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This paper aims to focus on the modern development of bionics and linking new technologies with the human nervous system or other biological systems that cause changes of the human biological structure.

The paper is a discursive evaluation of technological progress and new systems where computers and machines integrate, making a single matrix entity – the cyborg. Here fundamental questions arise, such as what it means to be human and what is (descriptive aspect) and what should be (normative aspect) a human being?

The paper argues for the value of twenty-first century human enhancement techniques and other emerging technologies that promised to “help” humans become “more than human”, trying to create human beings with greatly enhanced abilities, to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. Modern man is gradually disappearing as a natural being and increasingly turning into an artificial creature “cyborg” that leads into the question, what will ultimately remain human in a human body?

The paper contributes to the existing debates about further development of cyborgisation and examines boundaries that will strictly divide man from a cyborg in the near future. In order to protect man from the omnipotence of technology and its unethical application is necessary to establish cyborgoethics that would determine the implementation of an artificial boundary in the natural body.

Current covid-19 pandemic challenges health-care ethics. Ones of the most important challenges are medical resources allocation and a duty to treat, often addressed to medical personnel. This paper suggests that there are good reasons to rethink our health-care ethics for future global catastrophic risks. Current pandemic shows how challenging can be an issue of resources allocation even in a relatively small kind of catastrophic event such as covid-19 pandemic. In this paper, the authors show that any future existential bigger catastrophe may require new guidelines for the allocation of medical resources. The idea of assisted dying is considered as a hypothetical scenario.

This is a conceptual work based on conceptual analysis at the intersection of risk studies, health-care ethics and future studies. This study builds the argument on the assumption that the covid-19 pandemic should be treated as a sort of global catastrophic risk. Findings show that there are no such attempts in currently published peer-reviewed academic literature. This is crucial concept for the meta-analysis. This study shows why and how current pandemic can be interpreted in terms of global catastrophic risk even if, literally, covid-19 does not meet all criteria required in the risk studies to be called a global catastrophe.

We can expect an emergence of discriminatory selection policy which will require some actions taken by future patients like, for example, genetic engineering. But even then it is inevitable that there will still be a large number of survivors who require medical assistance, which they have no chance of receiving. This is why this study has considered the concept of assisted dying understood as an official protocol for health-care ethics and resources allocation policy in the case of emergency situations. Possibly more controversial idea discussed in this paper is an idea of assisted dying for those who cannot receive required medical help. Such procedure could be applied in a mass-scale during a global catastrophic event.

Philosophers and ethicists should identify and study all possible pros and cons of this discrimination rule. As this study’s findings suggested above, a reliable point of reference is the concept of substantial human enhancement. Human enhancement as such, widely debated, should be studied in that specific context of discrimination of patients in an access to limited medical resources. Last but not least, scientific community should study the concept of assisted dying which could be applied for those survivors who have no chance of obtaining medical care. Such criteria and concepts as cost-benefit analysis, the ethics of quality of life, autonomy of patients and duty of medical personnel should be considered.

Politicians and policymakers should prepare protocols for global catastrophes where these discrimination criteria would have to be applied. The same applies to the development of medical robotics aimed at replacing human health-care personnel. We assume that this is important implication for practical policy in healthcare. Our prediction, however plausible, is not a good scenario for humanity. But given this realistic development trajectory, we should do everything possible to prevent the need for the discriminatory rules in medical care described above.

This study offers the idea of assisted dying as a health-care policy in emergency situations. The authors expect that next future global catastrophes – looking at the current pandemic only as a mild prelude – will force a radical change in moral values and medical standards. New criteria of selection and discrimination will be perceived as much more exclusivist and unfair than criteria applied today.

Exoskeletons are characterized as wearable, mechanical orthoses that augment the physical performance of the wearer, enhance productivity and employee well-being when used in value producing contexts. However, limited research involving exoskeleton usage by service employees in frontline contexts has been undertaken within service research. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of exoskeleton research undertaken within the context of value-producing roles, introduce exoskeletons conceptually to the service research domain, provide new conceptualizations of service exchange interactions involving physically augmented service actors and propose future avenues of exoskeleton research in alignment with key service theories.

