Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in Developing and Transitional Countries: Botswana and Malawi

This research empirically investigated the CSR practices of 84 Botswana and Malawi organizations. The findings revealed that the extent and type of CSR practices in these countries did not significantly differ from that proposed by a U.S. model of CSR, nor did they significantly differ between Botswana and Malawi. There were, however, differences between the sampled organizations that clustered into a stakeholder perspective and traditional capitalist model groups. In the latter group, the board of directors, owners, and shareholders were important stakeholders that appeared to be restricting extended stakeholder CSR activities in the Malawi and Botswana organizations. The sampled managers recognized the economic benefits of CSR practices and were not at odds with social objectives.     

The Completion Rate of IMF Programmes: What We Know,Don’t Know and Need to Know

Although a great deal of attention has been paid to IMF conditionality and to the effects of IMF programmes, relatively little attention has been paid to their completion rate. However, the record is that the clear majority of Fund programmes are uncompleted. Is this a cause for concern and why is it that the completion rate is low? In principle, a number of factors could be at work. Gaining a better understanding of what these are should allow policy reform at the IMF to improve performance. While there are things that we do not know and need to know about programme completion, we know enough to delineate the broad direction that policy should take.     

企业社会责任：追求什么最大化？

企业社会责任已经越来越成为普及化的一个名词了。2010年中国已有700多家企业通过发布企业社会责任报告来向利益相关方系统阐释其社会责任理念、实践和成效。但是,在我们阅读这些报告的过程中,总是能发现各种理念交织在一起,让人感到困惑和疑问。特别是涉及到对企业社会责任的本质理解和把握方面,需要提出来做一些探讨。     

Clusters,Chains and Compliance: Corporate Social Responsibility and Governance in Football Manufacturing in South Asia

A recent concern in the debate on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries relates to the tension between demands for CSR compliance found in many global value chains (GVCs) and the search for locally appropriate responses to these pressures. In this context, an emerging and relatively understudied area of interest relates to small firm industrial clusters. Local clusters offer the potential for local joint action, and thus a basis for improving local compliance on CSR through collective monitoring and local governance. This article explores the interrelationship between global governance, exercised through GVC ties, and local governance, via cluster institutions, in ensuring compliance with CSR pressures. It undertakes a comparative analysis of two leading export-oriented football manufacturing clusters in South Asia that have both faced common challenges on child labour. The article shows that both forms vertical and horizontal governance have played a part in shaping the response of the two clusters on child labour. Moreover, these two distinct forms of governance have also led to quite differentiated outcomes in terms of forms of work organization and child labour monitoring. This raises broader questions on how global CSR demands can locally be better embedded and the conditions under which football stitchers labour in these new work forms.     

Corporate Moral Responsibility: What Can We Infer from Our Understanding of Organisations?

The question of corporate moral responsibility – whether corporate bodies can be held morally responsible for their actions – has been debated by a number of writers since the 1970s. This discussion is intended to add to that debate, and focuses for that purpose on our understanding of the organisation. Though the integrity of the organisation has been called into question by the postmodern view of organisations, that view does not necessarily rule out the attribution of corporate agency, any more than the postmodern view of the person rules out the attribution of individual agency. The postmodern view is opposed to a reifying, metaphysical view of corporate agency, but a semantic view of corporate agency would seem to sit more comfortably with it. A bigger problem for the idea of corporate moral responsibility arises from the fact that in Kantian terms organisations are not ends in themselves. In that sense they are not like persons, and this must limit their autonomy, and their responsibility. This aspect of organisations also limits their punishability. For these reasons corporate moral responsibility must be seen as more limited than the responsibility of persons.     

社会责任活动、社会责任沟通与企业价值

企业履行适当的社会责任是大势所趋,但目前理论与实务界对社会责任经济后果的认识存在困惑,难以指导企业的社会责任实践。企业社会责任对企业价值的影响因不同社会责任类型的收益、成本特征而异,并且社会责任价值实现受制于社会责任沟通的影响,企业应该在整体战略规划的视野里树立社会责任管理理念,对企业社会责任进行事前决策和实时的过程管理。     

企业社会责任,要做,更要说!

