Do corporations have a duty to be trustworthy?

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, corporations have faced a crisis of trust, with growing sentiment against ‘elites and ‘big business’ and a feeling that ‘something ought to be done’ to re-establish public regard for corporations. Trust and trustworthiness are deeply moral significant. They provide the ‘glue or lubricant’ that begets reciprocity, decreases risk, secures dignity and respect, and safeguards against the subordination of the powerless to the powerful. However, in deciding how to restore trust, it is difficult to determine precisely what should be done, by whom, and who will bear the cost, especially if any action involves a risk to overall market efficiency and corporate profitability. The paper explores whether corporations have a moral duty to be trustworthy, to bear the cost of being so and thus contribute to resolving the current crisis of trust. It also considers where the state and other social actors have strong reason to protect and enforce such moral rights, while acknowledging that other actors have similar obligations to be trustworthy. It outlines five ‘salient factors’ that trigger specific rights to trustworthiness and a concomitant duty on corporations to be trustworthy: market power, subordination (threat and intimidation), the absence of choice, the need to preserve systemic trust, and corporate political power which might undermine a state’s legitimacy. Absent these factors and corporations do not have a general duty to be trustworthy, since a responsible actor in fair market conditions should be able to choose between the costs and benefits of dealing with generally trustworthy corporations

Children's School Lives: Preschool to Primary School Transition

This report is focused on the transition from preschool to primary school. School transitions are one of six core thematic areas that CSL focuses on . The transition into primary school is a significant event not only in the lives of the children, but also their family. It is embedded in wider dynamics related to the personal, social, and cultural context of their lives, as well as the particular trajectory of children’s own emotional and cognitive development (NCCA, 2018). The focus of this report is to present some of the patterns evident in this key transition point from a range of perspectives. As such, the findings presented in this report draw on data generated with the CSL cohort in Junior Infants, as well as an additional sub-study (the ‘Preschool study’), undertaken in the summer term 2019 to explore the perspectives of parents, children and early years educators on the transition to primary school.National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA

Children's School Lives in Junior Infants

This report is the third in the series from Children’s School Lives, an innovative, longitudinal research study involving almost 4,000 children in 189 primary schools. One of the defining features of the study is the strong emphasis it places on listening to and learning directly from children about their experience of being in primary school in Ireland. This particular report introduces us to the youngest children in the study. The multiple perspectives gathered from the children themselves, their families, teachers and school principals, converge to provide us with a rich, detailed picture of the children’s first year in school. Uniquely, this period incorporates the months just prior to the arrival of the Coronavirus on Irish shores and the weeks immediately after the commencement of the first national lockdown in Spring 2020. Early childhood is a time of being and becoming, a time which provides important foundations for children’s learning and for life itself. We know from research that the first six years of a child’s life, their early childhood years, are particularly important for their holistic development. We also know from research that a positive transition from preschool to primary school is a predictor of children’s future success in terms of social, emotional and educational outcomes. Yet, despite this knowledge, relatively little research exists in the Irish context on children’s initial experiences in primary school. The Children’s School Lives study responds directly to this research gap by capturing, through multiple voices, comprehensive insights into the children’s initial weeks and months in their primary classrooms.National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA

Restoring trustworthiness in the financial system: norms, behaviour and governance

We examine how trustworthy behaviour can be achieved in the financial sector. The task is to ensure that firms are motivated to pursue the long-term interests of customers rather than pursuing short-term profits. Firms’ self-interested pursuit of reputation, combined with regulation, is often not sufficient to ensure that this happens. We argue that trustworthy behaviour requires that at least some actors show a concern for the well-being of clients, or a respect for imposed standards, and that the behaviour of these actors is copied in such a way that it becomes a behavioural norm. We briefly suggest what such behavioural norms might need to be if trustworthy behaviour is to be achieved, and consider how they might be supported; we describe the research that is necessary in order to understand these norms in more detail. We argue that the norms of traders are different from the norms of those engaged in other activities, since they are inevitably self-interested, and we consider the risk that traders’ norms might undermine those of other actors. We analyse the task for governance in dealing with this problem, and the role which leadership by a corporate board and management might play in doing this. We describe the need for further research to describe how this might be done

Tumor necrosis factor inhibition modulates thrombospondin-1 expression in human inflammatory joint disease through altered NR4A2 activity

We examined thrombospondin-1 (THBS1, alias TSP-1) expression in human synovial tissue (ST) during the resolution phase of chronic inflammation and elucidated its transcriptional regulation by the orphan receptor 4A2 (NR4A2). In vivo, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) serum and ST revealed altered expression levels and tissue distribution of TSP-1. After anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy, a reciprocal relationship between TSP-1 and NR4A2 expression levels was measured in patients with clinical and ST responses to biological treatment. In vitro, primary RA fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLSs) expressed minimal TSP-1 mRNA levels with high transcript levels of NR4A2, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and IL-8 measured. Hypoxic modulation of RA FLSs resulted in inverse expression levels of TSP-1 compared with NR4A2, IL-8, and VEGF. Ectopic NR4A2 expression led to reduced TSP-1 mRNA and protein levels with concomitant increases in proangiogenic mediators. NR4A2 transcriptional activity, independent of DNA binding, repressed the hTSP-1 promoter leading to reduced mRNA and protein release in immortalized K4IM FLSs. Bioinformatic and deletion studies identified a 5' region of the TSP-1 promoter repressed by NR4A2 and proangiogenic transcription factors, including NF-κB and Ets1/2. Stable depletion of NR4A2 levels resulted in a shift in the TSP-1/VEGF expression ratio. Thus, modulation of TSP-1 expression is achieved through anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy effects on specific transcriptional networks, suggesting that enhanced TSP-1 expression may help restore tissue homeostasis during resolution of inflammatio