience. In the end, the right understanding of human nature was the starting point of Confucianism and the preparation stage for Statecraft, overcoming the inherent limitations of human beings through learning. Orginal Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism are basically based on reality or difference in the importance of (...) metaphysical things. Orginal Confucianism completely reflected the times of reality, showing that it was trying to overcome the problems of human relations, social relations, and national relations of the time. Confucius's interests were also this point, and this was the specific realization of the practical appearance of life apart from metaphysical issues. Neo-Confucianism was the first step in overcoming the metaphysical theories of Buddhism and Taoism. It developed differently from the Orginal Confucianism, which was described by Dasan in that it compiled the studies and texts of Confucianism. In ‘I Ching’, dao is the main body of all things in heaven and earth. The rule of the world can be said to mean the actions of Providence. Therefore he who wants to rule over the world must save the dao, Those who seek to save the dao must save it, and when they realize that the heart comes from heaven, they need a restoration of nature to become one with the heaven. (shrink)

This paper employs Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuaity: Confessions of the Flesh to shed light on the perplexing phenomenon of vaccine (mandate) resistance. It argues that vaccine (mandate) resistance, while seemingly irresponsible and selfish, is entangled with the same modes of ‘truth-telling’ that have been part of the basic structure of modern Western governance for centuries. The paper begins by introducing the problem of vaccinate (mandate) resistance as a pedagogical problem for educators who want to teach (...) class='Hi'>social responsibility as informed by sound scientific knowledge and research. It then outlines the triad of knowledge/science, power/governance, and subjectivity/being at the heart of Foucault’s research as a necessary frame for understanding the sociopolitical and historical entanglements of science in modern Western governance. Lastly, the paper traces Foucault’s study of early Christian writers such as St. Augustine in terms of how they help establish basic practices of truth-telling that still impact how subjects relate to power today. The ultimate goal of the paper is to show how exploration of the social, historical, and political realities of science related issues are vital for understanding issues of collective existence today. (shrink)

Scholars celebrate Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a "prophet of justice for the oppressed" who identified the need "to see the great events of world history from below." But few address the thorniest aspect of Bonhoeffer's ethics for the marginalized: the mandates or divine commissions in church, marriage, work, and government made concrete within certain orders of relationship and authority. Bonhoeffer's marriage mandate poses particular problems as it reinforces unjust social structures. Fortunately, striking similarities between Bonhoeffer's ethics and feminist thought—attention (...) to concrete contexts, the role of emotion in moral reasoning, opposition to harmful dualisms, and emphasis on relationality—suggest that feminists are well-placed to critique and reconstruct Bonhoeffer's account. Construing the mandates as contexts for "genuine communities of argument" repurposes them to combat rather than condone injustice. (shrink)

This Article discusses the first steps of Israeli copyright law, dating it back to Ottoman times, which is earlier than thus far discussed in the literature. The account provides an early case of legal globalization through colonialism. The imposition of copyright law in Palestine enables us to observe the difficulties of applying an uninvited legal transplant and to trace its dynamics. The discussion queries the fate of copyright law in Mandate Palestine from two perspectives. First, the Colonial-Imperial point of (...) view: I ask why the British government imposed copyright law in the newly administered territory only a month after the establishment of the civil administration in 1920 and then replaced it in 1924. The answers are to be found in the general imperial agenda, its Palestine agenda, as well as the nature of copyright and the personal background of those involved. Second, from the local point of view, I trace the first steps of copyright law within the Hebrew community and especially within the literary circle in the 1920s. The local needs of the literary field concerned the author-publisher relationship, attribution, the integrity of the work and international transactions. However, the answers to these problems were not found in the law but rather in private ordering, namely contracts and social norms. (shrink)

