bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Re‐articulating the ethical corporation: the case of the Woolf Committee Report
Authors: Jensen Tommy , Sandström Johan 
Published: October 2010

PurposeEfforts to address the role and responsibilities of large global corporations have predominantly focused on the need for increased and more effective global corporate governance, but this underestimates the need to articulate a global ethics for these corporations. This paper aims to analyse the Woolf Committee Report (WCR; the weapon company BAE Systems plc's attempt to outline what it would take to become a global corporate leader in ethics) and benchmark it against an ethical response to corporate responsibility articulated as a global ethics.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a textual analysis of the WCR.FindingsThe WCR contains openings towards a re‐articulation of the role and responsibilities of large global corporations, but it is predominantly a text that gives us more clues to how difficult it will be for BAE, or any other corporation, to “live” a global ethics.Research limitations/implicationsCritical analyses of the language that corporations use in order to address their role and responsibilities are important. However, how texts influence practice is dependent on how they travel and more studies on such journeys are also needed.Practical implicationsGiven that textual analyses, such as ours, are re‐connected to practitioners, such studies might contribute to making practitioners more discursively aware of the corporate talk that they are embedded in.Originality/valueThe paper predominantly speaks to the field of business studies and its originality lies in its focus on a global ethics (without reducing this to governance) in relation to the role and responsibilities of large global corporations.
Re‐visiting HIV/AIDS in the workplace and HR work in Thai business organizations
Authors: Virakul Busaya , McLean Gary N. 
Published: October 2010

PurposeThe paper aims is to investigate human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and human resources (HR) management in Thai business organizations listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). The first such survey was reported on in 1998.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through questionnaires mailed twice to 534 HR managers, yielding 211 usable responses (39.5 per cent).FindingsFindings of both surveys were compared to identify changes. HIV/AIDS is not perceived to be a serious problem by Thai business organizations, and their executives do not view HIV/AIDS as an important workplace issue. This reflects an improvement since 1998. HR management has also improved. These improvements are due, in part, to national policies driven by Thai public institutions more than a decade ago. While there are improvements, there is still room for improvement. Many Thai business organizations still do not prepare themselves, policy‐wise, to deal with HIV/AIDS systematically.Research limitations/implicationsThe data were based on the perceptions of HR managers; SET organizations are leading business organizations in Thailand, but most businesses are small to medium‐sized; as HIV/AIDS is a sensitive issue. The real number of HIV/AIDS cases may not be accurate; while the two surveys included the same population, there is no way to know whether the same companies responded, so differences may not be real; and the number of companies in the food and beverage industry is under‐represented as respondents.Practical implicationsThe paper may be useful to business companies, especially Thai; government agencies; and non‐government agencies by understanding their critical roles in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS.Originality/valueThe paper findings may help businesses understand the HIV/AIDS situation in Thailand and their critical role in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS and lessening the difficulties that HIV/AIDS people face. They may also help government, public, and private HIV/AIDS‐prevention advocates to find ways to work together with business companies to strengthen and maintain HIV/AIDS policies and practices that can help control HIV/AIDS as Thailand has done in the recent past.
A review of Canadian corporate sustainable development reports
Authors: Davis Greg , Searcy Cory 
Published: October 2010

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to present the results of a content analysis of Canadian corporate sustainable development reports.Design/methodology/approachA comparison of existing content analyses of corporate sustainable development reports was conducted. Based on the comparison, eight key areas were identified for further research in the content analysis of Canadian corporate reports. A total of 89 reports were reviewed in the content analysis.FindingsThe content analysis highlighted several interesting trends in Canadian reporting. For example, the analysis highlighted that relatively few corporations explicitly identify the audience for the report, include an endorsement from the board chair, provide details on specific standards used for managing the supply chain, discuss linkages to public policy, or use third‐party assurance. The analysis also highlighted the wide variety in report structure.Research limitations/implicationsThe content analysis did not address all issues related to corporate sustainable development reporting. Numerous areas for further research were identified, such as focusing on how companies decide on what to include in the reports, how the reports are used, the accommodations made for specific audiences, challenges in auditing the reports, and future directions of company reporting.Originality/valueThe content analysis focused on several areas that have been highlighted in previous studies as well as areas that have not previously been investigated. The analysis is based on a larger sample size than the most recent Canadian studies. The research will be of interest to both research and practitioners in corporate sustainable development reporting.
Legitimating corporate global irresponsibility
Authors: Sionneau Bernard 
Published: October 2010

