Fairness

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting

Kinds of Fairness

  • distributive fairness
  • perceived fairness
  • procedural fairness

  • Terms modified by Fairness

  • fairness effects
  • fairness judgment
  • fairness perception

  • Selected Abstracts


    SCREENING ETHICS WHEN HONEST AGENTS CARE ABOUT FAIRNESS*

    INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2006
    Ingela Alger
    A principal faces an agent with private information who is either honest or dishonest. Honesty involves revealing private information truthfully if the probability that the equilibrium allocation chosen by an agent who lies is small enough. Even the slightest intolerance for lying prevents full ethics screening whereby the agent is given proper incentives if dishonest and zero rent if honest. Still, some partial ethics screening may allow for taking advantage of the potential honesty of the agent, even if honesty is unlikely. If intolerance for lying is strong, the standard approach that assumes a fully opportunistic agent is robust. [source]


    CONCEPTS OF FAIRNESS IN THE GLOBAL TRADING SYSTEM

    PACIFIC ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2007
    Andrew G. Brown
    We then suggest that fairness can best be considered within the framework of two concepts: equality of opportunity and distributive equity. We thereafter discuss what these mean as applied to market access and its supporting rules as well as to dispute settlement and trade remedy measures. Finally, we make some comments about fairness in the Doha Development Round. [source]


    The Effects of Perceived Fairness on Opportunistic Behavior,

    CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2007
    Jeffrey R. Cohen
    First page of article [source]


    Macrojustice: The Political Economy of Fairness.

    ECONOMICA, Issue 297 2008
    By SERGE-CHRISTOPHE KOLM
    No abstract is available for this article. [source]


    Teaching for the Test: Validity, Fairness, and Moral Action

    EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT: ISSUES AND PRACTICE, Issue 3 2003
    Linda Crocker
    In response to heightened levels of assessment activity at the K-12 level to meet requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, measurement professionals are called to focus greater attention on four fundamental areas of measurement research and practice: (a) improving the research infrastructure for validation methods involving judgments of test content; (b) expanding the psychometric definition of fairness in achievement testing; (c) developing guidelines for validation studies of test use consequences; and (d) preparing teachers for new roles in instruction and assessment practice. Illustrative strategies for accomplishing these goals are outlined. [source]


    The Demands of 24/7 Coverage: Using Faculty Perceptions to Measure Fairness of the Schedule

    ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 1 2004
    Frank L. Zwemer Jr. MD
    Objectives: Ensuring fair, equitable scheduling of faculty who work 24-hour, 7-day-per-week (24/7) clinical coverage is a challenge for academic emergency medicine (EM). Because most emergency department care is at personally valuable times (evenings, weekends, nights), optimizing clinical work is essential for the academic mission. To evaluate schedule fairness, the authors developed objective criteria for stress of the schedule, modified the schedule to improve equality, and evaluated faculty perceptions. They hypothesized that improved equality would increase faculty satisfaction. Methods: Perceived stress was measured for types of clinical shifts. The seven daily shifts were classified as weekday, weekend, or holiday (plus one unique teaching-conference coverage shift). Faculty assigned perceived stress to shifts (ShiftStress) utilizing visual analog scales (VAS). Faculty schedules were measured (ShiftScores) for two years (1998,1999), and ShiftScore distribution of faculty was determined quarterly. Schedules were modified (1999) to reduce interindividual ShiftScore standard deviation (SD). The survey was performed pre- and postintervention. Results: Preintervention, 26 faculty (100% of eligible) assigned VAS to 22 shifts. Increased stress was perceived in progression (weekday data, 0,10 scale) from day to evening to night (2.07, 5.00, 6.67, respectively) and from weekday to weekend to holiday (day-shift data, 2.07, 4.93, 5.87). The intervention reduced interindividual ShiftScore SD by 21%. Postintervention survey revealed no change in perceived equality or satisfaction. Conclusions: Faculty perceived no improvement despite scheduling modifications that improved equality of the schedule and provided objective measures. Other predictors of stress, fairness, and satisfaction with the demanding clinical schedule must be identified to ensure the success of EM faculty. [source]


