Can the use of focus groups be helpful to get to the roots of ethical issues in the accounting profession? The activities of one such group at Cranfield throws considerable light on the pressures to which individual accountants can be subjected. Professor Vyakarnam has recently been appointed to the Chair of Enterprise at Nottingham Trent University. Sri Srikanthan is Senior Lecturer in the Finance and Accounting Department at Cranfield University School of Management, where Sharon Fitzsimons is Research Officer (...) in the Economics Group. (shrink)

Can the use of focus groups be helpful to get to the roots of ethical issues in the accounting profession? The activities of one such group at Cranfield throws considerable light on the pressures to which individual accountants can be subjected. Professor Vyakarnam has recently been appointed to the Chair of Enterprise at Nottingham Trent University. Sri Srikanthan is Senior Lecturer in the Finance and Accounting Department at Cranfield University School of Management, where Sharon Fitzsimons is Research Officer (...) in the Economics Group. (shrink)

Charges of methodological weakness in business ethics research may be partly countered by expanding the use of focus groups to concentrate on the experience of participants as they identify and discuss ethical dilemmas they have encountered and solutions they have explored. Dr Vyakarnam is Lecturer in Enterprise at Cranfield University School of Management, Bedfordshire MK43 OAL.

Charges of methodological weakness in business ethics research may be partly countered by expanding the use of focus groups to concentrate on the experience of participants as they identify and discuss ethical dilemmas they have encountered and solutions they have explored. Dr Vyakarnam is Lecturer in Enterprise at Cranfield University School of Management, Bedfordshire MK43 OAL.

Virtual teams formed across organisational boundaries and organised around an opportunity are a relatively new area of research. A review of previous research shows that, although virtual teams have been well defined as a concept, only a few studies have contributed to the understanding of the processes of assembling and maintaining effective inter-organisational teams enabled by new modes of communication. By combining cross-disciplinary theoretical approaches, the reported study presents a conceptual overview for collective teaming in virtual settings. The findings of (...) the study confirm that inter-organisational teams follow special development patterns, which can be described as cyclical self-energising processes. (shrink)

Allthough small business accounts for over 90% of businesses in U.K. and indeed elsewhere, they remain the largely uncharted area of ethics. There has not been any research based on the perspective of small business owners, to define what echical delemmas they face and how, if at all, they resolve them. This paper explores ethics from the perspective of small business owner, using focus groups and reports on four clearly identifiable themes of ethical delemmas; entrepreneurial activity itself, conflicts of personal (...) values with business needs, social responsibility and the impact of owners' personality on business ethics. The mechanisms for resolving ethical dilemmas is not at all clear, as there appears to be a web of filters which are used in an inter-connected way. However a common starting point for resolving an ethical delemma which involves others is based on identifying who it is (e.g., a friend or institution) and the quality of the relationship with that person. The research yielded a rich source of material on business ethics and it is clear that future researchers must focus on this sector if business ethics is to make significant advances. (shrink)

Background: Digital technologies such as smartphones, tablets and laptops have become a mainstay part of nearly every household and are gradually being integrated into the lives of both adults and children. We aim to determine the extent of exposure and usage of digital technology by children in their daily activities and to understand the transition in technological preferences and attitudes over the generation. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 children aged 05-12 years living in Prayagraj city of Uttar (...) Pradesh, India, using a pretested interview schedule. Descriptive and bivariate statistics were used for data analysis. The phenomenological method was used to understand respondents’ viewpoints about their preferences and attitudes related to technology. Results: An overwhelming majority of households have television followed by digital cameras, laptops, tablets, kindle and video games such as Playstation. Nearly half of children began to use digital devices from the age of 7 to 8 years. Nearly two-third of the children learnt to use digital devices on their own, and about 12% of them reported often practicing media multitasking. Over the generation, differences are noted in terms of possession, use and perception regarding digital technology. Conclusion: The availability of media content on such devices influences the screen time of children of all ages. The study underscores the importance of parental monitoring and devising a policy to regulate the ownership of digital devices and to reduce screen time to less than two hours per day, especially during early childhood. (shrink)

Correspondence with a disciple revealing an altogether unknown facet of Sri Aurobindo's personality: his great sense of humour.

