Researches in Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review of Shifting Focus,Paradigms, and Methodologies

Owing to the growing academic and practitioner’s interest in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility, there is a need to do a comprehensive assessment and synthesis of research activities. This article addresses this need and examines the academic literature on Corporate Social Responsibility and Performance using a paradigmatic and methodological lens. The objective of this article is fourfold. First, it examines the status of CSR research from its beginning especially after 1970 to year 2008 in leading academic journals and reports to assess the focus areas of research on CSR so far. Second, it analyzes the research paradigms adopted in these research articles using the Operations Research Paradigm framework. Third, it compares and contrasts various kinds of research articles, methodologies, and research designs used in various researches in literature. Finally, it uncovers the implications of this study and directions for future research.     

Do Muslims Believe More in Protestant Work Ethic than Christians? Comparison of People with Different Religious Background Living in the US

This study examines the work ethic characteristics of Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim people who are living in the US. People originally from Turkey were targeted under the Muslim group. Since a significant number of people selected “none” as their religious affiliation in the survey, this group has also been included in the final analysis. Eight hundred and three people (313 Protestants, 180 “none”, 96 Muslims, 86 Catholics, and 128 other) participated in this questionnaire study. The analyses revealed that Muslim Turks reported greater scores on four of the five Protestant work ethic (PWE) characteristics. Protestants scored higher than Catholics on all characteristics, but there was no significant difference.     

Rundfunkfinanzierung: von Gebühren und Beiträgen jetzt zur Indexierung?

The 2013 reform of the system for federal funding for public broadcasting has not put the issue to rest, as the reform has been followed by many critical voices. For example, the public broadcaster ARD now suggests linking its funding to GDP. As different types of funding streams alter how efficient and effectively public broadcasters can pursue their non profit goals, this article analyses options for funding public broadcasting. It seems that a mixed approach would serve as a possible solution.     

Financial markets and exchange-rate regimes in transition to EMU

This paper highlights that the EMU transition process itself can pose challenges to individual accession countries and draws policy implications for ERM II. Differences in financial market development and international liabilities underscore the risks and benefits of ERM II, and may lead to conflict between short and long-term policy objectives.     

The impact of education,experience and inner circle advisors on SME performance: insights from a study of public development centers

In this study, we investigate the effects of entrepreneurial human capital on SME performance using data on 2,713 SMEs within the European Union. Performance was measured in two ways: profitability as ROA and productivity as revenue per employee. Results indicate that both profitability and productivity are positively related to industry-specific knowledge possessed by the CEO-owner prior to starting up the firm and the general business knowledge acquired once the firm is up and running. Experience as a result of having previously worked in a firm in the same industry before starting a business was related to productivity, but there is no relation with profitability. There is a link between performance and inclusion of other CEO-owners in the founder’s inner circle of advisors. This relationship is positive when the advisor’s venture has experienced failure and negative when the advisor’s venture has been successful. We discuss the significance of these findings for research and practice.     

Consumer Responses to the Food Industry’s Proactive and Passive Environmental CSR,Factoring in Price as CSR Tradeoff

This study explores social enterprises’ strategies for addressing mission drift. Relying on an inductive comparative case study of two Italian social enterprises, we show how stakeholder engagement combined with social accounting can successfully support a social venture to re-balance its positioning between wealth generation and social value creation. Indeed, stakeholder engagement helps the internal actors of a social enterprise to rationalize and embody pro-social values previously abandoned, while social accounting reinforces this embodiment process by showing the reintroduced social commitment of the social enterprise to external audiences. Conversely, strategies focused only on social accounting and without significant engagement of external stakeholders prove to be unsuccessful in counterbalancing mission drift because they fail to activate the necessary process of internal re-introduction and operationalization of pro-social values and objectives.     

Does inter-firm learning and trust promote firm innovativeness?

This paper elaborates on a theoretical framework that assesses the effects of inter-firm trust and learning on firm’s subsequent innovation output. We argue that joint problem solving arrangements play an intermediate role in firm innovativeness by promoting the sharing of complex and difficult-to-codify knowledge and information. Using survey data from a sample of 194 firms from the mainland of China, we find that inter-firm trust and learning have positive impacts on both buyer innovativeness and seller innovativeness. It is also found that there is a positive interactive relationship between trust and learning. Furthermore, their inter-effect and complementarity facilitate innovativeness by promoting joint problem solving at the firm level. Based on these findings, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Risk factors at the travel destination: their impact on air travel satisfaction and repurchase intention

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of four travel risk factors (natural disaster risk, physical risk, political risk, and performance risk) on traveler groups with different characteristics and the relationship among these risk factors, travel satisfaction, and travelers’ repurchase intention. For the research purpose, this study analyzed the data from passengers of a major international airline. The results suggest that traveler groups with different characteristics (gender, airline seat class, travel purpose, travel destination, travel duration, travel companion, and income level) respond differently to some risk factors, while they show the same response to other risk factors. The results also show that each risk factor affects travel satisfaction and repurchase intention differently. These findings imply that airlines should develop different strategies based on risk factors and travelers’ characteristics.