| 1. |
- Amundadottir, Laufey T., et al.
(författare)
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A common variant associated with prostate cancer in European and African populations
- 2006
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Ingår i: Nature Genetics. - DeCODE Genet, IS-101 Reykjavik, Iceland. Univ Iceland, Landspitali Hosp, Dept Pathol, IS-101 Reykjavik, Iceland. Univ Iceland, Landspitali Hosp, Dept Urol, IS-101 Reykjavik, Iceland. Univ Michigan, Dept Human Genet, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA. Orebro Univ Hosp, Dept Urol & Clin Med, Orebro, Sweden. Karolinska Inst, Dept Med Epidemiol & Biostat, SE-17177 Stockholm, Sweden. Univ Michigan, Dept Urol, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA. Northwestern Univ, Feinberg Sch Med, Dept Urol, Chicago, IL 60611 USA. Washington Univ, Sch Med, Dept Psychiat, St Louis, MO 63110 USA. Univ Chicago, Dept Human Genet, Chicago, IL 60637 USA. Univ Michigan, Dept Internal Med, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA. : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 38:6, s. 652-658
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With the increasing incidence of prostate cancer, identifying common genetic variants that confer risk of the disease is important. Here we report such a variant on chromosome 8q24, a region initially identified through a study of Icelandic families. Allele -8 of the microsatellite DG8S737 was associated with prostate cancer in three case-control series of European ancestry from Iceland, Sweden and the US. The estimated odds ratio (OR) of the allele is 1.62 (P = 2.7 x 10(-11)). About 19% of affected men and 13% of the general population carry at least one copy, yielding a population attributable risk (PAR) of approximately 8%. The association was also replicated in an African American case-control group with a similar OR, in which 41% of affected individuals and 30% of the population are carriers. This leads to a greater estimated PAR (16%) that may contribute to higher incidence of prostate cancer in African American men than in men of European ancestry.
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| 2. |
- Babri, Maira, 1986-
(författare)
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Deconstructing Code Stories : Versions of Corporate Morality based on Stories of Corporate Codes of Ethics
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Abstract: The underlying assumption in this paper is that an organization consists of versions of ethics; what is considered to be right or wrong, is constructed and re-constructed in various ways. One of the very important ways in which ethics is reconstructed is through the stories told about and in relation to the company’s corporate code of ethics. Organizations abide with stories, myths, fantasies, and dreams (Gabriel, 1995), however, the stories captured in literature are often about human subjects. In this paper, we shall explore closely the corporate code of ethics as the protagonist in a story.Research Question: What versions of corporate morality are found in what is said and not said about corporate ethics, about corporate good and bad, in stories about a Corporate Code of Ethics?Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework used in this paper is based literature stemming from the field of critical management studies. The main philosophical foundation of critical management studies is critical theory, but inspiration has also been drawn from labor process theory, poststructuralism, and critical realism (Alvesson, Bridgman and Wilmott, 2009; pg 29). The assumption of multiple versions of reality, which in this paper refers to versions of ethics, or what is seen as right or wrong, is based on Law’s (2004) and Mol’s (2002) ontological perspectives, arguing for fluidity, where realities, concepts, and practices are shown to be plural, having many different faces (See also Law and Mol, 2004 and 2008).Method: The choice to deconstruct a story narrated by the vice president of corporate responsibility at a Swedish Multinational Corporation (whom I from here onwards will be calling Anna) was made due to Anna’s position of power. Much of her daily work entails training managers and employees in business ethics, and the values stipulated in the corporation’s business code. The deconstruction is inspired by Joanne Martin’s paper (1990) which is a deconstruction aiming at shedding light on the suppression of gender conflict in organizations. There are however, two significant differences. The first is that an inanimate object is here given life and a personality in order to highlight some of the effects that this object, a business code of ethics, can have. Some of these effects have been pinpointed by other authors (Jensen, Bauman etc). The second major difference is that whilst Joanne (1990) uses a feminist perspective in her deconstruction, the theoretical lens used in this paper is that of a general de-naturalization (Alvesson, Bridgman and Wilmott, 2009; pg 9) which entails questioning the existing order, the taken for granted.Findings: The paper argues that in the deconstruction and reconstruction of the stories, when the code is seen as an agent, it clearly reinforces the idea of code as good, as a moral preacher and indirectly, resistance towards the code, as bad. The idea of the code is in stories about it often decoupled from the code as a material artifact, allowing separate versions of corporate morality to be enacted in stories about the code. indirectly, the content of the code becomes a part of the idea of the code, and when resistance towards the idea of the code is seen as bad, also resistance to towards the contents of the material artifact are seen as bad. These findings suggest serious implications for the progression of ethics in corporations, as dialogue and disagreement with certain versions of corporate morality are discouraged.
