Changes in knowledge production, increasing interaction between government, universities and industry, and changes in labor markets for doctoral degree holders are forces that have spurred a debate about the organization of doctoral education and the competencies graduates need to master to work as scientists and researchers in a triple helix research context. Recent policy also has supported a redefinition of researcher training with increasing focus on broader skills and relevance for careers outside the university sector. Consequently, it is pertinent to (...) investigate current changes in doctoral education and researcher training. Particularly further knowledge about university–industry collaboration as a context for researcher training is required. With this in mind, this study provides empirical illustrations of how research training carried out in collaborative research contexts is experienced by doctoral students, and offers some insight into antecedent and process factors that are central in shaping PhD students’ research and training experience in collaborative research contexts. Based on the empirical data and a review of existing literature, suggestions for further research are made. (shrink)

The Toronto experience suggests that there may be several general lessons for academic health sciences complexes to learn from the Olivieri/Apotex affair regarding the ethics, independence, and integrity of clinical research sponsored by for profit enterprises. From a local perspective, the OAA occurred when there already was a focus on the complex and changing relationships among the University of Toronto, its medical school, the fully affiliated teaching hospitals, and off campus faculty because of intertwined interests and responsibilities. The OAA became (...) a catalyst that accelerated various systemic reforms, particularly concerning academic/industry relations. In this article, the evolving governance framework for the Toronto academic health sciences complex is reviewed and these policy and process reforms discussed. These reforms have created collaborative activity among research ethics boards and contract research offices of the partner institutions, and allowed the joint university/hospital ethics centre to play a role in governance and policy, while respecting the missions and mandates of the involved institutions. Although few of the policies are dramatically innovative, what is arguably novel is the elaboration of an overarching governance framework that aims to move ethics to a central focus in the academic complex. Time alone will tell how sustainable and effective these changes are. (shrink)

The Toronto experience suggests that there may be several general lessons for academic health sciences complexes to learn from the Olivieri/Apotex affair regarding the ethics, independence, and integrity of clinical research sponsored by for profit enterprises. From a local perspective, the OAA occurred when there already was a focus on the complex and changing relationships among the University of Toronto, its medical school, the fully affiliated teaching hospitals, and off campus faculty because of intertwined interests and responsibilities. The OAA became (...) a catalyst that accelerated various systemic reforms, particularly concerning academic/industry relations. In this article, the evolving governance framework for the Toronto academic health sciences complex is reviewed and these policy and process reforms discussed. These reforms have created collaborative activity among research ethics boards and contract research offices of the partner institutions, and allowed the joint university/hospital ethics centre to play a role in governance and policy, while respecting the missions and mandates of the involved institutions. Although few of the policies are dramatically innovative, what is arguably novel is the elaboration of an overarching governance framework that aims to move ethics to a central focus in the academic complex. Time alone will tell how sustainable and effective these changes are. (shrink)

This paper takes up the themes in the articles and examines not only the environmental changes that are taking place in relation to universities, but also the dynamics of their organizational implications. It argues that there are parallels between managerially and academic professionalism in that both deny context. Arguing for a context-sensitivity that is not dependant, issues of space and governance become important in order to understand forms of knowledge and the relationship between the contexts of production and the contents (...) of what is produced. Universities have different capacities to play at the game of scales and they are judged according to abstract indicators that provide little or no opportunity for learning. Instead of examining these relations, expertise is assumed to be spatial, whilst universities transform themselves in the slipstream of imagined futures as if they were separate from the present and past. Understanding is lost in the process and so too are the opportunities to adequately examine the differences in types of knowledge's that are produced for sustainable futures in contemporary societies. (shrink)