Australian states exclude unvaccinated children from early education and care via ‘No Jab No Play’ policies, but some offer exemptions for the socially disadvantaged. Such mandatory vaccination policies provoke heated arguments about morality and potential downstream impacts, and the politics of which kinds of people get exempted from mandates are often fraught. Synthesising existing frameworks for considering the role of moral principles and rational-technical justifications in policymaking, we show how the same values can be the focus of both ‘rational-instrumental’ and (...) ‘morality’ frames, while ‘pragmatic’ approaches are crowded out by high epistemic or moral certainty. (shrink)

Urban communities in 21st century America are facing severe economic challenges, ones that suggest a mandate to contemplate serious changes in the way America does business. The middle class is diminishing in many parts of the country, with consequences for the economy as a whole. When faced with the loss of its economic base, any business community must make some difficult decisions about its proper role and responsibilities. Decisions to support the community must be balanced alongside and against responsibilities (...) to owners, shareholders and relevant “stakeholders” in a relatively new context. Corporations in urban communities “hollowed out” by white flight or urban sprawl must decide what level of support they can and should provide. This paper examines corporate decisions within the emerging urban prosperity initiatives, using the framework of integrative social contract theory proposed by Donaldson and Dunfee. We suggest that urban prosperity initiatives present a mandate on corporations sufficiently strong as to qualify as an authentic norm. Further, we argue that strict adherence to a corporate bottom line approach or “corporate isolationism” is not congruent with contemporary community standards. (shrink)

Used appropriately, reliance on science distinguishes public health from policymaking driven more by theory and opinion and enhances trust in public health interventions. Evidence-based vaccine policymaking aims to control communicable disease by urging decision makers to base policies on the best available evidence rather than politics or personal views. The results of this approach, such as smallpox eradication, have been dramatic. Historically, mandatory childhood vaccination has been perhaps the most successful evidence-based tool in combating many epidemics. Philosophically, vaccination mandates correspond (...) to the legal system’s dual role in codifying what society deems undesirable behavior and declaring beneficial social norms and values consistent with understandings of the social contract. Despite their effectiveness and philosophical grounding, vaccination mandates present serious legal and ethical questions. Public health policymakers have a continuing responsibility to rely on evidence not only as a basis for generating policy, but also for evaluating and improving elements of its legal design. (shrink)

Using relevant encyclicals issued over the last 100 years, the author extracts those principles that constitute the underpinnings of Catholic Social Teaching about the employment relationship and contemplates implications of their incorporation into human resource policy. Respect for worker dignity, for his or her family's economic security, and for the common good of society clearly emerge as the primary guidelines for responsible human resource management. Dovetailing these three Church mandates with the economic objectives of the firm could, in essence, (...) alter the firm's nature because profit motivations would be constrained by consideration for worker and societal welfare. Integration of Church teaching with current corporate goals should therefore impact greatly on a variety of human resource policies. (shrink)

This research documents consumers’ potential to monitor corporations’ License to Operate through their consumption responses to corporate social responsibility failures. The premise is that the type of social contracts or standards in place may determine how consumers, through their individual and collective behaviors, can play a direct role in influencing corporate behavior, when corporations fail to meet social responsibility standards. An experiment conducted with a large sample of consumers in the United States shows that consumers respond differently (...) to a company’s failure in its social responsibilities depending on whether the violated standard is a government mandate or a voluntary commitment and depending on the consumers’ own environmental consciousness. The findings highlight the potential power of individual consumers and consumer collectives in narrowing the governance gaps relative to social and environmental issues and reducing the likelihood of CSR failures. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility reporting on firms’ financial reporting quality using a quasi-natural experiment in China that mandates a subset of firms to report their CSR activities starting in 2008. We find that mandatory CSR disclosure firms constrain earnings management after the policy. The result is robust to a battery of sensitivity tests and more prominent for firms with lower analyst coverage. Further analyses reveal that upward earnings management by mandatory disclosure firms is (...) more likely to be caught after the policy. The findings suggest that mandatory CSR disclosure mitigates information asymmetry by improving financial reporting quality. (shrink)

