Background: Health systems globally face ncreasing challenges from health crises and epidemic threats, necessitating the pivotal role of epidemiological teams in emergency response. This study investigates the significance of collective competence within these teams, focusing on their ability to collect, analyze, and manage laboratory data effectively. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was used to survey epidemiological teams in Saudi Arabia. A structured questionnaire was developed based on existing literature and distributed electronically to participants. Data analysis was performed (...) using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), using descriptive and inferential statistics to summarize participant characteristics and explore associations between variables. Results: A total of 208 epidemiological teams member completed the questionnaire, yielding insights into their The Role of Collective Competence in Epidemiological Teams. The findings reveal high levels of agreement regarding the effectiveness of management approaches, knowledge sharing, and team collaboration, with the average score exceeding 4.0 on a 5-point scale. Notably, team efficacy was found to significantly enhance the efficiency of laboratory data collection and analysis, accounting for approximately 25.9% of the variance in efficacy. Discussion: These findings underscore the need to invest in developing team competencies within epidemiological teams to improve emergency response capabilities. The study provides practical insights into enhancing team collaboration and coordination, ultimately contributing to more effective public health interventions in future health crises. (shrink)

In his response to "The Politics of Rescue," Winston argues that the real dilemma facing the international system is not a question of what form intervention will take, but rather a question of the existence of political will to act on the humanitarian impulse.

Behavioral and physiological synchronization have important implications for work teams with regard to workload management, coordinated behavior and overall functioning. This study extended previous work on the nonlinear statistical structure of GSR series in dyads to larger teams and included subjective ratings of workload and contributions to problem solving. Eleven teams of 3 or 4 people played a series of six emergency response (ER) games against a single opponent. Seven of the groups worked under a time pressure instruction (...) at the beginning of the first game. The other four groups were not given that instruction until the beginning of the fourth game. The optimal lag length for the teams, which appeared to be phase-locked, was substantially shorter than that obtained previously for loosely-coupled dyads. There was a complex nonlinear effect from the time pressure manipulation on the autocorrelation over time that reflected workload and fatigue dynamics that were operating. The R2 values for linear and nonlinear statistical models differed by less than.01. The average amount of influence from one ER team member to another was 4.5-4.7% of the variance in GSR readings. ER team members were classified as drivers and empaths, based on the autocorrelations and transfer influences to and from other players in the GSR time series. Empaths were rated by their peers as making more types of positive contributions to the problem solving discussions than others, and drivers received the lowest ratings. Larger Lyapunov exponents that were calculated from the GSR time series were positively correlated with individuals’ ratings of subjective workload and were negatively correlated with leadership indicators. Several directions for further research are outlined. (shrink)

The irreversibility effect implies that a decision maker who neglects the prospect of receiving more complete information at later stages of a sequential decision problem will in certain cases too easily take an irreversible decision, as he ignores the existence of a positive option value in favour of reversible decisions. This option value represents the decision maker's flexibility to adapt subsequent decisions to the obtained information. In this paper we show that the economic models dealing with irreversibility as used in (...) environmental and capital investment decision making can be extended to emergency response decisions that produce important irreversible effects. In particular, we concentrate on the decision whether or not to evacuate an industrial area threatened by a possible nuclear accident. We show in a simple two-period evacuation decision model that non-optimal conclusions may be drawn when evacuation is regarded as a `now or never decision'. The robustness of these results is verified by means of a sensitivity analysis of the various model parameters. The importance of `options thinking' in this decision context is illustrated in an example. (shrink)