This paper forms an introduction to this issue, the contents of which arose directly or indirectly from a conference in May 2001 on Corruption of scientific integrity? — The commercialisation of academic science. The introduction, in recent decades, of business culture and values into universities and research institutions is incompatible with the openness which scientific and all academic pursuit traditionally require. It has given rise to a web of problems over intellectual property and conflict of interest which has even led (...) to corporate sponsors’ suppressing unfavourable results of clinical trials, to the detriment of patients’ health. Although there are those who see the norms of science developing to recognise the importance of instrumental science aiming at specific goals and of knowledge judged by its value in a context of application, none justifies the covert manipulation of results by vested interest. Public awareness of these problems is growing and creating a climate of opinion where they may be addressed. We suggest a way forward by the introduction of nationally and internationally-accepted guidelines for industrial collaboration which contain proper protections of the core purposes of universities and of the independence of their research. Some codes suggested for this purpose are discussed. We note that some universities are moving to adopt such codes of conduct, but argue the need for strong support from the government through its funding bodies. (shrink)

This article examines the ethical dilemmas that can occur due to university and industry cooperative arrangements. The values that Conant (1952) and Merton (1942) ascribed to university science are used as a measure of the evolving university-industry relations in the 1980s. Examples of the types of relations being forged are discussed and possible conflicts of interest are explored. The author argues that the goals of the university are and must remain different from those of industry for the good (...) of the entire society. The transformation of the university into a research institution for industry could result in the university not adequately training the scientists of tomorrow, and simultaneously, not discharging its duty to do basic research as it focuses on the more applied research that industry desires and funds. (shrink)

This article argues that the academic values associated with intellectual freedom are incommensurable with those of industry which permeate recent related government initiatives associated with enterprise education and quality audit and assessment. It concludes that if industrial values are implanted in universities, they will destroy the academic values on which open intellectual enquiry and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge depend.

The objective of this paper is to balance two major conceptual tendencies in science policy studies, continuity and discontinuity theory. While the latter argue for fundamental and distinct changes in science policy in the late 20th century, continuity theorists show how changes do occur but not as abrupt and fundamental as discontinuity theorists suggests. As a point of departure, we will elaborate a typology of scientific governance developed by Hagendijk and Irwin ( 2006 ) and apply it to new empirical (...) material. This makes possible a contextualization of the governance of science related to the codification of the “third assignment” of the Swedish higher education law of 1977. The law defined the relation between university science and Swedish citizens as a dissemination project, and did so despite that several earlier initiatives actually went well beyond such a narrow conceptualisation. Our material reveals continuous interactive and rival arrangements linking the state, public authorities, the universities and private industrial enterprises. We show how different but coexisting modes of governance of science existed in Sweden during the 20th century, in clear contrast with the picture promoted by discontinuity theorists. A close study of the historical development suggests that there were several periods of layered governance when interactions and dynamics associated with continuity as well as discontinuity theories were prevalent. In addition, we conclude that the typology of governance applied in the present paper is fruitful for carrying out historical analyses of the kind embarked upon in spite of certain methodological shortcomings. (shrink)

The sequencing of the entire human genome has opened up unprecedented possibilities for healthcare, but also ethical and social dilemmas about how these can be achieved, particularly in developing countries. UNESCO's Bioethics Programme was established to address such issues in 1993. Since then, it has adopted three declarations on human genetics and bioethics (1997, 2003 and 2005), set up numerous training programmes around the world and debated the need for an international convention on human reproductive cloning. Negotiating Bioethics presents Langlois' (...) research on the negotiation and implementation of the three declarations and the human cloning debate, based on fieldwork carried out in Kenya, South Africa, France and the UK, among policy-makers, geneticists, ethicists, civil society representatives and industry professionals. The book examines whether the UNESCO Bioethics Programme is an effective forum for (a) decision-making on bioethics issues and (b) ensuring ethical practice. Considering two different aspects of the UNESCO Bioethics Programme - deliberation and implementation - at international and national levels, Langlois explores: - how relations between developed and developing countries can be made more equal - who should be involved in global level decision-making and how this should proceed - how overlap between initiatives can be avoided - what can be done to improve the implementation of international norms by sovereign states - how far universal norms can be contextualized - what impact the efficacy of national level governance has at international level Drawing on extensive empirical research, Negotiating Bioethics presents a truly global perspective on bioethics. (shrink)

