<p>The aim of this study is to examine if Kenneth, a character in the novel Nyår by Stig Larsson, takes his ethical responsibility for one of the characters that appears in one section of the book, Ann. Nyår has often been related to morality. This study shows that Levinas philosophy of ethics is a supplement to the discussion of morality. According to Levinas, a person that acts in a non-moral way still can act in a righteous ethical way. With this starting point, it is possible to be close to the text and to bring out new perspectives on the novel. Kenneth is a nihilist, but has got the possibility to take his ethical responsibility for Ann. The ethical responsibility for another person, according to Levinas, always comes first. Kenneth, like everybody else, is obligated to this responsibility.</p>

The aim of this study is to examine if Kenneth, a character in the novel Nyår by Stig Larsson, takes his ethical responsibility for one of the characters that appears in one section of the book, Ann. Nyår has often been related to morality. This study shows that Levinas philosophy of ethics is a supplement to the discussion of morality. According to Levinas, a person that acts in a non-moral way still can act in a righteous ethical way. With this starting point, it is possible to be close to the text and to bring out new perspectives on the novel. Kenneth is a nihilist, but has got the possibility to take his ethical responsibility for Ann. The ethical responsibility for another person, according to Levinas, always comes first. Kenneth, like everybody else, is obligated to this responsibility.

A Corporate Social Responsibility Study in Kaohsiung City's Financial Institutions Abstract The heightened competition and reducing profit-margin in the banking industry have forced banks to change for facing the struggle environment. In addition, many deceptive crime and practices happened recently are all related to the banking system, such as cheating ATM events and disclosure customers¡¦ personal information inappropriately. Under the kind of situation, how to restore customers¡¦ trust to banks has become the priority issue in the banking industry now. Therefore, the theme of social responsibility has come back to the table and attract intensive interests from both the academics and industry. This research conducted an empirical study through a qualitative approach. The purpose of this study is trying to explore the framework on the corporate social responsibility for the financial institution. By in-depth interviewing 17 executives in the financial institutions and based on previous researches, this study concluded four categories of corporate social responsibility for financial companies. 1. Economic Responsibility: Good quality products, appeal channel for customers, business sales performance. 2. Legal Responsibility: Support the related laws and legislations for protecting environment. 3. Ethical Responsibility: Well system of employee training, support technology development, community citizenship, and the concept of respecting employees. 4. Discretionary Responsibility: Charity, helping the minority group, improving social problems, and corporate vision. Overall, companies have accepted and taken some actions on both responsibilities, Economic and Legal. In addition, there are two constructs in the category of Ethical responsibility, employee training and respect employee, improved from the level of ¡§acceptance¡¨ to ¡§action¡¨. In addition, the other two constructs in the category of Ethical responsibility, support technology development and community citizenship, have been accepted by the executives but can¡¦t achieve the level of ¡§action¡¨ as some related limited regulations. Finally, the construct of Discretionary responsibility has not been taken any action by these interviewed companies.

Yes / In the field of business-to-business marketing, corporate ethical identity and corporate brand identity are crucial subjects for discussion. Business organizations function under social norms, and to establish an ethical identity, they must show corporate ethical responsibility, embrace ethical standards, and maintain open communication with suppliers. While an organization's reputation is impacted by the absence of an ethical identity, its financial success is unaffected. Extant literature has not thrown a spotlight on social and environmental performance which indicates that less focus has been given by academics than by practitioners. To fill the lacuna in the existing literature, this study examines the relationships between corporate ethical identity, corporate brand identity, social and environmental performance. The study uses a deductive research approach and develops hypotheses which are further tested using variance based structural equation modeling. The study offers a distinctive contribution to ethics theory and stakeholder theory by showing that developing an ethical identity requires more than just adhering to moral guidelines and upholding open communication. Companies must show that they are ethically responsible towards society. The study provides evidence of the influence corporate brand identity has on environmental and social performance. The findings can be useful in developing business-to-business marketing strategies.