    Simplicity versus Fairness in Means Testing: The Case of Civil Legal Aid

    FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2003
    Alexy Buck
    Abstract For most state financial benefits, the making of any payment, or its level, depends upon a means test to assess the applicant's income or wealth. Attempts to make such tests fair often lead to procedures that are complicated to administer and confusing for the applicant. This paper describes the analysis underlying a review of means testing for civil legal aid in England and Wales, to achieve considerable simplification without sacrificing fairness. [source]


    Gender Differences in Perceived Disciplinary Fairness

    GENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 3 2004
    Nina D. Cole
    This exploratory study coded and analysed 120 behaviours on videotaped data of 111 male and 30 female managers engaged in disciplinary discussions with one of their unionized employees. Four categories of behaviour were coded: non-verbal communication, speech characteristics, leadership and interactional justice. A factor analysis of the results generated 14 factors, ten of which were correlated with experts' ratings of disciplinary fairness. Female managers exhibited significantly higher levels of seven of the ten behavioural factors. Female managers also made more supportive interruptions than male managers and took more time for the disciplinary discussion, both of which were positively correlated with disciplinary fairness. The results suggest that leadership and communication styles commonly found in females may lead them to be better equipped than male managers to manage employee discipline situations. [source]


    Teaching and Learning Guide for: The Geopolitics of Climate Change

    GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2008
    Jon Barnett
    Author's Introduction Climate change is a security problem in as much as the kinds of environmental changes that may result pose risks to peace and development. However, responsibilities for the causes of climate change, vulnerability to its effects, and capacity to solve the problem, are not equally distributed between countries, classes and cultures. There is no uniformity in the geopolitics of climate change, and this impedes solutions. Author Recommends 1.,Adger, W. N., et al. (eds) (2006). Fairness in adaptation to climate change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. A comprehensive collection of articles on the justice dimensions of adaptation to climate change. Chapters discuss potential points at which climate change becomes ,dangerous', the issue of adaptation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the unequal outcomes of adaptation within a society, the effects of violent conflict on adaptation, the costs of adaptation, and examples from Bangladesh, Tanzania, Botswana, and Hungary. 2.,Leichenko, R., and O'Brien, K. (2008). Environmental change and globalization: double exposures. New York: Oxford University Press. This book uses examples from around the world to show the way global economic and political processes interact with environmental changes to create unequal outcomes within and across societies. A very clear demonstration of the way vulnerability to environmental change is as much driven by social processes as environmental ones, and how solutions lie within the realm of decisions about ,development' and ,environment'. 3.,Nordås, R., and Gleditsch, N. (2007). Climate conflict: common sense or nonsense? Political Geography 26 (6), pp. 627,638. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.06.003 An up-to-date, systematic and balanced review of research on the links between climate change and violent conflict. See also the other papers in this special issue of Political Geography. 4.,Parry, M., et al. (eds) (2007). Climate change 2007: impacts adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. The definitive review of all the peer-reviewed research on the way climate change may impact on places and sectors across the world. Includes chapters on ecosystems, health, human settlements, primary industries, water resources, and the major regions of the world. All chapters are available online at http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg2.htm 5.,Salehyan, I. (2008). From climate change to conflict? No consensus yet. Journal of Peace Research 45 (3), pp. 315,326. doi:10.1177/0022343308088812 A balanced review of research on the links between climate change and conflict, with attention to existing evidence. 6.,Schwartz, P., and Randall, D. (2003). An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security. San Francisco, CA: Global Business Network. Gives insight into how the US security policy community is framing the problem of climate change. This needs to be read critically. Available at http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=26231 7.,German Advisory Council on Global Change. (2007). World in transition: climate change as a security risk. Berlin, Germany: WBGU. A major report from the German Advisory Council on Global Change on the risks climate changes poses to peace and stability. Needs to be read with caution. Summary and background studies are available online at http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_jg2007_engl.html 8.,Yamin, F., and Depedge, J. (2004). The International climate change regime: a guide to rules, institutions and procedures. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. A clear and very detailed explanation of the UNFCCC's objectives, actors, history, and challenges. A must read for anyone seeking to understand the UNFCCC process, written by two scholars with practical experience in negotiations. Online Materials 1.,Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ecsp The major website for information about environmental security. From here, you can download many reports and studies, including the Environmental Change and Security Project Report. 2.,Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project http://www.gechs.org This website is a clearing house for work and events on environmental change and human security. 