Professional skill development was never as critical as it has become with the changing nature of globalized work place. With the change in pace of business, the customer expectations from organizations has increased in terms of squeezed time-to-market, faster response to customer needs and demands for better services. Organizations are increasingly becoming focused on how workplace professional skill development of employees can be structured or orchestrated to shorten time-to-professional expertise of their employees. It is becoming (...) increasingly challenging for organizations to develop their employees at faster rate so that they can perform their job even more efficiently and effectively. The longer time-to-proficiency of employees may impact time-to-market of organizations and may also result in losing business to competition. This paper presents the review of previous research studies on current modes and modalities of professional skill development in organizations and present initial findings on training and development approaches taken by organizations to accelerate time-to-professional expertise of their employees. This paper is aimed at making a wider call-for-research in the area of organizations’ focus on shortening the time to develop professional skills of their employees. (shrink)

Offers career guidance to Ph.D. degree holders, addressing such issues as publishing, interviews, CVs, cultivating references, avoiding career path mistakes, and transitioning to non-academic work.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a dramatically expanding area of activity for managers and academics. Consumer demand for responsibly produced and fair trade goods is swelling, resulting in increased demands for CSR activity and information. Assets under professional management and invested with a social responsibility focus have also grown dramatically over the last 10 years. Investors choosing social responsibility investment strategies require access to information not provided through traditional financial statements and analyses. At the same time, a group (...) of mainstream institutional investors has encouraged a movement to incorporate environmental, social, and governance information into equity analysis, and multi-stakeholder groups have supported enhanced business reporting on these issues. The majority of research in this area has been performed on European and Australian firms. We expand on this literature by exploring the CSR disclosure practices of a size- and industry-stratified sample of 50 publicly traded U.S. firms, performing a content analysis on the complete identifiable public information portfolio provided by these firms during 2004. CSR activity was disclosed by most firms in the sample, and was included in nearly half of public disclosures made during that year by the sample firms. Areas of particular emphasis are community matters, health and safety, diversity and human resources (HR) matters, and environmental programs. The primary venues of disclosure are mass media releases such as corporate websites and press releases, followed closely by disclosures contained in mandatory filings. Consistent with prior research, we identify industry effects in terms of content, emphasis, and reporting format choices. Unlike prior research, we can offer only mixed evidence on the existence of a size effect. The disclosure frequency and emphasis is significantly different for the largest one-fifth of the firms, but no identifiable trends are present within the rest of the sample. There are, however, identifiable size effects with respect to reporting format choice. Use of websites is positively related to firm size, while the use of mandatory filings is negatively related to firm size. Finally, and also consistent with prior literature, we document a generally self-laudatory tone in the content of CSR disclosures for the sample firms. (shrink)

Employee behavior, decision-making, and cooperation across the supply chain network are all greatly influenced by organizational culture (OC). In supply chain outcomes (SCO), an understanding of the effect promotes efficiency overall, improves coordination, and maximizes performance. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was initially applied to experimentally analyze data from a survey of 85 enterprises using a quantitative approach. The relationships between cultures such as OC, market culture (MC), clan culture (CC), Hierarchy culture (HC), Professional culture (PC), (...) Adhocracy culture (AC), and supply chain outcomes are analyzed in this research. The findings are evaluated using the combination of a reliability and validity test, multiple regression analysis. The SEM approach is employed to investigate the intricate correlation that exists between these cultural aspects and SCO. A more detailed comprehension of these linkages is provided by the simulation technique, which enables a thorough investigation of the ways in which each cultural feature affects SCO. Positive correlations between the independent variables (OC, AC, MC, HC, PC, and CC) and the dependent variable (SCO) are predicted. The majority of these relationships exhibit statistically significant positive impacts(p < 0.05), signifying noteworthy and substantial benefits for SCO. Furthermore, although OC, AC, MC, PC, and CC have substantial positive impacts, HC has a relevant but invisible effect. OC has a major influence on SCO, according to the study, with some cultural characteristics having a considerable impact on performance measures. Improved efficacy and efficiency in supply chain operations are fostered by a well-aligned culture. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals encounter a variety of emotion-laden events involving ethical implications and choices. These events may trigger deeply felt negative emotions, which can limit an individual’s ability to make ethical decisions, and result in emotional labor. The topic of emotional labor, though studied extensively with customer service workers, has recently been investigated with regard to healthcare professionals, including nurses, clinical psychologists, and physicians. Studies focused on these populations have revealed widespread instances of emotional labor, commonly accompanied by various negative physical (...) and psychological health consequences. Accordingly, emotion regulation strategies are important to explore in order to counteract the negative health outcomes. Recommendations for ways to cope with emotional demands for healthcare employees are provided. (shrink)

Previous studies have consistently argued that employees' perception of their leaders as charismatic will positively influence their willingness to commit themselves to the ethical and philanthropic objectives of the organization. However, the empirical relationship between charisma and employee work effort is only modestly explored. This study hypothesizes that in decentralized, professional, and normative organizations characterized by demanding and philanthropic tasks, group belonging, in its capacity to socially and professionally support employees, is better suited to explain employee work (...) effort than leadership charisma. Hierarchical regression analyses based on data from a bishopric supported this assumption. Practical and theoretical consequences are discussed. (shrink)