With the ultrahigh-speed, large-scale development of tourism and the increasing frequency, intensity, and scope of extreme natural hazards in the context of climate warming, tourism has entered a high-risk era. Based on the central urban area within the outer ring of Shanghai as the research area and the tourism attraction as the research object, this paper takes the flood scenario simulation combined with GIS network analysis to evaluate the spatial accessibility of the emergency response of urban key public (...) service departments under current and future river flood scenarios in different return periods. The results of the study show that, under the current and future flood scenarios, the submergence range is mainly distributed within 2 ∼ 3 km along the banks of the Huangpu River, and it tends to increase from north to south; there are 6, 9, and 21 tourism attractions in the emergency blind area under the once-in-a-century floods in 2010, 2030, and 2050 and 98, 105, and 112 tourism attractions in the emergency blind area under the once-in-a-millennium floods in 2010, 2030, and 2050, respectively; in the flood scene, local road traffic in the inundation area is interrupted by water, and 120 first aid cannot get or be delayed to some tourist attraction ; and in 2030, under the normal and flooding scenarios, 120 first aid in the downtown area of Shanghai has the fastest route to tourism attractions according to the speed of S1, S2, S3, and S4. The flooding intensity, road traffic conditions, and the number and location of key public service departments jointly determine the service scope and response time of medical emergency in urban floods. Since the flood control area of the central city in Shanghai is mainly distributed in the 2 ∼ 3 km area on both banks of the Huangpu River, the impact of flood on the emergency medical service in the entire central city is limited, mainly in some hospitals in the riverside area, where 120 emergency vehicles are unable or delayed to reach some tourism attractions. The research indicates that the quantitative assessment method of spatial accessibility of the emergency response under flood scenario simulation has important scientific value and practical significance, which can provide decision-making basis for emergency management of tourism in China’s urban flood disaster. (shrink)

Local health departments and their employees are at the forefront of emergency preparedness and response. Yet, recent studies have found that some local public health workers are unwilling to report to work in a variety of disaster scenarios. This can greatly compromise a response, as many local health departments need “all hands on deck” to effectively meet increased demands. To address these concerns, local health departments have employed varied policy strategies to ensure that employees do report to (...) work. After describing different approaches taken by local health departments throughout the United States, we briefly identify and explore key ethics considerations that arise for local health departments when employees are required to report to work for emergency responses. We then discuss how these ethics considerations may inform local health department practices intended to promote a robust emergency response. (shrink)

This paper provides practitioner and academic insights into the importance of examining non-technical skills in a multiteam system emergency response. The case of public health professionals is highlighted, illustrated with unique qualitative field data which focused upon the use of non-technical skills at a meso level of analysis. Results reflected the importance of context upon the multiteam system and highlighted seven non-technical skills used by public health professionals to support an effective response. Recommendations for future research and (...) implications for practice are noted for this hard to access professional group, located within emerging advances in the scientific inquiry of complex and increasingly evident, multi-team systems. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the relationship between public financial management and indicators of well-being among 29 Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries using a balanced panel dataset over the period between 2005 and 2019. This study used a matrix of seven proxy measures of public financial management, which works as an integrated financial system to improve the objective quality of well-being measured by employment, education level, productivity, and wages. Using the generalised method of moments, the estimator's results, indicate that (...) higher government revenues, expenses (% of GDP) lead to lower well-being while the higher net lending /net borrowing, cost of business start-up procedures, and adjusted gross savings (% of GNI) lead to increase well-being measured by spending on education. The higher government revenues, regulatory quality, government effectiveness, and higher net lending /net borrowing lead to improved well-being, while the higher cost of business start-up procedures (% of GNI per capita) leads to lower well-being measured by wages. The higher government revenues, government effectiveness, and higher net lending/net borrowing lead to increased well-being. In contrast, the higher expense (% of GDP) leads to lower well-being measured by productivity labor. The higher government revenues, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, net lending /net borrowing and adjusted gross savings lead to lower well-being, while the higher cost of business start-up procedures leads to increased well-being measured by employment rates. The OECD countries should prepare fiscal policies to ensure the sustainability of public finances in the long run and identify emergency response mechanisms to overcome the challenges of improving the objective quality of well-being. (shrink)

This is the introduction to the special issue on Responsible innovation (RI). The special issue presents five philosophical analyses into the foundational concepts and assumptions of RI. This paper explores the common themes that emerge across these five analyses by mapping them onto the ontological and axiological dimensions of the newly emerging RI paradigm. This way, we are able to articulate the (known) shortcomings of RI as well as the possible way forward suggested by the authors to remedy them.

