International Accountability Standards have proliferated in the last 20 years, with the UN Global Compact as the most widely accepted principle-based standard catalyzing voluntary participation by firms. This study aims to improve understanding about the factors that determine companies’ progress in adopting principle-based standards. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we examine the direct and combined influences of different organizational resources on standard implementation as perceived by 213 Spanish GC signatories. Our results reveal that the level of firm-specific (...) resources has a positive effect on the extent of GC principles implementation and that innovative capability and length of GC participation strengthen this effect. Contrary to our expectations, we find that the internationalization of firms does not have an effect on GC principles implementation. We discuss the implications of these findings for scholars and practicing managers. (shrink)

This article aims to advance the discussion of how multinational companies manage the tension between global integration and local responsiveness in their corporate social responsibility. In particular, it studies the relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries in a transnational CSR strategy and the types of coordination mechanisms used. Building on a qualitative study of a multinational bank, we find that in addition to formal and informal coordination mechanisms, a transnational CSR strategy cannot be fully understood without considering lateral learning and participatory (...) decision making. Further, we suggest that discussions about the transnational approach to CSR should not be disentangled from the question about a company's CSR orientation. Finally, we propose some characteristics of transnational CSR and discuss its theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

In the 10 years after the launch of the United Nations Global Compact (GC), there have been very few empirical assessments of the initiative in the academic literature. In this study, drawing from institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm, we examine motivations of business participants to adopt the GC principles in the Spanish context. Using survey data from Spain – the country reporting the highest volume of business participants in the GC – we find that external institutional (...) forces as well as internal organisational resources shape motivations for adopting GC principles. In particular, we find that early and late adopters are motivated similarly by the perceived opportunity of achieving image gains, while late adopters are motivated more by economic gains than early adopters. We further find that regardless of the extent of internal intangible resources possessed, firms are similarly motivated by economic gains. The results also show that companies with more intangible resources are motivated more by image gains than those with fewer resources. Our findings indicate that contrary to its earlier days, economic gains have emerged as an important motivator for the adopters of the GC principles with image gains still being an important motivator. (shrink)

Corporate governance (CG) can be seen to operate through a 'double agency' relationship: one between the shareholders and corporate management, and another between the corporate management and the firm's employees. The CG and labour management of firms are closely related. A particularly productive way to study how CG affects and is affected by the employment relationship has been to compare CG across countries. The contributions of this paper to that literature are threefold. (1) An integration of aspects of the labour (...) management literature in the CG debate. (2) Based on a sample of about 1000 firms from 31 countries, we find evidence of complementarities between the CG and the labour management of firms. Extreme cases, in general, outperform mixed cases. (3) Firm differences within countries are more important than scholars have assumed so far. We present the results of the study and implications for future research and for practice. (shrink)

Background: In Hospital Emergency Department and Emergency Medical Services professionals experience situations in which they face difficulties or barriers to know patient’s advance directives and implement them. Objectives: To analyse the barriers, facilitators, and ethical conflicts perceived by health professionals derived from the management of advance directives in emergency services. Research design, participants, and context: This is a qualitative phenomenological study conducted with purposive sampling including a population of nursing and medical professionals linked to Hospital Emergency Department and Emergency Medical (...) Services. Three focus groups were formed, totalling 24 participants. We performed an inductive-type thematic discourse analysis. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by ethical committees of Ethical Commitee of Clínic Hospital (Barcelona) and Comittee of Emergency Medical Services (Barcelona). The participants received information about the purpose of the study. Patients’ anonymity and willingness to participate in the study were guaranteed. Findings: There were four types of barriers that hindered the proper management of patients’ advance directives in Hospital Emergency Department and Emergency Medical Services: personal and professional, family members, organisational and structural, and those derived from the health system. These barriers caused ethical conflicts and hindered professionals’ decision-making. Discussion: These results are in line with those of previous studies and indicate that factors such as gender, professional category, and years of experience, in addition to professionals’ beliefs and the opinions of colleagues and family members, can also influence the professionals’ final decisions. Conclusion: The different strategies described in this study can contribute to the development of health policies and action protocols to help reduce both the barriers that hinder the correct management and implementation of advance directives and the ethical conflicts generated. (shrink)

