Temporal Immediacy Research Articles

The Effects of Moral Intensity and Moral Disengagement on Rule Violations: Occupational Safety in UK-based Construction Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic

AbstractWe take an ethics theory perspective to examine rule violations and workarounds in the UK construction industry in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK construction sector remained largely operational during lockdowns in the UK, providing an opportunity to explore the ways in which construction workers made ethical decisions in situ, related to health and safety at work, and COVID-19 rules. We conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with participants from 11 organisations (3 major construction companies and 8 subcontractors) during November 2021 to January 2022. Our qualitative analysis focused on coding responses based on the use of moral disengagement tactics, and the dimensions of moral intensity (magnitude of consequences, social consensus, probability of effect, temporal immediacy, proximity and, concentration of effect). We found instances of ethical dilemmas, including conflicts between compliance with organisational health and safety rules, and following COVID-19 rules. Our analysis showed that rule violations were often justified based on moral disengagement tactics, particularly cognitive reconstrual, obscuring personal agency, disregarding consequences and vilification of the victims. Furthermore, moral intensity played a significant role in making ethical decisions about violating rules. Moral intensity was most influential (across dimensions) for moral disengagement based on cognitive reconstrual (e.g., justifications for choosing to follow one set of rules over another). Social context was highly influential in workers’ ethical decisions, including organisational and group social norms, but wider societal attitudes towards the COVID-19 pandemic, also played a significant role. We discuss the implications for business ethics theory, policy and practice, including recommendations for businesses and policymakers.

Using the moral intensity framework to examine whether colleges should have reopened in late 2020 for in-person learning: an in-depth analysis of data from the United States with global implications for higher education

ABSTRACT The decision whether to reopen universities for in-person learning in late 2020 relied on ethical decision-making where the consequences were dire to the mission of the institution, health of the community, financial well-being of the institution and employees, and had political ramifications. The risks that universities faced worldwide included health risks to students, faculty, staff, and the community; financial risks to the institution and employees; and mission risks of the institution. Each of these risks had ethical implications. University reopening decisions were made in the United States as the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths were surging globally. Applying a moral intensity framework that assesses the in-person learning decision against six dimensions and using data collected from 62 universities, we show that social consensus and risk mitigation measures designed to reduce the magnitude of consequences and temporal immediacy were important factors in deciding to offer in-person classes. An ex-post facto analysis of COVID-19 infection and death data suggests that university administrators made an ethical decision. When facing a similar crisis management scenario in the future, a moral intensity framework could help university administrators worldwide understand the issues and allow them to make an ethical decision.

Ethical decision-making in purchasing channels: A context of developing B2B markets

ABSTRACT The present study analyses the responses of supply chain professionals facing certain ethical situations while performing their strategic tasks. The objective of this empirical investigation is to link the six dimensions of moral intensity (magnitude of consequences, proximity, probability of effect, social consensus, temporal immediacy, and concertation of effect) and two dimensions of ethical ideology (idealism and relativism) with three sequential phases of EDM (Ethical Decision Making), i.e. recognition, judgement, and intention, while purchasers are exposed to ethical dilemmas in B2B context. A mixed experimental research methodology was employed to analyse the responses of 289 purchasing professionals from a developing country. Six dimensions of moral intensity were manipulated into three conditions (Low, High, and Control) using 18 originally constructed purchase scenarios. The study’s findings reveal that idealism, relativism, and moral intensity are associated mainly with ethical decision-making stages. Among four sets of ethical ideologies, absolutists were found to be more ethical. The study concludes by giving future research directions and implications for practitioners.

Εὐθύς and Action in Aristotle’s Practical Syllogism

Aristotle says that conclusions of practical syllogisms are actions that occur εὐθύς, which is normally translated to indicate temporal immediacy. Both aspects of this—that the conclusions are actions, and that they occur immediately—seem wrong. Interpreting εὐθύς as atemporal, specifically as indicating that nothing more is needed to explain the action, makes better sense of practical syllogisms and solves the problems raised by calling their conclusions actions.

The impact of cultural differences and moral intensity on ethical decision-making: evidence from France and China

The originality of this study lies in its investigation of cultural differences in the ethical decision-making process of purchasers. Our research mobilizes six scenarios that reproduce typical purchasing situations in France and China. A sample of 366 professional purchasers (203 French and 163 Chinese) was used to examine the six characteristics of the decision-making process developed by Jones (1991). Our research indicates that Chinese purchasers recognize ethical issues more than French purchasers and intend to act in a more ethical way regarding one dimension defined: proximity. By contrast, French purchasers intend to act in a more ethical way than Chinese buyers regarding three other dimensions: temporal immediacy, probability of effect and concentration of effect.

