Daniel E. Martin and Benjamin Austin
The purpose of this paper is to introduce practitioners to the appropriate use of measures of unethical behaviour, evaluate the use of integrity‐related assessments for use in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce practitioners to the appropriate use of measures of unethical behaviour, evaluate the use of integrity‐related assessments for use in personnel selection, and determine the validity of the moral competency index (MCI) instrument using standard validation procedures.
Design/methodology/approach
Content, construct, convergent and discriminant approaches are applied to establish the relative validity of the assessment tool.
Findings
The results of the MCI purport to align with one's moral values and behaviours. The paper establishes face validity of the MCI measure, but fails to establish an appropriate simple factor structure, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and support for the lack of impact of demographic factors on the purported measure of moral intelligence.
Research limitations/implications
An acceptable but constrained (working students) sample was used in the validation.
Practical implications
Researchers and practitioners should be familiar with psychometric principles to ensure the use of valid tools in a predictive and defensible manner. New measures can be developed, but should be validated before being used for developmental or personnel decision‐making purposes.
Originality/value
This paper establishes the lack of validity associated with the MCI instrument; researchers and practitioners are exposed to considerations in the appropriate use of measures of unethical behaviour, and exposed to several previously validated integrity‐related assessments for use in personnel decision‐making.
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Mary V. Alfred, Ph.D. is an associate dean for Research and Faculty Affairs and professor of Adult Education and Human Resource Development in the College of Education and Human…
Abstract
Mary V. Alfred, Ph.D. is an associate dean for Research and Faculty Affairs and professor of Adult Education and Human Resource Development in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University. Her research interests include learning and development among women of the African Diaspora, socio-cultural contexts of immigration, welfare reform and women's economic development, and issues of equity and social justice in higher education and in the workplace. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Administration with a focus in Adult Education and Human Resource Development Leadership from the University of Texas at Austin.
US regional economic disparities.
Details
DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB242084
ISSN: 2633-304X
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Topical
Gianfranco Cecchin, Pietro Barbetta and Dario Toffanetti
What is therapy? Which would be today Heinz von Foerster's answer? The authors try to unveil the mystery of an answer coming from a conversation among them. They think that Heinz…
Abstract
Purpose
What is therapy? Which would be today Heinz von Foerster's answer? The authors try to unveil the mystery of an answer coming from a conversation among them. They think that Heinz von Foerster, like Gregory Bateson, was one of the most influential philosopher of therapy. In the paper they analyse some very basic key words – like trivial machine, human becoming – and key concepts – like “broaden the field of possible” – in order to understand if there is an order or a purpose in doing therapy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a confrontation between epistemology and therapy. The trick is that, unlike von Foerster, the authors are therapists. So probably their conversation will not be reliable. But usually therapists, in doing therapy, do not look for reliability. They try to be accountable, which is a different issue.
Findings
Probably therapy is a language game. If yes, the language game of therapy is a trick without a trickster. A map in a stranger land. That can be considered the main finding which follows from von Foerster's thought.
Practical implications
Nevertheless, such a wrong map sometimes could help who is lost, provided that map and territory will never be the same thing.
Originality/value
The original value of the paper is, first of all that it can be considered the last essay written by Gianfranco Cecchin before his death. In the very last period of his life Cecchin was considering and sounding a new perspective for therapy. Pietro Barbetta and Dario Toffanetti were working with him in therapy and theoretically to find new frames for therapies in the post‐modern era.
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Esther Obonyo, Chimay Anumba and Tony Thorpe
The successful implementation of an optimal online system for specification and procurement has been impeded by the existence of semi‐structured or non‐structured product…
Abstract
Purpose
The successful implementation of an optimal online system for specification and procurement has been impeded by the existence of semi‐structured or non‐structured product information held in catalogues in various formats. Consequently, a significant amount of time is spent in gathering relevant information. Proposes introducing a successful optimal online specification and procurement system for construction products.
Design/methodology/approach
The design and specification of the prototype were based on the analysis of closely related agent‐based implementations in various domains.
Findings
In the development phase it emerged that agent infrastructure is still maturing, even when a stable development environment is finally available. This is consistent with the latest research in this area which places the highest value on internet agents within the context of the semantic web.
Originality/value
This research demonstrated how agent technology can be used alongside other paradigms such as web services and XML to make the specification and procurement of construction products more effective and more efficient.
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The political landscape that has been unfolding since the attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 has created an urgent imperative for a reappraisal of the place of…
Abstract
The political landscape that has been unfolding since the attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 has created an urgent imperative for a reappraisal of the place of individual force within philosophies of violence, particularly those that are directed to law. An extensive critique of the relation between law and violence has emerged around the works of philosophers, such as Walter Benjamin, Franz Fanon, Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben (1998, In: D.H. Roazen (Trans.), Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. California: Stanford University Press), but it is questionable whether any of these provide us with the conceptual tools with which to address what is being presented (correctly or otherwise) as a particular problematic of the 21st century. Indeed, I would argue that a certain intellectual malaise surrounds discussion around individual force and that this state of affairs is in large measure due to the way in which critical theory and philosophy has addressed questions concerning the relation between individual violence and the juridical order. Without exception such accounts declare that individual violence undermines the authority of law itself. The following seeks to interrogate this contention and in doing so to begin to construct a more nuanced way of conceiving how the law preserves its authority.
In In Re Widening of Beekman Street, a nineteenth century legal case in New York State which involved questions of who owned the bodies of the dead – whether it was the state, the…
Abstract
In In Re Widening of Beekman Street, a nineteenth century legal case in New York State which involved questions of who owned the bodies of the dead – whether it was the state, the church who owned the land where they were buried or the relatives of the deceased – we see an interesting legal aporia. Claims of ownership were complicated by the idea that the dead perhaps owned themselves, having once been full legal subjects. In this and other legal cases in US law (with similar results in the UK as well) a kind of compromise is reached where, as the body decays, the question of its self-ownership becomes increasingly settled in favour of other parties. Yet, even in such cases, the body and its sense of personhood lingers to haunt, as it were, the certainties of law about who precisely owns whom The uncertainties that are made manifest among the dead have their equivalents among the living as well; the presence of slavery at the time meant that in some cases even living persons did not own themselves. In this mix of overlapping forms of self and other ownership then, we see an anxiety in the law, one that it must settle definitively even as the very terms of legal personhood resist the very closure that the law seeks.
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Daniel Reich, Ira Lewis, Austin J. Winkler, Benjamin Leichty and Lauren B. Bobzin
The purpose of this paper is to help optimize sustainment logistics for US Army brigade combat teams, which may face challenges in transporting their assigned assets.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to help optimize sustainment logistics for US Army brigade combat teams, which may face challenges in transporting their assigned assets.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper develops a simulation framework with an integrated integer programming optimization model. The integer-programming model optimizes sustainment outcomes of supported battalions on a daily basis, whereas the simulation framework analyzes risk associated with shortfalls that may arise over the entire duration of a conflict.
Findings
This work presents a scenario reflecting the steady resupply of an infantry brigade combat team during combat operations and presents an in-depth risk analysis for possible fleet compositions.
Originality/value
The risk curves obtained allow decision-makers and commanders to optimize vehicle fleet design in advance of a conflict.