The role and ethics of professionals in business and economics have been questioned, especially after the financial crisis of 2008. Some suggest a reorientation using concepts such as craftsmanship. In this article, I will explore professional practices within the context of behavioural theory and business ethics. I suggest that scholars of behavioural theory need a strategy to deal with normative questions to meet their ambition of practical relevance. Evidence-based management (EBMgt), a recent behavioural approach, may assist business ethics scholars in understanding how professionals infer ‘evidence’ to make decisions. For a professional, ethical issues are an integral part of decision-making at critical moments. As reflective practitioners, they develop insights related to ethical concerns when collecting and assessing evidence within decision-making processes.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology which is increasingly being utilised in society and the economy worldwide, but there is much disquiet over problematic and dangerous implementations of AI, or indeed even AI itself deciding to do dangerous and problematic actions. These developments have led to concerns about whether and how AI systems currently adhere to and will adhere to ethical standards, stimulating a global and multistakeholder conversation on AI ethics and the production of AI governance initiatives. Such developments form the basis for this chapter, where we give an insight into what is happening in Australia, China, the European Union, India and the United States. We commence with some background to the AI ethics and regulation debates, before proceedings to give an overview of what is happening in different countries and regions, namely Australia, China, the European Union (including national level activities in Germany), India and the United States. We provide an analysis of these country profiles, with particular emphasis on the relationship between ethics and law in each location. Overall we find that AI governance and ethics initiatives are most developed in China and the European Union, but the United States has been catching up in the last eighteen months.
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