Given the increase in human rights abuses and suffering in the world, psychologists bear an ethical responsibility to become more vocal and active on issues of social justice. Western psychology has failed to realize its full transformative potential, largely due to its preoccupation with the individual level of intervention, historical tendency to respond reactively to war and violence, and various cultural biases and ethnocentrism that exist within the field. Instead, psychology must take a more proactive, systems-oriented approach to addressing human (...) rights issues. Due to the lack of guidelines in engaging in professional activism, psychologists must first more critically identify, challenge, and clarify relevant ethical concerns, including issues of culture, competence, and nonmaleficence involved in this type of work. This article explores these complex ethical considerations and suggests ways that psychologists can evolve their roles as researchers, therapists, consultants and educators. The aim is to stimulate dialogue about how psychology can embed ethical activism into its professional identity. (shrink)

Abstract In this chapter, we challenge the presupposed concept of innovation in the responsible innovation literature. As a first step, we raise several questions with regard to the possibility of ‘responsible’ innovation and point at several difficulties which undermine the supposedly responsible character of innovation processes, based on an analysis of the input, throughput and output of innovation processes. It becomes clear that the practical applicability of the concept of responsible innovation is highly problematic and that a more thorough inquiry (...) of the concept is required. As a second step, we analyze the concept of innovation which is self-evidently presupposed in current literature on responsible innovation. It becomes clear that innovation is self-evidently seen as (1) technological innovation, (2) is primarily perceived from an economic perspective, (3) is inherently good and (4) presupposes a symmetry between moral agents and moral addressees. By challenging this narrow and uncritical concept of innovation, we contribute to a second round of theorizing about the concept and provide a research agenda for future research in order to enhance a less naïve concept of responsible innovation. (shrink)

This article focuses on emergency medical care in black urban populations, suggesting that the classification of a “community” within clinical trial language is problematic. The article references a cultural history of black Americans with pre-hospital emergency medical treatment as relevant to contemporary emergency medicine paradigms. Part I explores a relationship between “autonomy” and “community.” The idea of community emerges as a displacement for the ethical principle of autonomy precisely at the moment that institutionalized medicine focuses on diversity. (...) Part II examines a clinical trial for the blood substitute PolyHeme® (Northfield Laboratories, Inc., Evanston, IL). It illustrates the ways in which bias in research paradigms and Institutional Review Board decisions attach to the notion and utility of the language of “community.” The conclusion's contemporary anecdote makes apparent the vitality of the issues of prehospital emergency medical care and the ways in which decisions and practices fall too easily into a narrative of culturally biased treatment. (shrink)

Background: Patients and their caregivers are expected to take joint responsibility for reporting symptoms and seeking medical assistance, for example, by calling oncology emergency telephones or other helplines during a cancer trajectory. Research objective: The aim was to explore the meaning of responsibility as it appeared in patients’ or caregivers’ experiences of calling an oncological emergency telephone. Design, participants and context: Inspired by qualitative description and qualitative content analysis, a secondary analysis of data from interviews with 12 participants (...) calling the oncological emergency telephone at a Danish university hospital was performed. Ethical considerations: The project observes demands for safekeeping data and all regulations concerning research ethics in agreement with the Nordic Nurses Federation and the Danish Health Act. Findings: Two main themes emerged: (1) to act responsibly as a patient or caregiver was to ‘be watchful and alert’, ‘report symptoms the right way’ and ‘do crosschecking’ and (2) to deal with the burden of responsibility was to ‘feel safe when dealing with the burden of responsibility’ and ‘be relieved from the burden of responsibility’. Discussion: Too much responsibility and a potential imbalance between healthcare professionals’ expectations and callers’ knowledge and capacity to act may place additional burdens on the callers, which may be eased by person-centred care. Conclusion: The meaning of responsibility appeared in the participants’ capacity to act, where they observed, assessed and reported symptoms and controlled prescribed treatments as well as shared or handed over the responsibility to the healthcare providers. Thus, the analysis provided essential knowledge for healthcare professionals on how patients and caregivers handle this responsibility when faced with a cancer disease that is treated on an outpatient basis. (shrink)

Calvert analyzes every company in its socially screened portfolio for work place practices, environmental impact, community relations, product safety and benefit, and international human rights. Avoidance and positive screens are used on each issue. This paper reviews these screens with socially responsible high technology companies. It illustrates a host of emerging issues including distributed equity and social justice, community impact, and sustainability.

