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This article presents a qualitative study pertaining to the interface between business and society that primarily focuses on the prominent institutional factors that are influencing organizations to adopt explicit and implicit forms of corporate social responsibility in a developing country context. This is a pertinent subject because developing countries contain a large proportion of the world's population and, subsequently, a large proportion of salient issues in the social, economic, and environmental arena. This study identifies that, in the country context chosen namely Lebanon, explicit social responsibility initiatives are driven by predominantly normative and mimetic institutional pressures emanating from both local and international institutions. This study also identifies that implicit social responsibility initiatives are driven by normative institutional pressures emanating from elements in the national business system. Contributions of this study include a conceptual model to aid future research, identifying the importance of the duality of corporate social responsibility, the importance of international institutions in facilitating explicit social responsibility proliferation, and the importance for managers to include explicit social responsibility initiatives in their organizational mandate. Future research can use a different sampling technique, conduct interviews with employees that are not directly involved with social responsibility initiatives, or use other perspectives, such as agency theory or theory of institutional logics, to gain more insight on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental protection is currently one of the key priority areas of the European Union (EU). The search for precise tools to assess the impact of the economy, industry, or the production of individual products or services is crucial for an effective and efficient policy in environmental protection. Blockchain technology, originally related to the financial sector and cryptocurrencies, is an innovative solution that is increasingly being implemented by other areas of the economy and industry sectors. The authors reviewed the literature and based on it presented the possibilities and effects of using blockchain technology in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is in line with the current development trends of this method. The analysis of the research conducted in this area also allowed to present not only the advantages of blockchain in LCA, but also the limitations of this technology and the potential directions of further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of today's global corporations are more powerful economically than some countries. Decisions made in offices by board members can influence the course of events worldwide, sometimes to the same extent as decisions made by politicians-but with less publicity. For most of these firms the question of quality might seem unimportant, especially if they perceive themselves to be at the top of the heap-the embodiment of quality and perfection. Survey results prove that among the respondents, a strong relationship exists between incorporating quality management systems as part of corporate strategy and certain indexes used to determine the success of the firm. INSET: The Survey..