This study focuses on CEO hubris and its detrimental effect on corporate financial performance along with an examination of critical corporate governance contingencies that may moderate the negative effect. From 654 observations of 164 Korean firms over the years 2001–2008, we found that CEO power exacerbated the negative effect of CEO hubris on corporate financial performance, whereas board vigilance mitigated it. This study provides empirical evidence that entrenchment problems arising from CEO hubris would be exacerbated as CEOs become more powerful, (...) but weakened as board of directors become more vigilant. Theoretical contributions and practical implications will be discussed. (shrink)

An energy efficiency scenario (Joint Institute for a Sustainable Energy and Environmental Future) demonstrates that an energy future built on the use of cost-effective, high-efficiency technologies is clearly within the grasp of South Korea and would justify a nuclear power moratorium with significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions. This is a promising result, especially because applications of other sustainable energy options, such as renewables, decentralized technologies, material recycling/reuse, ecologically based land use planning, forest conservation, sustainable agriculture, and redirection of economic development (...) toward an environment-friendly industrial base, are not included in the analysis. Here lies one of the most fundamental policy choices of the newcentury: Will we build a sustainable energy and environmental future, or will we send forward the burdens and risks of a policy regime that is unwilling to value the future beyond the satisfaction of short-term interests and convenience? It is a critical time for South Korean policy making. (shrink)

As the most frequently used tool for measuring empathy, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is often scored by researchers arbitrarily and casually. Many commonly used IRI scoring approaches and their corresponding measurement models are unverified, which may make the conclusions of subsequent variable relation studies controversial and even misleading. We make the first effort to summarize these measurement models and to evaluate rationality of the common scoring methods of the IRI by confirmatory factor analysis, focusing on model fitting, factor loading, (...) and model-based reliability simultaneously. The results show that most of these models do not fit well, indicating that the scoring approaches of the IRI corresponding to these models may be problematic. Relatively speaking, better scoring approaches of the IRI include summing empathic concern and perspective taking as the total score of the IRI and reporting the score of perspective taking as cognitive empathy. (shrink)

Our understanding of the cognitive functions of the human brain has tremendously benefited from the population functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies in the last three decades. The reliability and replicability of the fMRI results, however, have been recently questioned, which has been named the replication crisis. Sufficient statistical power is fundamental to alleviate the crisis, by either “going big,” leveraging big datasets, or by “going small,” densely scanning several participants. Here we reported a “going small” project implemented in our (...) department, the Bergen breakfast scanning club (BBSC) project, in which three participants were intensively scanned across a year. It is expected this kind of new data collection method can provide novel insights into the variability of brain networks, facilitate research designs and inference, and ultimately lead to the improvement of the reliability of the fMRI results. (shrink)

Social robots and their interactions with children are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with the emergence of child-robot relationships as a likely result. However, adequate measurement instruments that tap into concepts associated with child-robot relationship formation are scarce. We aimed to develop three measures that can be used to assess children’s closeness to, trust in, and perceived social support from, a social robot. We established the validity and reliability of these measures among 87 Dutch children aged 7 to 11 years old. Because (...) of their shortness, the measures can efficiently be applied by scholars aiming to gain insight into the general process of child-robot relationship formation and its specific sub-processes, that is, the emergence of closeness, trust, and perceived social support. (shrink)

This review aimed to explore nursing literature and research on dignity in care of inpatients and to evaluate how the care patients received in the hospital setting was related to perceived feelings of being dignified or undignified. Studies conducted between 2000 and 2010 were considered, using Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature and MEDLINE, and the search terms ‘patient dignity’, ‘dignity in care’, ‘human dignity and nursing’ and ‘dignity and nursing ethics’. Findings revealed, from the perspectives of nurses (...) and patients, that dignity in care in the hospital setting is seen to be influenced by physical environment, staff attitude and behaviour, organisational culture and patient independence. This review can help nurses to better understand dignity in care, and for policy makers, there are implications about determining the physical environment, staff attitude and behaviour and organisational culture needed to promote patient dignity in nursing. By identifying the most important factors from patients’ and nurses’ perspectives that contribute to dignity in care, nursing interventions, such as campaigns and education in clinical practice, can be developed. (shrink)

Religion is often understood to play a positive role in shaping moral attitudes among believers. We assessed the relationship between church members’ levels of felt connectedness to their respective congregations and perceived similarity in personal and congregational moral values, and whether there was a relationship between these and the amount of time spent in synchronous movement or singing during worship. The similarity between personal and perceived congregational moral importance was correlated with feelings of closeness to one’s congregation but not by (...) the amount of time spent in synchronous movement or singing. Differences in moral foundations scores and in moral importance of specific issues were found between different theological traditions. These findings demonstrate that, for churchgoers, there is a relationship between the use of music or synchronous movement in a church service and feelings of social bonding and there is also a relationship between the degree to which churchgoers identify with their church community and the degree to which they believe their priorities match those of their church. Furthermore, differences in theological tradition appear to be reflected in differences in moral values. (shrink)

