Horror stories attached to some recent retailing events concerning Hoover, Ratners and others raise questions about a company’s ethical concern, whether it be part of its marketing strategy or ‘thrust upon it’. If ethics is to have a place in retail strategy that place is better focused around performance at an operational level rather than at the level of promotion or publicity. The author is Professor of Retailing at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG1 4BU, U.K. e‐mail: (...) [email protected]. (shrink)

Authors deal with theoretical and social contexts of the teaching profession as a starting point for empirical research into ethical relationships among Slovak primary and secondary school teachers. They surveyed the opinions of teachers at that level regarding their relationship with students, parents, colleagues and superiors. According to the research results, more than 80% of respondents positively rate the behaviour of teachers towards their students and parents from the viewpoint of realising ethical values, based on which they (...) could be an ethical model for their students. The level of relationships among colleagues received a less optimistic rating. They were, however, much more critical in evaluating their superiors. Only approximately 60% of the members of school management could be an ethical model for other teachers. (shrink)

Abstract:Through an intercultural dialogue—Chinese and Western—this article explores the possibility of building cultural diversity and pluralism in philosophy. It focuses, first, on building a dialogue between Levinas' and Zhu Xi's apparent (philosophical) affinity for ethics at the level of meaning of the concept of transcendence in the Neo-Confucian and Levinasian ethical contexts and, second, on uncovering and analyzing the inapparent differences at the level of cultural presuppositions on which this apparent affinity is based. I offer that both Levinas and (...) Zhu Xi distinguish the impulse to care for the other—out of which the human relationship emerges—as rooted not in the ontological self but in an ethical transcendence: the other's face (Levinas) and the human authentic nature as mandate of heaven (Zhu Xi). The article comparatively interprets them and their cultural presuppositions. (shrink)

This article explores how Levinas’s analysis of family relations (paternity, filiality, fecundity, and maternity) and the ethical relationship to the other (requiring both a paradoxical process of separation and the aptitude to be ethically ordained) can retrospectively enlighten our understanding of King Lear. It first shows how, in the Shakespearean tragedy, Levinas’s ethical answer, “here I am,” cannot be dissociated from fearless speech, which becomes the manifestation of the ethical relationship to the other. It then focuses on (...) the Levinasian paradox of “separation” as a prerequisite to the ethical relationship, and sees how this is radically distorted in the families presented in King Lear. It finally considers Levinas’s idea of maternity as a responsibility for others to the point of substitution, to questions the absence of mothers in King Lear and argue that the denouement of the tragedy can be regarded as a gender-reversed variation on the mater dolorosa motif. (shrink)

There is a growing body of global research demonstrating the significance of mental health to individuals’ overall happiness and productivity. The research evidence has encouraged governmental agencies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to divert more attention toward the provision and development of mental health services. As the sector grows, one of the first issues of concern is the adherence to a unified set of ethics of practice. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the existing (...) class='Hi'>ethical codes of conduct relevant to the mental health profession in the unique context of the UAE. Specifically, this discussion will focus on the interaction of cultural factors with the ethical standards of confidentiality, informed consent, and multiple relationships. This paper provides an initial reference for researchers and practitioners to explore regional issues of ethical standards in mental health services. (shrink)

A study of 513 executives researched decisions involving ethics, relationships and results. Analyzing personal values, organization role and level, career stage, gender and sex role with decisions in ten scenarios produced conclusions about both the role of gender, subjective values, and the other study variables and about situational relativity, gender stereotypes, career stages, and future research opportunities.

Robotic or automatic milking systems are novel technologies that take over the labor of dairy farming and reduce the need for human–animal interactions. Because robotic milking involves the replacement of ‘conventional’ twice-a-day milking managed by people with a system that supposedly allows cows the freedom to be milked automatically whenever they choose, some claim robotic milking has health and welfare benefits for cows, increases productivity, and has lifestyle advantages for dairy farmers. This paper examines how established ethical relations on (...) dairy farms are unsettled by the intervention of a radically different technology such as AMS. The renegotiation of ethical relationships is thus an important dimension of how the actors involved are re-assembled around a new technology. The paper draws on in-depth research on UK dairy farms comparing those using conventional milking technologies with those using AMS. We explore the situated ethical relations that are negotiated in practice, focusing on the contingent and complex nature of human–animal–technology interactions. We show that ethical relations are situated and emergent, and that as the identities, roles, and subjectivities of humans and animals are unsettled through the intervention of a new technology, the ethical relations also shift. (shrink)

Anarchism and Sexuality: Dangerous Desires brings the rich traditions of anarchist thought and practice to contemporary questions about the politics of sexuality. Overflowing and undermining governmental divisions between the personal and political, heterosexual and homosexual, activism and scholarship, poetry and prose, this book: brings a fresh anarchist perspectives to queer and feminist debates around sexuality; makes feminist and queer intervention in the newest wave of anarchist scholarship; and offers an anarchist contribution ...

