Search

Responsibility is a crucial component of corporate sustainability. Deviation from responsibility is considered as irresponsible corporate practice. The present article highlights the issue of honey adulteration as an irresponsible corporate practice. The study is based on the Centre for Science and Environment investigation report on honey adulteration business in India. The article uses thematic analysis through descriptive research design with an inductive approach to show how honey adulteration is an irresponsible practice within the core area of corporate responsibilities—economic, legal and ethical domains. Honey adulteration is an irresponsible practice by the corporate in its core areas of responsibility and simultaneously affects all the stakeholders in its business relationship. Eventually, it would affect the business's credibility and sustainability in the long run, if the issues are not appropriately addressed. The findings of the article suggest that to achieve business sustainability, corporations need to internalize and institutionalize the core responsibilities and government guidelines in their business operation. On the basis of the findings, the article offers relevant policy and practical implications for corporate to stay away from irresponsible business practices and suggests scopes for future research in the domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies increasingly seek to strategically integrate social objectives in commercial activities to address societal challenges, yet little is known about how companies can sustain such a commitment over time. To address this question, we conduct a case-based, abductive study of two pharmaceutical companies widely considered industry leaders in facilitating access to medicine over a 20-year period (2000–2019). We identify product and operation-level integration as distinct types of integration efforts enacted by these companies. Tracing the intraorganizational dynamics associated with these efforts, we theorize that sustained integration is contingent on companies' ability to respond to and address the challenges specific to product and operation-level integration. The theoretical framework we develop contributes to an emerging debate on the potential of companies to make progress on societal challenges by strategically integrating social objectives, including but not limited to those related to global health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to briefly spell out why corporate moral agency is a fallacy and to show how this conclusion should shift the field of business ethics more in the direction of political philosophy and the rule of law. An argument based on a false assumption can be valid, but it cannot be sound. If corporate moral agency is a fallacy, and thus also moral prescriptions for corporations, how do we salvage the field of business ethics? To the extent that business ethics is about corporate behaviour (rather than individual managerial behaviour), the field can shift its foundational paradigm from ethics (which requires the attributes of moral agency) to legal accountability (which can be imposed instrumentally on corporate legal agents). By letting our elected representatives legislate the norms of acceptable corporate behaviour we can hold corporate legal entities legally accountable. What these norms should be then becomes the central focus of business ethics seen through the lens of political philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need to determine the contemporary financial costs of workplace violence to the Australian economy. Since 2001, this intractable and typically gendered workplace problem has been viewed through a mythical lens which suggests it costs Australia between $6–36 billion every year. For over two decades, this estimate has been touted as an immutable source of truth. Accurate and realistic costings could support better policy and regulatory approaches to the prevention and effective management of workplace violence while also protecting those vulnerable members of our community who are most at risk of ongoing harm on account of workplace violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The WERN report documents the rise of worker-led collective action in the tech industry. We distinguish two types of activism emerging from tech professionals—demands for greater corporate social responsibility and demands for improved employment rights—and consider the opportunities each affords the larger labor movement. In the second section, we consider how the venture-capital funding model that structures the tech industry presents unique challenges to traditional union-organizing campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on extensive case study evidence, this study unpacks sustainability reporting's evolution from a moral values–based practice toward a financialized value–based one. We argue that this transition can be seen as a commensuration project. We examine the dynamics of this process and its implications for sustainability-related outcomes. We find that increased levels of commensuration have moved sustainability reporting away from an original emphasis on morality and values to a focus on strategic value creation for the firm. We theorize this process as a "crowding out of morality" that is enabled by a rigid cognitive framing of social and environmental issues (objectification) and the monetized coordination of relevant social interactions (marketization). We outline implications of our analysis for the scholarly debates on the institutionalization of sustainability reporting and commensuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I propose the concept of the ‘value chain detective’ to offer a fresh perspective on the role of researchers investigating