One in three university students experiences mental health problems during their study. A similar percentage leaves higher education without obtaining the degree for which they enrolled. Research suggests that both mental health problems and academic underperformance could be caused by students lacking control and purpose while they are adjusting to tertiary education. Currently, universities are not designed to cater to all the personal needs and mental health problems of large numbers of students at the start of their studies. Within the (...) literature aimed at preventing mental health problems among students (e.g., anxiety or depression), digital forms of therapy recently have been suggested as potentially scalable solutions to address these problems. Integrative psychological artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of a chatbot, for example, shows great potential as an evidence-based solution. At the same time, within the literature aimed at improving academic success, the online life-crafting intervention in which students write about values and passions, goals, and goal-attainment plans has shown to improve the academic performance and retention rates of students. Because the life-crafting intervention is delivered through the curriculum and doesn’t bear the stigma that is associated with therapy, it can reach larger populations of students. But life-crafting lacks the means for follow-up or the interactiveness that online AI-guided therapy can offer. In this paper, we propose to integrate the current literature on chatbot interventions aimed at the mental health of students with research about a life-crafting intervention that uses an inclusive curriculum-wide approach. When a chatbot asks students to prioritize both academic as well as social and health-related goals and provides personalized follow-up coaching, this can prevent -often interrelated- academic and mental health problems. Right on-time delivery, and personalized follow-up questions enhance the effects of both -originally separated- intervention types. Research on this new combination of interventions should use design principles that increase user-friendliness and monitor the technology acceptance of its participants. (shrink)

We argue in this paper that so-called new wave reductionism fails to capture the nature of the interlevel relations between psychology and neuroscience. Bickle (1995, Psychoneural reduction of the genuinely cognitive: some accomplished facts, Philosophical Psychology, 8, 265-285; 1998, Psychoneural reduction: the new wave, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) has claimed that a (bottom-up) reduction of the psychological concepts of learning and memory to the concepts of neuroscience has in fact already been accomplished. An investigation of current research on the phenomenon (...) of long-term potentiation reveals that this claim overstates the facts. Both the psychological and the neural concepts involved have not yet stabilized and face further correction under the influence of both bottom-up and top-down selection pressures. In addition, psychological concepts often refer to functions, and functions are indispensable and irreducible. Function ascriptions pick out objective patterns involving historical factors and distal goals. This view of functions implies that psychological facts cannot be simply read off from the neurophysiological facts. Although psychological theorizing is constrained by neurophysiology (and vice versa), psychology remains distinct at least to some degree. (shrink)

Over recent years, the issue of corruption in the public construction sector has attracted increasing attention from both practitioners and researchers worldwide. However, limited efforts are available for investigating the underlying factors of corruption in this sector. Thus, this study attempted to bridge this knowledge gap by exploring the underlying factors of corruption in the public construction sector of China. To achieve this goal, a total of 14 structured interviews were first carried out, and a questionnaire survey was then administered (...) to 188 professionals in China. Two iterations of multivariate analysis approaches, namely, stepwise multiple regression analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling were successively utilized to analyze the collected data. In addition, a case study was also conducted to triangulate the findings obtained from the statistical analysis. The results generated from these three research methods achieve the same conclusion: the most influential underlying factor leading to corruption was immorality, followed by opacity, unfairness, procedural violation, and contractual violation. This study has contributed to the body of knowledge by exploring the properties of corruption in the public construction sector. The findings from this study are also valuable to the construction authorities as they can assist in developing more effective anti-corruption strategies. (shrink)

Compare with other professions, teachers are reported to have a higher risk of poor mental health. This study examined the relationships between emotional intelligence, perceived organizational justice, and mental health among Chinese high school teachers. Three hundred and eighty-one high school teachers, with their age range between 21 and 50 years, were administered the Emotional Intelligence Scale, Perceived Organizational Justice Scale, and Mental Health Scale. The result found that emotional intelligence and perceived organizational justice directly influence the mental health of (...) high school teachers. In addition, perceived organizational justice mediated the association between emotional intelligence and mental health. Moreover, the present study analyzes the different role of subtypes of perceived organizational justice on the relationships between emotional intelligence and mental health, and the results showed that the mediating effects of perceived distributive justice and interactive justice on emotional intelligence and mental health are not significant, only the perceived procedural justice mediated the relationships between emotional intelligence and teachers’ mental health. The results are discussed in a conceptual context. (shrink)

