Some individuals and businesses have become increasingly dependent upon multiple financing sources for economic survival. Certain currently used lending policies, such as interest-only loans and revolving credit lines, may encourage borrower dependency on the lender. The paper reviews religious teachings, specifically religious safeguards on lending identified in primary Jewish sources including the Tanach and rabbinic teachings, and finds that the safeguards in place centuries ago may still be relevant for lending practices today to both protect the borrower while still providing (...) a profitable means to help borrowers. (shrink)

There is strong theoretical support for a relationship between various characteristics of religiousness and attitudes towards business ethics. This paper examines three frequently- studied dimensions of religiousness (fundamentalism, conservatism, and intrinsic religiousness) and their ability to predict students' willingness to behave unethically. Because prior research indicated a possible relationship between the religious affiliation of an institution and its members' ethical orientation, we studied students at universities with three different types of religious affiliation: evangelical, Catholic, and none.Results of the study lend (...) support to a negative relationship between the above-mentioned dimensions of religiousness and willingness to behave unethically. In addition, students at the Evangelical university were far less willing to engage in unethical behavior than were students at either the Catholic or the unaffiliated institutions. (shrink)

Interest in teaching business ethics classes on college campuses has increased dramatically during the past decade. In the United States, virtually all graduate and undergraduate business programs teach business ethics in some form. While current pedagogy relies primarily on factual recounting of actual workplace incidents and actual and hypothetical case studies, calls for multidisciplinary approaches to teaching business ethics have not yet produced significant pedagogical change. We propose the use of fiction (novels, dramas, and short stories) to enrich current teaching (...) materials. This paper illustrates the tremendous power of stories which deal with ethical dilemmas in business to illuminate moral issues in ways that lead to a clearer understanding of ethical theory. The fiction cited in this paper is all drawn from American literature. It seems likely that similar sources could be found in the literature of other countries. (shrink)

The area of services marketing is a highly crucial one for potential ethical violations. The services industry, which drives over two-thirds of our national economy, is about to experience severe changes due to increasing competition. The temptation to make ethical compromises will pose a dramatic threat to the business climate.We review conceptual approaches to the field of marketing ethics and conclude that existing models often lack an important component which affects ethical decision-making. That component includes the interorganizational variables: the primary (...) task environment, including immediate customers and suppliers to the buyer and seller; the secondary task environment, comprised of suppliers and customers to the immediate suppliers and customers, competitors, and regulatory agencies, and the macro-environment, those broader forces which impinge on the activities in the primary and secondary task environments. (shrink)

Christmas gives us that 'sweet little Jesus Boy' and Lent follows that with the 'gentle Jesus, meek and mild.' He was neither of those. In point of fact, he was the 'tough guy from Nazareth.' He was consistently abrasive, if not abusive, to his mother (Lk 2:49; Jn 2:4; Mt 12:48) and aggressively hard on males, particularly those in authority. In Mark 8 he cursed and damned Peter for failing to get Jesus' esoteric definition of Messiah correct. Nobody else understood (...) it either. Jesus had made it up himself and not adequately explained it to anybody until then. He called the religious authorities snakes, corrupt tombs, filthy chinaware, fakes, and Mosaic legalists who had forgotten God's real revelation of universal grace and salvation in the Abraham Covenant. He tore up the temple in the middle of a worship service and cursed those present for turning God's house of prayer into a den of thieves, when actually they were kind, helping out-of-town tourists obtain the proper sacrifices for the liturgical rituals. Jesus was persistently aggressive, often angry and not infrequently irrational, killing an innocent fig tree with his curse, for example. He constantly attacked the Pharisees and their proposals for renewing the spiritual vitality of the Jewish Community. He abused numerous people by healing them on the Sabbath just to make his political point against the religious leaders. He could just as well have healed them on Tuesday, if he really wanted to heal them. By healing the blind man in John 9 on the Sabbath, for example, he caused the man to be driven out of his synagogue, his family, and his community of faith; isolated and abandoned as if he were a leper. Even when he said surprising things about children, his focus was not on the children but on his disciples, using the children as tools for making an assertive teaching point. Jesus' life was one of perpetually aggressive claims for his vision of God's reign. He constantly and intentionally provoked conflict and disruption of the status quo, spiritually and politically. He refused to negotiate, compromise, palliate, or mollify his insistence upon keeping his elbow perpetually in the eye of the people in power. In all this he would not back down. The principle by which Jesus operated was absolute and that is why he did not back down, even though they killed him for this very reason. His principle was simply that the renewal of Jewish spirituality could only come from a return to the Abrahamic Covenant, which declared (Gn 12; Rm 8) that God is gracious and universally forgiving towards all humankind, unconditional to our conduct and behaviour, and radically in that it removes all fear, guilt, and shame from the equation of our relationship with God (Mi 7:18-20). He saw that the Pharisees and Scribes were absolutely wrong in assuming that the Mosaic legal system would renew the Jewish relationship with God. He was not the gentle Jesus, meek and mild. He was that tough guy from Nazareth! He had good reason and he was willing to go the distance for what he stood for, even to death on the cross. (shrink)

