Understanding firms' interfaces with the community has become a familiar strategic concern for both firms and non-profit organizations. However, it is still not clear when different community engagement strategies are appropriate or how such strategies might benefit the firm and community. In this review, we examine when, how and why firms benefit from community engagement strategies through a systematic review of over 200 academic and practitioner knowledge sources on the antecedents and consequences of community engagement strategy. We analytically describe evidence (...) on the rise of the community engagement strategy literature over time, its geographical spread and methodological evolution. A foundational concept underlying many studies is the ' continuum of community engagement'. We build on this continuum to develop a typology of three engagement strategies: transactional, transitional and transformational engagement. By identifying the antecedents and outcomes of the three strategies, we find that the payoffs from engagement are largely longer-term enhanced firm legitimacy, rather than immediate cost-benefit improvements. We use our systematic review to draw implications for future research and managerial practice. (shrink)

Neuroimaging studies on moral decision-making have thus far largely focused on differences between moral judgments with opposing utilitarian (well-being maximizing) and deontological (duty-based) content. However, these studies have investigated moral dilemmas involving extreme situations, and did not control for two distinct dimensions of moral judgment: whether or not it is intuitive (immediately compelling to most people) and whether it is utilitarian or deontological in content. By contrasting dilemmas where utilitarian judgments are counterintuitive with dilemmas in which they are intuitive, we (...) were able to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of intuitive and counterintuitive judgments across a range of moral situations. Irrespective of content (utilitarian/deontological), counterintuitive moral judgments were associated with greater difficulty and with activation in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that such judgments may involve emotional conflict; intuitive judgments were linked to activation in the visual and premotor cortex. In addition, we obtained evidence that neural differences in moral judgment in such dilemmas are largely due to whether they are intuitive and not, as previously assumed, to differences between utilitarian and deontological judgments. Our findings therefore do not support theories that have generally associated utilitarian and deontological judgments with distinct neural systems. (shrink)

Recent research on moral decision-making has suggested that many common moral judgments are based on immediate intuitions. However, some individuals arrive at highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions about when it is permissible to harm other individuals. Such utilitarian judgments have been attributed to effortful reasoning that has overcome our natural emotional aversion to harming others. Recent studies, however, suggest that such utilitarian judgments might also result from a decreased aversion to harming others, due to a deficit in empathic concern and social (...) emotion. The present study investigated the neural basis of such indifference to harming using functional neuroimaging during engagement in moral dilemmas. A tendency to counterintuitive utilitarian judgment was associated both with ‘psychoticism’, a trait associated with a lack of empathic concern and antisocial tendencies, and with ‘need for cognition’, a trait reflecting preference for effortful cognition. Importantly, only psychoticism was also negatively correlated with activation in the subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC), a brain area implicated in empathic concern and social emotions such as guilt, during counterintuitive utilitarian judgments. Our findings suggest that when individuals reach highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions, this need not reflect greater engagement in explicit moral deliberation. It may rather reflect a lack of empathic concern, and diminished aversion to harming others. (shrink)

A clear understanding of terminology is crucial in any academic field. When it is clear that complex interdisciplinary concepts are interpreted differently depending on the academic field, geographical setting or cultural values, it is time to take action. Given this, the Glossary for Academic Integrity, newly developed by the European Network for Academic Integrity project, served as the basis for compiling a comprehensive taxonomy of terms related to academic integrity. Following a rigorous coding exercise, the taxonomy was partitioned into three (...) constituent components – Integrity, Misconduct and Neutral terms. A review of relevant literature sources is included, and the strengths and weaknesses of existing taxonomies are discussed in relation to this new offering. During the creation of these artefacts the authors identified and resolved many differences between their individual interpretative understandings of concepts/terms and the viewpoints of others. It is anticipated that the freely-available glossary and taxonomy will be explored and valued by researchers, teachers, students and the general public alike. (shrink)

Happiness is typically reported as an important reason for participating in challenging activities like extreme sport. While in the middle of the activity, however, participants do not seem particularly happy. So where does the happiness come from? The article proposes some answers from a study of facially expressed emotions measured moment-by-moment during a backcountry skiing event. Self-reported emotions were also assessed immediately after the skiing. Participants expressed lower levels of happiness while skiing, compared to when stopping for a break. Moment-to-moment (...) and self-reported measures of emotions were largely unrelated. These findings are explained with reference to the Functional Wellbeing Approach ( Vittersø, 2013 ), which argues that some moment-to-moment feelings are non-evaluative in the sense of being generated directly by the difficulty of an activity. By contrast, retrospective emotional feelings are more complex as they include an evaluation of the overall goals and values associated with the activity as a whole. (shrink)

