HIV prevention is a critical health issue in Nigeria; a country that has one of the worst HIV epidemic profiles in the world. With 270,000 new infections in 2012, Nigeria is a prime site for HIV prevention research. One effect of the HIV epidemic has been to revolutionalise ethical norms for the conduct of research: it is now considered unethical to design and implement HIV related studies without community engagement. Unfortunately, there is very little commensurate effort in building the capacity (...) of local persons to engage actively with researchers, and there is no existing platform to facilitate dialogue between researchers and communities engaged in research in Nigeria. In an effort to address this gap, we undertook a series of three community dialogues and two community-researcher interface meetings in Nigeria. This paper aims to give an empirical account of the dialogue from these community engagement processes and provide a resulting critique of the implementation of research ethics practices in Nigeria. It is anticipated that the outputs will: support researchers in designing community-based research protocols; inform ethics committees of key considerations during research protocol reviews from a community perspective; and inform policy makers and research sponsors about issues of primary concern to communities with respect to HIV research. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility functions as a positive signal to stakeholders that a firm is a responsible corporate citizen. However, CSR is increasingly becoming an ambiguous signal of organizational goodwill because many companies engage in CSR purely out of self-interest, rather than genuine altruism. In this paper, we integrate attribution theory with signaling theory to explore how stakeholders react when they receive additional signals that contradict the company’s intended positive CSR signal. Specifically, we argue that morally questionable CEO ethics in the (...) media negatively influences stakeholders’ CSR motive attributions, which in turn results in increased cynicism that ultimately impacts CSR support intentions and behaviors. We find support for our hypotheses in a quasi-experimental study of stakeholder media exposure to different types of CEOs. Our findings demonstrate that stakeholders consider CEO ethics an important signal of CSR motives, and will shun the CSR initiatives of morally questionable CEOs. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the institutional requirements for sustainable agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa. It examines the situation from the perspective of both the recipient and the donor of aid and identifies the institutional conditions under which Official Development Assistance (ODA) — a major source of funding for agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa — can become more effective in promoting sustainable development.Agriculture represents the major employment sector in the region (as high as 75 to 80 percent in some countries). However, this (...) high labor force contribution has not been translated into productivity for the sector. Also, bilateral and multilateral development agencies represent a major source of capital and technology for the region's development. Today, Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest recipient of official development assistance in the world, larger on a percentage and per capita basis than any other Third World region. Yet, the region has made only modest progress socioeconomically, compared to other developing regions and is now more dependent on food aid than ever. This raises an issue as to whether conventional technology transfer schemes are adequate in meeting the development needs of the region. Consequently, this study argues the following: that the present framework informing agricultural technology transfer to the region has been ineffective because environmental sustainability, energy efficiency, agricultural self-reliance (including domestic food security), and social equity have not been the central goals of programs. (shrink)

The publication ‘Governance arrangements for NHS Research Ethics Committees’ is clear in its recommendations about the composition of National Health Service research ethics committees in the United Kingdom. It highlights the need for a sufficiently broad range of experience and expertise, balanced age and gender distribution and every effort to be made to recruit members from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, as well as people with disabilities. It was considered that this composition would make it possible for the scientific, clinical (...) and methodological aspects of a research proposal to be reconciled with the welfare of research participants, and with broader ethical implications. Black and other ethnic minorities constitute 7.9 per cent of the UK population. Ideally, in any research ethics committee with a maximum of 18 members, at least one would be a member of the black or other ethnic minority groups. However, this does not appear to be the case; some committees having more than one, while most do not have any. This paper looks at the present position and suggests ways of improving recruitment and retention of members of these groups. (shrink)

The pigeon-inspired optimization algorithm is a category of a newly proposed swarm intelligence-based algorithm that belongs to the population-based solution technique. The MKP is a class of complex optimization problems that have many practical applications in the fields of engineering and sciences. Due to the practical applications of MKP, numerous algorithmic-based methods like local search and population-based search algorithms have been proposed to solve the MKP in the past few decades. This paper proposes a modified binary pigeon-inspired optimization algorithm named (...) for the 0 - 1 multidimensional knapsack problem. The utilization of the binary pigeon-inspired optimization for solving the multidimensional knapsack problem came with huge success. However, it can be observed that the BPIO converges prematurely due to lost diversity during the search activities. Given the above, the crossover operator is integrated with the landmark component of the BPIO to improve the diversity of the solution space. The MKP benchmarks from the Operations Research library are utilized to test the performance of the proposed binary method. Experimentally, it is concluded that the proposed Modified-BPIO has a better performance when compared with the BPIO and existing state-of-the-arts that worked on the same MKP benchmarks. (shrink)