What was really going on in the Baby K case? Many people have posed that or similar questions to me when I have been introduced as the attorney for Baby K's mother. In a nutshell, the courts in Baby K ruled that a hospital is required to provide emergency medical care to an anencephalic baby at the mother's request. In this paper, I provide some insights into the factors that underlie the litigation and the legal issues decided by the courts. (...) In my view, this case involved a myriad of legal questions, religious principles, power struggles, and health care resources arguments that could arise in other contexts. (shrink)

Over the past seventy-five years, the UN secretary-general has come to occupy a highly visible position in world politics. While the UN Charter describes the post merely as the “chief administrative officer” of the organization, today it is widely recognized that the secretary-general also plays a central role in political matters. What makes the role of the UN secretary-general special? Where does the office's authority come from? As part of the special issue on “The United Nations at Seventy-Five: Looking Back (...) to Look Forward,” this essay looks back at the tenures of previous UN secretaries-general and applies ideas from sociological institutionalism to argue that the UN secretary-general holds the position of a “guardian” of the UN Charter. The UN secretary-general, more than anyone else within the UN system, represents the UN overall. From this flows great responsibilities and challenges, as the UN secretary-general is often expected to step in when other parts of the UN are unable or unwilling to act, and to take the blame when things go wrong. But this special position also endows the office with a substantial degree of authority, which future holders of the office can use to shape policies and mobilize support as the UN seeks to address urgent global challenges. (shrink)

This paper examines levels of similarity in ethical outlooks in countries where economic and sociocultural values may differ markedly. We compared students from a capitalist country, the United States, with students from Ukraine, a country experiencing dramatic ideological confusion and economic change. We tested the hypothesis that greater social and moral integration, as operationalized by a lack of alienation and by religiousness, will directly affect one's willingness to engage in unethical business practices.The sample was composed of business students in both (...) Ukraine and the United States. The survey instrument consisted of widely used scales for measuring alienation and religiousness. The measure of ethical standards was a vignette-based quasi-projective technique. (shrink)

Making Sense of Sex: Attitudes towards Sexuality in Early Jewish and Christian Literature. By William Loader. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013. Pp. vii + 168. $24.

In applying statutory safeguards, the FDA must not regulate investigational new products so stringently that a life‐saving therapy is unavailable. But the agency must also protect dying patients from exploitation by unscrupulous or overzealous researchers. The balance between individual choice and public protection has been questioned in cases involving experimental AIDS drugs and an artificial heart.

Mixed results regarding the role of gender in moral reasoning prompted an investigation of an alternative characteristic that may be more influential in the process: sex role orientation. We present an empirical assessment of the relationship between an individual’s moral reasoning level and his/her sex role orientation, gender, and several academic factors. Our results indicate that sex role orientation is not related to moral reasoning level. Gender is related to moral reasoning in our study, women reasoning at higher levels than (...) men. We found a positive relationship between education and moral reasoning level, and moral reasoning levels differed across academic institutions. Our results also show business students have lower moral reasoning levels than students in other fields, although this result did not reach statistical significance. (shrink)

Childhood obesity is in important respects a result of legal policies that influence both dietary intake and physical activity. The law must shift focus away from individual risk factors alone and seek instead to promote situational and environmental influences that create an atmosphere conducive to health. To attain this goal, advocates should embrace a population-wide model of public health, and policymakers must critically examine the fashionable rhetoric of consumer choice.