This paper forms an introduction to this issue, the contents of which arose directly or indirectly from a conference in May 2001 on Corruption of scientific integrity? — The commercialisation of academic science. The introduction, in recent decades, of business culture and values into universities and research institutions is incompatible with the openness which scientific and all academic pursuit traditionally require. It has given rise to a web of problems over intellectual property and conflict of interest which has even led (...) to corporate sponsors’ suppressing unfavourable results of clinical trials, to the detriment of patients’ health. Although there are those who see the norms of science developing to recognise the importance of instrumental science aiming at specific goals and of knowledge judged by its value in a context of application, none justifies the covert manipulation of results by vested interest.Public awareness of these problems is growing and creating a climate of opinion where they may be addressed. We suggest a way forward by the introduction of nationally and internationally-accepted guidelines for industrial collaboration which contain proper protections of the core purposes of universities and of the independence of their research. Some codes suggested for this purpose are discussed. We note that some universities are moving to adopt such codes of conduct, but argue the need for strong support from the government through its funding bodies. (shrink)

This article argues that the academic values associated with intellectual freedom are incommensurable with those of industry which permeate recent related government initiatives associated with enterprise education and quality audit and assessment. It concludes that if industrial values are implanted in universities, they will destroy the academic values on which open intellectual enquiry and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge depend.

There has recently been a reappraisal of value in UK construction and calls from a wide range of influential individuals, professional institutions and government bodies for the industry to exceed stakeholders’ expectations and develop integrated teams that can deliver world class products and services. As such value is certainly topical, but the importance of values as a separate but related concept is less well understood. Most construction firms have well-defined and well-articulated values, expressed in annual reports and on websites; however, (...) the lack of rigorous and structured approaches published within construction management research and the practical, unsupported advice on construction institution websites may indicate a shortfall in the approaches used. This article reviews and compares the content and␣structure of some of the most widely used values approaches, and discusses their application within the construction sector. One of the most advanced and empirically tested theories of human values is appraised, and subsequently adopted as a suitable approach to eliciting and defining shared organisational values. Three studies within six construction organisations demonstrate the potential application of this individually grounded approach to reveal and align the relative values priorities of individuals and organisations to understand the strength of their similarity and difference. The results of these case studies show that this new universal values structure can be used along with more qualitative elicitation techniques to understand organisational cultures. (shrink)

The post-war Western world has seen a gradual shift from government to governance, a process that also concerned the issues related to agro-food sustainability, such as food quality, environmental impact, social justice, and farm animal welfare. Scholars believe that social media are a new site that reconfigures relations between various actors involved in the governance of these problems. However, empirical research on this matter remains scarce. This paper fills this gap by examining the case of Februdairy, a Twitter hashtag (...) campaign to promote the British dairy industry, hijacked by animal protection activists. For this case, I employ the relational perspective on technology affordances—as operationalised by Faraj and Azad, Materiality and organizing. Social interaction in a technological world, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012)—to highlight two distinct strategic modes of embracement of social media functionalities by the opposing groups: hashtag hijacking and crowdsourcing transparency. The analysis reveals also that a pre-existing social structure of the agro-food system conditions reconfiguration of social relations by technology in a way that actually strengthens the tendency to govern the issue of farm animal protection with market mechanisms. (shrink)

Universities have long been involved in knowledge transfer activities. Yet the last 30 years have seen major changes in the governance of university–industry interactions. Knowledge transfer has become a strategic issue: as a source of funding for university research and (rightly or wrongly) as a policy tool for economic development. Universities vary enormously in the extent to which they promote and succeed in commercializing academic research. The identification of clear-cut models of governance for university–industry interactions and knowledge transfer processes is (...) not straightforward. The purpose of this article is to critically discuss university knowledge transfer models and review the recent developments in the literature on research collaborations, intellectual property rights and spin-offs, those forms of knowledge transfer that are more formalized and have been institutionalized in recent years. The article also addresses the role played by university knowledge transfer organizations in promoting commercialization of research results. (shrink)