Expectations and possibilities for employee loyalty are shifting rapidly, particularly in the for-profit sector. I explore the natureof employee loyalty to the organization, in particular, those elements of loyalty beyond the notion of the ethical demands of employeeloyalty. I consider the moral significance of loyalty for the employee and whether the development of ties of loyalty to the workorganization is in fact a good thing for the employee or for the employer. I argue that employees have a natural inclination (...) to extendloyalty to the organization and that organizations consequently have an obligation to make clear to employees the degree to which theorganization will recognize and reward employee loyalty. (shrink)

Considering the vulnerable climatic conditions in most parts of the planet, a successful transition toward a carbon-free future is a critical challenge worldwide. In this respect, around 35% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emission is associated with the power sector. To this end, a vast of electrical energy has been used by the people in buildings. Specifically, a significant amount of energy in buildings is used for heating, cooling, and ventilation. While the available literature highlights the importance of neat, (...) clean, and green electrical energy for the decarbonization of society, a critical gap exists in such literature. That is, most of the literature under this stream deals with the supply side of electrical energy, while the demand side was neglected. To bridge this critical knowledge gap, this study investigates how the CSR engagement of a hotel organization can promote the energy-related pro-environmental behavior among the employees with the intervening effect of employees’ environmental commitment and Green intrinsic motivation. Further, the conditional indirect role of altruistic values was also tested in this study. The data were collected from different hotel employees in Pakistan with the help of a self-administered questionnaire. We tested the hypothesized relationship through structural equation modeling. The results confirmed that CSR can be a potential motivator to impact the ERPEB of employees, while EMEC and GRIM mediated this relationship significantly. The findings of this study also confirmed the conditional indirect role of altruistic values. These findings offer various theoretical and practical contributions which are conversed in detail. (shrink)

Historically, recordkeeping has been an essential task for health professionals. Today, this mandatory task increasingly takes place as digital documentation. This study critically examines problem constructions in practical documents on digital documentation strategies in Danish municipal healthcare and how these problem constructions imply particular solutions. A document analysis based on the approach presented in Bacchi's “What's the problem represented to be?” was applied. Forty practical documents in the form of guidelines, strategies, and quality control documents were included. The analysis uncovered (...) three problem representations: lack of coherence between health services in a complex healthcare system, lack of assessable data for management and political prioritization, and inefficiency in the healthcare system. The proposed solution is a digitalized and standardized practice that transforms recordkeeping in the municipalities. However, municipal healthcare is at risk of being fragmented due to digital documentation's focus on the organizational management of health with task‐oriented practices supplied by an anonymous health professional. We find that digital documentation functions as an organizational micromanagement approach that assigns the health professional a subject position as an employee acting according to the organization's framework rather than the profession's normative framework. (shrink)

The ethical choices faced by engineers today are increasingly complex. Competing and conflicting ethical demands from clients, communities, employees, and personal objectives combine to suggest that engineers employ ethical approaches that are adaptive yet grounded in three concrete professional circumstances: first, that engineers apply unique professional skills in the service of a client, subject to protecting the public interest; second, that engineers advance the state of knowledge of their professional field through reflection, research, and sharing experience (...) in journals and conferences, and third, that they develop new professionals by active mentoring. This paper examines five features of American pragmatism and suggests that its emphasis on specific, context-based ethical decision making can assist engineers in a postmodern setting. In particular, it considers the venues of interpersonal ethical choices, institutional ethical conflicts, and social choices that have ethical components. Pragmatism suggests that in such a complex ethical climate, there is a need for the co-evolution of judgment and action, for individual reflective judgment in particular situations, and for ceasing to search for a single, immutable principle for ethical choice. (shrink)

In recent years UK government policy has been drawing private companies into the operation of the British National Health Service as providers of health care. Hitherto the National Health Service has been the main employer of health care practitioners, but this may change as a result of this development. There is an issue as to whether professional health care practitioners owe the same moral commitment to an employer in the private sector as they would owe to an employer that (...) is part of the state-run National Health Service. I explore some arguments around this issue, focusing on ways of identifying organisational commitment to good health care. With regard to the practitioners commitment to the organisation I consider two strengths of commitment, normative and calculative. I then undertake an analysis of performance, regulatory regimes, and organisational obligations for both sectors. I conclude that while performance and regulatory regimes show little difference between sectors, there is a reasonably compelling argument in favour of a stronger moral commitment to state bodies based on organisational obligations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:298 Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Priti Ramamurthy AlterNotes on the Politics of Women’s Studies Graduate Certificates Jennifer Nash’s “Feminist Credentials: Notes on the Politics of Women ’s Studies Graduate Certificates,” published in this same issue of Feminist Studies, provokes a crucial, if difficult, conversation about graduate certificates in women’s studies.1 Nash asks us to question the value of graduate certificates in two (...) registers: first, if the certificate is valuable to those doing PhDs in the disciplines—as professional certification in feminist theory and interdisciplinarity—is women’s studies reproducing its own discounting by continuing to privilege disciplinary formations? And, second, in the highly constrained job market for academic jobs in women’s studies, do those with graduate certificates in women’s studies and PhDs in the disciplines compete with women’s studies PhDs, thereby undercutting the latter’s distinction and chances of getting academic jobs in the very field in which they have been trained? Nash makes it clear that she is not suggesting the graduate certificate be eliminated, nor that only women’s studies PhDs be hired for women’s studies jobs, but rather that this predicament is an effect of the corporatization of the university. To elaborate on the nuance in Nash’s argument and not reproduce the logic of supply and demand that the neoliberal university is producing, I’d like to raise other aporias in the relationship between graduate certificates and PhD education and point to alternate possibilities. 1. In keeping with Nash’s essay, I am using the term “women’s studies” throughout this alternote as well. Priti Ramamurthy 299 The fiscal realities in favor of the graduate certificate in women’s studies highlighted by Nash are all too real. An additional reality is that graduate certificate students subtend women’s studies PhD programs in vital ways. In terms of course offerings, graduate students in certificate programs take a mix of core and elective classes. Given the very small size of most incoming women’s studies PhD student cohorts, without graduate certificate students in women’s studies, departments would be hard pressed to justify offering core and elective courses. For women’s studies faculty, the opportunity to teach not just core but elective courses that draw on their areas or sub-fields of expertise is enabled by graduate certificate students taking their courses. For women’s studies PhD students, this provides a larger range of elective courses to choose from. Many graduate certificate students shape their doctoral projects deeply with the knowledges they get from the certificate courses. Beyond the courses they are required to take, graduate certificate students often continue to work with women’s studies faculty and invite them to serve on their PhD committees. On the one hand, we may posit, as Nash does, that women’s studies faculty thereby service students in other disciplines, but on the other hand, the feminist knowledge produced in the process is exciting and valuable for not just their disciplines but for women’s studies. Departments such as history, geography, and anthropology may have a large cohort of feminist scholars, but graduate certificate students still seek out feminist scholars in women’s studies for their sub-discipline or area studies, and for methodological and/ or theoretical expertise. Unfortunately, many disciplinary and interdisciplinary departments still lack feminist scholars, and in these departments graduate certificate students make important feminist interventions through their doctoral research. To take a recent example, Karin Eriksson, a doctoral student in Scandinavian studies at the University of Washington, was transformed by her GWSS graduate certificate coursework in women of color, indigenous, postcolonial, and decolonial feminisms, queer studies, and feminist epistemologies. She is questioning why her department does not offer a single course on settler colonialism and Sámi ontologies, epistemologies, and axiologies. Her doctoral work, in close collaboration with Sámi indigenous and feminist activists and communities in Sweden, will address questions of settler colonialism. Not only does Scandinavian studies get transformed in the process, but so does women’s studies, especially our own doctoral program and 300 Priti Ramamurthy the students in it who had not engaged with the unique feminist issues raised... (shrink)

We investigate two main sources of information inaccuracies in demand information sharing along the supply chain. Firstly, we perform a systematic literature review on inaccuracy in demand information sharing and its impact on supply chain dynamics. Secondly, we model several SC settings using system dynamics and assess the impact of such information inaccuracies on SC performance. More specifically, we study the impact of four factors using three SC dynamic performance indicators. The results suggest that demand (...) error has a negative impact on SC performance, which is exacerbated by the magnitude of the error and by low demand variability scenarios. In contrast, demand delay produces a nonlinear behavior in the supply chain response, being influenced by the supply chain configuration. (shrink)

The end of the Cold War brought about a new wave of proliferation of market economy and democracy. Both are spreading through purposeful efforts of Western exporters and Eastern importers as well as by way of example. These generally positive processes are not, however, without considerable negative side effects and setbacks. The article considers three pairs of dialectical contradictions: parallel democratization and introduction of free markets, democratization and liberalism, and democratization and nationalism. Naïve, hypocritical, and pragmatic approaches to democracy promotion, (...) as well as factors facilitating or hindering democratization (sometimes making it impossible) of specific societies, are analyzed. One of the central problems is the question of absolute or relative (contingent on time, space, and other factors) universality of democracy. The article concludes that democracy has to be mainly demand-driven, not supply-induced. It also considers to what extent external efforts can compensate for the weaknesses of domestic facilitators and what happens when there are attempts to export democracy to societies that are not ready for that. (shrink)

According to Otto Neurath, the practice of science consists in a large undertaking of setting up and maintaining systems of statements: In unified science we try... to create a consistent system of protocol statements and nonprotocol statements. When a new statement is presented to us we compare it with the system at our disposal and check whether the new statement is in contradiction with the system or not. If the new statement is in contradiction with the system, we can discard (...) this statement as unusable, for example, the statement: ‘In Africa lions sing only in major chords’ ; however, one can also ‘accept’ the statement and change the system accordingly so that it remains consistent if this statement is added. The statement may then be called ‘true’. (shrink)

This article examines the transformation of the labor market under the influence of informatization of society. It is noted that in the conditions of globalization and informatization of the nowadays a post-industrial society has been formed, in which information is a determining factor of production. New opportunities and challenges of the labor market in the conditions of information society development are analyzed. The informatization of society changes the conditions, nature and forms of work. Extensive digitalization, the use of cloud technologies (...) and artificial intelligence systems are displacing traditional forms of employment towards teleworking, which makes workers more mobile and able to optimize working hours. It is established that the spread of technology increases the efficiency of the recruitment and searching job processes. Informatization of society contributes to the creation of a digital labor market, which forms the demand and supply of information and computer technology workers. In the context of informatization of society, the labor market is characterized by an imbalance between supply and demand of labor due to structural changes in the economy. Among the challenges of the labor market are rising unemployment in the raw materials industries, robotics and automation of routine manual labor. The digitalization of the economy leads to the need to adjust government regulation of business and provide social guarantees for employees. It is noted that the informatization of society provides more benefits to the labor market than obstacles. Solving the problems it raises, promotes progress and economic development. (shrink)

One of the essential ethical issues in the employment relationship is the loss of employee voice. Many of the ways employees have previously exercised voice in the employment relationship have been rendered less effective by (1) the changing nature of work, (2) employer preferences for flexibility that often work to the disadvantage of employees, and (3) changes in public policy and institutional systems that have failed to protect workers. We will begin with a discussion of how work has (...) changed in the last 20 years in countries like Australia and the United States, and then take up the issue of employees as organizational stakeholders and the ethical duties that are owed them, with special attention given to issues of power. We will then consider whether voluntary action by employers such as social auditing is sufficient to ensure equity for employees, and conclude with a discussion of how changes in public policy might ensure greater fairness in the employment relationship by bringing employers and employees together in partnership. (shrink)

Se realiza un análisis crítico de la denominada ¿sociedad del conocimiento¿ al objeto de mostrar de qué modo el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior constituye la culminación paradójica de dicha sociedad. La "sociedad del conocimiento" comienza a fraguar en el momento en el que las tecnologías, progresivamente especializadas y desprendidas del posible control científico básico de sus consecuencias, comienzan a hacer posible un proceso de optimización económica entre la inversión y la rentabilidad productiva que resulta realimentado a su vez por (...) un consumo tendencialmente imparable. Dicho proceso requiere en principio promover el mapa sociológico que provea el soporte educativo para un mercado de trabajo acorde con dicha sociedad económico-tecnológicamente optimizada y consumista. Pero debido a la dinámica consumista tendencialmente imparable sobre la que gira todo este proceso, las relaciones entre la oferta y la demanda del mercado de consumo, y con ellas las exigencias del mercado de trabajo, comenzarán a tornarse previsiblemente aleatorias o imprevisibles, lo cual demandará la creación del correspondiente soporte educativo que genere un nuevo tipo de profesional máxima e indefinidamente versátil. Ésta sería la necesidad a la que pretende responder básicamente el proyecto del EEES, el cual se verá envuelto de este modo en la tarea paradójica de intentar gobernar lo ingobernable, o sea lo previsiblemente imprevisible. A su vez, dicho proceso de suyo desordenado se verá sometido, por efecto de la intervención pedagógica, a una dinámica incesante de reproducción ampliada por realimentación negativa que cumplirá la singular función de sostener en marcha lo que en realidad no conduce a ningún sitio. We carry out a critical analysis of the so-called "knowledge society" in order to show in what way the European Space for Higher Education constitutes the paradoxical culmination of this society. The "knowledge society" begins to solidify when the technologies, progressively specialized and separated from the possible basic scientific control of their consequences, begin to make possible a process of economic optimization between the investment and the productive profitability that is in turn feedbacked for a consumption increasingly unstoppable. This process requires in principle to promote the sociological map that provides the educational... support for a labor market in agreement with this economic-technologically optimized and full of consumerism society. But due to the increasingly unstoppable dynamics of consumerism which is the axis of rotation of all this process, the relationships between supply and demand within the consumption market, and with them the requirements of the labor market, will begin foreseeably to become random or unforeseeable, which will requires the creation of the corresponding educational support that generates a new type of maximum and indefinitely versatile professional. This one would be the necessity to which the project of the ESHE seeks basically to respond, but this project will thus be wrapped in the paradoxical task of trying to govern that which is ungovernable, that is to say that which is foreseeably unforeseeable. In turn, this process intrinsically disordered will be subjected, for effect of the pedagogic intervention, to an incessant dynamics of enlarged reproduction by negative feedback that will complete the singular function of sustaining in progress that which in fact do not take to any place. (shrink)

Recent medical and bioethics literature shows a growing concern for practitioners’ emotional experience and the ethical environment in the workplace. Moral distress, in particular, is often said to result from the difficult decisions made and the troubling situations regularly encountered in health care contexts. It has been identified as a leading cause of professional dissatisfaction and burnout, which, in turn, contribute to inadequate attention and increased pain for patients. Given the natural desire to avoid these negative effects, it seems (...) to most authors that systematic efforts should be made to drastically reduce moral distress, if not altogether eliminate it from the lives of vulnerable practitioners. Such efforts, however, may be problematic, as moral distress is not adequately understood, nor is there agreement among the leading accounts regarding how to conceptualize the experience. With this article I make clear what a robust account of moral distress should be able to explain and how the most common notions in the existing literature leave significant explanatory gaps. I present several cases of interest and, with careful reflection upon their distinguishing features, I establish important desiderata for an explanatorily satisfying account. With these fundamental demands left unsatisfied by the leading accounts, we see the persisting need for a conception of moral distress that can capture and delimit the range of cases of interest. (shrink)

Canada has a marked shortfall between the supply and demand for kidneys for transplantation. Median wait times for deceased donor kidney transplantation vary from 5.8 years in British Columbia, 5.2 years in Manitoba and 4.5 years in Ontario to a little over 2 years in Quebec and Nova Scotia. Living donation provides a viable option for some, but not all people. Consequently, a small number of people travel abroad to undergo kidney transplantation by commercial means. The extent to (...) which they are aware of the potential risks to their health and the health of the kidney vendors is unclear. Travel abroad to obtain a kidney commercially i.e. transplant tourism (TT), raises ethical issues which include the exploitation of the poor, uncertainty of donor informed consent to nephrectomy, poor clinical care and lack of follow up for the donor, commodification of the body and inequity of access to medical care for donors. Also, TT widens socioeconomic disparities in access to transplantation, differing from the Canadian system of universal coverage for healthcare. The Canadian transplant community has discussed how to respond to patients who plan to travel abroad for TT or return with a purchased kidney. Unease rests in the tension between the duty to care for legitimate Canadian residents and the unwillingness to enable TT. This paper discusses three anonymized cases and the Canadian responses to TT as recorded in academic literature and a formal statement by relevant professional bodies. (shrink)

The research about strategic human resource management (SHRM) has suggested that human resource professionals (HRPs) have the opportunity to play a greater role in contributing to organizational success if they are effective in developing systems and policies aligned with the organization's values, goals, and mission. We suggest that HRPs need to raise the standard of their performance and that the competitive demands of the modern economic environment create implicit ethical duties that HRPs owe to their organizations. We define ethical stewardship (...) as a model of governance that honors obligations due to the many stakeholders and that maximizes long-term organizational wealth creation. We propose that if HRPs adopt an ethical stewardship framework and the qualities of transformative leaders, they will be more aware of their ethical duties to their organizations and more effective in helping their organizations to create increased wealth, achieve desired organizational outcomes, and establish work environments that are more satisfying to employees. (shrink)

The paper reviews the discussion within transplantation medicine about the organ supply and demand problem. The focus is on the evolution of attitudes toward compensation plans from the early 1980s to the present. A vehement rejection on ethical grounds of anything but uncompensated donation—once the professional norm—has slowly been replaced by an open debate of plans that offer financial rewards to persons willing to have their organs, or the organs of deceased kin, taken for transplantation. The paper (...) asks how this shift has occurred and what it tells us about the dynamics of bioethical debates, both within professional circles and in wider public arenas. (shrink)

Employee monitoring has raised concerns from all areas of society – business organizations, employee interest groups, privacy advocates, civil libertarians, lawyers, professional ethicists, and every combination possible. Each advocate has its own rationale for or against employee monitoring whether it be economic, legal, or ethical. However, no matter what the form of reasoning, seven key arguments emerge from the pool of analysis. These arguments have been used equally from all sides of the debate. The purpose of this paper is (...) to examine the seven key arguments that have been made with respect to employee monitoring. None of these arguments is conclusive and each calls for managerial and moral consideration. We conclude that a more comprehensive inquiry with ethical concern at the center is necessary to make further progress on understanding the complexity of employee monitoring. The final section of this paper sketches out how such an inquiry would proceed. (shrink)

“The moral issues generated by the food supply chain demand attention and analysis. There must be an ethical approach balancing profitability with the welfare of life and the conservation of the environment.” Lorice Stainer is a business ethics consultant and Visiting Fellow at Leicester University Management Centre; Alan Gully is Principal Lecturer in Business Studies, and Member for the Centre for Research in International Economics, at Middlesex University Business School; and Alan Stainer is Head of Engineering Management and (...) Professor of Productivity and Performance Management at Middlesex University. (shrink)

The process of robotization and the introduction of artificial intelligence which are linked to the 4.0 Industrial Revolution imply economic and social changes. This article analyzes its implications for the Spanish labor market, discussing the existence of possible imbalances, present or future, between the supply and demand of workers. For this reason this study assesses, on the one hand, the recent evolution of the Spanish productive structure and, on the other, the labor supply. More specifically, special attention (...) is paid to the educational level and skills of the workers, since they are central in the definition of the professional profiles generated as a result of the digitization and automation of the economy. A number of the strengths and weaknesses of the formative structure of the Spanish population are then discussed. The 4.0 Industrial Revolution creates new opportunities for workers with a higher level of training and high digital, financial or STEM skills. On the contrary, older workers and workers with a lower level of training appear among the most vulnerable groups. The introduction of reforms in the training system is urgent not only to consolidate the process of economic transformation, but also to minimize the social costs associated with the 4.0 Industrial Revolution. (shrink)