Background Implementation science presents ethical issues not well addressed by traditional research ethics frameworks. There is little empirical work examining how clinicians whose work is affected by implementation studies view these issues. Accordingly, we interviewed clinicians working at sites participating in an implementation study seeking to improve patient handoffs to the intensive care unit (ICU).Methods We performed semi-structured interviews with 32 clinicians working at sites participating in an implementation study aiming to improve patient handoffs from the operating room to the (...) ICU. We analyzed the interviews using an iterative coding process following a conventional content analysis approach.Results Clinicians’ greatest concern about involvement was possible damage to interpersonal relations with more senior clinicians. They were divided about whether informed consent from clinicians was necessary but were satisfied with the study’s approach of sending out mass communications about the study. They did not think opting out of the implementation portion of the study was feasible but saw this inability to opt out as unproblematic because they equated the study with routine quality improvement. Those clinicians who helped launch the study at their sites recounted several different ways of doing so beyond simply facilitating access.Conclusions The risks that clinicians identified stemmed more from their general status as employees than their specific work as clinicians. Implementation researchers should be attuned to the ethical ramifications of involving employees of varying ranks. Implementation researchers using hybrid designs should also be sensitive to the possibility that practitioners affected by a study will equate it with quality improvement and overlook its research component. Finally, the interactions that go into facilitating an implementation study are more various than the “gatekeeping” typically discussed by research ethicists. More research is needed on the ethics of the myriad interactions that are involved in making implementation studies happen. (shrink)

Screening for prostate cancer with the prostate-specific antigen blood test is controversial, as evidence to date has not demonstrated such screening does more good than harm. While the potential benefit of PSA screening on reducing prostate cancer mortality has not been documented in randomized trials, many risks of PSA screening have been well documented. These risks include a substantially higher risk of a prostate cancer diagnosis over a screenee’s lifetime, false-positive and false-negative test results, possible complications from biopsies done in (...) response to suspicious test results, and substantial risks of side effects from subsequent prostate cancer treatments. Nevertheless, PSA screening is widespread in the United States, and many physicians in a national survey reported supporting routine PSA screening as well as getting PSA tests themselves, despite the lack of evidence. (shrink)

A 1999–2000 national study of U.S. hospitals raised concerns about ethics consultation (EC) practices and catalyzed improvement efforts. To assess how practices have changed since 2000, we administered a 105-item survey to “best informants” in a stratified random sample of 600 U.S. general hospitals. This primary article details the methods for the entire study, then focuses on the 16 items from the prior study. Compared with 2000, the estimated number of case consultations performed annually rose by 94% to 68,000. The (...) median number of consults per hospital was unchanged at 3, but more than doubled for hospitals with 400+ beds. The level of education of EC practitioners was unchanged, while the percentage of hospitals formally evaluating their ECS decreased from 28.0% to 19.1%. The gap between large, teaching hospitals and small, nonteaching hospitals widened since the prior study. We suggest targeting future improvement efforts to hospitals where needs are not being met by current approaches to EC. (shrink)

To design effective strategies to improve ethics consultation (EC) practices, it is important to understand the views of ethics practitioners. Previous U.S. studies of ethics practitioners have overrepresented the views of academic bioethicists. To help inform EC improvement efforts, we surveyed a random stratified sample of U.S. hospitals, examining ethics practitioners’ opinions on EC in general, on their own EC service, on strategies to improve EC, and on ASBH practice standards. Respondents across all categories of hospitals had very positive perceptions (...) of their own ethics consultation service (ECS) and few concerns about quality. Our findings suggest that the ethics-related needs of small, rural, non-teaching hospitals may be very different from those of academic medical centers, and therefore, different approaches to addressing ethical issues might be warranted. (shrink)

