Notion Of Social Responsibility Research Articles

Parental decisions about vaccination: Collective values are important

Tarrant and Thompson report a study of parental perceptions and attitudes to vaccination in a highly immunised population. Such information is important in understanding and drawing out elements of a successful immunisation programme. What then are the insights from this study that might translate to other population settings? This study, looking at childhood immunisation through the lens of the parent, supports the existing knowledge on what makes an immunisation programme successful.1 These ranged from individual cognitions and attitudes to family and social factors to system factors. Individuals perceived the benefits of vaccines as outweighing the risks. These positive perceptions were supported by aspects of the social environment, including beliefs about infectious disease threats, ideas of social responsibility, high levels of declared trust in authorities, a willingness to conform and a strong sense of societal responsibility. Finally, success was achieved with system factors, including free, comprehensive and accessible child health services and mandatory vaccination for school entry. Australia's success in achieving high immunisation rates, at least 93% for two-year-olds,2 is a result of a similar range of factors, with the exception of mandatory vaccination. Of note, mandatory vaccination may offer little advantage when other system factors and inducements contribute to timely high coverage of vaccines in young children.3 However, in societies with high vaccination rates, and a low incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases, the perceived threat of disease may be lower and people may see immunisation as unnecessary. Clearly, an understanding of vaccination as a wider social good is important, and countries such as Hong Kong appear to have key cultural elements to support this. Do parents in Western countries like Australia lack the same kind of ideological support for vaccination as the authors suggest? We would argue that notions of social responsibility and the collective good are important, but less manifest aspects of vaccine decision making. Studies from the USA and Australia have revealed what many health professionals assume to be the ‘missing elements’ in cognitive processes regarding vaccination.4,5 That is, decisions to immunise are mediated in part by what other parents are perceived to be doing, by what one feels he or she should do and by notions of what it means to be a ‘good’ citizen and parent. A US study by Hershey et al. tested the extent to which a regard for others influenced vaccination decisions. They concluded that people were more likely to vaccinate if they perceived others were doing so (known as bandwagoning). Parents could also be motivated by altruism if vaccination was urged in that way.4 A 1999 Sydney study found that, in their support for vaccination, parents not only valued the benefits of protecting their own individual child but mothers from a range of socio-economic and educational backgrounds also understood and appreciated the social nature of the vaccination decision.5 For some, vaccination was a way of contributing to the health of the broader community and future generations. As a result, some conveyed a strong intolerance of people who forego vaccination for their children because unvaccinated children were seen as a threat to others. These findings challenge the assumption that parents in developed countries are ‘more focused on individual rights’ and are not able to see value in the contribution to the health of others that vaccination brings. What does this mean for the clinician encountering a parent who is not sure about vaccination? For parents to make informed decisions about vaccination, they need to understand both its risks and benefits, including societal benefits. Informing parents that their decision to have their children vaccinated will provide protection for their own children and others is an important aspect of vaccine-risk communication and should not be overlooked on the assumption that parents in Western countries might only consider their own children when deciding about vaccination.

Autonomous choices and patriotic professionalism: On governmentality in late-socialist China

This paper argues that choice and autonomy constitute important new techniques of governing in late-socialist China. College students no longer receive direct state job assignments upon graduation, going instead to job fairs where they experience a degree of autonomy from state planning organs that was not available under high socialism's central planning. Yet even as post-Mao governmental rationalities have promoted autonomous decisions, young professionals’ experiences of choice have remained framed within notions of social responsibility and patriotism. This paper examines how both neoliberal governmentality and a nationalism steeped in Maoist notions of state strength, achieved today through reform-era economic competitiveness, are intertwined in the emergence of what is called ‘patriotic professionalism’.

Social Responsibility and the Mental Health Professions

Summary While mental health professionals tend to primarily focus on their professional responsibilities toward the specific members of the public whom they serve, many are also concerned about positively impacting the broader society or culture in which they live and work. This notion of social responsibility is addressed in the ethics codes of both psychologists and social workers. This article reviews how this notion is addressed for these two mental health professions and also examines the changes that have occurred for psychologists between the 1992 and 2002 ethics codes. Finally, some general issues regarding the role of mental health professionals in changing society are considered.

Pause to Reflect: Exploring Teachers' Notions of Social Responsibility

Pause to Reflect: Exploring Teachers' Notions of Social Responsibility

Moral accountability: motives for corporate social responsibility

Social well-being has been considered an institutional construct based on choices by economic and political concerns over how to alleviate disparities in production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. These choices may be based on moral, as well as economic, concerns. This seems to imply a sense of responsibility which may, but not necessarily, fall to corporate decision makers concerned with the workings of an economic market. These decision makers are driven by a variety of motives. My primary interest is in the components of human well-being, the design of institutions that seek to realise, among many goals, the notion of social responsibility, and what motivates these types of decision makers.

Fighting poverty in the US and Europe: a world of difference

As events highlight deep divisions in attitudes between America and Europe, this is a very timely study of different approaches to the problems of domestic inequality and poverty. Based on careful and systematic analysis of national data, the authors describe just how much the two continents differ in their level of State engagement in the redistribution of income. Discussing various possible economic explanations for the difference, they cover different levels of pre-tax income, openness, and social mobility; they survey politico-historical differences such as the varying physical size of nations, their electoral and legal systems, and the character of their political parties, as well as their experiences of war; and they examine sociological explanations, which include different attitudes to the poor and notions of social responsibility. Most importantly, they address attitudes to race, calculating that attitudes to race explain half the observed difference in levels of public redistribution of income. This important and provocative analysis will captivate academic and serious lay readers in economics and welfare systems.

Corporations and the Ethics of Social Responsibility: An Emerging Regime of Expansion and Compliance

Corporate ethics has undergone significant change in response to environmental issues, and is beginning to evolve further in response to emerging notions of social responsibility, defined in terms of human rights issues. Three dimensions of ethical behaviour – national, international and theoretical – are defined and illustrated through three case studies. The increasingly complex interaction between two of the dimensions, national and international in a global context, poses a significant challenge to corporations attempting to develop and extend best practices. Essentially, that challenge is not only one of corporate compliance, either voluntary or enforced by a system of regulatory and legal measures, but also a question of responsibility for damage or abuse. Three cases are presented which illustrate the complexity of the interactions. The Simon Jones case emphasises the dangers of casual work in multinational labour transactions, and the shortcomings of national remedies even in an advanced economy such as the UK. The second case, Tommy Hilfiger et al., raises a complex set of questions regarding national and international responsibility for compensation in developing economies. The third case, the Royal/Dutch Shell Group, serves as a model of voluntary corporate reform designed to bridge the gap between principles and practice both nationally and internationally.

Mill's Notion of Social Responsibility

Mill's Notion of Social Responsibility

TOWARD A SPECIFICATION OF BUSINESS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

I This paper suggests a framework within which the notion of social responsibility may be operationalised in the enterprise. The thrust of the model which is presented is toward a more efficient allocation of a firm's resources, incorporating social costs and benefits into the capital budgeting decision. It may be argued that the approach which is taken considers only the economic role of the modern corporate institution. The corporation was created and supported by society because it fulfilled certain societal needs (Including economic ones). These needs or priorities are continually changing, thereby demanding that the corporation respond to new societal aspirations. Nevertheless, the business enterprise is still a predominantly economic institution, justifying the following emphasis on the efficiency with which it performs its economic function. An understanding of the rationale for the proposed model is best gained by a brief review of the foundations upon which the notion of social responsibility is based.