In March 2010, President Obama signed into law The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Although there is much in the ACA that is endorsed by the Catholic health ministry, the many positive provisions of the ACA have been overshadowed for the Catholic Church and the Catholic healthcare community by the controversial provisions requiring access to all FDA-approved sterilization and contraceptive medications (75 Fed. Reg. 137 (19 July 2010)) Typically, these drugs and services have not been covered by the (...) health plans of many religious employers including Catholic hospitals, universities, and social service agencies. Acknowledging the existence of religious-based objections to the provisions of these .. (shrink)

We propose that corporations should be subject to a legal obligation to identify and internalise their social costs or negative externalities. Our proposal reframes corporate social responsibility as obligated internalisation of social costs, and relies on reflexive governance through mandated hybrid fora. We argue that our approach advances theory, as well as practice and policy, by building on and going beyond prior attempts to address social costs, such as prescriptive government regulation, Coasian bargaining and political CSR.

Many guidelines and commentators endorse the view that clinical research is ethically acceptable only when it has social value, in the sense of collecting data which might be used to improve health. A version of this social value requirement is included in the Declaration of Helsinki and the Nuremberg Code, and is codified in many national research regulations. At the same time, there have been no systematic analyses of why social value is an ethical requirement for clinical (...) research. Recognizing this gap in the literature, recent articles by Alan Wertheimer and David Resnik argue that the extant justifications for the social value requirement are unpersuasive. Both authors conclude, contrary to almost all current guidelines and regulations, that it can be acceptable across a broad range of cases to conduct clinical research which is known prospectively to have no social value. The present article assesses this conclusion by critically evaluating the ethical and policy considerations relevant to the claim that clinical research must have social value. This analysis supports the standard view that social value is an ethical requirement for the vast majority of clinical research studies and should be mandated by applicable guidelines and policies. (shrink)

Background: According to Gelfand et al., COVID-19 infection and case mortality rates are closely connected to the strength of social norms: “Tighter” cultures that abide by strict social norms are more successful in combating the pandemic than “looser” cultures that are more permissive. However, countries with similar levels of cultural tightness exhibit big differences in mortality rates. We are investigating potential explanations for this fact. Using data from Germany and Japan—two “tight” countries with very different infection and mortality (...) rates—we examined how differences in socio-demographic and other determinants explain differences in individual preventive attitudes and behaviors. Methods: We compared preventive attitudes and behaviors in 2020 based on real-time representative survey data and used logit regression models to study how individual attitudes and behaviors are shaped by four sets of covariates: individual socio-demographics, health, personality, and regional-level controls. Employing Blinder-Oaxaca regression techniques, we quantified the extent to which differences in averages of the covariates between Japan and Germany explain the differences in the observed preventive attitudes and behaviors. Results: In Germany and Japan, similar proportions of the population supported mandatory vaccination, avoided travel, and avoided people with symptoms of a cold. In Germany, however, a significantly higher proportion washed their hands frequently and avoided crowds, physical contact, public transport, peak-hour shopping, and contact with the elderly. In Japan, a significantly higher proportion were willing to be vaccinated. We also show that attitudes and behaviors varied significantly more with covariates in Germany than in Japan. Differences in averages of the covariates contribute little to explaining the observed differences in preventive attitudes and behaviors between the two countries. Conclusion: Consistent with tightness-looseness theory, the populations of Japan and Germany responded similarly to the pandemic. The observed differences in infection and fatality rates therefore cannot be explained by differences in behavior The major difference in attitudes is the willingness to be vaccinated, which was much higher in Japan. Furthermore, the Japanese population behaved more uniformly across social groups than the German population. This difference in the degree of homogeneity has important implications for the effectiveness of policy measures during the pandemic. (shrink)