Peoples’ perceptions of healthy eating are influenced by the cultural context in which they occur. Despite this general acceptance by health practitioners and social scientists, studies suggest that there remains a relative homogeneity around peoples’ perceptions that informs a hegemonic discourse around healthy eating. People often describe healthy eating in terms of learned information from sources that reflect societies’ norms and values, such as the Canada Food Guide and the ubiquitous phrase “fruits and vegetables”. Past research has examined how built (...) environments shape people’s access to healthy living options, such as distribution of grocers versus convenience stores and fast food restaurants. Often overlooked is an in-depth understanding of how social contexts interact with built environments, molding peoples’ perceptions of healthy eating. This paper reports on perceptions of healthy eating in four communities across Alberta, Canada. A photovoice methodology was employed to elicit perceptions of healthy eating with 35 participants. This study illustrates how participants’ photographs and their stories convey multiple meanings about healthy eating within their own lives and communities. Findings suggest that a ‘local’ context is an important part of the discourse centered around the promotion of healthy eating practices in these and potential other communities. (shrink)

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on (...) the following key issues: § 1.Providing information about research integrity § 2.Providing education, training and mentoring § 3.Strengthening a research integrity culture § 4.Facilitating open dialogue § 5.Wise incentive management § 6.Implementing quality assurance procedures § 7.Improving the work environment and work satisfaction § 8.Increasing transparency of misconduct cases § 9.Opening up research § 10.Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels § 11.Protecting the alleged perpetrators § 12.Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson § 13.Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity. (shrink)

Context. The identification of the sources that reionized the Universe and their specific contribution to this process are key missing pieces of our knowledge of the early Universe. Faint star-forming galaxies may be the main contributors to the ionizing photon budget during the epoch of reionization, but their escaping photons cannot be detected directly due to inter-galactic medium opacity. Hence, it is essential to characterize the properties of faint galaxies with significant Lyman continuum photon leakage up to z 4 to (...) define indirect indicators allowing analogues to be found at the highest redshift. Aims. Long gamma-ray bursts explode typically in star-forming regions of faint, star-forming galaxies. Through LGRB afterglow spectroscopy it is possible to detect directly LyC photons. Our aim is to use LGRBs as tools to study LyC leakage from faint, star-forming galaxies at high redshift. Methods. Here we present the observations of LyC emission in the afterglow spectra of GRB 191004B at z = 3:5055, together with those of the other two previously known LyC-emitting LGRB, to determine their LyC escape fraction and compare their properties. Results. From the afterglow spectrum of GRB 191004B we determine a neutral hydrogen column density at the LGRB redshift of og =17:2 0:15, and negligible extinction. The only metal absorption lines detected are C iv and Si iv. In contrast to GRB 050908 and GRB 060607A, the host galaxy of GRB 191004B displays significant Ly emission. From its Ly emission and the non-detection of Balmer emission lines we constrain its star-formation rate to 1 SFR 4:7 M yr. 1. We fit the Ly emission with a shell model and find parameters values consistent with the observed ones. The absolute LyC escape fractions we find for GRB 191004B, GRB 050908 and GRB 060607A are of 0:35+0:10.0:11, 0:08+0:05.0:04 and :20+0:05.0:05, respectively. We compare the LyC escape fraction of LGRBs to the values of other LyC emitters found from the literature, showing that LGRB afterglows can be powerful tools to study LyC escape for faint high-redshift star-forming galaxies. Indeed we could push LyC leakage studies to much higher absolute magnitudes. The host galaxies of the three LGRB presented here have all M1600 >.19:5 mag, with the GRB 060607A host at M1600 >.16 mag. LGRB hosts may therefore be particularly suitable for exploring the ionizing escape fraction in galaxies that are too faint or distant for conventional techniques. Furthermore the time investment is very small compared to galaxy studies. (shrink)

