This study compares computer-supported groups, i.e., groups using group support systems (GSS), and face-to-face groups using ethical decision-making tasks. A laboratory experiment was conducted using five-person groups of information systems professionals. Face-to-face (FTF) and GSS groups were compared in terms of their decision outcomes and group members' reactions. The results revealed that computer-supported and face-to-face groups showed no significant difference in terms of the decision outcomes of choice shift and decision polarity. However, FTF groups reached their decisions more quickly and (...) they were more successful in attaining group consensus than GSS groups. Subjects evaluated face-to-face communication more favorably than GSS interaction on most post-group measures related to perceived group processes and satisfaction. Despite these outcomes, some possibilities for using GSS technology in an ethical decision making context are examined. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is about the moral purpose of business and its proper relationship to society. We map the logical structure of CSR—its canonical core—and identify the view of CSR that is most consistent with CSR as driven by moral purpose as Moral CSR (CSRM). The numerous perspectives of CSR, which we term CSR memes, are complements to CSRM. A meme is an idea or usage diffusing within communities. Moral norms and what we term normatively injunctive warrants are implicit (...) in many CSR memes but have received a relative lack of explicit and systematic attention. A norm is an accepted standard for behavior. A warrant is an authoritative or authorizing instruction for behavior. All CSR memes contain three elements—a corporate actor, a relation, and nonmoral normative warrants, which we term constructive warrants. We argue that any CSR meme should include a fourth element—moral normative (injunctive) warrants linking explicitly to moral reasoning. Through sorting key CSR memes by their epistemological and compositional characteristics, we reveal the paucity of explicit attention to injunctive warrants. We resort memes according to social gains or losses, which are the outcomes of societal demand for and business supply of CSR. This analysis yields two proposed improvements for CSR reasoning. The first is a clearer picture of variable use of the term CSR in extant research. The second is how scholars can incorporate more explicitly moral elements of CSR in future work. (shrink)

Article published in Progress in Human Geography, Aug 2017. This is a pre-publication version of the article ; please see early online version at publisher website for final version.: This article examines rhythmanalysis within the context of Henri Lefebvre's critique of everyday life and identifies gaps in his framework from the vantage point of intersectional feminist scholarship. Intersectional rhythmanalysis, I argue, provides a framework - Géographie – Nouvel article.

Under the Canadian labour laws that govern workplace safety, wage, and other work conditions, ‘family’ workers are not covered by the law under special rules for agriculture. Among other legal exclusions, the family farm exclusion contributes to a dearth of basic work, health, and safety standards in the sector, despite the commercialization and industrialization of family farming activities. Through a focus on Alberta, Canada—where farm labour rules have only applied to agriculture since 2016—this article explores the family exclusion in relation (...) to family farming experiences with work and risk, based on interviews with farm operators, their family members, and farm employees in Alberta. While some participants continued to press for exemptions for farms from labour rules under the rationale that there is intrinsic safety within families, the findings also reveal how other participants have begun questioning this rationale, despite their overall support for the family farm exemption in Alberta. Using the lens of legal geography and critical perspectives on the family, we argue that the family is a significant but under-examined dynamic in the legal regimes governing farm labour and agricultural safety and health. Together, the law and dominant narratives about family farming treat farm operations as hyper-private domains, where operators have disproportionate power to dispose of their own work and the work of others how they wish. These legal geographies of hyper-privacy contribute to the indecent work conditions that characterize farm labour systems in Alberta and other jurisdictions. (shrink)

In this study, we test the interactive effect on ethical decision-making of (1) personal characteristics, and (2) personal expectanciesbased on perceptions of organizational rewards and punishments. Personal characteristics studied were cognitive moral developmentand belief in a just world. Using an in-basket simulation, we found that exposure to reward system information influenced managers’ outcome expectancies. Further, outcome expectancies and belief in a just world interacted with managers’ cognitive moral development to influence managers’ ethical decision-making. In particular, low-cognitive moral development managers who (...) expected that their organization condoned unethical behavior made less ethical decisions while high cognitive moral development managers became more ethical in this environment. Low cognitive moral development managers also behaved less ethically when their belief in a just world was high. (shrink)

In this study, we test the interactive effect on ethical decision-making of (1) personal characteristics, and (2) personal expectanciesbased on perceptions of organizational rewards and punishments. Personal characteristics studied were cognitive moral developmentand belief in a just world. Using an in-basket simulation, we found that exposure to reward system information influenced managers’ outcome expectancies. Further, outcome expectancies and belief in a just world interacted with managers’ cognitive moral development to influence managers’ ethical decision-making. In particular, low-cognitive moral development managers who (...) expected that their organization condoned unethical behavior made less ethical decisions while high cognitive moral development managers became more ethical in this environment. Low cognitive moral development managers also behaved less ethically when their belief in a just world was high. (shrink)