economic, social and environmental dynamics at the base of global value chains. I highlight significant methodological, fieldwork and ethical challenges inherent in studying these conditions. By recognizing and embracing this role, I suggest that researchers can transform how they engage with and navigate the intricacies of value chain research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the emergent field of corporate activism by exploring how corporate advertising voices, or is interpreted by the media as voicing, Trump resistance – that is, sympathy with anti-Trump protests and dismay at the politics of the White House incumbent. In so doing, we first situate corporate activism in relation to the more established fields of political corporate social responsibility and corporate social responsibility communication, focusing on discussions concerning the interplay between talk and action as well as the potential of talk to lead to action. On this basis, we propose a conceptual framework that posits talk and action as operating conjointly on the ontological plane of s(t)imulation, a conceptual conjunction of simulation and stimulation that is inspired by Baudrillard's notion of the simulacrum. Empirically, we conduct a qualitative analysis of 20 examples of corporate advertising that has been reported as anti-Trump in the media. We find that the advertising in our sample is characterized by the following three main distinctions: (1) humorous references to Trump, (2) favourable and highly emotional appeals to social justice and (3) dystopian visions of society. We argue that a postmodern perspective on signs and representation may not only nuance our understanding of corporate activism, but also contribute to the conceptualization of the phenomenon by pushing the explanatory framework beyond the dialectic of talk and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical studies indicate that business compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act is disappointing, but they struggle to make sense of this phenomenon. This article offers a novel framework to understand how business organizations construct the meaning of compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act. Our analysis builds on the endogeneity of law theory developed by Edelman. Empirically, our study is based on the analysis of the modern slavery statements of 10 FTSE 100 (Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index) companies in the food and tobacco sector, backed by interviews with business, civil society, and public officers. We offer a dynamic model that draws attention to the role of compliance professionals in framing ambiguous rules and devising a variety of organizational responses to modern slavery law. Contrary to extant research that tends to praise organizations for going "beyond compliance", our study underlines the risks of managerialization of modern slavery law, whereby merely symbolic structures come to be associated with legal compliance, even when they are ineffective at tackling modern slavery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the motives underlying corporate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis begins with Thomas Dunfee's Statement of Minimum Moral Obligation (SMMO), which specifies, more precisely than any other contribution to the business ethics canon, the level of corporate beneficence required during a pandemic. The analysis then turns to Milton Friedman's neoliberal understanding of human nature, critically contrasting it with the notion of stoic virtue that informs the works of Adam Smith. Friedman contends that beneficence should play no role in corporate settings. Smith, by contrast, emphasizes the need for prudence, beneficence and self-command in all human endeavours. The article then uses these competing frameworks to reflect on a published survey of 145 corporate responses to COVID-19. In many of these responses, the benefit to a non-financial stakeholder is clear, while the financial consequence to the firm remains nebulous. This supports the contention that during a pandemic, beneficence provides a more complete explanation of many corporate actions than the profit motive alone. The article contests Friedman's Chicago School profit imperative and goes beyond Dunfee's SMMO by endorsing the more full-throated embrace of beneficence and stoic virtue found in the works of Smith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Business Roundtable, a large group of top CEOs, recently issued a statement defining the purpose of the corporation in stakeholder terms, a direct and intended reversal from an earlier statement that defined the duty of directors as serving the interests of stockholders. In this editorial, we briefly describe the major twists and turns in the stockholders-versus-stakeholders debate that make this statement so significant to management theory and practice. We then describe the implications of the statement for scholars and practicing managers. We end with a description of three specific research topics that require more research in light of this statement: firm boundaries, the nature of value creation systems, and theory regarding the destruction of stakeholder value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, as worldwide attention to corporate responsibility increased, the global corporate responsibility (GCR) movement did not converge on a singular governance model nor hybridize into myriad country-specific models. The movement, rather, bifurcated into onerous certification frameworks and more lax reporting frameworks. We examine this 'governance divide' in the GCR movement by investigating the cross-national diffusion of seven core GCR frameworks. We adopt a glocalization perspective that conceptualizes a vertical nesting of local