PurposeThe paper aims to explain why and how, in the USA, a very particular interpretation of economic liberalism, faring though different historical contexts, has generated, since the 1970s, a new kind of capitalism whose language, logic, legitimating paradigm and associated practices have become, thanks to “organic intellectuals” and active networks of power and influence, the “newspeak” and compass of chief executive officers from around the world, despite their always direst societal consequences.Design/methodology/approachUsing history as a support to investigate the domestic and international relations contexts that bore financialized globalization, the paper is strongly located into political sociology. As such, and if we consider that political sociology is the “science of power”, the paper tries to identify precisely the networks of power and influence which transformed a specific interpretation of liberalism and business into a dominant paradigm and specific kind of capitalism, in the USA and the rest of the world. The approach helps to understand which sets of ideas and authors were deemed worth supporting by business and political networks of power and influence and how both sides drew on their reciprocal resources to transform their cosmogonies into dominant paradigms and real politics (corporate and States).FindingsThe paper provides a global but precise understanding of the complex processes that allowed some vested interests to impose their vision of economics and business on a domestic, then world, scale. It also questions the relevancy of that vision according to a presentation of the negative societal externalities the associated policies generated and according to the official investigations that have been conducted on the corporate and banking misdemeanors that it contributed to generate.Practical implicationsThe paper illustrates a method of investigation that can be used to develop the “global view”, a prerequisite to making decisions in full knowledge of causes and consequences and thus a means to train future “globally responsible leaders”.Social implicationsBy revealing the hidden interests behind financialized globalization and the societal consequences of their power plays, the paper indirectly demonstrates the urgent need for an “alter‐economy” geared to meet the fundamental needs of societies and to preserve their natural environment in the long term.Originality/valueThe paper offers a different perspective on economics and business which is seldom presented in business schools where, owing to the discussed dominant ideology, politics is considered irrelevant to understand business and economics and where the latter are nearly always presented as vectors of good.
Institutionalizing idealism: the adoption of CSR practices
Authors: Haberberg Adrian , Gander Jonathan , Rieple Alison , Helm Clive , Martin‐Castilla Juan‐Ignacio 
Published: October 2010

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss the idiosyncratic features of the adoption and institutionalization of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper in which current theory on the institutionalization of practices within organizational fields is extended. This is achieved through considering how well established models of the institutionalization process accommodate the idiosyncrasies of CSR practices.FindingsEstablished models of the institutionalization process do not properly account for the patterns of CSR adoption that are identified. This is because CSR has some features that differentiates it from other organizational initiatives, including idealism, delayed discovery of instrumental benefits, public attention, and the tension between public and private logics.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a conceptual paper which now needs to be explored empirically, either at the level of the CSR practice or at the organizational field. It is believed that a detailed examination is warranted of the effects of the truncated adoption process (a coercive bandwagon) on organizations' adoption of CSR practices. Neither has it been considered whether all categories of CSR practices are subject to the same dynamics or development path.Practical implicationsIt is argued that prizes and regulations that are introduced before the organizational case has been worked through properly can have a negative effect on the adoption of beneficial practices throughout the wider field. Similarly, accusations of greenwashing of firms who implement CSR prematurely, and the negative publicity that results, can result in the valuable ideals of CSR being operationalised in a sub‐optimal form.Originality/valueThe paper offers a new conceptualisation of the path of the institutionalization of CSR practices.
An institutional perspective of the MNC as a social change agent: the case of environmentalism
Authors: Mitchell Matthew C. 
Published: October 2010

PurposeUsing an institutional theory perspective this paper aims to examine the influence of multinational corporations (MNCs) on host country institutional environments.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual piece that introduces the concept of the country institutional profile (CIP) as a useful theoretical framework for analyzing the host country institutional environment.FindingsThe existing model that describes the MNC as a social change agent within host country institutions is extended. This is accomplished by utilizing the CIP as a more formal conception of the host country institutional environment. The model is then used to examine a specific case of the MNC impact on the host country level of environmentalism.Originality/valueThe value of the contribution lies in the application of the CIP for analyzing the host country institutional environment. Furthermore, this framework is applied to the case of the MNC's impact on host country environmentalism.
Development of species‐specific polymerase chain reaction primers for detection of Fusobacterium periodonticum
Authors: Park Soon‐Nang , Park Jae‐Yoon , Kook Joong‐Ki 
Published: October 2010