I argue in this article that responsible leadership (Maak and Pless, 2006) contributes to building social capital and ultimately to both a sustainable business and the common good. I show, first, that responsible leadership in a global stakeholder society is a relational and inherently moral phenomenon that cannot be captured in traditional dyadic leader–follower relationships (e.g., to subordinates) or by simply focusing on questions of leadership effectiveness. Business leaders have to deal with moral complexity resulting from a multitude of stakeholder (...) claims and have to build enduring and mutually beneficial relationships with all relevant stakeholders. I contend, second, that in doing so leaders bundle the energy of␣different constituencies and enable social capital building. Social capital can be understood as actual or potential resources inherent to more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual recognition (Bourdieu 1980). By drawing on network analysis I suggest, third, that responsible leaders weave durable relational structures and ultimately networks of relationships which are rich in ties to otherwise unconnected individuals or groups. Against this background I argue, fourth, that responsible leadership may result in the creation of value networks (Lord and Brown, 2001) of multiple stakeholders, which enhance social capital and thereby contribute to both a sustainable business and the common good. (shrink)

Little is known about how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) emerged in lesser developed countries. In order to address this knowledge gap, we used Chile as a test case and conducted a series of in-depth interviews with leaders of CSR initiatives. We also did an Internet and literature search to help provide support for the findings that emerged from our data. We discovered that while there are similarities in the drivers of CSR in developed countries, there are distinct differences (...) as well. In particular, we found that different sectors drive CSR in Chile. In contrast to other geographies where consumer demand and government regulation provided the impetus for CSR efforts, multinational companies (MNCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are key actors in Chile. MNCs imported their CSR beliefs, skills, and processes into Chile. Their efforts resulted in a virtuous cycle. Once large domestic firms felt pressured by their MNC rivals, they too adopted CSR initiatives. The ability to manage relationships with multiple stakeholders and perceptions of authenticity were also critical to the success of CSR in Chile. Using network theory as a lens, we suggest that network density and centrality largely determine whether CSR efforts will be authentic. Based on these contentions, we suggest avenues for future research. (shrink)

In anticipatory governance and responsible innovation, anticipation is a key theoretical and practical dimension for promoting a more responsible governance of new and emerging sciences and technologies. Yet, anticipation has been subjected to a range of criticisms, such that many now see it as unnecessary for AG and RI. According to Alfred Nordmann, practices engaging with ‘the future’, when performed under certain conditions, may reify the future, diminish our ability to see what is happening, and/or reproduce the illusion of control (...) over the future. Several authors have stressed that these critiques fail to capture the heterogeneous character of anticipatory practices, and yet research on the question of what particular kind of socio-epistemic engagements with ‘the future’ AG and RI aim to enact through anticipation remains fragmentary and their underlying rationale under-theorised. This article aims to advance the theoretical characterisation and problematisation of anticipation as key interventive tools for AG and RI. By distinguishing between four modes of anticipation and heuristically testing them against Nordmann’s critiques, the article argues that despite his assessment failing to recognise the heterogeneity of anticipatory practices considered valuable for AG and RI, it reinforces the relevance of performing certain modes of anticipatory exercises, namely critical-hermeneutic ones. Thus, anticipation continues to be a necessary heuristic dimension for AG and RI. More concretely, the article maintains that such anticipatory heuristics may find their radical constructive and critical-reflective character in the dynamics of inclusive scrutiny and negotiation about the plausibility and desirability of the envisioned or created futures. (shrink)

This article proposes a novel mapping of the complex relationship between business ethics and regulation, by suggesting five distinct ways in which business ethics and regulation may intersect. The framework is applied to a comparative case study of business responses to climate change regulation in Canada and Germany, both signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. Both countries represent distinctly different approaches which yield significant lessons for emerging economies. We also analyze the specific role of large multinational corporations in this process.

My purpose in this short response to Clinton's interesting article On Bender's orientation to models: Towards a philosophical debate on covering laws, theory, emergence and mechanisms in nursing science, which is published in this issue, is not to provide any counterargument to Clinton's interpretation of my own argument; readers are welcome to interrogate both articles at their leisure and make their own conclusions. What I will do instead is provide a brief critical assessment of my own (il)logic re bringing (...) in the notion of mechanism as conceived by Machamer, Darden and Craver into an argument for models versus theories as a carrier of nursing knowledge. (shrink)