and global contexts. Our cross-national quantitative analyses suggest that, while linkages to global culture have encouraged business participation in all GCR frameworks, power dependencies related to international trade and domestic factors related to effectiveness of local governance institutions have contributed to divergent diffusion patterns across reporting and certification frameworks. We discuss these findings in relation to several organizational perspectives and note their implications for further research on corporate responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses intraorganizational pressures for organizational transformation toward more responsible business practices by exploring the role of internal activists. Building on the interactive framing perspective, I ask how internal activists develop a framing of their company's responsibilities as they attempt to transform its business practices from the inside out. I explore this question in the context of a Danish pharmaceutical company's responsibilities regarding the rising diabetes problem. Grounded in an inductive, interpretive analysis, I show how internal activists developed a framing of the company's responsibility over time and eventually instigated new ways of thinking about and doing business in their organization. I theorize the constitutive processes that strengthened frame alignment and allowed the internal activists to shape business practices. My study contributes to the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication by explaining how intraorganizational processes of meaning making may constitute more responsible business practices and by explicating the distinct role of internal activists as agents of organizational transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increase in the power and reach of corporations has driven increasing concern with corporate responsibility. The social impact of corporations, including law firms, includes any interactions with human rights. This article argues that Australian law firms should engage more actively with human rights standards, and ensure that they are not unwittingly complicit in human rights violations. It identifies key areas in which law firms' conduct may impact human rights, and suggests corporate responsibility practices and policies for adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have recently started discussing the utilization of text-mining tools as being fruitful for scaling inductively grounded close reading. We aim to progress in this direction and provide a contemporary contribution to the literature. By focusing on map analysis, we demonstrate the potential of text-mining tools for text analysis that approaches inductive but still formal in-depth analysis. We propose that a combination of text-mining tools addressing different layers of meaning facilitates a closer analysis of the dynamics of manifest and latent meanings than is currently acknowledged. To illustrate our approach, we combine grammatical parsing and topic modeling to operationalize communication structures within sentences and the semantic surroundings of these communication structures. We use a reliable and downloadable software application to analyze the dynamic interlacement of two layers of meaning over time. We do so by analyzing 15,371 newspaper articles on corporate responsibility published in the United States from 1950 to 2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative benefits and risks of nanomedicine have led to global indecisiveness regarding a suitable approach for regulation of this industry, and Australia is no exception. This article proposes a meta-regulation approach for regulating nanomedicine in Australia, demonstrating how this approach enables companies to surpass their compliance requirements and improve stakeholders' capacity to deal with the inherent uncertainty surrounding the emergent science of nanotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the moral issues underlying abuses of company law. The author uses Hannah Arendt's concept of 'thoughtlessness' and explores moral theories justifying our company laws. The contradictions of corporate personality are examined with reference to domestic and international case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a company's responsibility to respect human rights, focusing in particular on corporate global supply chains. While global supply chains have long been associated with a range of human rights violations, a number of recent legislative initiatives both in Australia and elsewhere are applying traditional corporate concepts -- such as due diligence and reporting -- in a human rights framework, to ensure companies respect human rights wherever they operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the domain of global corporate responsibility (GCR), international organizations have promoted disclosure as a means to address global concerns with corporations' social and environmental practices. Business disclosure practices, however, remain uneven across organizations and countries. This article examines various field, national, and global factors that facilitate or mitigate GCR disclosure among corporations worldwide. Analyzing unique quantitative data on more than 1800 disclosure reports by corporations in more than 50 countries, this article presents two main findings. First, field-level factors are prominent but they influence disclosure levels in different ways. Third-party verification encourages greater disclosure, while peer organizations mitigate disclosure. Second, national and global factors influence disclosure differently in developed and developing countries. Business disclosure in developed countries is impacted by national factors while, in developing countries, disclosure