The Inclusiveness and Emptiness of <i>Gong Qi</i>: A Non-Anglophone Perspective on Ethics from a Sino-Japanese Corporation

This article introduces a non-Anglophone concept of gong qi(communal vessel, 公器) as a metaphor for ‘corporation’. It contributes an endogenous perspective from a Sino-Japanese organizational context that enriches mainstream business ethics literature, otherwise heavily reliant on Western traditions. We translate the multi-layered meanings of gong qi based on analysis of its ideograms, its references into classical philosophies, and contemporary application in this Japanese multinational corporation in China. Gong qi contributes a perspective that sees a corporation as an inclusive and virtuous social entity, and also addresses the elusive, implicit, and forever evolving nature of organizational life that is rarely noticed. We propose gong qi can be applied in other organizations and wider cultural contexts to show a new way of seeing and understanding business ethics and organization. Rather than considering virtue as a list of definable individual qualities, we suggest that the metaphor of gong qi reveals how virtue can be experienced as indeterminate, yet immanently present, like the substance of emptiness. This, then allows us to see the virtue of immanence, the beauty of implicitness, and hence, the efficacy of gong qi

Pregnancy outcome after exposure to ranitidine and other H2- blockers - A collaborative study of the European Network of Teratology Information Services

BACKGROUND: Published data on pregnancy outcome after exposure to H2-blockers is scarce. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the data collected by the memberships of the European Network of Teratology Information Services (ENTIS). METHODS: The patients were pregnant women who or whose doctor or midwife did contact a Teratology Information Service for risk assessment after the use of a H2-blocker in pregnancy. The data were prospectively collected, i.e. before the outcome of pregnancy was known. Standardized procedures for data collection were used by each centre. The data of the exposed women were compared to those of a control group exposed to non-teratogenic substances. RESULTS: Data on the outcome of 553 pregnancies with exposure to an H2-blocker were evaluated (ranitidine n=335; cimetidine n=113, famotidine n=75; nizatidine n=15, roxatidine n=15). Most of them had been exposed at least in the first trimester. The incidence of premature deliveries was higher in the exposed group compared to the control group. There was no increase in the incidence of major malformations. Two pregnancies with maternal use of famotidine in early pregnancy were terminated after the prenatal diagnosis of a neural tube defect. CONCLUSION: There is no indication for an increased risk of major malformations after the use of H2-blockers during pregnancy