The literature focussing on digital platforms as intraorganisational intermediaries underlines a key shortcoming of this model that has not been addressed by the literatures on digital social movements, advocacy, and activism. This limitation is related to the fact that platform-based organisations usually exploit widespread representations of digital technologies as tools for democratisation, but then offer low-quality internal democracy. This has implications for these organisations’ internal and external legitimacy, which are vital for mobilising and engaging supporters and the general public. This (...) article proposes an historical and processual study of the hybrid organisation Momentum, with the aim of exploring the organisational implications of the cyber-democratising discourse and its impact on the internal legitimacy of platform-based organisations. (shrink)

Se presenta un artículo con el objetivo de elaborar un sistema de talleres con la utilización de técnicas participativas para la autodirección estudiantil en la universidad médica, tema de gran relevancia en el desempeño del modelo del profesional. Este sistema contiene un conjunto de orientaciones teórico-metodológicas y herramientas de trabajo para ser implementadas por los estudiantes en la brigada, las cuales propician el fortalecimiento de su autodirección en analogía con el modelo del profesional. An article is presented with the objective (...) of elaborating a system of workshops with the use of collaborative techniques for the students’ self-direction in the medical university, issue of great relevance in the development of the future professional. This system contains a group of theoretical-methodological guidelines and working tools to be implemented by the students of the brigade, the ones that give the strength of its self-direction in analogy with the ideal professional. (shrink)

Se presentan los resultados obtenidos en la tesis de maestría Sistema de talleres de trabajo educativo para la capacitación del profesor guía de Medicina en Nuevitas con el objetivo de demostrar el impacto a partir de su implementación en la brigada estudiantil. Se exponen las definiciones elaboradas y las contextualizaciones. Se concluye que el sistema contribuyó al adecuado desempeño del profesor guía y al desarrollo del modo de actuación de los estudiantes. La rapidez y la calidad que implicó en la (...) praxis educativa constituyó el resultado más importante en el contexto de la carrera de Medicina en la Filial. Results achieved through the master's thesis "Educational work workshops system for the Medicine degree guiding teacher training" in Nuevitas are presented, aimed at demonstrating its impact starting from its implementation on a class. Elaborate definitions and contexts are exposed. The conclusionreached through it was that the system contributed to the adequate guiding teacher's performance and to the development of students' behavior. The speed and quality it involved in educational praxis constituted the most important result in the context of the Medicine degree in La Filial town. (shrink)

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has gained significant popularity in recent years across borders due to the increased investigation and penalties under the law. The following case is a real-life case that highlights the main provisions of the FCPA. Using cases in teaching an auditing or ethics course is much needed to develop students’ professional judgment, critical and analytical thinking skills and communication skills. Presently, there are a few cases that address the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its effect (...) on financial reporting and auditor responsibilities about illegal acts. The Armor Holdings case is interesting and information is publicly available regarding the circumstances that describe the bribery act, lack of whistle-blower protection, the tone at the top, and the accounting treatment. In addition, the increase in actions brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the FCPA since 2010 heightens the relevance of this case and underscores the need for students to learn the skills necessary to ensure compliance with FCPA and related key regulations such as the Sarbanes Oxley and the Dodd Frank Act. Therefore, cases like this one provide a rich tool to navigate topics and enforce students’ learning of client’s illegal actions and their consequences. These skills are invaluable in practice. (shrink)

Drug resistant epilepsy is one of the most complex, multifactorial and polygenic neurological syndrome. Besides its dynamicity and variability, it still provides us with a model to study brain-behavior relationship, giving cues on the anatomy and functional representation of brain function. Given that onset zone of focal epileptic seizures often affects different anatomical areas, cortical but limited to one hemisphere, this condition also let us study the functional differences of the left and right cerebral hemispheres. One lateralized function in the (...) human brain is emotional prosody, and it can be a useful ictal sign offering hints on the location of the epileptogenic zone. Besides its importance for effective communication, prosody is not considered an eloquent domain, making resective surgery on its neural correlates feasible. We performed an Electronic databases search (Medline and PsychINFO) from inception to July 2017 for studies about prosody in epilepsy. The search terms included “epilepsy,” “seizure,” “emotional prosody,” and “vocal affect.” This review focus on emotional prosody processing in epilepsy as it can give hints regarding plastic functional changes following seizures (preoperatively), resection (post operatively), and also as an ictal sign enabling the assessment of dynamic brain networks. Moreover, it is argued that such reorganization can help to preserve the expression and reception of emotional prosody as a central skill to develop appropriate social interactions. (shrink)