is significantly influenced by global factors. The article concludes by discussing the implications of GCR disclosure for wider global corporate governance concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining and implementing Corporate Responsibility can be a challenge for many businesses. The identification of patterns in the processes of adoption and implementation of Corporate Responsibility practices can help managers to administer these processes more ably. In this research note, the authors identify four factors influencing the adoption and implementation of Corporate Responsibility practices: (a) internal drivers; (b) organizational structures; (c) attributes of practice; and (d) formal processes. Results indicate that there is also a continuous improvement component, meaning that the adoption and implementation of Corporate Responsibility practices are cyclical, rather than linear, processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract "Buy Local" campaigns argue that consumers who patronize local firms instead of national chains reap broad economic, social, and ecological benefits for their home communities. These campaigns, which seek to create social change through market forces, imply that "local" means ethical. What ethical claims do localism advocates make for the benefits of local consumption, and how do they verify those claims? And how does the buy-local case inform broader debates on ethical markets? We find that U.S. buy-local organizations routinely focused on marketing concerns and failed to police members' socially responsible bona fides. We also find that prolocal organizations promoted community cohesion and served an important role in disseminating sustainability information through new networks. We suggest that small- and medium-sized enterprises, which face particular challenges in authenticating claims for their economic and ecological impact, should consider restricting claims to their more specific and more easily verified social impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of corporate responsibility (CR) has moved a long way over the past six decades, since Bowen’s book titled Social Responsibilities of the Businessman marked a modern era of business and society research. In this article, we trace the development of business and society literature to provide contextual background to contemporary studies of CR. As well as looking backward, however, we also project forward arguing that fundamental changes in the current business environment are likely to propel CR to new heights in the future. In particular, we explore the mechanisms by which CR affects stakeholder behavior and suggest ways in which scholars and practitioners may want to apply advances from psychology to link CR strategy to human motivation and the notion of balance in organizations and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses sustainability reporting in Indian companies through a global reporting initiative (GRI), with an aim of achieving sustainable global economy. It mentions the change in regulatory entities and law amendments resulting in improved corporate responsibility. It further points out the importance of audits on GRI status to achieve credibility of sustainable reports and for long term environmental and social goals achievement.

This study applies three models of attribution to examine the public’s responses to corporate crises. Using Kelley’s covariation model and Coombs’s situational crisis communication theory, the study shows that distinctiveness information has strong and robust effects, consistency information has some effects, and consensus information has no effects on attributions of corporate responsibility, purchase intentions, and punitive opinions. Based on Weiner’s model, this study finds that attributions of corporate responsibility result in punitive opinions guided by retributive rather than utilitarian motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the factors that influence the propensity of corporations to engage with NGOs. Drawing from resource dependency theory (RDT) and related theories of social networks and the resource-based view of the firm, the authors develop a series of hypotheses that draw from this conceptual foundation to predict a range of factors that influence firms to collaborate with NGOs. These factors include the level of commitment of the firm to CSR, the strategic fit between the firm’s and the NGO’s resources, the level of trust the firm has in NGOs, the frequency of contact with NGOs, prior level and perception of experience with NGOs, and the level of pressure exerted by NGOs. The authors report on results of a survey of the Top 500 firms in the Netherlands on their interactions with NGOs, finding general support for our hypotheses, and suggest that understanding the motives for firm–NGO interactions can teach us more about firms’ corporate social activities and the way such activities are shaped in the dynamic interplay between firms and their stakeholders. Our findings are relevant for future research on cross-sectoral interactions, for corporations considering future relationships with NGO cohorts, and for broader questions about the role of stakeholders and the role of business in society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives: Physical inactivity is a major public health concern. At a population level, it is increasingly perceived to be a social problem which is global and multidimensional, and which requires attention by a diverse range of state, private and civil society organisations. Given the increasing attention to physical in/ activity by a range of interest groups, this paper explores the political dynamics that are present within physical activity promotion discourse. Specifically, the paper examines