Prowling in London: Canines in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Dracula first appears in front of the British public in England not as a gentleman but in the form of “an immense dog.” This article reads Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) in the context of human-animal encounters happening on the streets of London when the fear of rabid dogs swept the city. Victorian urban projects aimed at building an urban structure securing human control over animals. Yet this vision was disrupted by the ubiquitous presence of stray dogs in London and their alleged infection with rabies. Dracula’s and Un-Dead Lucy’s prowling in London emblematize this threat of urban stray dogs. The novel’s narratives also prowl, emulating animal intelligence in the way they rely on instant perception lacking reflection and leading to a hunt. This temporal immediacy and chasing mobility of prowling narratives envision co-evolutionary intelligence, dissolving the human-animal binary which structured the domestication, or the anthropocentric urbanization, of the city.

Monetization of customer futures through machine learning and artificial intelligence based persuasive technologies

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to ascertain how real options investment perspective could be applied towards monetization of customer futures through the deployment of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI)-based persuasive technologies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors embarked on a theoretical treatise as advocated by scholars (Cornelissen, 2019; Barney, 2018; Cornelissen, 2017; Smithey Fulmer, 2012; Bacharach, 1989; Whetten, 1989; Weick,1989). Towards this end, theoretical argumentative logic was incrementally used to build an integrated perspective on the deployment of learning and AI-based persuasive technologies. This was carried out with strategic real options investment perspective to secure customer futures on m-commerce apps and e-commerce sites.FindingsM-commerce apps and e-commerce sites have been deploying ML and AI-based tools (referred to as persuasive technologies), to nudge customers for increased and quicker purchase. The primary objective was to increase engagement time of customers (at an individual level), grow the number of customers (at market level) and increase firm revenue (at an organizational level). The deployment of any persuasive technology entailed increased investment (cash outflow) but was also expected to increase the level of revenue and margin (cash inflow). Given the dynamics of market and the emergent nature of persuasive technologies, ascertaining favourable cash flow was challenging. Real options strategy provided a robust theoretical perspective to time the persuasive technology-related investment in stages. This helped managers to be on time with loading customer purchase with increased temporal immediacy. A real options investment space involving six spaces has also been developed in this conceptual work. These were Never Invest, Immediately Investment, Present-day Investment Possibility, Possibly Invest Later, Invest Probably Later and Possibly Never Invest.Research limitations/implicationsThe foundations of this study domain encompassed work done by an eclectic mix of scholars like from technology management (Siggelkow and Terwiesch, 2019a; Porter and Heppelmann, 2014), real options (Trigeorgis and Reuer, 2017; Luehrman, 1998a, 1998b), marketing intelligence and planning (Appel et al., 2020; Thaichon et al., 2019; Thaichon et al., 2020; Ye et al., 2019) and strategy from a demand positioning school of thought (Adner and Zemsky, 2006).Practical implicationsThe findings would help managers to comprehend what level of investments need to be done in a staggered manner. The phased way of investing towards the deployment of ML and AI-based persuasive technologies would enable better monetization of customer futures. This would aid marketing managers for increased customer engagement at the individual level, fast monetization of customer futures and increased number of customers and consumption on m-commerce apps and e-commerce sites.Originality/valueThis was one of the first studies to apply real options investment perspective towards the deployment of ML and AI-based persuasive technologies for monetizing customer futures.

Consistent and conflicting information in floods and bushfires impact risk information seeking, risk perceptions, and protective action intentions