Response strategy is a key for preventing widespread corruption vulnerabilities in the public construction sector. Although several studies have been devoted to this area, the effectiveness of response strategies has seldom been evaluated in China. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the effectiveness of response strategies for corruption vulnerabilities through a survey in the Chinese public construction sector. Survey data obtained from selected experts involved in the Chinese public construction sector were analyzed by factor analysis and partial (...) least squares-structural equation modeling. Analysis results showed that four response strategies of leadership, rules and regulations, training, and sanctions, only achieved an acceptable level in preventing corruption vulnerabilities in the Chinese public construction sector. This study contributes to knowledge by improving the understanding of the effectiveness of response strategies for corruption vulnerabilities in the public construction sector of developing countries. (shrink)

Student performance prediction aims to evaluate the grade that a student will reach before enrolling in a course or taking an exam. This prediction problem is a kernel task toward personalized education and has attracted increasing attention in the field of artificial intelligence and educational data mining. This paper provides a systematic review of the SPP study from the perspective of machine learning and data mining. This review partitions SPP into five stages, i.e., data collection, problem formalization, model, prediction, and (...) application. To have an intuition on these involved methods, we conducted experiments on a data set from our institute and a public data set. Our educational dataset composed of 1,325 students, and 832 courses was collected from the information system, which represents a typical higher education in China. With the experimental results, discussions on current shortcomings and interesting future works are finally summarized from data collections to practices. This work provides developments and challenges in the study task of SPP and facilitates the progress of personalized education. (shrink)

This study is concerned with the moral dilemma that stems from the digital manipulation of magazine ads to render models thinner. Exposure to the "thin ideal" has been linked to such damaging psychological responses as body dissatisfaction, loss of self-esteem, and ultimately to disordered eating behaviors. However, the artistic freedom of photo editors is a cherished value that conflicts with the concern for public health. Findings suggest that, although aware of the prevalence of digital editing, readers disapprove of its use (...) in rendering models thinner, and judge it to be unethical and unfair. Findings are discussed with regard to the role of education in helping readers discount manipulated images. (shrink)

The doctrine of eliminative materialism holds that belief-desire psychology is massively referentially disconnected. We claim, however, that it is not at all obvious what it means to be referentially (dis)connected. The two major accounts of reference both lead to serious difficulties for eliminativism: it seems that elimination is either impossible or omnipresent. We explore the idea that reference fixation is a much more local, partial, and context-dependent process than was supposed by the classical accounts. This pragmatic view suggests that elimination (...) is not the prime model for understanding the complex relations between the mind and brain sciences, and that we have little ground for concluding that in general psychological kinds do not exist. We suggest that reference changes are better seen as continuous rather than completely eliminative. (shrink)

Drawing on theoretical work on humans’ adaptive capacity, we propose that supervisors’ perception of top management’s high bottom-line mentality (BLM) has a dysfunctional effect on their ethical leadership practices. Specifically, we suggest that these perceptions hinder supervisors’ empathy, which eventuates in less ethical leadership practices. We also investigate, in a first-stage moderated mediation model, how supervisors high in trait mindfulness are resistant to the ill effects of perceptions of top management’s high BLM. Supervisors high (versus low) in this trait are (...) less likely to respond to perceptions of top management’s high BLM with reduced empathy that then hinders ethical leadership. Results from a multi-wave, multi-source sample of working adults from the Chinese high technology industry provide general support for our theoretical model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

It is evident, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic that has physicians confronting death and dying at unprecedented levels along with growing data suggesting that physicians who care for dying patients face complex emotional, psychological and behavioural effects, that there is a need for their better understanding and the implementation of supportive measures. Taking into account data positing that effects of caring for dying patients may impact a physician’s concept of personhood, or “what makes you, ‘you’”, we adopt Radha (...) Krishna’s Ring Theory of Personhood (RToP) to scrutinise the experiences of physicians working in intensive care units (ICU) using a fictional scenario that was inspired by real events. The impact of death and dying, its catalysts, internal constituents, external factors, dyssynchrony, and buffers, specific to ICU physicians, were identified and explored. Such a framework allows for ramifications to be considered holistically and facilitates the curation of strategies for conflict resolution. This evaluation of the RToP acknowledges the experience and wide-ranging effects it has on ICU physicians. As such, our findings provide insight into their specific needs and highlight the importance of support on a personal and organisational level. Although further research needs to be conducted, the RToP could serve as the basis for a longitudinal assessment tool supported by the use of portfolios or mentorship due to their provision of personalised, appropriate, specific, timely, accessible and long-term support. (shrink)