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| 3. |
- Babri, Maira, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Material affordances in circular products and business model development : for a relational understanding of human and material agency
- 2022
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Ingår i: Culture and Organization. - : Routledge. - 1475-9551 .- 1477-2760. ; 28:1, s. 79-96
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper uses the notion of material affordances to show that a focus on how people engage with materials helps understanding how organizations transit toward sustainability. Material affordances refer to the enablements and constraints afforded by materials to someone engaging with an environment for a particular purpose. Based on a qualitative study of a company's efforts at becoming circular, we show that material affordances are evolutive as organizational members shift focus from the development of products to the establishment of a circular business model. We also show that affordances are distributed across the company's circular ecosystem. Between what they enable and prevent, they invite humans to a dynamic engagement with materials that decenters human agencies to incorporate material agency in such efforts. A key contribution of the notion of material affordances is to put the relationships of humans and materials at the core of a transition toward circularity and sustainability.
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| 4. |
- Babri, Maira, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Moral Engagement Through Paradoxical Mindset : How role and task-consistent reasoning reduces space for moral reflection and action
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Moral philosophers and ethical thinkers have long noted the intricate relationship between ethics and business. Business and ethics have often been seen as contradictory and incongruent, not least in the way ethics is incorporated into businesses. Business goals aiming to satisfy ethical- and business-related issues best work with integration. However, oftentimes, the strategies maybe well defined by management, yet the implementation is often left to employees in their daily practices. This paper focuses on contradictions individuals experience as they implement strategies to integrate ethics into their business. Our starting point is the challenge when well intending individuals pass contradictions on rather than dealing with them.Purpose: The main question we ask is: how do individuals frame their contradictory work related to the implementation of ethics goals? We focus on enhanced methods of training, which can lead to morally engaged organizational members.Method: This paper is inspired by observations made during an ethnographic case study of a Swedish multinational’s endeavor to integrate ethics into its procurement activities. This endeavor included a heavy focus on operationalizing and incorporating (by managers) and training (employees and contractors) in social, health and environmental aspects. Empirical observations, field-visits, and semi-structured interviews were conducted in both Sweden and China.Results: Focusing on the individual actor within the organizational context, we draw on theories from experimental psychology, business ethics as well as paradox and suggest that organizational member to be work with a paradoxical mindset which could enable moral engagement. Within such a context, we attribute great power to the individuals’ own sense of right and wrong and their ability to think and act upon a personal moral compass.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Babri, Maira
(författare)
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Studying codes as transforming objects
- 2010
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper addresses certain methodological aspects of a researchproject, in which an epistemological symmetry is assumed between humans and nonhumans,and this paper is about what implications and challenges such a premise mayentail for the data collection and analysis of the study. Although I adhere strongly to thenotion of epistemological symmetry in theory, there are certain aspects with such a studythat pose methodological challenges and this paper sheds light upon these challenges anddiscusses ways to deal with them. The major concern is retaining the epistemologicalsymmetry throughout the data collection and analysis of the study. This paperinvestigates the methodological aspects of a study on transformations of and by corporatecodes of ethics to analyze how corporate responsibility is influenced. The paper, henceexplores how we can, theoretically and practically, study a non-human actor (in this case,a code), with similar epistemological capabilities as a human actor, in a human-centeredworld.
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| 7. |
- Babri, Maira, 1986-
(författare)
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The Corporate Code of Ethics at Home, Far Away and in Between : Sociomaterial Translations of a Traveling Code
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Corporate codes of ethics (CCEs) have become increasingly prevalent as overarching ethical guidelines for multinational corporations doing business around the globe. As formal documents, governing corporations’ work, policies, and ways of doing business, CCEs are meant to guide all business activities and apply to all of the corporation’s employees, suppliers, and business partners. In multinational corporations, this means that diverse countries, cultures, and a myriad of heterogeneous actors are expected to abide by the same standards and guidelines, as stipulated in the CCE. Despite this empirical reality, CCEs have previously been approached by academics mainly as passive company documents or as marketing or management tools, in the contexts of their country of origin. Building on Actor-Network Theory this thesis applies an interactionist ontology, and relational epistemology, seeing the code as a sociomaterial object with both material and immaterial characteristics, and moving in a global arena. Furthermore, the CCEs are assumed to be susceptible to change, i.e. translations. With these assumptions, the CCE of a multinational corporation is followed as it travels between its country of origin (Sweden) and another country (China) and goes to work in different contexts. Heterogeneous empirical materials such as interviews, company documents, observations, shadowing, and emails are used to present stories from different contexts where the CCE is at work. The overall purpose of the thesis is to contribute to the theorizing of CCEs, thereby providing further understanding of the possible consequences of CCEs in contextually diverse settings. By following traces of a CCE, this study posits the need for a simultaneous understanding of three dimensions of CCEs for CCEs to be understood in contextually dispersed settings. The three dimensions are a) material translations of the code, b) enactments of these translations, and c) ideas associated with the material and enacted code. The study contributes to the understanding of CCEs by highlighting a specific country-context (China), by putting together knowledge from codes in various contexts, and the overarching contribution lies in highlighting codes as different kinds of objects and adding to the existing literature – specifically, contextualizing the CCE as a vaporous object.