This discussion examines the emergence of professional codes of ethics, influences that shape contemporary midwifery ethics, and the adequacy of codes to actualize values embedded in the midwifery ethics discourse. It considers the traditions of professional practice, the impact of institutionalization on health care, the application of a code of practice as a recent addition to those traditions, and the strengths and weaknesses of codes of ethics as models for ethical responses. That is, it sets out to articulate and (...) deconstruct existing frames of ethical response. The ethics of strangers (normative theory and abstract principles) are rejected as inadequate, and the ethics of intimates (feminist-relational ethics) are proposed as a more adequate guide for well-woman centred midwifery practice. (shrink)

Objective To compare the coping patterns of physicians and clinical psychologists when confronted with clinical ethical dilemmas and to explore consistency across different dilemmas. Population 88 clinical psychologists and 149 family physicians in Israel. Method Six dilemmas representing different ethical domains were selected from the literature. Vignettes were composed for each dilemma, and seven possible behavioural responses for each were proposed, scaled from most to least ethical. The vignettes were presented to both family physicians and clinical psychologists. (...) Results Psychologists’ aggregated mean ethical intention score, as compared with the physicians, was found to be significantly higher =22.44, p<0.001, η2=0.37). Psychologists showed higher ethical intent for two dilemmas: issues of payment and dual relationships. In the other four vignettes, psychologists and physicians responded in much the same way. The highest ethical intent scores for both psychologists and physicians were for confidentiality and a colleague’s inappropriate practice due to personal problems. Conclusions Responses to the dilemmas by physicians and psychologists can be categorised into two groups: similar behaviours on the part of both professions when confronting dilemmas concerning confidentiality, inappropriate practice due to personal problems, improper professional conduct and academic issues and different behaviours when confronting either payment issues or dual relationships. (shrink)

Using Reidenbach and Robin's Multidimensional Ethics Scale, this study investigated the relationships between background variables and students' ethical evaluations, judgments, and behavioral intentions using 3 scenarios involving dilemmas related to academic dishonesty. The sample included 436 master's students and 142 doctoral students. The study found that the participants used a combination of ethical philosophies to make ethical decisions. The respondents judged improper citations more harshly than acts of inappropriate authorship or the falsification of data. The doctoral (...) students generally considered behaviors related to plagiarism and falsification to be more unethical than the master's students did, though no gender differences were found. (shrink)

Studies on the ethical culture of organizations have mainly focused on ethical culture at the organizational level. This study explores ethical culture at the team level because this can add a more detailed understanding of the ethics of an organization, which is necessary for more customized and effective management interventions. To find out whether various teams within an organization can have different ethical cultures, we employ the differentiation perspective and conduct a survey of 180 teams from (...) one organization. The results show that there are significant differences between the ethical cultures of teams. These differences are relevant given the different relationships that were established between high and low clusters of team ethical culture and two outcome variables. The results also show that the dimensions of ethical cultures among teams have different patterns, which indicates the usefulness of using a multidimensional scale for capturing further differences among team ethical cultures. (shrink)

: An open-ended questionnaire elicited concepts of virtue and duty, and ethical language and priorities from commercial fishers and residents of ports in the Republic of Ireland. Respondents came from viable and stressed fisheries and from nontraditional and traditional natural resources communities (including one in Gaeltacht). In reporting the characteristics of a "good" fisher, viable fisheries emphasized virtues such as work ethic, respect for the crew, and respect for the sea. The responses from stressed fisheries materialized virtue, and decreased (...) emphasis on interpersonal relationships while increasing emphasis on owning a large vessel, investing, and being greedy. Most noble actions primarily concerned rescues and sharing equipment and time in difficult circumstances. Worst actions concerned physical damage to gear, persons, or to the marine environment. Respondents personified the sea, and used similar vocabulary to express care for people and for marine organisms. Although respondents from all communities thought over-fishing and illegal fishing were threats to the fishery, respondents from viable fisheries were more likely to believe they could take personal conservation action to protect the fishery, while those from stressed fisheries despaired of personal protective action and believed that nothing could be done, or that excluding the foreign fleets was necessary for Irish fisheries to recover. European Community policies often conflict with the norms of traditional, artisanal fishers. (shrink)

Corruption devours profits, people, and the planet. Ethical leaders promote ethical behaviors. We develop a first-stage moderated mediation theoretical model, explore the intricate relationships between ethical leadership and employee ethical behaviors, and treat ethical climate and organizational justice as dual mediators and leaders’ moral attentiveness as a moderator. We investigate leadership from two perspectives—leaders’ self-evaluation of moral attentiveness and members’ perceptions of ethical leadership. We theorize: These dual mediation mechanisms are more robust for (...) high moral leaders than low moral leaders. Our three-wave data collected from multiple sources, 236 members and 98 immediate supervisors in the Republic of Iraq, support our theory. Specifically, ethical leadership robustly impacts organizational justice’s intensity and magnitude, leading to high employee ethical behaviors when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. However, ethical leadership only influences the ethical climate’s intensity but has no impact on the magnitude when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. Therefore, organizational justice is a more robust mediator than the ethical climate in the omnibus context of leader moral attentiveness. Our findings support Western theory and constructs, demonstrating a new theory for Muslims in Arabic’s emerging markets. Individual decision-makers apply their values as a lens to frame their concerns in the immediate and omnibus contexts to maximize their expected utility and ultimate serenity-happiness. Ethical leadership trickles down to employee ethical behaviors, providing practical implications for improving the ethical environment, corporate social responsibility, leader-member exchange, business ethics, and economic potentials in the global competitive markets. (shrink)

Using traditional meta-analytic techniques, we compile relevant research to enhance conceptual appreciation of ethical climate theory (ECT) as it has been studied in the descriptive and applied ethics literature. We explore the various treatments of ethical climate to understand how the theoretical framework has developed. Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive picture of how the theory has been extended by describing the individual-level work climate outcomes commonly studied in this theoretical context. Meta-analysis allows us to resolve inconsistencies in previous (...) findings as well as confirm the central tenets of the overall ethical climate framework. In addition, we consider the ethical climate relationships in the larger context of the␣theoretical framework, using path analysis to test the structural relationships. Overall, our results provide evidence of the relationships between ethical climate perceptions and individual-level work outcomes. Based on our analyses, we offer future research directions important for further development of ECT. (shrink)