3.,Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) http://www.ipcc.ch/ From this website, you can download all the chapters of all the IPCC's reports, including its comprehensive and highly influential assessment reports, the most recent of which was published in 2007. The IPCC were awarded of the Nobel Peace Prize ,for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made (sic) climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change'. 4.,Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research http://www.tyndall.ac.uk The website of a major centre for research on climate change, and probably the world's leading centre for social science based analysis of climate change. From this site, you can download many publications about mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, and about various issues in the UNFCCC. 5.,United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change http://unfccc.int/ The website contains every major document relation to the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, including the text of the agreements, national communications, country submissions, negotiated outcomes, and background documents about most key issues. Sample Syllabus: The Geopolitics of Climate Change topics for lecture and discussion Week I: Introduction Barnett, J. (2007). The geopolitics of climate change. Geography Compass 1 (6), pp. 1361,1375. United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, address to the 12th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Nairobi, 15 November 2006. Available online at http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=495&ArticleID=5424&l=en Week II: The History and Geography of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Topic: The drivers of climate change in space and time Reading Baer, P. (2006). Adaptation: who pays whom? In: Adger, N., et al. (eds) Fairness in adaptation to climate change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 131,154. Boyden, S., and Dovers, S. (1992). Natural-resource consumption and its environmental impacts in the Western World: impacts of increasing per capita consumption. Ambio 21 (1), pp. 63,69. Week III: The Environmental Consequences of climate change Topic: The risks climate change poses to environmental systems Reading Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). Climate change 2007: climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: summary for policymakers. Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC Secretariat. Watch: Al Gore. The Inconvenient Truth. Weeks IV and V: The Social Consequences of Climate Change Topic: The risks climate change poses to social systems Reading Adger, W. N. (1999). Social vulnerability to climate change and extremes in coastal Vietnam. World Development 27, pp. 249,269. Comrie, A. (2007). Climate change and human health. Geography Compass 1 (3), pp. 325,339. Leary, N., et al. (2006). For whom the bell tolls: vulnerability in a changing climate. A Synthesis from the AIACC project, AIACC Working Paper No. 21, International START Secretariat, Florida. Stern, N. (2007). Economics of climate change: the Stern review. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press (Chapters 3,5). Week VI: Mitigation of Climate Change: The UNFCCC Topic: The UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol Reading Najam, A., Huq, S., and Sokona, Y. (2003). Climate negotiations beyond Kyoto: developing countries concerns and interests. Climate Policy 3 (3), pp. 221,231. UNFCCC Secretariat. (2005). Caring for climate: a guide to the climate change convention and the Kyoto Protocol. Bonn, Germany: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat. Weeks VII and VIII: Adaptation to Climate Change Topic: What can be done to allow societies to adapt to avoid climate impacts? Reading Adger, N., et al. (2007). Assessment of adaptation practices, options, constraints and capacity. In: Parry, M., et al. (eds) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 717,744. Burton, I., et al. (2002). From impacts assessment to adaptation priorities: the shaping of adaptation policy. Climate Policy 2 (2,3), pp. 145,159. Eakin, H., and Lemos, M. C. (2006). Adaptation and the state: Latin America and the challenge of capacity-building under globalization. Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 16 (1), pp. 7,18. Ziervogel, G., Bharwani, S., and Downing, T. (2006). Adapting to climate variability: pumpkins, people and policy. Natural Resources Forum 30, pp. 294,305. Weeks IX and X: Climate Change and Migration Topic: Will climate change force migration? Readings Gaim, K. (1997). Environmental causes and impact of refugee movements: a critique of the current debate. Disasters 21 (1), pp. 20,38. McLeman, R., and Smit, B. (2006). Migration as adaptation to climate change. Climatic Change 76 (1), pp. 31,53. Myers, N. (2002). Environmental refugees: a growing phenomenon of the 21st century. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 357 (1420), pp. 609,613. Perch-Nielsen, S., Bättig, M., and Imboden, D. (2008). Exploring the link between climate change and migration. Climatic Change (online first, forthcoming); doi:10.1007/s10584-008-9416-y Weeks XI and XII: Climate Change and Violent Conflict Topic: Will Climate change cause violent conflict? Readings Barnett, J., and Adger, N. (2007). Climate change, human security and violent conflict. Political Geography 26 (6), pp. 639,655. Centre for Strategic and International Studies. (2007). The age of consequences: the foreign policy and national security implications of global climate change. Washington, DC: CSIS. Nordås, R., and Gleditsch, N. (2007). Climate conflict: common sense or nonsense? Political Geography 26 (6), pp. 627,638. Schwartz, P., and Randall, D. (2003). An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security. San Francisco, CA: Global Business Network. [online]. Retrieved on 8 April 2007 from http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=26231 Focus Questions 1Who is most responsible for climate change? 2Who is most vulnerable to climate change? 3Does everyone have equal power in the UNFCCC process? 4Will climate change force people to migrate? Who? 5What is the relationship between adaptation to climate change and violent conflict? [source]


