‘Loose tweets sink fleets’ and other sage advice: social media governance,policies and guidelines

While social media represents a broad range of benefits to organisations and institutions, such as enhanced brand engagement, it also presents challenges and risks to reputation and security, such as confidentiality breaches. Employee use of popular social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, both at work and about work has resulted in organisations developing social media policies and guidelines as part of contemporary governance practice. This paper investigates this recent approach to corporate governance by examining 20 social media policies and guidelines from a sample of corporate, government and third sector organisations that are active social media users. It develops a basic framework for social media governance based on the 13 common themes that emerge from the sample, including confidentiality, disclosure and the public–private divide of social media usage. It draws on social contract theory and considers its importance to the field of social media governance. Key implications for managers who are tasked with developing and implementing social media policies and guidelines are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Negligent homicide caused by exhaust gas escaping from a manipulated chimney

A chimney built and operated according to the instructions is supposed to ensure that the combustion gases coming from the fireplace can escape safely. If the operational reliability is impaired, this presents a risk of acute poisoning. The report deals with a negligently caused carbon monoxide poisoning of a married couple as a consequence of improper installation of a cover of the chimney opening. Various causes of fatal poisoning due to defective exhaust systems are discussed in connection with the presented case report.     

The Influence of the Relationship and Motivation on Inequity Aversion in Dogs

One crucial element for the evolution of cooperation may be the sensitivity to others?? efforts and pay-offs in comparison with one??s own costs and gains. If an individual responds to a disadvantageous reward distribution, then it would likely increase its relative fitness compared with those who do not (Brosnan & de Waal, Nature 428:140, 2004). Recent experimental research indicates that sensitivity toward unequal reward distribution is not a uniquely human trait; non-human primates react to inequity if they witness a conspecific that obtains a more attractive reward for the same effort. However, primates are not the only species that cooperate and thus would benefit from inequity aversion. Canids also frequently cooperate with group members (e.g., wolves, wild dogs, etc.) or humans (domestic dogs), allowing for the possibility that they also are sensitive to the reward distribution. We report the findings of two studies of dogs?? responses to inequity and the social factors that mediate such responses. In the first study, we investigated whether domestic dogs showed a response to the inequity of rewards received for the same action in pairs of familiar dogs. We found that dogs showed significant behavioral differences when tested without food rewards when in the presence of a rewarded partner compared to the baseline and asocial control situations. This indicated that the presence of a rewarded partner matters (Range, Horn, Virányi, & Huber, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106(1):340?C345, 2009). In contrast to primates, dogs did not react to differences in the quality of food or effort. In the second study, we analyzed whether individual (motivational or personality) characteristics determined the response of each subject to unequal reward distributions or whether the subject??s responses depended on the specific relationship they had with its partner. We found that individual motivation and the quality of the relationship influenced the dogs?? performance in test conditions, but that these factors varied across the control and reward inequity conditions. Overall, our results suggest that inequity aversion in dogs is conditional on their and their partner??s rewards. Whether inequity aversion is based on the same mechanisms in both humans and non-human primates is still unclear.     

Paying their Way: Local Associations, the Constituency Quota Scheme and Conservative Party Finance

The nature and role of political parties is changing in contemporary Britain. There has been a decline of both party identification among voters and of ideological commitment linked to class, coupled with the growth of alternative political agenda. But government in Britain is dependent on success in an electoral system which relies heavily not only on a party's general level of support but also on the geography of that support. Voters have to be mobilized locally, by party organizations run by activists. The Conservative Party appears to have increasing problems doing this.     

Public hospitals in China: privatisation, the demise of universal health care and the rise of patient-doctor violence

Ensuring the safety of staff and patients has become a major problem for hospitals in China. This article examines whether one of the reasons for this violence may be the emerging injustice and inequality that have manifested in the Chinese health care system as a result of privatisation reforms since the early 1980s. It considers approaches to these issues that may assist the Chinese Government, and other nations contemplating similar policy changes, to create efficient but equity-based health care systems that minimise collateral trauma to patients and their families.