The paper investigates the ethical decisions of Millennials, who are not only part of an expanding cohort of the workforce, but also represent potential future managers with a growing influence on work practices and employment relationships. In the conceptual model, we propose that three ethical frames of reference, represented by perceived organisational ethics, perceived employee ethics and reflective moral attentiveness, antecede ethical judgements, which further influence the ethical intentions of Millennials. Using structural equation modelling, we (...) test the model for three different business ethics scenarios: paying a consulting fee, dumping hazardous waste, and running an offensive advertising campaign. The findings confirm the link between ethical judgements and intentions across the board, while the influence of the ethical frames of reference varies among the scenarios. We propose that the differences in the predictive ability of the ethical frames of reference depend on the nature of the ethical issue, which holds important implications for today's managers in their attempts to encourage ethical behaviour of Millennial employees. (shrink)

Common-sense morality tells us we should help our loved ones who suffer. Self-saboteurs complicate this intuition: ought we help someone who wants to suffer? In this paper, I discuss mechanisms of and motivations for self-sabotaging behavior. I then turn to the ethical complications of these cases: the risk of becoming complicit in another’s self-sabotage; the acceptable limits of caring for a self-saboteur; and the permissibility of paternalistic interference. I argue that while there is some permissible leeway involved in meeting (...) another’s needs—including submitting to their low-stakes manipulation—doing so risks damaging the relationship. While paternalistic interference may seem justified, I argue that this approach is a morally problematic denial of the self-saboteur’s agency. Instead, I offer an alternative route between complicity and interference: carers ought to try to maintain a relationship built on the honest recognition of each other’s reasons, which may include the self-saboteur’s legitimate reasons to suffer. (shrink)

Background: Ethical and legal issues are increasingly being reported by health caregivers; however, little is known about the nature of these issues in geriatric care. These issues can improve work and care conditions in healthcare, and consequently, the health and welfare of older people. Aim: This literature review aims to identify research focusing on ethical and legal issues in geriatric care, in order to give nurses and other health care workers an overview of existing grievances and possible solutions (...) to take care of old patients in a both ethical and legally correct way. Methods: Using a systematic approach based on Aveyard, a search of the PubMed, CINAHL, and Ethicshare databases was conducted to find out the articles published on ethical and legal issues in geriatric care. Ethical considerations: The approval for the study was obtained from UMIT-The Health and Life Sciences University, Austria. Results: Only 50 articles were included for systematic analysis reporting ethical and legal issues in the geriatric care. The results presented in this article showed that the main ethical issues were related to the older people’s autonomy, respect for their needs, wishes and values, and respect for their decision-making. The main legal issues were related to patients’ rights, advance directives, elderly rights, treatment nutrition dilemma, and autonomy. Conclusion: Further education for professional caregivers, elderly people, and their families is needed on following topics: care planning, directive and living wills, and caregiver-family member relationships to guide and support the elderly people within their decision-making processes and during the end-of-life care. (shrink)

Promoting ethical decisions and behaviors is challenging for any organization. Yet managers are still required to make ethical decisions under conditions which deplete their self-control resources, such as high stress and long hours. This study examines the relationships among symbolic and internal moral identity, self-control, and ethical behavior, and investigates whether self-control acts as the mechanism through which moral identity leads to ethical behavior. Findings indicate that internal moral identity overrides symbolic moral identity in the (...) relationship with self-control and that self-control fully mediates the relationship between internal moral identity and ethical behavior. The implications for organizations is that while rules, procedures, and ethics training are useful, managers with a strong moral compass will be more likely to practice self-control leading to more ethical behaviors. (shrink)

Most research on ethical leadership to date investigates the consequences of ethical leadership rather than its antecedents. Here, we aim to contribute to this field by studying leader personality as a potential antecedent of ethical leader behavior. In two multisource studies, we investigated the relationships between personality traits and ethical leader behavior. Leader personality was measured through self-ratings using the five-factor personality framework. Two subordinates rated their leaders' ethical behavior. Study 1 used a unidimensional (...) Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS). In study 2 we used this scale as well as an instrument distinguishing three different ethical leader behaviors, namely, fairness, role clarification, and power sharing. Further, in study 2 we controlled for the influence of the relationship between leader and followers (LMX). As expected, conscientiousness and agreeableness were most consistently related to ethical leadership. In study 1, after controlling for the other personality traits, conscientiousness related positively with ethical leadership. In study 2, after controlling for other traits and LMX, conscientiousness related positively with ethical leadership and the behavior role clarification, and agreeableness with power sharing and fairness. Also, emotional stability related positively with ethical leadership and role clarification after controlling for LMX. As expected, openness to experience and extraversion were unrelated to ethical leader behaviors. (shrink)

The recent rise in ethical consumerism has seen increasing numbers of corporate brands project a socially responsible and ethical image. But does having a corporate brand that is perceived to be ethical have any influence on outcome variables of interest for its product brands? This study analyzes the relationship between perceived ethicality at a corporate level, and brand trust, brand affect and brand loyalty at a product level. A theoretical framework with hypothesized relationships is developed and (...) tested in order to answer the research question. Data have been collected for 45 product categories in the fast moving consumer goods sector using a panel of 4,027 Spanish consumers. The proposed relationships are tested using structural equations modeling. The results suggest there is a positive relationship between perceived ethicality of a brand and both brand trust and brand affect. Brand affect also positively influences brand trust. Further, brand trust and brand affect both show a positive relation with brand loyalty. The managerial and academic implications of the results are discussed. (shrink)