    Fairness , up to a point.

    HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 4 2006
    Assessing the impact of New Labour's employment legislation
    Since 1997 there has been a significant extension in the legal regulation of the employment relationship reflecting social and economic policy objectives. This article summarises key findings from research into the impact of this legislation and identifies factors affecting legislative impact and employer compliance. Tensions and priorities in the pursuit of the twin policy objectives are discussed. [source]


    The Impact of Justice and Self-Serving Bias Explanations of the Perceived Fairness of Different Types of Selection Tests

    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT, Issue 1-2 2004
    N. Schmitt
    Reactions to the use of the ACT/SAT, biodata, and situational judgment measures in college admissions decisions were collected from 644 college freshmen. Evaluation of a series of models of fairness perceptions indicated that self-serving bias and organizational justice explanations may both be responsible for these reactions. Examination of respondents' beliefs about their performance compared with other students' performance also elicited responses that may be attributable to concerns about distributive justice. A variety of perceptual processes may explain fairness perceptions, but from a practical perspective, it may be easiest to manipulate examinees' perceptions of the relevance, and indirectly, the perceived fairness of the selection procedures used to make major selection or admissions decisions. [source]


    Procedural Justice and Perceptions of Fairness in Selection Practice

    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT, Issue 3 2000
    Lynette Harris
    Demonstrating procedural justice through a focus on the psychometric job-related approach to selection continues to be the most effective means for employers to meet legal requirements and potential claims of unfair treatment. A study of selection practice in a large local UK City Council reports how a structured, highly ,job-focused' approach can result in negative perceptions about the fairness of the process, its outcomes and effectiveness. Its findings reveal an organizational dilemma , how to develop selection systems that are sufficiently robust in terms of demonstrating maximum procedural fairness and objectivity to withstand potential litigation but are sufficiently flexible to accommodate those other factors which influence individual perceptions of fairness. It considers the future of the highly structured approach in the light of pressures to develop selection processes which can meet the needs of rapidly changing organizational structures as well the expansion of anti-discrimination legislation and litigation. [source]


    Fairness and bargaining power in threshold public goods experiments

    JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 2 2008
    Li-Chen Hsu
    Abstract Experiments on three two-person threshold public good provision games, namely, the simultaneous, sequential, and dictator games, are conducted to explore the motives behind giving. Players who move simultaneously are endowed with equal bargaining power, and players who move first are endowed with more bargaining power than players who move subsequently. Dictators are indubitably endowed with complete bargaining power. Since the differences between the bargaining powers of two players increase from the simultaneous to the sequential to the dictator game, comparisons among games allow us to trace whether the contribution behavior is motivated by fairness or is simply due to the strategic concern. The experimental evidence shows that the strategic concern explains the overall contribution behavior better than the motive of fairness. However, in the final round 26% of the dictators share the threshold evenly with their opponents, suggesting that some subjects do play fairly. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    Health, Wealth, and Fairness

    JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 2 2005
    MARC FLEURBAEY
    How much health should we have and how should it be distributed? This paper studies how to define social objectives for the allocation of health and income in a setting where individuals may differ in their preferences about health and consumption, earning ability, and health disposition. It is shown, on the basis of three simple ethical principles, that a reasonable social objective is to apply the maximin criterion to "full-health equivalent" incomes. An application to the choice of the optimal health policy illustrates how this social objective may be used. [source]


    Fairness, Justice, and Legitimacy: Experiences of People's Judges in South Russia