Regulation and governance of medical research is frequently criticised by researchers. In this paper, we draw on Everett Hughes’ concepts of professional licence and professional mandate, and on contemporary sociological theory on risk regulation, to explain the emergence of research governance and the kinds of criticism it receives. We offer explanations for researcher criticism of the rules and practices of research governance, suggesting that these are perceived as interference in their mandate. We argue that, in spite of their (...) complaints, researchers benefit from the institutions of governance and regulation, in particular by the ways in which regulation secures the social licence for research. While it is difficult to answer questions such as: “Is medical research over-regulated?” and “Does the regulation of medical research successfully protect patients or promote ethical conduct?”, a close analysis of the social functions of research governance and its relationship to risk, trust, and confidence permits us to pose these questions in a more illuminating way. (shrink)

In April 1992 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was restricting the availability of silicone gel-filled breast implants to women enrolled in clinical trials. All candidates for breast reconstruction, but only a "very limited" number of augmentation candidates, would have access to the implants. This policy has been criticized as paternalistic, sexist, and unjustified by scientific data. I examine these charges and conclude that controversy surrounding the scientific data weakens the FDA's paternalistic mandate and that its policy (...) of treating reconstruction and augmentation candidates differently results in increased social injustice and perpetuates cultural biases concerning female beauty and women's rights to control their bodies. I also argue that these cultural biases shape women's subjective experience of their physical selves and should not, contrary to some feminist arguments, be viewed as precluding their giving informed consent to breast surgery. (shrink)

In this contribution, different elements which clarify the influence of the four yearly social elections on workers'participation are brought together. The author explains that representatives of only two advisory bodies on company level are elected. Nevertheless the social elections have an effect on a broader scale. The elections play a part in the protection of representatives in the trade union delegation, a third representative body on company level. Furthermore the elections can affect the relations which are situated above (...) the company level. Moreover a growing package of powers is granted to the workers' representatives. There is however an important difference between the social and the political elections. Political elections can cause a genuine change of power, social elections on the other hand can never change the postwar basic compromise: the employer preserves most of the decision power.The author outlines furthermore the battle necks of this participation mechanism. The most important bottleneck certainly is the low turn out of candidates for the social elections. For the first time this problem is analysed sectoraly over a longer period of time. It is concluded that there are great differences not only between the economic sectors and the non-economic sectors, but also between the economic sectors themselves. The author also indicates that the decline of active participation in the economic sector since 1975 is mainly situated in seven sectors, which deliver altogether 60% of the mandates in the profit sector. Finally the author touches upon two more bottlenecks, which are already discussed before but which remain nevertheless very important: the low presence of women as candidates and likewise in the distribution of seats, furthermore the relatively great amount of invalid votes in the electoral colleges of workers and young people. (shrink)

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are increasingly called on to provide high‐quality health‐care particularly for people who face significant barriers to accessing services. Although discourses of social justice have become relatively common in nursing and health services literature, critical analyses of how NP roles articulate with social justice issues have received less attention. In this study, we examine the role of NPs from a critical social justice perspective. A critical social justice lens raises morally significant questions, for example, (...) why certain individuals and groups bear a disproportionate burden of illness and suffering; what social conditions contribute to disparities in health and social status; and what social mandate NPs ought to develop in response to these realities. In our analysis, we draw on lessons learned from the initial Canadian experience with the introduction of NPs in the 1970s to consider the renewed and burgeoning interest in NPs in Canada, Australia and elsewhere. As we argue, a critical social justice perspective (in addition to the biomedical foci of NP practice) will be essential to sustaining long‐term, socially responsive NP roles and achieving greater equity in health and health‐care. (shrink)

Despite changes to research and practice, that, to some degree, acknowledge that people are shaped by their contexts, the treatment of mental illness remains largely focused on interventions that take place at the level of the individual. Conceptualizing mental illness as something that resides in individuals can lead to reliance on neurobiological and psychotherapeutic solutions, and away from conversations about not only contextual causes of mental distress, but also sociopolitical solutions to mental distress. Further, it can lead to the use (...) of mental health interventions that focus on the biology of an individual without a consideration for how those interventions themselves may have psychological, social, or political consequences that act to shape an individual's identity, agency, and relationship to their community. This paper examines one medicolegal intervention, the community treatment order, using the philosophical work of Grosz and Foucault to consider how this intervention affects the experience and construction of identity, and the impact of this on an individual's sense of agential membership in a community. This discussion aims to increase understanding of the individual and social implications of interventions for mental illness, and provide a conceptualization of the relationship between identity, agency, and ethics which can inform critical research and nursing practice more broadly. (shrink)