This study empirically investigated the impact of ethical leadership on employee burnout, deviant behavior and task performance through two psychological mechanisms: developing higher levels of employee trust in leaders and demonstrating lower levels of surface acting toward their leaders. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from employees of a pharmaceutical retail chain company. Analyses of multisource time-lagged data from 45 team leaders and 247 employees showed that employees’ trust in leaders and surface acting significantly mediated the (...) class='Hi'>relationships between ethical leadership and employee burnout, deviant behavior and task performance. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for understanding how ethical leaders influence employees’ attitudes and behavior. (shrink)

Background: Nurses are confronted daily with ethical issues while providing patient care. Hospital ethical climates can affect nurses’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, retention, and physician collaboration. Purpose: At a metropolitan academic medical center, we examined nurses’ perceptions of the ethical climate and relationships among ethical climate factors and nurse characteristics. Design/participants: We used a descriptive correlational design and nurses ( N = 475) completed Olson’s Hospital Ethical Climate Survey. Data were analyzed using STATA. (...) class='Hi'>Ethical considerations: Approvals by the Nursing Research Council and Institutional Review Board were obtained; participants’ rights were protected. Results: Nurses reported an ethical climate total mean score of 3.22 ± 0.65 that varied across factors; significant differences were found for ethical climate scores by nurses’ age, race, and specialty area. Conclusion: These findings contribute to what is known about ethical climate and nurses’ characteristics and provides the foundation to develop strategies to improve the ethical climate in work settings. (shrink)

We examined nurses’ perceptions of the ethical climate of their workplace and the relationships among the perceptions, medical error experience and intent to leave through a cross-sectional survey of 1826 nurses in 33 Korean public hospitals. Ethical climate was measured using the Hospital Ethical Climate Survey. Although the sampled nurses perceived their workplace ethical climate positively, 19% reported making at least one medical error during the previous year, and 25% intended to leave their jobs in (...) the near future. Controlling for individual and organizational characteristics, we found that nurses with a more positive perception of the ‘patient’ dimension of ethical climate were less likely to have made medical errors. Nurses with a more positive perception of the ‘patient’, ‘manager’, ‘hospital’ and ‘physician’ dimensions of ethical climate were less likely to leave their current job. Enhancing workplace ethical climate could reduce medical errors and improve nurses’ retention in public hospitals. (shrink)

Ethical reflection deals not only with the moral standing and handling of animals, it should also include a critical analysis of the underlying relationship. Anthropological, psychological, and sociological aspects of the human–animal-relationship should be taken into account. Two conditions, asymmetry and ambivalence, are taken as the historical and empirical basis for reflections on the human–animal-relationship in late modern societies. These conditions explain the variety of moral practice, apart from paradoxes, and provide a framework to systematize animal ethical problems (...) in a broader field. This allows the development of ideal relationships as moral orientation across anthropocentric or sentientistic ethical theories. These ideal relationships are called the patronage-model, the friendship-model and the partnership-model. The ethical problem of creating transgenic animals is discussed in the light of these ideal relationships. (shrink)

Introduction Ethical climate in medical contexts is referred to the organizational environment consisting of medical staff interpersonal relationships regarding patient care. This element affects staff behavior in an organization. The investigation and comparison of the effects of the interventions promoting ethical climate are among important nursing challenges that should be considered by researchers. The present study was conducted to compare the effect of nurses’ ethical decision-making skills and interpersonal communication training on their ethical climate. Materials (...) and methods This experimental study was performed on 90 nurses working in the general teaching hospitals of Mashhad, Iran. The sampling process was conducted in two stages. Nurses were divided into three groups: intervention 1 (ethical decision-making skills group), intervention 2 (interpersonal communication skills group) and control group. The intervention was separate 12-h workshops for each of the intervention groups. The ethical climate questionnaire by Victor and Cullen was used to assess the score of ethical climate in the three groups both at the beginning and 4 weeks after the workshop. The data were analyzed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences software (version 16) using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Kruskal–Wallis, paired sample t-test, Wilcoxon test, and post hoc Tukey’s test. Ethical considerations were as follows: The study design was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects, and they were ensured about the confidentiality terms. Results The mean scores of the ethical climate test at the first stage were obtained as 66.0 ± 5.5, 67.8 ± 6.9, and 67.7 ± 7.2 in the ethical decision-making, interpersonal communication, and control groups, respectively. Accordingly, the three groups were not significantly different in terms of this variable (df = 87, f = 0.70, P = 0.005). However, after the intervention (i.e. second stage), a significant difference was observed among the three groups regarding the mean scores of the ethical climate test In this regard, the calculated mean scores in the ethical decision-making, interpersonal communication, and control groups were 99.3 ± 6.3, 90.4 ± 7.7, and 67.4 ± 7.9, respectively (df = 87, f = 152.00, P < 0.001). Conclusion Training workshops about ethical decision-making skills and interpersonal communication on the ethical professional climate of nurses was effective. Nonetheless, the effect of ethical decision-making skill training was found to be higher than interpersonal communication skill training. Therefore, it is recommended that nursing managers hold training workshops to improve the ethical climate for nurses. (shrink)

