Reframing whistleblowing intention: an analysis of individual and situational factors

Purpose This paper aims to reframe the whistleblowing process by examining the individual and situational factors that have been overlooked by prior studies. Ethical climate, public service motivation (PSM), organisation identification and psychological safety are inquired. Design/methodology/approach The present study sample was drawn from a population of Indonesian local governments located in east Java, Indonesia. Particularly, self-administered questionnaires were hand-distributed to the employees in the four local governments. Of 2,169 questionnaires distributed to the employees, 1,687 questionnaires were returned to the researcher. However, the researcher removed 33 returned questionnaires because of poor data quality, such as incomplete answers. Thus, only 1,654 questionnaires were analysed in this study. Findings The findings support the idea of an ethical climate that can encourage the individual to blow the whistle. However, its effect is indirect. The predictive power of ethical climate on the individual’s whistleblowing intentions depends on the meditating roles of PSM, psychological safety and organisation identification. Interestingly, the mediating effects of PSM, psychological safety and organisation identification are extremely acknowledged when individuals have an opportunity to choose internal or external disclosures. Originality/value This study produces a different approach to understanding people’s intentions to report any wrongdoings. This study is dissimilar from prior studies in terms of the theoretical paradigm and research design. Previous studies mostly used students as their experiments. In contrast, the current study recruited employees who work in local governments. This situation fundamentally affects the understanding of the impact of an ethical climate on the individual intention to blow the whistle.

The dorsal hippocampus' role in context-based timing in rodents

To act proactively, we must predict when future events will occur. Individuals generate temporal predictions using cues that indicate an event will happen after a certain duration elapses. Neural models of timing focus on how the brain represents these cue-duration associations. However, these models often overlook the fact that situational factors frequently modulate temporal expectations. For example, in realistic environments, the intervals associated with different cues will often covary due to a common underlying cause. According to the 'common cause hypothesis,' observers anticipate this covariance such that, when one cue's interval changes, temporal expectations for other cues shift in the same direction. Furthermore, as conditions will often differ across environments, the same cue can mean different things in different contexts. Therefore, updates to temporal expectations should be context-specific. Behavioral work supports these predictions, yet their underlying neural mechanisms are unclear. Here, we asked whether the dorsal hippocampus mediates context-based timing, given its broad role in context-conditioning. Specifically, we trained rats with either hippocampal or sham lesions that two cues predicted reward after either a short or long duration elapsed (e.g., tone-8s / light-16s). Then, we moved rats to a new context and extended the long-cue's interval (e.g., light-32s). This caused rats to respond later to the short cue, despite never being trained to do so. Importantly, when returned to the initial training context, sham rats shifted back toward both cues' original intervals. In contrast, lesion rats continued to respond at the long cue's newer interval. Surprisingly, they still showed contextual modulation for the short cue, responding earlier like shams. These data suggest the hippocampus only mediates context-based timing if a cue is explicitly paired and/or rewarded across distinct contexts. Furthermore, as lesions did not impact timing measures at baseline or acquisiton for the long cue's new interval, our data suggests that the hippocampus only modulates timing when context is relevant.

Adapting a Requirements Engineering Process by Key Factors Estimation

Literature mainly focuses the adaptation of any requirements engineering process on the possible variations of elicitation techniques, mainly due to information sources characteristics. However, these particularities, usually called situational factors, are seldom considered in other activities of the requirements process. Most situational factors, when considered in software projects, have a high influence on the requirements process. Therefore, the different situations that may attempt against or may favor a successful requirements process should be identified at the beginning of the project. Additionally, some of such factors may evolve along software development life cycle; this should motivate a reengineering of the requirements process at some strategic milestones. In this chapter, a process for constructing and dynamically adapting a requirements process is proposed, focusing on the evolving factors. The process follows rules based on different combinations of situational factors at specific control points and manages a repository of process blocks to perform the tailoring.

A new typology of psychological mechanisms underlying prosocial decisions

Charitable giving, volunteering, climate-friendly choices, and most recently changing one’s lifestyle to stop the spread of the coronavirus are all examples of prosocial behavior. Prosociality can be investigated from different perspectives including the “who-question” (which people are more likely to help), and the “when-question” (which situational factors stimulate helping?), but in this article we focus primarily on the “why-question” (which emotions and cognitions motivate helping?)Specifically, this article tries to organize and synthesize literature related to emotions, thoughts, and beliefs (i.e. psychological mechanisms) that motivate or demotivate human helping behavior. To do this, we present a new typology including four overarching interrelated categories, each encompassing multiple subcategories.(1) Emotions: (a) emotional reactions elicited by the need situation such as empathic concern/sympathy, (b) positive or negative attitudes toward the beneficiary or the requester, (c) incidental mood. (2) Moral principles: (a) personal responsibility, (b) fairness-concerns, (c) aversion towards causing harm. (3) Anticipated impact: (a) self-efficacy (e.g. “can I make a difference?”) and (b) response-efficacy (e.g., “is this cause/project efficient and worthwhile?”). (4) Anticipated personal consequences: (a) material, (b) social and (c) emotional costs and benefits that the helper expects will follow if she helps or if she does not help. Increased knowledge about the “who” (e.g. individual differences in demography or personality) and “when” (situational antecedents such as characteristic of those in need, or type of solicitation) can surely help predict and even increase prosociality, but we argue that to understand the psychology of helping we need to also consider the psychological mechanisms underlying prosocial decisions (the “why-question”).We compare our typology against related theoretical frameworks, and present the pros and cons with different methodological approaches of testing psychological mechanisms of helping, with the aim to help researchers and practitioners better organize and understand the many psychological factors that influence prosocial decisions.