The editors of the JRE collected short essays from scholars of religion in response to a recent incident at Hamline University that made national headlines. Last fall, Hamline University administrators refused to extend a contract to an adjunct professor of art history after a Muslim student accused her of Islamophobia for showing a 14th‐century image of Mohammad in an online class. The event provoked intense conversations about issues of academic freedom, religious diversity, the status of contingent faculty, and race. These (...) essays bring together scholarly and personal reflections about the incident at Hamline and what it means for the pedagogy of religious studies. (shrink)

Gervain et al. discuss both behavioral and neurophysiological AGL studies that investigate rule and structure learning processes in infants. The paper provides an overview of all the major AGL paradigms used to date to investigate infant learning abilities at the level of morpho‐phonology and syntax from a very early age onwards. Gervain et al. also discuss the implications of the results for a general theory of natural language acquisition.

The ability to be creative is often considered a unique characteristic of conscious beings and many efforts have been directed at demonstrating a relationship between creativity and the personality construct of psychoticism. The present study sought to investigate this link explicitly by focusing on discrete facets of creative cognition, namely the originality/novelty dimension and the practicality/usefulness dimension. Based on Eysenck’s conceptualisation of psychoticism as being characterised by an overinclusive cognitive style, it was expected that higher levels of psychoticism would accompany (...) a greater degree of conceptual expansion and elevated levels of originality in creative imagery, but would be unrelated to the practicality/usefulness of an idea. These hypotheses were confirmed in 80 healthy participants who were contrasted based on their EPQ psychoticism scale scores. Our findings suggest that the link between psychoticism and creativity is based on associative thinking and broader but weak top-down activation patterns rather than on goal-related thinking. (shrink)

In this conversation, Berkeley-based philosopher Judith Butler offers insights into her understanding of the public sphere and its current transformations as a core dimension of political subjectivity. Beginning with her own understanding of Habermas’ classic, the interview centers around its connection to other classical texts (e.g. of Hannah Arendt) and timely political debates.

Background: In recent years, operating theatre nurse students’ education focused on ethics, basic values and protecting and promoting the patients' dignity in perioperative practice. Health professionals are frequently confronted with ethical issues that can impact on patient’s care during surgery. Objective: The objective of this study was to present what operating theatre nursing students perceived and interpreted as undignified caring in perioperative practice. Research design: The study has a descriptive design with a hermeneutic approach. Data were collected using Flanagan’s critical (...) incident technique. Participants and research context: Operating theatre nurse students from Sweden and Norway participated and collected data in 2011, after education in ethics and dignity. Data consisting of 47 written stories and the text were analysed with hermeneutical text interpretation. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Karlstad University's Research Ethics Committee. Findings: The findings show careless behaviour and humiliating actions among health professionals. Health professionals commit careless acts by rendering the patient invisible, ignoring the patient’s worry and pain and treating the patient as an object. They also humiliate the patient when speaking in negative terms about the patient’s body, and certain health professionals blame the patients for the situation they are in. Health professionals lack the willingness and courage to protect the patient’s dignity in perioperative practice. Discussion: In the discussion, we have illuminated how professional ethics may be threatened by more pragmatic and utilitarian arguments contained in regulations and transplant act. Conclusion: The findings reveal that patients were exposed to unnecessary suffering; furthermore, the operating theatre nurse students suffered an inner ethical conflict due to the undignified caring situations they had witnessed. (shrink)

Gervain et al. discuss both behavioral and neurophysiological AGL studies that investigate rule and structure learning processes in infants. The paper provides an overview of all the major AGL paradigms used to date to investigate infant learning abilities at the level of morpho‐phonology and syntax from a very early age onwards. Gervain et al. also discuss the implications of the results for a general theory of natural language acquisition.

We welcome Ballantyne & Schaefer’s discussion of the issues concerning consent and use of health data for research. In response to their acknowledgement of the need for public debate and discussion, we provide evidence from our own public consultation on this topic.

