In recent years, researchers and practitioners have increasingly paid attention to food waste, which is seen as highly unethical given its negative environmental and societal implications. Waste recovery is dependent on the creation of connections along the supply chain, so that actors with goods at risk of becoming waste can transfer them to those who may be able to use them as inputs or for their own consumption. Such waste recovery is, however, often hampered by what we call ‘circularity holes’, (...) i.e., missing linkages between waste generators and potential receivers. A new type of actor, the digital platform organization, has recently taken on a brokerage function to bridge circularity holes, particularly in the food supply chain. Yet, extant literature has overlooked this novel type of brokerage that exploits digital technology for the transfer and recovery of discarded resources between supply chain actors. Our study investigates this actor, conceptualized as a ‘circularity broker’, and thus unites network research and circular supply chain research. Focusing on the food supply chain, we adopt an interpretive inductive theory-building approach to uncover how platform organizations foster the recovery of waste by bridging circularity holes. We identify and explicate six brokerage roles, i.e., connecting, informing, protecting, mobilizing, integrating and measuring, and discuss them in relation to extant literature, highlighting novelties compared to earlier studies. The final section reflects on contributions, implications, limitations and areas for further research. (shrink)

Background: Nurse managers are expected to continuously ensure that ethical standards are met and to support healthcare workers’ ethical competence. Several studies have concluded that nurses across various healthcare settings lack the support needed to provide safe, compassionate and competent ethical care. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore and understand how nurse managers perceive their role in supporting their staff in conducting ethically sound care in nursing homes and home nursing care. Design and participants: Qualitative individual interviews (...) were performed with 10 nurse managers with human resources responsibilities for healthcare workers in four nursing home wards and six home nursing care districts. Content analysis was used to analyse the data. Ethical considerations: The Norwegian Centre for Research Data granted permission for this study. Findings: The analysis resulted in seven subcategories that were grouped into three main categories: managers’ perception of the importance of the role, managers’ experiences of exercising the role and managers’ opportunities to fulfil the role. Challenges with conceptualizing ethics were highlighted, as well as lack of applicable tools or time and varying motivation among employees. Discussion: The leaders tended to perceive ethics as a ‘personal matter’ and that the need for and benefit of ethical support (e.g., ethics reflection) depended on individuals’ vulnerability, attitudes, commitment and previous experiences. The managers did not seem to distinguish between their own responsibility to support ethical competence and the responsibility of the individual employee to provide ethical care. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that nurse managers need support themselves, both to understand and to carry out their responsibilities to foster their staffs’ ethical conduct. Supporting staff in conducting ethically sound care requires more than organizing meeting places for ethical reflection; it also requires greater awareness and understanding of what ethical leadership means. (shrink)

Essentialists understand authenticity as an inherent quality of a person, object, artifact, or place, whereas constructionists consider authenticity as a social creation without any pre-given essence, factuality, or reality. In this paper, we move beyond the essentialist-constructionist dichotomy. Rather than focusing on the question whether authenticity can be found or needs to be constructed, we hook into the idea that authenticity is an interactive, culturally informed process of negotiation. In addition to essentialist and constructionist approaches, we discuss a third, less (...) well-known approach that cannot be reduced to any of the two forms. This approach celebrates the authenticity of inauthenticity by amplifying the made. We argue that the value of authenticity lies not in choosing for one of these approaches, but in the degree to which the process of negotiating authenticity enables a critical formation of selves and societies. Authenticity is often invoked as a method of social control or a mark of power relations: once something is defined as authentic, it is no longer questioned. Emerging technologies—especially data-driven technologies—have the capacity to conceal these power relations, propel a shift in power, and dominate authentication processes. This raises the question how processes of authentication can contribute to a critical formation of selves and societies, against the backdrop of emerging technologies. We argue in favor of an interactionist approach of authenticity and discuss the importance of creating space in authentication processes that are increasingly influenced by technology as an invisible actor. (shrink)

