The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivations underpinning recent evolving corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) among enterprises in China through the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivations underpinning recent evolving corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) among enterprises in China through the lenses of senior managers.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the interpretive tenets of engagement research, semi-structured in-depth interviews were adopted to explore the perceptions of senior managers from 21 large companies in various industries. The aim is to make sense of the emerging CSER phenomenon occurring in the field through engagement, observation and penetrating interviews.
Findings
The findings identify the main enablers driving CSER in China as: regulations and government influence; management awareness; benefits to company image; peer pressure/reporting by peers and public pressure on controversial companies. Guided by a system-based theoretical framework in terms of motivations for CSER, this study offers insights into the effectiveness of using widely adopted Western-based theoretical approaches in a Chinese context where companies operate against a different socio-economic, political, regulatory and cultural backdrop.
Research limitations/implications
The deep-rooted face (Mianzi) culture has the potential to influence managers to portray a positive image about their companies and themselves.
Originality/value
This engagement-based study is one of the few initiatives exploring managerial perceptions of CSER in China that adds to the scant literature pertaining to rich “emic” data in accounting, encompassing cultural influence by applying systems-oriented theoretical framework. The stimulus for CSER identified are useful for regulators and organizations to better comprehend how to set effective policies that promote CSER and fit the distinctive institutional characteristics of China.
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Md Moazzem Hossain, Mahmood Ahmed Momin, Anna Lee Rowe and Mohammed Quaddus
The purpose of this paper is to explore corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) practices and motivations in Bangladesh.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) practices and motivations in Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a mixed-methods approach, the paper attempts to understand what corporate social and environmental issues Bangladeshi firms are reporting and why. The paper first explores the motivations for CSER in line with O’Dwyer’s (2003) proposed classifications of proactive and reactive motivations through interviews and frames its findings using stakeholder theory. To provide a more holistic view, content analysis adapted from CSR Asia (2008) categorization (broadly guided by GRI) was conducted to enhance findings from engagement-based interviews with managers.
Findings
The paper finds that “community investment and development” and “governance codes and policies” received the highest amount of disclosure, while the least amount of disclosure was found in the “workplace/human rights” category. Although a philanthropic tone was found behind “community investment”, such as poverty alleviation activities, disclosure in this area is mostly motivated by proactive rationales with enlightened self-interest and image-building activities. In terms of reactive motivations underpinning CSER, the paper finds that companies also report reactively to reduce pressure from powerful stakeholders such as international buyers and government agencies. Contrary to other studies regarding reactive motivations, the authors argue that a director’s proactive motivation is the prime determinant of CSER in a developing country. They also argue that low-level disclosures on workplace environment/human rights need to be given more importance by policymakers, management and other relevant stakeholders.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is one of the few engagement-based field studies that uses a mixed-methods approach to seek managerial perspectives in an attempt to understand CSER practices in an emerging country context.
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Eijaz Ahmed Khan, Mohammad Alamgir Hossain, Mohammed Abu Jahed and Anna Lee Rowe
Understanding the micro-start-up resources and its relationships with entrepreneurial orientation and performance is unique because it operates a business in a poor resource…
Abstract
Purpose
Understanding the micro-start-up resources and its relationships with entrepreneurial orientation and performance is unique because it operates a business in a poor resource setting. However, poor resource settings of micro-start-up are not adequately examined into the literature in relation to entrepreneurial orientation and performance. Therefore, grounded on resource-based view, this paper aims to attempt to examine the relationships between resource capital, entrepreneurial orientation and performance in a developing country context.
Design/methodology/approach
To establish this, the authors conducted a survey among 180 micro-entrepreneurs from Bangladesh and analyzed the data using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach.
Findings
The results demonstrate the mediating role of entrepreneurial orientation on the relationship between human and financial resources and performance, while having partial mediating influence between social resource and performance, therefore indicating the importance of resources for determining business outcomes for micro-entrepreneurs.
