The concept of corporate social responsibility has been the subject of several academic contributions, but in the health sector the development of an interest in this subject is very recent. Although many practices in healthcare are already socially responsible, progressing from a series of socially responsible behaviours to a socially responsible organization entails a more consolidated awareness of the health sector’s mission and the needs of its participants. In this paper, we will review the different studies published that address the (...) relationship between the healthcare sector’s corporate responsibility and society, with the aims of individuating the prevailing foci that are emerging and categorizing the proposed contributions according to these foci: social responsibility and organization; social responsibility and social impact; social responsibility and competitiveness. Finally, the paper finishes with a personal definition of CSR and its correlated ethical roots. (shrink)

Social workers must often decide about priority at a case level, in a context of scarce resources. These decisions are disputable and controversial, which raises the question on what grounds are they made in practice. This article addresses that question through an empirical study of real-life case discussions in youth care in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. Toulmin’s argumentation model is used to analyse the data. The study finds that most case discussions are processed in a rather technical manner. (...) But where there is active deliberation, key incidents show that the decision-makers undertake active and personal interpretation of the situation at hand, and that they also take a personal stance on the criteria for assigning priority. In other words, their practice can be understood as a hermeneutical activity. The article’s main conclusion is that the prioritisation process illustrates the moral-political core that is present in any social work decision-making practice. As this moral-political core seems to be hidden most of the time behind a technical-rational approach, questions remain whether the professionals involved are aware that it characterises their own judgements and whether insights into its nature are stimulated. (shrink)

Nurses and physicians may experience ethical conflict when there is a difference between their own values, their professional values or the values of their organization. The distribution of limited health care resources can be a major source of ethical conflict. Relatively few studies have examined nurses' and physicians' ethical conflict with organizations. This study examined the research question ‘What are the organizational ethical conflicts that hospital nurses and physicians experience in their practice?’ We interviewed 34 registered nurses, 10 nurse managers, (...) and 31 physicians as part of a larger study, and asked them to describe their ethical conflicts with organizations. Through content analysis, we identified themes of nurses' and physicians' ethical conflict with organizations and compared the themes for nurses with those for physicians. (shrink)