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This chapter considers the implications of the lack of uniformity, consistency and harmonisation in defining and regulating research integrity across Europe. In view of this, recent initiatives of the Council of Research Ministers and of the European Commission aim to provide a common point of reference in institutional terms and legal terms. However researchers and institutions themselves remain ultimately responsible for detecting, investigating and adjudicating any allegations of scientific misconduct through their established procedures. Therefore, a complementary approach between the Commission’s initiatives and the self-regulatory approach of local/national structures is desirable. A major step towards this direction could be the formulation of a single European-wide definition of research integrity.

This chapter presents a virtue-based approach to research ethics which both complements and challenges dominant principle- and rule-based ethical codes and governance frameworks. Virtues are qualities of character that contribute to human and ecological flourishing, focussing on the dispositions and motivations of moral agents (in this case, researchers) as opposed to simply their actions. The chapter argues for the usefulness of ‘researcher integrity’, in the context of increasing interest internationally in ‘research integrity’ frameworks for regulating research practice. ‘Researcher integrity’ is analysed, including weak and strong versions of the concept (conduct according to current standards, versus reflexive commitment to ideals of what research should be at its best). Researcher integrity in its stronger sense is depicted as an overarching complex virtue, holding together and balancing other virtues such as courage, care, trustworthiness, respectfulness and practical wisdom. Consideration is given to educating researchers and university students as virtuous researchers, rather than simply ensuring that rules are followed and risks minimised. Several approaches are outlined, including Socratic dialogue, to develop attentiveness and respectfulness and participatory theatre to rehearse different responses to ethical challenges in research. Some limitations of virtue ethics are noted, including dangers of reinforcing a culture of blaming researchers for institutional failings, and its potential to be co-opted by those who wish to indoctrinate rather than cultivate virtues. Nevertheless, it is an important counter-weight to current trends that see research ethics as entailing learning sets of rules and how to implement them (to satisfy institutional research governance requirements), rather than processes of critical and responsible reflection.

Senior executives and leaders of public sector institutions (PSIs) are responsible for the development, preservation or restoration of employee integrity (EI). This conceptual paper aims to address the direct impact of EI on work performance (WP). It also explores the interceding effects of job satisfaction (JS) and employee organisational identification (OI) and the context-conditional impact of purposeful leadership (PL).

This research builds a research framework coupled with suppositions by integrating literature from both theoretical and empirical works in the fields of integrity management, human resource management, performance management and leadership using a systematic literature review approach. Firstly, the authors explicitly express the authors’ list of goals through replicable design. Secondly, the authors find all research papers that would satisfy the requirements for inclusion. Thirdly, the authors evaluate the truthfulness of the results from the incorporated research, and, finally, the authors offer a summary and synthesis of the features and outcomes of the incorporated research.

This study finds that EI will be favourably linked to WP, and this encouraging connection will be favourably interceded by JS and OI, both independently and together. Also, PL will favourably moderate the EI–JS connection as well as the EI–OI linkage.

This study provides a novel framework for specialists and academics in four multidisciplinary fields for improving the EI and WP of employees using JS and OI as strategic devices. It also considers the conditional influence of PL, which has been underexploited in the academic sphere. Thus, this research sets the stage for forthcoming academics to investigate this research framework empirically in diverse PSIs worldwide.

To guarantee that PSIs draw, grow and preserve workers who symbolise the beliefs of the institution, their leadership must uphold a “values-grounded approach” to all facets of its human resource practises – comprising recruitment, performance appraisals, training, leadership development platforms and promotions.

This study reveals the importance of improving integrity in PSIs and the diverse mechanisms through which EI translates into WP. It also highlights the possible benefits that purposeful leaders can offer as well as the problems that they can potentially help mitigate.

This research adds to the sparse literature on the construct of PL within PSIs’ settings and offers a new conceptual model for boosting employee WP through the facilitating roles of JS and OI, both separately and together.