The literature presents a broad approach to Corporate Social Responsibility, which aggregates a diversity of issues, such as the environment, labor conditions, and human rights. We addressed the impact of increasing CSR demands during the internationalization of emerging market multinationals on one particular subject, animal welfare. This subject raises important ethical concerns, especially as we understand that animals are sentient beings. Through content analysis of annual reports, we tracked the evolution of AW-CSR activities throughout the internationalization of two large Brazilian (...) meat-processing multinationals as they accessed markets with complex AW regulations. We also synthetized findings on broiler chicken on-farm AW research in Brazil and conducted interviews to gauge the impact of CSR standards on animals. Our findings show that, although EMNs that enter developed markets engage with various standards, the impacts of standard enforcement on actual welfare are not straightforward and call for broader AW and animal ethics developments. Uneven results among AW criteria indicate that some aspects are prioritized over others. Furthermore, some actions of actors such as EMNs and low-tier suppliers seem to counterbalance the expected impact of normative pressures to change the lives of animals for the better. We conclude that AW standards may improve AW in emerging markets; but these standards do not appear to be sufficiently stringent, and require improvements to have a more significant positive impact. A major signal emerging from this research is the fundamental need to broaden the animal ethics debate regarding the use of animals to produce meat. (shrink)

This study addresses the question whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters in Asian Emerging Markets. Based on CSR scores compiled by Credit Lyonnais Securities (Asia), we assess the CSR performance of major Asian firms over a period of 3 years, from 2001 to 2004. The results show that there is a positive and significant relation between CSR and market valuation among Asian firms. We further find that CSR is positively related to the market valuation of the subsequent year. More importantly, (...) Asian firms are rewarded by the market for improving their CSR practice. (shrink)

(1996). Islamic responses to emerging scientific, technological and epistemological transformations. Social Epistemology: Vol. 10, Islamic Social Epistemology, pp. 331-349. doi: 10.1080/02691729608578823.

This study examined the emergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a public issue over 25 years using a content analysis of two national news- papers and seven regional, geographically-dispersed newspapers in the U.S. The present study adopted a comprehensive definition encompassing all four CSR dimensions: economic, ethical, legal, and philanthropic. This study examined newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, op-ed columns, news analyses, and guest columns for three aspects: media attention, media prominence, and media valence. Results showed an increase (...) in the number of opinion pieces covering CSR issues over the 25-year period. The prominence of each of the four CSR dimensions varied over time. Each of the four CSR dimensions had its moment of media prominence when it was more important than the other dimensions. The most prevalent valence of the opinion pieces was negative; the volume of negative pieces increased over the 25 years, whereas the number of opinions with positive, neutral, and mixed tones showed little change over time. The study concludes by tracing the implications of the role of the news media for business ethics research. (shrink)

Inappropriately reductive or deterministic appropriations of science haunt Philip Clayton’s otherwise instructive appropriation of Michael Polanyi’s thought for theological and ethical reflection. The work at hand utilizes contemporary complexity theory to augment Polanyi’s notions of emergence and hierarchy and to provide a vision within which moral responsibility and theological inquiry make sense. It sets forth types and orders of emergence that bypass untenable notions of causality, reducibility, and determinism.

The fight for public health primacy in U.S. emergency preparedness and response to COVID-19 centers on which level of government — federal or state — should “call the shots” to quell national emergencies?

Genetic engineering techniques (e.g., CRISPR-Cas) have led to an increase in biotechnological developments, possibly leading to uncertain risks. The European Union aims to anticipate these by embedding the Precautionary Principle in its regulation for risk management. This principle revolves around taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty and provides guidelines to take precautionary measures when dealing with important values such as health or environmental safety. However, when dealing with ‘new’ technologies, it can be hard for risk managers to estimate (...) the societal or environmental consequences of a biotechnology that might arise once introduced or embedded in society due to that these sometimes do not comply with the established norms within risk assessment. When there is insufficient knowledge, stakeholders active in early developmental stages (e.g., researchers) could provide necessary knowledge by conducting research specifically devoted to what these unknown risks could entail. In theory, the Safe-by-Design (SbD) approach could enable such a controlled learning environment to gradually identify what these uncertain risks are, to which we refer as responsible learning. In this paper, we argue that three conditions need to be present to enable such an environment: (1) regulatory flexibility, (2) co-responsibility between researchers and regulators, and (3) openness towards all stakeholders. If one of these conditions would not be present, the SbD approach cannot be implemented to its fullest potential, thereby limiting an environment for responsible learning and possibly leaving current policy behind to anticipate uncertain risks. (shrink)