Although researchers have investigated the impact of social isolation on well-being, the recent quarantines due to COVID-19 resulted in a social isolation environment that was unique to any examined in the past. Because sleep is one of the endogenous drives that impacts short and long-term health and well-being, it is important to consider how social isolation during the COVID-19 government-mandated quarantines affected sleep and sleep habits. A number of researchers have addressed this question during the last 2 (...) years by examining several concepts related to possible changes in sleep during the quarantines. To best understand these recent results, the current mini review provides a background on the pre-pandemic literature on the effects of social isolation and loneliness with a focus on sleep and then summarizes the recent literature on sleep and sleep habits. In general, sleep was negatively impacted for many people during the pandemics but not all. One group that seemed to benefit from the pandemic in terms of sleep patterns, were younger people who could more easily adapt their sleep times to match their internal chronobiology. Given the potential broad impact of sleep on health and well-being, better understanding how social isolation impacts sleep is an important consideration for individuals, work organizations, and governments. (shrink)

In this article, we extend the concept of technology beyond the conventional understanding of systems and artifacts as embodiments of particular functionalities that are variously enacted in local settings. Technological artifacts or systems epitomize operational couplings that extend beyond the human-technology interface. Such couplings entail multiple, unobtrusive, back-staged links that evade human interpretation yet are critically involved in the reproduction and control of social relations. Cast in this light, technologies emerge as complex rationalized embodiments for structuring social relationships (...) and, in this quality, complement and occasionally compete with institutional modes of governance. We explore these ideas in the empirical context of cultural memory organizations (e.g., libraries, archives, museums). As the outcome of the technological developments that have marked the field over the last two decades, the operations of memory institutions increasingly mingle with those of information aggregators and search engines. These developments reframe longstanding professional practices of memory organizations and, in this process, challenge their institutional mandate. (shrink)

