Condiciones para preservar e valor moral del consentimiento informado en medicina

El consentimiento informado (CI) en medicina corre el riesgo de quedar reducido a un formalismo legal sin valor moral; esto puede suceder por dos cosas: 1) como consecuencia de que el paciente no comprenda con suficiencia el concepto de autonomía y 2) debido a la disminución de la autonomía práctica del paciente por efecto de la autoridad del personal médico o de las instituciones de salud. Este artículo tiene como fin mostrar bajo qué condiciones se puede evitar la reducción del CI a un formalismo legal desprovisto de valor moral. Para servir a este propósito, se considera el concepto de autonomía relacional como eje articulador que pone en relación al paciente con su comunidad moral y con el médico, lo que impulsa al personal de la salud a proporcionar las condiciones para tal fin. Así, se afirma que la valía moral del CI puede conservarse, primero, a partir de una concepción relacional de la autonomía y, segundo, mediante la aplicación, por parte del médico y de la institución, de un protocolo que disminuya la posibilidad de choque entre la autonomía y la autoridad.

Análisis de los componentes de la cadena de suministro y su relación con el desempeño superior de la organización en el sector manufacturero

En este documento se evidencia como el desempeño organizacional de una empresa, entendido como el rendimiento superior de la misma, se ve modificado por las prácticas o metodologías utilizadas, aplicadas e integradas a cada uno de los componentes de la Cadena de suministros. Es así que el propósito principal es demostrar cual es la relación entre los componentes de la Cadena de Suministros y su gestión sobre los rendimientos económicos de la empresa. De esa manera se encontraron múltiples actividades que toman lugar en los procesos característicos de cada uno de los componentes de la cadena de suministros y que al final nos presentan una variabilidad sobre los rendimientos de la empresa. Cabe recalcar que la investigación se realizó con respecto a empresas pertenecientes al sector manufacturero y abarca una buena parte de este. La importancia que tiene la investigación, es el haber entregado como resultado, el conocimiento sobre algunas de las practicas más utilizadas en el sector en cada uno de sus componentes, lo cual hace de la Cadena de suministros, un factor por excelencia para ser tratado e implementado con el fin de alcanzar mayores rendimientos económicos a nivel de empresa. En la investigación se utilizaron los casos de empresas reales tanto nacionales como internacionales y se encontraron situaciones claves que evidenciaban la hipótesis de la relación entre la cadena de suministros y el desempeño organizacional. Es por ello, que si bien es ahora cierto, que las actividades desarrolladas en los componentes de la Cadena de Suministros de las empresas influyen en el incremento de los rendimientos, es importante que las empresas conozcan de esta información para tener una idea de cómo desarrollar ventajas competitivas que los posicionen como empresa y les genere entonces mayores rendimientos, o por el contrario, les genere ahorros en costos y por ende altos beneficios y nuevas inversiones en prácticas que a la larga volverá a la empresa en un organismo eficientes y próspero.

Las prácticas de recursos humanos y su incidencia en el bienestar laboral de los empleados

El objetivo del presente trabajo es formular, mediante una profunda revisión documental, bibliográfica y empírica, una fundamentación teórica sobre si existe o no incidencia de las prácticas de recursos humanos sobre el bienestar laboral de los empleados, y el que grado en que esta se presenta sobre aspecto como el engagement y la satisfacción laboral. Se realizó la revisión de múltiples estudios empíricos que aportaran evidencia sobre la relación que se presenta entre las principales prácticas de recursos humanos – provisión de personal, formación y desarrollo, promoción de personal, evaluación de desempeño, compensación y pago, y balance trabajo-familia – y el bienestar laboral, representado en el engagement y satisfacción en el trabajo de los empleados. Los resultados de este trabajo indican la existencia de una relación e incidencia de las prácticas de recursos humanos, el bienestar laboral, el engagement y la satisfacción laboral. De igual forma se encontró que estas relaciones son principalmente de carácter positivo, lo cual indica que las organizaciones que desarrollan este tipo de prácticas en su interior, fomentan tanto el desarrollo y la presencia de bienestar laboral en sus empleados, como su perdurabilidad.