This book provides a formal ontology of senses and the belief-relation that grounds the distinction between de dicto, de re, and de se beliefs as well as the opacity of belief reports. According to this ontology, the relata of the belief-relation are an agent and a special sort of object-dependent sense (a "thought-content"), the latter being an "abstract" property encoding various syntactic and semantic constraints on sentences of a language of thought. One bears the belief-relation to a thought-content T just (...) in case one (is disposed as one who) inwardly affirms a certain sentence S of one’s language of thought that satisfies what T encodes, which in turn requires that S’s non-logical parts stand in appropriate semantical relations to items specified by T. Since these items may include other senses as well as ordinary objects, beliefs of arbitrary complexity are automatically accommodated. Within the framework of the formal ontology, a context-dependent compositional semantics is then provided for a fragment of regimented English capable of formulating ascriptions of belief—a semantics that treats substitutional opacity as a genuine semantic datum. Finally, the resulting picture of belief and its attribution is defended by showing how it solves standard puzzles, avoids objections to rival accounts, and satisfies certain adequacy conditions not fulfilled by traditional theories. Along the way, clarification and defense is offered for the ingredient conception of object-dependent senses, and it is shown how adoption of the language of thought hypothesis permits Bertrand Russell’s obscure doctrine of logical forms to be understood in a way that not only vindicates his Multiple Relation theory of de re belief but also reveals the connection between these logical forms and thought-contents. (shrink)

This introduction points to the divergent factors relevant to the topic of CSR, clearly indicating the need for multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches to this research area. This is reflected in the way CSR has developed at NTNU. For the past 10 years, there has been a focus on CSR in different ways; in course curricula, research projects, and strategic activities across faculties and department and as the focus area within two of the six overall research strategic areas at NTNU: the (...) Globalization research program and the Maritime research program. Environment and energy are core topics in the programs, hereunder long traditions of collaboration with industry in innovative research projects are found. The science and technology profile, but with close connections with the social sciences and humanities, distinguishes CSR research at NTNU. The research focus on CSR attracts students and support possibilities for increased collaboration with industry. (shrink)

In this paper, we demonstrate how the language and reasonings that academics, developers, consumers, marketers, and journalists deploy to accept or reject AI as authentic intelligence has far-reaching bearing on how we understand our human intelligence and condition. The discourse on AI is part of what we call the “authenticity negotiation process” through which AI’s “intelligence” is given a particular meaning and value. This has implications for scientific theory, research directions, ethical guidelines, design principles, funding, media attention, and the way (...) people relate to and act upon AI. It also has great impact on humanity’s self-image and the way we negotiate what it means to be human, existentially, culturally, politically, and legally. We use a discourse analysis of academic papers, AI education programs, and online discussions to demonstrate how AI itself, as well as the products, services, and decisions delivered by AI systems are negotiated as authentic or inauthentic intelligence. In this negotiation process, AI stakeholders indirectly define and essentialize what being human(like) means. The main argument we will develop is that this process of indirectly defining and essentializing humans results in an elimination of the space for humans to be indeterminate. By eliminating this space and, hence, denying indeterminacy, the existential condition of the human being is jeopardized. Rather than re-creating humanity in AI, the AI discourse is re-defining what it means to be human and how humanity is valued and should be treated. (shrink)

Pain is most often an unpleasant experience that alerts us to actual or possible tissue damage. However, insisting that pain is always bad news may hinder understanding of pain’s many facets. Despite its unpleasantness – or perhaps because of it – pain is known to enhance the perceived value of certain activities, such as punishment or endurance sports. Here, we review evidence for a series of mechanisms involved in putative benefits of pain. A byproduct of pain’s attention-grabbing quality can be (...) enhanced perception of concurrent pleasurable stimuli. This is thought to explain why pain may augment the pleasure of spicy foods. By providing an aversive contrast, pain can also improve the experience of events that follow pain’s offset and lead to pleasant relief. Other potential benefits of pain derive from its ability to inhibit other unpleasant experiences and to elicit empathy and social support. The experience of pain can benefit our defence systems, since pain can enhance motivation to accumulate resources such as social support and calorie-rich foods. It can also reduce the guilt we feel after self-indulgence or moral transgressions. In sum, we highlight a series of potentially positive effects linked to pain. This framework can aid the understanding of why people sometimes seek out, enjoy, and gain rewards from pain as well as pleasure. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explain the transition from implicit CSR to explicit CSR that has taken place in Scandinavia over the last two decades. Matten and Moon’s distinction between implicit and explicit CSR is the point of departure for the analysis, which is based on case studies of two Norwegian companies: HÅG and Hydro. On the basis of these case studies, we identify two forces that are pushing the transition from implicit to explicit CSR in Scandinavia: Organizational (...) expressiveness and Re-legitimizing. Both of these measures are adjustments to the globalization of the economy, altering the competitive situation even in highly institutionalized, Scandinavian economies. HÅG, a midsized Norwegian manufacturer of office chairs, made CSR and environmental values an integral part of their expressive strategy in the early 1990s. Hydro, a big Norwegian aluminium producer, made CSR an explicit issue around the turn of the millennium, in an attempt to re-legitimize their business operations in a new market situation where plants in local communities in Norway were shut down and relocated to less regulated regimes in low-cost regions abroad. (shrink)

