Ethical aspects of registry-based research in the Nordic countries

National health care registries in the Nordic countries share many attributes, but different legal and ethical frameworks represent a challenge to promoting effective joint research. Internationally, there is a lack of knowledge about how ethical matters are considered in Nordic registry-based research, and a lack of knowledge about how Nordic ethics committees operate and what is needed to obtain an approval. In this paper, we review ethical aspects of registry-based research, the legal framework, the role of ethics review boards in the Nordic countries, and the structure of the ethics application. We discuss the role of informed consent in registry-based research and how to safeguard the integrity of study participants, including vulnerable subjects and children. Our review also provides information on the different government agencies that contribute registry-based data, and a list of the major health registries in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Both ethical values and conditions for registry-based research are similar in the Nordic countries. While Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden have chosen different legal frameworks, these differences can be resolved through mutual recognition of ethical applications and by harmonizing the different systems, likely leading to increased collaboration and enlarged studies

Global Cyber Intermediary Liability: A Legal & Cultural Strategy

This Article fills the gap in the debate on fighting cybercrime. It considers the role of intermediaries and the legal and cultural strategies that countries may adopt. Part II.A of this Article examines the critical role of intermediaries in cybercrime. It shows that the intermediaries’ active participation by facilitating the transmission of cybercrime traffic removes a significant barrier for individual perpetrators. Part II.B offers a brief overview of legal efforts to combat cybercrime, and examines the legal liability of intermediaries in both the civil and criminal context and in varying legal regimes with an emphasis on ISPs. Aside from some level of injunctive relief, intermediaries operate in a largely unregulated environment. Part III looks at what we can learn from other countries. The cleanest intermediary country, Finland, and the worst country, Lithuania, were selected in order to explore the causes for the differences between country performances. The section examines the remarkable distinctions between national cultures to explain differences in national cybercrime rates. Part III.A of this Article argues that the criminal code laws do not account for the difference in host and ISP performances between Finland and Lithuania. There are few differences in the codified laws pertaining to cybercrime between these countries. Instead, it is Finland’s cultural and business environments that appear to drive its cybercrime ranking. Part IV suggests reforms to shift a country’s culture to make it less prone to corruption. However, changing a culture takes time so Part IV also proposes a private law scheme in which intermediaries are unable to wave the “flag of immunity,” as they do now. The guiding philosophy for this proposal is that harmed parties should be permitted to recover damages directly from “bad” intermediaries

Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Based on the geographic limitations of previous meta-analysis made about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Financial Performance (FP) and on the evidence found in previous work on the country's influence in this relationship, the aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between these two variables studying the possible moderating effect that the country variable may have on it. By the use of the cultural dimensions of GLOBE (2004), we classify the countries, and test the hypothesis through the statistical technique of meta-analysis. The results show that the country where the companies are home-based moderates the relationship between CSR and FP. In particular from the results, we can conclude that while in Australia, Canada, USA and the United Kingdom the relationship is stronger and larger, in some countries, such as Japan, there is no relationship

National differences in requirements for ethical and competent authority approval for a multinational vaccine trial under the EU directive 2001/20/EC

Obtaining approval for a multinational vaccine trial from an ethics committee and the national competent authority of different Member States of the European Union (EU) is challenging under clinical trial Directive 2001/20/EC because of the differences in the implementation of the directive in national laws of Member States. In this review the national differences in requirements for ethical and competent authority approval are illustrated. The national ethical and competent authority review procedures in Finland, Hungary, The Netherlands, Norway and Slovenia are described under the EU trial directive after discussing the provisions of the trial directive related to both review procedures. The review illustrates the differences between the countries in the documents that have to be submitted for the review procedures, the submission procedures and the language requirements of the documents, the organization of the ethics committees and the role of the competent authority in the approval procedure

Descriptions of euthanasia as social representations: comparing the views of Finnish physicians and religious professionals

In many western societies health professionals play a powerful role in people's experiences of dying. Religious professionals, such as pastors, are also confronted with the issues surrounding death and dying in their work. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the ways in which death-related topics, such as euthanasia, are constructed in a given culture are affected by the views of these professionals. This qualitative study addresses the ways in which Finnish physicians and religious professionals perceive and describe euthanasia and conceptualises these descriptions and views as social representations. Almost all the physicians interviewed saw that euthanasia does not fit the role of a physician and anchored it to different kinds of risks such as the slippery slope. Most of the religious and world-view professionals also rejected euthanasia. In this group, euthanasia was rejected on the basis of a religious moral code that forbids killing. Only one of the religious professionals - the freethinker with an atheist world-view - accepted euthanasia and described it as a personal choice, as did the one physician interviewed who accepted it. The article shows how the social representations of euthanasia are used to protect professional identities and to justify their expert knowledge of death and dying

The Sustainable Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility: A Global Analysis and Future Trends

Due to the process of globalization, companies are obligated to observe corporate social responsibility and best practices from a sustainability approach towards their stakeholders and society. The explicit aim is to determine the relevance of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its relationship with sustainability, in order to establish trends and future lines of research. The evolution of global research on this subject has been studied from 2001 to 2018. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis of 1832 articles has been applied, obtaining results of the scientific productivity of the journals, authors, institutions, and countries that contribute to this research. Evidence shows a growing interest in studying the relationship between socially responsible practices and the dimension of sustainability. The main category is Business, Management, and Accounting. The most productive journals are the Journal of Business Ethics and Sustainability. The authors with the most articles are García-Sánchez, Moneva, and Moratis, while Kolk is the most cited. The most prolific institution is the University of Salamanca. The United States is the country with the most publications and quotes. France and China are the countries with the largest number of international collaborations in their work. Global research has been on an upward trend with optimal publication rates in recent years

The impact of powerful authorities and trustful tax payers: Evidence for the extended slippery slope framework from Austria, Finland and Hungary

Tax authorities utilize a wide range of instruments to motivate honest taxpaying ranging from strict audits to fair procedures or personalized support, differing from country to country. However, little is known about how these different instruments and taxpayers' trust influence the generation of interaction climates between tax authorities and taxpayers, motivations to comply, and particularly, tax compliance. The present research examines the extended slippery slope framework (eSSF), which distinguishes tax authorities' instruments into different qualities of power of authority (coercive and legitimate) and trust in authorities (reasonbased and implicit), to shed light on the effect of differences between power and trust. We test eSSF assumptions with survey data from taxpayers from three culturally different countries (N = 700) who also vary concerning their perceptions of power, trust, interaction climates, and tax motivations. Results support assumptions of the eSSF. Across all countries, the relation of coercive power and tax compliance was mediated by implicit trust, which leads to an antagonistic climate and enforced motivation. The connection from legitimate power to tax compliance is partially mediated by reason-based trust. The relationship between implicit trust and tax compliance is mediated by a confidence climate and committed cooperation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed