Workshop Ethics and Morality in Business Informatics (Workshop Ethik und Moral in der Wirtschaftsinformatik – EMoWI\u2719)

The aim of the first edition of the EMoWI workshop was to establish a new forum for Business Informatics researchers and practitioners to reflect on the various ways in which the concern with business information systems and digital technologies gives rise to questions and issues with an ethical dimension. The several contributions of the workshop have made it plain that ethical questions indeed crop up in many fields of Business Informatics, ranging from specific research objects such as digital platforms to methodological presuppositions of the discipline at large. This chapter provides an overview of the background and the contributions of the EMoWI workshop 2019

Beyond panoptic surveillance: On the ethical dilemmas of the connected workplace

Technological advances such as the Internet-of-Things, big data, and artificial intelligence have enabled new ways of managerial oversight moving away from panoptic surveillance to what we call “connected surveillance”. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of connected surveillance, which purpose is not only scrutinizing employees’ work performance, but also health, personal beliefs, and other private matters. With the implementation of connected workplaces, therefore, various ethical dilemmas arise. We highlight four emerging dilemmas, namely: (1) the good of the individual versus the good of the community, (2) ownership versus information disclosure, (3) justice versus mercy, and (4) truth versus loyalty. We discuss those ethical dilemmas for the case of corporate wellness programs which is frequently being used as guise to introduce connected surveillance. Following a socio-technical perspective, we discuss ethical responses that focus on people involvement and technology assessment. We highlight practical responses that can aim at mitigating the dilemmas

Beyond Panoptic Surveillance: On the Ethical Dilemmas of the Connected Workplace

Technological advances such as the Internet-of-Things, big data, and artificial intelligence have enabled new ways of managerial oversight moving away from panoptic surveillance to what we call “connected surveillance”. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of connected surveillance which purpose is not only scruitizing employees’ work performance but also health, personal beliefs, and other private matters. With the implementation of connected workplaces, therefore, various ethical dilemmas arise. We highlight four emerging dilemmas, namely: (1) the good of the individual versus the good of the community, (2) ownership versus information disclosure, (3) justice versus mercy, and (4) truth versus loyalty. We discuss those ethical dilemmas for the case of corporate wellness programs which is frequently used as guise to introduce connected surveillance. Following a socio-technical perspective, we discuss ethical responses that focus on people involvement and technology assessment. We also highlight practical responses that can aim at mitigating the dilemmas

Investigating the use of real-time data in nudging patients' Emergency Department (ED) attendance behaviour

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Society for Modeling and Simulation International via the URL in this record.Decision-making in healthcare is a complex process involving multiple stakeholders. One such stakeholder category is the intended users of the system itself – the patients. We present a study in which users use real-time hospital operations data to make attendance choices. The work was carried out with the Torbay & South Devon NHS Foundation Trust (TSDFT) and its network of Minor Injury Units (MIUs) and one Emergency Department (ED). The aim of this research was to provide information transparency on ED/MIU waiting times which would allow recipients, including, significantly, patients who are in need of urgent medical attention, to make informed decisions as to the facility that could best serve their needs. This work will contribute towards reducing pressure in ED by redistributing demand for minor ailments among the MIUs, since the MIUs have facilities for the treatment of minor injuries and the ED exists mainly for emergency and life-threating conditions.We would like to acknowledge the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account on Project Co-creation for the project on “Systems Modelling and Computer Simulation of Urgent and Emergency Care in Torbay & South Devon"

Characterizing Manipulation from AI Systems

Manipulation is a common concern in many domains, such as social media, advertising, and chatbots. As AI systems mediate more of our interactions with the world, it is important to understand the degree to which AI systems might manipulate humans without the intent of the system designers. Our work clarifies challenges in defining and measuring manipulation in the context of AI systems. Firstly, we build upon prior literature on manipulation from other fields and characterize the space of possible notions of manipulation, which we find to depend upon the concepts of incentives, intent, harm, and covertness. We review proposals on how to operationalize each factor. Second, we propose a definition of manipulation based on our characterization: a system is manipulative if it acts as if it were pursuing an incentive to change a human (or another agent) intentionally and covertly. Third, we discuss the connections between manipulation and related concepts, such as deception and coercion. Finally, we contextualize our operationalization of manipulation in some applications. Our overall assessment is that while some progress has been made in defining and measuring manipulation from AI systems, many gaps remain. In the absence of a consensus definition and reliable tools for measurement, we cannot rule out the possibility that AI systems learn to manipulate humans without the intent of the system designers. We argue that such manipulation poses a significant threat to human autonomy, suggesting that precautionary actions to mitigate it are warranted.Comment: Presented at EAAMO 2023; The first two authors contributed equally; author order was decided with a coin fli

Insights Gained From a Re-analysis of Five Improvement Cases in Healthcare Integrating System Dynamics Into Action Research

Background Healthcare is complex with multi-professional staff and a variety of patient care pathways. Time pressure and minimal margins for errors, as well as tension between hierarchical power and the power of the professions, make it challenging to implement new policies or procedures. This paper explores five improvement cases in healthcare integrating system dynamics (SD) into action research (AR), aiming to identify methodological aspects of how this integration supported multi-professional groups to discover workable solutions to work-related challenges. Methods This re-analysis was conducted by a multi-disciplinary research group using an iterative abductive approach applying qualitative analysis to structure and understand the empirical material. Frameworks for consultancy assignments/client projects were used to identify case project stages (workflow steps) and socio-analytical questions were used to bridge between the AR and SD perspectives. Results All studied cases began with an extensive AR-inspired inventory of problems/objectives and ended with an SDfacilitated experimental phase where mutually agreed solutions were tested in silico. Time was primarily divided between facilitated group discussions during meetings and modelling work between meetings. Work principles ensured that the voice of each participant was heard, inspired engagement, interaction, and exploratory mutual learning activities. There was an overall pattern of two major divergent and convergent phases, as each group moved towards a mutually developed point of reference for their problem/objective and solution, a case-specific multi-professional knowledge repository. Conclusion By integrating SD into AR, more favourable outcomes for the client organization may be achieved than when applying either approach in isolation. We found that SD provided a platform that facilitated experiential learning in the AR process. The identified results were calibrated to local needs and circumstances, and compared to traditional top-down implementation for change processes, improved the likelihood of sustained actualisation.publishedVersio