The phenomenon of moral transformation, though important, has received little attention in virtue ethics. In this paper we propose a virtue-ethical model of moral transformation as character transformation by tracking the development of new identity-defining (‘core’) character traits, their expressions, and their priority structure, through the change in what appears as possible or impossible to the moral agent. We propose that character transformation culminates when what previously appeared as morally possible to the agent now appears impossible, i.e. unconceived and unthinkable, (...) moving through stages of transformation where some possibilities gradually disappear while others open up. While we show an example of moral transformation towards virtue, we allow that such transformation can occur in the opposite direction, hence we make claims about ‘character traits’ rather than virtues of vices. Through the example of former slave-trader Rodrigo’s transformation in the film The Mission, we follow the parallel development of new objects of value and ways of valuing (with respect to a group of indigenous people of South America) with the closing down of the possibility of disrespecting and harming them, to the end-point of transformation, where allowing their capture is for Rodrigo both unconceived and, when conceived, unthinkable. (shrink)

Parmi les 'but de l'homme' (puruṣārtha) qui orientent la vie humaine dans le monde indien, le dharma occupe une position très élevée, au-dessus de 'l'intérêt' (artha) et du 'désir' (kāma), respectivement la sphère du pouvoir (politique, économique, social) et celle de l'amour (y compris les passions et les plaisirs de la vie). Enfin, le dharma englobe le quatrième et ultime but de l'homme, la 'délivrance' (moksa). Le caractère normatif du dharma fixe la place de chacun dans la société, par l'exercice (...) de son devoir spécifique. Mais il ne se décline pas moins selon les dispositions individuelles de chacun, et l'action de l'homme en est la véritable mesure. Par-delà la littérature du dharma, le volume réunit des enquêtes sur cette notion 'en contexte,' de la poésie védique à la grammaire, de l'épopée au théâtre, des traditions religieuses et philosophiques--les premières Écoles bouddhiques, la Mīmāmsā, le tantrisme--à la médecine classique (Āyurveda) et jusqu'à la jurisprudence indienne moderne (du XVIIe au XIXe siècle) avec deux éclairages inédits sur le dharma des femmes. Une telle approche tend à restituer la complexité de quelques visages du dharma ainsi recomposés, non pas 'tel ou tel' aspect mais pour chaque cas le 'tout' d'un système à plusieurs facettes, à l'appui d'une histoire singulière dont les auteurs s'attachent à montrer points forts et limites, situations ambiguës, paradoxes et contradictions."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are being investigated as an access pathway to communication for individuals with physical disabilities, as the technology obviates the need for voluntary motor control. However, to date, minimal research has investigated the use of BCIs for children. Traditional BCI communication paradigms may be suboptimal given that children with physical disabilities may face delays in cognitive development and acquisition of literacy skills. Instead, in this study we explored emotional state as an alternative access pathway to communication. We developed (...) a pediatric BCI to identify positive and negative emotional states from changes in hemodynamic activity of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). To train and test the BCI, 10 neurotypical children aged 8–14 underwent a series of emotion-induction trials over four experimental sessions (one offline, three online) while their brain activity was measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Visual neurofeedback was used to assist participants in regulating their emotional states and modulating their hemodynamic activity in response to the affective stimuli. Child-specific linear discriminant classifiers were trained on cumulatively available data from previous sessions and adaptively updated throughout each session. Average online valence classification exceeded chance across participants by the last two online sessions (with 7 and 8 of the 10 participants performing better than chance, respectively, in Sessions 3 and 4). There was a small significant positive correlation with online BCI performance and age, suggesting older participants were more successful at regulating their emotional state and/or brain activity. Variability was seen across participants in regards to BCI performance, hemodynamic response, and discriminatory features and channels. Retrospective offline analyses yielded accuracies comparable to those reported in adult affective BCI studies using fNIRS. Affective fNIRS-BCIs appear to be feasible for school-aged children, but to further gauge the practical potential of this type of BCI, replication with more training sessions, larger sample sizes, and end-users with disabilities is necessary. (shrink)