This paper provides a re-assessment of the significance of turning king's evidence in late medieval England through a re-examination of the use of approvers' appeals as a method of prosecution. It puts forward the hypothesis that the process was not only popular with felons, but also actively encouraged by the Crown. Exploring attitudes towards confessions and their admissibility, it compares and contrasts contemporary Continental prosecution practices and considers the extent to which the English legal system was developing a form of (...) public prosecution through the encouragement of approvers, mainly at times of political stress or during law enforcement drives. Analysis of the verdicts returned by juries on persons arrested and tried on the basis of approvers' confessions indicates a high incidence of acquittal. This apparent failure in the system is explained in terms of the prejudices and practices of the juries, judicial scrutiny of the appeals, and putative government policy. (shrink)

This volume surveys 150 law books of fundamental importance in the history of Western legal literature and culture. The entries are organized in three sections: the first dealing with the transitional period of fifteenth-century editions of medieval authorities, the second spanning the early modern period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, and the third focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors are scholars from all over the world. Each 'old book' is analyzed by a recognized specialist in (...) the specific field of interest. Individual entries give a short biography of the author and discuss the significance of the works in the time and setting of their publication, and in their broader influence on the development of law worldwide. Introductory essays explore the development of Western legal traditions, especially the influence of the English common law, and of Roman and canon law on legal writers, and the borrowings and interaction between them. The book goes beyond the study of institutions and traditions of individual countries to chart a broader perspective on the transmission of legal concepts across legal, political, and geographical boundaries. Examining the branches of this genealogical tree of books makes clear their pervasive influence on modern legal systems, including attempts at rationalizing custom or creating new hybrid systems by transplanting Western legal concepts into other jurisdictions. (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that mammalian chromosomes contain discretecis‐acting loci that control replication timing, mitotic condensation, and stability of entire chromosomes. Disruption of the large non‐coding RNA gene ASAR6 results in late replication, an under‐condensed appearance during mitosis, and structural instability of human chromosome 6. Similarly, disruption of the mouse Xist gene in adult somatic cells results in a late replication and instability phenotype on the X chromosome. ASAR6 shares many characteristics with Xist, including random mono‐allelic expression and asynchronous replication timing. (...) Additional “chromosome engineering” studies indicate that certain chromosome rearrangements affecting many different chromosomes display this abnormal replication and instability phenotype. These observations suggest that all mammalian chromosomes contain “inactivation/stability centers” that control proper replication, condensation, and stability of individual chromosomes. Therefore, mammalian chromosomes contain four types ofcis‐acting elements, origins, telomeres, centromeres, and “inactivation/stability centers”, all functioning to ensure proper replication, condensation, segregation, and stability of individual chromosomes. (shrink)

This study draws on Kohlberg''s Cognitive Moral Development Theory and Hofstede''s Culture Theory to examine whether cultural differences are associated with variations in ethical reasoning. Ethical reasoning levels for auditors from Australia and China are expected to be different since auditors from China and Australia are also different in terms of the cultural dimensions of long term orientation, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and individualism. The Defining Issues Tests measuring ethical reasoning P scores were distributed to auditors from Australia and China (...) including Hong Kong and The Chinese Mainland. Results show that auditors from Australia have higher ethical reasoning scores than those from China, consistent with Hofstede''s Culture Theory predictions. (shrink)

Many hold that aesthetic appreciation is sensitive to the authenticity or genuineness of an object. In a recent body of work, Carolyn Korsmeyer has defended the claim that genuineness itself is an aesthetic property. Korsmeyer’s aim is to explain our aesthetic appreciation of objects that afford a sense of being ‘in touch with the past’. In this paper, I argue that genuineness cannot explain our appreciation of these objects. There is no aesthetic experience of the genuine.