Driven by the increasing availability and deployment of ubiquitous computing technologies across our private and professional lives, implementations of automatically processable regulation (APR) have evolved over the past decade from academic projects to real-world implementations by states and companies. There are now pressing issues that such encoded regulation brings about for citizens and society, and strategies to mitigate these issues are required. However, _comprehensive yet practically operationalizable_ frameworks to navigate the complex interactions and evaluate the risks of projects that implement (...) APR are not available today. In this paper, and based on related work as well as our own experiences, we propose a framework to support the conceptualization, implementation, and application of _responsible_ APR. Our contribution is twofold: we provide a holistic characterization of what responsible APR means; and we provide support to operationalize this in concrete projects, in the form of leading questions, examples, and mitigation strategies. We thereby provide a scientifically backed yet practically applicable way to guide researchers, sponsors, implementers, and regulators toward better outcomes of APR for users and society. (shrink)

This collaborative companion piece, written as a postscript to the three preceding essays, highlights four themes in comparative religious ethics that emerge through our focus on sex and gender: language, embodiment, justice, and critique.

In reviewing five edited collections and one monograph from the 1990s, the article summarizes the present status of the "human rights revolution" that was signaled by the adoption in 1948 of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". It goes on to elaborate and evaluate some of the attempts contained in these books to deal with theoretical and practical controversies surrounding the subject of human rights, particularly the discussion of what to make of "cultural relativism" as far as human rights are (...) concerned. Finally, the article summarizes some recent thinking and research on a neglected area, namely compliance with human rights standards protecting "freedom of religion or belief.". (shrink)

The aim of this study was to understand how mothers experienced midwives' uncaring behaviour and actions during birth. Sixty-seven first-time mothers took part in the study, in which data were collected through interview. The interview text was analysed using hermeneutic text analysis. Nearly half of the mothers interviewed (n = 32) said that midwives did not care for them. The findings show that midwives' behaviour was humiliating when they ignored mothers and held them in contempt. The mothers felt further humiliated (...) when the midwives did not believe them, treated their bodies in a careless manner and tended to put blame on them. Through their behaviour and actions, some midwives have shown that they no longer have a caring attitude as an element of their professional practice and that they have ignored ethics by offending mothers' sense of dignity. (shrink)

The present study examines the comorbidity between specific learning disorders and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder by comparing the neuropsychological profiles of children with and without this comorbidity. Ninety-seven schoolchildren from 8 to 14 years old were tested: a clinical sample of 49 children with ADHD, SLD or SLD in comorbidity with ADHD, and 48 typically-developing children matched for age and intelligence. Participants were administered tasks and questionnaires to confirm their initial diagnosis, and a battery of executive function tasks testing (...) inhibition, shifting, and verbal and visuospatial updating. Using one-way ANOVAs, our results showed that all children in the clinical samples exhibited impairments on EF measures when compared with TD children. A more specific pattern only emerged for the updating tasks. Only children with SLD had significant impairment in verbal updating, whereas children with ADHD, and those with SLD in comorbidity with ADHD, had the worst performance in visuospatial updating. The clinical and educational implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This paper addresses a variant of the job shop scheduling problem with total tardiness minimization where task durations and due dates are uncertain. This uncertainty is modelled with intervals. Different ranking methods for intervals are considered and embedded into a genetic algorithm. A new robustness measure is proposed to compare the different ranking methods and assess their capacity to predict ‘expected delays’ of jobs. Experimental results show that dealing with uncertainty during the optimization process yields more robust solutions. A sensitivity (...) analysis also shows that the robustness of the solutions given by the solving method increases when the uncertainty grows. (shrink)

While psychotherapists are trained to improve their clients’ quality of life, little work has examined the quality of life experienced by psychotherapist trainees themselves. Yet their life satisfactions and stresses would plausibly affect both their ability to learn new skills and conduct psychotherapy. Therefore, in the Society for Psychotherapy Research Interest Section on Psychotherapist Development and Training study, we investigated the patterns of self-reported life quality and their correlates in a multinational sample of 1,214 psychotherapist trainees. A comprehensive questionnaire was (...) used at the outset of trainings to assess trainees’ professional background, current life situation, personal characteristics, family background, and social and national origin. The findings indicated 54.3% of trainees’ lives could be characterized as fortunate or happy, whereas 14.3% could be characterized as clearly distressed or troubled. The strongest correlates of high life stress, a contributor to poor life quality, were economic insecurity, self-protectiveness, and attachment-related anxiety in relationships, and economic or psychological hardship in childhood. In turn, greater wellbeing was most strongly associated with a warm and open interpersonal style, being married, having sufficient economic means, and material and emotional security in childhood. While the results indicate the majority of therapists experience a relatively good quality of life, the findings also suggest potential targets for increasing trainees’ life quality when it may be deficient, such as those on a societal level, training program level, and individual level, in order to promote effective learning and therapy practice. (shrink)

