Unethical Actions Research Articles

Impacts of Data Synthesis: A Metric for Quantifiable Data Standards and Performances

Clinical data analysis could lead to breakthroughs. However, clinical data contain sensitive information about participants that could be utilized for unethical activities, such as blackmailing, identity theft, mass surveillance, or social engineering. Data anonymization is a standard step during data collection, before sharing, to overcome the risk of disclosure. However, conventional data anonymization techniques are not foolproof and also hinder the opportunity for personalized evaluations. Much research has been done for synthetic data generation using generative adversarial networks and many other machine learning methods; however, these methods are either not free to use or are limited in capacity. This study evaluates the performance of an emerging tool named synthpop, an R package producing synthetic data as an alternative approach for data anonymization. This paper establishes data standards derived from the original data set based on the utilities and quality of information and measures variations in the synthetic data set to evaluate the performance of the data synthesis process. The methods to assess the utility of the synthetic data set can be broadly divided into two approaches: general utility and specific utility. General utility assesses whether synthetic data have overall similarities in the statistical properties and multivariate relationships with the original data set. Simultaneously, the specific utility assesses the similarity of a fitted model’s performance on the synthetic data to its performance on the original data. The quality of information is assessed by comparing variations in entropy bits and mutual information to response variables within the original and synthetic data sets. The study reveals that synthetic data succeeded at all utility tests with a statistically non-significant difference and not only preserved the utilities but also preserved the complexity of the original data set according to the data standard established in this study. Therefore, synthpop fulfills all the necessities and unfolds a wide range of opportunities for the research community, including easy data sharing and information protection.

The Impact of Trust on the Relations between Ethical Leadership and Internal Whistleblowing Intention

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of trust on the relationship between ethical leadership and internal whistleblowing intention. The study was motivated by the lack of willingness of organization members to blow the whistle on misconduct or unethical action internally compared to external whistleblowing. The willingness to blow the whistle internally is crucial, particularly to prevent negative impacts on the organization's performance and reputation. Using a quantitative method through a survey, this study examines 140 Indonesian public servants from one of the government directorates focused on perceptions of trust, ethical leadership, and internal whistleblowing intention. Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and Partial Least Square (PLS), this study unveiled that the length of working periods determines the trust development. Meanwhile, feelings are key to an affective trust that influences ethical leadership to encourage the willingness of organization members to intentionally whistleblowing misconduct or unethical action internally.

Bell Pottinger And The Dark Art Of Public Relations

The spurious and unethical actions of the renowned global public relations (PR) firm Bell Pottinger in early 2017 cast a dark cloud over the PR industry in general. Aside from the economic and sociopolitical ramifications that emerged in the wake of this scandal, it has tainted the moral standing of all public relations professionals, including those in South Africa. There is little doubt that tactics such as offering to manipulate a client’s online reputation through the use of fake online accounts, newly created blog pages or fake online reviews are unethical, and take the industry back to a less glorious time in its history at a point when much emphasis is being placed on both ethics and values-based practice globally. Moral philosophy provides a basis for rationalising human motivation in decision making and action. However, it can be argued that there is potentially a mismatch between theories and moral frameworks created for individualistic cultures, and their application within communal cultures. Building social capital in any society begins with a commitment to support the collective interests of the community. Thus, any discussion of thevalue of ethical communication practice for society must begin with a concern for the nature and integrity of community. Against this background this article utilises the Bell Pottinger case study to examine the tensions that arise between individual values and communal PR practice, and to explore the moral implications of ethical PR practice in a communal context such as South Africa.

Identifying and Managing Toxic Employees for Sustainable Development of Polytechnics in Nigeria

This work attempts to draw up noticeable standards for identifying and managing toxic employees in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. It describes toxic employees as workers who contribute to decay in the school system by engaging in unethical activities which could endanger sustainability of the tertiary education system. The work identifies characteristics and mode of operation of toxic employees as sabotage of work processes, insensitivity to co- workers, negativity and being judgmental; engaging in activities such as blackmailing co- workers, opposition to authority, rudeness to parents, bullying and gate-taking such as hiding or withholding vital information. Toxic workers adopt character assassination, stealth, workplace politicking as their mode of operation. Within the education sector, they can be identified and managed through use of prevention at three levels: primary prevention at the point of job interview to possibly prevent entry; secondary prevention in the early period of employment in event of applicant breaching the first stage, and tertiary prevention: of outright termination of appointment if it is proven that an employee is toxic. Toxic employees are seen in the study to be capable of causing employers financial loses, embarrassments, withdrawals of good workers from the system, and lawsuits for abuses. For posterity sake, and the fact that prevention, they say, is better than cure, it is strongly recommended that proper assessment be conducted to fish out toxic workers from the school system for appropriate action, and furthermore, that government (through the respective Governing Councils and Management of these institutions) puts an end to employing unqualified personnel as a way of solving unemployment problems.

