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InfoVine is a software prototype which has been developed to enhance corporate memory and corporate consciousness. It has been implemented in the context of paint technology laboratory notebooks at Courtaulds Coatings Holdings Ltd. However, its possible business and industrial applications are far wider. InfoVine is designed to perform a task whose importance is only just beginning to be recognised: that of replicating the information roles of middle managers, and providing a dynamic record of organisational knowledge. The system collects, stores and makes available information about which personnel have expertise in which technical areas. This paper examines the evaluation process that InfoVine underwent at Courtaulds Coatings Holdings Ltd. The process was considered as an exercise in technology transfer and in promoting the use of the software within the organisation. The evaluation of InfoVine is considered in the light of proven criteria for good technology transfer. The methods used for system evaluation and the results of the evaluation are considered. The work on InfoVine has now moved into an exciting new phase. The closing section of this paper is concerned with new directions for InfoVine. These include abstracting the InfoVine principles to produce a generic system for enhancing corporate memory and corporate consciousness. New contexts for the development of InfoVine are also discussed.

The paper seeks to review the literature on CSR in industrial clusters in developing countries, identifying the main strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in this literature, pointing to future research directions and policy implications in the area of CSR and industrial cluster development.

A literature review is conducted of both academic and policy‐oriented writings that contain the keywords “industrial clusters” and “developing countries” in combination with one or more of the following terms: corporate social responsibility, environmental management, labor standards, child labor, climate change, social upgrading, and environmental upgrading. The authors examine the key themes in this literature, identify the main gaps, and point to areas where future work in this area could usefully be undertaken. Feedback has been sought from some of the leading authors in this field and their comments incorporated in the final version submitted to Corporate Governance.

The article traces the origins of the debate on industrial clusters and CSR in developing countries back to the early 1990s when clusters began to be seen as an important vehicle for local economic development in the South. At the turn of the millennium the industrial cluster debate expanded as clusters were perceived as a potential source of poverty reduction, while their role in promoting CSR among small and medium‐sized enterprises began to take shape from 2006 onwards. At present, there is still very little conceptual and empirical work that systematically investigates the linkages between industrial clusters and CSR in developing country contexts. Hence, the authors recommend that future work in this area should focus on conceptually developing and empirically testing “cluster and CSR” impact assessment methodologies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This will provide insights into whether joint CSR interventions in clusters bring about their intended consequences of improving economic, social, and environmental conditions in the South.

This article is likely to be the first systematic review of the literature on industrial clusters and CSR in developing countries.

The case presents a responsible investment dilemma case. Swedish institutional responsible investors have to make a choice about their investment in Lonmin, a platinum mining company whose operation are located in South Africa and has been the theatre of workers’ killings.

The case targets MBA students and can be taught in a corporate finance course, a corporate governance course, a business ethics course or on sustainable and responsible investment.

The teaching case follows the journey of Hilde Svensson, the head of equities for a Swedish responsible investor. She has been tasked to visit the site of Lonmin in South Africa which is the theatre of a tragic workers’ unrest that led to the killings of 44 workers in August 2012. She must decide what the best responsible investment strategy is to adopt with Lonmin for the future.

The students are expected to learn about what responsible investment entails and the dilemmas that can be faced by responsible investors. The case also gives insight to business students and the complexities of environment, social and governance (ESG) analysis and how to integrate financial and ESG analysis when you are a responsible investor.

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CCS 1: Accounting and Finance

This paper aims to present a systematic review of scholarly articles focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries and published during the period 2004 to 2014 in international journals.

This paper applied a bibliometric analysis to 101 articles on CSR research focused on developing countries.

The study confirms that the most prevalent CSR themes addressed in journals have been social issues, followed by environmental issues in a distant second, with ethics-related issues receiving the least attention. Also, as CSR research in developing countries constitutes an emerging stream of literature, an overwhelming dominance of empirical (qualitative) papers aimed at exploring and/or seeking interpretations to CSR motivations have been confirmed.

An important limitation of this study is in relation to the methods applied. In the first place, this review is based on two electronic databases: ABI/INFORM Global (ProQuest) and Web of Science Core Collection: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED). This means that research published in international journals that are not included in either of these databases will be omitted.

This review provides useful guidance for future CSR research focused on developing countries thereby providing a foundation for future research in this stream of CSR research.

The findings of this study suggest that much CSR knowledge in developing countries reflects the unique social issues that call for companies to adopt different CSR interventions when operating in developing countries.

Although this paper is not the first to systematically review CSR research, but it is one of the initial attempts, to the best of the knowledge, to systematically review the state of CSR knowledge in the context of developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of CSR in Afghanistan as a novel context in the South-Asian CSR debate.

The findings of the paper are based on case studies of four corporations in the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry. Multiple sources of qualitative data are coded according to the analytical framework of the paper to generate the findings.

The findings highlight that the Afghan national setting can be conceptualised as an “area of limited statehood” indicating the weak national institutional setting, which enables space for manoeuvring for non-state actors to play a pivotal role in business-society relations. The paper highlights that the CSR practices are driven by the multi-level organisational field that through a unique blend of global coercive, mimetic and normative pressures lead to convergence around explicit CSR themes.

The findings are based on CSR practices that are explicitly stated and do not include informal and/or implicit business-society practices in such contexts.

This paper combines the literature on areas of limited statehood and the neo-institutional theory to explain the emergence of CSR the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry. The paper advocates for a shift from a national setting focus to a multi-level institutional field lens in providing contextualised explanation of the emergence of CSR in developing countries.