Collaborative research and development (R&D) activities between public universities and industry are of importance for the sustainable development of the innovation ecosystem. However, policymakers especially in developing countries show little knowledge on the issues. In this paper, we analyse the level of university–industry collaboration in Malaysia. We further examine the fundamental conditions that hinder university–industry collaboration despite the government’s initiatives to improve such linkages. We show that the low collaboration is a result of an R&D gap between the entities. While (...) the universities engage in basic and fundamental R&D, the private sectors involved in incremental innovation that requires less R&D investments. The different nature of the industries’ R&D requires closer cooperation between firms namely buyers, suppliers and technical service providers and not the universities. Among others, the lack of an intermediary role, absorptive capacity and collaborative initiative by the industry also contribute to the problem. The study suggests that the collaborative activities can benefit both if deliberate and effective efforts on reducing the R&D mismatch are made between the universities and industry. Likewise, proper institutional arrangements in coordinating these activities are required. This result seems to reflect the nature of many developing countries’ national innovation systems, and therefore, lessons from Malaysia may serve as a good case study. (shrink)

University research in the U.S.A. is based on a tight relationship between University and economic activity. In Europe and South America, although less commonly than in the U.S.A., there's already a large amount of experiences related to the creation of "on campus" or "spin off" companies based on the results and knowledge obtained from research in University departments and R&D centres financed with public funds. The virtual base of this results in communication technologies enables private use and the appropriation of (...) the benefits by their authors. European model, historically widely separated from private companies, has produced high quality basic research, but it has failed to obtain profit from technological development. Research funds happen to be basically public. Europe heads for economic, politic and military union. Common economic space and the growing up of the new markets, which we can foresee to be extended to other countries, will promote business opportunities and the relationship University-Industry. University institutions and faculties should think about their current ethic convictions to create a new Industry-University model in the context of a global economy. (shrink)

Major changes in the governance of higher education and the public sciences have taken place over the past 40 or so years in many OECD countries. These have affected the nature of authority relationships governing research priorities and the evaluation of results. In particular, the increasing exogeneity, formalisation and substantive nature of governance mechanisms, as well as the strength and extent of their enforcement, have altered the relative authority of different groups and organisations over research priorities and evaluations, as well (...) as creating some new ones. These shifts in authority have occurred to different degrees in differently organised public science systems. As a result, the diversity and longevity of many research projects, the intensity of competition for disciplinary reputations and the coordination of research goals and outcomes across universities and national boundaries have changed to different degrees in different countries. (shrink)

This article discusses the manipulation and measurement of levels of situational self-focus, which is generally labeled ''self-awareness.'' A new scale was developed to quantify levels of public and private self-awareness. Five studies were conducted to assess the psychometric properties, reliability, and validity of the Situational Self-Awareness Scale (SSAS). The SSAS was found to have a reliable factor structure, to detect differences in public and private self-awareness produced by laboratory manipulations, and to be sensitive to changes in self-awareness within individuals over (...) time and across situations. The SSAS can be used as a manipulation check of laboratory self-awareness manipulations and as a means of assessing naturally occurring fluctuations in public and private self-awareness in order to clarify the relation between self-awareness and other variables (e.g., mood and memory). (shrink)

The essays contained in this volume represent state-of-the-art thinking on many important issues relating to government policies in the Japanese and American economies.

University research in the U.S.A. is based on a tight relationship between University and economic activity. In Europe and South America, although less commonly than in the U.S.A., there's already a large amount of experiences related to the creation of "on campus" or "spin off" companies based on the results and knowledge obtained from research in University departments and R&D centres financed with public funds. The virtual base of this results in communication technologies enables private use and the appropriation of (...) the benefits by their authors. European model, historically widely separated from private companies, has produced high quality basic research, but it has failed to obtain profit from technological development. Research funds happen to be basically public. Europe heads for economic, politic and military union. Common economic space and the growing up of the new markets, which we can foresee to be extended to other countries, will promote business opportunities and the relationship University-Industry. University institutions and faculties should think about their current ethic convictions to create a new Industry-University model in the context of a global economy. (shrink)

