Dieu Hack-Polay and Paul Agu Igwe
Integration is a complex, contested and multidimensional concept. This paper aims to examine the impact of small voluntary agencies (SVA) in the integration of refugees into…
Abstract
Purpose
Integration is a complex, contested and multidimensional concept. This paper aims to examine the impact of small voluntary agencies (SVA) in the integration of refugees into social, economic and citizenship structures in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is rooted in in-depth interviews with 20 participants and a case study (ethnography research) that focuses on a refugee-assisting organisation in Southeast England.
Findings
The findings reveal cases of exemplary leadership in actions and social solidarity exhibited by SVA through innovative actions aimed at helping individuals and communities which may be particularly disadvantaged. It revealed the mixed embeddedness that these agencies create that enable refugees to pursue a new life, employment and citizenship.
Research limitations/implications
One of the limitations of the study is the focus on one case study. However, this provided an opportunity to conduct in-depth interviews and examination of the research objectives.
Practical implications
With the ever-decreasing government revenues, there is evidence of the tremendous achievement of the voluntary sector in many endeavours in the community. This provides an opportunity for a more strategic partnership between public and private actors.
Social implications
The activities of the SVA are the catalyst to refugees’ integration as policies that enable regaining self-esteem, seeking employment or starting a business.
Originality/value
This study provides the opportunity to explore the relatively under-research and under-publicized role of SVA in the migrants and refugee literature.
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S. J. Oswald A. J. Mascarenhas
Ethics is fundamentally a science of social and collective responsibility. Ethics concerns human behavior as responsible or accountable. Because of the nature of social…
Abstract
Executive Summary
Ethics is fundamentally a science of social and collective responsibility. Ethics concerns human behavior as responsible or accountable. Because of the nature of social interaction, certain members of the society will bear greater authority, and hence, greater individual and social responsibility than others. In our world, personal responsibility and social responsibility are hardly separable. Personal responsibility becomes responsibility for the world because the person and the world are inseparable. In this chapter, we use the term responsibility from a legal, ethical, moral, and spiritual (LEMS) standpoint as some promise, commitment, obligation, sanctioned by self, morals, law, or society, to do good, and if harm results, to repair harm done on another. Hence, responsibility from a moral perspective is trustworthiness and dependability of the agent in some enterprise. Its inverse is exoneration – the extent to which one is excused from commitment and repairing the harm done to others by one’s actions. We apply the theories and constructs of executive responsibility to two contemporary cases: (1) India’s Super Rich in 2014 and (2) the Fall and Rise of Starbucks. After exploring the basic notion of responsibility, we present a discussion on the nature and obligation of corporate responsibility into three parts: Part I: Classical Understanding and Discussion on Corporate Responsibility; Part II: Contemporary Understanding and Discussion on Corporate Responsibility, and Part III: A synthesis of classical and contemporary views of responsibility and their applications to corporate executive responsibility.
The purpose of this paper is to operationalize theories of social learning and collective action for campus sustainability practitioners at higher education instititions (IHEs) to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to operationalize theories of social learning and collective action for campus sustainability practitioners at higher education instititions (IHEs) to enhance their work, and to introduce the concept of collective action competence as a practical tool.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a theoretical argument based on the concepts of learning and collective action for stronger consideration of social learning, action competence and voluntary collective action in campus sustainability initiatives.
Findings
Many important sustainability outcomes depend heavily on voluntary behaviors by groups of campus stakeholders, making voluntary collective action an important, although underused, tool for campus sustainability practitioners. The term “collective action competence” is introduced and defined as the capability of a group of people to direct their behavior toward a common goal based on a collective literacy, a collective competence, and a collective need or goal.
Originality/value
The term “collective action competence” is introduced as a novel unifying concept that articulates a critical capability needed for collective behavior change in social settings such as HEIs. Collective action competence is based on the theories of collective action and of social and free-choice learning and on the concepts of action competence and strategic competence.
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Robert Hauptman first raised awareness about the ethical issues of reference service in 1976. Hauptman, a library school student at the time, did a study on the culpability, or…
Abstract
Robert Hauptman first raised awareness about the ethical issues of reference service in 1976. Hauptman, a library school student at the time, did a study on the culpability, or lack thereof, in reference service provided by librarians. In his study, Hauptman posed as a library patron seeking potentially dangerous information. The behavior examined was how librarians respond to the request for material on how to build a bomb that would be powerful enough to blow up a house. Hauptman tried to present himself as a person of questionable character. He used six public and seven academic libraries in this study. Hauptman first made sure that he was speaking to the reference librarian. He then requested information for the construction of a small explosive, requesting specifically the chemical properties of cordite. He then asked for information on the potency of such an explosive, whether or not it could blow up a suburban house (Hauptman, Wilson Library Bulletin, 1976, p. 626).
Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and…
Abstract
Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.