Global warming challenges designers to pay attention to environmental effects of manufacturing when designing new products. This examination project was a personal challenge to uphold ethical responsibility as a designer and consider emotional aspects of design while aiming to create a pleasurable lighting for the home environment. The underpinning idea for the project was to promote the use of recycled materials and an environmentally friendly light source aiming to create a sustainable everyday commonplace product that it is possible to manufacture. High power LED-technology was chosen because of its energy efficiency, flexibility and a particularly long life-cycle. Recycled plastic and fibre cardboard were chosen to be applied as the shades of the lamps. Both these recycled materials can be broken down and recycled again after use. Emotional design aspect was the leading theory in the design process. The intention was to consider different levels of emotional aspects when defining the main characteristics of the lamp to create pleasurable lighting: Among usability and aesthetics the concentration was on the semiotics of the product and its usage context. It was designed with the aim of evoking pleasurable feelings in users who desire to lead an active and urban life-style but who are simultaneously worried about global warming. Both of the lighting designs are for a dining context. They are supposed to create a pleasurable atmosphere around a dining table while separating the party around the table from the rest of the space. Other lights can be dimmed or switched off when it is time to gather around the table to accentuate the illumination and feeling of togetherness. Inspiration for the project came from sustainability, contemporary thoughts and trends embodied into maps. The products turned out to be silent statements of today’s global world; Antarctica refers to glacial retreat while Town symbolises the importance of people’s own origin in this globalised world.

<p>Global warming challenges designers to pay attention to environmental effects of manufacturing when designing new products. This examination project was a personal challenge to uphold ethical responsibility as a designer and consider emotional aspects of design while aiming to create a pleasurable lighting for the home environment.</p><p>The underpinning idea for the project was to promote the use of recycled materials and an environmentally friendly light source aiming to create a sustainable everyday commonplace product that it is possible to manufacture. High power LED-technology was chosen because of its energy efficiency, flexibility and a particularly long life-cycle. Recycled plastic and fibre cardboard were chosen to be applied as the shades of the lamps. Both these recycled materials can be broken down and recycled again after use.</p><p>Emotional design aspect was the leading theory in the design process. The intention was to consider different levels of emotional aspects when defining the main characteristics of the lamp to create pleasurable lighting: Among usability and aesthetics the concentration was on the semiotics of the product and its usage context. It was designed with the aim of evoking pleasurable feelings in users who desire to lead an active and urban life-style but who are simultaneously worried about global warming.</p><p>Both of the lighting designs are for a dining context. They are supposed to create a pleasurable atmosphere around a dining table while separating the party around the table from the rest of the space. Other lights can be dimmed or switched off when it is time to gather around the table to accentuate the illumination and feeling of togetherness.</p><p>Inspiration for the project came from sustainability, contemporary thoughts and trends embodied into maps. The products turned out to be silent statements of today’s global world; Antarctica refers to glacial retreat while Town symbolises the importance of people’s own origin in this globalised world.</p>

