Guoli Chen
www.barrons.com
Originally posted April 8, 2019
Here is an excerpt:
A version of my research, “That Could Have Been Me: Director Deaths, CEO Mortality Salience and Corporate Prosocial Behavior” (co-authored with Craig Crossland and Sterling Huang and forthcoming in Management Science) notes the significant impact a director’s death can have on resource allocation within a firm and on CEO’s activities, both outside and inside the organization.
For example, we saw that CEOs who’d experienced the death of a director on their boards reduced the number of outside directorships they held in the publicly listed firms. At the same time, they increased their number of directorships in non-profit organizations. It seems that thoughts of mortality had inspired a desire to make a lasting, positive contribution to society, or to jettison some priorities in favor of more pro-social ones.
We also saw differences in how CEOs led their firms. In our study, which looked at statistics taken from public firms where a director had died in the years between 1990 and 2013 and compared them with similar firms where no director had died, we saw that CEOs who’d experienced the death of a close colleague spend less efforts on the firms’ immediate growth or financial return activities. We found that there is an increase of costs-of-goods-sold, and companies they lead become less aggressive in expanding their assets and firm size, after the director death events. It could be due to the “quiet life” or “withdrawal behavior” hypotheses which suggest that CEOs become less engaged with the corporate activities after they realize the finite of life span. They may shift their time and focus from corporate to family or community activities.
Meanwhile we also observed that firms lead by these CEOs after the director death experienced an increase their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. CEOs with a heightened awareness of deaths will influence their firms resource allocation towards activities that provide benefits to broader stakeholders, such as employee health plans, more environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes, and charitable contributions.
The info is here.
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Moral Grandstanding in Public Discourse
Joshua Grubbs, Brandon Warmke, Justin Tosi, & Alicia James
PsyArXiv Preprints
Originally posted April 5, 2019
Abstract
Public discourse is often caustic and conflict-filled. This trend seems to be particularly evident when the content of such discourse is around moral issues (broadly defined) and when the discourse occurs on social media. Several explanatory mechanisms for such conflict have been explored in recent psychological and social-science literatures. The present work sought to examine a potentially novel explanatory mechanism defined in philosophical literature: Moral Grandstanding. According to philosophical accounts, Moral Grandstanding is the use of moral talk to seek social status. For the present work, we conducted five studies, using two undergraduate samples (Study 1, N = 361; Study 2, N = 356); an sample matched to U.S. norms for age, gender, race, income, Census region (Study 3, N = 1,063); a YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Study 4, N = 2,000); and a brief, one-month longitudinal study of Mechanical Turk workers in the U.S. (Study 5 , Baseline N = 499, follow-up n = 296). Across studies, we found initial support for the validity of Moral Grandstanding as a construct. Specifically, moral grandstanding was associated with status-seeking personality traits, as well as greater political and moral conflict in daily life.
Here is part of the Conclusion:
Public discourse regarding morally charged topics is prone to conflict and polarization, particularly on social media platforms that tend to facilitate ideological echo chambers. The present study introduces an interdisciplinary construct called Moral Grandstanding as possible a contributing factor to this phenomenon. MG links evolutionary psychology and moral philosophy to describe the use of public moral speech to enhance one’s status or image in the eyes of others. Specifically, MG is framed as an expression of status-seeking drives in the domain of public discourse. Self-reported motivations underlying grandstanding behaviors seem to be consistent with the construct of status-seeking more broadly, seeming to represent prestige and dominance striving, both of which were found to be associated with greater interpersonal conflict and polarization.
The research is here.
PsyArXiv Preprints
Originally posted April 5, 2019
Abstract
Public discourse is often caustic and conflict-filled. This trend seems to be particularly evident when the content of such discourse is around moral issues (broadly defined) and when the discourse occurs on social media. Several explanatory mechanisms for such conflict have been explored in recent psychological and social-science literatures. The present work sought to examine a potentially novel explanatory mechanism defined in philosophical literature: Moral Grandstanding. According to philosophical accounts, Moral Grandstanding is the use of moral talk to seek social status. For the present work, we conducted five studies, using two undergraduate samples (Study 1, N = 361; Study 2, N = 356); an sample matched to U.S. norms for age, gender, race, income, Census region (Study 3, N = 1,063); a YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Study 4, N = 2,000); and a brief, one-month longitudinal study of Mechanical Turk workers in the U.S. (Study 5 , Baseline N = 499, follow-up n = 296). Across studies, we found initial support for the validity of Moral Grandstanding as a construct. Specifically, moral grandstanding was associated with status-seeking personality traits, as well as greater political and moral conflict in daily life.