    LAW & POLICY, Issue 2 2003
    Stefan Machura
    Which criteria do Russians use to evaluate the fairness of their judges, and how does perceived fairness of actual trials influence general beliefs about Russian courts? Lay assessors at courts in South Russia were asked about their experience serving on mixed courts. The justice of the verdicts rendered and the fairness of judges partly explain the respondents' view of national courts. According to the results, the respondents are also using similar criteria for fairness as Americans or Germans. The social and psychological group effects in a Russian court of lay assessors exhibit a striking similarity to other Western tribunals. [source]


    Taking Others into Account: Self-Interest and Fairness in Majority Decision Making

    AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2010
    Jan Sauermann
    Research on the formal properties of democratic aggregation mechanisms has a long tradition in political science. Recent theoretical developments, however, show that in the discussion of normative contents of democratic decisions, the actual shape of preferences deserves just as much attention. However, our knowledge about the concrete motivations of individual behavior in democratic decisions is incomplete. Using laboratory experiments, this article examines the existence of social preferences in majority decisions. Contrary to earlier experiments of committee decision making, we develop a design that controls for the conditions of communication and the level of information between subjects. This allows us to comparatively test the predictive power of several theories. We find strong evidence that self-interest and fairness motivate human behavior in majority decisions. [source]


    The Dictator Game, Fairness and Ethnicity in Postwar Bosnia

    AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2007
    Sam Whitt
    This study considers the effects of ethnic violence on norms of fairness. Once violence is a foregone conclusion, will cooperative norms ever (re-)emerge beyond ethnic boundaries? We use an experiment that measures how fairly individuals in a postconflict setting treat their own ingroup in comparison to the outgroups,in this case, examining the behavior of 681 Muslims, Croats, and Serbs in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina. To assess fairness, we use the dictator game wherein subjects decide how to allocate a sum of money between themselves and an anonymous counterpart of varying ethnicity. We find that the effects of ethnicity on decision making are captured by our experiments. Although results indicate preferential ingroup treatment, the incidence and magnitude of outgroup bias is much less than expected. We conclude that norms of fairness across ethnicity are remarkably strong in Bosnia, and we take this to be a positive sign for reconciliation after violent conflict. [source]


    Top-up Payments for Expensive Cancer Drugs: Rationing, Fairness and the NHS

    THE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 3 2010
    Article first published online: 7 MAY 2010, Emily Jackson
    This article examines the implications for patient care, and for the future of rationing within the NHS, of the recent decision to permit NHS patients to supplement their care by paying for medicines , mainly expensive new cancer drugs , which are not available within the NHS. The starting point is the recommendations of the Richards' Report and their implementation through new guidance issued by the Department of Health and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Practical challenges arise from the insistence upon the ,separate' delivery of self-funded medicines, and more flexible cost-effectiveness thresholds for end of life medicines may have repercussions for other patients. While undoubtedly part of the trend towards explicit rationing, top-up fees might also represent a significant step towards regarding the NHS as a core, basic service. Finally, the issue of top-up fees is located within the broader context of current cancer research priorities and persisting health inequalities. [source]


    Scope and Fairness of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations: Director General of Fair Trading v First National Bank

    THE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 5 2002
    Elizabeth Macdonald
    First page of article [source]


    Generalised Rules of Fairness in Evidence Law

    THE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 1 2000
    Jonathan Auburn
    First page of article [source]


    Organ Exchanges: Fairness to the O-Blood Group

    AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 1 2006
    R. M. Veatch
    No abstract is available for this article. [source]


    The Criterion-Related Validities and Perceived Fairness of the Situational Interview and the Situational Judgment Test in an Iranian Organisation

    APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2010
    Sara Banki
    The criterion-related validity coefficients of a situational interview (SI) and a situational judgment test (SJT) were investigated in a sales department of a government-owned automobile company in Iran. Both the SI and SJT had concurrent validity with job performance (n= 101, r= .28, r= .23, p < .05, respectively). Only the SI, however, had incremental validity over and above the SJT in predicting job performance. Furthermore, the SI fully mediated the relationship between SJT and job performance. The two methods did not differ significantly on employee motivation to perform well, perceived fairness, or test anxiety. Nevertheless, employees recommended the use of the SI over the SJT. Les coefficients de validité critérielle d'un entretien situationnel (SI) et d'un test de jugement situationnel (SJT) ont été calculés dans le service commercial d'une entreprise publique iranienne du secteur automobile. SI et SJT présentent tous les deux une validité concurrente avec la performance professionnelle (pour N = 101, r = .28 et .23 respectivement; sign. à .05). Toutefois, seul le SI bénéficie d'une validité incrémentielle par rapport au SJT dans la prédiction de la performance professionnelle. En outre, le SI contrôle totalement la relation entre le SJT et le critère. Les deux méthodes ne diffèrent pas significativement dans l'évaluation de la motivation au travail, de l'équité perçue ou de l'anxiété. Néanmoins les salariés préféraient le SI au SJT. [source]


