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1 – 10 of 38
Article
Publication date: 1 November 2003

Stephen Lilley

The purpose of an oversight structure or institution is to protect human subjects from research that would pose unacceptable dangers or deny human rights. Review boards provide an…

251

Abstract

The purpose of an oversight structure or institution is to protect human subjects from research that would pose unacceptable dangers or deny human rights. Review boards provide an independent assessment of research proposals. This additional level of scrutiny is meant to provide an additional level of protection for human subjects. However, oversight of human subject research, as currently carried out in the bureaucratic, rule‐based, clinically‐biased American system, is too cumbersome with regard to online research. In addition, it is not conducive to the training of ethical Internet researchers. Internet research differs from traditional human subject research in many ways, and the oversight rules governing traditional research do not easily relate to the complexities of conducting research online. Online researchers do not oppose the foundational principles of non‐maleficence (avoiding harm) and autonomy, nor do they reject the ideals of informed consent and confidentiality, nevertheless, they face practical dilemmas in attempting to follow these principles and apply these ideals in the various Internet domains. The current oversight system is ill‐equipped to assist. A conservative response to this problem of fit might entail adjustments to the oversight system that, in the case of the American system, would entail modifications to the Common Rule and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). I will argue in this paper, instead, that re‐structuring is needed to allow more oversight authority for Internet researchers. I will utilize Consequentialism and Virtue Ethics in making this case.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 1 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

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Article
Publication date: 11 May 2012

Stephen Lilley, Frances S. Grodzinsky and Andra Gumbus

Facebook users are both producers and consumers (i.e. “prosumers”), in the sense that they produce the disclosures that allow for Facebook's business success and they consume…

3468

Abstract

Purpose

Facebook users are both producers and consumers (i.e. “prosumers”), in the sense that they produce the disclosures that allow for Facebook's business success and they consume services. The purpose of this paper is to examine how best to characterize the commercialized and compliant members. The authors question the Facebook assertion that members knowingly and willingly approve of personal and commercial transparency and argue, instead, that complicity is engineered.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey of Facebook users was conducted between December 2010 and April 2011 at one private and four public universities. Respondents were questioned about: the level of their consumer activity on Facebook; their knowledge of Facebook advertiser data sharing practices and their attitude toward such; their use of sharing restrictions and the groups targeted; and their assessment of transparency benefits versus reputation and consumer risks.

Findings

No evidence was found to support the Facebook account of happy prosumers. Members reported that they avoided advertisements as much as possible and opposed data sharing/selling practices. However, many respondents were found to be relatively uneducated and passive prosumers, and those expressing a high concern for privacy were no exception.

Research limitations/implications

Due to the nonprobability sampling method, the results may lack generalizability.

Practical implications

To avoid unwanted commercialization, users of social networking sites must become more aware of data mining and privacy protocols, demand more protections, or switch to more prosumer‐friendly platforms.

Originality/value

The paper reports empirical findings on Facebook members' prosumption patterns and attitudes.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 10 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 August 2013

Frances Grodzinsky, Andra Gumbus and Stephen Lilley

There are two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry. By collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting…

730

Abstract

Purpose

There are two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry. By collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals. Although the paper shares an interest in ending social discrimination, the paper is more circumspect about pronounced individualism and technological fixes. Despite its appeal, or perhaps because of it, the paper should not accept the claim at face value. The paper argues that social discrimination may not disappear under smarter marketing; more overt forms may wane only to be replaced by more subtle forms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper compares the two most important techniques of “smarter” marketing – predictive analytics and Facebook's social graph – with current discriminatory practices of weblining and e-scoring. While noting advances against overt discrimination, the paper describes how smarter marketing allows for covert forms.

Findings

Innovative strategies to record and mine users' tastes and social connectivity for marketing purposes open the way for covert social discrimination.