Understand the challenges faced by university based EAPs and the strategies to effectively meet needs&#;and discover what works and what does not Academia is a diverse workplace unlike any other, and subsequently, employee assistance program issues are unique. Employee Assistance Programs in Higher Education focuses on the unique challenges of employee assistance service delivery in a university setting. This handy resource discusses the evolution, development, and strategies in managing an EAP in academia while comparing the substantial differences in program application (...) between academic settings and corporate settings. Discussions include outsourcing, support groups, implementation of services, and effective model frameworks. Employee Assistance Programs in Higher Education explores in depth how the difference of being an academic institution influences the administration of an EAP. Reducing costs, assessing the value of an EAP, faculty resistance to accessing EAPs, organizational and interpersonal problems, manager support groups to reduce stress, developing ’soft skills’, and addressing the deaths of faculty, staff, and students are examined in detail. This unique resource is extensively referenced and includes tables to clearly present data. Topics in Employee Assistance Programs in Higher Education include: the evolution of the IAEAPE university EAP response to traumas on campus enhancing faculty access university EAPs and outsourcing creating a specialized EAP program comparison between academic and corporate cultures case study of the University of Saskatchewan EAP _and more! _ Employee Assistance Programs in Higher Education is a comprehensive resource for academic administrators; benefit plan managers; university based EAP managers and directors; EAP, work/life, and wellness professionals; members of International Association of Employee Assistance Professionals in Education; Employee Assistance Professionals Association; Employee Assistance Society of North America; Association of Work Life Professionals; Society for Human Resource Management Schools of Social Work; educators in schools of social work, psychology, counseling education, and business. (shrink)

Background: Human health is dependent upon environmental sustainability. Many have argued that environmental sustainability advocacy and environmentally responsible healthcare practice are imperative healthcare actions. Research questions: What are the key obstacles to healthcare professionals supporting environmental sustainability? How may these obstacles be overcome? Research design: Data-driven thematic qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews identified common and pertinent themes, and differences between specific healthcare disciplines. Participants: A total of 64 healthcare professionals and academics from all states and territories of Australia, and multiple (...) healthcare disciplines were recruited. Ethical considerations: Institutional ethics approval was obtained for data collection. Participants gave informed consent. All data were de-identified to protect participant anonymity. Findings: Qualitative analysis indicated that Australian healthcare professionals often take more action in their personal than professional lives to protect the environment, particularly those with strong professional identities. The healthcare sector’s focus on economic rationalism was a substantial barrier to environmentally responsible behaviour. Professionals also feared conflict and professional ostracism, and often did not feel qualified to take action. This led to healthcare professionals making inconsistent moral judgements, and feeling silenced and powerless. Constraints on non-clinical employees within and beyond the sector exacerbated these difficulties. Discussion: The findings are consistent with the literature reporting that organisational constraints, and strong social identification, can inhibit actions that align with personal values. This disparity can cause moral distress and residue, leading to feelings of powerlessness, resulting in less ethical behaviour. Conclusion: The data highlight a disparity between personal and professional actions to address environmental sustainability. Given the constraints Australian healthcare professionals encounter, they are unlikely to shift to environmentally responsible practice without support from institutions and professional associations. Professional development is required to support this endeavour. The poor transference of pro-ecological behaviour from one setting to another is likely to have international implications for healthcare practice. (shrink)

How to make use of the leaders’ psychological capital to improve the innovation behavior of employees is an important issue for the talent management of enterprises today, and it is also the goal that enterprises must pursue if they want to stand out in the fierce competition. Therefore, in this study, 154 enterprises in high-tech area were selected for questionnaire survey. The correlation between lead-member exchange (LMX) relationship (emotion, loyalty, contribution, professional respect), leaders' psychological capital (confidence, hope, optimism, (...) tenacity), and employees' innovation behaviors were analyzed by multivariate regression. Hierarchical regression method was used to examine the mediating effect of the LEX. It was found that confidence, toughness, and contribution were significantly positively correlated with employee innovation behavior (P<0.000). The positive correlation between hope, optimism, emotion, and loyalty with employees' innovation behavior was significant (P<0.05). Emotion, loyalty, and contribution had mediating effects on the leaders’ psychological capital and the innovation behavior of employees. In conclusion, the leaders’ psychological capital can have a significant positive effect on the innovation behavior of employees directly, and it can also have an indirect positive effect on the innovation behavior of employees by maintaining high quality LMX. (shrink)

The Business of a Flesh-Merchant : Passion, Power, Profit in the Economy of Professional Boxing. France has witnessed a significant rise in the recourse to sub-contracting over the last twenty years. The article is the result of an inquiry carried out by way of observation and participation in a boxing club located on the outskirts of Chicago’s «South Side », close to the University of Chicago. The paper focuses on the matchmaker as a particular figure in the world of (...) boxing. A close study of what is a crucial function in the world of boxing throws light on the way the milieu of boxing operates, in its recruitment of young underprivileged Afro-Americans with a view to turning them into competent boxers. In his role as an intermediary, the function of the matchmaker is to oversee the encounter between supply and demand in what, to a large extent, is the body market of boxing. As the individual around whom all the transactions revolve, the matchmaker is the figure on whom the milieu’s various tensions and oppositions are projected. Regarded as an exploiter and a body-trafficker by most of the young men whom he hires, his peers deem him “an honest businessman”. He thus epitomises the general economy of boxing, here understood as a system of exchange of bodies, incorporated within a system of social relations, requiring both the general collaboration of its subjects and the celebration of the success of certain individuals, at the expense of others. The article thus puts forward an empirically grounded economic anthropology, based on the exchange and the wearing-away of what is the most precious possession of those young candidates for success: their own bodies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Although business ethicists have theorized frequently about the virtues and vices of employee loyalty, the concept of loyalty remains loosely defined. In this article, we argue that viewing loyalty as a cognitive phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual—helps to clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on the ethical implications of loyalty in organizations. Specifically, we adopt the psychological contract perspective to analyze loyalty's cognitive dimensions, and treat loyalty as (...) an individual-level construction of perceived reciprocal obligations. Based upon this perspective, we present a three-tiered framework of loyalty that provides a psychologically informed definition of the concept, specifies the variety of obligation types that loyalty can imply, and anticipates the potential for asymmetrical loyalty configurations between employers and employees. We use the framework to articulate moral issues associated with both symmetrical and asymmetrical loyalty configurations and discuss the implications of the framework for theory and practice. (shrink)