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:32:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gustavo Melcher Felipe.pdf: 2329257 bytes, checksum: 54dce1296c3435dd91a1322afe4d148c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-11 / The objective of this study is to verify through the perception of independent auditors and educators in Brazilian universities which work or worked as independent auditor, the main factors that affect the auditor s ethical responsibility, based on the national and international auditor profession codes of conduct/ethical guidelines. Taking the stand of the factors that contributed to the recent financial/accounting scandals and even frauds in the world business scenario, it is imperative that the independent auditor s professional activities be performed in a more adequate manner. Therefore, the auditor should observe and maintain an ethical position and should be in compliance with the professional audit codes of conduct/ethical guidelines, therefore, mitigating audited entity s risk and protecting their image. This position also aims to prevent audit firms from embarrassment and a negative impact that generate loss of credibility and litigations, including folding up their activities as it happened to one of the biggest independent audit companies in this era, Arthur Andersen. Therefore, to guide this study, the research question is: what are the main factors that impact the auditor's ethical responsibility in the perception of independent auditors and educators? The studied population consisted of independent auditors (semi-senior/senior/supervising) from the Big Four audit firms (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young Terco and KPMG) in São Paulo Brazil, and educators in Brazilian universities which work or worked as an independent auditor. In this context, a qualitative analysis was performed, looking for characteristics that contribute to validate the objectives and the research question. The research revealed there are thirteen factors that could impact the auditor s ethic responsibility that are related to integrity, independence, technical competence, professional care and confidentiality. From these identified factors, seven are related to the independent auditors perception, two are related to the educators perception and the other four are common in both perceptions. In this context, it is suggested a deeper look into these factors for future researches, and this should go in line with deductive studies in order to ascertain the correlation between them. Furthermore, it is important to check the point of tangency between the question of ethics and technical competence of the independent auditors, since in the perceptions of the independent auditors and educators, some factors do not impact their ethical responsibility. However, evidences show that this could be related to unlikely mapping of accounting / financial problems occurred in the business scenario. And these are factors involving for instance, the adequateness of the methodology, quality of training to improvement and maintenance of professional skills and effectiveness of continuing education, which are not always the direct responsibility of a junior/assistant independent auditor. / O presente trabalho tem o objetivo de verificar por meio da percepção dos auditores independentes e dos profissionais de ensino que atuam ou atuaram como auditores independentes, quais os principais fatores que afetam a responsabilidade ética do auditor, com base nos códigos de conduta nacionais e internacionais da profissão. Em virtude dos fatores que contribuíram para os recentes escândalos contábeis/financeiros e até mesmo fraudes no mundo dos negócios, é essencial que as atividades profissionais do auditor independente sejam executadas de maneira adequada. Desta forma, o auditor deve observar e manter a postura ética e em concordância com os códigos de conduta da profissão, mitigando assim, os riscos da entidade auditada e protegendo sua imagem. Esse posicionamento também visa evitar que as empresas de auditoria tenham impactos negativos em sua credibilidade e venham a sofrer litígios, inclusive encerrando suas atividades como ocorreu com uma das maiores empresas de auditoria do mundo, a Arthur Andersen. Portanto, para guiar este estudo, o trabalho tem como questão de pesquisa: quais são os principais fatores que impactam a responsabilidade ética do auditor na percepção dos auditores independentes e dos profissionais de ensino? A população estudada foi dos auditores independentes encarregados (semi-sênior/ sênior/supervisor) nas empresas de auditoria intituladas Big Four (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young Terco e KPMG) localizadas em São Paulo e os profissionais de ensino de faculdades/universidades brasileiras que atuam ou atuaram como auditores independentes. Dentro deste contexto, realizou-se uma pesquisa qualitativa buscando identificar características que contribuíssem para validar o problema e os objetivos da pesquisa. A pesquisa revelou que existem treze fatores que poderiam impactar a responsabilidade ética do auditor, relacionados à: integridade, independência, competência técnica/zelo profissional e confidencialidade. Destes fatores identificados, sete são inerentes à percepção dos auditores independentes, dois são inerentes à percepção dos profissionais de ensino e os outros quatro são comuns em ambas percepções. Neste contexto, sugere-se para futuras pesquisas um aprofundamento no estudo destes fatores,incluindo a elaboração de estudos quantitativos com objetivo de identificar a correlação entre eles. Além disso, torna-se importante verificar o ponto de tangência entre a questão ética e a competência técnica do auditor, uma vez que nas percepções dos auditores independentes e profissionais de ensino alguns fatores não impactam a sua responsabilidade ética. Entretanto, evidências sugerem que poderiam ter correlação com a não identificação de alguns problemas contábeis/financeiros ocorridos no mundo dos negócios. São fatores envolvendo, por exemplo, a adequabilidade da metodologia de auditoria, qualidade dos treinamentos para aprimoramento e manutenção das competências profissionais e efetividade da educação continuada, que nem sempre são de responsabilidade direta de um auditor independente trainee/assistente.

In our sedentary society, physical inactivity has become the biggest public health concern of the 21st century. In addition to physical health promotion, physical activity has been associated with a number of positive psychological and social outcomes. Psychologists are well positioned to provide physical activity counseling and may have ethical obligations to address physical activity with their clients. Training the next generation of psychologists about the role of physical activity and health is critical to ensure best practices in graduate education. Researchers have cited insufficient training as a barrier to integrating physical activity into clinical work, yet little is known about effective training in physical activity counseling. One way to address these barriers is to employ an online-based training program allowing greater accessibility for doctoral psychology students across the United States. This exploratory study evaluated the effectiveness of a constructivist online interactive intervention, and compared it with a more traditional online content intervention and a control group, for enhancing doctoral psychology students’ self-efficacy in using physical activity counseling. It was hypothesized that 1) online interactive intervention would enhance self-efficacy, knowledge, and use of physical activity counseling compared to the online content intervention; and 2) both of these active treatments would yield improvements in physical activity counseling outcomes (e.g. self-efficacy, knowledge of health benefits of exercise, practice of physical activity counseling with clients, and personal level physical activity) compared with a control group. Results partially supported the original hypotheses. Mixed ANCOVA analyses indicated that participants in both intervention groups showed more self-efficacy at post-intervention assessment compared to their control group peers but the interactive intervention was not more effective than the content based intervention. Participants in the intervention groups demonstrated more targeted knowledge of physical activity counseling at post-intervention compared to their control group peers. No differences were found in the practice of physical activity counseling with clients post intervention. This study indicates there may be promise in using online platforms for enhancing physical activity counseling self-efficacy among psychologists in training. Future studies should continue to assess the effectiveness of physical activity counseling and refine training interventions to examine the effects of such interventions among the next generation of psychologists.

