فصلنامه اخلاق در علوم و فناوری
سال چهاردهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 49، پاییز 1398)

The existence of crises and problems such as non-compliance with standards and professional ethics in the field of engineering and technology, and existence of fraud and misuse in the field of science has resulted in importance of ethics in the science and technology. But the fact is that there is no accurate understanding of the ethics of science and technology, and this field is often confused with other areas such as general and professional ethics. Hence our goal in this article is to examine the nature of the ethics of science and technology. To this end, ethics is first defined, and in the next step, the ethics of science and technology are considered in the form of two strong and weak readings, and ultimately, according to the joint section of two readings, the nature of science and technology ethics are introduced.

The results of this research show that, contrary to current approaches, the ethics of science and technology has a more experimental-descriptive character than theoretical-prescriptive one. From a practical point of view, the correct recognition of the ethics of science and technology can help to identify and solve the ethical issues in the field of science and technology and also play a constructive role in policy making in this field, which plays an important role in the development and socio-economic growth

In spite of the extreme effects of balanced and proportional exercise to the health of the ‎body and soul, professional sport is difference. Professional sports like any job have special problems and ‎ethical challenges. Getting fame, authority, and wealth, especially for those who see their sport and ‎heroine as their only way of success, may push an athlete to abuse drugs and ergogenic aids and the ‎market for medicines and supplements that come with the spirit. This is in conflict with principle of sports. ‎The purpose of this review is to investigate the ethical consideration of professional sport and ‎consequences of the trade of medications and drugs in modern sport.‎

The high consumption of drugs and ergogenic aids in various sports is undeniable. The ‎consequence of using these materials in addition to the physiological disorder on the respiratory and ‎muscular system of the cardiovascular system is an unpleasant psychological problem for the athlete, and ‎if it to be determined a person or nation is scandalized. This has been the subject of many sacrifices in ‎recent years. The focus point of using drugs is in athletes in strengths sports and ‎bodybuilders. Of course, it is also common in other competitions such as tour France cycling.  The most ‎important cause of using these products is money, easy and convenient access, prescription ‎without doctors supervision, and sometimes the lack of awareness and advertising of foreign ‎manufacturers, importers and sellers, and insufficient monitoring, which should be considered some ‎solutions for these issues.‎

In the past literature of Iran, it was believed that some of the poets used their words to describe praise and plaudit of the kings and authorities and in response the poets received a variety of donation and rewards that were called munificence. But sometimes, in the words of some eloquents, admiration and eulogy went further than their usual way, and the poet reacted with critic and protest toward unusual behavior and its surrounding and also paid the attention of the praised.The present study is compared and examined eulogy and laudatory in creating ethical – protesting contents in Complete Works of Saadi and Khajooye Kermani’s Divan by descriptive – analytic method. Saadi’s eulogy was limit and he considered this verbal method as a suitable substrate for struggling with injustice in reaching his ideal society. But a lot of Khajoo’s eulogy was the continuation of the common method of eulogy with traditional function in the past literacy of Iranian i.e the pleasure of authorities.

Due to the independence thought and believe in values, Saadi ( Sheikh- e-Ajal) considered eulogy as a good opportunity for expressing clear ethical, social, educational and political objections while in comparison with Saadi, Khajoo had more exaggerated eulogy because of material needs and deprivation from a special social position and equally his objections and critique in most cases were contained indignity because of the lack of receiving these rewards and hence it had non-ethical, satire and unsocial aspects.

Nowadays, life increasingly relies on inclusive scientific and technological infrastructures. Today, the use of technology has been manifested in all aspects of people's lives, so that decision-making processes in all aspects are based on the indicators of science and technology. Science has even come up with issues such as ethics and tradition, so traditional issues of ethics in the modern age have taken on new dimensions and require new study and research. The ethics of debate has now reached all areas of knowledge, as ethics is spoken in the various branches of the human sciences. The purpose of this study is to identify centers for science and technology ethics in the US, UK, India and China.

In this paper, the experiences of countries belonging active centers in the area of ethics in science and technology including academic and non-academic centers such as the United States of America, UK, China and India will be discussed and they were submitted to a comparative study to offer a model for the establishment and development of organizations and centers in this area in Iran.