<正>被誉为中国首善的陈光标先生又一次成为公众关注的热点人物。这一次,是因为他积极响应盖茨和巴菲特的慈善号召,承诺自己离世后会向慈善机构捐出自己的全     

企业社会责任:测定、策略及其影响

企业承担社会责任是社会进步和可持续发展的必然趋势。企业对于社会责任的选择和履行对劳动力市场、公共基础设施建设和消费者选择都有重要影响。企业承担社会责任意味着企业要从以前单纯追求自身利益最大化转变为在追求利益最大化的同时,兼顾到其利益相关者甚至社会的利益。要做到这点企业必须从两个方面出发:内部要给员工及其利益相关者创造和谐氛围;外部要对环境、公共事业、社会稳定担负相应责任。社会责任对企业并不仅仅是负担,也会给企业带来诸多益处。     

What Advertisers Need to Know about the iYGeneration: An Australian Perspective

A great challenge exists today: how to reach youth (a.k.a. the iYGeneration) who consume multiple media concurrently, who can access information on demand, and who have intertwined virtual social media networks in their lives. Our research finds that Australian youth multi-task and rarely use traditional media, although significant differences between males and females, as well as late tweens and 20-somethings, exist. Technology convergence facilitates two-way dialogue, allowing growing social interactions to occur in their technological environments. Our findings show that in order for marketing communication professionals to effectively communicate with this market, it is crucial to know exactly how the iYGeneration use media, which media they use, and when they use it.     

Board Attributes,Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy,and Corporate Environmental and Social Performance

In this paper, we draw on insights from theories in the management and corporate governance literature to develop a theoretical model that makes explicit the links between a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) related board attributes, its board CSR strategy, and its environmental and social performance. We then test the model using structural equation modeling approach. We find that the greater the CSR orientation of the board (as measured by the board’s independence, gender diversity, and financial expertise on audit committee), the more proactive and comprehensive the firm’s CSR strategy, and the higher its environmental and social performance. Moreover, we find this link to be endogenous and self-reinforcing, with superior CSR performers tending to further strengthen their board CSR orientation. This result while positive is also suggestive of the widening of the gap between the leads and laggards in CSR. Therefore, the question arises as to how ‘leaders’ are using their superior CSR competencies seen by many scholars as a source of corporate (at times unfair) competitive advantage. Stakeholders of corporations therefore need to be cognizant of this aspect of CSR when evaluating a firm’s CSR activities. Policy makers also need to be cognizant of these concerns when designing regulation in this field.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Social Investment: The South African Case

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social investment (CSI) have become terms that are used to examine some activities of businesses. With globalization pressures and increasing burdens on governments to provide comprehensive social services, the microscope has been trained on how firms play their part in sharing this burden. Views vary from those who believe that CSR and CSI are a distraction from profit maximization to those who argue that participation in such activities contributes to positive social transformation, while benefiting participating firms themselves. In this article, the author seeks to organize these debates within particular theoretical frameworks, positing CSR and CSI, together with the Socially Responsible Investment Index that has been used to evaluate corporate behavior in South Africa, as a novel way of addressing pressing development problems.     

Huckstering in the Classroom: Limits to Corporate Social Responsibility

The familiar issue of corporate social responsibility takes on a new topic. Added to the list of concerns from affirmative action and environmental integrity is their growing contributions to education. At first glance, the efforts may appear to be ordinary gestures of communal good will in terms of providing computers, sponsoring book covers, and interactive materials provided by Scholastic Magazine. A closer view reveals a targeted market of student life who are vulnerable to commercials placed in these formats. Among the most effective corporate intervention is Channel One News. It offers a newsworthy show but with mandatory commercial viewing. This increasing trend of corporations intervening to assist schools that need more money and/or equipment is disingenuous.In this essay, I present the background of this commercialization of education and demonstrate the violations against student autonomy and integrity. Although there may be utilitarian merits to some interventions, I argue that these infringe upon the moral value of personhood. Advertising in schools in its current practice is immoral on deontological grounds.I construct a framework for a resolution between corporations and education through a Covenant. This Covenant will provide the moral duty that corporations have to the autonomy of the student-learner. The agreement will sanction some assistance to schools but not without the consent of local educational constituents and principles of the Covenant.     

Corporate Social Responsibility Audit: From Theory to Practice

This research examines the possibility of developing a new corporate social responsibility (CSR) auditing system based on the analysis of current CSR literature and interviews conducted with a number of interested and knowledgeable stakeholders. This work attempts to create a framework for social responsibility auditing compatible with an existing commercially successful environmental audit system. The project is unusual in that it tackles the complex issue of CSR auditing with a scientific approach using Grounded Theory. On the evidence discovered to date in the literature review and the interviews, CSR seems to be perceived by many as the social strand of sustainable development. However, there is far less agreement regarding its measurement. Both the literature review and the interview analysis indicate that developing an applied CSR auditing procedure will be a challenging task. This is principally due to the lack of formal study of this complex subject, which, despite the widespread debate it has engendered, still lacks a single and broadly accepted definition. The concepts developed from the findings of this research, together with the key factors identified in a literature review of CSR, were developed into a prospective CSR audit protocol.     