A core challenge for emergency services agencies is encouraging people to take protective action in a noisy, information-rich environment. This challenge is heightened when the environment is filled with conflicting information. While investigations of conflicting information are prevalent in temporally distant health contexts such as smoking cessation, where the effects of the protective action (i.e., quitting) take years to be realised, studies have yet to examine the impact of conflicting information when the potential outcome of the protective action (e.g., saving your life) has greater temporal immediacy. In this study we compare how social cues (media, peers, commercial weather forecaster) and environmental cues (weather conditions) that are consistent/conflict with an emergency warning message, impact community risk information processing, risk perceptions, and protective action intentions. The research finds risk perception is higher and intention to undertake protective action and information sharing is more likely when there is consistency between the emergency warning message and the socio-environmental cues, whereas heuristic information processing, self-efficacy, and information seeking are more likely to occur in the presence of conflicting cues. The research moves beyond high-level discourse about conflicting information ‘causing confusion’ in the community to a more nuanced, empirical understanding of the complexities of conflicting information across multiple stages of the decision-making process, in a context with greater temporal immediacy for action. Practical suggestions are made for agencies managing conflicting information when the conflict comes from socio-environmental cues. Future research is warranted for replication and to test mitigation strategies for conflicting information.

La detención en flagrancia delictiva y su extensión al autor mediato en el delito de sicariato

It was investigated when the requirements of personal and temporal immediacy can be extended to the mediate perpetrator, for the arrest in flagrante delicto of the immediate perpetrator, in the crime of hitman in Peru. To achieve the objectives of the investigation, a sample consisting of 14 cases of hit men at the local, national and international level, in the period 2015-2020; as well as statistical information on the alleged causes of the hitman in Peru and its incidence, in the period 2015 - 2017; To obtain information on the study variables, 100 criminal lawyers from Trujillo were considered; The techniques of documentary analysis and the survey were used. The information obtained was statistically processed and the results were discussed with the general methods of Science and particular of Law. It was determined that personal and temporal immediacy, as requirements for the arrest in flagrante delicto of the immediate perpetrator in the crime of hitman, may be extended to the mediate perpetrator when within 48 hours of the preliminary investigation the third assumption of article 446.1.c of Criminal Procedure Code on the evident elements of conviction that have been accumulated in the preliminary proceedings, after the defendant's declaration.

In context: emotional intent and temporal immediacy of contextual descriptions modulate affective ERP components to facial expressions.

In this study, we explored how contextual information about threat dynamics affected the electrophysiological correlates of face perception. Forty-six healthy native Swedish speakers read verbal descriptions signaling an immediate vs delayed intent to escalate or deescalate an interpersonal conflict. Each verbal description was followed by a face with an angry or neutral expression, for which participants rated valence and arousal. Affective ratings confirmed that the emotional intent expressed in the descriptions modulated emotional reactivity to the facial stimuli in the expected direction. The electrophysiological data showed that compared to neutral faces, angry faces resulted in enhanced early and late event-related potentials (VPP, P300 and LPP). Additionally, emotional intent and temporal immediacy modulated the VPP and P300 similarly across angry and neutral faces, suggesting that they influence early face perception independently of facial affect. By contrast, the LPP amplitude to faces revealed an interaction between facial expression and emotional intent. Deescalating descriptions eliminated the LPP differences between angry and neutral faces. Together, our results suggest that information about a person’s intentions modulates the processing of facial expressions.

From ‘exorcism’ to engagement: the private sphere of perpetratorship in twenty-first century South African documentary film

ABSTRACT Documentary film is one way people attempt to grapple with the aftermath of mass atrocity; most commonly, this has been done via victim-centric narratives. The twenty-first century has seen a shift in documentary film to also include but the perspective of the perpetrators of mass violence. In South Africa, this shift has temporally paralleled the country’s budding democracy, as well as the corresponding legacy of violence left by the apartheid regime. This article examines five South African focused documentaries using a framework which allows an exploration of the private and interpersonal aspects of perpetratorship, noting that the country’s official political process and vehicle for nation-building (namely, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) could not tell the whole story in its prescriptive and public nature, as well as in its temporal immediacy. Thus, this article is considering the role of perpetrator-focused documentary film within the South African social landscape, specifically the long-term and informal processes which may lead towards a potential for interpersonal reconciliation.

Strategic Temporal Immediacy: How a Subtle Change to Managers’ Language and the Use of Video in Earnings Conference Calls Jointly Impact Investors’ Willingness to Invest

CEOs can alter the temporal immediacy of their language (i.e., changing the tense of verbs and active vs. passive voice) in describing firm performance. For example, using temporal immediate language to describe good news would make it seem more immediate, and using temporal nonimmediate language to describe bad news would make it seem more distant. In an experiment, we examine whether a CEO’s effective use of this simple linguistic cue can successfully impact investors’ willingness to invest. Furthermore, as video communication of earnings conference calls has become more popular, our study also investigates this linguistic effect in both text and video formats. We predict and find that investors are more likely to increase their investment willingness when managers effectively use temporally immediate language to describe positive news and temporally nonimmediate language to describe negative news than otherwise. However, such an effect only exists with text communication but not with video communication. Our findings have important implications for investors, managers, and regulators.

