161 research outputs found

    Reforming the Corporate Governance of Not-for-profit Residential Care Institutions in China

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    Due to the continuous aging process in China, not-for-profit residential care institutions (NPRIs) account for about half of the service providers in aged care services and are playing an increasingly significant role. However, several NPRIs have been exposed to governance scandals, such as the corruption of senior management; NPRIs using their not-for-profit status as an empty shell to generate profit for illegal distribution; NPRI managers’ unlawful use of government subsidies; and extreme situations such as fraud, crime, and aged abuse cases, which has contributed to the public accountability requirements in this sector. This research, therefore, asks: Can Chinese NPRIs’ existing corporate governance systems fulfill their accountability function? If not, how can they be enhanced to achieve greater accountability to protect the interests of stakeholders? To address the research question, this research developed an accountability framework by analysing the NPRIs should be accountable to whom; accountable for what; and how to improve the accountability. This accountability framework is used in analysing the related legislation and governance documents with four key accountability mechanisms in NPRIs, including the monitoring role of the supervisory board; the evaluation of the related party transactions; the transparency of the annual report; and the public enforcement has taken by regulators. This research identified several potential system flaws and proposes some specific recommendations to enhance the accountability mechanisms. For example, the legislator should value the accountability demands of clients; the legislator should emphasis the formal and functional independence of the supervisory board ; the Regulatory regime should consider regulating related party transactions with due process and directors’ loyalty duty rules; the NPRI practitioner should think of improving the transparency of annual reports to outsiders with higher levels of understandability and accessibility; and regulators should improve the current public enforcement system with more enforcement tools and a greater use of them to respond to the violations appropriately. By implementing the proposed improvements, this research hopes that the current corporate governance system could be more accountable to broader stakeholders of NPRIs, in both substantive and procedural issues, especially to protect the most important and vulnerable stakeholders, aged residents

    Theologische Zugänge zu Technik und Künstlicher Intelligenz

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    The publication of this work was supported by the Open Access Publication Fund of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.Technik und Künstliche Intelligenz gehören zu den brisanten Themen der gegenwärtigen Theologie. Wie kann Theologie zu Technik und KI beitragen? Der Technikdiskurs ist aufgeladen mit religiösen Motiven, und Technologien wie Roboter fordern die Theologie, z. B. das Menschenbild, die Ethik und die religiöse Praxis, neu heraus. Der Sammelband erforscht aus theologischer Perspektive die drängenden Themen unserer Zeit. Dazu begibt sich die Theologie in Dialog mit den Technikwissenschaften. Untersucht werden die Veränderungen des Menschenbildes durch Roboter, Religiöse Roboter, Optimierung des Körpers, medizinische Technologien, Autoregulative Waffensysteme und wie die Theologie durch die Technologisierung transformiert wird. Aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive werden neue Forschungsergebnisse aus dem internationalen Raum vorgestellt und neue Wege beschritten

    CAUSAL ORIGINS OF THE ‘RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT OF THE MIDDLE AGES': CLUNY, TIRON, AND THE NEW ORDERS, 910-1156

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    Around the turn of the twelfth century, Western Europe underwent a profound ideological transformation. With the flourishing of new religious orders, heresies and sects, a new spirit captured the Latin West which glorified the asceticism of the early Church beyond all previous bounds and elevated the life of the poor itinerant preacher as its salvationary ideal. This Herbert Grundmann would call ‘the single religious movement of the Middle Ages’. Yet, for all its apparent import and power, history has thus far been unable to illuminate the fundamental causes of how this new ideology might have been generated, focussing instead on how new ideas may have been ‘transmitted’ into the Latin West from the near East. The aim of this thesis, therefore, is to remedy this gap in our knowledge by uncovering instead the epistemically ‘generative’ causal mechanisms of just such a ‘religious movement of the Middle Ages’, by advancing two interconnected hypotheses: that ‘ideas’ may be assembled by the a posteriori experience and observation of pre-mental ‘patterns of life’, and that the principal force responsible for the novel monastic ‘patterns of life’ in this period was a newly aggressive and expansionary Benedictine monasticism best typified by Cluny. In other words, that the origins of the new orders in ‘France’, and the ideology they espoused, is to be found in the systemic pressure applied by the growing influence of Cluny on the structure of the Church

