Improving Moral Behaviour in the Business Use of ICT

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Candace T. Grant ◽  
Kenneth A. Grant

The 21st century has seen a much-increased focus on the importance of ethical behaviour in business, driven by major scandals, calls for stricter regulation and increased demands for improved governance and reporting. In parallel, there are calls for the incorporation of moral and ethical elements in business education and university accreditation bodies and schools are responding. In particular, the explosion of technology change, particularly Internet, social media and beyond have raised many challenges for individuals, organizations and legislators. However, educational responses are varied and little has been done to determine the effectiveness of what has been done. Most responses to this need to provide ethical education follow a cognitive, rule-based approach, often using case-based techniques. This can improve knowledge and understanding of ethical issues, but it may have limited influence on actual behaviour. A relatively new field – Positive Psychology -- provides an alternate perspective, focusing on what is good rather than what is poor behaviour. One Positive Psychology approach, that of Appreciative Inquiry, which has not previously been used in ICT ethics education, offers a promising technique to develop improved moral attitudes and behaviour. This paper reports on a large-scale pedagogical research project that: (1) examines ethical perspectives from philosophy, psychology and pedagogy in the context of ICT professional education; (2) describes the development and multistage implementation of an ethics course in an undergraduate business ICT program delivered to more than 1,200 students; (3) discusses the formal evaluation of changes in moral attitude following a Positive Psychology intervention in the education of some 300 Business ICT students using the Defining Issues Test, Version 2 (DIT2) and the IMIS Survey developed at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility. The project results demonstrate that a well-designed applied ICT ethics course produces measureable positive changes in the ethical stances of participants and that the use of Appreciative Inquiry increases the impact of these changes. In addition to the relevance of the findings for educators they can provide guidance to those in organisations responsible for the ethical behaviour of their ICT employees.

2018 ◽  
pp. 1178-1200
Author(s):  
Candace T. Grant ◽  
Kenneth A. Grant

The 21st century has seen a much-increased focus on the importance of ethical behaviour in business, driven by major scandals, calls for stricter regulation and increased demands for improved governance and reporting. In parallel, there are calls for the incorporation of moral and ethical elements in business education and university accreditation bodies and schools are responding. In particular, the explosion of technology change, particularly Internet, social media and beyond have raised many challenges for individuals, organizations and legislators. However, educational responses are varied and little has been done to determine the effectiveness of what has been done. Most responses to this need to provide ethical education follow a cognitive, rule-based approach, often using case-based techniques. This can improve knowledge and understanding of ethical issues, but it may have limited influence on actual behaviour. A relatively new field – Positive Psychology -- provides an alternate perspective, focusing on what is good rather than what is poor behaviour. One Positive Psychology approach, that of Appreciative Inquiry, which has not previously been used in ICT ethics education, offers a promising technique to develop improved moral attitudes and behaviour. This paper reports on a large-scale pedagogical research project that: (1) examines ethical perspectives from philosophy, psychology and pedagogy in the context of ICT professional education; (2) describes the development and multistage implementation of an ethics course in an undergraduate business ICT program delivered to more than 1,200 students; (3) discusses the formal evaluation of changes in moral attitude following a Positive Psychology intervention in the education of some 300 Business ICT students using the Defining Issues Test, Version 2 (DIT2) and the IMIS Survey developed at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility. The project results demonstrate that a well-designed applied ICT ethics course produces measureable positive changes in the ethical stances of participants and that the use of Appreciative Inquiry increases the impact of these changes. In addition to the relevance of the findings for educators they can provide guidance to those in organisations responsible for the ethical behaviour of their ICT employees.


1996 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Anne Scott

This paper suggests that a consideration of health care practice is a necessary step in gaining insight into the appropriate composition of an ethics course for students in the health care professional. Health care practice, if it responds to the needs of society, is dynamic in nature. In the current climate of change in the health service, the author sug gests that the nursing profession needs to become more proactive in analysing and attempting to determine the future shape of nursing. To protect patient care the nursing profession needs to have its eyes open to the ethical dimensions of changes in role and practice. The author argues that, in attempting to ensure that the education to which nursing students are exposed is of relevance, it is necessary to introduce an element of the ideal into the ethics component of their professional education. From early on in their profes sional development students should be aware of the scope and standards of practice, and the type of role enactment to which the profession requires them to aspire.