The law-governed world-picture -- A remarkable idea about the way the universe is cosmos and compulsion -- The laws as the cosmic order : the best-system approach -- The three ways : no-laws, non-governing-laws, governing-laws -- Work that laws do in science -- An important difference between the laws of nature and the cosmic order -- The picture in four theses -- The strategy of this book -- The meta-theoretic conception of laws -- The measurability approach to laws -- What (...) comes where -- In defense of some received views -- Some assumptions that will be in play -- The laws are propositions -- The laws are true -- The logically contingent consequences of the laws are laws themselves -- At least some laws are metaphysically contingent -- The meta-theoretic conception of laws -- Laws of nature, laws of science, laws of theories -- The first-order conception versus the meta-theoretic conception -- What is a law of nature? -- Some examples of meta-theoretic accounts -- The virtues of the meta-theoretic conception -- Weighing the virtues and shortcomings of the meta-theoretic conception -- An epistemological argument for the meta-theoretic conception of laws -- The discoverability thesis, the governing thesis, and the first-order conception -- The main argument -- The objection from bad company -- The objection from inference to the best explanation -- The objection from bayesianism -- The objection from contextualist epistemology -- The objection from the threat of inductive skepticism -- Laws, governing, and counterfactuals -- Where we are now -- What would things have to be like in order for the laws of nature to govern the universe? -- Lawhood, inevitability, counterfactuals -- What is it for a proposition to be inevitably true? -- What is it for a whole class of propositions to be inevitably true? -- What is it for lawhood to confer inevitability? -- NP and supporting counterfactuals -- The worry about context-variability -- A solution and a look ahead -- When would the laws have been different? -- Where we are now -- The God cases -- Other counterexamples to NP -- A moral-theoretic counterexample to NP -- Scientific contexts and non-scientific contexts -- Scientific God cases? -- Lewisian non-backtracking counterexamples -- Where things stand now -- How could science show that the laws govern? -- Why the law-governed world-picture must include the science-says-so thesis -- What is extra-scientific? -- How can the science-says-so thesis be true? -- NP as a consequence of the presuppositions in any scientific context -- Np as true in all possible scientific contexts -- But how could it be so? -- Attack of the actual-factualists -- Measurement and counterfactuals -- Where we are now -- Measurements, reliability, counterfactuals -- A general principle that captures the relation between measurement and counterfactuals -- What we can learn about lawhood from what we have learned about the counterfactual commitments of science -- A first-order account of laws or a meta-theoretic account of laws? -- What methods are presupposed to be legitimate measurement procedures? -- Why we must adopt a meta-theoretic account of laws -- What lawhood is -- Where we are now -- The measurability account of laws -- Brief review of the case for the mal -- A note about hedged laws -- How plausible is the mal? -- What if we don't care about the law-governed world-picture? -- Newton's God and Laplace's demon -- Beyond humean and non-humean -- Two views of laws -- Humean supervenience and the meta-theoretic conception -- Alleged counterexamples to humean supervenience -- Governing and non-trivial necessity -- How the mal lets us have it all -- Humeanism? non-humeanism? -- What is the significance of the idea of the law-governed universe? -- Where in the world are the laws of nature? -- Appendix: The mal in action : a few examples -- Of scientific theories and their laws -- Newton's theory as a paradigm example -- Classical special-force laws -- Geometrical optics and one of its laws -- Local deterministic field theories. (shrink)

The specific nature and dynamic of the emerging triple helix of state-industry-university relations in Japan and Singapore is analyzed in this article. The impact of globalization and the emergence of trans-disciplinary scientific fields on this institutional reconstitution are examined. Overall, the implications of these transformations for the debates over the knowledge society are discussed.