In this study, the levels of knowledge, awareness, and acceptance of research misconduct were investigated among the Pharmacy academics and students in Malaysia. A cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire was carried out. A total of 393 pharmacy academics and students in Malaysia were involved. Perceived research misconduct, as defined in this study as the perception of any research misconduct performed or observed by the respondents at their institution, was captured and further analyzed. The data was analysed using PLS-SEM to (...) assess the hypotheses which were formulated prior to the survey. The findings show that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between the awareness of terminologies regarding research misconduct and perceived research misconduct in the workplace of respondents. However, the acceptance of unethical practices in research demonstrates a negative correlation with perceived research misconduct. Knowledge and awareness regarding research misconduct have no statistically significant relationship with perceived research misconduct in this study. Both awareness of terminologies and acceptance of unethical practices explained a 10.8% variance in perceived research misconduct. Therefore, our study indicates that the awareness, knowledge, and acceptance of research misconduct might not be the main predictors of questionable conduct of research among pharmacy academics and students. Future study on the relationship between other factors which might contribute to research misconduct is highly recommended to investigate the significant contributing factors of irresponsible conduct of research among the Pharmacy academics and students in Malaysia. (shrink)

Using the promulgation of Green Credit Guidelines in China as the research setting, this paper exploits a quasi-natural experiment to examine the impact of green credit policy on the stock price crash risk of heavy-polluting firms. The results show that green credit policy significantly increases the risk of stock price crash of heavy-polluting firms. Such impact is transmitted through increased financial constraints and reduced information transparency. In addition, we find that the impact of green credit policy on the stock price (...) crash risk is more pronounced in firms with weak external governance and a small size. Our findings provide policy implications for mitigating corporate risks and promoting corporate sustainability. (shrink)

As an enabler of environmental sustainability, Green information technology (IT) has become an emerging topic of interest in both academic and business communities. Despite its importance, confusions exist in the content and scope of Green IT practice. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of Green IT practice.,First 14 widely accepted Green IT practice topics were identified from prior research and a taxonomy was developed to categorize them. Using the content analysis method, these (...) topics were examined in the sustainability reports of 30 IT companies in 2014 Fortune 500. A quantity–quality portfolio framework was developed and applied to measure and assess the Green IT practices of the selected samples.,Currently, the Green IT practice is still in its infancy. Both research and practice attention are now focusing on IT’s direct impacts and enabling impacts, while overlooking the systemic impacts, on natural environment. The possible reasons for the current state and the recommendations for future research and practice are provided.,Theoretically, this paper identified 14 widely accepted Green IT practice topics and developed a taxonomy for categorizing them. The taxonomy and topics provide a theoretical basis for future examination on Green IT practice-related issues. Practically, the findings of this paper provide guidelines for Green IT practice and directions for both Green IT developers and adopters in their decision-making. (shrink)

RILM Index is a partially controlled vocabulary designated to index scholarly writings on music and related subjects, created and curated by Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale. It has been developed over 50 years and has served the music community as a primary research tool. This analytical review of the characteristics of RILM Index reveals several issues, related to the Index’s history, that impinge on its usefulness. An in-progress thesaurus is presented as a possible solution to these issues. RILM Index, despite (...) being imperfect, provides a foundation for developing an ontological structure for both indexing and information retrieval purposes. (shrink)

The sharp changes in oil prices since 2004 featured a nonlinear data-generating mechanism which displayed bubble-like behavior. A popular view is that such a salient pattern cannot be explained by shifts in economic fundamentals, but was driven by speculative bubbles as a consequence of the increased financialization of oil future markets. Testing this hypothesis, however, is challenging since the fundamental component of the oil price is unobservable. This paper attempts to isolate the contribution of speculative bubbles and fundamentals to the (...) evolution of oil prices by providing a stylized model of commodity pricing. Motivated by our theoretical model, we adopt a continuous-time model with a random and time-varying persistence parameter to empirically investigate the presence of speculative bubbles in daily oil future prices over the period April 1983 to June 2020. We do not find any evidence in favor of speculative bubbles, although we indeed find that oil prices exhibit episodes of unstable behavior after 2004. (shrink)