The spread of electronic health has led to challenging ethical issues. This paper aims to identify the e-health codes of ethics based on virtue approach in hospitals and prioritize them in order to help managers for better understanding the nature of ethical challenges of e-health.

This research is an applied-descriptive study, in detail it is a single cross-survey. Statistical population in the research is experts in medical ethics with at least 5 years of experience in electronic health. Because of limited population in this field, snowball sampling was used and the sample size includes 9 experts. The questionnaire was used for data collection and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) was used for data analysis.

Based on FAHP’s result, “Privacy”, “quality of electronic services” and “Professionalism in Online Health Care” are the most important e-health ethical codes for hospitals.

The researches enhance knowledge of electronic health actors about medical health codes. Also, these codes are suitable tools for managers and decision makers for measuring situation of virtue-based ethic in electronic health field.

Destroying others (Backstabbing) are those actions taken in the absence of target person aimed at destroying his/her reputation or creating some difficulties for. Given the adverse outcomes of backstabbing behavior for the individual, organization, and society, the current study was to explore various angles of backstabbing behavior in the real context of the organization.

Research philosophy was interpretative, its approach was qualitative, and its strategy was the emergent-based grounded theory. Statistical population was comprised of managers of public organizations in Mashhad city from which 19 people were selected by purposeful sampling to reach to theoretical saturation. The research instrument was a semi-structured interview. In order to evaluate the research strength, we used the four criteria including reliability, dependability, transferability, and conformability. Data were analyzed through the open, axial, and selective coding processes in MAXQDA software.

Results of interview analyzing by theoretical and actual coding revealed 100 codes, 38 concepts, 8 categories, and 2 issues which led to the research conceptual model based on principal issue titled as “backstabbing behavior.” The proposed model refers to the causes and outcomes of backstabbing behavior.

In total, the current research provides a basis for understanding, controlling, as well as preventing this unethical behavior in the organizations through explaining the theory of backstabbing behavior.

Industry activity has created widespread ecological crises around the world that science alone will not be enough to solve environmental problems. Since the ethical orientation of the human resources employed in this sector can be a determinant factor in environmental behavior. The present study was conducted with the aim of assessing the environmental ethics in employees of the Khouzestan Oxin Steel Company.

The research method is post-event descriptive. The statistical population consists of 790 employees of the Khouzestan Oxin Steel Company. By using Morgan table, 259 people were selected through simple random sampling method. The required information was collected through a questionnaire. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, independent t-test and ANOVA test through SPSS software.

Independent t-test and one-way ANOVA did not show any significant difference between independent variables, sex, education level, work record, age and income levels, and their degree of environmental ethics.

The results of this study indicate a kind of moral commitment to protect the environment for both men and women. Also, employees of the Khouzestan Oxin Steel Company have showed very good moral acts in explaining correct act against environment.

Identification of students’ ethics towards environment as a reference, ‎knowledgeable and effective group of society, can be an important stage in the ‎environmental policy making and planning of national higher education. Thus, the purpose ‎of this study was to investigate the relationship among environmental ethics dimensions ‎in agricultural students of university of Mohaghegh Ardabili.‎

This research was a descriptive-correlation study. The statistical population ‎includes all PhD. M.Sc. and M.A. agriculture and natural resources student of university of ‎Mohaghegh Ardabili, which according to Cochran formula sample size determined as 140 ‎people and using stratified random sampling method the information gathered. The main ‎research tools was a questionnaire which its validity confirmed by panel of experts and ‎reliability of scales evaluated by Alpha Coronbach, CR and AVE. For analyzing data, ‎descriptive and analytical statistic have been used and structural equation modeling (SEM) ‎applied to evaluate the relation between different dimensions of environmental ethics. In ‎addition, SPSS and Lisrel used for data processing.‎

Finding showed that there is a significant relation between human-centered with ‎ecosystem-centered (0.47) and God-centered (0.71) dimension of environmental ethics. ‎Also, based on correlation analysis, there was a significant relation between ecosystem-‎centered and God-centered dimension (0.58).‎

Considering relationship between human-centered with ecosystem-centered and God-‎centered, and significant relationship between ecosystem-centered and God-centered, the main ‎focus of educational and cultural programs in universities must be to training such student ‎whose beside high level of God-centered, acquired high level of human-centered and ‎ecosystem-centered of environmental ethics.‎

Internet access is a growing phenomenon. With increasing and widespread access to Internet, dependency to Internet is observed among the adolescents. The present research was done with the purpose of comparing the moral intelligence, social skills and personality characteristics of internet addicted adolescents with normal adolescents.