Virtual reality is a useful tool to study consumer behavior while they are immersed in a realistic scenario. Among several other factors, personality traits have been shown to have a substantial influence on purchasing behavior. The primary objective of this study was to classify consumers based on the Big Five personality domains using their behavior while performing different tasks in a virtual shop. The personality recognition was ascertained using behavioral measures received from VR hardware, including eye-tracking, navigation, posture and interaction. (...) Responses from 60 participants were collected while performing free and directed search tasks in a virtual hypermarket. A set of behavioral features was processed, and the personality domains were recognized using a statistical supervised machine learning classifier algorithm via a support vector machine. The results suggest that the open-mindedness personality type can be classified using eye gaze patterns, while extraversion is related to posture and interactions. However, a combination of signals must be exhibited to detect conscientiousness and negative emotionality. The combination of all measures and tasks provides better classification accuracy for all personality domains. The study indicates that a consumer’s personality can be recognized using the behavioral sensors included in commercial VR devices during a purchase in a virtual retail store. (shrink)

Health professionals are especially exposed to stress, with consequences on professionals’ health and wellbeing. However, palliative care professionals’ wellbeing has been the subject of very little research. The aim of this work is to study the Personal Wellbeing Index in a sample of Spanish palliative care professionals, as well as to study their levels of wellbeing and the relationships of wellbeing with variables such as gender, age, marital status, profession, and professional quality of life. A cross-sectional survey of Spanish palliative (...) care professionals was conducted. The Spanish version of the PWI and the Short version of the Professional Quality of Life Scale were used. Here, 296 palliative care professionals attending patients at the end of life participated in the study. They showed medium to high levels of wellbeing. The PWI showed an adequate internal structure [χ2 = 116.130 ]; Comparative Fit Index = 0.970; standardized root mean square residual = 0.041; root mean square error of approximation = 0.140 ] and excellent estimates of reliability [α = 0.879 and Composite Reliability Index = 0.923]. Wellbeing was higher for married compared to single and showed no relation with age, gender, and profession. Additionally, a structural equation model was estimated, in which a positive relation was found between wellbeing and compassion satisfaction and a negative one with burnout. The PWI is adequate to measure personal wellbeing in Spanish palliative care professionals. (shrink)

Jonathan Boston provides an insightful analysis of the emergence and persistence of child poverty in New Zealand. His remarks on why child poverty matters are brief but, as he reports, “[t]here is a large and robust body of research on the harmful consequences of child poverty”. One cost he does not explicitly mention is the increased risk of maltreatment faced by children living in poverty. Given the clear correlation between risk of abuse and poverty, Boston’s recommendations might be expected to (...) go some way to addressing New Zealand’s appalling child maltreatment statistics. However, Boston himself identifies both fiscal and political barriers to the implementation of his proposed strategy. “Fundamentally”, he observes, “without adequate multi-party agreement, it will be hard to reduce child poverty on a durable basis” and “[c]urrently, such agreement is lacking”. Even if we accept Boston’s strategies for child-poverty reduction, then, it is prudent to consider other responses to the consequences of child poverty. Significant and controversial aspects of New Zealand’s 2013 White Paper for Vulnerable Children can be read in this light, and one of them – the proposal to use predictive risk modeling to identify children at risk of maltreatment – is the focus of this commentary. (shrink)

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) describes a recursive, unproductive pattern of thought that is commonly observed in individuals who experience anxiety and depression. Past research on RNT has primarily relied on self-report, which fails to capture the potential mechanisms that underlie the persistence of maladaptive thought. We investigated whether RNT may be maintained by a negatively biased semantic network. The present study used a modified free association task to assess state RNT. Following the presentation of a valenced (positive, neutral, negative) cue (...) word, participants generated a series of free associates, which allowed for the dynamic progression of responses. State RNT was conceptualised as the length of consecutive, negatively valenced free associates (i.e. chains). Participants also completed two self-report measures that assessed trait RNT and trait negative affect. Within a structural equation model, negative (but not positive or neutral) response chain length positively predicted trait RNT and negative affect, and this was only the case for positive (but not negative or neutral) cue words. These results suggest that RNT tendencies may be reflected in semantic retrieval and can be assessed without self-report. (shrink)