On the rural side, it appears that the job potential in the agricultural economy has reached saturation level that leads to large-scale migration of workforce from rural to urban areas adding woes and strain to over-stressed civic infrastructure. Millions of unemployed young people, especially those from rural and semi-urban backgrounds who have not been able to access higher/professional education but who are oriented towards white-collar jobs, is driven to despair because they cannot find a job. It calls for the need for entrepreneurial ventures among the unemployed youth to encourage self-employment. In this context, this study aims at understanding the impact of Agricultural Employment Development Programmes offered by RUDSETI. Moreover, the study analyses how RUDSETI was able to motivate, instil technical knowledge, management skills, resource management, and handhold trainees even after starting their own agricultural business. For the study, the purposive sampling method was applied to collect the primary data from the trainees at RUDSETI. Descriptive method of research was adopted. The result of study states that training programme was key factor to start and successful running of their business. The hypothesis testing also proved positive that RUDSETI is acting as a catalyst towards growth and sustaining of the Agricultural sector.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Simon

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of integrating team-based learning sessions in undergraduate medical ethics education. Though used effectively in other pre-clinical courses, team-based learning is not frequently used in medical ethics education. Student’s accountability for learning, preference for team-based learning, and satisfaction were studied. Methods: Three team-based learning sessions covering focal topics in medical ethics was introduced in the pre-clinical Health Care Ethics course for students at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, National University of Science and Technology. On the completion of three modules, the team-based learning student assessment instrument (TBL-SAI) by Heidi Mennenga was used to evaluate student perceptions. To this aim, 118 students who had registered for the Health Care Ethics course completed the survey. Results: The findings indicated that students reported a positive experience of team-based learning in medical ethics education. Students also indicated high accountability for their learning, a high preference for team-based learning to lectures in the medical ethics course, and high satisfaction. Conclusions: Team-based learning is thus preferred by students to cover topics and courses in medical ethics. Integrating team-based modules in medical ethics education will enhance self-directed learning, improve teamwork, and help students effectively recall and apply information. It is therefore recommended to integrate team-based learning sessions in medical ethics education.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Donald Dongsik Park

<p>During the mid to late seventies serious questions were raised regarding the value of mass tourism. This lead to the creation of the alternative development paradigm with its preference towards small scale, local and community based and controlled projects which have gained wide acceptance within the field of development studies. This research looks to reopen and examine the case against mass tourism as a development tool under the following arguments: · The initial assessment was done in the late seventies and a combination of changes in business practices and consumer demands for ethical behaviour has potentially changed the development outcomes for host nations · Governments have a greater and more balanced awareness of the range of development issues and enterprises need to respond to this · Alternative development suffers from similar criticisms to those that have been directed at mass tourism as well as some unique issues · Labour force training has been largely overlooked as critical step in maximising potential development outcomes for host nations · Two major critiques around power inequality (Britton 1983) and empowerment (Sofield 2003) are external subjective judgements about development outcomes where feedback and conclusions from within host populations might add additional insight. A survey questioning the impact a large scale development had on people’s lives was central to the research. However, due to difficulties getting survey data from a large scale development in Samoa the research has focused on providing the arguments above from literature and on secondary research aims of seeking the governments views and strategies to deal with tourism and linking these strategies back to literature.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Donald Dongsik Park

<p>During the mid to late seventies serious questions were raised regarding the value of mass tourism. This lead to the creation of the alternative development paradigm with its preference towards small scale, local and community based and controlled projects which have gained wide acceptance within the field of development studies. This research looks to reopen and examine the case against mass tourism as a development tool under the following arguments: · The initial assessment was done in the late seventies and a combination of changes in business practices and consumer demands for ethical behaviour has potentially changed the development outcomes for host nations · Governments have a greater and more balanced awareness of the range of development issues and enterprises need to respond to this · Alternative development suffers from similar criticisms to those that have been directed at mass tourism as well as some unique issues · Labour force training has been largely overlooked as critical step in maximising potential development outcomes for host nations · Two major critiques around power inequality (Britton 1983) and empowerment (Sofield 2003) are external subjective judgements about development outcomes where feedback and conclusions from within host populations might add additional insight. A survey questioning the impact a large scale development had on people’s lives was central to the research. However, due to difficulties getting survey data from a large scale development in Samoa the research has focused on providing the arguments above from literature and on secondary research aims of seeking the governments views and strategies to deal with tourism and linking these strategies back to literature.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 276-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damini Saini

