The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of how, and how well, stakeholders make decisions about rewarding firms for acts of social responsibility and punish…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of how, and how well, stakeholders make decisions about rewarding firms for acts of social responsibility and punish firms for their lack thereof.
Design/methodology/approach
The author integrates factors at the individual, firm, and industry levels that cause variation in how stakeholders attend to corporate social (ir)responsibility.
Findings
The author explicates the multi-level cognitive process stakeholders undertake in attending to firm’s actions and identifies limits on their ability to fulfill their central role in conditioning firms to be more socially responsible.
Research limitations/implications
The author outlines areas for future research that can fill gaps in the understanding of how stakeholders notice, make sense of, and respond to corporate social practices.
Social implications
The author argues that, under many conditions, business case or self-regulatory solutions may be inadequate to increase corporate social responsibility (CSR), and instead, formal regulatory solutions may prove necessary.
Originality/value
This paper brings needed structure to the literature on CSR. By delving deeper into the minds of stakeholders and outlining a multi-level cognitive process, it enables scholars to better address the key managerial issue of when, not simply whether, it pays to be good.
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Natalia G. Vidal and Harry Van Buren III
Business collective action (BCA) is often necessary to address sustainability issues, which are generally complex and multi-layered issues that cannot always be properly addressed…
Abstract
Business collective action (BCA) is often necessary to address sustainability issues, which are generally complex and multi-layered issues that cannot always be properly addressed by individual businesses. Firms participating in BCA for corporate sustainability have access to clearer rules and guidelines for managing sustainability issues, are more efficient in managing multiple stakeholder demands due to enhanced opportunities for learning, benefit from individual and joint reputation management, and are better able to capture weak signals about opportunities and threats in the external environment. Despite these benefits, our understanding of BCA for corporate sustainability is still limited. Most of the existing work in this area has examined different forms of BCA for corporate sustainability – for example, multi-stakeholder initiatives, trade associations, and other forms of business membership organizations – individually. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of BCA for corporate sustainability. The authors start the chapter by discussing the importance of BCA in general and BCA for corporate sustainability, in particular to research and practice, and its benefits to firms and society. The authors then present a typology of the different forms of BCA for corporate sustainability, discussing their differences and similarities from an issues management perspective. The authors conclude the chapter with a brief discussion of future research in this area.
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Pinar Ozcan, Kerem Gurses and Mareike Möhlmann
This chapter focuses on the largely unexplored within- and cross-category spillovers between category kings and commoners within the field of the sharing economy. Going beyond the…
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the largely unexplored within- and cross-category spillovers between category kings and commoners within the field of the sharing economy. Going beyond the reputational spill-overs that are the main focus of extant literature, the authors also consider spill-overs in awareness, regulation, and customer usage between category kings and commoners, providing a holistic view of what it means to be a commoner in the same or adjacent category as a king. On the basis of a mixed-method study based on semi-structured interviews with UK sharing platforms and a consumer survey, the authors show that category commoners are affected by kings differently depending whether they are in the exact same sub-category or in an adjacent one within the same larger category. This chapter expands extant work on within and cross-category dynamics by taking the less popular perspective of the less visible category members. Studying these dynamics in the setting of the sharing economy also contributes to the authors’ knowledge of what enables/hinders the growth of a new field as a whole. Finally, the findings have important policy implications.
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Finn Frandsen, Winni Johansen and Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen
Based on the assumption that the identity and self-understanding of an academic discipline determines how it conceptualizes different domains of social reality, including how it…
Abstract
Based on the assumption that the identity and self-understanding of an academic discipline determines how it conceptualizes different domains of social reality, including how it imports and/or exports concepts from or to other disciplines, this chapter presents some of the findings of a major ongoing comparative and cross-disciplinary study of how five key concepts within the combined fields of crisis management and reputation management are applied in three different disciplinary contexts. In this chapter, however, the focus is on just one of these concepts: the concept of reputation.
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ChiKit Au, Joshua Barnett, Shen Hin Lim and Mike Duke
This paper aims to investigate if a Cartesian robot system for kiwifruit harvesting works more effectively and efficiently than an articulated robot system. The robot is a key…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate if a Cartesian robot system for kiwifruit harvesting works more effectively and efficiently than an articulated robot system. The robot is a key component in agricultural automation. For instance, multiple robot arm system has been developed for kiwifruit harvesting recently because of the significant labor shortage issue. The industrial robots for factory automation usually have articulated configuration which is suitable for the tasks in the manufacturing and production environment. However, this articulated configuration may not fit for agricultural application due to the large outdoor environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The kiwifruit harvesting tasks are completed step by step so that the robot workspace covers the canopy completely. A two-arm, Cartesian kiwifruit harvesting robot system and several field experiments are developed for the investigation. The harvest cycle time of the Cartesian robot system is compared to that of an articulated robot system. The difference is analyzed based on the workspace geometries of these two robot configurations.