Can literature help us in a time of crisis? Yes, in many and unexpected ways, as Simone Weil’s literary work shows. Reading Weil’s unfinished tragedy Venice Saved in the context of her poetry, philosophy and politics, we argue that it is an example of literary work that can engender transformation, for three reasons: its presentation and encouragement of attention to beauty; its tragic tension, forcing a deeper vision of the world; and its use of the poetic word. These elements, we (...) conclude, make literature a prime tool for inner and outer transformation, especially when everything seems to be lost. (shrink)

Introduction: Resilience is a multidimensional and dynamic construct associated with positive growth and the capacity to transform stressful and negative factors into opportunities of personal development and self-improvement when faced with difficult experiences. The resilience process of each individual integrates multiple analysis levels, which range from genetic-environmental interactions to a complex process of adaptation between the individual and his/her family, friends, co-workers, society, and culture.Objective: To determine whether resilience improves in students of occupational therapy when exposed for the first time (...) to practice placement education.Methodology: Quasi-experimental, prospective, observational, multi-center study with a sample composed of students from the Degree of Occupational Therapy of the public universities of Málaga and Castilla-La Mancha. Two weeks prior to the beginning of the practice education period, the participants completed a questionnaire that included sociodemographic data and the area of their internships. They were also given the Spanish version of the Connor-Davidson's resilience scale. All these instruments were also completed 1 week after the end of the clinical practice.Results: There were statistically significant differences between the variables that make up resilience and the different internship areas. On the other hand, there was a significant improvement of global resilience after the clinical practice period, in both women and men, when the internship area was not considered.Conclusions: The results show that resilient students are more optimistic and work to improve a situation beyond doing simply what is expected of them, knowing how to control their feelings. This is beneficial for students in practice education, since, during these, they face difficult situations that require a resilient pattern, which helps reduce stress and the burnout syndrome. (shrink)

La adaptación a la vida universitaria representa un gran desafío para los jóvenes. Dadas las nuevas dificultades que se añaden a este reto como consecuencia del COVID-19, el objetivo de este estudio es analizar la producción científica sobre esta cuestión de las últimas tres décadas (1991-2021). Para ello, se ha combinado el estudio bibliométrico con técnicas de análisis de redes sociales a través de los softwares Rstudio y Vosviewer. Se han analizado 291 artículos procedentes de la base de datos Scopus. (...) Los resultados permiten obtener una visión holística de este campo y de su evolución a lo largo del tiempo. (shrink)

This essay argues that despite of the feminist critique of Merleau-Ponty his phenomenology can be positively appropriated to the theory of sexual difference. It focuses on three issues: the first one is closely linked to the Phenomenology of Perception and introduces a concept of "difference as differentiation". The second one is concerned with the intersubjective dimension of sexuality and will be called a "sexual syncretism". Finally, I’m referring to Merleau-Ponty's notion of "chiasm" in his late work The Visible and the (...) Invisible in order to apply it to the theory of sexual difference. At this point, the difference between sexual beings will be conceptualized as "chiasmatic intertwining". In doing so, I hope to show that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology is a helpful resource for philosophical research that is mainly concerned with the questions of sexuality and sexual difference. (shrink)