Temporalities of mental distress: digital immediacy and the meaning of 'crisis' in online support.

The Internet is increasingly used to seek support by those suffering with mental distress (Bauman, S. and Rivers, I. Mental Health and the Digital Age. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 2015). Drawing on research on a major online peer support forum, we analyse discussions around acute distress, self-harm and suicide. The paper argues that new temporalities of mental health 'crisis' are emerging through the intersection of the immediacy of online support, the chronicity of underlying distress and the punctuated nature of professional support. Online support adds a layer of temporal immediacy that does not traditionally feature in other forms of support (e.g. professional in-person services). This shifts the meaning of a mental health 'crisis' from acute to processual, and can lead to definitions of 'crisis' being used when not desired nor necessarily accurate. By attending to the layering of temporalities at the intersections of professional in-person, and online support, we demonstrate how parameters of crisis support are set - by whom, for whom and in relation to whose bodies. This has implications for professional clinical practice internationally in relation to the increased digitisation of support and the meanings of 'crisis' that emerge.

Information protection behaviors: morality and organizational criticality

PurposeOrganizational insiders play a critical role in protecting sensitive information. Prior research finds that moral beliefs influence compliance decisions. Yet, it is less clear what factors influence moral beliefs and the conditions under which those factors have stronger/weaker effects. Using an ethical decision-making model and value congruence theory, this study aims to investigate how moral intensity and organizational criticality influence moral beliefs and intentions to perform information protection behaviors.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses were tested using a scenario-based survey of 216 organizational insiders. Two of the scenarios depict low criticality information security protection behaviors and two depict high criticality behaviors.FindingsA major finding is that users rely more on perceived social consensus and magnitude of consequences when organizational criticality is low and on temporal immediacy and proximity when criticality is high. In addition, the moral intensity dimensions explain more variance in moral beliefs when organizational criticality is low.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited by its sample, which is organizational insiders at a mid-size university. It is also limited in that it only examined four of the six moral intensity dimensions.Practical implicationsThe findings can guide management about which moral intensity dimensions are more important to focus on when remediating tone at the top and other leadership weaknesses relating to information security.Originality/valueThis study adds value by investigating the separate dimensions of moral intensity on information protection behaviors. It also is the first to examine moral intensity under conditions of low and high organizational criticality.

The impact of moral philosophy and moral intensity on purchase behavior toward sustainable textile and apparel products

This study investigated the causal–effect relationships among moral philosophy, moral intensity, and purchase behavior toward environmentally sustainable textile and apparel products. A research model incorporating two dimensions of moral philosophy (i.e., idealism and relativism), five dimensions of moral intensity (i.e., magnitude, probability, temporal immediacy, proximity, and social consensus), and purchase behavior toward sustainable textile and apparel products was tested using consumer data collected from a wide age range of Korean females through online surveys. Organic and naturally dyed textile and apparel products were selected as focal interests of this study due to the significance of the two product markets in Korea. The results revealed that, of the two dimensions of moral philosophy, only idealism had a significant impact on overall moral intensity and moral intensity had a significant impact on consumer purchase behavior toward sustainable textile and apparel products, which confirmed the sequential relationship among the variables. As the first attempt, to our knowledge, to apply an ethical view to environmentally sustainable textile and apparel product consumption, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the determinants of sustainable textile and apparel consumption among Korean consumers and the development of effective marketing communication strategies targeting Korean consumers.

Temporal Immediacy: A Two-System Theory of Mind for Understanding and Changing Health Behaviors.