This review examines issues relating to biomedical ethics and literature in the African drama The President’s Physician by Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale. The play investigates the psychological dilemma of Doctor Bituki Warunga, a personal physician to General Kalunga Ntibantunganyah who brutally and inhumanely rules Wavaria, a fictional African country. The doctor is faced with deciding to uphold the ethics of his profession versus terminating the tyrant’s life to set the nation free. The play aims to help budding medical doctors rightly (...) inculcate the principles of medical ethics—autonomy, beneficence, competence, and power—by providing a fictional platform to investigate difficult issues that can arise in clinical practice. The play highlights Warunga’s complex dilemma as he struggles to uphold the Hippocratic Oath and at the same time satisfy his conscience towards his contribution to his country’s freedom. This review explores the difficulties in decision-making when professional duties not only clash with personal preferences but also with the well-being of an entire nation. This discussion is done alongside the ethical concept of utilitarianism and also highlights significant literary concepts such as satire, symbolism, intertextuality, utopian aesthetics, and authorial vision as conveyed in the text. (shrink)

Purpose In considering the ubiquity of information systems and the increasingly important role served in modern business and service delivery, social media if properly leveraged gives potential competitive advantage to a company in its respective industry. With Paramount Web Nigeria Ltd. as a case study, this paper aims to focus on the important aspects of adopting social media as an IS such as data privacy principles and the role of social media in the context of a small internet service company. (...) Design/methodology/approach Relevant research information was relied upon to highlight the various factors involved with adopting social media as an IS. Findings Data handling and privacy policies must also be considered and properly devised if the concerned company is to effectively adopt social media as an IS. Decision-making tools such as SWOT analysis and the quality triangle are vital during the planning stages of deploying an IS. Research limitations/implications Research papers on aspects of social media as an IS especially in West African academia has been lacking. The challenge is in contextual information related to similar topics. Practical implications Findings detailed in this paper will serve to provide a better understanding of the important factors to be considered when adapting a new IS to an existing business. Originality/value This paper serves to highlight the potential factors to be considered when dealing with business ISs with a strong focus on social media and internet related services. (shrink)

While previous research has established that employees who have a more conscientious leader are more likely to perceive that their leader is ethical, the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this linkage remain unknown. In order to better understand the relationship between leader conscientiousness and ethical leadership, we examine the potential mediating role of leader moral reflectiveness, as well as the potential moderating role of decision-making autonomy. Drawing from social cognitive theory, results from two samples of workgroup leaders and their (...) immediate reports situated in Africa and Asia show that leader conscientiousness is positively related to leader moral reflectiveness, which in turn, is positively associated with employees’ assessment of ethical leadership. Furthermore, and consistent with our hypothesis, results from the two samples show that leader decision-making autonomy moderates the indirect path from leader conscientiousness to ethical leadership through moral reflectiveness, such that only morally reflective leaders who have high decision-making autonomy at work engage in ethical leadership behaviors. In our discussion, we highlight the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggest ways in which organizations can better foster ethical leadership. (shrink)

This article is the attempt of an historically oriented analysis focused on the role of Nigerian music as a cultural hub for the export of African cultural influences into the Black diaspora in the United States and its anticipation by the Free Jazz/Avantgarde-scene as well as the import of key-values related to the Black Power-movement to the African continent. The aim is to demonstrate the leading role and international impact of Nigeria's cultural industry among sub-saharan African nation states and its (...) specific ability to absorb and incorporate elements of Western culture. -/- After a short discussion of African influences on jazz music in general and the socio-political, cultural, and artistic context in which Free Jazz emerged, examples for the articulation of African consciousness among influencing key figures such as saxophonist John Coltrane or the Art Ensemble of Chicago are being presented. Furthermore, the personal and ideological links between the Avantgarde Jazz-scene and the Black Power-movement - especially the Black Panther Party - are made transparent. -/- In a second step the central influence of the Nigerian drum-pioneer Babatunde Olatunji on the Africanization of US-Jazz musicians, his personal and creative impact on John Coltrane, as well as the Black Power-movement is being highlighted. On the other hand, Coltrane, Free Jazz, and the Black Panther Party are being portrayed as a central creative and ideological turn in the career and work of Fela Kuti and towards political activism and his efforts to implement and apply the Africa-inspired Black Power -struggle of the US on the African continent in order to fight post-colonial forms of oppression. -/- . (shrink)