Here is part of the Conclusion:
Public discourse regarding morally charged topics is prone to conflict and polarization, particularly on social media platforms that tend to facilitate ideological echo chambers. The present study introduces an interdisciplinary construct called Moral Grandstanding as possible a contributing factor to this phenomenon. MG links evolutionary psychology and moral philosophy to describe the use of public moral speech to enhance one’s status or image in the eyes of others. Specifically, MG is framed as an expression of status-seeking drives in the domain of public discourse. Self-reported motivations underlying grandstanding behaviors seem to be consistent with the construct of status-seeking more broadly, seeming to represent prestige and dominance striving, both of which were found to be associated with greater interpersonal conflict and polarization.
The research is here.
Friday, May 3, 2019
Real or artificial? Tech titans declare AI ethics concerns
Matt O'Brien and Rachel Lerman
Associated Press
Originally posted April 7, 2019
Here is an excerpt:
"Ethical AI" has become a new corporate buzz phrase, slapped on internal review committees, fancy job titles, research projects and philanthropic initiatives. The moves are meant to address concerns over racial and gender bias emerging in facial recognition and other AI systems, as well as address anxieties about job losses to the technology and its use by law enforcement and the military.
But how much substance lies behind the increasingly public ethics campaigns? And who gets to decide which technological pursuits do no harm?
Google was hit with both questions when it formed a new board of outside advisers in late March to help guide how it uses AI in products. But instead of winning over potential critics, it sparked internal rancor. A little more than a week later, Google bowed to pressure from the backlash and dissolved the council.
The outside board fell apart in stages. One of the board's eight inaugural members quit within days and another quickly became the target of protests from Google employees who said her conservative views don't align with the company's professed values.
As thousands of employees called for the removal of Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James, Google disbanded the board last week.
"It's become clear that in the current environment, (the council) can't function as we wanted," the company said in a statement.
The info is here.
Associated Press
Originally posted April 7, 2019
Here is an excerpt:
"Ethical AI" has become a new corporate buzz phrase, slapped on internal review committees, fancy job titles, research projects and philanthropic initiatives. The moves are meant to address concerns over racial and gender bias emerging in facial recognition and other AI systems, as well as address anxieties about job losses to the technology and its use by law enforcement and the military.
But how much substance lies behind the increasingly public ethics campaigns? And who gets to decide which technological pursuits do no harm?
Google was hit with both questions when it formed a new board of outside advisers in late March to help guide how it uses AI in products. But instead of winning over potential critics, it sparked internal rancor. A little more than a week later, Google bowed to pressure from the backlash and dissolved the council.
The outside board fell apart in stages. One of the board's eight inaugural members quit within days and another quickly became the target of protests from Google employees who said her conservative views don't align with the company's professed values.
As thousands of employees called for the removal of Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James, Google disbanded the board last week.
"It's become clear that in the current environment, (the council) can't function as we wanted," the company said in a statement.
The info is here.
Fla. healthcare executive found guilty in $1B Medicare fraud case
Associated Press
Modern Healthcare
Originally published April 5, 2019
Florida healthcare executive Philip Esformes was found guilty Friday of paying and receiving kickbacks and other charges as part of the biggest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history.
During the seven-week trial in federal court in Miami, prosecutors called Esformes a trickster and mastermind of a scheme paying bribes and kickbacks to doctors to refer patients to his nursing home network from 2009 to 2016. The fraud also included paying off a regulator to learn when inspectors would make surprise visits to his facilities, or if patients had made complaints.
Esformes owns dozens of Miami-Dade nursing facilities as well as homes in Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The info is here.
Modern Healthcare
Originally published April 5, 2019
Florida healthcare executive Philip Esformes was found guilty Friday of paying and receiving kickbacks and other charges as part of the biggest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history.
During the seven-week trial in federal court in Miami, prosecutors called Esformes a trickster and mastermind of a scheme paying bribes and kickbacks to doctors to refer patients to his nursing home network from 2009 to 2016. The fraud also included paying off a regulator to learn when inspectors would make surprise visits to his facilities, or if patients had made complaints.
Esformes owns dozens of Miami-Dade nursing facilities as well as homes in Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The info is here.
Thursday, May 2, 2019
A Facebook request: Write a code of tech ethics
www.latimes.com
Originally published April 30, 2019
Facebook is preparing to pay a multi-billion-dollar fine and dealing with ongoing ire from all corners for its user privacy lapses, the viral transmission of lies during elections, and delivery of ads in ways that skew along gender and racial lines. To grapple with these problems (and to get ahead of the bad PR they created), Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has proposed that governments get together and set some laws and regulations for Facebook to follow.
But Zuckerberg should be aiming higher. The question isn’t just what rules should a reformed Facebook follow. The bigger question is what all the big tech companies’ relationships with users should look like. The framework needed can’t be created out of whole cloth just by new government regulation; it has to be grounded in professional ethics.
