The Role of Ethical Leadership in Ethical Organizations

This chapter reveals the role of ethical leadership in ethical organizations, thus illustrating the theoretical and practical overviews of ethical leadership, organizational ethical culture, and organizational ethical climate; the significance of organizational ethical climate in organizational performance; and the significance of ethical leadership and organizational ethical culture in ethical organizations. The utilization of ethical leadership is crucial for ethical organizations that seek to serve suppliers and customers, increase business performance, strengthen competitiveness, and achieve continuous success in global business. Therefore, it is essential for ethical organizations to explore their ethical leadership applications, promote a strategic plan to systematically evaluate their practical advancements, and urgently respond to the ethical leadership needs of organizational members in ethical organizations. Applying ethical leadership in ethical organizations will greatly improve organizational performance and reach business goals in the social media age.

Conducting Ethical Research

Since the 1960s, social scientists have explored the ethics of conducting research. However, there is little guidance in conducting ethical research in the more conservative societies of the Middle East. The rapid progress of technology has meant that these societies have been become increasingly networked, even the most restrictive ones, with a growing use of mobile devices. The purpose of the chapter is to describe the reflection on the research conducted on mobile consumption practices of female Saudi youth. The conduct of the research is based on both the researcher's formal training and also, intuitively negotiated, in practice, as she navigated this particularly sensitive context. The influence of the interplay between culture and gender emerges as the researcher reflects on the research conducted. The consideration of the ethics of the research continues post research completion.

Effective Mentorship, Effective Communication

This chapter explores the ethical and perceptual concerns related to communication between mentors and mentees. The chapter first explores the importance of the mentor-mentee relationships, considering both physical and psychological obligations that when breached can lead to unethical mentoring. The body of effective mentorship research is summarized using a learning taxonomy to conclude characteristics and responsibilities of an effective mentor. Finally, drawing from both communication and educational psychology literature, the analysis of both mentor and mentee practices and responsibilities culminates in research grounded, pragmatic advice for both parties.

Ethics in Research with Teen Mothers

United States has the highest level of teenage pregnancy amongst industrialized nations. However, research on teenage pregnancy involves research participants who are young girls undergoing the life-altering process of motherhood. Given the topic of research, where the girls themselves would need to shed light on factors responsible for early pregnancy, qualitative methodology would be an appropriate choice. It would allow the participants to voice their own stories to bring alive their experiences, lifestyles, and problems. Further, all participants, being minors, would be emotionally and psychologically stressed out and in a highly vulnerable condition. This raises numerous ethical issues when examining teenage mothers before, during, and after the fieldwork. This chapter provides insights on ethical issues involving human subjects' research in the context of teenage pregnancies.

Prospects and Challenges of Teaching Religious Ethics in Nigerian Universities

Human societies are quickly drifting into serious moral decadence as various ills are plaguing the world. This situation makes the teaching of religious ethics, the academic discipline that studies the morality of human act based on the tenets of various religions, a necessity. In some parts of the world, the teaching of religious ethics is booming. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case in Nigeria. Teachers of religious ethics are few in the country. This chapter investigates the reason behind this unpopularity of religious ethics as an academic discipline in Nigerian universities. The chapter exposes in great measure challenges facing teachers of religious ethics in Nigerian universities. To do this, the author employs the phenomenological approach of religious studies. The author also draws insights from religious ethics and cultural hermeneutics. The author recommends that the teaching of religious ethics in Nigerian universities should be encouraged through provision of scholarships and research grants.

Challenges in Ethics Education

Ethics, broadly defined, is having the integrity to act in a moral and civil manner. It calls for both organizations and individuals to act responsibly and with some trust. This chapter describes a collaborative and cooperative initiative to assess the effectiveness of research ethics education. A pre- and post-survey of over 200 graduate researchers in seven doctoral offering institutions of the North Carolina University System who participated in the open seminar research ethics course showed significant improvement on knowledge and attitude about ethics but did not show improvement in ethical reasoning skills assessment. Compared to the control group, these findings lead researchers to the conclusions that effective ethics education and training may be improved by developing programs that create a community of supportive peers and mentors rather than individual training designed to effect compliance regulations and codes of conduct.

A Conceptual Framework for Ethical Decision Making in Organizations

This chapter addresses the lack of a framework that allows the generation of mechanisms and processes that benefit ethical decision making in organizations in order to promote civic virtue in its members. The authors explore how constructing spaces promote an honest and open dialogue among citizens, associations, business, and various levels of government. These spaces encourage the development of mechanisms and processes for social and personal benefit among its participants. The conceptual framework discussed is created by De la Cruz and Sasia (2013), named the Ethical Triangle Model. This model proposes at least three dimensions in an organization: legitimacy, motivation, and capacity. The proposed conceptual framework is dynamic and it is applicable to any organization. Future research must be made for testing the framework proposed here.

Ethical Implications of Incidental Findings in Pediatric Research

This chapter reviews the literature and ethics of disclosure of incidental findings in pediatric research. A clear example of an incidental finding is an unexpected abnormal finding, such as a brain tumor, on a research neuroimaging scan of a volunteer. When the research participant is a child, the issue of what to disclose and who to disclose to becomes more complicated. Parents play an important decision-making role in the lives of their children, and in conjunction with researchers, decide the benefits and risks children are exposed to in research settings. The potential ethical concern is parents making decisions that counter the interests of the child and how to handle information obtained that is outside the anticipated research findings.

Ethical Issues Underlying Instructional Case Writing and Research

There appear two chapters in this textbook that explore the ethical issues surrounding instructional case writing, an area rarely discussed even in case journals. In this chapter, Section 1, “Conducting Research,” five issues (comprehensiveness, multiple realities, researcher bias, high cost, and reporting without influence) surrounding the primary data gathering process are described while Section 2, “Writing Cases,” includes a moral discourse on case author objectivity, authenticity, and co-authorship with students.

Ethical Issues Underlying the Instructor's Manual for Teaching with Cases

This second chapter on case research explores the ethical underpinnings of the writing order of the case/IM, IM authorship and validity, testing the case with a class, and students' plagiarism as well as access to the Internet and the IM. This is then followed by Section 4, entitled “Publish or Perish: The Value of Case Publication,” which addresses the perceived value of publishing teaching cases as well as how the demands for increased publishing (as well as the increased number of publishing outlets) may lead to more pragmatic and perhaps unethical actions by case authors.