    Regulatory responses to addressing and preventing sexual assault and harassment in Australian university settings

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    Over the past decade, the Australian university sector and regulatory bodies have implemented a range of actions to improve the management and prevention of sexual assault and sexual harassment in Australian university settings. Despite these concerted efforts, little progress has been made in reducing campus sexual violence or in achieving institutional accountability. To date, research on campus sexual violence in Australia has focused on the experiences of students and staff (such as prevalence surveys and the impact of sexual violence on educational outcomes) or institutional responses (such as policy frameworks, reporting mechanisms and support services). This dissertation offers a new perspective by taking a system-wide structural approach to consider the entire regulatory community. Through the lens of theories of responsive and smart regulation, this thesis critically examines the regulatory initiatives adopted by various actors during the period 2011-2021. Addressing a gap in the literature, I offer an analysis of how regulatory theory does not adequately explain the vital role of civil society activists in creating momentum and initiating reform in this area. Drawing on legislative reviews, analysis of primary documents and 24 interviews with representatives drawn from across the regulatory community, the dissertation reveals how a lack of political will and the absence of even a latent threat of genuine enforceable institutional accountability – a ‘benign big gun’ in responsive regulatory theory – has undermined regulatory efforts across the whole sector. This dissertation also identifies the role that regulatory ritualism has played in stymying systemic change to respond to and prevent sexual violence in the Australian university sector, extending the existing literature by proposing two new applications of regulatory ritualism, language ritualism and announcement ritualism, and providing examples of where this has occurred. This dissertation argues that substantive progress in tackling sexual assault and sexual harassment in Australian university settings has stalled due to an over-reliance on the self-regulating university sector to lead the reform effort, the failure of enforced self-regulation models led by regulatory agencies, the indifference of governments and sector-wide regulatory ritualism which has seen institutions adopt tokenistic rather than substantive responses. To address these factors and improve institutional accountability, I argue that genuine systemic reform will require political leadership, more robust application of existing legislative and regulatory tools towards effective enforcement, and innovative exploration of other legal and regulatory approaches

    24th Nordic Conference on Computational Linguistics (NoDaLiDa)

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    Threat communication grounded in science: Bridging the gap between Intelligence public threat communication and Risk science

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    In recent years, Norwegian intelligence agencies have communicated intelligence to the public as part of their threat communication programme. After several terrorist acts, the public discourse has raised concerns regarding the success of the intelligence threat communication. Because the field of public threat communication is a rather new intelligence practice, this thesis aims to compare the contemporary approach to the risk communication field. The data were collected by triangulation of observation, collection of online communication and qualitative interviews. The interviews were carried out with four intelligence employees in the Norwegian Police Security Service and the Norwegian Intelligence Service, in addition to two journalists from national news media. The contemporary intelligence approach gives little weight to uncertainty and supportive evidence because of the need to protect their sources, capabilities and methods. Furthermore, a dissented practice on whether probability should be communicated to the public was found. When probability was communicated, this was done in an inconsistent and ineffective manner, promoting ambiguous interpretations by the recipients. This thesis presents several recommendations for bridging the gap between the contemporary intelligence approach and risk science. The risk science approach gives more weight to uncertainties, portrays probability in a more consistent manner and suggests a deeper understanding of how the intended audience perceive the risks

    Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures – OECMs: Andre effektive arealbaserte bevaringstiltak - Gjennomgang av noen norske arealbaserte fiskeriforvaltningstiltak og deres bidrag til bevaring av marin natur

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    I 2010 vedtok partsmøtet under konvensjonen om biologisk mangfold (CBD) bevaringsmål for natur der det blant annet het at 10% av hav- og kystområder skulle bevares innen 2020. Dette målet skulle kunne nås ad to veier: gjennom marine verneområder og/eller gjennom andre effektive arealbaserte forvaltningstiltak. I 2022 oppgraderte partsmøtet denne ambisjonen til 30% bevaring, med de samme tilnærmingene til måloppnåelse. Dette er et av 23 delmål i det globale rammeverket for biologisk mangfold («naturavtalen»). Målene her er globale og er ikke rettslig bindende.Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures – OECMs: Andre effektive arealbaserte bevaringstiltak - Gjennomgang av noen norske arealbaserte fiskeriforvaltningstiltak og deres bidrag til bevaring av marin naturpublishedVersio
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