Doctors and lawyers, as they became increasingly professionalized in the 19th century, developed formal ethical codes that became the seeds of modern-day professional practice. Tech-company professionals should follow their example. An industry-wide code of ethics could guide companies through the big questions of privacy and harmful content.
The info is here.
Editor's note: Many social media companies engage in unethical behavior on a regular basis, typically revolving around lack of consent, lack of privacy standards, filter bubble (personalized algorithms) issues, lack of accountability, lack of transparency, harmful content, and third party use of data.
Part-revived pig brains raise slew of ethical quandaries
Nita A. Farahany, Henry T. Greely & Charles M. Giattino
Nature
Originally published April 17, 2019
Scientists have restored and preserved some cellular activities and structures in the brains of pigs that had been decapitated for food production four hours before. The researchers saw circulation in major arteries and small blood vessels, metabolism and responsiveness to drugs at the cellular level and even spontaneous synaptic activity in neurons, among other things. The team formulated a unique solution and circulated it through the isolated brains using a network of pumps and filters called BrainEx. The solution was cell-free, did not coagulate and contained a haemoglobin-based oxygen carrier and a wide range of pharmacological agents.
The remarkable study, published in this week’s Nature, offers the promise of an animal or even human whole-brain model in which many cellular functions are intact. At present, cells from animal and human brains can be sustained in culture for weeks, but only so much can be gleaned from isolated cells. Tissue slices can provide snapshots of local structural organization, yet they are woefully inadequate for questions about function and global connectivity, because much of the 3D structure is lost during tissue preparation.
The work also raises a host of ethical issues. There was no evidence of any global electrical activity — the kind of higher-order brain functioning associated with consciousness. Nor was there any sign of the capacity to perceive the environment and experience sensations. Even so, because of the possibilities it opens up, the BrainEx study highlights potential limitations in the current regulations for animals used in research.
The info is here.
Nature
Originally published April 17, 2019
Scientists have restored and preserved some cellular activities and structures in the brains of pigs that had been decapitated for food production four hours before. The researchers saw circulation in major arteries and small blood vessels, metabolism and responsiveness to drugs at the cellular level and even spontaneous synaptic activity in neurons, among other things. The team formulated a unique solution and circulated it through the isolated brains using a network of pumps and filters called BrainEx. The solution was cell-free, did not coagulate and contained a haemoglobin-based oxygen carrier and a wide range of pharmacological agents.
The remarkable study, published in this week’s Nature, offers the promise of an animal or even human whole-brain model in which many cellular functions are intact. At present, cells from animal and human brains can be sustained in culture for weeks, but only so much can be gleaned from isolated cells. Tissue slices can provide snapshots of local structural organization, yet they are woefully inadequate for questions about function and global connectivity, because much of the 3D structure is lost during tissue preparation.
The work also raises a host of ethical issues. There was no evidence of any global electrical activity — the kind of higher-order brain functioning associated with consciousness. Nor was there any sign of the capacity to perceive the environment and experience sensations. Even so, because of the possibilities it opens up, the BrainEx study highlights potential limitations in the current regulations for animals used in research.
The info is here.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Chinese scientists create super monkeys by injecting brains with human DNA
Harriet Brewis
www.msn.com
Originally published April 13, 2019
Chinese scientists have created super-intelligent monkeys by injecting them with human DNA.
Researchers transferred a gene linked to brain development, called MCPH1, into rhesus monkey embryos.
Once they were born, the monkeys were found to have better memories, reaction times and processing abilities than their untouched peers.
"This was the first attempt to understand the evolution of human cognition using a transgenic monkey model," said Bing Su, a geneticist at Kunming Institute of Zoology in China.
The research was conducted by Dr Su’s team at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of North Carolina in the US.
“Our findings demonstrated that nonhuman primates (excluding ape species) have the potential to provide important – and potentially unique – insights into basic questions of what actually makes human unique,” the authors wrote in the study.
The info is here.
www.msn.com
Originally published April 13, 2019
Chinese scientists have created super-intelligent monkeys by injecting them with human DNA.
Researchers transferred a gene linked to brain development, called MCPH1, into rhesus monkey embryos.
Once they were born, the monkeys were found to have better memories, reaction times and processing abilities than their untouched peers.
"This was the first attempt to understand the evolution of human cognition using a transgenic monkey model," said Bing Su, a geneticist at Kunming Institute of Zoology in China.
The research was conducted by Dr Su’s team at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of North Carolina in the US.
“Our findings demonstrated that nonhuman primates (excluding ape species) have the potential to provide important – and potentially unique – insights into basic questions of what actually makes human unique,” the authors wrote in the study.
