Why an ethics charter
Clinical Organizational Science draws on neuroscience concepts to describe organizational intervention. This creates two predictable misreadings: a misreading of scope — the impression that intervention directly manipulates neural states — and a misreading of intent — the impression that neuroscientific framing is employed to optimize covert influence. The Center rejects both. All research and intervention activity associated with the Center is governed by the four principles below.
The four principles
Autonomy. The autonomy and dignity of each individual organizational member is an inviolable constraint on intervention design. No intervention is designed to circumvent, undermine, or exploit individual autonomy. Interventions create conditions that make certain choices more available or more probable; they do not compel behavior.
Transparency. The purposes, methods, and expected effects of intervention are communicated explicitly to client organizations and, where relevant, to organizational members. The use of neuroscience concepts in intervention design is disclosed, including the distinction between theoretical explanatory frameworks and direct neural intervention.
Participation. Interventions are conducted with client organizations, not on them. Design, implementation, and evaluation involve ongoing collaboration with organizational leadership and, as appropriate, with organizational members.
Revocability. Any intervention structure may be withdrawn or modified at the request of the client organization or of individual organizational members. No intervention is designed in ways that create dependency or make exit difficult.
Structural intervention, not direct intervention
The Center’s work intervenes in the behavioral and social conditions within which neural processes operate — interaction structures, feedback architectures, and habitualized practices — never in neural states directly. No pharmacological, electromagnetic, or other direct means are employed, and no neuroimaging or neurostimulation is used. Neuroscience theory serves as an explanatory framework, not as a technology of neural manipulation. The appropriate analogy is designing physical environments for health outcomes — urban planning for walkability — rather than medical treatment.
Anonymity in research communication
Research outputs and public communications associated with the Center do not include information identifying client organizations or individuals.
This charter is based on Section 5 of Yamanaka & Nakamori (2026), Clinical Organizational Science: An integrative framework for structural intervention in complex organizations, Frontiers in Psychology, 17, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1827324, published under a CC BY license.