One of the main objectives of an ethics program is to improve the ethical culture of an organization. To date, empirical research treats at least one of these concepts as a one-dimensional construct. This paper demonstrates that by conceptualizing both constructs as multi-dimensional, a more in-depth understanding of the relationship between the two concepts can be achieved. Through the employment of the Corporate Ethical Virtues Model, eight dimensions of ethical culture are distinguished. Nine components of an ethics (...) program are identified. To assess the relationship between ethics programs and ethical culture, a survey was conducted of 4,056 members of the U. S. working population. The results show that the relationships between the components of an ethics program and the dimensions of ethical culture differ in strength, nature, and significance. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Background: A growing body of evidence about nurses’ ethical conflicts has been added to nursing science in recent decades, but no research has been done in Estonia. Ethical conflicts are a cultural and context sensitive phenomenon, so the historical, legal, social, economic and political backgrounds and position of nursing have had an impact on ethical conflict experiences. Aim: Describe nurses’ experiences of ethical conflicts. Method: A qualitative, descriptive study was conducted among nurses (n = 21) in (...) May-October 2018 in Estonia. The data were collected in the form of semi-structured individual interviews and analysed using the inductive content analysis method. Ethical considerations: Due to the sensitive nature of the research topic, only individual interviews were carried out. Findings: Nurses’ ethical conflicts were related to situations that violated the rights, safety or well-being of the patient or relatives, caused them suffering, were against their will or threatened nurses’ dignity and professionalism through a variety of practices, attitudes and relationships. The insufficiency of patient care and professional collaboration emerged as important sources of nurses’ ethical conflicts and were connected to historical and societal factors. Conclusions: In order to achieve good quality of care, nurses need to have appropriate education and organisational support to carry out ethical daily care. More research is needed to understand the multidimensional cultural and contextual knowledge of ethics and nurses’ ethical conflicts. (shrink)

Background Working as an ambulance nurse involves facing ethically problematic situations with multi-dimensional suffering, requiring the ability to create a trustful relationship. This entails a need to be clinically trained in order to identify ethical conflicts. Aim To describe ethical conflicts in patient relationships as experienced by ambulance nursing students during clinical studies. Research design An exploratory and interpretative design was used to inductively analyse textual data from examinations in clinical placement courses. Participants The 69 participants attended (...) a 1-year educational programme for ambulance nurses at a Swedish university. Ethical considerations The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants gave voluntary informed consent for this study. Findings The students encountered ethical conflicts in patient relationships when they had inadequate access to the patient’s narrative. Doubts regarding patient autonomy were due to uncertainty regarding the patient’s decision-making ability, which forced students to handle patient autonomy. Conflicting assessments of the patient’s best interest added to the conflicts and also meant a disruption in patient focus. The absence of trustful relationships reinforced the ethical conflicts, together with an inadequacy in meeting different needs, which limited the possibility of providing proper care. Discussion Contextual circumstances add complexity to ethical conflicts regarding patient autonomy, dependency and the patient’s best interest. Students felt they were fluctuating between paternalism and letting the patient choose, and were challenged by considerations regarding the patient’s communication and decision-making ability, the views of third parties, and the need for prioritisation. Conclusion The essence of the patient relationship is a struggle to preserve autonomy while focusing on the patient’s best interest. Hence, there is a need for education and training that promotes ethical knowledge and ethical reflection focusing on the core nursing and caring values of trust and autonomy, particularly in situations that affect the patient’s decision-making ability. (shrink)

The logic of gift and gratuitousness in business activity raised by the encyclical Caritas in Veritate stresses a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation. The logic of gift in business includes two aspects. The first is considering the logic of gift as a new conceptual lens in order to view business relationship beyond contractual logic. In this view, it is crucial to see the circulation of goods as instrumental for the development of relationships. The second aspect is (...) to qualify the relationships established through the gift, and to think about the motivation in gift-giving, which has an ethical content. We give because we have received, and through gift-giving we develop relationships that have a high ‘bonding value’. Analysing the logic of gift in business management may permit us to gain an understanding of the ambiguity of gift-giving in organizations. Looking at the relationships between organizations and employees, and organizations and customers, we can discover why the logic of gift is often misunderstood or abused in its application, and how it should be applied to be more consistent with the message of Caritas in Veritate. (shrink)

This book is a comprehensive and unique text and reference in medical ethics. By far the most inclusive set of primary documents and articles in the field ever published, it contains over 100 selections. Virtually all pieces appear in their entirety, and a significant number would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. The volume draws upon the literature of history, medicine, philosophical and religious ethics, economics, and sociology. A wide range of topics and issues are covered, such as law and medicine, (...) truth-telling by the physician, research, population policy, genetics, abortion, dying, and individual rights in medical care. The selections span the centuries, beginning with material from the works of Hippocrates, continuing through Thomas Percival, John Stuart Mill, and Claude Bernard, down to modern commentators like Henry K. Beecher, Walsh McDermott, David L. Bazelon, Paul Freund, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Paul Ramsey, Richard McCormick, Rashi Fein, and Bernard Barber. The text has eight major divisions, beginning with sections on the ethical dimensions of the physician-patient relationship in history; the moral bases of medical ethics; and regulation, compulsion, and protection of the consumer in clinical medicine and public health. Each of these sections includes key essays that appear for the first time. All of the book's major divisions contain primary documents: codes such as the Hippocratic Oath, Medieval Law for the Regulation of Medicine, and the first as well as the most recent code of the American Medical Association; court decisions, including those on Karen Quinlan and on abortion in the United States and West Germany; government documents such as the statement of the National Commission on the Protection of Human Subjects, the Tuskegee Syphilis Report, the British Parliamentary debate on euthanasia, and the Council of Europe on rights of the sick and dying; and various published guidelines such as the Harvard Medical School brain death criteria, the American Hospital Association on patient's rights, and Pope Pius XII on the prolongation of life. Cases that illustrate moral dilemmas are provided for discussion purposes. Each section is preceded by a succinct editor's introduction. The documents and essays are of practical value for practitioners and students in medicine, law, ethics, and counselling, and for individual patients and groups concerned with medical care. Through encompassing divergent viewpoints, the essays and primary documents were selected to encourage humane practices and deepen understanding of the multiple traditions that shaped and do shape the development of medicine. (shrink)