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Despite numerous calls from civil society for mandatory regulation on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the European Commission in its Green and White Paper, emphasised the…
Abstract
Despite numerous calls from civil society for mandatory regulation on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the European Commission in its Green and White Paper, emphasised the voluntary character of CSR. This paper tries to go beyond the voluntary / mandatory juxtaposition by reframing CSR as Network Governance. In the paper, we argue that a network perspective is an adequate way to look at corporations, that the European Commission's communications are compatible with that perspective, but that the Commission's role in a European framework on CSR goes further than promoting voluntary actions. Rather, to develop a European mandatory framework on CSR as Network Governance would insure that fair interactions between stakeholders are started up and intensified. However, CSR as Network Governance does leave substantial flexibility for tailoring local integration of business.
The purpose of this article is to discuss the role that law plays for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in substance, action and reporting, including whether CSR functions as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to discuss the role that law plays for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in substance, action and reporting, including whether CSR functions as informal law.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical point of departure is based in legal science. Through a discussion of various contexts of CSR in which law and legal standards feature, the article questions the conception that CSR is to do “more than the law requires”. CSR is discussed with the triple bottom line as a point of departure, focussing on social (esp. labour and human rights) and environmental dimensions.
Findings
It is argued that CSR functions as informal law, and that important principles of law function as part of a general set of values that guide much action on CSR. Furthermore, it is argued that aspects of law in the abstract as well as in the statutory sense and as self‐regulation influence the substance, implementation and communication of CSR, and that the current normative regime of CSR in terms of demands on multinational corporations may constitute pre‐formal law.
Originality/value
Through its discussion, observations and examples of the role played in CSR by law in the abstract as well as the statutory sense, by international, supranational and national soft and hard law and documents, and by public regulation as well as corporate self‐regulation, the paper is of value to corporate managers, public regulators, NGOs and individuals with an interest in CSR, including as an aspect of corporate governance.
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Many nonprofit missions and the goals of socially responsible corporations are often found to refer to similar moral ideals related to improving the quality of human life. To take…
Abstract
Purpose
Many nonprofit missions and the goals of socially responsible corporations are often found to refer to similar moral ideals related to improving the quality of human life. To take account of this salient fact, the paper aims to theorize the functional equivalence between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the nonprofit sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The argumentative strategy is to draw on the conceptual construct of the complexity-sustainability trade-off to develop a systems-theoretic interpretation of Roger Lohmann’s vision of the commons as an embodiment of collective voluntary action.
Findings
The emerging conceptual imagery is that of corporations and nonprofits as social systems continually seeking to sustain themselves by processing and codifying their societal environment which includes the commons in which Lohmann took a central interest. The possible functional equivalence of corporations and nonprofits is traced back to their struggling to develop and improve their responsiveness to the respective commons.
Originality/value
This argument is shown to cut across a range of issues in the modern nonprofit sector scholarship, while shedding new light on the ongoing debates on CSR and stakeholder theory.
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Sharon Gyves and Eleanor O'Higgins
The objective of this paper is to investigate the benefits arising from various corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches, to determine which approach generated the most…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this paper is to investigate the benefits arising from various corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches, to determine which approach generated the most sustainable mutual benefit accruing both to the focal firm, as well as to society and the firm's stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
The ethnographic case studies are based on interviews with senior managers from six companies which are members of Business in the Community Ireland, a not‐for‐profit organization comprised of companies which are active about CSR initiatives.
Findings
Results show that for the companies interviewed, CSR initiatives that are voluntary and strategic, as opposed to coerced and/or non‐strategic, generate the most sustainable mutual benefit to the firm itself and its social beneficiaries.
Originality/value
The paper presents a framework to analyze approaches to CSR, using the dimensions of strategic/non‐strategic, voluntary/coerced. The study discovers ways to reconcile the conventionally competing shareholder and stakeholder mindsets. The paper concludes that if firms pursue CSR activities in a voluntary and strategic manner they can satisfy both shareholders' and stakeholders' demands.
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Charities in the United States contribute to the public good by delivering a broad range of services and by promoting civic engagement and social change. Though these dual roles…
Abstract
Charities in the United States contribute to the public good by delivering a broad range of services and by promoting civic engagement and social change. Though these dual roles are widely acknowledged, a relatively few studies explore advocacy among service-providing nonprofits. Analyzing a random sample of charities in the San Francisco Bay Area, the authors conceptualize nonprofits as institutionally embedded formal organizations and actors. The authors find that a majority of service providers blend advocacy and service provision. Organizational rationalization constructs nonprofits as goal-oriented actors working to benefit their constituents and society at large, increasing the likelihood that nonprofits will embrace advocacy. Moreover, collaboration embeds nonprofits in networks of mobilization and information for advocacy and facilitates engagement in political and social change activities. By contrast, embeddedness in the market is negatively associated with advocacy. These results reinforce the salient role of service-providing nonprofits in collective civic action and demonstrate how nonprofit embeddedness in multiple institutional influences affects engagement in advocacy.