An ongoing debate in the United States relating to COVID-19 features the purported tension between containing the coronavirus to save lives or opening the economy to sustain livelihoods, with ethical overtones on both sides. Proponents of opening the economy argue that sustaining livelihoods should be prioritized over virus containment, with ethicists asking, “What about the risk to human life?” Defendants of restricting the spread of the virus endorse saving lives through virus containment but contend with the ethical concern “What about (...) people’s livelihoods and individual freedoms?” A commonly held belief is that political ideology drives these differential preferences: liberals are more focused on saving lives, whereas conservatives favor sustaining livelihoods with no additional government intervention in the free-market economy. We examine these lay beliefs among US residents in four studies and find that economic system justification (ESJ), an ideology that defends the prevailing economic system when under threat, is a reliable psychological predictor beyond political ideology. Specifically, compared to those who scored low on ESJ, people who scored high on ESJ judged China as more justified in downplaying the spread of virus to protect its interest in the global free-market economy, supported in-person over online learning, viewed shelter in place as less desirable, and perceived the opening of the Texas economy as more legitimate. We also find that multiple psychological mechanisms might be at work—resistance to market interventions, perceived legitimacy of opening the economy, perceived seriousness of the health crisis, and violation of human rights. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence the intention of students to pirate academic e-books by integrating three main theories: ethics theory, deterrence theory, and the theory of planned behavior. The study also examines the moderating role of past piracy behavior on the relationship between the factors in the previously mentioned theories and students’ piracy intention. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected using a convenience sample of 662 university students. Based on their past behaviors, the (...) students were grouped into “no piracy” and “piracy” groups. Findings The result shows that the piracy intention of both the no-piracy and piracy groups has a similar influence based on the moral obligation in ethics theory. The factors in the deterrence theory, which includes fear of legal consequences and perceived likelihood of punishment, have no significant impact on the attitudes of the two groups toward piracy. While the intention of the no-piracy group is not influenced by other internal factors, such as self-efficacy, or by external factors, such as subjective norms and facilitating conditions, the behavioral intention of the piracy group is significantly influenced by these three factors. Research limitations/implications This study only focuses on piracy attitude and behavior in the context of e-books. Practical implications In Indonesia, the insignificant impact of factors from deterrence theory indicates weak law enforcement to combat digital piracy. Thus, it is imperative that law enforcement, especially regarding piracy, should be enhanced. Social implications The significant role of ethics in the attitudes toward piracy indicates that morality serves as a moral compass to fight piracy behavior. The strong impact of subjective norms, especially in the piracy group, suggests that families should raise children and educate youth with beliefs that align with the concepts of morality. Originality/value The study integrates three theories that are most often used in piracy behavior studies: ethics theory, deterrence theory, and theory of planned behavior. In addition, the study provides empirical evidence on the moderating role of past experience in piracy behavior. (shrink)

The Life Divine explores for the Modern mind the great streams of Indian metaphysical thought, reconciling the truths behind each and from this synthesis ...

The seminal treatise and guide to Ashtanga yoga by the master of this increasingly popular discipline There is a yoga boom in America, and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois is at the heart of it. One of the great yoga figures of our time, Jois brought Ashtanga yoga to the West a quarter of a century ago and has been the driving force behind its worldwide dissemination. Based on flowing, energetic movement, Ashtanga and the many forms of vinyasa yoga that grow (...) directly out of it--have become the most widespread and influential styles of practice in the United States today. Mala means "garland" in Sanskrit, and Yoga Mala--a "garland of yoga practice"--is Jois's distillation of Ashtanga. He first outlines the ethical principles and philosophy underlying the discipline and explains its important terms and concepts. Next he guides the reader through Ashtanga's versions of the Sun Salutation and its subsequent sequence of forty-two asanas, or poses, precisely describing how to execute each position and what benefits each provides. Brought into English by Eddie Stern, a student of Jois's for twelve years and director of the Patanjali Yoga Shala in New York City, Yoga Mala will be an indispensable handbook for students and teachers of yoga for years to come. (shrink)

On Javanese philosophy written in Javanese literary works.

On Ki Ageng Suryamentaram and his thoughts on Javanese philosophy and ethics.

Ethical morality is one of the significant issues in self-driving cars. The paper provides a newer approach to solve the ethical decision problems in self-driving cars until there is no concrete ethical decision to all problems. This paper gives a two-way approach to solve a problem, with first being the mapping of problem to the solution already known or which has a fixed set of solutions and action priorities defined to a problem previously. Now, if no solution is found or (...) mapping is unsuccessful, then the second stage activates, where the solution from Deep Q-learning model is calculated. It estimates the best Q value and returns that solution or action which maximizes the reward at that instance. The reward function is designed with decreasing priorities and acts accordingly, where the users can change or define their priorities if needed. The case study and results show that the solution that is present in the paper will lead to solving ethical morality problems in self-driving cars up to a great extent. (shrink)