A multi-disciplinary structured literature review based on the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses method was undertaken across a variety of literature fields. A final selection of n = 25 papers was selected for analysis from an initial sample of N = 3,537. Given the emergent nature of exoskeleton research and the variety of methodology types used between literature fields, a thematic analysis approach was used for analysing identified papers.

The literature review identified four main themes within role-focused exoskeleton research. These themes informed proposals for future exoskeleton research with respect to key service theories and typologies. The findings demonstrate that the presence of an exoskeleton changes the behaviours and interactions of service employees. The augmented social presence AugSP typology is conceptualized to explain the influences of human enhancement technologies (HETs) within service actor interactions.

This research introduces the AugSP typology to conceptualize the impacts that exoskeletons and HETs impose within technologically mediated service interactions and provides a service-specific definition of exoskeleton technology to guide future service research involving the technology.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, given contemporary global challenges and trends, the central goal for the future of higher education should be to facilitate the development of wise cyborgs.

Contemporary global challenges are identified. A theory of wisdom and wisdom‐based education is outlined, highlighting the development of character virtues and enhanced future consciousness. It is demonstrated that a wisdom‐based education is necessary for addressing global challenges. The intimate evolutionary connection between human intelligence and technology is described, including a general definition of a cyborg. The concept of a wise cyborg is described. Examples are provided regarding how to facilitate the educational development of the wise cyborg.

Solutions to modern global challenges require a synthesis of holistic, integrative, future‐focused, and ethical thinking – all qualities of wisdom. The qualities of wisdom can be described analytically and addressed educationally. Humans have purposely enhanced their functional capacities through technology throughout history. Humans are cyborgs and the intimate functional synthesis of the biological and technological will further develop in the future. Wise people in the future will be wise cyborgs. Educational methods can be identified that facilitate the development of wise cyborgs.

Wisdom, a concept traditionally associated with philosophy and spiritual thinking, is connected with technological evolution. An educational approach is described which synthesizes wisdom and character virtues with future consciousness and technological proficiency. This educational model is applied to creating individuals who can successfully address the problems of today and tomorrow.

This paper responds to the increasing concern among both the public and the academic community regarding the negative effects of for‐profit activities of organisations on society, in particular on human development and well‐being. It does so by aiming to examine the main theories regarding the possibility of positive and/or negative relationships between the management of for‐profit activity and human value. It aims to identify guiding principles to assist organisations in meeting the business imperative of respecting and considering their effects on human rights wherever they operate.

This paper takes a conceptual approach drawing from economic, social and political philosophy literature to investigate four perspectives on the relationship between the management of for‐profit activity and human value.

The need for management theory to develop a typology of factors determining positive, negative or mixed effects of for‐profit activity on human value is identified. The study identifies recommendations for management theory and practice regarding the scope and limits of action that could be taken by business organisations to improve human value.

Research questions relevant to three key areas of management (people management, operational management and strategic management) are suggested.

The paper concludes that there is a need to understand why there are negative relationships between profit making and human value, and how to identify the means of minimising this relationship in a human value oriented organisation.

The paper responds to the increasing concern among both the public and the academic community regarding the negative effects of for‐profit activities of organisations on society, in particular on human development and well‐being. It does so by proposing the guiding philosophical principles that should inform organisations in meeting the business imperative of respecting and considering their effects on human rights wherever they operate.

The paper is unique in proposing the guiding philosophical principles that should inform a human value oriented workplace culture and can be applied in various management sub‐disciplines. It also makes an original attempt to understand the gap between conflictualist and compatibilist paradigms and how this can inform management theory.

The purpose of this study is to examine employee imagination and implications for entrepreneurs of China. In 2015, the European Group of Organization Studies released a call for papers highlighting poor knowledge of employee imagination in organizations. To address this need, the current study hypothesizes employee imagination consisting of seven conditions common to the organizational experience of Chinese Entrepreneurs.

The current paper reviews the Chinese enterprising context. Cases from China are used to illustrate the effects of proposed conditions and their value for entrepreneurs and innovators in businesses undergoing change.

Employee imagination underpins and conditions how Chinese employees make sense of their organizations and better understand the process of organizational change. From the viewpoint of human resource management, emphasis on coaching and developing imagination enables businesses to stay competitive and adapt to environmental demands such as lack of information, too much information or the need for new information.