The study focuses on the mobile telecommunications industry in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban takeover of the country in 2021 and seeks to study how the mobile telecommunications corporations engage with the different area-specific governance systems in order to gain legitimacy to operate across Afghanistan. The study capitalises on mixed qualitative data to conduct an embedded case study of the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry as an extreme context for understanding business-society relations in South Asia. Theoretically, the article integrates insights (...) from governance literature on areas of limited statehood to conceptualise business–society relations in Afghanistan beyond state-centric views and assumptions. The findings result in two modalities of business engagement that are conceptualised as a single vis-à-vis multiple governance system approach. Each of these modes of engagement implies a political nature and role for the businesses that are embedded in ethical dilemmas as discussed in the article. These findings contribute to the debate on the ‘political turn’ in the CSR literature and the governance literature on areas of limited statehood. (shrink)

Academic interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be traced back to the 1930s. Since then an impressive body of empirical data and theory-building has been amassed, mainly located in the fields of management studies and business ethics. One of the most noteworthy recent conceptual contributions to the scholarship is Midttun’s (Corporate Governance 5(3):159–174, 2005 ) CSR-oriented embedded relational model of societal governance. It re-conceptualises the relationships between the state, business, and civil society. Other scholars (In Albareda et al. Corporate (...) Governance 6(4):386–400, 2006 ; Business Ethics: A European Review 17(4):347–363, 2008 ; Lozano et al., Governments and Corporate Social Responsibility, 2008 ) have recently successfully used the model as the basis for their analytical framework for researching CSR activities in a large number of western European countries. While this research offers valuable insights into how CSR is operationalised, it also suffers from a number of significant limitations. To develop a stronger analytical framework with which to explore CSR, this article draws more deeply on political science literature concerned with governance and public policy analysis. This represents the main purpose of this article. In addition, this article also addresses a second and more modest aim: to reflect on the ways in which relational governance-inspired frameworks could be adapted and applied to politico-economic systems where state-industry-third sector relations differ from those found in North America and Western Europe. Both lines of argument are illustrated using vignettes from a case study of the Evenkia Hydro-Electric Station building project in the Russian Federation. (shrink)

Abstract Environmental and public health-focused sciences are increasingly characterised as constituting an emerging discipline—planetary medicine. From a governance perspective, the ethical components of that discipline may usefully be viewed as bestowing upon our ailing natural environment the symbolic moral status of a patient. Such components emphasise, for example, the origins and content of professional and social virtues and related ethical principles needed to promote global governance systems and policies that reduce ecological stresses and pathologies derived from human overpopulation, selfishness and (...) greed—such as pollution, loss of biodiversity, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as provide necessary energy, water and food security. Less well explored in this context, however, is the ethics that should underpin global use of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology as forms of planetary therapeutics. Nanotechnology may be particularly important, for instance, as a mechanism for improving upon photosynthesis and engineering it into human structures for localised production of carbon-neutral hydrogen based-fuel and carbohydrate-based food and fertilizer. Artificial photosynthesis, because of its unique and widespread public and environmental benefits in this period of human history, may even be termed the moral culmination of nanotechnology, assisting this planet to move beyond the Anthropocene epoch to that of the Sustainocene. This paper explores practical steps towards planetary nanomedicine involving governance of artificial photosynthesis, including a UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Bioethics and Human Rights of Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis (Global Solar Fuels and Foods ). Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0144-4 Authors Thomas Faunce, College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment and College of Law (joint Appointment), Australian National University, Acton, Australia Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757. (shrink)

This article explores how the institutional context, including central and local governments, has co-evolved with business in relation to small cars and sustainability. This issue is very relevant for business and society in view of the environmental implications of the rapidly growing vehicle fleet in China, the economic importance attached to this pillar industry by the government, and citizen interest in owning and driving increasingly larger cars. The interactions between different levels of government, and with business in countries with a (...) large role for the state is a novel area of study in the business-society area and a complex one given the multitude of objectives and interests involved in industry competitiveness, economic development, energy security, and sustainability. The article shows that the central government has adopted policies to further the production and use of small cars, which it perceives as serving environmental, economic, and social goals. Concurrently, however, many local governments imposed restrictions on small cars and have, implicitly or explicitly, favored larger cars. There seems to be a clear linkage to municipal ownership of those domestic automobile companies which, via joint ventures with foreign firms, focused more on larger cars. By adopting a co-evolutionary approach focused on macro-level interactions, the case helps to shed some more light on concrete sustainability challenges, and broader government–business interactions in a highly institutionalized setting, contributing insights on issues that have remained underexposed in business and society research. (shrink)