Some objects we value because they afford a felt connection with people, events, or places connected with their past. Visiting Canterbury cathedral, you encounter the place where, in 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered by four knights of Henry II. Knowing that you are standing in the very place where Becket’s blood was spilled gives the past event a sense of tangible reality. One feels ‘in touch with’ the past; history seems to ‘come alive’. In this paper, I propose an (...) explanation for the phenomenology of such experiences in terms of an imaginative activity that represents what an object is historically connected with as part of the object in the present. One imagines of the site of Becket’s murder Becket being murdered. According to my account, objects that embody their histories are representations in Kendall Walton’s sense: they have the function of serving as props in games of make-believe. (shrink)

A recent literature applies economic reasoning to restrict corporate social responsibility (CSR) to profitable opportunities. The underlying theory of the firmassumes widespread public company ownership and a net positive contribution to social welfare in relatively unfettered markets. This modern economic approach posits strict fiduciary responsibility of agents. Management, in this fiduciary role, should have no CSR discretion beyond the requirements of minimalist laws and customary ethics. Any profitable CSR option can be undertaken. Any unprofitable CSR action is defined as discretionary (...) altruism prohibited to fiduciary agents and recommended against for shareowners acting through the corporate form. The modern economic position shifts all unprofitable social issues into the sphere of public policy—which is then influenced by business on the basis of economic self-interest. There are two points of relaxation in this position. First, a firm may need to practice prudential altruism to forestall more costly action by governments and stakeholders. Second, management must consider productivity effects of employee sentiments about social issues and stakeholders. (shrink)

The community has legislatively conferred on external auditors a special but lucrative responsibility to provide fair and independent opinions about management''s preparation of company financial statements. In return, auditors are obliged by professional standards to act with integrity, independently and in the public interest. This study examined 174 auditors'' predisposition to provide just and fair judgements, using Kohlberg''s theory of developmental moral reasoning, one of the most widely accepted theories in justice psychology. Respondents came from five international audit firms in (...) Copenhagen. Results indicated that auditors with pre-conventional or low level of just reasoning or comprised 64 respondents, the largest group in the sample. The pre-conventional level suggests that people will act in their own self-interest and do the right only to avoid punishment. Pre-conventional auditors have the ability to "do deals", advantageous for business. When faced with an ethical crisis, however, auditors as this level will tend to focus on their own needs at the expense of others. The post-conventional or mid level of just reasoning comprised 59 auditors, second largest group in the sample. This level indicates that these auditors have the predisposition to act fairly on principal, particularly when faced with an ethical crisis. The conventional level or mid-just reasoning consisted of 51 auditors. People with a conventional level of just reasoning believe in law and order, the maintenance of the status quo, however they tend not to be critical of laws, nor authority even if those laws and authority are unjust or evil. (shrink)

A sociological conceptualisation of space moves beyond the material to the relational, to consider space as a social process. This paper draws on research that explored the reproduction of legitimated knowledge and power structures in intensive care units during encounters, between patients, who were experiencing mental illness, and their nurses. Semi‐structured telephone interviews with 17 intensive care nurses from eight Australian intensive care units were conducted in 2017. Data were analysed through iterative cycling between participants' responses, the literature and the (...) theoretical framework. The material and relational aspects of space in this context constitute a dynamic process that is concerned with the reproduction of everyday life, the preservation of the biomedical authority of intensive care, and the social othering of people experiencing mental illness. The work of theorists such as Löw, Harvey and Foucault underpins the exploration of space as a multi‐dimensional, malleable social process that both produces and is the product of social interaction and the social world. In this paper, we argue that the performative work of knowledge and power production and reproduction, considered here in relation to intensive care spaces, enables ongoing othering and disenfranchisement of people experiencing mental illness. (shrink)

In a recent article, Dawn Wilson (2021) has argued against single-stage accounts of photography by arguing against the latent photographic images upon which those accounts depend. Concomitantly, she argues that the only viable account of photography is multi-stage. Unlike single-stage accounts, multi-stage accounts do not postulate the existence of photographic images of any kind prior to development. Rather, according to multi-stage accounts, photographs are produced from “photographic registers.” In this Discussion Piece, I defend single-stage accounts by arguing that Wilson’s rejection (...) of latent photographic images is premised on an implausible view of what a latent photographic image is. Given a reasonable interpretation, the latent images described in single-stage accounts just are the photographic registers described in multi-stage accounts. (shrink)

The purpose of this research was to explore the concept of collaboration within a specific healthcare context and to include the perspectives of healthcare users, a position largely lacking in previous studies. In applying a critical theoretical approach, the focus was on, as an exemplar, mothers with newborn babies who had spent more than 48 hr in a special care nursery. Semistructured interviews were undertaken with child health nurses, midwives and mothers. The three key theoretical findings on collaboration generated in (...) the study point to layers of meanings around identity, knowledge and institutions of care. Findings from the interview data analysis were further examined through the lens of key policy documents. The research outcomes indicate that the concept of collaboration serves an important function in healthcare in obscuring the complexities and ambiguities that characterise the care continuum. The study concludes the need for a more critical approach to the assumptions that underlie the language of collaboration and the implications for practice in healthcare. (shrink)

