Peter Lacy, Arnaud Haines and Rob Hayward
The purpose of this paper is to identify leading CEOs’ views on sustainability and how they believe it is impacting the business environment, with a particular focus on the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify leading CEOs’ views on sustainability and how they believe it is impacting the business environment, with a particular focus on the importance of education (formal and informal) in developing future business leaders who can effectively manage sustainability issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Results and findings are based on research conducted by Accenture and the United Nations Global Compact, with 100 one‐to‐one interviews and an online survey with a further 766 CEOs.
Findings
CEOs see sustainability as more important than ever. It is growing in strategic importance, driving new business models, and is essential for long‐term success. CEOs see education as the most critical development issue for the future success of their business. They believe that developing new skills, knowledge and mindsets for the next generation of business leaders as key enabling conditions to accelerate a tipping point in the integration of sustainability into core business.
Originality/value
This paper is based on research from the largest CEO study on sustainability of its kind to date. One facet of the research was an online survey of 766 Global Compact member CEOs. Survey respondents were drawn from nearly 100 countries, across more than 25 industry sectors. The other principal research stream was a series of in‐depth, one‐to‐one interviews with 50 CEOs and over 50 board‐level business executives, civil society leaders and academic experts across 27 countries.
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This article aims to review some of the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to review some of the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.
Design/methodology/approach:
The article is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.
Findings
In 2010, Accenture and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) published A New Era of Sustainability, the world's largest CEO study on sustainability to date. Through conversations with 50 CEOs, 50 further board executives, academic experts and civil society leaders, supported by a survey of 766 CEOs from over 100 countries and 25 industries it uncovered a picture of corporate sustainability much changed since the previous study in 2007.
Practical implications
The article provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.
Social implications
The article provides strategic insights and practical thinking that can have a broader social impact.
Originality/value
The article saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.
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In consequence of inadequate accommodation, the Editorial and Publishing Offices of the British Food Journal have been removed to more commodious offices at
Martha Wilcoxson and Jana Craft
This paper aims to explore the common ethical decision-making challenges faced by financial advisers and how they meet these challenges. The purpose is to identify successful…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the common ethical decision-making challenges faced by financial advisers and how they meet these challenges. The purpose is to identify successful decision-making tools used by investment advisers in doing business ethically. Additionally, the authors uncover common challenges and offer decision-making tools to provide support for supplemental ethics training in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
Questions were analyzed through a qualitative approach using individual interviews to examine a range of experiences and attitudes of active financial advisers. The sample was represented by 11 practicing financial advisers affiliated with US independent broker-dealers: six women and five men, each with 10 or more years of experience, ranging in age from 35 to 75. Grounded in four ethical decision-making models, this research examines individual ethical decision-making using individual (internal, personal) and organizational (external, situational) factors.
Findings
The method used uncovered struggles and revealed strategies used in making ethical decisions. Two research questions were examined: what are the common ethical decision-making challenges faced by financial advisers in the US financial industry? How do financial advisers handle ethical decision-making challenges? Four themes emerged that impacted ethical decision-making: needs of the individual, needs of others, needs of the firm and needs of the marketplace. Financial advisers identified moral obligation, self-control and consulting with others as major considerations when they contemplate difficult decisions.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of this review is its small sample size. A more robust sample size from investment advisers with a broader range of experiences could have widened the findings from the study.
Practical implications
Investment advisers can use the findings of this study as a tool for improving their own ethical decision-making or designing training for their employees to be better decision-makers.
Originality/value
The study explores the decision-making experiences of investment advisers to reveal multifaceted, often private struggles that qualitative methods can uncover. The study provides support for the development of additional training in ethical decision-making specific to investment advisers.
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Gary M. Feinman and Linda M. Nicholas
Purpose – A reevaluation of the theoretical underpinnings that have been used to interpret the prehispanic highland Mesoamerican economy, with a primary focus on the Classic and…
Abstract
Purpose – A reevaluation of the theoretical underpinnings that have been used to interpret the prehispanic highland Mesoamerican economy, with a primary focus on the Classic and Postclassic periods in the Valley of Oaxaca.
Approach – Models of prehispanic Mesoamerican economies have long been derived from theoretical constructs broadly associated with Marx's Asiatic mode of production, specifically the writings of Wittfogel and Polanyi, which emphasized centralized control of irrigation and managed systems of production and distribution. Yet, for the Valley of Oaxaca, ethnographic data point to smaller-scale, more flexible systems of production, the importance of market exchange, and mechanisms for domestic cooperation. Drawing on residential excavation data from three Classic-period sites, systematic regional surveys, and other sources, the authors find that the data from the prehispanic era conform much more closely to the ethnographic findings than the long-standing theoretical constructs. New directions for modeling the prehispanic highland Mesoamerican economy are outlined.
Findings – The chapter's empirical focus is on the Classic-period domestic economy in the Valley of Oaxaca, where many households engaged in multicrafting and produced nonsubsistence goods for exchange. The archaeological data do not support the long-held view that most domestic units were self-sufficient.
Originality/value – The chapter draws on and synthesizes the theoretical implications from decades of field research by the authors. The findings provide a basis to question traditional perspectives on prehispanic Mesoamerican economies that have guided research for decades but no longer are supported by empirical findings.