the political dynamics associated with a recent physical activity lobby document entitled Designed To Move (DTM). DTM was written and produced by a variety of corporate, government, and health promotion organisations. Method and analysis: This paper uses a critical policy framework to analyse the justifications for, and suggested techniques of, physical activity promotion. It examines the explicit and more subtle reasons used to justify physical activity recommendations, how causes of physical inactivity are conveyed, and who is identified as able to fix the problem. Conclusions: While DTM appears to be a positive and inspirational call to action, several aspects of the document are problematic. Significantly, older adults receive scant attention in the document, and are therefore removed from being potentially important agents in the proposed solution. DTM also frames the workplace milieu in a way that promotes 'productivity' and business 'fortune' above concern for and consideration of employees' material conditions of existence. The paper concludes by encouraging health researchers, physical activity students and health promoters to look behind and beyond assumptions about the causes of, and solutions to, physical inactivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the fight against money laundering has emerged as a key issue of financial regulation. The Wolfsberg Group is an important multistakeholder agreement establishing corporate responsibility (CR) principles against money laundering in a domain where international coordination remains otherwise difficult. The fact that 10 out of the 25 top private banking institutions joined this initiative opens up an interesting puzzle concerning the conditions for the participation of key industry players in the Wolfsberg Group. The article presents a fuzzy-set analysis of seven hypotheses based on firm-level organizational factors, the macro-institutional context, and the regulatory framework. Results from the analysis of these 25 financial institutions show that public ownership of the bank and the existence of a code of conduct are necessary conditions for participation in the Wolfsberg Group, whereas factors related to the type of financial institution, combined with the existence of a black list, are sufficient for explaining participation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focusing on corporate responsibility (CR) toward employees, this article discusses how multilayered institutional logics affect the relationship between the firm and its employee stakeholders. It considers what constitutes CR toward employees and explores the institutional logics that can shape whether employers treat their employees as merely means to a strategic end or as ends in themselves. Specifically, the article examines market-, state-, professional-, and firm-based institutional logics that influence how employers treat their employees. The conclusion suggests that external institutional logics both enable and constrain firms to adopt a more instrumental relationship with their employees. However, some forms of organizational identity may generate firm-based institutional logics that enable firms to resist these pressures. Suggestions for future research focusing on the institutional and organizational drivers behind understanding CR toward employees are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual article looks at corporate responsibility (CR) and country risk claiming that there is a relationship, and then positing the directionality of the relationship. An understanding of this relationship can help firms respond to a variety of pressures from organizations and this knowledge may help firms prevent negative media coverage with the need to " bolt" CR strategies on to existing corporate strategies. When firms have an understanding of how country risk affects them, they can plan entire clusters of CR initiatives to fulfill needs within the operating community. To understand the CR—country risk relationship, the authors build on Matten and Moon's (2008) distinction between implicit and explicit CR. The first argument is that firms engage in no explicit CR (explicit CR that is voluntary and goes beyond legal requirement) when country risk is very high. As country risk lowers to high, firms engage in explicit CR, which creates little impact to the firm if CR must be withdrawn. The second argument is that as country risk shifts to moderate, firms commence to engage in high levels of explicit CR and low levels of implicit CR. The third argument concludes that when country risk shifts to low or very low, firms will engage in the least amount o f explicit CR and the most amount of implicit CR. A set of three propositions develops these arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Business & Society explores how institutions and actors influence organizational choices regarding corporate responsibility (CR) initiatives and mechanisms. Assuming CR reflects strategic choices made by firms, the authors seek to move discussions from why aspects to aligning the why with the what/how aspects of CR. The articles in this special issue examine CR initiatives at multiple levels (the firm, industry, national, and global) as well as CR mechanisms ranging from “go-it-alone” unilateral activities to collaborative partnerships. The study goals are two-fold. First, the authors focus on firms’ attempt to create and manage a portfolio of corporate responsibilities—social, political, environmental, and economic. These responsibilities involve relationships with a range of stakeholders (investors, employees, consumers, suppliers, and distributors as well as its multiple communities), often simultaneously, and recognizing that the corporation can devote limited resources to manage stakeholder