PurposeAs fake information has become the norm on the internet, it is important to investigate how skepticism impacts an individual’s attitude toward word-of-mouth (eWOM). This study examines eWOM skepticism via three dimensions: suspicion of motivation, suspicion of truthfulness and suspicion of identity. It investigates not only which of the three dimensions is more influential in eWOM situations but also the variations and relationships among these three. Furthermore, this study evaluates how an individual’s dispositional trust and perceptions regarding structural assurance can (...) impact each dimension, which in turn affects the assessment of the eWOM messages’ credibility.Design/methodology/approachUsing an online scenario-based survey, data were collected via Amazon Mechanical Turk from 195 participants in the U.S. PLS and cluster analysis were used to analyze the data.FindingsThe results reveal that the suspicion of identity play a major role in message credibility assessment and that people who are naturally less likely to trust others also hold higher suspicion of motivation and truthfulness. Further, structural assurance has significant negative effects on all three dimensions.Practical implicationsThe findings highlight the importance of enhancing the protective measures on eWOM platforms and call for stricter regulations to prevent organizations from adopting deceptive eWOM propagandas.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the literature by exploring the impact of skepticism on eWOM message credibility assessment and helping to validate this newly created construct by considering eWOM skepticism as a formative construct. (shrink)

PurposeAs fake information has become the norm on the internet, it is important to investigate how skepticism impacts an individual’s attitude toward word-of-mouth (eWOM). This study examines eWOM skepticism via three dimensions: suspicion of motivation, suspicion of truthfulness and suspicion of identity. It investigates not only which of the three dimensions is more influential in eWOM situations but also the variations and relationships among these three. Furthermore, this study evaluates how an individual’s dispositional trust and perceptions regarding structural assurance can (...) impact each dimension, which in turn affects the assessment of the eWOM messages’ credibility.Design/methodology/approachUsing an online scenario-based survey, data were collected via Amazon Mechanical Turk from 195 participants in the U.S. PLS and cluster analysis were used to analyze the data.FindingsThe results reveal that the suspicion of identity play a major role in message credibility assessment and that people who are naturally less likely to trust others also hold higher suspicion of motivation and truthfulness. Further, structural assurance has significant negative effects on all three dimensions.Practical implicationsThe findings highlight the importance of enhancing the protective measures on eWOM platforms and call for stricter regulations to prevent organizations from adopting deceptive eWOM propagandas.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the literature by exploring the impact of skepticism on eWOM message credibility assessment and helping to validate this newly created construct by considering eWOM skepticism as a formative construct. (shrink)

NIMBY projects are easily stigmatized due to their environmental risk. Stigmatization enlarges residents’ risk perception, urges residents to spread information, and takes actions to resist project implementation, causing environmental mass emergency. Taking paraxylene project as an example, information dissemination model of NIMBY project under stigmatization based on SEIR model in small world network was established, and the information dissemination process and characteristics of NIMBY project under stigmatization were simulated and analysed. The results show that the public risk perception deviation caused (...) by stigmatization promotes residents to disseminate information; stigmatization has a greater impact on the information dissemination of NIMBY project with low environmental risk; stigmatization accelerates the speed of information dissemination and increases the number of residents participating in information dissemination in different dissemination environment. The contribution of this paper is that SEIR model in small world network is used to verify the role of stigmatization in promoting information dissemination of NIMBY project by comparing the information dissemination before and after stigmatization. (shrink)

Diffusion MRI is widely used to investigate neuronal and structural development of brain. dMRI data is often contaminated with various types of artifacts. Hence, artifact type identification in dMRI volumes is an essential pre-processing step prior to carrying out any further analysis. Manual artifact identification amongst a large pool of dMRI data is a highly labor-intensive task. Previous attempts at automating this process are often limited to a binary classification of the dMRI volumes or focus on detecting a single type (...) of artifact. In this work, we propose a deep learning-based automated multiclass artifact classifier for dMRI volumes. Our proposed framework operates in 2 steps. In the first step, the model predicts labels associated with 3D mutually exclusive collectively exhaustive sub-volumes or “slabs” extracted from whole dMRI volumes. In the second step, through a voting process, the model outputs the artifact class present in the whole volume under investigation. We used two different datasets for training and evaluating our model. Specifically, we utilized 2,494 poor-quality dMRI volumes from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development and 4,226 from the Healthy Brain Network dataset. Our results demonstrate accurate multiclass volume-level main artifact type prediction with 96.61 and 97.52% average accuracies on the ABCD and HBN test sets, respectively. Finally, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in dMRI pre-processing pipelines, we conducted a proof-of-concept dMRI analysis exploring the relationship between whole-brain fractional anisotropy and participant age, to test whether the use of our model improves the brain-age association. (shrink)

Gold & Stoljar are right in rejecting the radical neuron doctrine, but we argue that their distinction between determination and explanation is not principled enough to support their conclusion. We claim that the notions of multiple supervenience and screening-off offer a more precise construal of the dissociation between explanation and determination that lies at the heart of the antireductionist position.