Originality/value

The paper provides a critical assessment of two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry: by monitoring consumer web activity and collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 11 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 June 2016

Neville Douglas Buch and Beryl Roberts

The purpose of this paper is to find an answer the question of whether an educational institution of a fair socio-economic mix of pupils, and an institution favoured with powerful…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to find an answer the question of whether an educational institution of a fair socio-economic mix of pupils, and an institution favoured with powerful political connections, made any difference to access, equity, and exclusivity in relation to the transition into secondary education. It undertakes this purpose as a historical investigation of Junction Park State School in the early twentieth century combined with statistical analysis of family backgrounds of scholarship holders and their cohorts from 1915 to 1932.

Design/methodology/approach

The socio-economic study uses a published list of scholarship holders from Junction Park State School for the years 1924-1932. The study compares the scholarship groupings with their different school cohorts for the same years using the data on parental occupations, extracted from the Junction Park State School Admission Records 1915-1931. After refinement the study examines a cohort data set of 4,531 pupils which includes 287 scholarship holders. Parental occupations are categorised into socio-economic groupings with high and low occupational ends. There were 237 parental occupations described among the cohort, 1915-1931, from the admission records.

Findings

The statistical chance of obtaining scholarship is increased for a pupil from “commercial low” and “industrial low” background when the school starts with a cohort that has a large representation from such backgrounds. Pupils who were at the lower end of the socio-economic scale at Junction Park State School did much better in scholarship outcomes than for the state. However, pupils whose family background was at the high end of the professions did marginally better than the state result. For the school between 1915 and 1932, in most socio-economic groupings, the boys outperform the girls in the like-to-like comparisons.

Research limitations/implications

The numeric value is excessively low for the primary producers (high) category and numbers in cohort groupings vary. This study deliberately applied like-to-like comparisons: the number of scholarship holders compared to their own gender for the same socio-economic cohort. Percentile in relation to the study’s total was not used due to numeric variations between cohort sizes. The study is a historical investigation of a formative period before Junction Park State School developed its reputation as a scholarship school in the 1940s, and historical factors relating to the post-Second World War era would have different results for a similar statistical analysis.

Practical implications

The paper presents a case study of particular historical significance; however, a generic principle that institutional status can change access and equity opportunities can be tested within the historical setting. The paper claims that historical investigation provides the groundwork to establish the distinctive actuality. Historical investigation picks up on unusual patterns over time, not necessarily to disprove the sociological model, but more to test the model against actual events.

Social implications

The Queensland social history is connected to the study’s statistical analysis. The data are considered from a perspective that, first, Junction Park had a diverse population of pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds. Second, the school had a solid reputation as a leading school, partly from the political standing of the school leadership, and partly from the strength of its scholarship teachers. Together these factors suggest that pupils at Junction Park State School from the socio-economic backgrounds less inclined to foster educational values were given greater support to achieve better scholarship outcomes.

Originality/value

Statistical analysis is rarely brought to academic history work. There are greater risks in misinterpreting the data. There is also a difficult enterprise of extracting the required information. Nevertheless, the reward from this paper is an insightful view of a large and an innovating Queensland primary school, picking up the details in the life experience of pupils. In that historical process there is a greater degree of accuracy and better interpretive value which can be applied to the sociological model.

Article
Publication date: 23 September 2009

Matthew Corrigan and David Manley

This article presents an overview of the issues of providing care for homeless adolescents who present with comorbid mental health and substance misuse problems within a…

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the issues of providing care for homeless adolescents who present with comorbid mental health and substance misuse problems within a specialist child and adolescent mental health service. The limited evidence base concerning dual diagnosis among the adolescent population is explored and the application of research based on the adult population to this client group is considered.The intervention strategies that have proved successful in clinical practice are discussed and the evidence to support this is highlighted. The importance of taking an assertive outreach approach to, and investing time in, the engagement process is first considered. Then the application and benefits of harm reduction and motivational interventions are explored before the importance of multi‐agency working is highlighted and a conclusion offered.