In recent years society has come to expect more from the “socially-responsible” company and the global HIV/AIDS pandemic in particular has resulted in some critics saying that the “Big Pharma” companies have not been living up to their social responsibilities. Corporate social responsibility can be understood as the socio-economic product of the organizational division of labor in complex modern society. Global poverty and poor health conditions are in the main the responsibilities of the world’s national governments and international (...) governmental organizations, which possess society’s mandate and appropriate organizational capabilities. Private enterprises have neither the societal mandate nor the organizational capabilities to feed the poor or provide health care to the sick intheir home countries or in the developing world. Nevertheless, private enterprises do have responsibilities to society that can be categorized as what they must do, what they ought do, and what they can do. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christian Social Ethics by Elmar NassAndrzej Dominik KucińskiChristian Social Ethics by Elmar Nass (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little-field, 2022), 512 pp.In his extraordinarily comprehensive work, Elmar Nass, professor for Christian social sciences and societal dialogue at the Academy for Catholic Theology of Cologne, Germany, delivers with what he promises [End Page 302] in the title of this great opus: it is a real guide to (...) Christian social ethics, including both its foundations and numerous fields of current application. Although the book was first published in Germany and some application parts refer rather to specific discussions in the Teutonic area, as the author himself says in the preface, his general intention to provide a "universal socio-ethical basis for argumentation" and the ambitious attempt to "make this work a starting point for globally effective Christian social ethics" (xiv) are fulfilled, as the book undoubtedly speaks to the universal questions of social ethics, while it invites a search for concrete solutions to regional problems by implementing the corresponding criteria and basic principles. Indeed, the original German perspective, in which the growing emphasis on the ultimate authority of human sciences in theology often leads to a Cinderella-like existence of genuine Christian traditions and proposals based on Revelation, may be understood as a productive challenge which incentives Nass's efforts to re-create a "substantive ethics" that is marginalized in the postmodernity (xviii). However, these efforts are not destined to flow into a kind of restoration or a mere archaeological appreciation of former Catholic propositions. Nass struggles rather for adequate answers corresponding to the present, but answers deeply rooted in the conviction that Christians still have something to say to the world based on their own timeless knowledge.Hence, it is understandable that, in the short introduction, the author first sets out the postmodern contexts of ethical tasks and, while dealing with secular orientations of the present, calls for an ethics that derives from respective views of humanity and society. For Nass, there is no reason to exclude the religious point of view from this dialogue. On the contrary, his anti-secularist programmatic statement—"Imagine there is a God" (xix)—is both courageous and provocative in a scientific world that forbids theology to give orientations to all the people, with the excuse of alleged lack of universalizability In doing this, Nass complies with Jesus's mandate to the disciples to be "leaven" in Matt 13:33 and light and salt of the earth in Matt 5:13 and following (xx). The rationale for addressing and advocating "substantive Christian social ethics" is its rationality and the author's trust in the "healthy democratic culture of debate" (xx), which is, however, understood in terms of dialogue around common values and positions rather than based on mere rules of secular discourse ethics. The chosen Catholic perspective is thereby situated in an ecumenical context and directed to a real dialogue with other competing ethics, both religious and secular, including the disposition to better understanding of one's own views. Out of this approach, Nass will propose some applications of Christian principles of social action. [End Page 303]These purposes determine the clear structure of the work, consisting of three main parts, divided in thirteen singular chapters. Part 1 ("The Mission") revives a concept which—at least under this specific term—is almost completely removed from mainstream theological debates in Germany, especially in ethical context. "Christians are in the world, but not of the world" (1)—that is how Nass begins his argumentation in favor of an indispensable missionary calling within Christianity. In my opinion, it is this part of the volume that deserves the most attention, as it expresses a sound, self-confident Christian awareness of being enabled and invited to do something good for the rest of the world, while starting from one's own metaphysical basis. Nass presents Christian social ethics without any inferiority complex, as if it were something to be hidden in the twenty-first-century world or as if Christians were compelled to merely repeat what the secular world permits them to say. Consequently, Nass addresses from a Christian perspective the question of goodness as... (shrink)

In recent years society has come to expect more from the “socially-responsible” company and the global HIV/AIDS pandemic in particular has resulted in some critics saying that the “Big Pharma” companies have not been living up to their social responsibilities. Corporate social responsibility can be understood as the socio-economic product of the organizational division of labor in complex modern society. Global poverty and poor health conditions are in the main the responsibilities of the world’s national governments and international (...) governmental organizations, which possess society’s mandate and appropriate organizational capabilities. Private enterprises have neither the societal mandate nor the organizational capabilities to feed the poor or provide health care to the sick intheir home countries or in the developing world. Nevertheless, private enterprises do have responsibilities to society that can be categorized as what they must do, what they ought do, and what they can do. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has existed in name for over 70 years. It is practiced in many countries and it is studied in academia around the world. However, CSR is not a universally adopted concept as it is understood differentially despite increasing pressures for its incorporation into business practices. This lack of a clear definition is complicated by the use of ambiguous terms in the proffered definitions and disputes as to where corporate governance is best addressed by many of (...) the national bodies legislating, mandating, or recommending CSR. This article explores the definitions of CSR as published on the Internet by governments in four countries (United Kingdom (UK), France, the United States, and Canada). We look for a consensus of understanding in an attempt to propose a more universal framework to enhance international adoption and practice of CSR using the triple bottom line. Our results concur with the findings of both national and international bodies and suggest that both within and among the countries in our study there exists no clear definition of the concept of CSR. While there are some similarities, there are substantial differences that must be addressed. We present a number of proposals for a more universal framework to define CSR. (shrink)