Working Together: Critical Perspectives on Six Cross-Sector Partnerships in Southern Africa

This paper examines six cross-sector partnerships in South Africa and Zambia. These partnerships were part of a research study undertaken between 2003 and 2005 and were selected because of their potential to contribute to poverty reduction in their respective countries. This paper examines the context in which the partnerships were established, their governance and accountability mechanisms and the engagement and participation of the partners and the intended beneficiaries in the partnerships. We argue that a partnership approach which has proven successful in one context can be used as a valuable learning resource. However, a partnership’s work, which includes all aspects of the partnership and its activities, cannot necessarily be transferred directly to another partnership without a thorough and locally informed analysis of the context in which it is implemented. In addition, we suggest that it is difficult to assess whether the good intentions behind partnerships were translated into real benefits for target groups as effective monitoring and evaluation procedures were not in place in the partnerships studied. Similarly, the absence of regularised governance and accountability systems in partnerships made it difficult to support partner and beneficiary participation and engagement. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to partnerships and that partnership replication should focus more strongly on the transfer of learning about partnership processes instead of simply copying partnership activities. Moreover, the development of stronger mechanisms for assessing and ensuring accountability towards both partners and intended beneficiaries is required if partnerships are to meet their intended objectives.     

The Effects of Proximity and Empathy on Ethical Decision-Making: An Exploratory Investigation

The goals of this research were to (1) explore the direct effects of and interactions between magnitude of consequences and various types of proximity – social, psychological, and physical – on the ethical decision-making process and (2) investigate the influence of empathy on the ethical decision-making process. A carpal tunnel syndrome vignette and questionnaire were administered to a sample of human resource management professionals to test the hypothesized relationships. Significant relationships were found for the main effects between magnitude of consequences and principle-based evaluation, cognitive empathy and principle-based evaluation, and empathy and moral intention. Physical proximity moderated the relationships between magnitude of consequences and utilitarian evaluation as well as magnitude of consequences and moral intention. Cognitive empathy moderated the relationships between magnitude of consequences and principle-based evaluation and physical proximity and utilitarian evaluation. Affective empathy marginally moderated the relationship between physical proximity and principle-based evaluation. Future research directions, management implications, and strengths and weaknesses of the research are discussed.     

Market Research and Advertising Strategy in Portuguese Agencies: Perspectives of Professionals

SUMMARY

The advertising campaign development process is frequently described in manuals and textbooks. Nevertheless, the empirical perspective gives us a better understanding of the real world. In this study, we tried to understand, to systematize, and to describe the process of research and strategy in advertising agencies. To accomplish this objective we conducted 25 in-depth interviews with advertising agency professionals in Portugal. Cross-analysis of the statements allowed us to identify 5 themes: research done by the client before providing the brief to the agency, client's brief, information gathering done by the agency, brief's discussion inside the agency, and creative brief.     

Nurturing the Whole Person: The Ethics of Workplace Spirituality in a Society of Organizations

In a world which can be increasingly described as a “society of organizations,” it is incumbent upon organizational researchers to account for the role of organizations in determining the well-being of societies and the individuals that comprise them. Workplace spirituality is a young area of inquiry with potentially strong relevance to the well-being of individuals, organizations, and societies. Previous literature has not examined ethical dilemmas related to workplace spirituality that organizations might expect based upon the co-existence of multiple ethical work climates, nor has previous literature accounted for the relevance of the cosmopolitan (external, societal) source of moral reasoning in the ethical treatment of workplace spirituality. The purpose of this paper is to address these gaps by articulating two such ethical dilemmas related to workplace spirituality: the “quiet desperation” dilemma and the instrumentality dilemma. Moreover, I propose two theoretical contexts that foster “both-and” rather than “either-or” thinking, thereby mitigating (moderating) the relationships between climate combinations and conflictual aspects of the ethical dilemmas. For the “quiet desperation” dilemma, I propose a person–organization fit perspective to emphasize diversity of individual preferences instead of a managerially prescribed uniformity of spirituality. For the instrumentality dilemma, I propose a multiparadigm approach to workplace spirituality research to avoid the privileging of one research interest over another (e.g., instrumentality, individual fulfillment, societal good). I conclude with suggestions for future research.     