One of the gravest charges that has been brought against Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” is that of circularity. Hume is accused of defining good art in terms of “true judges,” and of defining true judges in terms of their ability to judge good art. First, I argue that Hume avoids circularity since he offers a way of identifying good art that is logically independent of the verdict of true judges. Second, I argue that this clarifies an enduring (...) puzzle in the scholarship on Hume’s essay: why he appears to offer not one but two standards of taste. Hume’s standard does not consist of general rules; however, Hume needs general rules to establish that some individuals’ tastes are more “delicate” than others’. (shrink)

Freud’s famous essay “The ‘Uncanny’” is often poorly understood. In this paper, I clear up the popular misconception that Freud identifies all uncanny phenomena with the return of repressed infantile complexes by showing that he offers not one but two theories of the uncanny: “return of the repressed,” and another explanation that has to do with the apparent confirmation of “surmounted primitive beliefs.” Of the two, I argue that it is the latter, more often overlooked theory that faces fewer serious (...) objections and carries greater explanatory power in respect of the uncanny. (shrink)

Abstract:International business norms do not exist. Content and development of such norms is a significant research question for business ethics scholarship. Any norms must address difficult practical and moral problems facing multinational enterprises. The author’s thesis is as follows. A key circumstance is that international relations remain a Hobbesian state of nature. The theoretical solution of a global sovereignty for norm formulation and enforcement is unlikely. The business ethics literature proposes other insightful but theoretical and conflicting solutions to abstract wealth-responsibility (...) and universalism-relativism controversies. Theoretical convergence seems unlikely. Evolution of multiple international policy regimes fragmented by policy arena is more probable. Regimes will typically be neither morals by agreement nor a morality of the marketplace. Regime development can occur in various other ways. Moral leadership, by firms, stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations or governments, can be a vital force. Formal ethical theories can inform and guide such leadership initiatives. This process perspective is applied to several recent case examples cited here as supporting evidence: anti-corruption, labor, environmental, human rights, and fiduciary responsibility initiatives. (shrink)

:International business norms do not exist. Content and development of such norms is a significant research question for business ethics scholarship. Any norms must address difficult practical and moral problems facing multinational enterprises. The author’s thesis is as follows. A key circumstance is that international relations remain a Hobbesian state of nature. The theoretical solution of a global sovereignty for norm formulation and enforcement is unlikely. The business ethics literature proposes other insightful but theoretical and conflicting solutions to abstract wealth-responsibility (...) and universalism-relativism controversies. Theoretical convergence seems unlikely. Evolution of multiple international policy regimes fragmented by policy arena is more probable. Regimes will typically be neither morals by agreement nor a morality of the marketplace. Regime development can occur in various other ways. Moral leadership, by firms, stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations or governments, can be a vital force. Formal ethical theories can inform and guide such leadership initiatives. This process perspective is applied to several recent case examples cited here as supporting evidence: anti-corruption, labor, environmental, human rights, and fiduciary responsibility initiatives. (shrink)

I propose a definition of the uncanny: an anxious uncertainty about what is real caused by an apparent impossibility. First, I outline the relevance of the uncanny to art and aesthetics. Second, I disambiguate theoretical uses of ‘uncanny’ and establish the sense of the term that I am interested in—namely, an emotional state directed towards particular objects in the world which are characteristically eerie, creepy, and weird. Third, I look at Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ (...) as a means of drawing out the conditions that I claim are essential to uncanny experiences, and then elaborate the terms of my proposed definition. Finally, I show how the definition accounts for two paradigmatic kinds of uncanny phenomena: cases of ‘uncanny resemblances’, which include twins, doppelgangers, and very lifelike representations of the human body; and unlikely coincidences of events. (shrink)

ZHOU Y, WINDSOR C, COYER F and THEOBALD K. Nursing Inquiry 2010; 17: 186–196Ambivalence and the experience of China-educated nurses working in AustraliaThe last decade has seen an increase in research on the experience of immigrant nurses. There are two prevailing approaches in this body of work. One is a focus on the positive or negative aspects of the experience, and the other, a depiction of the experience as a linear movement from struggle to a comfortable state. Based on (...) our study findings on the experience of China-educated nurses working in Australia, this study proposes that the concept of ambivalence is more appropriate in portraying the experience of immigrant nurses. Several sources of ambivalence experienced by the participants are represented: a disparity between expectation and reality, conflicting social and cultural norms, the dual reference points of comparison, divergent interests within families, and a sense that although it is unsatisfactory, it is hard to go back. We argue that immigration generates various forms of ambivalence and immigrant nurses must live with more or less ambivalence. The notion of ambivalence can explain a range of behaviours and situations beyond the scope of rational-choice explanations. To date, ambivalence as a theoretical concept in understanding the experience of immigrant nurses has been either ignored or insufficiently addressed in the literature. (shrink)