Jens Greve has accurately summarized nonreductive individualism (NRI) and has made an important contribution to an ongoing discussion concerning individualism, reductionism, and emergentism. Greve’s primary criticism is of my account of downward causation, and he cites Kim’s critique of Fodor by analogy. I argue that my original paper already addressed Kim’s critique, by drawing on other philosophers of mind that Greve does not engage with, to make an argument for downward causation based on wild disjunction. Further, I argue that Greve (...) does not successfully make the case that the issue of the autonomy of the mental level is distinct from the autonomy of the social level. As empirical examples of irreducible emergent group properties, I cite studies of improvisational theater dialogues, and studies of social networks. (shrink)

Minerals originated from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are blamed for financing violent conflict in the area over the past decade and have been called conflict minerals. They vividly demonstrate a key human rights issue facing responsible supply chain management. The conflict minerals issue has led to a significant shift in responsible supply chain management in two ways: extending producer responsibility to respect human rights in the total supply chain through establishing traceability and transparency; and developing legally binding supply (...) chain responsibility.This article examines an emerging effort to source conflict‐free minerals using closed‐pipe supply chain in the DRC as a new strategy to respond to the above paradigm shift. By exploring whether this new strategy can contribute to conflict prevention in the DRC, this article argues that the closed‐pipe supply chain allows building long‐term relationship with various stakeholders and has the potential to transform socio‐economic structures in the producing communities, thereby leading to peacebuilding in the long run. (shrink)

Major disasters and public health emergencies constantly test the nation's resolve to rally and recover from tragedy. Public health crises stemming from prolonged threats like the 2009/2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic require sustained preparedness and response over many months. Even shorter-duration events, like tornados, earthquakes, or hurricanes, leave lasting impacts for which full recovery may take years. Telling examples include the displacement of thousands of persons across the Gulf Coast states following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and difficulties obtaining basic housing (...) and services that persisted in the Northeast months after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Whether the result of natural disasters, infectious disease outbreaks, bioterrorism, or other causes, these events can change the societal landscape in affected regions.Despite the challenges of recovery across populations stemming from national or regional emergencies, Americans have consistently supported those directly affected. (shrink)

This paper reviews the location of Responsible Research and Innovation approaches within the access and benefit sharing policy spaces of the Convention on Biological Diversity and Nagoya Protocol. We describe how a range of dialogues on ethical research practices found a home, almost inadvertently, within the ABS policy process. However, more recent RRI dialogues around emerging technologies have not been similarly absorbed into ABS policy, due in part to the original framing of ABS and associated definitional and scope issues. Consideration (...) is given to the challenges posed to these policy processes by the transformative and rapid nature of scientific and technological change today, including the emerging field of synthetic biology. Drawing on experiences from regulating ABS, we emphasize that the integration of RRI into policies for new, emerging, or poorly understood activities such as synthetic biology faces deficiencies such as limits to government capacity, jurisdictional confusion, shortages in funds, and an absence of strategic approaches. We conclude that a coordinated combination of diverse policy processes within the CBD might provide an invaluable space for RRI dialogues on social justice, sustainability, biosafety, and other issues raised by emerging technologies. (shrink)

In what way were the messages conveyed in Romanian advertisements influenced by the state of emergency declared due to COVID-19 pandemic? What kind of visual and textual messages did advertisements deliver to the target audience in this unique social context? Were there any specifics regarding their narrative or visuals? Based on the aforementioned questions, our hypothesis is that some Romanian advertisements that were distributed during the state of emergency had a social responsibility message, which is rather uncommon in (...) commercials. The first part of our study will underline the theoretical framework of this problem: defining and explaining social responsibility and its implications. The second part of the study will present our research. Its aim is to conduct a qualitative analysis of the advertising discourse from pragmatic, rhetoric and semiotic perspectives. The corpus of our research consists of several advertisements and campaigns that were most visible in the public sphere during the state of emergency, both online. We will start by identifying the visual elements, narrative techniques and argumentative strategies, explaining the way they function as an instrument to increase social responsibility. We will approach the message of the advertisements from a speech acts theory point of view, then undergo a process of identifying the argumentative tactics that are being used and, finally, we will conduct a semiotic analysis. In the end, we will underline a series of conclusions regarding the narrative and the visual specifics of the analysed contents and we will highlight some ethical aspects of the advertisements. (shrink)

This paper looks at the current state-of-the-art and at potential changes in CSR thinking in a developing country: Romania. It seeks to understand what kind oftransformations are emerging in this field and what are the reasons behind them. The analysis is interpretative, using discourse analysis and focuses on the articles of the weekly Romanian business publication Capital. The results indicate that the local business environment features the characteristics of wild capitalism, largely contradicting the idea of responsibility. However, foreign actors have (...) recently entered the local environment, acting as travelling vehicles of Western ideas and inducing positive developments in business social behaviour. This study upholds that emerging trends in the business social thinking in Romania are not an outcome of local societal expectations but, rather, are brought from abroad and sold to the local community. (shrink)