    RACIST ORGAN DONORS AND SAVING LIVES

    BIOETHICS, Issue 2 2007
    T.M. WILKINSON
    ABSTRACT This paper considers what should be done about offers of organs for transplant that come with racist strings attached. Saving lives or improving their quality seem powerful reasons to accept the offer. Fairness, justice, and rejecting racism seem like powerful reasons against. This paper argues that conditional allocation should occur when it would provide access to organs for at least one person without costing others their access to organs. The bulk of the paper concentrates on defending this claim against these objections: (i) that the good that might come about through conditional allocation does so through wrongful complicity in the racist's wrongdoing; (ii) that conditional allocation symbolizes support for racism; and (iii) that conditional allocation is unjust or unfair and is, for that reason, impermissible. The final section, on conditional allocation as a policy, considers the speculative possibility that conditional allocation would reduce access to organs for some, but it argues that, even then, conditional allocation could be justified. [source]


    Fairness and Electoral Reform*

    BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2004
    Adrian Blau
    First-past-the-post is often seen as unfair. But this reflects a narrow understanding of fairness. Several ideas of fairness exist, some of which help to defend first-past-the-post. Two key parts of the British electoral reform debate are discussed: the translation of votes to seats, and the translation of votes to power. Several arguments about fairness by both critics and defenders of first-past-the-post are questioned. Tensions within and between certain ideas of fairness are addressed. Stronger justification of different notions of fairness, and more rigorous empirical assessment of normative claims, are advocated. Conceptual clarity requires that protagonists identify explicitly which ideas of fairness they favour, or preferably, that they simply avoid the misleading and overly rhetorical language of fairness. [source]


    Equality, Fairness and Rights , The Young Person's Voice

    BRITISH JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION, Issue 3 2002
    Paul Hamill
    This article presents findings from a one,year research project undertaken by experienced researchers and practitioners from the University of Strathclyde. Eleven comprehensive schools in Scotland were involved and the aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of in,school support systems for young people who display challenging behaviour. Pupil Support Bases (Pupil Referral Units) had been set up in most of the schools aimed at reducing exclusion rates and these were examined from the perspective of all stakeholders , teachers, parents, young people and key inter,agency personnel. The specific focus of this article is the views of the young people who, although often perceived as disruptive, disaffected and troubled, were surprisingly articulate. They had clear messages for all professionals and, in this article, Paul Hamill, Head of the Department of Educational Support and Guidance, and Brian Boyd, a Reader in the Language Education Department, ensure that their voices are heard. [source]


    Taking (and Sharing Power): How Boards of Directors Can Bring About Greater Fairness for Dependent Stakeholders

    BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 2 2010
    HARRY J. VAN BUREN III
    ABSTRACT One of the ways in which scholars have sought to broaden the discussion of the social responsibilities of corporations and their managers is through the development of the stakeholder concept. The primacy of shareholder interests in corporate-governance processes and managerial action is, however, a myth that justifies all sorts of managerial self-interest seeking and exploitation of particular stakeholder groups. What makes this myth particularly problematic,from the standpoint of fairness and corporate governance,is that not all nonshareholder stakeholders are equally situated with regard to their ability to secure fair treatment. In this article, I explore the ethical dimensions of board responsibilities to dependent stakeholder groups by first describing the differences between shareholders and nonshareholder stakeholders with regard to risk, examining why dependent stakeholders (stakeholders with legitimate and urgent claims, but no power) are particularly important from the standpoint of stakeholder risk, and discussing how stakeholder consultation might provide a partial fix to such problems. I will conclude with proposals for how boards can more faithfully discharge their ethical responsibilities to dependent stakeholder groups, and in so doing facilitate stakeholder involvement in corporate governance in ways that promote fairness in organization,stakeholder relationships. [source]