Although the concept of corporate social performance (CSP) has become more clearly specified in recent years, an analysis of CSP from the perspective of one particular stakeholder group has been largely ignored in this research: employees. It is proposed that employees merit specific attention with regard to assessments of corporate social performance. In this paper, a model for evaluating and measuring CSP at the employee level is proposed, and implications for evaluating contemporary employment policies and practices are offered. (...) An iterative process for systematically including normative content in the CSP model across stakeholder groups is also offered. (shrink)

The author's aim is to prove that certain moral principles will always be etched into laws when the interest of society demands it and when morality as a set of norms guiding behavior no longer functions in an expected manner outside the system of law. In this paper, it is argued that morality is constituted within the law in a more profound way as well as in a way which is also much more difficult to identify than, for example, conventional (...) instructions concerning professional ethics may indicate. The main thesis is that de facto there are no particular professional ethics of lawyers beyond or above the ethical principles binding all people. (shrink)

As each week beings more stories of doctors, lawyers and other professionals abusing their powers, while clients demand extra services as at a time of shrinking resources; it is imperative that all practising professionals have an understanding of professional ethics. In _The Ground of Profesional Ethics_, Daryl Koehn discusses the practical issues in depth, such as the level of service clients can justifiably expect from professionals, when service to a client may be legitimately terminated and circumstances in which (...) client confidences can be broken. She argues that, while clients may legitimately expect professionals to promote their interests, professionals are not morally bound to do whatever a client wants. _The Ground of Professional Ethics_ is important reading for all practising professionals, as well as those who study or have an interest in the subject of professional ethics. (shrink)

The pharmaceutical industry has been criticised for pervasive misconduct. These concerns have generally resulted in increasing regulation. While such regulation is no doubt necessary, it tends to assume that everyone working for pharmaceutical companies is equally motivated by commerce, without much understanding of the specific views and experiences of those who work in different parts of the industry. In order to gain a more nuanced picture of the work that goes on in the “medical affairs” departments of pharmaceutical companies, we (...) conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with professionals working in medical departments of companies in Sydney, Australia. We show that this group of pharmaceutical professionals are committed to their responsibilities both to patients, research participants, and the public and to their companies. Despite the discrepancies between these commitments, our participants did not express much cognitive dissonance, and this appeared to stem from their use of two dialectically related strategies, one of which embraces commerce and the other of which resists the commercial imperative. We interpret these findings through the lens of institutional theory and consider their implications for pharmaceutical ethics and governance. (shrink)

Spirituality in the workplace is gaining recognition and value among researchers, academicians, and business professionals. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of spirituality in the workplace on job satisfaction by measuring four dimensions of spirituality in the workplace: meaningful work, sense of community, organizational values, and compassion. The impact of each dimension on job satisfaction is hypothesized. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 100 payroll employees in private insurance companies in Punjab. A (...) correlation analysis showed a positive relationship between all the dimensions of spirituality in the workplace and job satisfaction. A regression analysis revealed that although all the dimensions of spirituality in the workplace are important, organizational values and a sense of community are the most important in terms of the job satisfaction level of employees. This work will help insurance companies to better understand the concept of spirituality in the workplace and its importance. Insurance companies can improve their functioning by encouraging employee spirituality in the workplace. (shrink)

This article surveys arguments for the claim that employees have a right to strong forms of decision-making participation. Itconsiders objections to employee participation based on shareholders' property rights and it claims that those objections are flawed. In particular, it argues the employee participation rights are grounded on the same values as are property rights. The articlesuggests that the conflict between these two competing rights claims is best resolved by limiting the scope of corporate property rightsand by recognizing a strong (...) employee right to co-determine corporate decisions. (shrink)

Background: Professional commitment is an important factor in employee performance. COVID-19 outbreak has seriously affected the nurses working conditions. Numerous factors can affect nurses' professional commitment in this situation. Aim: To explore the nurses' lived experiences, attitudes, views and perceptions toward professional commitment and factors affecting it in the Covid-19 crisis. Method, Setting and Participants: This qualitative study was conducted using phenomenological approach and content analysis method. Twenty-five nurses were interviewed using semi structured in-depth interviews. Conventional content (...) analysis was used to analyze collected data. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. Results: Five themes were extracted as follows: “Collaborative empathetic commitment”, “Loyal commitment”, “Sacrificial commitment”, “Commitment with doubt and concern” and “humanistic commitment”. Discussion and Conclusion: The Covid-19 crisis has caused major changes in nurses' working conditions, which have also affected the concept of professional commitment to the nursing profession and revealed new concepts. Identifying internal and external factors that can enhance nurses' commitment to the profession in critical situations such as the Covid-19 outback is of particular importance. (shrink)