We used casual – comparative method. Statistical population was consisted of all the male adolescents in the first zone of Tehran city in 2015-2016. We select 200 samples (80 internet addicted persons and 120 normal ones) by applying random cluster sampling method; the participants fell out four questionnaires including moral intelligence questionnaire (Lennick & Kiel) and Eysenck’s social skills, personality characteristics and internet addiction questionnaires. In order to analyze data, multivariate analysis of variance analysis was used.

The results showed that the social skills and moral intelligence in internet addicted adolescents was lower than normal adolescents and in the case of personality characteristics we noticed higher neuroticism and psychoticism in internet addicted adolescents compared with normal ones.

In this research we got to this overall result that the internet addiction played a role in moral intelligence, social skills and personality characteristics of internet addicted adolescents.

Unethical and Destructive leaders can negatively influence their organizations and employees by neglecting ethical and human standards. This negative impact, if continued, could result in the loss of efficiency and performance of employees and organizations. This research was administered with the aim of investigating structural model of the relationship between destructive leadership with emotional exhaustion and job performance.

Research method was correlation and statistical population includes the employees of Zobahan thermal power joint stock company employees in Isfahan city, among them 314 persons were selected using in access sampling. Research instruments include destructive leadership questionnaire, emotional exhaustion questionnaire and job performance. Data were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling (SEM).

Results revealed that there is a positive significant relationship between destructive leadership and emotional exhaustion (p<0.01), but there is a negative significant relationship between destructive leadership and job performance (p<0.01). Also results revealed that there is a negative significant relationship between emotional exhaustion and job performance (p<0.01). Results of structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that, destructive leadership either has direct and significant relationship or indirect relationship through emotional exhaustion with job performance. Also the results showed that, emotional exhaustion is a partial mediator variable on the relationship between destructive leadership and job performance.

The results of this research showed that destructive leadership can lead to symptoms of emotional exhaustion and, consequently, loss of staff performance

One of the important attributes that can put organizations on the road of productivity and excellence is job engagement of staff. It seems that job engagement depends on moral intelligence and creating a favorable social capital in organization. With this approach, the purpose of this research is to Analysis of the relationships between moral intelligence, social capital and job engagement.

This research is a descriptive-correlation. Statistical population was consisted of 313 employees of general directorate of Bank Keshavarzi of Hamedan.  Based on Morgan tables, 196 people were selected by stratified random sampling. Data collection instruments were moral intelligence questionnaire, social capital questionnaire, and job engagement questionnaire. The construct validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis and their reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Data analyzed by one-sample T test, Pearson correlation test and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).

The mean and standard deviation of moral intelligence was 3.14 ± 0.57; social capital was 3.30 ± 0.49 and job engagement was 2.98 ± 0.35. There were significant relationships between moral intelligence, social capital and job engagement. The results of Structural Equation Modeling showed that moral intelligence can predict job engagement by mediating social capital.

According to the findings, ethical intelligence can improve social capital and also social capital increase job engagement

One of the most important factors in reducing utilities in organizations is the anti-citizenship and non-productive behaviors that varieties of factors influence on it. This article aims to explain the relationship between organizational cultures with anti-citizenship in Payam–e-Noor University in south west of Azerbaijan province.

This research is a descriptive-correlation survey. Population of the study includes all staffs of Payam-e-Noor University in south west of Azerbaijan (N=260). 159 subjects were selected though simple sampling. Data were gathered by questionnaire. Data were analyzed by using path analyzing model and using LISREL software.

The findings showed a significant relationship between organizational culture and organizational capacity and competence and governance. Also, there was a positive and significant relationship between moral competence and organizational capacity with governance. There is a negative and significant relationship between moral competence and Anti-citizenship. There is a negative and significant relationship between organizational capacity and anti-citizenship.

Based on data analysis, the level of moral competence development based on organizational culture can help to create strategic capacity and strengthen governance in preventing anti-citizenship behaviors.