Much like admissibility is the key concept underlying preferred semantics, strong admissibility is the key concept underlying grounded semantics, as membership of a strongly admissible set is sufficient to show membership of the grounded extension. As such, strongly admissible sets and labellings can be used as an explanation of membership of the grounded extension, as is for instance done in some of the proof procedures for grounded semantics. In the current paper, we present two polynomial algorithms for constructing relatively small (...) strongly admissible labellings, with associated min–max numberings, for a particular argument. These labellings can be used as relatively small explanations for the argument’s membership of the grounded extension. Although our algorithms are not guaranteed to yield an absolute minimal strongly admissible labelling for the argument (as doing so would have implied an exponential complexity), our best performing algorithm yields results that are only marginally larger. Moreover, the runtime of this algorithm is an order of magnitude smaller than that of the existing approach for computing an absolute minimal strongly admissible labelling for a particular argument. As such, we believe that our algorithms can be of practical value in situations where the aim is to construct a minimal or near-minimal strongly admissible labelling in a time-efficient way. (shrink)

This book contains 82 questions and answers on the inner life, talks on reincarnation and the soul's evolution, sin, science, individuality, morality, inner peace, God's plan, and the universality of religion.

Abstrak: Jacques Rancière, pemikir Prancis kelahiran Aljazair (1940-sekarang), konsisten dengan gagasannya tentang kesetaraan bagi setiap orang dan semua orang. Baginya, demokrasi bukanlah bentuk pemerintahan atau tatanan sosial. Kesetaraan yang kontingen dalam tatanan sosial, menurut Rancière, menjadikan demokrasi dapat terjadi kapan saja dan di mana saja, tidak dapat diprediksi. Rancière mengajak kita untuk terbuka pada gangguan-gangguan demos dan kemunculan subyek-subyek baru di masa datang sebagai dinamika dalam tatanan sosial yang tidak perlu ditumpas atau dihambat. Politik demokrasi adalah sebuah perselisihan. Namun perselisihan (...) tersebut bukan tindakan revolusi untuk menghancurkan tatanan sosial yang telah ada menjadi tatanan yang sama sekali baru. Demokrasi adalah subyektivasi politik yang mengganggu tatanan sosial dominan yang dilakukan oleh demos untuk memverifikasi kesetaraan. Kemunculan demos mentransformasi tatanan sosial menjadi bentuk yang berbeda, yang mengakomodasi keberadaan mereka yang tidak terhitung (the wrong, yang salah). Kata-kata Kunci: Demokrasi, kesetaraan, demos, perselisihan, subyektivikasi, yang salah. Abstract: Jacques Rancière, a French philosopher born in Algeria (1940-present), affirms the equality of anyone and everyone. He analyzes the so-called democracy not as a kind of state or social order. Equality which is contingent in the social order, for Rancière, shows that democracy could occurs everytime and everywhere, democracy could not be predicted. Rancière brings us to have an open eye in front of dispute of the demos and the subjectification of any new subjects. This is an inherent and a dynamic of the social order that should not be repressed or stopped. The democratic politics is a dispute. But the dispute is not an act of revolution to destroy the existing social order to create an entirely new order. Democracy is the political subjectification that disrupts the police order by the demos to verify the equality of anyone and everyone. The emergence of the demos transforms the social order into a different form when this order accommodates the existence of the wrong. Keywords: Democracy, equality, demos, dispute, subjectification, the wrong. (shrink)

Here is a book with poses, breathing exercises and meditations for the pregnant woman. Photos enhance clear and easy instructions for the poses. Attention to safety, mental, physical and emotional benefits of the poses, and variations are discussed very thoroughly. It is in clear and simple language. A safe and natural way to prepare for a wonderful birth experience. The book could also serve as a reference for midwives. The authors follow-up with their detailed three part course of yogic and (...) breathing exercises for women- before, during and after pregnancy. It is a complete self help book for parents, especially mothers to be and covers both the practical as well as the emotional aspects of conception, pregnancy and childbirth. (shrink)

On development and practices of sufism among Javanese Muslim.

Impact of interfaith marriage on the ethics in Bali Province.

Thoughts of Luce Irigaray on feminism, sexism in language, and its relation to social conditions in Indonesia.

Initiation into yoga.--Symbolism and knowledge.--The sacred marriage.--The forgotten land.--Doubts and their removal.--Past, present and future.--Superstition.--The violence of war.--Religion and philosophy.

On Ki Ageng Suryomentaram and his thoughts on Javanese philosophy.

Understanding Javanese philosophy through wayang wong performance.