This study explores the linear logic between consumer ethical beliefs (CEBs) and consumer unethical behavior (CUB) in a Chinese context. A relational view helps fill the belief–behavior gap by exploring the moderating role of relationship quality in reducing CUBs. Specifically, when consumers are more receptive to a set of actions that may be deemed inappropriate by moral principles, they are more likely to engage in unethical behaviors. However, when consumers perceive their misconduct as possibly damaging to the relationship developed (...) with the seller, they tend to refrain from unethical behaviors. CEBs and relationship quality also combine to affect unethical behaviors. Although consumers find the misconduct acceptable according to their ethical beliefs, they become less likely to conduct the behavior if they have a close relationship with the seller. The results contribute to a better understanding of the simplistic logic that connects CEBs and their unethical behaviors and shed light on how close relationships with consumers help contain CUBs. (shrink)

Despite continuous academic attempts to investigate the relationship between public expectations of ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, little research has demonstrated the subliminal process of the relationship. This study focuses on the publics' power distance perceptions as a key driver to lead individuals to prioritize CSR, mediated by the expectations of corporate ethical leadership. To further understand the mechanism and the way power distance perception influences public attitudes toward CSR operations, this study suggests a theoretical (...) model illustrating the relationships among power distance perception, expectancy of ethical leadership, expectancy of ethical CSR, and willingness to support socially responsible companies. A cross-national survey was conducted to provide empirical evidence from the United States (U.S.) and South Korea. Given that strategic approaches of CSR prioritize meeting public expectations toward corporate social roles, this study provides meaningful implications on public relations practice and CSR scholarship by demonstrating how public expectations of corporate ethical operations are shaped and how these expectations influence the public evaluation of corporate behaviors. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between unethical employee behavior and the dimensions of the Ethical Climate Questionnaire (ECQ). In order to explore the relationship between the dimensions of the ECQ and unethical behavior, the factor structure of five previously identified empirical models and the hypothesized nine-dimension model for the ECQ was tested with a confirmatory factor analysis. The analysis revealed that the hypothesized nine-dimension model provided as good or even better fit to the data than the five empirically derived (...) models. Therefore, the nine-dimensional model was used to examine the criterion-related validity of the ECQ. The results demonstrated that the nine ethical climate dimensions were correlated with some of the unethical behaviors examined in this study, but not others. However, the results clearly demonstrated that most of the ethical climate dimensions were significantly related to an aggregate measure of unethical behavior. It was suggested that these results might account for the differences in previous studies on the criterion-related validity of the ECQ. The results also replicated a previous report that the association between unethical behavior and ethical climate is stronger in organizations that do not have a code of ethics. Finally, a difference was observed in the ethical climates for organizations with a code of ethics and organizations without a code of ethics. (shrink)

The controversial issue of whether Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation is excessive or appropriate is examined in terms of two competing claims: that CEOs are overpaid for the value they provide to an enterprise, and that CEO compensation is inherently equitable. Various arguments and perspectives on both sides of the issue are assessed. Little evidence supports the claim that CEO performance justifies very high compensation. Further, the complex interactive alliance between boards of directors and CEOs compromises rational decision-making about CEO (...) compensation, with the Enron affair offered as an illustration of what can go wrong when dishonest CEO actions combine with lax board oversight. Recommendations for restoring trust in the system include continuing current regulatory actions, using different metrics for determining CEO compensation, making board member-CEO relationships transparent to all company stakeholders, and several more radical ideas for change. Stakeholders must resist being distracted by other social, economic, or political issues from pursuing serious, lasting reform. (shrink)

This article presents the ethical implications for social science research emerging from our study on interpersonal communication after a laryngectomy. By tracing the evolution of our approach through specific research experiences and participant feedback, we provide empirical support for a flexible, multidimensional, and relational understanding of key ethical concepts, such as vulnerability and the researcher-participant relationship. Our approach has shifted from institutionally imposed rigid categorizations and somewhat stereotypical treatment of both the research group and the researcher-participant relationship to (...) an emphasis on building relationships founded on mutual care and rapport. We argue that this revised perspective fosters ethical collaboration that is beneficial and secure for all parties involved, and we offer practical examples of its implementation in research practice. (shrink)