International differences in how market exchanges are conducted (e.g., the mode of entry, level of ownership, and conflict resolution) have been attributed mainly to national culture and cultural distance. However, the cultural arguments cannot explain why economies/countries with similar cultural backgrounds (e.g., Hong Kong and China) exhibit differences in exchange arrangements. Thus, the cultural arguments provide little strategic guidance to multinational corporations (MNCs) in international marketing. We propose that in addition to culture, the governance environment in a country, namely, the (...) political, economic, and social institutions that facilitate or constrain the choice of governance mechanisms, influences the way organizations conduct market exchanges. This important factor heretofore has been ignored. Specifically, we introduce a typology of rule-based and relation-based governance environment to explain how the environment affects marketing channel behaviors, such as barriers to entry, channel exclusivity, information access, trust, and dispute resolution. We analyze the diamond industry in the rule-based governance environment in the U.S. and in the relation-based governance environment in China, and using the diamond industry in Hong Kong as a validation, to develop theoretical propositions and strategic implications for MNCs. (shrink)

This article reviews the globalization process and how it impacts the standards of employee relations ethics in the United States. John Dunlop's industrial relations systems framework is employed to assess how the globalization process has altered the ideology that binds the industrial relations system together and the body of rules created to govern behavior in the workplace and work community. I discuss how globalization has altered the context of industrial relations systems around the world and analyze (...) the consequences of the reduction in significance of the national context to the changing standards of employee relations ethics. I also review the significance of why national differences in the contexts of industrial relations systems relating to the technological characteristics of the workplace, the product and factor markets, and the locus of distribution and power, are disappearing and being integrated rapidly into the global economy. Additionally, the article discusses the role of multinational corporations in the globalization process and why the emerging global industrial relations system is altering the standards of employee relations ethics in the American workplace. (shrink)

Trust and loyalty are universal human needs for moral knowledge, healthy relationships and good governance. They are core universal ethical values and virtues that enable people to relate freely under any sentient socio-political milieu. Public trust and loyalty in governments and in leaders across the globe is drastically declining with rising sense of hopelessness and lack of confidence that make citizens yearn for change. Meanwhile, some scholars have argued that distrust and disloyalty are as valuable as their contraries, especially when (...) justified. Justifiably, one can be protected from harm and actions that could have negative effects on his reputations and self-respect, with inherent socio-political benefits and roles to good governance and the development of society. The point is that the reasons we have to trust and show loyalty are as valuable as the reasons we have to distrust and show disloyalty to someone or government. This means that trust and loyalty can either be withdrawn or betrayed. However, as valid as this sounds, the main thrust of this paper is that it is virtuous to trust and show loyalty until one finds valuable reason to withdraw or betray such trust or loyalty. Analytically, the paper concludes that genuine trust and loyalty promote common good in the global business of governance. (shrink)

Throughout its history, the relationship between government and science in the United States has been mutually beneficial but also contentious. This article reviews the recent history of this relationship and attributes the conflict to different norms and values in each of the institutions. A policy culture is the result. It sets the limits of government action and shapes the policy agenda, the debates, and their outcomes. The evolving norms of policy culture are examined on the basis of two specific controversies: (...) pork-barrel support of science and university-industry relations. The article concludes with a discussion of why the study of a policy culture helps us understand the ways in which values shape science policy. (shrink)

For knowledge- and invention-based industries, scholars have introduced the firm value, which is composed of traditional financial capital and intangible intellectual capital, and Tobin’s Q, which is the commonly used approach for intellectual capital valuation. Scholars have thus evaluated firm valuation appropriately by considering corporate governance. This study applies the multi-regression model to present a discussion on the value relevance of intellectual capital and corporate governance concerning the tourism industry in Taiwan. The results show that intellectual capital is positively related (...) to firm valuation, and that corporate governance influences the positive relationship between intellectual capital and firm valuation. The tourism industry must focus on intellectual capital and corporate governance. (shrink)