    Coping with plagiarism and grading load: Randomized programming assignments and reflective grading

    COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION, Issue 2 2007
    Diomidis Spinellis
    Abstract Programming assignments often suffer from plagiarism and lack of feedback. The Jarpeb system creates individually randomized assignments, grades the students' programs by utilizing Java's reflective evaluation capabilities, and allows students to submit their grade through the web by signing their grade with a cryptographically strong checksum. Jarpeb's empirical evaluation included as the dependent variables important learners' dimensions: plagiarism, understanding, learning, fairness, difficulty, fun, and interest. The results indicate that Jarpeb contributes to the reduction of plagiarism, increases the understanding, and learning of the course subject while also increasing the perceived fairness, fun, and interest of the learners. The system, however, proved to increase the difficulty of the related exercises. We discuss the implications for educators and outline specific future research directions. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ. 15: 113,123, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20096 [source]


    Efficient and fair scheduling for two-level information broadcasting systems

    CONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 18 2008
    Byoung-Hoon Lee
    Abstract In a ubiquitous environment, there are many applications where a server disseminates information of common interest to pervasive clients and devices. For an example, an advertisement server sends information from a broadcast server to display devices. We propose an efficient information scheduling scheme for information broadcast systems to reduce average waiting time for information access while maintaining fairness between information items. Our scheme allocates information items adaptively according to relative popularity for each local server. Simulation results show that our scheme can reduce the waiting time up to 30% compared with the round robin scheme while maintaining cost-effective fairness. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    The impact of victim-offender mediation: A cross-national perspective

    CONFLICT RESOLUTION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2000
    Mark S. Umbreit
    The field of victim-offender mediation, now in its third decade, has grown extensively throughout North America and Europe, with programs in more than twelve hundred communities. This article reports on results from three related studies on the consequences of participating in victim-offender mediation, including programs in four of the United States (Umbreit, 1996, 1994a, 1994b; Umbreit and Coates, 1993), four provinces of Canada (Umbreit, 1999, 1995c), and two cities in England (Umbreit and Roberts, 1996). VOM is implemented differently in various places, reflecting cultural norms and mores. Given innumerable ways of doing victim-offender mediation, are there common experiences shared among participants that can inform program delivery and justice policy? The VOM model was found to be a highly transportable and flexible program in diverse settings. High levels of client satisfaction with both the process and outcome were found, and a high level of fairness was expressed. VOM continues to be a promising model, reflecting the principles of the restorative justice movement and offering a firm foundation of practice wisdom and research from which other newer forms of victim-offender dialogue, such as family group conferences, circles, and boards, can benefit (Bazemore and Umbreit, 1999). [source]


    EXPLORING DISPARITIES BETWEEN GLOBAL HIV/AIDS FUNDING AND RECENT TSUNAMI RELIEF EFFORTS: AN ETHICAL ANALYSIS

    DEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 1 2007
    TIMOTHY CHRISTIE
    ABSTRACT Objective:, To contrast relief efforts for the 26 December 2004 tsunami with current global HIV/AIDS relief efforts and analyse possible reasons for the disparity. Methods:, Literature review and ethical analysis. Results:, Just over 273,000 people died in the tsunami, resulting in relief efforts of more than US$10 bn, which is sufficient to achieve the United Nation's long-term recovery plan for South East Asia. In contrast, 14 times more people died from HIV/AIDS in 2004, with UNAIDS predicting a US$8 bn funding gap for HIV/AIDS in developing nations between now and 2007. This disparity raises two important ethical questions. First, what is it that motivates a more empathic response to the victims of the tsunami than to those affected by HIV/AIDS? Second, is there a morally relevant difference between the two tragedies that justifies the difference in the international response? The principle of justice requires that two cases similarly situated be treated similarly. For the difference in the international response to the tsunami and HIV/AIDS to be justified, the tragedies have to be shown to be dissimilar in some relevant respect. Are the tragedies of the tsunami disaster and the HIV/AIDS pandemic sufficiently different, in relevant respects, to justify the difference in scope of the response by the international community? Conclusion:, We detected no morally relevant distinction between the tsunami and the HIV/AIDS pandemic that justifies the disparity. Therefore, we must conclude that the international response to HIV/AIDS violates the fundamental principles of justice and fairness. [source]