Transnational organizational considerations for sociocultural differences in ethics and virtual team functioning in laboratory animal science.

Business models for transnational organizations include linking different geographies through common codes of conduct, policies, and virtual teams. Global companies with laboratory animal science activities (whether outsourced or performed inhouse) often see the need for these business activities in relation to animal-based research and benefit from them. Global biomedical research organizations can learn how to better foster worldwide cooperation and teamwork by understanding and working with sociocultural differences in ethics and by knowing how to facilitate appropriate virtual team actions.

Electronic freedom of information: challenges facing the regulators and the regulated.

FOIA and, more recently, E-FOIA have provided the American public with the means to obtain valuable information from the federal government. The E-FOIA-mandated posting of USDA animal facility inspection reports on the internet, however, has met with opposition from the research community. The authors outline E-FOIA's shortcomings regarding this policy and present potential solutions to the problem.