“AIDS is Not a Business”: A Study in Global Corporate Responsibility – Securing Access to Low-cost HIV Medications

At the end of the 1990s, Brazil was faced with a potentially explosive HIV/AIDS epidemic. Through an innovative and multifaceted campaign, and despite initial resistance from multinational pharmaceutical companies, the government of Brazil was able to negotiate price reductions for HIV medications and develop local production capacity, thereby averting a public health disaster. Using interview data and document analysis, the authors show that the exercise of corporate social responsibility can be viewed in practice as a dynamic negotiation and an interaction between multiple actors. Action undertaken in terms of voluntary CSR alone may be insufficient. This finding highlights the importance of a strong role for national governments and international organizations to pressure companies to perform better. William Flanagan is the Dean of Law at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. His research interests include international trade and investment, and corporate law and corporate governance. Gail Whiteman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Business and Society of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands.     

New Approaches to Business Process Redesign: A Case Study of Collaborative Group Technology and Service Mapping

Whether it is called reengineering, quality function deployment, quality circles, continuous improvement or total quality management, business process redesign (BPR) is occurring in many organizations. In the broadest sense, BPR includes nearly any kind of systematic effort by companies to realign their business processes so that they are more competitive. Successful business process redesign can lead to dramatic improvements in productivity and quality. But BPR typically requires vast amounts of time and money to implement, since extensive employee input is necessary during the redesign process. Group Decision Support Software (GDSS) provides a viable alternative to the traditional BPR approach. GDSS is defined as computer-based information systems used to support intelligent, collaborative work.This technology allows multiple users to meet and discuss topics simultaneously via a computer network, thus increasing employee commitment while decreasing time and cost.This paper describes a business process redesign project that was conducted for a division within a large government agency fall of 1993. The BPR was done using a type of Group Decision Support Software called Group Systems V. A services marketing tool called service mapping was also used to identify customer needs and interfaces. Data were collected throughout the project to measure employee attitudes about the redesign process and the GroupSystems technology. Time to complete tasks was also recorded. The results of the study showed that the business process redesign was accomplished more effectively in a shorter period of time than with traditional BPR methods previously used. Participants also indicated that the service mapping tool provided a perspective that is missing from many BPR approaches: an understanding of the service from the customer's perspective.     

Emotional arousal and entrepreneurial outcomes: Combining qualitative methods to elaborate theory

This qualitative study of innovators in the superyacht industry blends longitudinal content analysis with narrative case vignettes to extend nascent theorizing about the antecedents and consequences associated with the arousal of entrepreneurial emotion. The empirically grounded framework induced through our research offers two key theoretical elaborations. First, it extends the existing set of theorized antecedents by highlighting the overlooked roles played by dramatic performances (staged or improvised) and ambient conditions (project, actor and venue considerations). Second, it calls attention to the consequences of emotional arousal for such entrepreneurial outcomes as generating novel solutions to specific problems encountered during the creation process, developing innovative end products, and fostering a general context for innovation.