The Emotional Machiavellian: Interactions Between Leaders and Employees

This paper examines the emotional processes in Machiavellian leadership. The leadership literature portrays Machiavellians as ‘dark’ individuals that engage in unethical actions, causing employee dissatisfaction, distress, emotional exhaustion and high turnover. However, research has seldom questioned the processes behind these unethical and negative outcomes. This study explores Machiavellian emotional processes at multiple levels—within-persons and relational levels (between-persons and interpersonal interactions in organisations). In this study, emotions and leadership are not explored in isolation but as social processes that occur in relationships between leaders and employees in evolving organisational settings. This study draws on 20 participants from four large multi-national construction firms in Sri Lanka. Open-ended semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the emotions of Machiavellians in organisations. The findings suggest that Machiavellianism influences leader and employee emotional processes. Furthermore, the emotional processes, influenced by Machiavellianism, appear to facilitate the development of leader and employee relationships and emotional experiences at within-persons and relational levels in organisations.

When morally good employees become bad: the role of unethical requests and wrong judgments at the workplace

PurposeThis research focuses on the distinct group of high-status employees commonly referred to as workplace vigilantes, and conceptually investigates how unethical requests by these individuals impact the behavior and attitude of other employees over time using the social identity theory.Design/methodology/approachFor developing a conceptual model, literature from the domains of social identity, organizational behavior and general management was searched through Google Scholar. To search the literature, some key terms such as “unethical activities”, “Islamic work ethics” and “social identity” were searched and analyzed.FindingsUsing the social identity theory, a conceptual process model is developed which suggests that when high-status employees propose unethical requests to employees, individuals with high morality are likely to refuse those unethical requests to protect their self-categorizations. However, taking the unfair advantage of their illegitimate powers, high-status employees are likely to eventually make wrong judgments and give unnecessary punishments to moral employees. It is further argued that consistent victimization is likely to negatively impact the social identity of such employees and leads to irritability in moral employees, particularly when such individuals are unable to get the requisite social support from their leaders.Originality/valueWhile a considerable body of literature has focused on the antecedents and consequences of intense unethical business practices and the crucial role of leaders in such activities, limited attention has been given to the role of other employees and how they engage in mild unethical misconduct regularly, which is the key focus of this research. The novel conceptual framework needs to be tested in diverse contexts for further development and validation.

Implementation of an Intelligent Exam Supervision System Using Deep Learning Algorithms.

Examination cheating activities like whispering, head movements, hand movements, or hand contact are extensively involved, and the rectitude and worthiness of fair and unbiased examination are prohibited by such cheating activities. The aim of this research is to develop a model to supervise or control unethical activities in real-time examinations. Exam supervision is fallible due to limited human abilities and capacity to handle students in examination centers, and these errors can be reduced with the help of the Automatic Invigilation System. This work presents an automated system for exams invigilation using deep learning approaches i.e., Faster Regional Convolution Neural Network (RCNN). Faster RCNN is an object detection algorithm that is implemented to detect the suspicious activities of students during examinations based on their head movements, and for student identification, MTCNN (Multi-task Cascaded Convolutional Neural Networks) is used for face detection and recognition. The training accuracy of the proposed model is 99.5% and the testing accuracy is 98.5%. The model is fully efficient in detecting and monitoring more than 100 students in one frame during examinations. Different real-time scenarios are considered to evaluate the performance of the Automatic Invigilation System. The proposed invigilation model can be implemented in colleges, universities, and schools to detect and monitor student suspicious activities. Hopefully, through the implementation of the proposed invigilation system, we can prevent and solve the problem of cheating because it is unethical.

Unethical Ministerial Practices Among Some Ghanaian Pastors

In recent times, ministerial misconduct of Ghanaian pastors has become rampant in print, electronic and social media. How do we explain these acts of indecency perpetrated under the guise of freedom of religion by some ministers that identify with Christianity? What accounts for these behaviours? And what could be done to prevent such strange practices from escalating to disaster proportions? To answer these questions, data were collected from published literature and media reports. The study argues that the consistent unethical practices, activities, and utterances of some Ghanaian pastors negatively affect Christian ministry in Ghana. Focusing on some of the unethical ministerial practices and initiatives undertaken by these pastors, this article investigates the reasons responsible for their occurrences and proffers remedial suggestions. The study draws attention to uncaring shepherds, the seared conscience of some pastors, easily manipulated congregations, sleeping shepherds and the high demand for deliverance services by congregants as possible reasons that bring about these unethical ministerial practices. Finally, the article contends that to achieve a desired transformative Christian ministry in Ghana, the Church must pay attention to the religious practices of some pastors and if possible, find a way to regulate them.

