Formal Infrastructure and Ethical Decision Making: An Empirical Investigation and Implications for Supply Management

Building on Rest's (1986) conceptual model of ethical decision making, we derive and empirically test a model that links an organization's formal ethical infrastructure to individuals’ moral awareness of ethical situations, moral judgment, and moral intention. We contribute to the literature by shedding light on the importance of a multifaceted formal ethical infrastructure—consisting of formal communication, recurrent communication, formal surveillance, and formal sanctions—as a crucial antecedent of moral awareness. In so doing, we discern how these four elements of a formal ethical infrastructure combine to collectively influence moral awareness based on a second‐order factor structure using structural equation modeling. We test our model based on survey data from 805 respondents with significant work experience across three separate ethical scenarios. Our results across the three scenarios provide overall support for our model. We found that a second‐order factor structure for the formal ethical infrastructure explains the variance among the four infrastructure elements and that a multifaceted formal ethical infrastructure significantly increases moral awareness. Our results further suggest a strong positive effect of moral awareness on moral judgment, which in turn was found to have a positive impact on moral intention. These results were substantiated when taking several individual and contextual control variables into account, such as gender, age, religiosity, work satisfaction, and a de facto ethical climate. Implications for theory, practice, and supply management are discussed.     

A-Optimal Block Designs with Additional Singly Replicated Treatments

Block designs to which have been added a number of singly-replicated treatments, known as secondary treatments, are particularly useful for experiments where only small amounts of material are available for some treatments, for example new plant varieties. The designs are of particular use in the microarray situation. Such designs are known as 'augmented designs'. This paper obtains the properties of these designs and shows that, with an equal number of secondary treatments in each block, the A-optimal design is obtained by using the A-optimal design for the original block design. It develops formulae for the variance of treatment comparisons, for both the primary and the secondary treatments. A number of examples are used to illustrate the results.     

Augmented mixed beta regression models with skew-normal independent distributions: Bayesian analysis of labor force data

Abstract

Augmented mixed beta regression models are suitable choices for modeling continuous response variables on the closed interval [0, 1]. The random eeceeects in these models are typically assumed to be normally distributed, but this assumption is frequently violated in some applied studies. In this paper, an augmented mixed beta regression model with skew-normal independent distribution for random effects are used. Next, we adopt a Bayesian approach for parameter estimation using the MCMC algorithm. The methods are then evaluated using some intensive simulation studies. Finally, the proposed models have applied to analyze a dataset from an Iranian Labor Force Survey.     

贵和精神与当代中国政治认同建构

贵和精神是中国传统政治哲学与当代中国政治文化的重要观念。这种精神注重不同事物之间的和合关系。中国是多民族国家,不同民族之间正是在这种融合的氛围中形成了多元一体格局。中国政治认同的构成具有复杂性,其基础是关系认同。在这种认同中,既保证了权威的存在,也保证了不同族群之间的整合。中国的贵和精神奠定了人际关系的网络基础和认同基础,但在现代化的条件下却面临着功能论和现代法治的挑战。     

Are Codes of Ethics Promoting Religious Literacy for Social Work Practice?

ABSTRACT

As codes of ethics play at least a symbolic, if not educational, role in highlighting and informing professional priorities, 16 codes of ethics for social work practice were examined for references to religion and belief and analysed against the four domains of Dinham’s religious literacy framework. Although religion and belief are mentioned in all but two of the documents, approximately half the surveyed codes only mention religion and belief in respect of either knowledge or skills. Some recognise the need for social workers to be aware of their own biases, but few recognise the need to explain what is meant by religion and belief, despite these terms being in flux. While codes of ethics can contribute to the development of religious literacy among social workers, this requires social workers who already have some religious literacy to actively participate when codes of ethics are being revised.

IMPLICATIONS

• It is an ethical imperative that social workers are able to engage with religion and belief.

• Social workers require religious literacy, including skills and knowledge of different religions, recognition of the fluidity of the concepts, “religion” and “belief”, and understanding one’s own attitudes towards religion.