Poder e influencia en el liderazgo transformacional

Como proyecto de grado, el presente trabajo consiste en una revisión teórica de los conceptos de liderazgo, poder e influencia, junto con las posibles relaciones que entre ellos se pueden presentar. Para ello, cada concepto es definido de manera individual, y con base en ello, se identifica la dependencia que tienen estos conceptos entre sí y la importancia dentro del desarrollo del liderazgo transformacional actual. Para lograr lo propuesto, se llevó a cabo la revisión de una parte de la literatura académica presente en libros, revistas académicas, bases de datos y documentos relacionados con los temas y conceptos tratados. A partir de ello, se entendió la evolución del concepto del liderazgo y los enfoques presentados desde la década de los 1920´s hasta la actualidad, junto con el modelo de rango total y el tipo transaccional y transformacional del liderazgo, para luego definir el papel y la importancia de los conceptos de poder, los tipos de poder, la influencia y las tácticas de influencia, y así, identificar las posibles relaciones que se presentan entre los conceptos y la importancia de estos en el entorno organizacional actual.

El impacto sobre los trabajadores de una gestión de recursos humanos socialmente responsable. Un análisis para Catalunya

Socially responsible human resource management constitutes the conceptual-theory framework of the thesis. The results obtained from the empirical part show the existence of three clusters inasmuch as the application of socially responsible practices for promoting job quality in the case of Catalonia: the group of workers in “organizations with low-level of social responsibility”; those who work in a environment of “work practices for implication” and the group of workers in a environment oriented to “health and safety at work”. Among the determining factors in applying these practices we can find characteristics of the firms where the employees work as well as personal characteristics and those of the job. The research also shows that, in general, applying socially responsible management in human resources does have positive effects on the worker and therefore creates greater trust in management, increased job satisfaction, less stress at work and a lower intention to quit a job.

Trabalho colaborativo : alavanca do desenvolvimento profissional docente

Longe vão os tempos em que a formação inicial dos docentes era tida como suficiente para o desempenho da profissão. Hoje, a sociedade e o poder político requisitam aos professores maior abrangência nas suas competências profissionais, no sentido de estes serem capazes de responder adequadamente às exigências que enfrentam. A tutela, por seu turno, responde com programas de apoio do tipo TEIP (Território Educativo de Intervenção Prioritária) à enorme variedade de alunos e contextos socioeconómicos. É no seio desta realidade que se coloca a questão: como implementar práticas colaborativas, potenciadoras do desenvolvimento profissional dos professores do Departamento de Matemática e Ciências Experimentais, numa escola TEIP? Fullan e Hargreaves (2001) defendem que só a existência de um trabalho conjunto, a responsabilidade partilhada, o empenhamento e o aperfeiçoamento coletivos, a maior disponibilidade para participar na difícil atividade de reflexão crítica, acerca do trabalho realizado, e uma cultura colaborativa é que poderão conduzir a progressos significativos, na melhoria dos resultados e, consequentemente, no real desenvolvimento profissional docente. Contudo, quer a abertura das salas de aula ao exterior, quer a inclusão de todos os alunos nas mesmas, representam ainda, e em geral, um desafio para muitos docentes. É neste contexto que se apresenta um projeto de formação que tem, como campo de análise, a formação de professores, centrada na escola e ancorada na colaboração e supervisão interpares. A formação referida visa: desenvolver uma cultura de positividade e propositividade; criar, promover, analisar e partilhar experiências e inovações realizadas em contexto; desenvolver experiências consequentes sob o ponto de vista do desenvolvimento profissional docente, ao nível da sala de aula; refletir, em conjunto, sobre estratégias exequíveis e indutoras da melhoria do comportamento e das aprendizagens dos discentes. Com estes propósitos, ancorar-se-á a oficina de formação na criação de tarefas a serem experimentadas em contexto, na observação de aulas e na experiência dos intervenientes, baseada na reflexão sobre as práticas e focalizada nos problemas correntes. A expectativa sobre os resultados a obter com esta formação é grande e alicerça-se no trabalho empírico levado a cabo, tendo os principais resultados apontado, claramente, no sentido da necessidade e disponibilidade, por parte dos docentes, para participarem numa oficina de formação cujos objetivos fossem os citados.