Can art, religion, or philosophy afford ineffable insights? If so, what are they? The idea of ineffability has puzzled philosophers from Laozi to Wittgenstein. In Ineffability and its Metaphysics: The Unspeakable in Art, Religion and Philosophy, Silvia Jonas examines different ways of thinking about what ineffable insights might involve metaphysically, and shows which of these are in fact incoherent. Jonas discusses the concepts of ineffable properties and objects, ineffable propositions, ineffable content, and ineffable knowledge, examining the metaphysical pitfalls involved (...) in these concepts. Ultimately, she defends the idea that ineffable insights as found in aesthetic, religious, and philosophical contexts are best understood in terms of self-acquaintance, a particular kind of non-propositional knowledge. Ineffability as a philosophical topic is as old as the history of philosophy itself, but contributions to the exploration of ineffability have been sparse. The theory developed by Jonas makes the concept tangible and usable in many different philosophical contexts. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una revisión crítica del concepto de desigualdad tomando como base de análisis la política europea de lucha contra la pobreza y la exclusión y se pregunta sobre las formas en las que se construye y tiene en cuenta el concepto de interseccionalidad en las narrativas sobre las que se ha ido desarrollando durante los últimos 20 años. La hipótesis de la que se parte es que estas políticas se han dirigido tradicionalmente a grupos específicos desde un enfoque (...) unitario; es decir, a partir de una categoría única, considerada la más relevante o explicativa políticamente en situaciones particulares de desventaja social. De esta manera, la política europea de lucha contra la pobreza y la exclusión se ha institucionalizado sin tener en cuenta el carácter complejo de las desigualdades. (shrink)

The assessment of chronic pain is a highly unmet medical need. Chronic pain is also the subject of a large and costly category of legal claims. Yet, with pain cases, the jury always face a doubt: is the claimant faking or malingering? How can we be assured that the claimant is 'really' in pain? Most recently, several new neuroimaging technologies are promising to solve these questions, by rendering pain visible, measurable and, to some degree, verifiable. The results of these advancements (...) have prompted us to think of pain in a different way, i.e. as an altered brain state in which functional connections are modified, with components of degenerative aspects. But, does this imply the stronger claim that these technologies allow us to 'know', or to literally 'see', the pain of others? Is the pain being objectified by these techniques? And if so, what might the law do differently, or do better? (shrink)

Positivismo jurídico normativo: de la metafísica a la política El presente trabajo toma como punto de partida el libro Positivismo jurídico “interno”, de María Cristina Redondo, y propone una concepción alternativa de positivismo jurídico normativista. Se sostiene que la teoría del derecho puede ser neutral en la medida en que sea intersubjetiva y transparente en cuanto a sus propias premisas metafísicas. Los objetivos del trabajo son el de echar luz acerca del papel de la metafísica y del sentido común en (...) la construcción del concepto de derecho, y el de hacer más abiertamente transparentes las elecciones ético-políticas que constituyen a los discursos jurídicos, incluidos los teóricos. El trabajo analiza las tesis de Redondo acerca de la distinción entre ontología y epistemología y la posibilidad de conocimiento objetivo: la idea central defendida es que la inter-subjetividad, y no la objetividad, debería ser el criterio apropiado para el positivismo jurídico normativista. Luego se examina el rol de la normatividad en el positivismo jurídico normativista, enfocándose en la naturaleza metafísica de la tesis de que el derecho pertenece a los campos de la normatividad y la razón práctica. Las secciones siguientes examinan las concepciones reduccionistas y anti-reduccionistas sobre las “entidades” jurídicas y la teoría de las fuentes del derecho. La sección final aborda la cuestión de la neutralidad valorativa de la teoría jurídica y analiza la posibilidad de describir el punto de vista interno de los participantes sin asumir compromiso alguno con la práctica jurídica existente. (shrink)

Advances in genetics and related biotechnologies are having a profound effect on sport, raising important ethical questions about the limits and possibilities of the human body. Drawing on real case studies and grounded in rigorous scientific evidence, this book offers an ethical critique of current practices and explores the intersection of genetics, ethics and sport. Written by two of the world's leading authorities on the ethics of biotechnology in sport, the book addresses the philosophical implications of the latest scientific developments (...) and technological data. Distinguishing fact from popular myth and science fiction, it covers key topics such as the genetic basis of sport performance and the role of genetic testing in talent identification and development. Its ten chapters discuss current debates surrounding issues such as the shifting relationship between genetics, sports medicine and sports science, gene enhancement, gene transfer technology, doping and disability sport. The first book to be published on this important subject in more than a decade, this is fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in the ethics of sport, bioethics or sport performance. (shrink)