Research limitations/implications
These results extend theoretical explanations of micro-entrepreneurship within the poor resource setting context. The findings have implications for identifying micro-firms likely to succeed for the purpose of strategic allocation of resources and supports; they also provide future research avenues.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has established that entrepreneurial orientation plays a critical and mediating role between resource capital and micro-firm performance in a poor resource setting.
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Feedback is a central element of the learning experience yet, until recently, few studies have focused directly on what students think about feedback. This paper seeks to address…
Abstract
Purpose
Feedback is a central element of the learning experience yet, until recently, few studies have focused directly on what students think about feedback. This paper seeks to address this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collected as part of a larger study investigating reasons for consistently low ratings of feedback across the higher education sector are reported. The larger study includes Rowe and Wood's Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ), which gathers quantitative data on student perceptions and preferences for feedback, but also includes two open‐ended questions inviting students to give written comments on why they believe feedback is important, and how the feedback they are getting could be improved.
Findings
Focusing on responses to the first open‐ended question and viewing comments in the context of the larger study and its findings, an analysis is offered of the students' responses, extracting seven different student conceptions of the function of feedback.
Research limitations/implications
Feedback serves a wide variety of functions in the lives of students, not limited to the implication of feedback for learning. Students are most likely to succeed in an environment where their broader social needs are met.
Originality/value
The findings reported in this paper contribute to an area of educational research previously neglected, drawing attention to: the importance which students attach to feedback as a teacher's personal response to them as individuals; and the need to take into account students' perceptions – both positive and negative – of the emotional aspects of feedback.
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The paper aims to introduce this special issue on LEAD, the research management system under which the papers collected in this issue were produced. The paper explains the…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to introduce this special issue on LEAD, the research management system under which the papers collected in this issue were produced. The paper explains the background that led to the establishment of the system, presents a short history of LEAD, describes how it is managed, and details the various stages of a typical LEAD “cycle”. It concludes with a brief description of the papers to follow.
Design/methodology/approach
Reflective description.
Findings
LEAD is a successful collaborative system for organising “action research” in learning and teaching within a business faculty. The papers in this issue serve to demonstrate the system's outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is essentially descriptive. The described system illustrates one way of organising collaborative research in a university faculty, in this instance focused on research into learning and teaching in a business faculty.
Practical implications
LEAD provides a model for managing collaborative university research, one that could be applied in any university faculty and across different research areas. Apart from illustrating the potential of the system, each of the papers collected in this issue is of interest in its own right, as a study of learning and teaching in a particular disciplinary context.
Originality/value
The LEAD system is a novel way of organising learning and teaching research in a university context.
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The main purpose is to investigate what resources young emergent bilinguals use to communicate a multimodal response to children’s literature. In particular, attention is paid to…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose is to investigate what resources young emergent bilinguals use to communicate a multimodal response to children’s literature. In particular, attention is paid to the ways students translanguage as part of the learning process.
Design/methodology/approach
An ethnography-in-education approach was used to capture the social and cultural aspects of literacy learning in an English-only context. A multimodal transcript analysis was applied to video-recorded data as a method for examining semiotic resources and modes of learning.
Findings
The results revealed that students used technology, paper-based resources and peers to construct meaning relative to books. Experimentation or play with the affordances of the tablet computer served as avenues to determine the agentive selection of resources. As students wrestled with constructing meaning, they gathered multiple perspectives from peers and children’s literature to involve symbols and representations in their texts. Signs, multiple language forms and meaning came together for the social shaping of situated perspectives.
Originality/value
This study addresses the call for educators to engage in multiliterate, multimodal practices with young learners in the contexts of classrooms. It provides insight into the need to create multilingual learning spaces where translanguaging freely occurs and the meaningful ways early childhood learners use technology. To fully understand what emergent bilinguals know and can do, they must be afforded a variety of semiotic resources at school.