Identity Crisis in the Young Generation of Bangladesh

Nowadays if we notice to our human world, we find that most of our social instability and insecurity is caused by our own members of Homo sapiens species; especially our young generation is engaging themselves in many unethical activities, violence and juvenile crimes forgetting their morality as well as identity based rules and regulations. It is going to be a matter of concern as well as an alarming matter all over the world. Like other countries Bangladesh is also facing this kind of challenges. According to the FBI statistics, most crimes are committed by adolescents. The rate of this involvement is alarming in Bangladesh; especially in Dhaka city. Now the question is what the causes behind this youth degradation are? If we notice deeply we will find that, the root cause of all unethical behaviors and activities of a human being is mainly caused by their identical instability or crisis, which invokes them to engage with inappropriate activities with their identity. In this article, we discussed about this important issue and tried to establish the root cause of youth degradation with explaining necessary terms, causes, providing real scenario of this crisis in young generation of Bangladesh and exploring overcoming strategies.

Enjoying music and movies without paying: examining factors affecting unauthorized downloading amongst young adults

PurposeAlong with their immense benefit, online channels of communication and information-sharing also present a myriad set of challenges. The unauthorized downloading and sharing of copyrighted content such as music and movies is one such issue. This study aims to examine the factors related to the unauthorized downloading of content amongst young internet users in an emerging market.Design/methodology/approachAn online structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data from 219 internet users between 17 and 24 years of age. The partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the primary data.FindingsThe study findings report that monetary savings and social influence are the main drivers underlying the propensity to engage in unauthorized downloading amongst young adults. Perceptions of harm caused to artists and producers appear to be a deterrent. Though the respondents perceive the quality of content downloaded from unauthorized sites to be less than desirable, and there is also a higher perceived threat from viruses, this does not appear to deter unauthorized downloading behaviour amongst this segment of consumers.Research limitations/implicationsCombating unauthorized downloading and other forms of questionable online behaviours is a challenge for multiple stakeholders. Consumption of unauthorized digital content is examined in the context of online consumers whose demographic profile is often associated with this category of questionable behaviour. The study adds to the extant understanding of the aetiology of what are often considered online unethical and illegal behaviours and makes both practical and theoretical contributions to the subject field.Originality/valueThe study examines an important aspect of rapidly evolving internet technologies. The internet provides a veil to individuals engaging in unethical online activities. Despite the existence of laws declaring these activities to be illegal, instances of copyright violations of music and movies abound. The insights regarding the drivers and deterrents of a form of online unauthorized activity are used to present a set of strategies aimed at addressing such behaviours.

Using event-related brain potentials to explore the temporal dynamics of decision-making related to information security.

Insider threat from individuals operating within an organization presents a significant source of violations of information security. Our previous research has used scalp recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and the Information Security Paradigm (ISP) to identify the neural correlates of decision-making processes related to violations of information security. In the current study, we sought to expand this research by examining the effects of two variables that were drawn from the broader decision-making literature (i.e., the benefactor and delay of a reward) on ERPs measured in the ISP. In the ISP we varied whether Josh—a hypothetical IT specialist—or a significant other was the benefactor of a violation, and whether the benefit of a violation was received after a short or long delay. The choice data revealed that individuals were less likely to endorse an unethical action than a control action. The electrophysiological data revealed ERPs that differentiated ethical scenarios from control scenarios between 200 and 2,000 ms after onset of the decision prompt, distributed over the occipital, central, and lateral frontal regions of the scalp. These ERPs were insensitive to the benefactor and delay of the reward. In contrast, there was slow wave activity over the frontal-polar region that was sensitive to both variables. The current findings provide evidence for separable neural systems that are either generally related to ethical decision-making in the ISP or are sensitive to the benefactor or delay of a reward resulting from an unethical decision.

Towards Ethical AI: Empirically Investigating Dimensions of AI Ethics, Trust Repair, and Performance in Human-AI Teaming.

