Social enterprise push or corporate social responsibility pull? The mainstreaming of fair trade

Social enterprise organizations and activities combine market-oriented approaches with social aspirations, whereas corporate social responsibility strategies seek to integrate social aspects into core business strategies. The rise in social enterprise activity at the business end of the spectrum raises questions about how, where, and why social enterprise and corporate social responsibility might overlap. Through a review of literature, we demonstrate how the mainstreaming or corporatization of fair trade activity provides an example of this overlap. The tensions between the push of social aspirations within fair trade and the pull of commercial imperatives are highlighted. From a marketing viewpoint, a social enterprise push strategy is shown as typically undertaken from an organization perspective, whereas pull strategies in marketing are typically customer driven. We demonstrate that influences from both social enterprise and corporate social responsibility are evident in fair trade mainstreaming processes, although the extent to which each “pushes” or “pulls” varies across circumstances and interpretations.     

Correspondence to what? Coherence to what? What is good scenario-based decision making?

This paper provides a framework for the evaluation of scenario planning and other strategic decision making methods or techniques. If scenario planning is useful, we should be teaching it in schools and we as individuals should be using it to cope with the uncertainty inherent in modern life. A prerequisite to this is the need to identify why, where and how (in what way) scenario planning and other methods or techniques are useful. Here, I review evaluations of scenario planning. Taking a Brunswikian perspective, I highlight the issues that have failed to be addressed in this evaluation. I demonstrate that there are many ways in which scenario planning could be useful other than those that have appeared in previous discussions. These multiple routes are dependent upon the interaction between the individual organisation, the environment in which they are operating and the method being followed.     

The Robustness of the APT to Alternative Estimators

We test the robustness of the APT to two alternative estimation procedures: the Fama and MacBeth (1973) two-step methodology; and the one-step procedure due to Burmeister and McElroy (1988). We find that the APT is indeed sensitive to the chosen estimator and assumptions about the factor structure of stock returns. We believe that our findings have implications for the estimation of asset pricing models in general.     

The history of consumption: A literature review and consumer guide

The history of consumption is fast becoming a vital area of academic research. For the social sciences, in general, this new field promises new insight into the great transformation of Western society. For consumer research, in particular, it promises the opportunity to create new perspectives, sources of data, and theoretical concepts. The purpose of this paper is to review recent literature on the history of consumption, and to offer a consumer guide for those who wish to use it in the study of modern consumer behavior and policy.

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Die Geschichte des Konsums: Ein Literaturüberblick und Leseführer

Zusammenfassung Die Geschichte des Konsums wird immer stärker zu einem wichtigen Gegenstand der akademischen Forschung. Für die Sozialwissenschaften im allgemeinen gilt, daß das neue Feld völlig neue Einsichten in die große Tranformation der westlichen Gesellschaften bietet. Für die Verbraucherforschung insbesondere gilt, daß es neue Perspektiven eröffnet, neues Datenmaterial erschließt und die Bildung neuer theoretischer Konzepte ermöglicht. Der vorliegende Beitrag will über die neuere Literatur über die Geschichte des Verbrauchs orientieren und Einstiegshilfen für denjenigen geben, der diese Literatur bei der Analyse des heutigen Verbraucherverhaltens und der Verbraucherpolitik benutzen möchte. Dabei warnt der Beitrag gleich zu Beginn vor einigen naheliegenden Betrachtungsfehlern, vor allem vor einer allzu gegenwartsbezogenen Betrachtung, die vergangene Perioden vorranging als die Vorwegnahme oder zumindest die Vorbereitung unserer Gegenwart auffaßt, sowie vor der Gefahr einer Projektion der eigenen Sichtweisen und Einstellungen auf eine andere Zeit, also die Erforschung einer vergangenen Zeit ausschließlich mit Denkweisen von heute.Die weiteren Abschnitte behandeln die verschiedenen Zusammenhänge, in denen Konsum gesehen werden kann: den kulturellen, den soziologischen, psychologischen, politischen und intellektuellen Kontext, sowie den Marketing- und den Verbraucherkontext. Diese Überlegungen können — so die Schlußfolgerung des Beitrages — einen entscheidenden Beitrag zu der Frage beitragen, weshalb sich in den westlichen Gesellschaften so große Veränderungen ergeben haben, die sich nicht nur in einer industriellen Revolution, sondern auch in einer Konsumrevolution niedergeschlagen haben.