e-Nudging Justice: The Role of Digital Choice Architecture in Online Courts

Justice systems around the world are launching online courts and tribunals as a means to improve their efficiency, increase access to justice, and ameliorate the quality of proceedings. These online courts and tribunals are publicly administered judicial online dispute resolution (ODR) systems that enable litigants, lawyers, judges and court personnel to complete all litigation related activities, from filing through final disposition, on a dedicated digital platform. Online courts are envisioned as a promising response to many challenges that civil justice systems face, including those stemming from voluminous case filings, procedural complexity, limited accessibility, high costs of litigation, and the ubiquity of settlements and non-trial adjudication. The guiding premise of judicial ODR systems is that information technology (IT) and innovative procedural design can improve the accessibility, efficiency and effectiveness of courts. Specifically, most online courts are designed to improve access to justice for self-represented litigants (SRLs), who access courts unassisted by lawyers. As such, they respond to calls to redesign civil courts for the typical litigant and process, and specifically, for the skills and needs of SRLs

Effective education and communication strategies to promote environmental engagement : The role of social-psychological mechanisms

Communicators of climate change seek ways to better educate and motivate individuals to personally commit to sustainable, energy-saving activities. However, critical psychological and social barriers to conservation make this task challenging. Behavioral scientists are well aware of the difficulties that individuals and groups have in responding effectively to information surrounding climate change, and have used these insights to develop a number of techniques to aid in persuading people of the importance of the climate change issue, and motivating adaptive behavioral responses. This report consolidates research findings from behavioral economics, decision science, and social psychology to explore key insights and evidence around effective climate change education strategies and interventions aimed at enhancing conservation behaviors. We explore key findings from the behavioral and decision sciences, including analyses of cognitive bias, choice architecture, social influences, values, and communication strategies. In addition, we discuss a set of international, academic-private partnerships that used interventions suggested by behavioral science and psychological theory to dramatic effects. These in-depth case studies demonstrate how practitioners and researchers have put research insights and principles into practice. We conclude by addressing implications for policymakers

Behavioural public administration: a systematic review on the effects of cognitive biases on public adminstration decisions

Public administration and psychology can dialogue by outlining a distinct approach in public administration that integrates both fields of study: behavioral public administration. The behavioral public administration can be beneficial for practitioners, such as policy makers, public managers, and public professionals, by the development of usable knowledge. This paper aims to elaborate a systematic literature review of the findings on the application of the behavioral economics principles on the public administration and the effects of cognitive biases from the behavioral economics perspectives on public managerial decisions. It will provide a comprehensive overview of the problems that could emerge from this decision-making process. The main contribution that is objected through this research is consolidate the current state of the art on the cognitive biases studies within Public Administration and identify the application and theoretical knowledge gaps that can provide new research opportunities. RESUMOA administração pública e a psicologia podem dialogar delineando uma abordagem distinta na administração pública que integra os dois campos de estudo: administração pública comportamental. A administração pública comportamental pode ser benéfica para os profissionais, como formuladores de políticas, gestores públicos e profissionais públicos, pelo desenvolvimento de conhecimento utilizável. Este artigo tem como objetivo elaborar uma revisão sistemática da literatura dos achados sobre a aplicação dos princípios da economia comportamental na administração pública e os efeitos dos vieses cognitivos da perspectiva da economia comportamental nas decisões gerenciais públicas. Ele fornecerá uma visão abrangente dos problemas que podem surgir desse processo de tomada de decisão. A principal contribuição que se objetiva com esta pesquisa é consolidar o estado da arte atual sobre os estudos de vieses cognitivos na Administração Pública e identificar as lacunas de aplicação e de conhecimento teórico que podem proporcionar novas oportunidades de pesquisa

Challenging Social Media Threats using Collective Well-being Aware Recommendation Algorithms and an Educational Virtual Companion

Social media (SM) have become an integral part of our lives, expanding our inter-linking capabilities to new levels. There is plenty to be said about their positive effects. On the other hand however, some serious negative implications of SM have repeatedly been highlighted in recent years, pointing at various SM threats for society, and its teenagers in particular: from common issues (e.g. digital addiction and polarization) and manipulative influences of algorithms to teenager-specific issues (e.g. body stereotyping). The full impact of current SM platform design -- both at an individual and societal level -- asks for a comprehensive evaluation and conceptual improvement. We extend measures of Collective Well-Being (CWB) to SM communities. As users' relationships and interactions are a central component of CWB, education is crucial to improve CWB. We thus propose a framework based on an adaptive "social media virtual companion" for educating and supporting the entire students' community to interact with SM. The virtual companion will be powered by a Recommender System (CWB-RS) that will optimize a CWB metric instead of engagement or platform profit, which currently largely drives recommender systems thereby disregarding any societal collateral effect. CWB-RS will optimize CWB both in the short term, by balancing the level of SM threat the students are exposed to, as well as in the long term, by adopting an Intelligent Tutor System role and enabling adaptive and personalized sequencing of playful learning activities. This framework offers an initial step on understanding how to design SM systems and embedded educational interventions that favor a more healthy and positive society