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Three aspects of teaching ethics are discussed. It deals with reflection, multicultural classrooms, and narrative. The first aspect acknowledges that trying to help people recognise moral issues and have the courage and capacity to respond is harder than teaching and examining theoretical learning. The second, whether we seek to develop a ‘new’ ethical framework that fits all situations and recognises the differing traditions of global classrooms and marketplaces or we acknowledge that there are different underlying values which are hard to reconcile. The third aspect, somewhat provocatively, is whether we would be better off using novels or TV series rather than textbooks for the teaching of ethics.

This paper describes how Business and Society, a compulsory subject for all undergraduate students in an Australian business school, is used for a transformational approach. We explain how reflection is central in both the objectives and the pedagogy of the subject. Students conduct individual research projects and present that in a two-minute video presentation. The reflective activities are not only designed to develop a capability for reflection but also to show how reflection is an integral part of professional practice, grounded in the concept of reflection as “turning things over in the mind to a purpose,” after John Dewey. Developing these activities has required the teaching staff to reflect on the effectiveness and relevance of these aspects and to examine the various ways in which “reflection” is used in tertiary education. In the paper, we describe and explain some of the distinctive features of the course, and explain the practical, but conceptually sound, approach to ethics which underpins the design and teaching and show how it is possible to address the notions of the good life in a plural society. We also consider questions of assessment, including the assessment of reflective capacity and issues of moderation with large classes and multiple markers.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to consider the use of the Internet as a potential facilitator of positive health-related perceptions. Specifically, we propose that online health information seeking fosters positive perceptions of health. Using path modeling, we theorized several mechanisms through which information seeking could be conducive to positive health perceptions, which we conceptualized into the following four dimensions: (1) sense of empowerment in managing health, (2) self-reported ability to take better care of health, (3) sense of improved health-related quality of life, and (4) self-reported improvement of health.

Methodology: Our sample consisted of respondents who have used the Internet as a resource for health information (n = 710), drawn from the largest national probability-based online research panel. Our comparison subsample consisted of older respondents (age ≥ 60; n = 194). We used Internet-specific measures and employed structural equation models (SEM) to estimate the direct, indirect, and total effects of health-related use of the Internet on subjective health perceptions. Based on our review of the literature, competent health communication with healthcare providers and sense of empowerment in managing personal health were modeled as mediator variables. We assessed whether the proposed mediational relationships, if significant, differed across our indicators of positive health perceptions and whether any differential associations were observed among older adults. We run parallel models for each indicator of positive health perception.

Findings: Provider-patient communication informed by the Internet resources were perceived to impart a greater sense of empowerment to manage health among our respondents, which in turn, was associated with perceived contributions to better self-reported ability to provide self-care, increased health-related quality of life, and improvement in self-reported health. The SEM results revealed a good fit with our full sample and subsample.

Research Implications: Conceptualization of the multidimensional aspects of online health information seeking with separate multi-indicator analyses of the outcome variable is important to further our understanding of how technology may impact the pathways involved in influencing health perceptions and as a result health outcomes.

Various achievements of Australia in the field of applied ethics from the 1980s to 2016 are outlined. The review covers academic scholarship, research and teaching; the ethics of business and actions to build ethics into the structures of enterprises. This follows the 3-fold categorization developed by De George (2012). A brief account of the formation and history of the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics is included, as is a selection of scandals involving Australian organisations. Australia is shown to have made a significant contribution to the academic discipline of applied ethics and to have been aware of its position, distant from the English-speaking West and in the midst of nations of the global south.

In this chapter, we show how embedded social relations affect economic transactions and intraprofessional stratification in the market for legal services. We argue that networks are critical in fostering individual upward mobility not only because they provide valuable information to ego (lawyer) but also because they function as a crucial mechanism by which the focal actor’s (lawyer’s) status is transmitted to outside alters (clients). Consistent with Podolny’s (1993) general theoretical statement, we claim that ties to prestigious network partners send positive signals concerning the ability and trustworthiness of legal professionals. That is, networks help reduce the information asymmetries faced by potential buyers concerning the actual (unknowable) quality of legal services. Our argument is that, in doing so, the network-embedded status of lawyers serves to contribute to their earnings. We demonstrate this point empirically by examining how networks relate to the process of income attainment among a random sample of lawyers in Chicago (1995).

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which potential factors affect the use of activity-based costing (ABC) in a service context.

Design/methodology/approach – An empirical survey was conducted on a sample of 112 leading hotels enterprises in Greece.

Findings – Results show that the use of ABC is positively associated with business strategy and with chief financial officer's (CFO) educational background. In addition, ABC is negatively associated with CFO age. No association was found between the use of ABC and the quality of information technology, membership of multinational chain, and CFO tenure.

Research limitations/implications – This research was limited to the Greek hotel sector. Cross-sectional studies as the work presented here can establish associations, but not causality.

Originality/value – This paper adds to the limited body of knowledge of the design of cost systems in a service context (service cost system design). Specifically, this paper adopted a contingency approach and used empirical analysis to identify the influence of specific organizational variables and CFOs characteristics on the use of ABC in service firms. The operational homogeneity of hotels enables powerful tests of the research hypotheses.