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Theory and Practice in a Developing Country Context

After providing an overview of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) research in different contexts, and noting the varied methodologies adopted, two robust CSR conceptualizations – one by Carroll (1979, ‘A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Model of Corporate Performance’, The Academy of Management Review 4(4), 497–505) and the other by Wood (1991, ‘Corporate Social Performance Revisited’, The Academy of Management Review 16(4), 691–717) – have been adopted for this research and their integration explored. Using this newly synthesized framework, the research critically examines the CSR approach and philosophy of eight companies that are considered active in CSR in the Lebanese context. The findings suggest the lack of a systematic, focused, and institutionalized approach to CSR and that the understanding and practice of CSR in Lebanon are still grounded in the context of philanthropic action. The findings are qualified within the framework of existing contextual realities and relevant implications drawn accordingly. Dr. Jamali is Assistant Professor of Management at the Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut. She holds a BA in Public Administartion from the American University of Beirut, and a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Administration, from the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. Her research interests encompass corporate social responsibility, public private partnerships, learning organizations and women issues. She worked as an expert consultant on projects funded by the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development, NGOs, and other regional and local public and private firms. She is the author of numerous studies and international peer reviewed publications in various international journals, including the Journal of Management Development, the International Journal of Public Sector Management, the International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Business Process Management Journal, Public Works, Management and Policy and Women in Management Review. Ramez Mirshak Graduated with honors from the American University in Cairo (AUC) with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration in February 2001, then worked for two years in Egypt in the field of marketing and management. In 2004–2005, pursued his Masters of Business Administration at the American University of Beirut (AUB), researching primarily issues relating to change management and corporate social responsibility under the supervision of Dr. Dima Jamali, then joined a leading international financial institution as a regional Management Associate, while maintaining links with AUB and working on several research based projects.     

Corporate Social Responsibility in China: A Corporate Governance Approach

Ethics training—an important means to foster ethical decision-making in organisations—is carried out formally as well as informally. There are mixed findings as regards the effectiveness of formal versus informal ethics training. This study is one of its first kinds in which we have investigated the effectiveness of ethics training as it is carried out in the Indian IT sector. We have collected the views of Indian IT industry professionals concerning ethics training (N = 266), and employed positivist (regression analysis and hierarchical linear modeling) and interpretive research (content analysis). We first have argued that the importance of the perception towards ethics has bearings not only on the individual ideologies but also on the organisational ethical values. In doing so, first we have conceptualised a theoretical framework: Perception of Ethics Training in Employees and Organisations (PETINEO). Second, we have studied the correlations between various components of this model. Third, we, under the rubric of PETINEO, examined the effectiveness of ethics training programmes for the Indian IT companies. Fourth, we have elaborated upon the results of our study. Our results suggest that the combination of both formal and informal means to undertake ethics training has superior impact on ethical decision-making in the Indian IT industry as compared to the use of any one of them in isolation.     

Ethics,Power and Communities: Corporate Social Responsibility Revisited

Ally-building can be an ethical pursuit in developing sources of power for the business manager. The commitment to social responsibility is a source of power, as well as an ethical practice for corporate endeavors. Pfeffer promotes a business manager’s ability to develop effectiveness with ties to powerful others in an intra-organizational environment. This paper advances an analysis about how individuals in corporations may use an inter-organizational approach to developing sources of power through a notion of corporate social responsibility. As such, a more meaningful qualitative reciprocity between corporations and the communities in which they operate can be developed. And, this relationship develops a source of power for the individual involved in this effort. In other words, relationships with powerful others in the community could develop by revisiting CSR based on reciprocity and exchange of sustainability in a community, rather than on a notion of paternal responsibility to some particular construct in society. Denise Kleinrichert has published papers on the areas of business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and applied ethics, as well as a book and a forthcoming chapter in socio-economic history. She has a Master in Liberal Arts degree in Humanities with an emphasis in Social and Political Thought from the University of South Florida, as well as her Bachelors degree in Economics with minors in Political Science and Sociology from Indiana University. She also has extensive corporate experience in human resources and risk management. Currently, she teaches Ethics and Business and Honors Applied Ethics at University of South Florida and is finishing her Ph.D. in Philosophy at this University.