This article answers several calls—coming as well from corporate governance practitioners as from corporate governance researchers—concerning the possibility of complying simultaneously with requirements of innovation and ethics. Revealing the long-term orientation as the variable which permits us to link the principal goal of organization, being “survival,” with innovation and ethic, the article devises a framework for incorporating ethics into a company’s processes and strategies for innovation. With the principal goal of organizations being “survival” in the long-term, it is assumed that (...) innovation is necessary in order to realize a going concern. Firms that do not innovate and adapt to rapidly changing business environments are less likely to be sustainable. Thus, it is in a business’ best interests to adopt an innovation process for long-term success. We posit that there are two simultaneous sources of innovation and change that are unavoidable and embedded in the corporate landscape. First, we argue for genetically embedded, Darwinian explanations for adaptations that enable an entity’s survival. This view is combined with more conventional, social science explanations for change. Our new, comprehensive model of the governance of innovation processes hinges on the one hand on an organization’s long-term orientation, which we argue, is not possible without a consideration of an ethical dimension. On the other hand, the model employs, for the first time, the concept of duality, in order to make the positive coexistence of innovation and ethic analytically visible. Guided by this concept the roots of the ethic within innovation are traced from both natural science forces for change, and cultural pressures operating on members of an organization. We present our Integrated Causal Model of Innovation and propose theoretical relationships that will generate numerous avenues for future research in the field, and help managers to reorient their governance strategies. (shrink)

Background Cultural competence is considered as one of the main skills of nurses enabling them to provide nursing care for those with different cultures. One of the cases related to nurses’ cultural competence is observance of ethical codes, but it has not been investigated sufficiently in studies. Aim This study has been conducted to determine the relationship between nurses’ cultural competence and observance of ethical codes in practice. Research design This descriptive-correlational study was conducted in 2020. Sampling was (...) done at several stages. The data were collected using questionnaires of demographic information, cultural competence, and observance of ethical codes as self-report. The questionnaires were provided to the subjects by the corresponding researcher and the data were analyzed using Pearson correlation test. Participants and research context This study was done with participation of 267 nurses working in four training hospitals located in northwestern Iran and 16 head nurses of selected wards. Ethical considerations The study was approved by Human Ethics Committee of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences. Participation was voluntary. Consent was obtained and confidentiality kept. Findings The results of Pearson correlation coefficient test showed a positive and statistically significant relationship between cultural competence and observance of ethical codes (r = 0.524, p = 0.001). In addition, cultural competence and observance of ethical codes by most nurses were at a moderate level. Conclusions The results of the present study showed a significant relationship between nurses’ cultural competence and observance of ethical codes. Therefore, it can be concluded that by strengthening the level of nurses, the level of observing ethical codes by them can be increased. Cultural competency and observance of ethical codes are important components of nursing care, and their development can improve nursing care delivery to clients through academic training, hidden curriculum and in-service education. (shrink)

The question of whether a patient has insight is among the first to be considered in psychiatric contexts. There are several competing conceptions of clinical insight, which broadly refers to a patient’s awareness of their mental illness. When a patient is described as lacking insight, there are significant implications for patient care and to what extent the patient is trusted as a knower. Insight is currently viewed as a multidimensional and continuous construct, but competing conceptions of insight still lack consensus (...) on the specifics. Studies also give contradictory evidence regarding the frequency and consequences of poor insight. A number of crucial questions remain unanswered. After outlining some of the key theoretical disagreements about what insight means, I highlight ethical issues that have not received much attention in the literature. Given the conceptual ambiguities and the absence of standardised bedside tools, there are significant ethical concerns about insight assessments. I highlight two main ethical concerns, specifically that these assessments risk: (1) marginalising patients by setting unattainable ideals for self-knowledge and (2) minimising the patient’s own perspective on their mental health. I close with recommendations for documenting and responding to concerns about poor insight, so patients who are vulnerable to losing epistemic trust are better supported in their therapeutic relationships. (shrink)

This commentary proceeds as follows. First, it is argued from both ethical and legal perspectives through an analysis of Court precedents that Etzioni’s has improperly developed a too narrow First Amendment interpretation and conclusion that Apple should comply with the FBI’s demand to provide the FBI with a key to open iPhones. That is, broad First Amendment considerations and not solely narrow First Amendment “compelled speech” or only Fourth Amendment privacy issues are offered and analyzed from both ethical (...) and legal perspectives. A key point here is that broad First Amendment considerations protect, with exceptions, political and ethical discretion space for “Press” organizations to exercise, or not, ethical responsibilities, including rights to publish or not publish information and opinions, rather than compliance with government orders to publish or not publish. Further, Court cases are discussed from both legal and ethical perspectives where the Courts have established that social media organizations such as Facebook and Twitter do and should have broad First Amendment protection of free expression and peaceful assembly as traditional media such as newspapers have. It is suggested that Apple can and should be considered a social media organization. In addition, special First Amendment protection and limitations concerning national security are analyzed. Second, it is suggested that Etzioni’s point that Apple protected its clients soley for “business profitability” reasons is also a too narrow interpretation since there are more complex, mixed, and combined ethical and political-economic reasons for protecting clients and First Amendment protections. Third, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s ethics process responsibility framework concerning relationships between ethics and law and the need for an ethics responsibility rather than a compliance approach, which is similar to Brandeis’ legal ethics approach, is compared with and offered as an alternative to Etzioni’s compliance based “Liberal communitarian” approach. It is suggested that the difference between the Rocoeur and Etzioni approaches is similar to the difference between compliance and ethics responsibility process programs in organizations. (shrink)