Determining the efficacy of two trust repair strategies (apology and denial) for trust violations of an ethical nature by an autonomous teammate. While ethics in human-AI interaction is extensively studied, little research has investigated how decisions with ethical implications impact trust and performance within human-AI teams and their subsequent repair. Forty teams of two participants and one autonomous teammate completed three team missions within a synthetic task environment. The autonomous teammate made an ethical or unethical action during each mission, followed by an apology or denial. Measures of individual team trust, autonomous teammate trust, human teammate trust, perceived autonomous teammate ethicality, and team performance were taken. Teams with unethical autonomous teammates had significantly lower trust in the team and trust in the autonomous teammate. Unethical autonomous teammates were also perceived as substantially more unethical. Neither trust repair strategy effectively restored trust after an ethical violation, and autonomous teammate ethicality was not related to the team score, but unethical autonomous teammates did have shorter times. Ethical violations significantly harm trust in the overall team and autonomous teammate but do not negatively impact team score. However, current trust repair strategies like apologies and denials appear ineffective in restoring trust after this type of violation. This research highlights the need to develop trust repair strategies specific to human-AI teams and trust violations of an ethical nature.

Evaluating Intelligent Methods for Detecting COVID-19 Fake News on Social Media Platforms

The advent of Internet-based technology has made daily life much easy than earlier days. The exponential rise in the popularity of social media platforms has not only connected people from faraway places, but has also increased communication among humans. However, in several instances, social media platforms have also been utilized for unethical and criminal activities. The propagation of fake news on social media during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has deteriorated the mental and physical health of people. Therefore, to control the flow of fake news regarding the novel coronavirus, several studies have been undertaken to automatically detect the fake news about COVID-19 using various intelligent techniques. However, different studies have shown different results on the performance of the predicting models. In this paper, we have evaluated several machine learning and deep learning models for the automatic detection of fake news regarding COVID-19. The experiments were carried out on two publicly available datasets, and the results were assessed using several evaluation metrics. The traditional machine learning models produced better results than the deep learning models in predicting fake news.

Winning a Prestigious Award and Unethical Behaviors of Chinese Pharmaceutical Firms

Building on institutional theories of legitimacy, this study explores the effect of winning a prestigious award on firms’ unethical behaviors. We argue that enhanced legitimacy of a subgroup in an industry due to a prestigious award can lead firms in such a subfield to commit fewer bribery activities because increased legitimacy can bring more resources to these firms and the need for bribery as an alternative channel for acquiring resources is reduced. In the context of Youyou Tu’s Nobel Prize win in 2015, where the use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in her research was emphasized, we find empirical support for our theoretical hypotheses as our results reveal that compared with firms focusing on Western medicines, TCM firms tended to commit fewer bribery acts after the announcement of the Nobel Prize win. We also demonstrate that factors affecting the supply and demand of bribery, including state ownership, firm profitability, regional marketization, and regional memory of foreign influences, could moderate the impact of Nobel Prize winning on a firm’s tendency to commit bribery. This study emphasizes the important role of legitimacy gained from winning a prestigious award in firms’ choices of unethical actions. It makes significant contributions to the literature on legitimacy, prestigious awards, and firm ethics.

Sources of Value co-creation, co-destruction and co-recovery at Airbnb in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT This study explored the sources of value co-creation, co-destruction and co-recovery amid the COVID-19 outbreak using 415 online reviews of guests’ experiences with Airbnb. Data analysis using the grounded theory approach identified two main sources: Airbnb’s customer service and hosts’ conduct. Four sub-themes (quality of interactions with customer service representatives, difficulties in achieving resolution, dissatisfaction or satisfaction with the resolution offered and costs incurred by the consumer) comprised the main theme of Airbnb’s customer service. Two sub-themes (the role of the host’s communication in service recovery and perceived unethical actions by the host) comprised the main theme of hosts’ conduct. The findings indicate that collaborative engagement in the restoration of service failure by actors results in value co-recovery.

The duke lacrosse scandal and ethics in prosecution

Ethics is one of the most critical issues for those who hold public offices, whether elected, appointive, or in the civil service. The issue is fundamental in the criminal justice sector since people’s lives, livelihoods, and liberty are at stake whenever individuals negatively interact with the criminal justice system. Wrong accusations, being followed by unfair convictions, can usually lead to a person losing decades of their life, for which there can never be compensation enough to cure the emotional pain and injustice. Some criminal justice professionals who have engaged in ethical misconduct include state and local police, federal agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), state and federal prosecutors, and judges who may be local, state, or federal. In the present case, the person who engaged in unethical conduct was Mike Nifong, district prosecutor in Durham, North Carolina. His actions had a significant impact on the community and continue to affect the perception of prosecutors in the US. The analysis illustrates that his unethical actions in prosecuting the matter had an intense effect on him, his profession, and other stakeholders. At the same time, the sanctions he received were inadequate because of the potential consequences of his actions.