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Athanasios Michalis and Vassiliki Costarelli
The paper aims to investigate food security research in Southern Europe and selected Eastern Mediterranean countries.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to investigate food security research in Southern Europe and selected Eastern Mediterranean countries.
Design/methodology/approach
An electronic literature search was conducted using Medline/PubMed and Scopus, to identify articles and reviews that were published in the English language, between January 2014 and December 2019. Thirty-three publications met the criteria for review.
Findings
Depending on the population sample and the measurement tool, reported food insecurity differed significantly between and within countries. In Portugal, food insecurity ranged from 11 to 70%; in France, from 6.3 to 77.7%; and in Greece, from 17.3 to 82%.
Research limitations/implications
Research investigating food insecurity issues and its true prevalence across southern European and Eastern Mediterranean countries are relatively limited.
Originality/value
Food insecurity levels in the above countries vary significantly, and the different methodologies often used render the results difficult to compare.
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Shannon Scott, Lisa Rosen and Briana Paulman
Race and ethnicity, BMI and other factors can affect ratings of one’s experiences in school, work and other settings. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of BMI…
Abstract
Purpose
Race and ethnicity, BMI and other factors can affect ratings of one’s experiences in school, work and other settings. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of BMI, race and ethnicity and body satisfaction on the experiences of victimization in a work or academic setting. Additionally, experiences of weight/appearance-based perpetration were explored within the context of prior victimization, perpetration, BMI, race and ethnicity and body satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
A diverse sample of 1,161 female undergraduates completed a series of questionnaires online. A series of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between body satisfaction, BMI and race and ethnicity and weight/appearance-based teasing perpetration and victimization.
Findings
Results indicated that lower body satisfaction was significantly related to an increase in weight/appearance-based victimization. Additional analyses examining the perpetration of weight/appearance-based teasing were conducted. Participants who reported experiencing victimization were also more likely to perpetrate weight/appearance-based teasing, although BMI was not associated with perpetration.
Research limitations/implications
Implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed. In particular, academic settings provide a landscape for reducing and preventing victimization because of the resources available for students in addition to policies and procedures that can be implemented.
Originality/value
The findings of this study provide evidence that various identities and beliefs, such as race and ethnicity, BMI and body satisfaction, play a role in victimization and perpetration. This study used a novel, emerging adulthood population.
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Ludivine Perray-Redslob and Dima Younes
Empirically, this paper questions whether accounting can help cope with crisis and preserve some form of feminist ideals. Theoretically, this paper aims to explore how accounting…
Abstract
Purpose
Empirically, this paper questions whether accounting can help cope with crisis and preserve some form of feminist ideals. Theoretically, this paper aims to explore how accounting affects the division of emotional work in times of crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper relies on a qualitative study that investigates “life under lockdown” during the COVID crisis and focuses on middle-class well-educated couples aspiring for some form of gender equality and who introduced accounting tools (schedules, charts, to-do-lists, etc.) in their daily life to achieve it.
Findings
The paper argues that accounting tools are not able to prevent couples from adopting traditional ways of carrying out emotional work. By favoring the masculine way of displaying emotions, they make invisible women's efforts for comforting. They even mask the unequal distribution of emotional work under some form of “neoliberal equality”. Also, in a context where middle-class standards are perceived as crucial to meet for both parents to keep their social position, accounting tools, by holding parents accountable for these standards, let no time to find alternative ways of living. Consequently, traditional roles become impossible to reverse.
Research limitations/implications
The paper investigates accounting, gender and emotions by showing the importance of making emotional work visible at a household but also at an organizational and societal level. It calls for an “integrative” emotional display that is crucial for resilience in times of crisis and invites to challenge neoliberal middle-class standards that make household life difficult for most women. Theoretically, it invites for further exploring how accounting tools are constructed and negotiated and how unpredictable elements of life other than emotions affect gender when accounting tools are introduced in times of crisis.
Originality/value
This article contributes to the literature on gender-in-accounting by introducing the concept of emotional work and showing how accounting tools affect the gendered division of emotional work in praxis.
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Shivangi Verma, Naval Garg and Thangaraja Arumugam
The present study aims to examine the relationship between techno-ethical orientation and ethical decision-making (EDM) in Indian supply chain companies during the COVID-19…
Abstract
Purpose
The present study aims to examine the relationship between techno-ethical orientation and ethical decision-making (EDM) in Indian supply chain companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also aims to explore the moderating role of technological frames (TF) in the relationship between techno-ethical orientation and EDM.
Design/methodology/approach
The relationship between techno-ethical orientation and EDM is examined using correlation and regression analysis. The moderating effect of five dimensions of TFs (personal attitude, application value, organisational influence, supervisor influence and industry influence) is analysed using structural equation modelling.
Findings
The correlation coefficient between techno-ethical orientation and EDM is 0.513. Also, the regression coefficient (β = 0.213) is significant at 0.05, establishing a positive linkage between the two. R-square values showed a 45.2% variation in EDM is explained by techno-ethical orientation. Similarly, all variables of TFs have a positive and significant moderating effect on the relationship between techno-ethical orientation and EDM.
Originality/value
This is one of the pioneer studies exploring techno-ethical orientation’s impact on EDM in supply chain companies.