In today's world, with the development of relationships, the realization of the concept of global village and the demarcation of boundaries between Nations, ethics has been considered as a strategic and important factor in maintaining the survival of organizations and the whole of humanity. Investigating the factors that influence the moral judgment of employees is essential. Ethical status and gender of accountants are factors influencing ethical judgment. The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of ethical orientation and gender in ethical judgement of employees.

Method of the study is a descriptive-correlative. Population and sample of the study include Tourism Bank financial employees. The sample members were selected by simple random sampling. Data were gathered through two questionnaires.data were analyzed by multiple regression and t test.

The results showed that researchhypothsis are not rejected (a=0.05). Therefore, relativism, Idealism and gender have positive and significant relationship with ethical judgment.

Findings show that there is a significant relationship between ethical judgments of financial employees of Turism Bank and ethical orientation and gender. Also, Women act more ethical than men

Nowadays, The need to create ethical culture and behavior has to the extent that has forced many large organizations to formulate ethical policies. The purpose of the present study was to analyze the relationship between the quality of work life and job satisfaction with ethical culture among sport office staff of Kermanshah province.

The research method was descriptive -correlation, and in terms of purpose is an applied research. Statistical population of the research included 150 staff of offices of sport and the youth in Kermanshah province, 110 subjects were selected as the sample through the simple random method. The research tools consisted of three questionnaires: Walton Quality of Working Life Questionnaires, Smith and colleagues Job Questionnaire, and Ethical Culture Questionnaire of Singpa, kedy and witelbod. Validity of questionnaires in this research were examined by using the content validity and based on the academic expert’s opinions, while the reliability of which was calculated by the Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients, respectively 0.89, .77 and 0.70. The statistical software SMART-PLS and confirmatory factor analysis method were both used to analyse data.

The findings indicated that the quality of working life has a positive and meaningful influence on the ethical culture, with the path coefficient 0.50 and 16.15 T, while the job satisfaction has also a positive and meaningful influence on the ethical culture, with the path coefficient 0.37 and 10.13 T. So, all relations between the research variables were confirmed.

In order to improve the quality of working life, it is essential to notice the ethical culture of staff, as it provides a basis for a positive job satisfaction

The role of the valid research and its proper implementation in the overall ascendency state of the society is obvious, and the promotion of the quality of research and, consequently, the improvement of the life and welfare of the people of society in the light of moral values ​​is possible. The advancement of science will be possible in the shade of all the principles of professional ethics of research. In this regard, it is appropriate to identify and prioritize research ethics indicators and their importance.

This research in terms of the purpose is practical and in terms of collecting information is descriptive-survey. Statistical population is consisting of faculty members of Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology, 17 experts were selected. About selecting experts we have used targeted sampling. To identify Indicators, we use library method and for settling and prioritizing, we use questionnaire.  About data analysis methods, fuzzy Delphi method for riddling and fixing the indicators and the best-worst method to determining the relative importance of research method are determined.

After analyzing data, 18 indicators during three phases of doing F-Delphi method are confirmed and chosen. The convergence index is less than 0.2 that indicated complete validation of results. According to the solution of the linear-modeling method of the best-worst method, the relative importance of the indicators is determined and consistency rate is in an acceptable level, showed the validity of results.

The results indicate that considering the welfare of society, respect for justice and preservation of unity at the macro level and respect for intellectual property rights are the most important indicators of professional ethics in research, respectively.

The unethical behavior of companies often leads to public outrage, which in turn causes a change in consumer behavior, like a consumer boycott. The purpose of this research is to develop and test a model that focuses on consumer perception of the company's immoral behaviors and its consequences.

This research is an applied study and in terms of data collection, it is a descriptive-correlative research. The statistical population of the present study is the customers who are interested in buying and receiving after-sale services of Iranian automobile companies such as Saipa and Irankhodro in Tehran. The cluster sampling method was used to select the 410 subjects as sample group. Data were gathered by questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS software 3 using structural equations.

The results of this study indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between self-esteem and idealism with consumer perception, and there is a positive and significant relationship between non-perceptions of consumers and non-futile behaviors of companies with anger and revenge of consumers.

As much consumer perception is less of the company's immoral behaviors, companies will face more anger and more revenge on consumers after responding to those immoral behaviors.

