The power of Australian small accounting firms’ unethical exposure

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate small business owner/manager’s exposure to unethical behavior, and to examine the influence of unethical exposure on organizational intention to implement ethical policies and practices.

Design/methodology/approach– Using a sample of 209 Australian small accounting firms with a path analysis, this paper adopts a modified ethical decision-making model to test the relationship between exposure and personal attitudes toward unethical behavior, and the relationship between exposure and intentions to implement ethical policies and practices at firm level.

Findings– The results show that increased exposure to unethical behavior triggered stronger personal attitudes with small accounting firm owners/managers tending toward accepting unethical behavior. In contrast, at the firm level, more exposure to unethical behavior creates cautious overtones and motivates owners/managers to take action and implement more ethical policies, with the underlying aim of addressing serious ethical issues.

Research limitations/implications– The study tests the ethical decision-making model but focuses only on three constructs (i.e. exposure, attitude and response). The aim is to examine whether extensive exposure to unethical behavior would change personal attitudes toward accepting such behavior, and whether unethical exposure would trigger firm owner/managers to take action and address the ethical dilemma by establishing some ethical guidelines. Other important variables (such as subjective norm, personal locus of control) embedded in the ethical decision-making model should be included in future research.

Practical implications– The study draws attention to ethical dilemmas encountered by many small accounting professionals and their organizations. It addresses the importance of upholding the ethical standard and avoiding the extensive exposure to unethical behavior. It also emphasizes the needs for small businesses to establish some ethical policies and practices.

Originality/value– The paper is purposely set out to reduce the gap in studying how small accounting firms make decisions in implementing their ethical policies and practices to address the rampant ethical dilemma faced by their employees as a result of many corporate scandals and financial crises of the past decade. The results are particularly valuable for small accounting firm owners/managers. The findings also have educational and policy implications.

Challenges and opportunities of undertaking a video ethnographic study to understand medication communication

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To examine the challenges and opportunities of undertaking a video ethnographic study on medication communication among nurses, doctors, pharmacists and patients. BACKGROUND: Video ethnography has proved to be a dynamic and useful method to explore clinical communication activities. This approach involves filming actual behaviours and activities of clinicians to develop new knowledge and to stimulate reflections of clinicians on their behaviours and activities. However, there is limited information about the complex negotiations required to use video ethnography in actual clinical practice. DESIGN: Discursive paper. METHOD: A video ethnographic approach was used to gain better understanding of medication communication processes in two general medical wards of a metropolitan hospital in Melbourne, Australia. This paper presents the arduous and delicate process of gaining access into hospital wards to video-record actual clinical practice and the methodological and ethical issues associated with video-recording. CONCLUSIONS: Obtaining access to clinical settings and clinician consent are the first hurdles of conducting a video ethnographic study. Clinicians may still feel intimidated or self-conscious in being video recorded about their medication communication practices, which they could perceive as judgements being passed about their clinical competence. By thoughtful and strategic planning, video ethnography can provide in-depth understandings of medication communication in acute care hospital settings. Ethical issues of informed consent, patient safety and respect for the confidentiality of patients and clinicians need to be carefully addressed to build up and maintain trusting relationships between researchers and participants in the clinical environment. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: By prudently considering the complex ethical and methodological concerns of using video ethnography, this approach can help to reveal the unpredictability and messiness of clinical practice. The visual data generated can stimulate clinicians' reflexivity about their norms of practice and bring about improved communication about managing medications.

Pediatric deceased donation — a report of the Transplantation Society meeting in Geneva

The Ethics Committee of The Transplantation Society convened a meeting on pediatric deceased donation of organs in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 21 to 22, 2014. Thirty-four participants from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, Europe, and North and South America explored the practical and ethical issues pertaining to pediatric deceased donation and developed recommendations for policy and practice. Their expertise was inclusive of pediatric intensive care, internal medicine, and surgery, nursing, ethics, organ donation and procurement, psychology, law, and sociology. The report of the meeting advocates the routine provision of opportunities for deceased donation by pediatric patients and conveys an international call for the development of evidence-based resources needed to inform provision of best practice care in deceased donation for neonates and children.