Jesús Fernández Santos (1926-1988) es un escritor que atiende al fenómeno religioso como determinante de la vida íntima de los individuos y de sus relaciones sociales. Este trabajo analiza una de sus novelas más significativas que tiene como referencia a un grupo cristiano evangelista, ajeno a la tradición católica española, del cual se relaciona su historia y la evolución de algunos personajes individualizados. Incluye el autor una parte de su experiencia personal y una mirada a la historia de España como (...) aspectos de una ficción que ofrece una visión problemática de la existencia humana. (shrink)

Online targeting isolates individual consumers, causing what we call epistemic fragmentation. This phenomenon amplifies the harms of advertising and inflicts structural damage to the public forum. The two natural strategies to tackle the problem of regulating online targeted advertising, increasing consumer awareness and extending proactive monitoring, fail because even sophisticated individual consumers are vulnerable in isolation, and the contextual knowledge needed for effective proactive monitoring remains largely inaccessible to platforms and external regulators. The limitations of both consumer awareness and of (...) proactive monitoring strategies can be attributed to their failure to address epistemic fragmentation. We call attention to a third possibility that we call a civic model of governance for online targeted advertising, which overcomes this problem, and describe four possible pathways to implement this model. (shrink)

This paper explores contract cheating from the perspectives of researchers at three post-secondary institutions in Alberta, Canada, describing their efforts to develop and advance awareness of, interventions against, and responses to contract cheating at their respective institutions. Contract cheating is when a third party produces or completes academic work for a student, and the student then presents the work as their own. The student might have personal connections to the third party, or the student might pay a fee and outsource (...) the academic work to the third party. All three institutions are experiencing an increase in the incidence of contract cheating, which is consistent with trends at colleges and universities across Canada and the world. Contract cheating is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one, due in part to students having access to thousands of online companies offering to help them with their academic work. This paper examines personal narratives from four researchers and identifies five key themes: types of contract cheating, students, awareness, evidence and policy implications, and educational development. (shrink)

Puts leading Italian thinkers into conversation with established Continental philosophers concerning the future of the nature of the human, technology, metaphysical foundations, globalization, and social and political oppression.

What kind of thing do you believe when you believe that you are in a certain place, that it is a certain time, and that you are a certain individual? What happens if you get lost, or lose track of the time? Can you ever be unsure of your own identity? These are the kind of questions considered in my thesis. Beliefs about where, when and who you are are what are called in the literature de se, or self-locating beliefs. (...) This thesis examines how we can represent de se beliefs, and how we can reason about de se uncertainty. In the first part of the thesis, I present and motivate a specific account of the content of de se belief, based on the one given by David Lewis. On this account, the content of de se beliefs are centred propositions. I defend this view against a rival account, put forward by Robert Stalnaker, according to whom the content of de se beliefs are ordinary propositions. In the second part of the thesis, I explore how we can reason probabilistically about de se uncertainty. I start by defining probabilities over centred propositions, and investigate what probabilities mean in this context. As it turns out, all the main interpretations of probability can be extended to centred propositions. The only trouble seems to arise for the Bayesian principle of updating via conditionalization. After giving a diagnosis of the problem, I offer a solution by formulating a natural extension of conditionalization, which I argue preserves the essential features of Bayesian reasoning. In the final chapter, I apply my view and show that it leads to a natural resolution of a puzzle that is generally taken to be a test case for any account of centred updating. (shrink)

COVID-19 has hit a world in which social protection schemes are increasingly augmented with digital measures. Digital identity schemes are especially being adopted to match citizens’ data with social protection entitlements, enabling authentication through demographic and, increasingly, biometric data at the point of access. In this commentary, I discuss three sets of implications that COVID-19 has yielded on digital social protection, whose central trade-off – increasing the probabilities of accurate user identification, at the cost of greater exclusions – has become (...) even more problematic during the crisis. I argue that three forms of data injustice – legal, informational and design-related, previously identified in datafied social protection schemes, will need to be monitored in the post-pandemic scenario. I finally observe that the crisis exposes the long-term need to place digitality within social protection schemes that expand user entitlements rather than constraining them. Implications of such reflections are drawn for the study of data-based social welfare interventions. (shrink)