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to develop species‐specific PCR primers for detection of Fusobacterium periodonticum. The specificity data showed that two sets of PCR primers, Fp‐F3/Fp‐R2 and Fp‐F1/Fp‐R2 PCR, produced amplicons from all the F. periodonticum, but not from the other species tested, which included 12 Fusobacterium species or subspecies and representative oral bacteria. The sensitivity of the primer sets was 4 or 40 pg of the chromosomal DNA from F. periodonticum ATCC 33693T. These results suggest that these two sets of PCR primers are quite sensitive in detection of F. periodonticum in molecular epidemiological studies of periodontitis.
Staphylococcal enterotoxin A: a candidate for the amplification of physiological immunoregulatory responses in the gut
Authors: Miron Nicolae , Miron Mirela‐Mihaela 
Published: October 2010

ABSTRACTStaphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) is one of the bacterial products tested for modulation of unwanted immune responses. Of all the staphylococcal enterotoxins, SEA is the most potent stimulator of T cells. When administered orally, SEA acts as a superantigen (SA), producing unspecific stimulation of intra‐epithelial lymphocytes (IELs) in the intestinal mucosa. This stimulation results in amplification of the normal local immunologic responses, which are mainly regulatory. This amplification is based on increased local production of IFN‐γ by IELs, which acts on the nearby enterocytes. As a result, the enterocytes produce large amounts of tolerosomes, cellular corpuscles which detach themselves from the basal poles of the enterocytes and contain antigenic peptides that are conditioned to be interpreted as tolerogenic by the gut immune system. Tolerosomes are physiologically produced as a response to dietary peptides; it is already known that enterocytes posses the molecular mechanisms for processing peptides in a similar manner to lymphocytes. The fate of tolerosomes is not precisely known, but it seems that they merge with intestinal dendritic cells, conveying to them the information that orally administered peptides must be interpreted as tolerogens. SEA can stimulate this mechanism, thus favoring the development of tolerance to peptides/proteins administered subsequently via the oral route. This characteristic of SEA might be useful in therapy for regulating immune responses. The present paper reviews the current status of research regarding the impact of SEA on the enteric immune system and its potential use in the treatment of allergic and autoimmune diseases.
The analgesic efficacy of continuous wound instillation with ropivacaine after open hepatic surgery
Authors: Chan S. K. , Lai P. B. , Li P. T. , Wong J. , Karmakar M. K. , Lee K. F. , Gin T. 
Published: October 2010

SummaryThe analgesic efficacy of continuous local anaesthetic wound instillation after open hepatic surgery was evaluated. Forty‐eight patients scheduled for elective liver surgery were assigned to receive either ropivacaine 0.25% or saline infusion at 4 ml.h−1 for 68 h via two multi‐orifice indwelling catheters placed within the musculo‐fascial layer before skin closure; plasma ropivacaine concentrations were measured during the infusion. Supplemental analgesia was provided by intravenous patient‐controlled analgesia morphine. Patients in the ropivacaine group had decreased mean (SD) total morphine consumption (58 (30) mg vs 86 (44) mg, p = 0.01) and less pain at rest as well as after spirometry at 4, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h postoperatively (p < 0.01). Forced vital capacity was reduced postoperatively in both groups, but the reduction was greater in the saline group at 12 and 24 h (p = 0.03). The mean plasma concentration of ropivacaine increased to 2.05 (0.78) μg.ml−1 at the point when the infusion was terminated.
Genetic typing of CBL, ASXL1, RUNX1, TET2 and JAK2 in juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia reveals a genetic profile distinct from chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia
Authors: Pérez Benoîte , Kosmider Olivier , Cassinat Bruno , Renneville Aline , Lachenaud Julie , Kaltenbach Sophie , Bertrand Yves , Baruchel André , Chomienne Christine , Fontenay Michaela , Preudhomme Claude , Cavé Hélène 
Published: October 2010

SummaryJMML and CMML are rare myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasms occurring at both ends of life. To investigate relationships between JMML and CMML, genes recently involved in CMML were studied in 68 JMML patients. Mutations in TET2, RUNX1 and JAK2V617F are involved in myelodysplastic and/or myeloproliferative syndromes, and more specifically in CMML but were not found in JMML. Pangenomic analysis by SNP‐array showed no abnormality at these loci. Three frameshift mutations of ASXL1 leading to a truncated protein were found in three patients (4%) with late onset JMML displaying also RAS activating mutations. Homozygous mutations of CBL with 11q loss of heterozygosity were found in five (7%) JMML. CBL substitutions were different from those reported in CMML, exclusive from other RAS activating mutations, and were germline in all patients. Overall, the pattern of genetic lesions observed in JMML differed from that of CMML. Although signalling deregulation is involved in CMML, transcriptional deregulation seems to play a pivotal role, with mutation of RUNX1, ASXL1 or TET2. Conversely, none of these genes involved in transcription or chromatin remodelling was found to be significantly altered in JMML, while CBL mutations confirm the central role of RAS and growth factor signalling deregulation in JMML.
Thrombocytopenia in early malaria is associated with GP1b shedding in absence of systemic platelet activation and consumptive coagulopathy
Authors: De Mast Quirijn , De Groot Philip G. , Van Heerde Waander L. , Roestenberg Meta , Van Velzen Jeroen F. , Verbruggen Bert , Roest Mark , McCall Matthew , Nieman An‐Emmie , Westendorp Josien , Syafruddin Din , Fijnheer Rob , Van Dongen‐Lases Edmee C. , Sauerwein Robert W. , Van Der Ven Andre J. 
Published: October 2010