The use of visual art in judging clinical competence in the operating suite

This research evolved out of the need to design and validate an instrument to assess nursing competencies in the operating suite. The study was an empirical investigation of the use of analytical and holistic rubrics to determine various levels of performance including inter-rater reliability. Three video clips that captured nurses performing as instrument nurses in the operating suite were recorded and used as prompts by the expert raters who judged the performance of the candidates in each video clip using the rubrics. Gaining consent for recording the video clips in the operating suite was difficult, creating a barrier to conducting this research. Ethical issues were addressed, which included editing of the video clips and removal of sound as stipulated by the Human Research and Ethics Committee. Despite the barriers to using visual art in research, this study produced acceptable inter-rater reliability in determining various levels of performance of the instrument nurse in the operating suite.

Case formulation in forensic practice: challenges and opportunities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of current practice in forensic case formulation, describing different approaches and discussing some of the practical and ethical issues that routinely arise. The paper further identifies areas where future practice and research might be strengthened.

Design/methodology/approach – There is only a very small literature to draw upon in reviewing this topic. Therefore a narrative literature review was undertaken, synthesising findings from published, peer-reviewed studies, and papers that addressed case formulation in psychological practice.

Findings – Despite case formation being considered by many to be a core competency of evidence-based forensic practice, it is not currently possible to describe a typical forensic case formulation or advocate for a particular approach to practice.

Practical implications – A number of practical and ethical issues routinely arise in the process of conducting a forensic case formulation. Ultimately, the absence of a consistent approach can lead to lead to poor clinical decision-making and the delivery of inadequate or inappropriate intervention.

Originality/value – This is one of the few discussions of case formulation that have been prepared for forensic practitioners. It is likely to be of interest to readers of the journal given the importance of the formulation process in contemporary forensic practice.

Conclusion

In this concluding chapter our purpose is two-fold. The first is to draw out some of the common themes which underpin the chapters. In part, we commenced this task in arranging the book into the four sections of Images of Schooling, Performing Pedagogy Visually, Power and Representation and Ethical Issues. However, in recognition that, like all categorisations, this was arbitrary and potentially reductive, we now revisit the contributions making connections across and between the chapters. A related and second task of this conclusion is to highlight gaps and limitations of what we have gathered together in this collection. Inevitably, this book does not speak to all of the issues embedded in a visual approach to educational research. In recognising this partiality, our aim is to gesture towards the types of questions and concerns that VRMs raise and still require educational researchers to think about — and in differing ways.

Cross-cultural methodological issues in ethical research

Despite the fundamental and administrative difficulties associated with cross-cultural research the rewards are significant and, given an increasing trend toward globalisation, the move away from singular location studies to more comparative research is to be encouraged. In order to facilitate this research process it is imperative, however, that considerable attention is given to the methodological issues that can beset cross-cultural research, specifically as these issues relate to the primary domain or discipline of investigation, which in this instance is research on business ethics. Utilising the experience of a four country comparative study of both Asian and Western cultures in the field of business ethics, the following presents a discussion of methodological concerns under the three broad areas of operationalising culture, operationalising business ethics, and data interpretation.

Issues of Indigenous representation: white advocacy and the complexities of ethical leadership

This paper explores the tensions and complexities for two principals as they work towards equity and improved social and educational outcomes for their Indigenous students. Drawing on Foucault’s fourfold ethical frame and poststructuralist notions of the subject, this paper presents the different ways the white female principals of Indigenous schools are formed as subjects. We illustrate how the multiplicities of their subject formation are influenced by the historicity and contextual factors of the schools and communities. These factors play a significant part in how these principals work as advocates and differently experience and negotiate the tensions around representation of and for Indigenous schools and communities. In realising equity goals for Indigenous students, the paper draws on Foucault’s work to illustrate the imperative of school leaders’ cognisance of, and capacity to work with, these factors.

The CSR landscape: an overview of key theoretical issues and concepts

Questioning the way the business enterprise operates in contemporary society has become an established field of investigation. In the current global debate, corporate social responsibility (CSR) - and other terms that are linked to it such as sustainability and corporate citizenship - tend to be as much about semantics as substance. Therefore, the key to this book is the fundamental idea that drivers for change should be found primarily within the heart of organizations and expressed through various implementation strategies. As long as organizations are not embracing CSR as a fundamental element in business continuity, it will remain a mixture of semantics, avoidance, compliance and social philanthropy. This book captures and distils emerging implementation perspectives in terms of theory and practice in one concise volume and will help to unravel and demonstrate the possible changes and consequences of the adaptation of CSR

Embryonic stem cell research: the principal ethical issue-when does life begin?