A self-designed questionnaire was given to 634 health professionals in a large teaching hospital in Hubei Province in mainland China, to clarify the participants’ attitude towards information disclosure to cancer patients. Statistic description was used to analyze the data. The item ‘inappropriate information about cancer easily leads to medical disputes’ scored highest at 3.86, while the scores of such items as ‘advantages of fully informing patients outweigh disadvantages’, ‘if their family members demand nondisclosure, you will find it difficult to (...) cooperate in good faith with patients’, and ‘telling white lies to patients disturbs you a lot’ were less than 3. The health care staff placed a high value on both the desire and priority of patients to know the truth, though most of them did not think that patients had received enough information about their disease. In order to improve cancer patients’ current state of knowledge, health professionals should learn more about informed consent, and special methods and guidelines compatible with Chinese culture are urgently required in China. (shrink)

A gradual increase in population and urbanization has increased the demand for global resources, which ultimately burdens the depletion of resources and challenges environmental sustainability worldwide. In recent decades, nature sustainability has been the biggest challenge encountered by humankind. In addition, the changing lifestyle and consumption patterns have enormously played a key role. However, the consumption pattern from the employee’s perspective suffers from the lack of research. Therefore, grounded on the theory of planned behavior, this research explores the antecedents (...) and consequences of employees’ buying intentions in the world’s emerging market. Data were collected using a web-based link shared via WeChat and Q.Q.; resultants into 451 valid responses and partial least square structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 4 have been administered for the analysis. Besides the insignificant effect of descriptive norms on buying intention and environmental concerns on purchasing behavior, other factors significantly impact purchase intention and actual buying behavior. This research witnesses a significant mediating role of buying intention. This research suggests that practitioners develop strategies for public advertisement and launch a general message and campaigns both in urban and rural areas to prevent environmental sustainability and increases awareness related to organic consumption. (shrink)

Abstract:Vice is a neglected concept in business ethics. This paper attempts to bring vice back into the contemporary dialogue by exploring one vice that is destructive to employee and organization alike. Interestingly, this vice was first described by Aristotle asakolastos. Drawing extensively on the criminology literature, the findings challenge both common sense and popular images of white-collar crime and criminals. While not all instances of employee betrayal are attributable to vice, some most certainly are, and the paper offers a description (...) of those violations of trust in which vice may play a role. (shrink)

Abstract:Much of the current discussion of evil within business and professions locates evil within the individual employee. Dennis Moberg (1997) has argued for conceiving of employee viciousness as a lack of self-control. This paper argues, that while some evil behaviors may be well-modelled as instances of low self-control, this model does not fit much of what might qualify as evil (e.g., child-caregivers falsely accusing their fellow employees of ritual child abuse). The paper examines three alternative models of evil, two (...) drawn from literature, one from theology, and shows why these alternative models are just as relevant for thinking about the nature and cause of evil as the low self-control model drawn from the criminology literature.How intoxicating to feel like God the Father and to hand out definitive testimonials of bad character and habits—Albert Camus. (shrink)

This article address the issue of employee safety and the social responsibility of multinational apparel retailers who contract with Bangladesh manufacturers in their global supply chain. Both the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh have been identified as the two primary facilitators for global apparel industry efforts to actively address this serious human rights issue; thus, they have the potential to help drive the success of the industry's corporate citizenship efforts (...) to successfully manage the issue of fire and building safety in Bangladesh. The article further explores these relationships within the context of the “global corporate citizenship” concept, and develops a rationale for the limits of a socially responsible supply chain. In the context of global corporate citizenship, the article describes the existing state of these two industry organizations remediation efforts to ensure a stable supply chain in Bangladesh, and offers an analysis of existing industry nonmarket strategy approaches to improving contractor's factory fire and building safety environments for their employees. Lastly, a comprehensive set of nonmarket strategies for multinational apparel retailers is recommended when addressing their global corporate citizenship commitments to a safe working environment for Bangladesh garment manufacturing employees. (shrink)

My problem is how should we approach the concrete moral problems that arise in medicine, law, management or engineering in a pluralistic society — in what follows I shall concentrate upon medicine, but my concern is basically with the whole spectrum presented by the term “professional ethics”. My thesis is that we shall not be in a position to discuss the moral problems of professionals until we get clear about “where ethics comes from” as one concerned scholar put it1 (...) — something that modern philosophy is generally confused about — and something that the very notion of ‘applied’ ethics confuses. My suggestion is that we have much to learn from the example of the Hastings Center , with respect to handling problems of professional ethics. My assumptions are, first, that philosophers — as Alasdair Maclntyre has long insisted — for the most part confuse the ethical issues they would illuminate by endeavoring to supply theoretical solutions to practical problems, and, second, that this confusion is rooted in an erroneous notion of how concepts function, namely, in the idea that concepts have meaning prior to their application. (shrink)