In a recent contribution to this journal, Arjaliès (J Bus Ethics 92:57—78, 2010) suggests that the emergence of socially responsible investment (SRI) in France can be best described as a social movement with a collective identity that aimed to challenge the dominant logic of the financial market. Such an account is at odds with a body of empirical studies that approaches SRI in the French context as a process of market creation led by loosely coordinated actors with contradictory and conflicting (...) interests and values, who have mainly complied with—rather than opposed—the existing dominant financial logic of the asset-management field. In this comment, we build on this prior research to contest Arjaliès' perspective on both theoretical and empirical grounds, with the aim of highlighting the shortcomings of conflating social movements and other forms of collective actions in understanding the building of new markets in organization theory and SRI studies. We contend that in mistaking for social movement forms of collective actions that underpin the emergence of markets, scholars of organization theory may confuse distinct mechanisms in their explanation of SRI emergence across countries, overlook the complex dynamics and interactions of markets and social movements, and, most importantly, fail to evaluate the real political significance of SRI as an empirical phenomenon. We propose that future research on SRI distinguishes carefully "social-movement research as a theoretical framework" from "social movement as an empirical phenomenon" in order to avoid such drawbacks while benefiting from recent advances in social-movement research. (shrink)

Using an institutional perspective, this paper investigates how consumers in Western developed and Southeast Asian emerging markets respond to fashion brands’ moral transgressions and how consumers’ moral rationalization tendencies vary across the two markets. The study employs multimethod analyses, including cross-national secondary data from 12 countries and experimental data from 940 German and Vietnamese consumers. In a non-transgression context, the multivariate analyses show that Western developed-market consumers embrace higher ethical standards (Study 1A), tend to seek collective action against prevalent immoral (...) behaviors in society (Study 1B), and are more critical in evaluating fashion brand ethicality than Southeast Asian emerging-market consumers (Study 2). However, in a transgression context, the moderated mediation analyses reveal that consumers largely do not differ in their direct devaluation of fashion brand ethicality and subsequent price considerations (Study 3) across six transgression scenarios (i.e., worker abuse, child labor, racist advertising, weight discrimination, climate change, and environmental pollution). Interestingly, moral rationalization processes appear to be more frequent and consequential in the Southeast Asian emerging market, while they either do not occur or are significantly weaker in the Western developed market. The results provide theoretical and practical implications for ethical business practices in the fashion industry based on market differences in regulatory frameworks, cognitive considerations, and social norms. (shrink)

In this response, George Ellis comments on the publications of Part IV. He responds first to James Woodward, Richard Healey, Jan Voosholz, Simon Friederich and Sach Mukherjee, before outlining his thoughts on Max Kistler’s piece.

In an emergency, challenges faced by disabled individuals may be exacerbated by ineffective communication, power outages, transportation shortcomings, and inhospitable shelters. During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Gulf Coast shelters did not routinely provide closed captioning or sign language interpreters; for individuals with auditory disabilities, understanding instructions issued in these shelters was extremely difficult. Individuals with mobility-related disabilities experienced challenges evacuating from their homes due to public transportation that could not accommodate wheelchairs. After the hurricanes, difficulties arose in identifying wheelchair-accessible (...) trailers and in communicating with disabled trailer residents. Failing to anticipate these challenges intensifies the disadvantaged situation of those with disabilities during an emergency. (shrink)

Risks, including health and technological, attract a lot of attention in modern societies, from individuals as well as policy-makers. Human beings have always had to deal with dangers, but contemporary societies conceptualise these dangers as risks, indicating that they are to some extent controllable and calculable. Conceiving of dangers in this way implies a need to analyse how we hold people responsible for risks and how we can and should take responsibility for risks. Moral Responsibility and Risk in Societycombines philosophical (...) discussion of different concepts and notions of responsibility with context-specific applications in the areas of health, technology and environment. The book consists of two parts addressing two crucial aspects of risks and responsibility: holding agents responsible, i.e. ascribing and distributing responsibility for risks and taking responsibility for risk. More specifically, the book discusses the values of fairness and efficacy in responsibility distributions and makes distinctions between backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility as well as individual and collective responsibility. Additionally, it analyses what it means to take responsibility for technological risks, conceptualizing this kind of responsibility as a virtue, and furthermore, explores the notion of responsible risk communication and the implications for adult-child relationships. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, bioethics, public health ethics, engineering ethics, philosophy of risk and moral philosophy. (shrink)

