Internal Whistle‐Blowing in the Public Service: A Matter of Trust

Although employee reporting of workplace ethical violations is recognized as an important measure for managing the integrity of the public service, not many public employees who have observed ethical violations actually report them. This article examines and compares the links between employee perceptions of trustworthiness of different organizational members and internal whistle‐blowing. It differentiates between trustworthy coworkers, supervisors, and senior managers. It uses cross‐sectional data from 10,850 employees in the Australian Public Service in 2013 and 2016, which are aggregated to construct longitudinal data for 60 organizations. Among the three groups examined, perceptions of trustworthy senior managers are found to be most strongly related to internal whistle‐blowing.     

A Longitudinal Path Analysis of Peer Victimization, Threat Appraisals to the Self, and Aggression, Anxiety, and Depression Among Urban African American Adolescents

Threat appraisals—individuals’ perceptions of how stressful situations may threaten their well-being—are an important but understudied mechanism that could explain links between peer victimization and adjustment. The goal of the present study was to examine relationships between physical and relational victimization by peers, threats to the self, and aggression, anxiety, and depression to better understand the cognitive evaluations that make youth vulnerable to negative adjustment. The sample comprised two cohorts of African American adolescents (N = 326; 54 % female; M = 12.1; SD = 1.6) and their maternal caregivers, who participated in three waves of a longitudinal study. Path models revealed significant direct effects from Time 1 relational victimization, but not physical victimization, to Time 2 threat appraisals (i.e., negative self-evaluations and negative evaluations by others), controlling for Time 1 threat appraisals. Significant direct effects were found from Time 2 threats of negative evaluations by others to Time 3 youth-reported aggression, controlling for Time 1 and Time 2 aggression. Significant direct effects also were found from Time 2 threats of negative self-evaluations to T3 youth-reported depression, controlling for Time 1 and Time 2 depression. Overall, findings highlight the need to consider the role of threats to the self in pathways from peer victimization to adjustment and the implications these appraisals have for youth prevention and intervention efforts.     

Moral Disengagement and Building Resilience to Violent Extremism: An Education Intervention

This article reports on the development of an education intervention, the Beyond Bali Education Resource funded by the Australian Governments’ Building Community Resilience Grants of the Federal Attorney General's Department, that applies a conceptual framework grounded in moral disengagement theory. Beyond Bali is a five module program for schools that is specifically designed to build social cognitive resilience to violent extremism by engaging self-sanctions and preparing students to challenge the influence of violent extremism that can lead to moral disengagement. The theory of moral disengagement has been applied to the study of radicalization to violent extremism to explain how individuals can cognitively reconstruct the moral value of violence and carry out inhumane acts. The mechanisms of moral disengagement through which individuals justify violence, dehumanize victims, disregard the harmful consequences of violence and absolve themselves of blame have been used in the construction of violent extremist narratives. However, they have not been applied to the development of intervention strategies that aim to counter the radicalizing influences of violent extremist narratives.     

Perspectives from the Senior Executive Service

Much of the research and scholarship on public administration relies heavily on an ‘outsider’ perspective. There is very little ‘insider’ discussion on the priorities, concerns and personal constructs which influence senior executives’ careers. This small qualitative study captures the perspectives of members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) within Australian public sector agencies and identifies key issues for them as senior executives.     

The application of anodic stripping voltammetry to forensic science I. The construction of a low-cost polarograph

Intended for forensic gunshot residue analyses and other applications, a low-cost (about $250.00) polarograph was constructed. This instrument is essentially' an operational amplifier version of a three-electrode potentiostat containing a voltage ramp generator, a scan amplifier, an amplifier and a current-to-voltage converter, two voltage followers and an electrolysis cell. An anodic stripping procedure was developed for the simultaneous determination of a zinc, cadmium, lead, antimony and copper mixture, and used for testing the instrument. Effects of pre-electrolysis time, concentration changes, presence of other species and overlapping were also studied.     

The Intention Debate in German Criminal Law

Abstract.  This article considers the various suggestions that have been put forward by German scholars to replace the traditional concept of intention, which the author has criticised elsewhere ( Taylor 2004 ). The debate on this topic has become a minor academic industry in Germany, and should be better known as the English-speaking world struggles with its own concepts of intention. Despite the great amount of effort and ingenuity devoted to this topic in Germany, however, the author concludes that only one theory of intention, that put forward by Professor Wolfgang Frisch, shows any substantial degree of promise.