Professionalism indicates a devotion to and demonstration of exceptional performance and achievement in any activity. The built environment comprises the physical items required for economic activity, long-term national development and social well-being. Studies show a need to improve many aspects of the built environment and the sector which creates it. Researchers should contribute to this improvement effort. It is suggested that researchers should demonstrate professionalism, but there is no agreement on how professionalism in research is determined. It is necessary to consider what constitutes professionalism in built environment research and how it can be developed.

An exploratory study is presented. It considers major works on the nature of the built environment and its sector, and factors influencing research on them; and draws on works on research ethics, integrity and good practice to propose a framework for professionalism in built environment research.

More work is needed to improve the built environment and its sector. Professionalism in built environment research will make the contribution of such research to this effort effective. This professionalism should be conceptualised, developed and continuously enhanced.

This first attempt to formulate a framework for professionalism in built environment research is based on a review of the major relevant literature. Subsequent works can test this framework empirically.

The professional built environment researcher will be committed to contributing to society.

This is the first work on professionalism in research on the built environment. The framework provides the basis for further studies on the subject.

This chapter considers the current standards that exist for the conduct of research and whether these standards are being met. Issues of scope and terminology are discussed and debated. Also considered are the reasons and benefits to the Academy of Social Sciences and other professional and disciplinary bodies by being involved in developing generic ethics principles in social science research.

This study aims to examine the effect of chief executive officer (CEO) integrity on organizations’ strategic orientation. The authors propose that CEOs who have high degrees of integrity tend to negatively influence each of the three core dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) – innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking. They also argue that this impact of CEO integrity is likely to be stronger for overconfident CEOs and the CEOs with high power. Furthermore, this negative relationship is expected to attenuate when the firm has high customer orientation and when the CEO is compensated with high equity-pay ratio.

Seemingly unrelated regression analysis was conducted on panel of 741 firm-year observations of 213 firms across 2014–2017. CEO integrity and each of the three dimensions of EO were measured using content analysis of CEOs’ letters to shareholders. CEO power was measured using CEO stock ownership and CEO duality. CEO overconfidence was measured by using options-based measure. Customer orientation was measured by using content analyses on annual reports. CEO equity-pay based ratio was measured as sum of value of stock and option awards divided by CEO’s total compensation. This study considered alternative measures and performed treatments for potential endogeneity, sample selection bias and outliers.

The research findings conclude that organizations with CEOs who have high integrity tend to have lower levels of all sub-dimensions of EO – innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking. Further, the results indicate that the negative effect that CEO integrity has, affects one of its dimensions – proactiveness, such that the relation is strengthened when the CEO has high power and is highly overconfident. This negative effect weakens when the CEO is compensated with high equity-pay ratio. The results also indicate that the negative effect of integrity and innovativeness and risk-taking weakens when the firm has high customer orientation.

The research contributes to upper echelon theory literature by adding to the discussion of how business executives’ psychological traits map onto firm behavior. This research also finds common ground between literature on innovation and upper echelons, contributing to awareness about the drivers of firms’ EO.

This research addresses the question of firm relation to EO by highlighting that firms’ EO is also shaped by the psychological traits of their CEOs and the interaction of these traits with CEOs’ cognitive biases. Thus, board members of firms led by CEOs with high integrity can limit CEO’s risk-averse behavior by focusing on their training and by creating incentive systems. It is also advantageous for CEOs to understand that integrity is a double-edged sword, thus leveraging the strengths of their integrity, while simultaneously using tools such as training to diminish its negative aspects.

This paper fulfils a twofold identified need to: study the antecedents of each of the three dimensions of EO, not limited to corporate governance; and unearth the counterproductive behaviors associated with bright traits that make up their dark side

The purpose of this study is to test the hypotheses proposed by Konadu et al. (2023) for the first time and provide empirical insight on the subject. Corruption concerns affect all economies, but those attempting to avoid foreign grants are especially vulnerable. Stakeholders in these economies have pushed for more honest public sector (PS) workers and better oversight of public funds in an effort to build a more trustworthy and efficient government to improve PS performance. Just as the mechanisms through which employee integrity (EI) influences work performance (WP) have not been proven empirically, neither has the effect of EI on WP in African economies. Also, how purposeful leadership (PL) interacts with EI to boost WP is yet to be empirically examined in the integrity literature.