This article examines the governance of student life in university settings through an examination of discourses of wellness and resilience in the university sector, and in particular at the University of Toronto. Resilience, it is argued, is strategically deployed in ways that enjoin students to think positively about their experiences of university life so as to avert any experience of distress or disability. This is undertaken with the aim of producing a healthy and ‘well’ student body, but does little to (...) address inequalities amongst students, nor how such inequalities might be important in addressing student distress. Focusing on an analysis of the University of Toronto Student Life Programs and Services programs and publications, and in particular pamphlets and newsletters, such as Health & Wellness: Helping Students Make the Most of the University Experience (2009), it seeks to understand the role of resilience in the production of student life and the governance of the university experience. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the possibilities and limits of a new vocabulary of resilience (Seligman, 2009), which posits an expectation of suffering as a resource which can be drawn on in times of stress, and the “positive” disciplinary regimes this vocabulary enforces. This examination is carried out with the overall aim of disrupting unexamined relations to representations of institutional sites and services as resources, and to demonstrate how such representations rely on and reproduce notions of difference, disability and distress as difficulties to be both renounced and exploited. It is also to provoke greater recognition within social justice studies of how university health services texts such as the Health & Wellness pamphlet and newsletters directed at students strategically deploy notions of resilience to govern interpretations of resistance as illness, rather than emancipatory action. (shrink)

Multinational enterprises dominate the governance of global value chains, such that according to the concept of political corporate social responsibility, they are responsible to address governance gaps throughout the chains, even at the level of their independent suppliers. In practice, MNEs often struggle to cope with the complexity of these governance gaps, and PCSR does not provide a clear definition nor offer guidance for how to analyze and address them. By adopting the notion of governance mechanisms from GVC literature, this (...) study proposes a more nuanced view, in which governance gaps result from inactive, ineffective, or inequitable governance mechanisms adopted by relevant actors, rather than a complete absence of governance. MNEs, through their governance mechanisms, commonly create governance gaps. This study distinguishes different types of governance mechanisms to create a typology of governance gaps, such that it contributes to the literature on PCSR by offering a more refined understanding of governance gaps, along with a means to identify mechanisms to address them. Furthermore, it contributes to the literature on GVCs by defining governance-related terms and adding an ethical perspective on MNEs’ global business conduct. To illustrate the typology, this article presents the case of low wages for workers in the textile industry and efforts by H&M to deal with this governance gap. (shrink)

Multinational enterprises dominate the governance of global value chains, such that according to the concept of political corporate social responsibility, they are responsible to address governance gaps throughout the chains, even at the level of their independent suppliers. In practice, MNEs often struggle to cope with the complexity of these governance gaps, and PCSR does not provide a clear definition nor offer guidance for how to analyze and address them. By adopting the notion of governance mechanisms from GVC literature, this (...) study proposes a more nuanced view, in which governance gaps result from inactive, ineffective, or inequitable governance mechanisms adopted by relevant actors, rather than a complete absence of governance. MNEs, through their governance mechanisms, commonly create governance gaps. This study distinguishes different types of governance mechanisms to create a typology of governance gaps, such that it contributes to the literature on PCSR by offering a more refined understanding of governance gaps, along with a means to identify mechanisms to address them. Furthermore, it contributes to the literature on GVCs by defining governance-related terms and adding an ethical perspective on MNEs’ global business conduct. To illustrate the typology, this article presents the case of low wages for workers in the textile industry and efforts by H&M to deal with this governance gap. (shrink)

This paper investigates the moderating role of industry regulation on the effectiveness of audit committees in restricting earnings management. Using comprehensive panel data of S&P 1500 firms between 2003 and 2007, we find that the proportion of CEO directors on an audit committee is positively associated with earnings management in unregulated industries, while this association is significantly weaker in regulated industries. Further, the proportion of financial experts on an audit committee is negatively associated with earnings management. Our results also indicate (...) that the average board tenure of audit committee members is negatively related to earnings management in regulated industries, but positively affects earnings management in unregulated industries. Finally, audit committee members’ average directorship increases earnings management in regulated industries, but reduces earnings management in unregulated industries. Overall, our results suggest that the effectiveness of audit committees in reducing earnings management and improving financial reporting quality is influenced by industry regulation. (shrink)