A Liderança: uma análise sobre o clima organizacional

No quotidiano de uma organização, facilmente se constatará a influência da liderança sobre o comportamento e o clima organizacional predominantes. Assim, o presente trabalho pretende evidenciar o grau e nível que tais inter-relações poderão assumir no seio das organizações. Neste universo, e tendo sobretudo em conta as exigências da gestão organizacional contemporânea, existem várias questões suscetíveis de ser levantadas. Bastarão as competências técnicas acumuladas e adquiridas para garantir a eficácia de um líder? Por outro lado, poderá este atingir os objetivos a que a organização se propõe se não estiver provido das devidas competências relacionais? Pretende-se igualmente determinar os fatores e condicionalismos que caraterizam o líder carismático, capaz de tornar o clima organizacional favorável ao aumento da produtividade dos trabalhadores, gerir equipas, estimular a motivação, fazer uso efetivo dos recursos e desenvolver a confiança nas pessoas. Além disso, focando a dimensão do comportamento organizacional pretende-se definir o contrato psicológico, a relação líder-membro e como esta influencia os comportamentos, a motivação e o trabalho. O estudo empírico incide sobre uma escola superior: O Instituto Politécnico da Guarda. Os resultados apontam para a existência de uma relação positiva indiciando que o contrato psicológico, existente entre colaboradores e liderança das unidades orgânicas da instituição em análise, assenta no envolvimento e satisfação favorável no que respeita às relações líder-membro.

Confiança nas Instituições e Valores Culturais : Estudo Internacional Comparado entre Angola, Cabo Verde, Moçambique e Portugal

The present study shows the results of an international comparative research carried out in four Portuguese-speaking countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Portugal. The purpose is, firstly, to find these countries cultural profile according to Hofstede/ Minkov dimensions as well as to measure the citizens` level of trust in institutions and, secondly, to analyze the relation between cultural values and level of trust. A bibliographic and theoretical review has been made on the main theoretical references about trust as far as its multiple forms and dimensions are concerned. Then, a scale of confidence in institutions has been drawn. An extensive analysis has been carried out, using qualitative and quantitative methods, including factorial analysis and simple linear regression. The results provide relevant information on what makes the four target countries very alike and on what differentiates them the most. In Portugal, a tendency towards a growing trust in institutions of public offering has been registered, whereas in the African countries, citizens tend to trust institutions of private offering more. All the institutions connected with the judicial and political sphere of society have been negatively qualified by the respondents in all countries, in a relatively similar way.

Categories of GM risk-benefit perceptions and their antecedents

The stated benefits and perceived risks of genetic modification (GM) cover very diverse issues, such as food safety, world food security, and the environment, that may differentially affect consumer acceptance. In this research, we hypothesize that consumers perceive up to eight dimensions: risks to business (farmers, agribusiness, etc.), benefits to business, risks and benefits to the environment, risks and benefits to the developing world, and risks and benefits to self and family. Moral concerns are also recognized. Using data collected in 2002 in the United States, France, and the UK, we investigate these different dimensions. Second, we analyze the extent to which the dimensions of risk-benefit perceptions can be explained by general attitudes widely used to explain food purchase behavior (such as general attitude to the environment, to technology, etc.), as well as by perceived knowledge of GM, level of education, and trust in various sources of information. In all locations, the majority of consumers only perceive a medium level of risk from GM products. Attitude to technology is the most important attitude variable—those with a positive attitude to technology in general also have a positive attitude to GM technology. More Americans than Europeans fall into this category. Those who trust government and the food industry tend to think GM technology is less risky, whereas those who trust activists believe the opposite. Americans are more trusting of the former, Europeans of the latter. Level of education is positively associated with benefit perceptions and negatively associated with moral concerns. Location continues to play a limited independent role in explaining perceptions even after these factors have been taken into account.

Determinants of consumers’ willingness to accept GM foods

This paper investigates Willingness to Accept (WTA) Genetic Modification (GM) foods based on experimental auctions carried out in the USA, UK and France. It explores perceptions of risk and benefits, moral concerns and their antecedents, attitudes to the environment and technology and trust in various sources using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Trust in information provided by industry proved to be the most important determinant of risk/benefit perceptions and WTA followed by general attitudes to the environment and technology. Education and age are also enhance perceived benefits and lower perceived risks of GM. Perception of risk/benefit and moral concerns all have significant effects on consumers' WTA but the perceived benefits are most important. The research suggests that trust-building by industry would be the most effective in enhancing GM acceptance.

Conscience, discretion and the creation of property rights

This paper considers the utility of the concept of conscience or unconscionable conduct as a contemporary rationale for intervention in two principles applied where a person seeks to renege on an informal agreement relating to land: the principle in Rochefoucauld v Boustead; and transfers 'subject to' rights in favour of a claimant. By analysing the concept in light of our current understanding of the nature of judicial discretion and the use of general principles, it responds to arguments that unconscionability is too general a concept on which to base intervention. In doing so, it considers the nature of the discretion that is actually in issue when the court intervenes through conscience in these principles. However, the paper questions the use of constructive trusts as a response to unconscionability. It argues that there is a need, in limited circumstances, to separate the finding of unconscionability from the imposition of a constructive trust. In these limited circumstances, once unconscionability is found, the courts should have a discretion as to the remedy, modelled on that developed in the context of proprietary estoppel. The message underlying this paper is that many of the concerns expressed about unconscionability that have led to suggestions of alternative rationales for intervention can in fact be addressed whilst retaining an unconscionability analysis. Unconscionability remains a preferable rationale for intervention as it provides a common thread that links apparently separate principles and can assist our understanding of their scope.