An Analysis of the Appearance Management Behavior of Generation MZ in the Post-Corona Era

Purpose: This study focused on generation MZ and the changes in their appearance management behavior following the outbreak of COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to design a paradigm model for the beauty behavior of Generation MZ after the spread of COVID-19.Methods: In-depth interviews among qualitative research techniques were used to examine the changes in the in-depth behavior and psychology of Generation MZ following the outbreak of COVID-19.Results: Generation MZ consumes cosmetics and set appearance management behaviors—along with the use of cosmetics as beauty routines—to solve beauty concerns caused by situational factors (such as COVID-19), thereby expressing an individual’s ideal appearance. Following COVID-19, Generation MZ had a variety of beauty concerns that differed from those prior to the outbreak. To solve these concerns, Generation MZ made changes, such as focusing on skincare and simplifying beauty routines. Following the conclusion of COVID-19, Generation MZ is planning appropriate levels of appearance management behavior, in consideration of the pre- and post-COVID-19 era.Conclusion: The appearance management behavior of Generation MZ has changed significantly since the COVID-19 outbreak. Detailed behavioral psychology has transformed as new beauty concerns have arisen following the spread of the virus. Therefore, it is necessary to plan a new cosmetics development and marketing strategy to satisfy the needs of Generation MZ during the pandemic.

RECYCLING INTENTION AND BEHAVIOUR AMONG THE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS’ (HEIS) COMMUNITY IN MALAYSIA

The Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are among the largest waste producers in the municipality, and they have a huge responsibility towards the waste they produced. In order to divert waste as much as possible from the landfill, many HEIs have implemented reduce, reuse and recycle (3Rs) strategies and programs on their campuses. However, not all the communities are aware of the programs initiated, and as such, the recycling rate in most universities is still low. Therefore, this research seeks to identify the factors that influence the HEIs community to practise recycling on the campus. This study has extended the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) with the inclusion of situational factors, recycling information and personal norm in the model. A total of 1068 duly completed questionnaire surveys were collected from six selected universities. The data collected were analysed using both descriptive and inferential analyses. The findings show that all the constructs investigated significantly influence recycling intention with exception of the subjective norm, whereas the situational factors have a significant direct influence on recycling behaviour. These findings have led to several suggestions and recommendations for a better sustainable waste management on the campuses in Malaysia.

Decision Making in Financial Markets: A Thematic Review and Discussion

Financial decision making is generally characterized by high degree of risk, uncertainty as well as complexity. Decision making in financial markets takes under consideration a stack of factors including personal, technical and situational factors and above all it necessitates an understanding of human instinct on the top of financial skills. In the broad arena of literature, research studies have proposed two primary themes of decision making-one is the rational approach and the another one is irrational or bounded rationality approach. Rational world presupposes being reasonable in every aspect and making unbiased decisions. Irrationality approach contents that investor behaviour is driven by emotions even if they are well informed. This research paper by using the relevant literature in the field of behavioural decision making and investor psychology, provides an overview of these two distinctive academic doctrines, which clears the way-out that how in actual world people undertake their decision making. Furthermore, this research paper reviews how behavioural biases can lead to errors in investment decision making.

Through the Lens: Youth Experiences with Cancer in Rural Appalachian Kentucky Using Photovoice

Rural Appalachian Kentucky experiences disproportionately high cancer incidence and mortality rates. This cancer burden is due to social determinants of health and cultural factors prominent in the region. The firsthand experiences of community members—especially young people—can highlight these factors and identify areas for improvement. The purpose of this study was to encourage Appalachian Kentucky youth to consider determinants of cancer and visualize the effects that cancer has on their families or communities by asking them to take photographs of cancer-related objects around them. Content analysis was performed on 238 photographs submitted by 25 students, and photographs were organized into themes, subthemes, and subtopics. The six themes that emerged were risk factors and exposures, marketing, awareness and support, health care, experiences, and metaphorical representations. Many of the submitted photographs aligned with cultural, environmental and/or situational factors prevalent in Appalachian Kentucky. Of the submitted photographs, 54 were displayed as an installment in two Kentucky art galleries. Viewer comments at the exhibitions demonstrated that young community members can educate and motivate change in those around them. Ultimately, this project demonstrates that young community members can recognize cancer-related issues around them and connect personal experiences back to the larger Appalachian Kentucky cancer disparity while also having an impact on other community members.