Health promotion and chronic disease management both require behavior change, but people find it hard to change behavior despite having good intentions. The problem arises because patients' narratives about experiences and intentions are filtered through memory and language. These narratives inaccurately reflect intuitive decision-making or actual behaviors. We propose a principle-temporal immediacy-as a moderator variable that explains which of two mental systems (narrative or intuitive) will be activated in any given situation. We reviewed multiple scientific areas to test temporal immediacy as an explanation for findings. In an iterative process, we used evidence from philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics, symptom science, and ecological momentary assessment to develop our theoretical perspective. These perspectives each suggest two cognitive systems that differ in their level of temporal immediacy: an intuitive system that produces behavior in response to everyday states and a narrative system that interprets and explains these experiences after the fact. Writers from Plato onward describe two competing influences on behavior-often with moral overtones. People tend to identify with the language-based narrative system and blame unhelpful results on the less accessible intuitive system, but neither is completely rational, and the intuitive system has strengths based on speed and serial processing. The systems differ based on temporal immediacy-the description of an experience as either "now" or "usually"-with the intuitive system generating behaviors automatically in real time and the narrative system producing beliefs about the past or future. The principle of temporal immediacy is a tool to integrate nursing science with other disciplinary traditions and to improve research and practice. Interventions should build on each system's strengths, rather than treating the intuitive system as a barrier for the narrative system to overcome. Nursing researchers need to study the roles and effects of both systems.

A structural model of intrinsic motivation: On the psychology of means-ends fusion.

The term intrinsic motivation refers to an activity being seen as its own end. Accordingly, we conceptualize intrinsic motivation (IM) as (perceived) means-ends fusion and define an intrinsicality continuum reflecting the degree to which such fusion is experienced. Our means-ends fusion (MEF) theory assumes four major antecedents of activity-goal fusion: (a) repeated pairing of the activity and the goal, (b) uniqueness of the activity-goal connection, (c) perceived similarity between the activity and its goal, and (d) temporal immediacy of goal attainment following the activity. MEF theory further identifies two major consequences of the activity-goal fusion (i.e., manifestations of intrinsic motivation): (a) perceived instrumentality of the activity to goal attainment and consequent activity engagement, and (b) goal-related affective experience of the activity. Empirical evidence for MEF theory comes from diverse fields of psychological inquiry, including animal learning, brain research, and social cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record

You are where you go, the commodification of daily life through ‘location’

Recent years have seen an explosion in the investment into and valuation of mobile spatial applications. With multiple applications currently valued at well over one billion U.S. dollars, mobile spatial applications and the data they generate have come to play an increasingly significant role in the function of late capitalism. Empirically based upon a series of interviews conducted with mobile application designers and developers, this article details the creation of a digital commodity termed ‘location.’ ‘Location’ is developed through three discursive poles: Its storing of space and time as digital data object manipulable by code, its spatial and temporal immediacy, and its ability to ‘add value’ or ‘tell a story’ to both end-users and marketers. As a commodity it represents the sum total of targeted marking information, including credit profiles, purchase history, and a host of other information available through data mining or sensor information, combined with temporal immediacy, physical location, and user intent. ‘Location’ is demonstrated to exist as a commodity from its very inception and, as such, to be a key means through which everyday life is further entangled with processes of capitalist exploitation.

Synchronous and proportional deglacial changes in Atlantic meridional overturning and northeast Brazilian precipitation

AbstractChanges in heat transport associated with fluctuations in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) are widely considered to affect the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), but the temporal immediacy of this teleconnection has to date not been resolved. Based on a high‐resolution marine sediment sequence over the last deglaciation, we provide evidence for a synchronous and near‐linear link between changes in the Atlantic interhemispheric sea surface temperature difference and continental precipitation over northeast Brazil. The tight coupling between AMOC strength, sea surface temperature difference, and precipitation changes over northeast Brazil unambiguously points to a rapid and proportional adjustment of the ITCZ location to past changes in the Atlantic meridional heat transport.

The use of bed sediments in water quality studies and monitoring programs

Abstract. In most water quality monitoring programs, either filtered water (dissolved) or suspended sediment (either whole water or separated suspended sediment) are the traditional sample media of choice. This results both from regulatory requirements and a desire to maintain consistency with long-standing data collection procedures. Despite the fact that both bed sediments and/or flood plain deposits have been used to identify substantial water quality issues, they rarely are used in traditional water quality monitoring programs. The usual rationale is that bed sediment chemistry does not provide the temporal immediacy that can be obtained using more traditional sample media (e.g., suspended sediment, water). However, despite the issue of temporal immediacy, bed sediments can be used to address/identify certain types of water quality problems and could be employed more frequently for that purpose. Examples where bed sediments could be used include: (1) identifying potential long-term monitoring sites/water quality hot spots, (2) establishing a water quality/geochemical history for a particular site/area, and (3) as a surrogate for establishing mean/median chemical values for suspended sediment.