expectations in this regard. Second, the authors seek to understand how institutional and competitive contexts matter in shaping specific CR choices to provide tangible evidence of managing responsibly. The authors suggest that consciously aligning CR initiatives (what) with appropriate mechanisms (how) will allow the corporations to efficiently and effectively pursue their CR objectives and arguably create sustained impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores why companies choose some Corporate Responsibility initiatives over others. The focus is on competing voluntary programs to oversee and protect labor standards. These programs may differ with regard to two aspects: the governance of the program and the financial and managerial responsibility for compliance. These aspects are crucial to distinguish “socializing” or “privatizing” types of voluntary labor regulation. The article explores the conditions under which companies in apparel production choose different types of governance and responsibility, based on qualitative and quantitative evidence of the European industry. The study shows that corporate preference for multi-stakeholder governed programs is positively affected by societal pressure orchestrated by NGOs, through both public campaigns and informal efforts, together with pressures from consumers and media. Second, the position of the firm in the value chain affects preference for taking financial and managerial responsibility for compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate responsibility for consumption-related issues has been on the business ethics agenda for several decades. However, some recent consumption-related issues, such as obesity, differ qualitatively from the traditional product liability cases. This study proposes an alternative responsibility concept, referred to as the social connection corporate responsibility (CR). A detailed conceptualization of the social connection CR is presented and subsequently contrasted with the liability approach to CR. Then, a social connection logic to the case of obesity is applied, followed by an examination of how fast-food chains are socially connected to obesity and of what kind of responsibilities such a social connection implies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the type and temporal development of language in the process of corporate responsibility (CR) standardization. Previous research on CR standardization has addressed the proliferation and organizational embedding of material practices but neglected the analysis of underlying ideational dynamics. Departing from this practice, we introduce a narrative perspective that illuminates the trajectory a CR standard follows, from being formally adopted to becoming collectively accepted as a valid solution to a problem of societal concern. We argue that this perspective helps scholars explore the dynamic interplay between symbolic and material aspects of standardization and understand better the discursive antecedents of coupling processes in organizations. Drawing on the case of the Equator Principles standard in international project finance, we empirically study how narratives create meaning shared by both business firms and their societal observers, thereby exemplifying the analytical merit of a narrative approach to CR standardization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the market moral? Do different Protestant traditions have competing views of 'market society'? Despite the increasing diffusion of market logics in American society, scholars of religion have little empirical data on these questions. Employing discourse analysis of market-related topics in two prominent Christian periodicals over a twenty-year period, this paper compares evangelical and mainline Protestant evaluations of markets. We find that neither group views markets as redeeming, self-regulating, or value neutral, and both groups argue that markets require constraints. Evangelicals prioritize moral constraints on markets, while mainline Protestants prioritize governmental and democratic constraints. The degree of difference between the groups varies considerably by topic, however, depending on the degree of potential state intervention. We close by discussing our findings in light of recent debates over the relationship between religious conservatism and economic conservatism. We find that economic conservatism among evangelicals is driven at least as much by a commitment to collective voluntarism as by atomized individualism or free market ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This dissertation abstract and reflection commentary presents the work of Dr. Jegoo Lee. The dissertation addresses collaboration networks among social investors seeking to influence responsible corporate management. The dissertation abstract explains the research questions, setting, and methods. The reflection commentary discusses the author’s views of research process as a junior scholar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstract on planning including a micro-level analysis of the Black voting during the civil rights movement, the influence of land-use planners on flood hazard mitigation and the use on public transport timetable data into health care accessibility modelling.

This section presents abstracts on planning-related topics including the history of electrification in the U.S., civilian perspectives on death and eternity during the civil war and the analysis of masonry architecture.

The article presents abstracts of articles about planning including those focusing on settlement house work and social reform, the development of heating and cooking technology in the U.S. in the 19th century and emergence of historic sites as tourist destinations in the U.S. in the late 19th century.