Embryonic stem cell research is perhaps the most controversial ethical issue of the new century. This is not surprising. It promises unprecedented potential benefits to human health but arguably comes at the expense of violating the most fundamental moral virtue - the right to life. The debate has become increasingly emotive. The Catholic Church has labelled stem cell research as cannibalism.1 This has led perhaps the world's most famous moral philosopher, Peter Singer, to label the Church, which has over a billion followers, as irrelevant.2 The principal purpose of this paper is not to  discuss all of the relevant moral issues in the embryonic stem cell debate. Considerations of space do not permit this and in any event there are  numerous reports which catalogue the relevant issues.3 Rather we attempt  to identify the crux of the issues in the debate. In our view, the main issue is the point at which life commences. We offer some preliminary observations on this matter. This discussion appears in section four. In the next section, we provide a brief  overview of nature and potential benefits of stem cell  research. This is followed by a discussion of the current legal position. In the final section, we offer some concluding remarks including some  suggestions for law reform.

The ethical, social and environmental reporting-performance portrayal gap

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it assesses in detail the extent to which corporate reporting on ethical, social and environmental issues reflects corporate performance in case study company Alpha. This “reporting-performance” portrayal gap is a key measure of the extent to which an organisation is accountable to its stakeholders. Alpha's disclosures concerning its ethical, social and environmental performance for the years 1993 and 1999 were compared with information obtained on Alpha's performance from other sources. Two different pictures of performance emerged leading to the conclusion that, in the case of Alpha, reports do not demonstrate a high level of accountability to key stakeholder groups on ethical, social and environmental issues. Of particular concern is the lack of “completeness” of reporting. Second, the article assesses the potential of recent standards or guidelines developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Institute of Social and Ethical AccountAbility (AccountAbility) as well as the industry's own “responsible care” initiative to reduce this “reporting-performance” portrayal gap and improve corporate accountability. The conclusions point to the need for other measures to improve accountability including mandatory reporting guidelines, better developed audit guidelines, a mandatory audit requirement for MNCs and a radical overhaul of corporate governance systems.

Ethical dilemmas of a large national multi-centre study in Australia

Aims and objectives: To examine the impact and obstacles that individual Institutional Research Ethics Committee (IRECs) had on a large-scale national multi-centre clinical audit called the National Benchmarks and Evidence-based National Clinical guidelines for Heart failure management programmes Study.

Background: Multi-centre research is commonplace in the health care system. However, IRECs continue to fail to differentiate between research and quality audit projects.

Methods: The National Benchmarks and Evidence-based National Clinical guidelines for Heart failure management programmes study used an investigator-developed questionnaire concerning a clinical audit for heart failure programmes throughout Australia. Ethical guidelines developed by the National governing body of health and medical research in Australia classified the National Benchmarks and Evidence-based National Clinical guidelines for Heart failure management programmes Study as a low risk clinical audit not requiring ethical approval by IREC.

Results: Fifteen of 27 IRECs stipulated that the research proposal undergo full ethical review. None of the IRECs acknowledged: national quality assurance guidelines and recommendations nor ethics approval from other IRECs. Twelve of the 15 IRECs used different ethics application forms. Variability in the type of amendments was prolific. Lack of uniformity in ethical review processes resulted in a six- to eight-month delay in commencing the national study.

Conclusions: Development of a national ethics application form with full ethical review by the first IREC and compulsory expedited review by subsequent IRECs would resolve issues raised in this paper. IRECs must change their ethics approval processes to one that enhances facilitation of multi-centre research which is now normative process for health services.

Relevance to clinical practice: The findings of this study highlight inconsistent ethical requirements between different IRECs. Also highlighted are the obstacles and delays that IRECs create when undertaking multi-centre clinical audits. However, in our clinical practice it is vital that clinical audits are undertaken for evaluation purposes. The findings of this study raise awareness of inconsistent ethical processes and highlight the need for expedient ethical review for clinical audits.

Scandal, censorship and representation in the online world : an ethical conundrum

This research begins by examining the foundation issues of content censorship from a literary perspective and then proceeds in comparison to discuss the issues of online content appropriateness and whether the same censorship principles of literature are transitional to the online world. Currently, uncertainty exists in how to tackle this issue as there appears to be a lack of formal rules or suggested guidelines applied to the content appropriateness, management and availability of online material. Therefore, where does the onus of online content censorship exist in this medium? Or is it left to the ethical and moral standards of the material source/creator, online access provider or the cultural ethics of the wider community to adjudicate?