Ten countries have established quotas for female representation on publicly traded corporate and/or state-owned enterprise boards of directors, ranging from 33 to 50 %, with various sanctions. Fifteen other countries have introduced non-binding gender quotas in their corporate governance codes enforcing a “comply or explain” principle. Countless other countries’ leaders and policy groups are in the process of debating, developing, and approving legislation around gender quotas in boards. Taken together, gender quota legislation significantly impacts the composition of boards of directors (...) and thus the strategic direction of these publicly traded and state-owned enterprises. This article outlines an integrated model of three institutional factors that explain the establishment of board of directors gender quota legislation based on the premise that the country’s institutional environment co-evolves with gender corporate policies. We argue that these three key institutional factors are female labor market and gendered welfare state provisions, left-leaning political government coalitions, and path-dependent policy initiatives for gender equality, both in the public realm as well as in the corporate domain. We discuss implications of our conceptual model and empirical findings for theory, practice, policy, and future research. These include the adoption and penalty design of board diversity practices into corporate practices, bottom-up approaches from firm to country-level gender board initiatives, hard versus soft regulation, the leading role of Norway and its isomorphic effects, the likelihood of engaging in decoupling, the role of business leaders, and the transnational and international reaction to board diversity initiatives. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept suggesting that good business is about more than maximizing profit. In order to achieve social legitimacy a corporation must pay attention to a complex web of values and relations, and different CSR strategies and policies can be viewed as ways to manage this complexity. The corporate legitimacy matrix introduced in this article represents the strive for social legitimacy as a balancing act along three lines: a) The sustainability dimension: Balancing economic, social and environmental (...) considerations, b) The stakeholder dimension: Balancing considerations of stakeholders at the local, national and global level, and c) The trust dimension: Balancing rational argumentation, credibility and emotional appeal. This article explores these three aspects of corporate legitimacy and how they are related. It is intended as a theoretical contribution towards a better understanding of the relationship between CSR and corporate legitimacy, as well as a practical tool to support the analysis of actual corporate legitimacy challenges. (shrink)

Background: Compassion is seen as a core professional value in nursing and as essential in the effort of relieving suffering and promoting well-being in palliative care patients. Despite the advances in modern healthcare systems, there is a growing clinical and scientific concern that the value of compassion in palliative care is being less emphasised. Objective: This study aimed to explore nurses’ experiences of compassion when caring for palliative patients in home nursing care. Design and participants: A secondary qualitative analysis inspired (...) by hermeneutic circling was performed on narrative interviews with 10 registered nurses recruited from municipal home nursing care facilities in Mid-Norway. Ethical considerations: The Norwegian Social Science Data Services granted permission for the study (No. 34299) and the re-use of the data. Findings: The compassionate experience was illuminated by one overarching theme: valuing caring interactions as positive, negative or neutral, which entailed three themes: (1) perceiving the patient’s plea, (2) interpreting feelings and (3) reasoning about accountability and action, with subsequent subthemes. Discussion: In contrast to most studies on compassion, our results highlight that a lack of compassion entails experiences of both negative and neutral content. Conclusion: The phenomenon of neutral caring interactions and lack of compassion demands further explorations from both a patient – and a nurse perspective. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Despite 40 years of equal opportunities policies and more than two decades of government and organization initiatives aimed at helping women reach the upper echelons of the corporate world, women are seriously underrepresented on corporate boards. Recently, fifteen countries sought to redress this imbalance by introducing gender quotas for board representation. The introduction of board gender quota legislation creates ethical tensions and dilemmas which we categorize in terms of motivations, legitimacy, and outcomes. We investigate these tensions through four overarching theoretical (...) perspectives: institutional, stakeholder, social identity, and social capital. We outline a future research agenda based on how these tensions offer greater focus to research on quotas and more broadly to ethics and diversity in organizations in terms of theory, anticipated ethical tensions, data, and methodology. In sum, our review seeks to synthesize existing multidisciplinary research and stimulate future enquiry on this expanding set of legislation. (shrink)