Deviant work behaviors are behaviors that threatened organizations by violation of labor laws. The purpose of this study is investigating the relationship between ethical climate and job stress with deviant behaviors of employees; mediating role of oppressive leadership

The research method was descriptive-correlation which has been conducted by survey method. Also, in terms of purpose, it was developmental-applied study. The statistical population of this study consisted of 9361 employee’s production line in steel industry in south of Iran while 596 of them were selected as the sample size through stratified random sampling. Data collection was done in library and the field and the instrument of this study were, interviews and questionnaires. In order to analyze the data, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (one-sample t-test, structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis) were used and data were analyzed through SPSS and Smart PLS.

The findings of the study confirmed the proposed pattern of the research and it showed there is a significant relationship between the factors related to employees' deviant behaviors (job stress, Ethical Climate), with deviant behaviors of employees; considering the moderating role of style oppressive leadership of industrial managers.

Unethical and deviant behavior is a serious issue for organizations and every year, it imposes high costs on the organization. To this end, it is essential for the survival of organizations that these behaviors and factors affecting them are identified and in order to reduce them appropriate measures.

Scientific articles represent the efforts of researchers and are useful and valuable source of information and can be taken as a basis for scientific and performance analysis. The purpose of this research is to study the scientific production of the subject area of ethics in accounting.

This descriptive-analytical research examined 145 articles of the subject area of ethics in accounting from 1984 to 2018. The research data were collected using a check list tool and statistical analyzed by using Excel software. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics such as data classification based on frequency distribution and mean, tables and charts drawing.

The research findings show that in 145 published articles, 318 authors participated. Among the educational and research centers, the Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, with 17 articles ranked first. Most topic orientation, professional ethics with 21 articles in first rank and from total of 3,288 references cited in the articles, approximately 72% of the references were in English and 28% in Persian.

Considering the importance of the issue, little number of scientific productions related to ethics in accounting and consequently, the lack of relevant scientific resources in the country, emphasizes the need for more attention in this area.

One of the most important challenges for today's effective managers is how to ‎create suitable sub-bases for human factors for developing ethical and citizenship behaviors in ‎an organization. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between ethical ‎values and the incidence of ethical behaviors and citizenship with respect to the role of ‎mediation of justice and organizational commitment.‎

The research method is descriptive-correlation. The statistical population consist ‎of 946 employees of Telecommunication Company of Tehran province, and a sample of 274 ‎people was selected using Morgan's table. They were selected by simple random sampling ‎method. The data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire. The validity of the ‎questionnaire was evaluated by experts through an experimental and confirmatory factor ‎analysis method, and its reliability was calculated and validated by Cranbach's alpha coefficient‎‎ (0.84). The hypothesis test was conducted using Pearson correlation and structural equations.‎

There is a positive relationship between the ethical values of the organization with the ‎mediation of justice and organizational commitment and the appearance of ethical behaviors in ‎the organization. There is a positive and direct relationship between the ethical values of the ‎organization with the mediation of organizational commitment and incidence of organizational ‎citizenship behaviors. There is a positive and direct relation between ethical behaviors and ‎organizational citizenship behaviors. The relationship between organizational justice and the appearance of organizational ‎citizenship behaviors was not confirmed.‎

‎Creating ethical values in the organization will lead to ethical behaviors. Ethical values can also ‎be used as a tool for the development of citizenship behaviors.‎

Ethical orientation as a guide to the formation of individual beliefs and attitudes in dealing with ethical dilemmas can influence the of auditors' decision-making. Hence, in this research, the relationship between ethical orientations and the ethical sensitivity and moral intensity of auditors is examined.

The method of this research is descriptive survey. The statistical population includes auditors working in private audit firms and 186 members of the community were selected as a sample group. Data were collected through a questionnaire and analyzed using the structural equation modeling with using PLS.

The results of research hypotheses show that there is a positive and significant relationship between idealism ethical orientation with ethical sensitivity and moral intensity and there is a significant negative correlation between relativism ethical orientation with ethical sensitivity and moral intensity.

The results of the research show that auditors with a high degree of relativism, in comparison with the idealistic auditors, display undesired moral decision-making processes because, they are less sensitive to ethical issues. Therefore, this research shows the role of idealistic and relative ethical orientation in the decision making of auditors.