Abstract: Corporate Responsibility is a concept that is receiving increasing attention in the Corporate Reputation literature. Many researchers have sought to link high levels of Corporate Responsibility with good Corporate Reputations. Yet, the link between these two concepts is not clear and managers do not have much guidance on how they could embrace Corporate Responsibility to enhance Corporate Reputation. One potential reason for the current confusion is that stakeholders have, for the most part, been considered as being homogenous in terms of their expectations of Corporate Responsibility, which means reputational impact is difficult to define. This paper challenges the notion that Corporate Responsibility is an homogenous construct. A latent class model is used to provide evidence that customers and employees of a financial service organisation can be segmented into three groups. This suggests that these groups have different expectations of Corporate Responsibility and as such positive reputation is likely to be driven by meeting these different sets of expectations. The understanding of how Corporate Responsibility impacts on Corporate Reputation is heightened and further implications for the management of reputation and directions for future research are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Businesses play an important social role in society that goes beyond their traditional economic role. The way in which these roles are carried out and communicated to the stakeholders can influence the company's corporate reputation. The first step in constructing a corporate reputation is corporate visibility. The mass media plays an important role in developing corporate visibility. Media visibility has a significant influence on public opinion and contributes strongly to forming companies' corporate reputation. The main aim of this article is to test the level of visibility of companies in the media as well as the attributes (economic and/or social) assigned to the companies. The author presents the results of the research done on the media visibility of companies belonging to the Spanish Stock Exchange in the four most important newspapers in Spain. Two basic results were obtained: Larger companies, with good reputations and oriented to mass consumption, have more visibility in newspapers, and companies are basically presented as economic and not social actors in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined whether there are systematic differences in the economic impacts of different corporate responsibility issues and found that the content of corporate responsibility does have an effect on economic impact. Economic impacts were more positive for corporate responsibility issues that reduce negative externalities than for those that generate positive externalities and more positive as well as for issues whose outcome benefits market stakeholders rather than nonmarket stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on city planning-related topics, including visions of waterfront development in postindustrial Philadelphia, the construction of a town planning perception of Colombo, and city planning and the U.S. census.

Our collective bias has been to study large, publicly traded companies. Not only do these behemoths represent a tiny fraction of organizations, but they have also served as uninspiring role models driven by the short-run objectives of managers and owners alike. By contrast, outstanding family-owned or family-controlled businesses, to which we have devoted relatively little attention, often outperform by marching to the beat of a different drum. They are managed for the long run. Among the most durable and best performing family businesses, this long-run approach shows up as four priorities: continuity and persistence in perusing a substantive rather than a financial mission, exceptional attention to the internal community of employees, unusually close connection to key external stakeholders, and courageous commanding leadership that resists pressures from shortsighted owners. We would do well to learn more about these types of organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although according to some the recovery from the December 2004 Asian tsunami is just about as complete as it can be, issues concerning what kind of recovery are by and large ignored, save for the plethora of information about the economic recovery. This commentary asks the reader to think beyond the economic recovery and consider what the recovery might mean in human terms. It also steers the reader toward an issue of greater concern: in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, tourism business considerations often override safety requirements, and in 2004 this had devastating results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although according to some the recovery from the December 2004 Asian tsunami is just about as complete as it can be, issues concerning what kind of recovery are by and large ignored, save for the plethora of information about the economic recovery. This commentary asks the reader to think beyond the economic recovery and consider what the recovery might mean in human terms. It also steers the reader toward an issue of greater concern: in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, tourism business considerations often override safety requirements, and in 2004 this had devastating results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decarbonization of the world economy involves two challenges. The first is to find new carbon-neutral sources of energy which can reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. Solar, wind, and geothermal energy are the main paths to this energy revolution in most developed and emerging countries. Brazil has a great advantage in this respect as already about half of its energy supply comes from biomass and hydroelectricity. However, economic decarbonization also concerns the use of energy. In this respect, Brazil lags behind. Although the carbon intensity of the Brazilian economy has decreased, its energy intensity is rising. This puts into question the efficiency and ultimately the competitiveness of the Brazilian industrial economy itself. This article analyzes data from the state of Sa˜o Paulo, the most industrialized state of Brazil, to discuss ways of decarbonizing an emerging economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]