Water is critical for food production, food security, and health. Water quality management influences freshwater sustainability, land, and energy administration. Global agriculture accounts for more than 70% of all water consumption; the fertilizer, manure, and pesticide overspills are chief sources of water pollution worldwide. On a global scale, food-related waste directly impacts local food production and water resource management. The purpose of this multiple-case study on the food and beverage (FB) industry in the State of Georgia was to identify successful strategies for improving water management efficiency. The concepts of systems thinking, adaptive resource management, and integrated water resource management provided the conceptual framework for the study. Data were collected via personal interviews with 2 global supply chain leaders in the FB industry and 1 water expert in the public water utility system in Georgia. The findings showed 10 themes: sustainability; mission-driven culture; ethical responsibility; water quality and governance; food safety and sanitation; water conservation and climatic trends; waste management; nutrition and the freeze drying method; knowledge sharing and collaboration; and water detention and retention systems. The study results are intended to contribute to social change by providing information to global supply chain leaders, policy makers, entrepreneurs, and sustainability leaders to implement sustainability beyond the environmental value; these findings will also help achieve a positive posture on resource overconsumption and waste management for efficient and complex decision making within a worldwide spectrum.

Kurs: Ämnesfördjupande arbete i logistik och ekonomistyrning, 2FE02E, 2FE20E Författare: Therese Jakobsen och Matilda Magnussen Handledare: Petra Andersson Titel: Etiskt ansvarstagande – Med avstamp i de gap som kan uppstå mellan ett företags uppförandekod och en underleverantörs arbetssätt Bakgrund: I dagens samhälle krävs det att företag tar ett större etiskt ansvar och verkar för en hållbar utveckling. Det ansvarsfulla företaget är ett uttryck för det företag som aktivt arbetar med Corporate Social Responsibility. Ett verktyg i arbetet med det är att utveckla en uppförandekod, även kallat Code of Conduct som dikterar riktlinjer och normer företagets verksamhet ska genomsyras av. I och med detta uppmärksammas oetiskt beteende i en större utsträckning och tydliggör vikten av att arbeta aktivt med CSR. Vilket leder fram till en problemdiskussion om hur ett företag kan ta ett etiskt ansvar med avstamp i de gap som kan uppstå mellan ett företags Code Of Conduct och en underleverantörs arbetssätt. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att redogöra för den process som startar då företag misstänker att det finns ett gap mellan deras CoC och underleverantörers arbetssätt. Detta för att redogöra hur processen hanteras vid upptäckt av oetiskt gap med avstamp i ett inköpande företags CoC och en underleverantörs arbetssätt och belysa hur processen kan förbättras. Metod: Denna uppsats är en kvalitativ studie och bygger på expertintervjuer samt ett typföretag. Två konsulter som kan tituleras experter inom ämnet hållbarhet har intervjuats och ett typföretag har studerats. Urvalet av respondenter och företag är gjord via ett bekvämlighetsurval. Studien har positivistiskt synsätt och utgår från en analytisk induktion som angreppsätt. Slutsats: Hur processen utformas då ett företag misstänker ett oetiskt beteende hos en underleverantör varierar från fall till fall och beror på varför företaget tar ett etiskt ansvar och hur det appliceras i praktiken. Det finns en tydlig koppling mellan ekonomin och hållbar utveckling där ekonomin har en förmåga att både främja och stjälpa den hållbara utvecklingen. I arbetet med Corporate Social Responsibility och stävan efter hållbar utveckling är det bäst att agera i förebyggande syfte, anfall är bästa försvar. Nyckelord: CSR, hållbar utveckling, etiskt ansvarstagande, Code of Conduct, värdekedja, leverantörsrevisioner, process och arbetsmetod.