Nowadays, management institutions are including an ethics course in their curriculum globally, which is focused upon inculcating the value set in an individual. Therefore, it makes an important point that the students must comprehend the worth of the course and they must take it as an opportunity to cultivate values, which should be a prospect not despondent. Thus, to improve the impact of ethical education, and to accelerate the quality of management education, this offers a deliberation of inferences of demands of the questions of quality instructors and pedagogy of ethical education. The study focuses upon the gap between the ideal and current status of ethics education following different pedagogy. In this study, a qualitative analysis has been used where students were interviewed in depth via a semi-structured interview to collect the data. The study will help to gain deeper insights into the factors that encourage or discourage students from learning ethics and value courses, particularly in the university system.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loan N.T Pham ◽  
Lam Dang Nguyen ◽  
Monica J Favia

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes toward business ethics of Vietnamese business students based on gender and the experience of having taken a business ethics course. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative self-administered survey was conducted with a convenience sample of Vietnamese business students at a banking university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This study used the 30-item Attitudes Toward Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ) constructed by Neumann and Reichel (1987) based on the work of Stevens (1979). The Vietnamese version questionnaire was distributed, and 282 surveys were used for analysis. An item-by-item analysis was conducted based on gender and the experience of having taken a business ethics course. Findings – Significant differences were found on seven items based on gender and four items based on the experience of having taken a business ethics course. However, respondents appeared to have similar attitudes on the majority of the items. Research limitations/implications – Perhaps the greatest limitation of this study is the relatively uneven distribution of the respondents in the sample. The sample is skewed slightly toward women who are a bit older, fourth year or post-graduate and those who have not taken a business ethics course. In addition convenience sampling technique reduced its generalizability. This study is important because it supports the idea of ethics education to improve ethical decision-making of future business leaders and that education has an effect in Vietnam. Practical implications – As business students are the main subjects of this research, it can be useful for those involved in development of management and business education in Vietnam to have an overview on how gender impacts business students’ ethics perception. For the executives of multinational corporations, this study provides important information and adds support to a decision to do business in Vietnam. Social implications – Although there may be a perception of a less than ethical climate in Vietnam based on its Corruption Perception Index scores, it appears that Vietnamese business students in general express an ethical viewpoint. This study emphasizes the importance of ethics education that is culture-specific to build a strong ethical business environment that can help Vietnam prevent bribery and corruption and achieve sustainable growth and prosperity. Originality/value – This study contributes to the attitudes toward business ethics research and sheds light on the impact of gender and education (business ethics course) on Vietnamese business students’ ethical attitudes. There has been little research on business ethics in Vietnam. Academicians, managers, practitioners, policymakers, government leaders and the like can benefit from the findings of this paper.


2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (04) ◽  
pp. 294-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lutz S. Freudenberg ◽  
Ulf Dittmer ◽  
Ken Herrmann

Abstract Introduction Preparations of health systems to accommodate large number of severely ill COVID-19 patients in March/April 2020 has a significant impact on nuclear medicine departments. Materials and Methods A web-based questionnaire was designed to differentiate the impact of the pandemic on inpatient and outpatient nuclear medicine operations and on public versus private health systems, respectively. Questions were addressing the following issues: impact on nuclear medicine diagnostics and therapy, use of recommendations, personal protective equipment, and organizational adaptations. The survey was available for 6 days and closed on April 20, 2020. Results 113 complete responses were recorded. Nearly all participants (97 %) report a decline of nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures. The mean reduction in the last three weeks for PET/CT, scintigraphies of bone, myocardium, lung thyroid, sentinel lymph-node are –14.4 %, –47.2 %, –47.5 %, –40.7 %, –58.4 %, and –25.2 % respectively. Furthermore, 76 % of the participants report a reduction in therapies especially for benign thyroid disease (-41.8 %) and radiosynoviorthesis (–53.8 %) while tumor therapies remained mainly stable. 48 % of the participants report a shortage of personal protective equipment. Conclusions Nuclear medicine services are notably reduced 3 weeks after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic reached Germany, Austria and Switzerland on a large scale. We must be aware that the current crisis will also have a significant economic impact on the healthcare system. As the survey cannot adapt to daily dynamic changes in priorities, it serves as a first snapshot requiring follow-up studies and comparisons with other countries and regions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document