This paper surveyed and analysed the responses of 875 workers across the three most corrupt large PS organisations in Ghana using Smart PLS 4. Perceived organisational support and contract fulfilment functioned as control factors influencing job satisfaction (JS, a mediator). Psychological need satisfaction and perceived procedural justice serve as control factors for organisational identification (OI, an additional mediator). Education, tenure, job position, sex and age were used as control variables in WP. Product indicator and variance accounted for (VAF) methods were used to estimate the impacts of moderation and mediation, respectively. A 5% level of significance was determined.

As hypothesised, this study found that EI and WP had a significantly positive connection (ß = 0.119, p = 0.026), and both JS (VAF = 25.16%) and OI (VAF = 39.59%) partially mediated this connection. Moreover, PL positively moderated the EI–JS (ß = 0.155, p = 0.000) and EI–OI (ß = 0.095, p = 0.000) connections.

This paper affords empirical insight on the EI–WP relationship, how this relationship is mediated and how the EI–JS and EI–OI relationships are amplified. In this context, it sheds light on new ways in which EI and WP in the PS are improved. In addition, this paper provides a roadmap for forthcoming academics to test the hypotheses in diverse PS contexts globally to triangulate the results.

Leadership in PS organisations must maintain a “values-grounded approach” to all parts of human resource (HR) practices, including hiring, performance reviews, leadership enhancement programmes, training and promotions, if they are to attract, develop and retain employees who stand for the sector’s ethics and beliefs.

This research gives African nations proof that enhancing EI in the PS is important, and it lays out the many ways in which EI transforms into WP. It also draws attention to the challenges that purposeful leaders may help alleviate and the opportunities that they may present.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the hypotheses put forward in the conceptual research by Konadu et al. (2023) are tested empirically for the first time in this study. It also adds to the empirical literature that already exists on EI, JS, OI, WP and PL in the PS. This contributes to the disciplines of integrity, performance and leadership by enhancing theoretical frameworks and expanding upon existing knowledge.

Training in research ethics in higher education institutions tends to be increasingly focussed on operational instruction and how to navigate review processes. This has largely come about as a result of the gradual extension of the ‘medical model’ of prospective ethics review to all research involving human participants over the last few decades. Often devolved to an administrator, the purpose of instruction in research ethics is sometimes reduced to form-filling techniques. While this may serve to facilitate researchers’ compliance with ‘auditable’ regulatory requirements, and to reassure risk-averse universities that they can demonstrate rigorous oversight, it does nothing to skill researchers in assessing the ethical implications of their own research. Mastering the skills to address and mitigate the moral dilemmas that can emerge during a research project involves more than having a pre-determined set of options for research practice. Changing their perception means enabling researchers to view themselves as ethical practitioners within a broader community of researchers. In this chapter we discuss the implementation of a university training programme that has been designed to improve both the moral character, and thus the moral competence of researchers. Using a virtue ethics approach, we employed case studies and discussion, backed up by provision of individualised advice, to help researchers to consider the moral implications of research and to improve their moral decision-making skills. Attendees reported greater engagement with the issues and increased confidence in facing ethical dilemmas in their own research.

Evaluation of any given student's responsiveness to intervention depends not only on how effective the intervention is, but also whether the intervention was delivered as intended as well as in the appropriate format and according to the most useful schedule. These latter elements are referred to as treatment integrity and treatment intensity, respectively. The purpose of this chapter is to define and describe how treatment integrity and intensity can be incorporated in the evaluation of outcomes associated with individualized intervention delivery.