A medical student's ability to present a case history is a critical skill that is difficult to teach. Case histories presented without theatrical engagement may fail to catch the attention of their intended recipients. More engaging presentations incorporate ‘stage presence’, eye contact, vocal inflection, interesting detail and succinct, well organised performances. They convey stories effectively without wasting time. To address the didactic challenge for instructing future doctors in how to ‘act’, the Mayo Medical School and The Mayo Clinic Center for (...) Humanities in Medicine partnered with the Guthrie Theater to pilot the programme ‘Telling the Patient's Story’. Guthrie teaching artists taught storytelling skills to medical students through improvisation, writing, movement and acting exercises. Mayo Clinic doctors participated and provided students with feedback on presentations and stories from their own experiences in patient care. The course's primary objective was to build students' confidence and expertise in storytelling. These skills were then applied to presenting cases and communicating with patients in a fresher, more engaging way. This paper outlines the instructional activities as aligned with course objectives. Progress was tracked by comparing pre-course and post-course surveys from the seven participating students. All agreed that the theatrical techniques were effective teaching methods. Moreover, this project can serve as an innovative model for how arts and humanities professionals can be incorporated for teaching and professional development initiatives at all levels of medical education. (shrink)

Although many studies have revealed the importance of study skills for students' first?year performance and college retention, the extent of the impact of study skills preparation on students' academic achievement is less clear. This paper explores the impact of pre?university study skills preparation on students' first?year study experiences, academic achievement and persistence. The setting for this study is a large law school in the Netherlands which attracts students from more than 100 schools for secondary education. The results show that the (...) perceived study skills preparation concerning time management and learning skills does have a positive impact on college students' first?year study behaviour and academic achievement. However, the study also shows that the impact of perceived college preparation is far less important for college retention than other factors such as satisfaction about the chosen degree programme and tutorial attendance. (shrink)

Background: The Clinical Ethics Residency for Nurses was offered selectively to nurses affiliated with two academic medical centers to increase confidence in ethical decision-making. Research Question/Aim: To discover how effective the participants perceived the program and if their goals of participation had been met. Research design: A total of 65 end-of-course essays (from three cohorts) were analyzed using modified directed content analysis. In-depth and recursive readings of the essays by faculty were guided by six questions that had been posed to (...) graduates. Ethical considerations: Institutional review board approval was granted for the duration of the program and its reporting period. Confidentiality was maintained via the use of codes for all evaluations including the essays and potentially identifying content redacted. Findings: An umbrella theme emerged: participants had developed ethical knowledge and skills that provided a “moral compass to navigate the many gray areas of decision-making that confront them in daily practice.” Six major themes corresponding to questions posed to the participants included the ability to advocate for good patient care; to support and empower colleagues, patients, and families; they experienced personal and professional transformation; they valued the multimodal nature of the program; and were using their new knowledge and skills in practice. However, they also recognized that their development as moral agents was an ongoing process. Discussion: Findings support that enhancing nurse confidence in their moral agency with a multimodal educational approach that includes mentored practice in ethical decision-making, enhancing communication skills and role-play can mitigate moral distress. A majority found the program personally and professionally transformative. However, they recognized that ongoing ethics discussion involvement and supportive environments would be important in their continued development of ethical agency. Conclusion: Multimodal ethics education programs have potential to be transformative and enhance nurse confidence in their ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Confidentiality is a cornerstone of the physician-patient relationship. Breaches of confidentiality in the context of genetic testing are of particular concern for a number of reasons. First, genetic testing reveals information not only about a particular patient, but also about his or her family members. Second,genetic testing can label healthy people as “at risk,” subjecting them to possible stigmatization or discrimination by third parties. Third, as genetic testing becomes more widespread and is incorporated into primary care, breaches of confidentiality might (...) inadvertently occur more frequently because primary care providers may not be trained to understand the uniqueness of genetic information. Until now, genetic services have been provided primarily by medical geneticists and genetic counselors. However, with the proliferation of new genetic presymptomatic and carrier tests, primary care physicians are going to become increasingly involved in genetic testing. Currently, little is known about physicians’ attitudes toward disclosure of confidential genetic information to third parties. (shrink)