This article proposes a specific logic of dynamics for integrative social contracts theory that combines two empirically oriented process extensions strengthening concreteness of Donaldson and Dunfee’s conceptualization, namely international policy regime theory and Tiebout migration. While either would help “dynamize” and “concretize” ISCT, the two combined are even more insightful. Real-world policy regime processes can develop concrete action-guiding norms instantiating hypernorms to guide business decisions. Donaldson and Dunfee placed empirical reliance on expectation of converging parallel evolution of universal principles and (...) authentic local values. ISCT remains vague on how global or local norms can develop and change, for two reasons. First, ISCT does not explain mechanisms for how proposed hypernorms can become actual global norms and also become accepted across extant authentic communities. International policy regime theory explains how hypernorms can become instantiated as global norms expressed in policy regimes. Second, a basic element in ISCT is implied consent positing free exit from voluntary moral communities. Empirically, individuals or businesses may be unable to exit from undesired membership in authentic communities to which they do not consent. The Tiebout migration model provides valuable insights concerning how substantive mobility or its absence improves on the minimum ISCT assumption of implied consent. An integrated logic of ISCT dynamics generates a three-level framework in which instantiated hypernorms and authentic community norms can empirically change, and individuals or businesses can migrate more freely across extant communities. (shrink)

Dynamics concerns the process of change in variable conditions through time at any level of analysis. Various important issues or topics in stakeholder theory and practice involve consideration of change over time and thus unavoidably involve dynamics. While dynamics has received explicit recognition in stakeholder literature, dynamic analysis remains partly tacit and suffused through the literature. One reason is that dynamics remains difficult to model even in economics. This article provides a basic orientation to stakeholder dynamics as a key conceptual (...) and methodological issue for stakeholder thinking. This article identifies current literature concerning stakeholder dynamics and evaluates future directions in dynamic reasoning that would help build stakeholder theory and improve practice of stakeholder management. Notions of competition, influence strategies, change in stakeholder networks, mindsets, salience or values, learning, creative destruction, long-term sustainability, stakeholder reciprocity, sustainable development, and value creation all embed change and thus time dynamics. Static complexity and heterogeneity across units-of-analysis are not the same as dynamics but do also change over time. Dynamics concerns how change process influences consequences (later in time) in relationship to antecedents (earlier in time). Management copes with change process, as much as with complexity and variation in antecedents and consequences. (shrink)

Vaesen infers unique properties of mind from the appearance of specific cultural innovation – a correlation without causal direction. Shifts in habitat, population density, and group dynamics are the only independently verifiable incentives for changes in cultural practices. The transition from Acheulean to Late Stone Age technologies requires that we consider how population and social dynamics affect cultural innovation and mental function.

WINDSOR C, DOUGLAS C and HARVEY T. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 213–222 Nursing and competencies — a natural fit: the politics of skill/competency formation in nursingThe last two decades have seen a significant restructuring of work across Australia and other industrialised economies, a critical part of which has been the appearance of competency based education and assessment. The competency movement is about creating a more flexible and mobile labour force to increase productivity and it does so by redefining work (...) as a set of transferable or ‘soft’ generic skills that is transportable and is the possession of the individual. This article sought to develop an analysis of competency based clinical assessment of nursing students across a bachelor of nursing degree course. This involved an examination of a total of 406 clinical assessment tools that covered the years 1992–2009 and the three years of a bachelor degree. Data analysis generated three analytical findings: the existence of a hierarchy of competencies that prioritises soft skills over intellectual and technical skills; the appearance of skills as personal qualities or individual attributes; and the absence of context in assessment. The article argues that the convergence in nursing of soft skills and the professionalisation project reform has seen the former give legitimacy to the enduring invisibility and devaluation of nursing work. (shrink)

This paper proposes an ecological approach to the perception and interpretation of signs. The theory draws upon the ecological approach of James Gibson . It is proposed that cultural and natural perception can both be explained in terms of the direct pick-up of structured information and the Gibsonian concept of affordances without having to invoke a sharp distinction between direct and indirect perception. The application of the theory is exemplified through attention to language and to the visual and audio arts.