A scalable expressive ensemble learning using Random Prism: a MapReduce approach

The induction of classification rules from previously unseen examples is one of the most important data mining tasks in science as well as commercial applications. In order to reduce the influence of noise in the data, ensemble learners are often applied. However, most ensemble learners are based on decision tree classifiers which are affected by noise. The Random Prism classifier has recently been proposed as an alternative to the popular Random Forests classifier, which is based on decision trees. Random Prism is based on the Prism family of algorithms, which is more robust to noise. However, like most ensemble classification approaches, Random Prism also does not scale well on large training data. This paper presents a thorough discussion of Random Prism and a recently proposed parallel version of it called Parallel Random Prism. Parallel Random Prism is based on the MapReduce programming paradigm. The paper provides, for the first time, novel theoretical analysis of the proposed technique and in-depth experimental study that show that Parallel Random Prism scales well on a large number of training examples, a large number of data features and a large number of processors. Expressiveness of decision rules that our technique produces makes it a natural choice for Big Data applications where informed decision making increases the user’s trust in the system.

Factors influencing European consumer uptake of personalised nutrition: results of a qualitative analysis

The aim of this research was to explore consumer perceptions of personalised nutrition and to compare these across three different levels of ‘‘medicalization’’: lifestyle assessment (no blood sampling); phenotypic assessment (blood sampling); genomic assessment (blood and buccal sampling). The protocol was developed from two pilot focus groups conducted in the UK. Two focus groups (one comprising only ‘‘older’’ individuals between 30 and 60 years old, the other of adults 18–65 yrs of age) were run in the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Germany (N = 16). The analysis (guided using grounded theory) suggested that personalised nutrition was perceived in terms of benefit to health and fitness and that convenience was an important driver of uptake. Negative attitudes were associated with internet delivery but not with personalised nutrition per se. Barriers to uptake were linked to broader technological issues associated with data protection, trust in regulator and service providers. Services that required a fee were expected to be of better quality and more secure. An efficacious, transparent and trustworthy regulatory framework for personalised nutrition is required to alleviate consumer concern. In addition, developing trust in service providers is important if such services to be successful.

Breaching the social contract: crises of democratic representation and patterns of extreme right party support

Why has the extreme right Greek Golden Dawn, a party with clear links to fascism experienced a rise defying all theories that claim that such a party is unlikely to win in post-WWII Europe? And, if we accept that economic crisis is an explanation for this, why has such a phenomenon not occurred in other countries that have similar conducive conditions, such as Portugal and Spain? This article addresses this puzzle by (a) carrying out a controlled comparison of Greece, Portugal and Spain and (b) showing that the rise of the extreme right is not a question of intensity of economic crisis. Rather it is the nature of the crisis, i.e. economic versus overall crisis of democratic representation that facilitates the rise of the extreme right. We argue that extreme right parties are more likely to experience an increase in their support when economic crisis culminates into an overall crisis of democratic representation. Economic crisis is likely to become a political crisis when severe issues of governability impact upon the ability of the state to fulfil its social contract obligations. This breach of the social contract is accompanied by declining levels of trust in state institutions, resulting in party system collapse.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei? A closer look at the ‘public opinion’ argument for retention

The Japanese government’s justification for retaining the death penalty is that abolition would erode the legitimacy of and public trust in the criminal justice system, leading to victims’ families taking justice into their own hands. This justification is based on the results of a regularly administered public opinion survey, which is said to show strong public support for the death penalty. However, a close analysis of the results of the 2014 survey fails to validate this claim. Just over a third of respondents were committed to retaining the death penalty at all costs, while the rest accepted the possibility of future abolition, with some of them seeing this as contingent on the introduction of life imprisonment without parole as an alternative sentence. These findings hardly describe a society that expects the strict application of the death penalty and whose trust in justice depends on the government’s commitment to retaining it. My reading of the 2014 survey is that the Japanese public is ready to embrace abolition. Japan, after all, is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which calls on states not to delay or prevent abolition, so this should be welcome news for the Japanese government!