Details

Advances in Dual Diagnosis, vol. 2 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-0972

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Article
Publication date: 1 March 2002

Ian Palmer and Richard Dunford

A burgeoning literature refers to the effect of hypercompetitive conditions on organizations. The new orthodoxy involves reference to the disintegration of vertical, rational…

Abstract

A burgeoning literature refers to the effect of hypercompetitive conditions on organizations. The new orthodoxy involves reference to the disintegration of vertical, rational bureaucracies and the corresponding emergence of widespread innovation in new organizational practices such as delayering, outsourcing, and reducing organizational boundaries. Differing assumptions occur regarding the compatibility of new organizational practices with more traditional practices such as centralization and formalization. We present systematic, survey‐based data in order to assist in assessing these differing assumptions about compatibility. Our results confirm greater use of new organizational practices by organizations operating in dynamic environments. They also show that greater use of new organizational practices is not associated with less use of either centralization or formalization—indeed it is associated with an increased use of formalization. We argue the need to move beyond a compatibility/incompatibility dichotomy and propose a research agenda for achieving this. The implications for management include the need to view with caution evangelical calls for radical restructuring that ignore the subtleties of the relationship between traditional and new organizational practices.

Details

The International Journal of Organizational Analysis, vol. 10 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1055-3185

Article
Publication date: 11 February 2020

Enzo Yaksic

The purpose of this article is to improve the use of evidence-based practice and research utilization in the offender profiling process. The use of offender profiling has been met…

1045

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to improve the use of evidence-based practice and research utilization in the offender profiling process. The use of offender profiling has been met with increasing resistance given its exaggerated accuracy. The “Investigative Journalist/Expert Field Micro Task Force” model, a collaborative method that incorporates offender profiling and is designed to address unresolved serial homicides, is introduced and evaluated alongside recommendations on attaining adherence.

Design/methodology/approach

The model was field tested in 17 instances. The measures used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to gauge the usefulness of their case consultations, whether their input helped catch the offender, offer new leads, move the case forward, provide new avenues or give new ideas, were used to evaluate the model.

Findings

The model established likely patterns of serial murder activity among strangulations of women in Chicago, Cleveland, and Panama and resulted in convictions of suspects in Louisiana and Kansas City. This model is valuable when used to parse modern-day offenders from those who committed unresolved homicides as the latter display different behaviors that can make investigations difficult endeavors. Results from the field tests mirror those from the literature in that profiling alone did not result in the capture of serial killers. Instead, profiling was used in conjunction with other efforts and mainly as a means to keep the investigation moving forward.

Originality/value

Unresolved homicides are at a point of crisis and represent a significant but largely unaddressed societal problem. The success of this model may compel law enforcement to restore faith in offender profiling.

Details

Journal of Criminal Psychology, vol. 10 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2009-3829

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 2002

Pawan Budhwar, Andy Crane, Annette Davies, Rick Delbridge, Tim Edwards, Mahmoud Ezzamel, Lloyd Harris, Emmanuel Ogbonna and Robyn Thomas

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce …

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Abstract

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

Details

Management Research News, vol. 25 no. 8/9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0140-9174

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 September 1966

Times are indeed a‐changing. Once, the night‐owl, roistering the hours of darkness away, could claim that he “came home with the milk!”, but not any more.

Abstract

Times are indeed a‐changing. Once, the night‐owl, roistering the hours of darkness away, could claim that he “came home with the milk!”, but not any more.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 68 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1984

WILLIAM MCNAUGHT

The manning and readiness levels of the reserve forces have been a key issue in the debate of the efficacy of the All‐Volunteer Force (AVF) since the original recommendation for…

Abstract

The manning and readiness levels of the reserve forces have been a key issue in the debate of the efficacy of the All‐Volunteer Force (AVF) since the original recommendation for an AVF by the Gates Commission in 1969. General Maxwell Taylor (1981) has identified the AVF's principal failings as:

Details

Studies in Economics and Finance, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1086-7376

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