In this article the question is raised whether philosophers, studying Humean problems, might profit from the empirical findings of contemporary psychology. A text from Hume's Treatise of Human Nature is analyzed in an attempt to find out (1) whether his problems are open to empirical testing. Each sentence in the text is classified into normative, declarative, analytic and synthetic. A prevalence of declarative, synthetic sentences is found. Further, the question is examined (2) whether contemporary empirical psychology has contributed to the (...) testing of Hume's hypotheses. The answer is affirmative for some of the statements, and it is suggested that philosophical discussions around these problems should not be carried out as if psychological research were irrelevant. (shrink)

A growing body of ethics research investigates gender diversity and governance on corporate boards, at individual and firm levels, in single country studies. In this study, we explore the environmental context of female representation on corporate boards of directors, using data from 43 countries. We suggest that women's representation on corporate boards may be shaped by the larger environment, including the social, political and economic structures of individual countries. We use logit regression to conduct our analysis. Our results indicate that (...) countries with higher representation of women on boards are more likely to have women in senior management and more equal ratios of male to female pay. However, we find that countries with a longer tradition of women's political representation are less likely to have high levels of female board representation. (shrink)

Potential speech abilities constitute a key component in the description of the Neandertals and their relations with modern Homo Sapiens. Since Lieberman & Crelin postulated in 1971 the theory that “Neanderthal man did not have the anatomical prerequisites for producing the full range of human speech” their speech capability has been a subject of hot debate for over 30 years, and remains a controversial question. In this study, we first question the methodology adopted by Lieberman and Crelin, and we point (...) out articulatory and acoustic flaws in the data and the modeling. Then we propose a general articulatory-acoustic framework for testing the acoustic consequences of the trade-off between oral and pharyngeal cavities. Specifically, following Honda & Tiede, we characterize this trade-off by a Laryngeal Height Index corresponding to the length ratio of the pharyngeal cavity to the oral cavity. Using an anthropomorphic articulatory model controlled by lips, jaw, tongue and larynx parameters, we can generate the Maximal Vowel Space, which is a triangle in the F1 / F2 plane, the three point vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ being located at its three extremities. We sample the evolution of the position of the larynx from birth to adulthood with four different LHI values, and we show that the associated MVS are very similar. Therefore, the MVS of a given vocal tract does not depend on the LHI: gestures of the tongue body, lips and jaw allow compensations for differences in the ratio between the dimensions of the oral cavity and pharynx. We then infer that the vowel space of Neandertals was potentially no smaller than that of a modern human and that Neandertals could produce all the vowels of the world’s languages. Neandertals were no more vocally handicapped than children at birth are. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the lowering of the larynx and a concomitant increase in pharynx size are necessary evolutionary pre-adaptations for speech. However, since our study is strictly limited to the morphological and acoustic aspects of the vocal tract, we cannot offer any definitive answer to the question of whether Neandertals could produce human speech or not. (shrink)

Natural disasters, technological disasters, and terrorist attacks have an extensive aftermath, often involving society’s institutions such as the legal system and the police. Victims’ perceptions of institutional trustworthiness may impact their potential for healing. This cross-sectional study investigates institutional trust, health, and social support in victims of a disaster that occurred in 1990. We conducted face-to-face interviews with 184 survivors and bereaved, with a 60% response rate 26 years after the disaster. Levels of trust in the police and in the (...) justice system were compared with general population data. We assessed the relationships between institutional trust and current psychological distress, social support, and quality of life. The levels of trust in the police and in the justice system were notably lower in survivors and bereaved than in the general population. Among the victims, low institutional trust was associated with more mental health problems, poorer social support, more barriers to seeking social support, and a lower quality of life. Lost trust in the aftermath of a disaster may perhaps never be restored and the lack of trust may act to strengthen or maintain health problems. An exclusively individualistic approach to trauma and disaster may miss out on the opportunities for promoting health and wellbeing that lies within the larger societal structures. Decision-makers should take this information into account, and acknowledge the potential long-term consequences of institutional performance in the aftermath of a disaster. (shrink)

In the present study it was shown that decision heuristics and confidence judgements play important roles in the building of preferences. Based on a dual-process account of thinking, the study compared people who did well versus poorly on a series of decision heuristics and overconfidence judgement tasks. The two groups were found to differ with regard to their information search behaviour in introduced multiattribute choice tasks. High performers on the judgemental tasks were less influenced in their decision processes by numerical (...) information format (probabilities vs. frequencies) compared to low performers. They also looked at more attributes and spent more time on the multiattribute choice tasks. The results reveal that performance on decision heuristics and overconfidence tasks has a bearing both on heuristic and analytic processes in multiattribute decision making. (shrink)