The info is here.
The U.S. Healthcare Cost Crisis
Gallup
Report issued April 2019
Executive Summary
The high cost of healthcare in the United States is a significant source of apprehension and fear for millions of Americans, according to a new national survey by West Health and Gallup.
Relative to the quality of the care they receive, Americans overwhelmingly agree they pay too much, and receive too little, and few have confidence that elected officials can solve the problem.
Americans in large numbers are borrowing money, skipping treatments and cutting back on household expenses because of high costs, and a large percentage fear a major health event could bankrupt them. More than three-quarters of Americans are also concerned that high healthcare costs could cause significant and lasting damage to the U.S. economy.
Despite the financial burden and fears caused by high healthcare costs, partisan filters lead to divergent views of the healthcare system at large: By a wide margin, more Republicans than Democrats consider the quality of care in the U.S. to be the best or among the best in the world — all while the U.S. significantly outspends other advanced economies on healthcare with dismal outcomes on basic health indicators such as infant mortality and heart attack mortality.
Republicans and Democrats are about as likely to resort to drastic measures, from deferring care to cutting back on other expenses including groceries, clothing, and gas and electricity. And many do not see the situation improving. In fact, most believe costs will only increase. When given the choice between a freeze in healthcare costs for the next five years or a 10% increase in household
income, 61% of Americans report that their preference is a freeze in costs.
West Health and Gallup’s major study included interviews with members of Gallup’s National Panel of Households and healthcare industry experts as well as a nationally representative survey of more than 3,537 randomly selected adults.
The report can be downloaded here.
Report issued April 2019
Executive Summary
The high cost of healthcare in the United States is a significant source of apprehension and fear for millions of Americans, according to a new national survey by West Health and Gallup.
Relative to the quality of the care they receive, Americans overwhelmingly agree they pay too much, and receive too little, and few have confidence that elected officials can solve the problem.
Americans in large numbers are borrowing money, skipping treatments and cutting back on household expenses because of high costs, and a large percentage fear a major health event could bankrupt them. More than three-quarters of Americans are also concerned that high healthcare costs could cause significant and lasting damage to the U.S. economy.
Despite the financial burden and fears caused by high healthcare costs, partisan filters lead to divergent views of the healthcare system at large: By a wide margin, more Republicans than Democrats consider the quality of care in the U.S. to be the best or among the best in the world — all while the U.S. significantly outspends other advanced economies on healthcare with dismal outcomes on basic health indicators such as infant mortality and heart attack mortality.
Republicans and Democrats are about as likely to resort to drastic measures, from deferring care to cutting back on other expenses including groceries, clothing, and gas and electricity. And many do not see the situation improving. In fact, most believe costs will only increase. When given the choice between a freeze in healthcare costs for the next five years or a 10% increase in household
income, 61% of Americans report that their preference is a freeze in costs.
West Health and Gallup’s major study included interviews with members of Gallup’s National Panel of Households and healthcare industry experts as well as a nationally representative survey of more than 3,537 randomly selected adults.
The report can be downloaded here.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Ethics in AI Are Not Optional
Rob Daly
www.marketsmedia.com
Originally posted April 12, 2019
Artificial intelligence is a critical feature in the future of the financial services, but firms should not be penny-wise and pound-foolish in their race to develop the most advanced offering as possible, caution experts.
“You do not need to be on the frontier of technology if you are not a technology company,” said Greg Baxter, the chief digital officer at MetLife, in his keynote address during Celent’s annual Innovation and Insight Day. “You just have to permit your people to use the technology.”
More effort should be spent on developing the various policies that will govern the deployment of the technology, he added.
MetLife spends more time on ethics and legal than it does with technology, according to Baxter.
Firms should be wary when implementing AI in such a fashion that it alienates clients by being too intrusive and ruining the customer experience. “If data is the new currency, its credit line is trust,” said Baxter.
The info is here.
www.marketsmedia.com
Originally posted April 12, 2019
Artificial intelligence is a critical feature in the future of the financial services, but firms should not be penny-wise and pound-foolish in their race to develop the most advanced offering as possible, caution experts.
“You do not need to be on the frontier of technology if you are not a technology company,” said Greg Baxter, the chief digital officer at MetLife, in his keynote address during Celent’s annual Innovation and Insight Day. “You just have to permit your people to use the technology.”
More effort should be spent on developing the various policies that will govern the deployment of the technology, he added.
MetLife spends more time on ethics and legal than it does with technology, according to Baxter.
Firms should be wary when implementing AI in such a fashion that it alienates clients by being too intrusive and ruining the customer experience. “If data is the new currency, its credit line is trust,” said Baxter.
The info is here.
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