Postmodern Paralysis: The Critical Impasse in Feminist Perspectives on Consumers

Critical perspectives on theory play an important and valued role in disciplines across the academy. Feminist perspectives might be expected to be at or near the forefront of critical engagement with consumer behaviour theory, especially given the importance of gender in consumer research. Following a brief upsurge during the 1990s, critical feminist voices have been muted of late. This paper explores some reasons for this. It begins with a brief overview of research on gender and consumer behaviour and how insights from feminist theories and feminist activism began to alter our understanding of gendered consumption. It then discusses how postmodern and postfeminist perspectives have diluted feminism as a critique of gendered consumption. Finally, it argues that a return to materialist feminism would open up possibilities for new and more critical analyses of gendered consumption.     

The Effects of Moral Development and Adverse Selection Conditions on Managers’ Project Continuance Decisions: A Study in the Pacific-Rim Region

According to agency theory, agents base their economic decisions on self-interests when adverse selection conditions exist. However, cognitive moral development theory predicts that ethics/morals may influence decision-makers not to behave egoistically. Rutledge and Karim (1999; Accounting, Organizations and Society 24(2), 173–184) find both the moral reasoning level of the managers and an adverse selection condition affect a manager’s project evaluation decisions significantly. Since prior studies have shown that national␣culture might influence the application of agency theory in project evaluation, this current study uses a different moral development measurement to reexamine Rutledge and Karim’s hypotheses in another culture. A total of 73 Taiwanese executive MBA students with an average of 12.17 years work experience participated in this study. We found that both moral development level and adverse selection conditions significantly affect managers’ project continuance decisions. The interaction effect of these two factors indicates that, when adverse selection conditions exist, participants with a high level of moral development exhibit less of a tendency to continue an unprofitable project than those with a low level of moral development. With subjects from a different culture, our results confirm the findings of Rutldege and Karim. That is, the effects of moral development and adverse selection conditions on managers’ project continuance decisions are robust and can be generalized to different cultures. Implications of the findings of this study to multinational firms are also discussed. C. Janie Chang, Ph.D., is the Vern Odmark Professor of Accountancy at San Diego State University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. She is the co-editor of the Review of Accounting and Finance, and has published in the areas of auditing, managerial accounting, and information systems to investigate information processing of experts. She has also studied cross-cultural issues related to professional judgments and decisions in auditing and managerial accounting. Sin-Hui Yen, Ph.D., is currently a Professor of Accounting at Tamkang University in Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. from national Taiwan University. He is the executive editor of the Journal of Contemporary Accounting, and has published in the areas of accounting and finance to investigate human information processes, as well as ethical issues related to business professionals.     

Public Policies on Corporate Social Responsibility: The Role of Governments in Europe

Over the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and, second, as a process by which companies manage their relationship␣with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001. Nowadays, CSR has become a priority issue on governments’ agendas. This has changed governments’ capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies, but has also affected the framework in which CSR public policies are designed: governments are incorporating multi-stakeholder strategies. This article analyzes the CSR public policies in European advanced democracies, and more specifically the EU-15 countries, and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood, designed and implemented their CSR public policies. The analysis has entailed the classification of CSR public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments’ policies were addressed. This approach to the analysis of CSR public policies in the EU-15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed, which has enabled us to propose a ‹four ideal’ typology model for governmental action on CSR in Europe: Partnership, Business in the Community, Sustainability, and Citizenship, and Agora. The main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze CSR public policies, which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments, businesses, and civil society stakeholders, and enable us to incorporate the analysis of CSR public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance. Laura Albareda is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Innovation, ESADE, Universidad Ramon Llull-URL. She is principal researcher and manager of the Observatory on Socially Responsible Investment in Spain. Her areas of research and academic interest are Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Ethics, Global Governance and Public Authorites, Governments and Public Policies on Corporate Social Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investment. Josep M. Lozano is currently Professor & Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Innovation, ESADE Business School (URL). He is Co-founder of ética, Economía y Dirección (Spanish branch of the EBEN) and member of the editorial board of Ethical Perspectives and Society and Business Review. He was member of the Catalan Government’s Commission on Values, and is member of the Spanish Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs’ Commission of Experts on CSR. He has been a highly commended runner-up in the European Faculty Pioneer Awards of the Beyond Grey Pinstripes and is author of Ethics and Organizations. Understanding Business Ethics as a Learning Process (Kluwer). Tamyko Ysa is an Assistant Professor of the Institute of Public Management, and the Department of Business Policy at ESADE. Her areas of interest are the management of partnerships and their impact on the creation of public value; the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies, and the relations between companies and governments. She is the Principal Researcher of the Research Group for Leadership and Innovation in Public Management (GLIGP). She is coauthor of Governments and Corporate Social Responsibility (Palgrave MacMillan).