• Codes of ethics can contribute to the development of religious literacy among social workers, but this potential is often not realised as fully as it might be.

     

The weighted least square based estimators with censoring indicators missing at random

In this paper, we study linear regression analysis when some of the censoring indicators are missing at random. We define regression calibration estimate, imputation estimate and inverse probability weighted estimate for the regression coefficient vector based on the weighted least squared approach due to Stute (1993), and prove all the estimators are asymptotically normal. A simulation study was conducted to evaluate the finite properties of the proposed estimators, and a real data example is provided to illustrate our methods.     

Augmented-limited regression models with an application to the study of the risk perceived using continuous scales

Studies of risk perceived using continuous scales of [0,100] were recently introduced in psychometrics, which can be transformed to the unit interval, but the presence of zeros or ones are commonly observed. Motivated by this, we introduce a full inferential set of tools that allows for augmented and limited data modeling. We considered parameter estimation, residual analysis, influence diagnostic and model selection for zero-and/or-one augmented beta rectangular (ZOABR) regression models and their particular nested models, which is based on a new parameterization of the beta rectangular distribution. Different from other alternatives, we performed maximum-likelihood estimation using a combination of the EM algorithm (for the continuous part) and Fisher scoring algorithm (for the discrete part). Also, we perform an additional step, by considering other link functions, besides the usual logistic link, for modeling the response mean. By considering randomized quantile residuals, (local) influence diagnostics and model selection tools, we identified that the ZOABR regression model is the best one. We also conducted extensive simulations studies, which indicate that all developed tools work properly. Finally, we discuss the use of this type of models to treat psychometric data. It is worthwhile to mention that applications of the developed methods go beyond to Psychometric data. Indeed, they can be useful when the response variable in bounded, including or not the respective limits.     

西方1程职业伦理章程建立的逻辑理路分析

考察西方工程伦理研究的发展历程可以发现,“将公众的安全、健康和福利放在首位”的伦理意识奠定了各职业社团工程伦理章程“向善”的基本价值准则。进而,工程活动中诸多“向善”的伦理意识经过抽象与凝练,形成以“责任”为核心的工程伦理规范体系,并赋予工程师多种“他律”的道德要求。为避免可预测的工程风险,规范要求工程师“遵行”工程伦理章程中所载明的多样责任。向善—他律—遵行,构成了西方工程职业伦理章程建立的逻辑理路。但是,这种逻辑理路将现代道德哲学的本质特点全面贯彻其中,使得工程职业伦理章程建立初始就因工程实践与人类伦理生活的复杂性而有着内在局限。     

《史通》书名辨证

书名是认识该书性质的最重要的事项之一。产生于唐代的《史通》 ,自宋代起 ,学者们对其书名内涵的解释仁智相参 ,颇不一致。分歧的关键即在一“通”字。有的认为《史通》之“通”是笺注的意思 ;有的认为与语言通顺有关 ;还有的辨析此“通”没有“通识”的意思 ,也不具备“贯通”之意。异说纷纭 ,莫衷一是 ,影响到了对《史通》主题思想或作者主体意识的认识的一致性。其实 ,作为史学理论大家的刘知几深明书名体现和规范该书性质的道理 ,对其书名的涵义是有明确界定的。所谓“史”即指历史学 ;所谓“通”即通义的省称 ,属古代理论文体专有名称。     

Some new third order designs robust to one missing observation

Abstract

In real experimentation, we often face situations where observations are lost, ignored or unavailable due to some accident or high cost experiments. Missing observations can make the results of a response surface experiment quite misleading. Therefore minimaxloss designs for Augmented Box-Behnken Designs (ABBDs) and Augmented Fractional Box-Behnken Designs (AFBBDs) are formulated under a minimaxloss criterion. These minimaxloss designs are considered to be robust to one missing observation and the investigation has been made in this article. Then G-efficiencies and Relative D-efficiencies of minimaxloss ABBDs and AFBBDs have been discussed.