Findings
It is found that the kiwifruit harvesting productivity is increased by using a multiple robot system with Cartesian configuration owing to its regular workspace geometry.
Originality/value
An articulated robot is a common configuration for manufacturing because of its simple structure and the relatively static factory environment. Most of the agricultural robotics research studies use single articulated robot for their implementation. This paper pinpoints how the workspace of a multiple robot system affects the harvest cycle time for kiwifruit harvesting in a pergola style kiwifruit orchard.
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Anna K. Zarkada and Christina Polydorou
This chapter expands traditional approaches to Corporate Reputation Management by employing postmodernist approaches to value co-creation in order to identify how Facebook…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter expands traditional approaches to Corporate Reputation Management by employing postmodernist approaches to value co-creation in order to identify how Facebook Features can be used to facilitate company–consumer Corporate Reputation co-creation.
Methodology/approach
Using content analysis of Facebook Fan Pages, the chapter explores how 29 of the world’s most reputable corporations use Facebook Features.
Findings
To a surprising degree, the corporations in the sample, despite having virtually limitless access to marketing communications resources, fail to make full use of the opportunities Facebook offers them. It appears that they have not yet fully adapted to this novel medium.
Research implications
Facebook together with the locus has also shifted the focus of corporate communications from one-way company-controlled transmission of information to multiparty user-controlled conversations. Thus, Corporate Reputations can no longer be managed. Instead, by offering consumers experiences and emotional triggers, corporations can engage them into willingly marketing the corporation and its products to each other.
Originality/value of chapter
This is the first systematic analysis of the practices the world’s most prominent corporations utilize (or fail to employ) on Facebook. It illustrates that companies that adapt to the Social Media ecology can successfully orchestrate customer experiences that foster the co-creation of the desired Corporate Reputation.
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Mirko Olivieri, Elanor Colleoni and Giuseppe Bonaccorso
Because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, online platforms where travelers' comments and reviews are published have grown considerably. More specifically, in the tourism sector…
Abstract
Because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, online platforms where travelers' comments and reviews are published have grown considerably. More specifically, in the tourism sector, these social evaluations have been shown to have a strong influence as online platforms, such as online travel agencies (OTA), represent a main touchpoint for the formation process of the online corporate reputation. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate how the pandemic has influenced the online reputation formation of tourism companies and which are the new reputation pillars emerging from the COVID-19. To achieve this research aim, we analyzed the customers' reviews as reported publicly on TrustPilot.com, an online platform that allows customers to review businesses after a purchase or contact with their customer service, before and after COVID-19 so as to identify significant changes in the corporate reputational drivers of LastMinute.com. With this study we have identified the four topic clusters and their sentiment in the two periods of consideration, and we have found that the corporate reputation of tourism companies is formed today starting from different consumer needs. Finally, managerial implications for communication professionals operating in tourism firms are presented.
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Jane Booth and Pat Green
Humanity faces many crises – climate change, food insecurity, persistent poverty – what Brown, Harris, and Russell (2010) call wicked problems. These problems implicate us all…
Abstract
Humanity faces many crises – climate change, food insecurity, persistent poverty – what Brown, Harris, and Russell (2010) call wicked problems. These problems implicate us all, with possible solutions transcending disciplinary, organizational, and national boundaries. Therefore educators need to nurture graduates able to engage as future practitioners – and citizens – in seeking solutions which recognize “the personal, the local and the strategic, as well as specialized contributions to knowledge” (Brown et al., 2010, p. 4).
A model of service-learning which draws on the principles of social pedagogy, cultural-based learning and co-production provides the foundations for a more reflexive pedagogy, supporting the “development of student attention, emotional balance, empathetic connection, compassion and altruistic behavior” (Zajonc, 2013, p. 83). This approach advocates that community organizations play a pivotal role in co-designing knowledge. Drawing on an applied research module at University of Wolverhampton this chapter will argue that by engaging community groups as co-producers of knowledge, learning can be extended beyond students to the wider community (Murphy & Joseph, 2019). Not only will this enhance the potential of service learning to benefit the community and the students, but it has the potential to produce graduates more sensitive to the needs of communities themselves.
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- Applied learning
- community engagement
- community link
- community-based learning
- co-production
- critical reflection
- cultural-based learning
- experiential learning
- expertise/expertises
- integrated experience
- knowledge of the powerful
- powerful knowledge
- reciprocity
- reflection
- social pedagogy
- social science
- wicked problems