Purpose: To determine the relative value that patients place on consent for procedures in the emergency department and to define a set of procedures that fall in the realm of implied consent. Methods: A questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample 134 of 174 patients who were seen in the ED of a Midwestern teaching hospital. The questionnaire asked how much time they believed was necessary to give consent for various procedures. Procedures ranged from simple to complex. Results: Participants (...) valued a simple blood draw at a low mean of 1.02 minutes of extra time and a lumbar puncture at a high mean of 7.78 minutes. Of all participants 52% and 48% noted a time-value of “0” time on blood draw and intravenous line starts, respectively, indicating that they desire no additional consent for these procedures. Conclusion: Defining a set of ED procedures covered under implied consent will be difficult because many patients value formal consent for even the simplest procedure. (shrink)

In this response to David Bradnick's and Bradford McCall's defense of Amos Yong's usage of emergence theory, we defend our previous argument regarding the tension between Yong's Pentecostal commitments and the philosophical entailments of emergence theory. We clarify and extend our previous concerns in three ways. First, we explore the difficulties of construing divine action naturalistically. Second, we clarify the problems of employing supervenience in theology. Third, we show why Bradnick's and McCall's advice to Yong to adopt weak emergence (...) is theologically costly. In conclusion, it is suggested that theologians within the science and religion dialogue should not fear, but recover, the language of supernaturalism and dualism. (shrink)

This commentary responds to Nicholas Gane’s article on the early history of neoliberalism. Gane contends that many histories, Foucault’s in particular, do not account for the very earliest period of neoliberal thought, during the 1920s, which was dominated by Ludwig von Mises. Gane also argues that by ignoring this period, critical scholars have misidentified the critical distantiation from John Stuart Mill that was definitive for early neoliberalism. In response to Gane, this piece argues, partly in defence of Foucault, that (...) the key moments in the history of neoliberalism (and liberalism) concern the penetration of economic rationalities into the state. Hence, while the history of economics has intrinsic merits, figures such as Mill may be less significant for the shaping of political rationalities. (shrink)

From their relative obscurity over the past three decades, varied strains of Ebola disease have emerged as a substantial global biothreat. The current outbreak of Ebola, beginning in March 2014 in Guinea, is projected to infect tens of thousands of people before being brought under control. Some estimate the outbreak could exceed 100,000 cases and extend another 12-18 months. Ebola’s spread has the potential to extend across the globe, but is concentrated in several African countries. Collectively, these countries are home (...) to nearly 290 million people. Among Liberia’s population of 4.1 million, over 1,100 people have already died from Ebola in less than 6 months; by comparison, if this same outbreak and death rate occurred in the United States, over 88,000 Americans would perish. (shrink)

Research on corporate philanthropy typically focuses on organization-external pressures and aggregated donation behavior. Hence, our understanding of the organization-internal structures that determine whether a given organization will respond philanthropically to a specific human need remains underdeveloped. We explicate an attention-based framework in which specific dimensions of organization-level attention focus interact to predict philanthropic responses to an emergent human need. Exploring the response of Fortune Global 500 firms to the 2004 South Asian tsunami, we find that management attention focused on (...) people inside the organization interacts with both attention for places and attention for practices to predict the likelihood of charitable donations. Our research thus extends beyond the prevailing institutional perspective by highlighting the role of attention focus in corporate responsiveness to emergent societal issues. (shrink)

Although a number of studies have shown that corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities often lead to greater organisational performance in western developed economies, researchers are yet to examine the strategic value of CSR in emerging economies. Using survey data from 280 firms operating in Dubai, this study examines the link between CSR activities and organisational performance. The results show that CSR has a positive relationship with all three measures of organisational performance: financial performance, employee commitment, and corporate reputation. These results (...) reinforce the accumulating body of empirical support for the positive impact of CSR on performance and challenge the dominant assumption that, given the weak institutional framework in emerging economies, CSR activities drain resources and compromise firms’ competitiveness. (shrink)