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Grant McCracken is Assistant Professor, Department of Consumer Studies, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada. He wishes to thank Russell Belk, Victor Roth, Montrose Sommers, Richard Vosburgh, and anonymous referees for their comments on this paper.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF THE INTER-INDUSTRY PATTERN OF DIVERSIFICATION BY U.K. MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES*

Evidence of the diversity of output of larger U.K. manufacturing enterprises’in 1958, 1963 and 1968 is provided in the Reports on the Census of Production. The Censuses show that between 1958 and 1968 diversification was a significant and general trend in manufacturing industries and an important element in the growth of firms during the period. Moreover diversification seems to be part of a longer term trend in U.K. industry and part of the typical development pattern of the large firm. A theory of the firm's diversification decision is proposed and from this theory predictions are made of the structural features both of a firm's primary industry and of outside industries which are likely to encourage diversification from the one industry to the other. The power of the model in explaining the pattern of diversification between SIC manufacturing orders in the period 1963–68 is weak, due in part to the wide variety of factors influencing diversification and to the aggregated form of the data. Nevertheless, the results show the importance of research and development effort in encouraging diversification and the stimulus to diversification given by profitability and risk in firms’primary industries and high rates of output growth in outside industries. While the findings offer no clear conclusions regarding the impact of diversification upon economic performance, the results are consistent with the propositions that (i) diversification encourages technical progress in industry and (ii) diversification increases the efficiency with which resources are allocated between industries.     

Finance, Politics, and the Accounting for Stock Options

The politics of option accounting crosses party lines, reflecting both the interests of the affected constituencies and the desire for power over standard setting. House Bill HR-3574, which mandates an assumption of zero stock price volatility, runs counter to the recently passed Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rule requiring fair-value expensing of stock options. For any option issued at or out of the money, where strike prices are normally set, expense recognition is zero under this bill's mandated assumption.
Besides excessive use of stock options, the lack of a "final peace" in the option accounting war appears to have encouraged another questionable corporate practice. This article examines a sample of "six-and-one restructurings," exchanges of options in which expensing of re-priced (deep out-of-the-money) options can be avoided if employees wait at least six months and one day before receiving new options. The authors found that market-adjusted stock prices tend to decrease during the six-month period before the strike price is reset. This result provides one more reason why companies should be required to use fair-value option pricing models to expense options.     

Managers’ segment disclosure choices under IFRS 8: EU evidence

We examine the impact of proprietary and agency cost motives on segment disclosure quality and quantity and how the adoption of the principle IFRS 8 affects this impact. By using hand-collected data, our results show that proprietary and agency costs play a relevant role in determining the quality and quantity of segment disclosure. We find that proprietary costs are a particularly relevant reason for providing lower segment disclosure quality post-IFRS 8. Our results also suggest that firms’ segment disclosure choice is dependent on disclosure dimension. These results contribute to the ongoing debate regarding IFRS 8 and have valuable implications for accounting regulators.     

All of work? All of life? Reconceptualising work‐life balance for the 21st century

This paper argues that the study of work‐life balance to date has, in the main, adopted a restricted conception of both “work” and “life”, which does not take account of recent developments in life worlds, working arrangements and employment relationships. “Life” has hitherto been viewed as largely comprising caring activities for dependent children, whereas “work” has been premised largely on a traditional model of work, characterised by full‐time, permanent employment with one employer and a conventional understanding of what work involves. This means that extant research and theory only provides a partial view of the work‐life needs and experiences of the workforce. In the paper, we propose extending conceptions of both work and life to incorporate different life worlds and social groups and different working arrangements and employment relationships.