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The purpose of this study is to develop new knowledge on corporate branding from a corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspective. The paper is particularly concerned with how environmental awareness can function as a specific CSR activity, and how environmental awareness can impact corporate brand. The paper also investigates the role of personal leadership, both within the company and externally, in developing an environmentally responsible company.

The paper uses an explorative research method and studies one company within the Norwegian offshore oil and gas industry. The analysis is based on qualitative interview data.

The study shows how the founder's role as “cultural architect” has a positive impact on how external constituents assess the image of the company, especially with regard to the company's innovations and its awareness of environmental issues, in two ways: first, it shapes, coordinates, energizes and leverages employees' attitudes and behaviors in relation to environmental issues; second, it thereby enforces a positive external reputation for the company, especially as a “green innovator”.

The findings are induced from a case study of one company in a particular industry. The results may therefore not be applicable or generalizable to other companies or other industries.

The study suggests that companies may gain reputational advantages and differentiation in integrating corporate social responsibility and environmental awareness as a core element of their business strategy.

The paper contributes to the corporate branding literature by exploring the role of CSR, and in particular concern for environmental issues and personal leadership, in building corporate reputation and developing a strong corporate brand.

The purpose of this paper is to share a personal perspective on the 28th Annual European Group on Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium held in Helsinki, Finland in July 2012. It explores the author's reflection on his participation in the EGOS Colloquium Subtheme 29 titled “Designing Culturally Sustainable Organizations.”

The author's reflection was based on his participation from a constructionist perspective.

The author argued that participating in EGOS provided critical feedback and additional insights on his research regarding the design of culturally sustainable organizations and how this research may apply in the South Asian context.

This paper offers the personal perspective of an American doctoral student and human resources development professional with experience in South Asia on his observations as an attendee of the 28th Annual EGOS Colloquium.

Governments around the world are providing multi‐billion dollar subsidies to roll out fiber to the home (FTTH) to enable superfast broadband (50 Mbps and above). The premise for this is a belief that superfast broadband brings substantial economic and societal benefits. This paper's purpose is to examine whether this belief is well founded.

The authors critically review the arguments most commonly made in favor of FTTH, examining their logic and underlying evidence.

The paper finds that these arguments often inappropriately use benefits of basic broadband to make the case for the upgrade to superfast broadband, or use the benefits of providing superfast to business premises to argue for providing superfast to homes. The authors find the evidence that basic broadband brings economic growth is patchy, and that frequently studies that argue for a link do not adequately distinguish between correlation and causation.

Thus the authors conclude that the conventional wisdom that FTTH will bring substantial economic and societal benefits and therefore deserves a subsidy is, at best, much overstated. The case has simply not been made that FTTH has sufficient incremental externalities over other forms of broadband. This is an important conclusion for politicians, policy makers, telecoms providers and taxpayers, and suggests that billions of dollars of public money may be being wasted.

This study reports and analyzes a questionnaire administered to US and European logistics managers soliciting their perceptions regarding changes in background and skill preferences for logistics managers operating in the new European Union environment. The combined sample of respondents appeared to indicate the importance of being a manager first and a functional/technical specialist second. While no statistically significant differences between the two subgroups were found with regard to background preferences, there were eight statistically significant differences between the two subgroups with regard to preferred skill requirements in the contemporary environment. Possible explanations for this phenomenon are suggested. Finally, implications of the survey findings for employers, practitioners, educators, and students are discussed.