The proposed conditions apply to the Chinese context; however, their application to wider contexts is suggested and requires attention.

Employee imagination was found to be a powerful tool, which facilitates the process of organizational change management.

Theoretically, the research adds new insights to knowledge of a poorly understood organizational behavior topic – employee imagination. Practically, the research findings provide mangers with knowledge of conditions, which could be adopted as powerful tools in facilitating organizational change management.

The uncertainty of the current economic environment increases the risk of organizational failure. The traditional approach intends the crisis as a phenomenon that can be managed according to some predetermined and well-defined procedures. Although this traditional approach emphasizes on the technical dimension, it does not take into account the organizational dimension, which instead plays a crucial role in the circumstances of today’s crisis. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which are the most effective organizational practices able to promote an adequate culture prevent or manage effectively crisis situations.

A group of Italian military and civil opinion leaders took part in the study. Authors hypothesized that the military organizations, being defined as “High Reliability Organization,” have organizational characteristics that allow them to manage crisis situations more effectively, and, for this reason, they can be taken as a reference by civil organizations.

The results show noticeable differences about organizational attributes concerning the two organizations. According to the results, military organization has the most appropriate organizational dimensions to prevent and manage the crisis situations.

Based on the results, military organization is suggested to be taken as an example by civil organizations in the process of organizational change necessary to obtain reliable performance.

The originality of this paper lies in the empirical and theoretical framework provided to analyze risk and crisis management, based on the comparison between military and civil organizations. The paper aims to be a starting point from which a positive process of cultural osmosis between the two organizations can be promoted.

This paper seeks to argue that there are two distinct problems of ignorance: a problem of size and a problem of type. Both are more pressing today than ever before, given the extraordinary expansion of collective human knowledge, and both pertain to epistemic limitations intrinsic to evolved cognitive systems. After delineating these problems in detail, one possible way of overcoming “relative” and “absolute” ignorance about the universe – enhancement technologies – is to be examined. The paper then aims to argue that, given one's epistemic situation, resources currently being spent on normal research would be far better spent on developing cognition‐enhancing technologies – technologies that promise to help solve the size and type problems previously sketched.

The paper identifies two important limitations on human knowledge, one deriving from the size or complexity of certain problems and the other from one's inability to access specific concepts necessary to understand them. It suggests that cognitive enhancements offer the best chance at overcoming these two limitations.

There are both strong practical and moral reasons for diverting more resources into the development of cognitive enhancement technologies.

No author has yet elaborated on the distinction, which is taken to be important, between the problems of “size” and “type.” Furthermore, no author has yet explored how cognitive enhancements may address the problem that Colin McGinn calls “cognitive closure” (the problem of type). Thus, cognitive enhancements may offer the only possibility of solving conundrums like conscious experience and free will.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework that highlights transhumanism’s ideals of achieving superintelligence, super longevity and super well-being through human enhancement technologies (HET) and their relations with services marketing principles.

Framed by the transformative service research (TSR), this conceptual work articulates the 7Ps of the marketing mix with four macro-factors that create tensions at both the marketplace and consumer levels.

HET has potential for doing good but also tremendous bad; greater attention is needed from services marketing researchers especially in one proprietary research area: bioethics.

The authors contribute to the growing work on TSR investigating how the interplay between service providers and consumers affects the well-being of both. Additionally, the authors call for novel interdisciplinary work in transhuman services research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first papers in services marketing research to explore the promises and perils of transhumanism ideals and human enhancement technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how incidental emotions interact with brand concepts that are represented as human values to influence consumers’ attitude toward brands. It also explores the effect of construal level on such interactional effect.

Three incidental emotion × brand concepts between-subject experiments were performed on consumers. The first two experiments used real brands as stimuli, while the third one featured a fictitious brand.

Results revealed that the motivational congruency between incidental emotions and brand concepts leads to favorable consumer responses toward the targeted brand by inducing an experience of fluency. However, such effect only emerges among consumers with a high construal level.

This paper provides a new insight about the effect of brand concept represented as human values by identifying the role of situational factors (incidental emotions) and personal factors (chronic construal level), which are also easily administered and applied in everyday marketing contexts.