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| 8. |
- Hedelin, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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Dietary intake of phytoestrogens, estrogen receptor-beta polymorphisms and the risk of prostate cancer
- 2006
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Ingår i: The Prostate. - Karolinska Inst, Dept Med Epidemiol & Biostat, SE-17177 Stockholm, Sweden. Orebro Univ Hosp, Dept Urol, Orebro, Sweden. Ctr Assessment Med Technol, Orebro, Sweden. Umea Univ, Dept Radiat Sci Oncol, Umea, Sweden. Harvard Univ, Sch Publ Hlth, Dept Epidemiol, Boston, MA 02115 USA. : Wiley-Liss. - 0270-4137 .- 1097-0045. ; 66:14, s. 1512-1520
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: The causes of prostate cancer are poorly understood, but genetic factors may be more important than for many other malignancies, and dietary phytoestrogens may be protective. Because phytoestrogens bind tightly to the estrogen receptor-beta, we conducted an epidemiologic investigation of synergistic effects between phytoestrogen intake and estrogen receptor-beta gene polymorphisms. METHODS: We performed a population-based case-control study in Sweden. All participants reported their phytoestrogen intake and donated a blood sample. We identified four haplotype-tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (htSNPs) and genotyped these htSNPs in 1314 prostate cancer patients and 782 controls. Odds ratios were estimated by multivariate logistic regression. Interactions between phytoestrogen intake and estrogen receptor-beta SNPs on prostate cancer risk were evaluated considering both multiplicative and additive effect scales. RESULTS: We found a significant multiplicative interaction (P = 0.04) between dietary intake of phytoestrogens and a promoter SNP in the estrogen receptor-beta gene (rs 2987983-13950), but not with any of the three other htSNPs (P = 0.11, 0.69, 0.85). Among carriers of the variant promoter alleles, we found strong inverse associations with increasing intake of total phytoestrogens (odds ratio for highest vs. lowest quartile = 0.43; P for trend <0.001), isoflavonoids (odds ratio = 0.63; P for trend = 0.05), and coumestrol (odds ratio = 0.57; P for trend = 0.003). We found no association between phytoestrogens and prostate cancer among carriers homozygous for the wild-type allele (TT). CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides strong evidence that high intake of phytoestrogens substantially reduce prostate cancer risk among men with specific polymorphic variation in the promoter region of the estrogen receptor-beta gene.
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| 9. |
- Hedelin, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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Dietary phytoestrogen, serum enterolactone and risk of prostate cancer : the cancer prostate Sweden study (Sweden)
- 2006
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Ingår i: Cancer Causes and Control. - Karolinska Inst, Dept Med Epidemiol & Biostat, SE-17177 Stockholm, Sweden. Orebro Univ Hosp, Dept Urol, Orebro, Sweden. Ctr Assessment Med Technol, Orebro, Sweden. Univ Helsinki, Dept Clin Chem, SF-00100 Helsinki, Finland. Univ Helsinki, Inst Prevent Med Nutr & Canc, Folkhalsan Res Ctr, Helsinki, Finland. Umea Univ, Dept Radiat Sci Oncol, Umea, Sweden. : Springer. - 0957-5243 .- 1573-7225. ; 17:2, s. 169-180
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVE: Based on evidence that phytoestrogens may protect against prostate cancer, we evaluated the associations between serum enterolactone concentration or dietary phytoestrogen intake and risk of prostate cancer. METHODS: In our Swedish population-based case-control study, questionnaire-data were available for 1,499 prostate cancer cases and 1,130 controls, with serum enterolactone levels in a sub-group of 209 cases and 214 controls. Unconditional logistic regression was performed to estimate multivariate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations with risk of prostate cancer. RESULTS: High intake of food items rich in phytoestrogens was associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer. The OR comparing the highest to the lowest quartile of intake was 0.74 (95% CI: 0.57-0.95; p-value for trend: 0.01). In contrast, we found no association between dietary intake of total or individual lignans or isoflavonoids and risk of prostate cancer. Intermediate serum levels of enterolactone were associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer. The ORs comparing increasing quartiles of serum enterolactone concentration to the lowest quartile were, respectively, 0.28 (95% CI: 0.15-0.55), 0.63 (95% CI: 0.35-1.14) and 0.74 (95% CI: 0.41-1.32). CONCLUSIONS: Our results support the hypothesis that certain foods high in phytoestrogens are associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer.
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| 10. |
- Helin, Sven, 1962-, et al.
(författare)
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Travelling with a code of ethics : a contextual study of a Swedish MNC auditing a Chinese supplier
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 107, s. 41-53
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Corporate codes of ethics are integrated into supplier-auditing processes in the hope of ensuring sustainability throughout the supply chain. But little is known about what actually happens when one standardized code of ethics is disseminated and applied in audits on suppliers across the globe. This study builds on the literature on the 'translation of management ideas' and examines what happens when a corporate code of ethics travels in a global context. The specific case reports on a Swedish Multinational Corporation (MNC) with a standardized code of ethics applied in the practice of auditing a supplier in Eastern China. The study shows that the code can be translated in different ways in different organizational and geographical contexts. Observations of and interviews about how the code is translated in practice indicate that the code's ethics are negotiable. It is argued that sustainability and ethics are in danger of being negotiated or completely undermined when efficiency and contractual agreements set the agenda for audits, and that the relative buyer–supplier power relation can play a vital role in setting standards and demanding supplier compliance.
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