For each one of the approximately 800,000 people who die from suicide every year, an additional twenty people attempt suicide. Many of these attempts result in hospitalization or in contact with other healthcare services. However, many personal, educational, and institutional barriers make it difficult for healthcare professionals to care for suicidal individuals. We reviewed literature that discusses suicidal patients in healthcare settings in order to highlight common ethical issues and to identify knowledge gaps. A sample was generated via PubMed (...) using keywords “[(ethics OR *ethic*) AND suicid*] AND [English (Language) OR French (Language)]” (final N = 52), ethics content was extracted according to scoping review methodology, and categorized thematically. We identified three main areas posing ethical challenges for health professionals caring for suicidal individuals and their families. These were: (1) making clinical decisions for patients in acute care or when presented with specific circumstances; (2) issues arising from therapeutic relationships in chronic care, and (3) organizational factors. There is considerable uncertainty about how to resolve ethical issues when caring for someone who is suicidal. The stigma associated with suicide and mental illness, problems associated with risk–benefit assessments, and the fear of being held liable for malpractice should a patient die by suicide were overarching themes present across these three categories. Caring for suicidal patients is clinically and ethically challenging. The current literature highlights the complexity and range of decisions that need to be made. More attention should be paid to the difficulties faced by healthcare professionals and the development of solutions. (shrink)

While ethical and moral issues have been widely considered in the general areas of marketing and sales, similar attention has not been given to the impact of strategic account management (SAM) approaches to handling the relationships between suppliers and very␣large customers. SAM approaches have been widely␣adopted by suppliers as a mechanism for managing␣relationships and partnerships with dominant customers␣– characterized by high levels of buyer–seller inter-dependence and forms of collaborative partnership. Observation suggests that the perceived moral intensity of␣these (...) relationships is commonly low, notwithstanding the underlying principles of benefiting the few (large, strategic customers) at the expense of the many (smaller customers and other stakeholders), and the magnitude of the consequences of concessions made to large customers, even though some such consequences may be unintended. Dilemmas exist also for executives implementing strategic account relationships regarding such issues as information sharing, trust, and hidden incentives for unethical behaviour. We propose the need for greater transparency and senior management questioning of the ethical and moral issues implicit in strategic account management. (shrink)

One of the most important reasons why beauty has been, is, and will possibly be exceedingly important for us is ethical at its core: by making us undergo the aesthetic experience of recognizing something ideal into something real, beauty can be the clearest symbol of our possibility, and even hope, of working on an ideal human measure, which means both the development of our identities as human beings and the development of more promising relationships between us, artifacts, and (...) nature. (shrink)

This chapter explores ways in which an ethical theory can develop through time and, in particular, variations in Kantian ethical theories. The chapter argues that a Kantian could say that we have duties to particular people as part of ongoing commitments, but an adequate and sufficient account of good and poor decisions in personal relationships cannot be based entirely on the categorical imperative, nor can we do justice to seriously wrong decisions by regarding them as violations of (...) duty. Any ethical philosophy, which includes an adequate account of ongoing personal commitments, will have to recognize that our judgments of what is wrong are of more than one sort and are made, so to speak, in more than one kind of voice. (shrink)

Despite the general expectation that ethical leadership fosters employees’ ethical behaviors, surprisingly little empirical effort has been made to verify this expected effect of ethical leadership. To address this research gap, we examine the role of ethical leadership in relation to a direct ethical outcome of employees: moral voice. Focusing on how and when ethical leadership motivates employees to speak up about ethical issues, we propose that moral efficacy serves as a psychological mechanism (...) underlying the relationship, and that leader–follower value congruence serves as a boundary condition for the effect of ethical leadership on moral efficacy. We tested the proposed relationships with matched reports from 154 Korean white-collar employees and their immediate supervisors, collected at two different points in time. The results revealed that ethical leadership was positively related to moral voice, and moral efficacy mediated the relationship. Importantly, as the relationship between ethical leadership and moral efficacy depended on leader–follower value congruence, the mediated relationship was effective only under high leader–follower value congruence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

There is little published literature on the ethical concerns of stakeholders in HIV vaccine trials. This study explored the ethical challenges identified by various stakeholders, through an open-ended, in-depth approach. While the few previous studies have been largely quantitative, respondents in this study had the opportunity to spontaneously identify the issues that they perceived to be of priority concern in the South African context. Stakeholders spontaneously identified the following as ethical priorities: informed consent, social harms, collaborative (...) class='Hi'>relationships between research stakeholders, the participation of children and adolescents, access to treatment for participants who become infected with HIV, physical harms, fair participant and community selection, confidentiality, benefits, and payment. While there is some speculation that research in developing countries poses special ethical challenges, overall no issues were identified that have not been anticipated in international guidance, literature and popular frameworks. However, the South African context affords a distinctive gloss to these expected issues; for example, respondents were concerned that the predominant selection of black participants may perpetuate racist practices of apartheid. Stakeholders should be aware of contextual factors impacting on the implementation of ethical principles. We make a series of recommendations for South African trials, including amendments to the ethical-legal framework and research policies, and, for further research. (shrink)

Given that university faculty members and supervisors practicing in the community have been involved in at least one research supervisor-graduate student relationship, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to the ethical issues involved in such relationships. Indeed, as a student and her or his graduate research supervisor may be involved in a close working relationship for many years, it is understandable that several opportunities can arise that could be considered dual or multiple relationships. (...) Examples of such relationship issues discussed in this article include authorship matters, favoritism or inequitable treatment of students, and sexual relationships. Depending on the nature of the relationship, the impact on students can be quite severe; although, the effects on students have not been adequately studied. Existing ethical guidelines do not provide enough guidance in this area where students are in a position of diminished power with respect to the supervisor. Following the discussion of relationship issues, we suggest extensions of current guidelines to deal with these issues. (shrink)