SummaryThrombocytopenia develops early in malaria, but the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. We studied the aetiology of malaria‐associated thrombocytopenia in volunteers experimentally infected with Plasmodium falciparum malaria, in Indonesian malaria patients and in ex vivo studies. In experimental human malaria, the decrease in platelet counts was associated with a concurrent rise in young platelets (immature platelet fraction) and thrombopoietin. D‐dimer concentrations were moderately elevated without a prolongation in the activated partial thromboplastin time or decrease in fibrinogen. There was no increase in expression of the platelet surface markers CD62P, PAC‐1 and CD63 and in plasma concentrations of the platelet factors P‐selectin, CXCR4, CXCL7, RANTES and CD40L. In contrast, concentrations of soluble glycoprotein‐1b (sGP1b), the external domain of the platelet receptor for von Willebrand factor (VWF), increased early. Indonesian malaria patients also had elevated concentrations of sGP1b, which correlated with VWF concentrations. Finally, incubation of platelets with parasitized erythrocytes in vitro failed to induce platelet aggregation or activation. We concluded that neither compromised platelet production nor platelet activation or consumptive coagulopathy were responsible for the early thrombocytopenia in malaria. We hypothesize that the increase in sGP1b concentrations results from VWF‐mediated GP1b shedding; a process that may prevent excessive adhesion of platelets and parasitized erythrocytes.
Comparison of cytology and histology results in English cervical screening laboratories before and after liquid‐based cytology conversion: do the data provide evidence for a single category of high‐grade dyskaryosis?
Authors: Blanks R. G. , Kelly R. S. 
Published: October 2010

R. G. Blanks and R. S. Kelly Comparison of cytology and histology results in English cervical screening laboratories before and after liquid‐based cytology conversion: do the data provide evidence for a single category of high‐grade dyskaryosis?Objective:  To determine whether the difference between the positive predictive value (PPV) for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 2 or worse (CIN2+) of referral from moderate dyskaryosis and from severe dyskaryosis was reduced after laboratories converted from conventional to liquid‐based cytology (LBC). Furthermore, to explore the cytology/histology agreement after LBC conversion, and to determine post‐LBC whether there was increased support for the use of one single category of high‐grade dyskaryosis (equivalent to high‐grade squamous intraepithelial lesion).Methods:  The association between cytology and histology has been examined using annual Korner return data (KC61 returns) collected by laboratories from the English National Health Service cervical screening programme. The study compares return data before and after LBC conversion.Results:  The study examined data from 102 laboratories that converted from conventional cytology to LBC. Before conversion the PPV for CIN2+ of severe dyskaryosis was 88% and after increased to 90% (P = 0.003). For moderate dyskaryosis the PPV for CIN2+ increased from 70% to 72% (P = 0.06). The absolute difference of 18% between severe and moderate dyskaryosis was therefore the same pre‐ and post‐LBC conversion. The PPV of mild dyskaryosis for CIN2+ before and after conversion reduced from 23% to 19% (P < 0.001). The agreement between cytology and histology measured using a weighted Kappa statistic increased from 0.52 to 0.60 after conversion to LBC because of small increases in the proportions of severe dyskaryosis or worse with CIN3+ outcomes and mild dyskaryosis with CIN1 or less outcomes.Conclusions:  Following LBC conversion there was evidence of a modest increase in the agreement between cytology and histology but no evidence of a change in the absolute difference in PPV for CIN2+ between moderate and severe dyskaryosis. The data support the conclusion that women referred with moderate dyskaryosis will on average have a lower risk of progression to invasive cancer than women referred with severe dyskaryosis. If the data were considered to support the categories of high‐grade dyskaryosis (moderate) and high‐grade dyskaryosis (severe) before LBC conversion then it can be strongly argued that they also support these categories after conversion.