Portion sizes of meals have been becoming progressively larger which contributes to the onset of obesity. So far, little research has been done on the influence of body weight on portion size preferences. Therefore, we assessed whether Body Mass Index, as well as other selected factors, contribute to the estimation of food portions weight and the subjective perception of portion sizes. Through online questionnaires, the participants were asked to estimate the weight of pictured foods in the first study. In the (...) second study, the participants indicated how the depicted varying portion sizes of different meals relate to their actual consumed real-life portion sizes. A total of 725 and 436 individuals were included in the statistical analysis in the first and second study, respectively. BMI and gender had a small effect on the capacity to estimate the weight of foods. The main predictor for portion size choices was the factor gender with men estimating ideal portion sizes as larger than women. Further, age and hunger together with external and restrictive eating behaviors were among the deciding factors for portion size choices. As expected, externally motivated eaters chose bigger portions while restrictive individual smaller ones. Gender- and age-related differences in portion size preferences likely reflect distinct energy requirements. The individuals with a higher BMI do not differ strongly from other BMI groups in their portion-related preferences. Therefore, other factors such as meal frequency, snacking, or a lifestyle, may contribute more to the onset, development, and maintenance of overweight. (shrink)

The study of controversies is not only helpful for the further understanding of the subtleties of the theories involved, but it also contributes to the clarification of a series of issues related to the problem of theory choice. Discussions and disagreements — however heated — over two theories do not necessarily entail the features of what I would like to consider as controversies. This is especially so when there is a crucial experiment that can be performed in a relatively short (...) period. Controversies are disputes over theoretical issues, methodological questions, and not infrequently, philosophical positions. It is in this respect that controversies are also a quite suggestive probe into the conceptual framework of the various researches. (shrink)

Written by two of the leading figures in the field, this is a lucid and systematic introduction to semantics as applied to transformational grammars of the ...

On the 7th of June 2018, The National Archives UK held its inaugural digital lecture, delivered by Professor Luciano Floridi entitled “Semantic Capital: What it is and how to protect it”. The lecture was followed by a poster exhibition, showcasing nine cutting-edge digital research projects at The National Archives. This paper aims at giving a distinct overview of The National Archives’ digital research priorities, drawing on examples from the active and recently completed research projects, which were displayed at the exhibition (...) on the 7th of June 2018. The focus of this paper is to discuss the research challenges that we are facing as we seek to become a second-generation digital archive, that is digital by instinct and design. By placing a particular emphasis on the conceptual and epistemological challenges relating to trust and openness, the paper suggests that research is the key for us as a rapidly evolving digital archive; enabling us not only to inform but also innovate around the forthcoming digital challenges, and helping us to define future directions and lead the shaping of the future archive. (shrink)

This study draws on stakeholder management theory and the resource-based view of the firm to determine the factors affecting a facility’s decision to implementenvironmental management systems and practices. Four levels of environmental commitment to the natural environment are proposed including whether a facility has an EMS, whether a facility has a person responsible for environmental issues, whether a facility is ISO 14001 certified and the comprehensiveness of a facility’s EMS as measured by the number of practices undertaken. We empirically test (...) these hypotheses using manufacturing facility-level data from Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Norway and the USA. (shrink)

This article uses a conversation analytic framework to describe a type of wh-question used to challenge a prior utterance, specifically to challenge the basis for or right to do an action done by the prior utterance. These wh-questions are able to do challenging because, rather than asking for new information, they are used to convey a strong epistemic stance of the questioner, a negative assertion. The utterances are designed as requests for an account for a prior claim or action, but (...) by conveying a negative assertion, they suggest that there is no adequate account available and, thus, that there are no grounds for the prior claim or action. The use of these questions in institutional settings can display participants' orientation to institutional goals, norms and roles, showing that institutional roles can thus be enacted, and goals accomplished, by means of practices of talk which are not, themselves, institutionally specific. (shrink)

This study examines the relationships between a company''s emphasis on discretionary social responsibility, environment, and firm performance. It tests the proposition that environmental munificence and dynamism moderate the relationship between discretionary social responsibility and financial performance. Social responsibility was measured with a three-item scale in a sample of 62 firms using a questionnaire. Environmental munificence and dynamism were measured using archival sources as was financial performance (return on assets and return on sales). The results of moderated regression analyses and subgroup (...) analyses found a significant moderating effect of environment on the social responsibility-firm performance relationship. Discretionary social responsibility contributes to firm performance in environments that are dynamic and munificent. (shrink)