The Advent of 21st Century International Sanctions Amid Human Rights Violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

International condemnation of the People’s Republic of China’s behavior in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region has amplified in recent years, sparking the implementation of sanctions targeting China’s economy and government. While these sanctions were created to mitigate China’s unethical actions, the effectiveness and potency of such policies remain questionable and thus require examination into the consequences of adopting economic and political sanctions. By contrasting the current circumstance to historical examples of sanctions directed at economic powerhouses, the results deem that current sanctions targeting China are tenuous and ineffective. In addition, the study exhibits that current sanctions are fueling further conflict between China and democratic western countries rather than solving the issue at hand.

Rural Poverty and Its Dimensions: Evidences from North-West Region of Pakistan

This paper analyzed the cause of poverty in rural areas of North- Western region of Pakistan. Poverty in rural areas of Pakistan is still considered as big dilemma and absolute hurdle to the development, by considering this issue this study was carried out in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province opting mix method approach. One (01) district from each of the four (04) agro-ecological regions of the province was selected purposively. The targeted study districts were Peshawar, Mansehra, D.I. Khan and Swat. From each study district, 100 respondents (rural residents) were randomly selected and personally interviewed. Total sample size of the study was 400 respondents for the collection of quantitative data. Additionally, focus group discussion meetings were also conducted for collecting qualitative data. A pretested interview schedule was used for the collection of quantitative date while an interview guide was used for qualitative data. Descriptive analytical techniques were used for quantitative data and content analysis method was used for qualitative data. Findings conclude that only 13.12% of the total area is cultivated by majority the rural population of the province. Financial constraints, derivation of basic needs, homelessness and facing discrimination were regarded as the attributes of poverty by the respondents. Limited access to income generation opportunities was regarded as the root cause of poverty with mean value of 4.86/5.00 followed by limited access to education (4.76/5.00). Lack of access to basic livelihood necessities (mean value=4.88) and basic human right (mean value=4.82) were regarded as most popular materialistic and non-materialistic impacts respectively of poverty in rural areas of the province. This deprivation in the province causes poverty and leads to the involvement in illegal and unethical activities by the rural residents specifically. Ending their deprivation in actual and eroding the sense of deprivation is the only solution that can be achieved by the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs) without any discrimination.

Does NGO Origin Influence Moral Judgment? A Study of the Attitudes of Algerian Participants Toward Foreign NGOs

Building on previous literature on corporate behavior, we examine the impact of an nongovernmental organization’s (NGO) foreign status on the moral judgment of its actions in a host country. Individuals in Algeria ( N = 450) rated the ethicality of analogous ethical and unethical actions of domestic (Algerian) and foreign NGOs (European). For ethical actions, a foreign NGO was considered less positively than a local NGO for two scenarios out of three. For unethical actions, a foreign NGO was judged more severely in one scenario only. These results suggest that foreign status can influence moral judgment in a way that is consistent with liability-of-foreignness effect predictions. A foreign-sounding denomination can put an NGO at a relative disadvantage compared with its domestic counterpart. Consequently, the denomination choice should be carefully examined.

Digital displacement of youth offending: addressing the issue

PurposeGlobal evidence suggests a potential displacement of youth offending from the physical to the digital landscape, requiring revision of existing detection and intervention methods. This study aims to explore pathways from harmful to illegal online activity perpetrated by young people, legislation and police perspectives, current detection methods and interventions.Design/methodology/approachThis perspective paper examines issues observed within a larger systematic literature review on digital youth offending.FindingsA trajectory from acceptable to harmful and subsequently illegal behaviour was identified, with a particular pathway from unethical video game activity to digitally dependent offending. Legislation and police perspectives vary by jurisdiction, with a common theme that increased officer education is key to the level of preparedness to investigate cases. Machine learning and automatic prevention show promise as detection and disruption processes, with education recommended for young people as a deterrent and redirection of skills to positive outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsRecommendations for further research include a broad survey of school students to include all identified areas of digital offending, which could drive the development of targeted education by law enforcement and partner agencies for young people.Practical implicationsThe shift in youth offending requires the justice and educational systems to adjust how they respond to youth crime. Policy and practise shifts can include further exploration of investigative hacking, education for law enforcement and educational prevention and redirection programmes aimed at youth.Originality/valueThe digital displacement of youth offending is a progressively emerging concept. This paper examines the current state of response from educational and law enforcement agencies and discusses the next steps based on what is currently known.