This article adopts an issues management approach to corporate social responsibility implementation. Issues evaluation, which is an integral component of issues management, can be conducted by using the concept of three expectational gaps. However, the concept of expectational gaps suffers from an ambiguity that limits its application to issues evaluation. The legitimacy gap concept is used in this article to clarify the ambiguity surrounding expectational gaps. The study thus develops a four-gap framework for conducting a quantitative issues evaluation. This framework (...) is applied to six social and six environmental issues in the context of the forest products industry in the Northwest United States by means of a survey of 278 society and 94 industry respondents. Results empirically demonstrate the existence of expectational gaps and also provide insights into the nature of misalignment between societal and business perceptions along these social and environmental issues. Appropriate managerial responses are suggested to narrow or bridge different types of gaps. (shrink)

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: internal drivers; organizational structures; attributes of practice; and 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. (shrink)

The business case for social responsibility is one of the most widely studied topics in the business and society literature that focuses on large firms. This attention is understandable because large firms have an obligation to shareholders who, as commonly assumed, seek to maximize returns on their investments, in turn, pressing corporate managers to show that firms’ expenditures in social engagement would pay off. Small firms, on the other hand, rarely face such pressures, yet the BCSR logic is increasingly applied (...) to small firms as well. Our primary objective in this paper is to examine whether and how much do small firm owners’ perceptions of BCSR affect the firm’s social engagement. In finding a fine-grained answer to those questions, we consider BCSR as a two-dimensional construct consisting of tangible and intangible benefits, and also integrate the BCSR perspective with the slack resource perspective to offer a motivation-capacity lens to examine firm’s social engagement. Drawing on a multi-industry sample of 478 small firms in the US, we find that while small firm owners’ perceptions about potential tangible benefits of social engagement are not related to the firm’s social engagement, perceptions about potential intangible are positively related. Firm's financial performance is also positively related to its social engagement, but there is no interaction between potential benefits and financial performance. This study contributes to an improved understanding about small firms’ social engagement, which still remains an understudied area. Our results are in line with studies which argue that firms’ social engagement is a response to institutional factors. (shrink)

Employees have their own understandings of corporate social responsibility (CSR) motives. This study investigated whether employees' different perceptions of CSR motives, including substantive CSR attribution and symbolic CSR attribution, influence their work attitudes, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Moreover, we explore the mediating role of person-organization fit in the relationships among CSR attribution, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. We collected 687 responses for an overall response rate of 16%. The results of structural equation model (SEM) analyses show that substantive CSR (...) attribution decreases employee turnover intention and that symbolic CSR attribution increases employee turnover intention. Based on these results, we provide relevant theoretical and managerial implications. (shrink)

La première note est consacrée à un bloc interprété par F. Courby comme un élément du dallage ayant porté le tombeau de Dionysos. Mais ce bloc constituait à l’origine un socle isolé ; ce n’est que dans une seconde phase qu’il a été associé à d’autres blocs pour former un plateau sur lequel on a implanté un pressoir. La seconde note se fonde sur de nouveaux relevés des canalisations aménagées dans les substructions Sud du temple des Alcméonides, destinées à réunir (...) deux sources. Celle de l’Ouest existait depuis longtemps ; son débouché était situé au pied du mur de terrasse qui avait porté le temple préalcméonide et qui constitue le premier aménagement monumental du sanctuaire. L’hypothèse d’un détournement de la fontaine Cassotis à l’intérieur du temple est rejetée. La troisième note est consacrée aux fragments d’une sima en marbre provenant d’une toiture inachevée ; l’existence de deux modules amène à postuler à l’existence d’un bâtiment à deux ailes, probablement contemporain du temple du ive s. et peut-être à confondre avec le «monument en calcaire gris ». (shrink)

This paper proposes that issues evaluation can be conducted by a framework which integrates the concept of a legitimacy gap with expectational gaps (factual, conformance, and ideal gaps). Using this framework, this paper empirically demonstrates the existence of expectational gaps in the context of the forest products industry by means of a quantitative survey. Results indicate that significant expectational gaps exist. This framework may have relevance for both issues management and legitimacy scholars.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one of the ways through which companies gain legitimacy. However, CSR actions themselves are subject to public skepticism because of increased public awareness of greenwashing and scandalous corporate behavior. Legitimacy of CSR actions is indeed influenced by the actions of the company but also is rooted in the basic cultural values of a society and in the ideologies of evaluators. This study examines the legitimacy of CSR actions of publicly traded forest products companies as compared (...) to family-owned forest products companies. Results indicate a lower legitimacy for CSR actions of publicly traded companies than for family-owned companies. The study also examines the effect of social responsibility orientation (SRO) of evaluators on the legitimacy accorded to companies' CSR actions. We found that SRO was negatively associated with legitimacy, especially for women. Perceived profitability of companies was negatively associated with legitimacy of CSR actions for publicly traded but not for family-owned companies. (shrink)

This comment is offered in response to Hansen's "A Multidimensional Scale for Measuring Business Ethics: A Purification and Refinement". Five issues arising from Hansen's purification and refinement efforts are addressed. These include the issues of parsimony, predictive validity, collinearity, reliability, and what we see as a confusion between normative and positive theory.

This comment is offered in response to Hansen's A Multidimensional Scale for Measuring Business Ethics: A Purification and Refinement. Five issues arising from Hansen's purification and refinement efforts are addressed. These include the issues of parsimony, predictive validity, collinearity, reliability, and what we see as a confusion between normative and positive theory.

After presenting evidence about categorization behavior, this paper argues for the following theses: 1) that there is a border between perception and cognition; 2) that the border is to be characterized by perception being modular (and cognition not being so); 3) that perception outputs conceptualized representations, so views that posit that the output of perception is solely non-conceptual are false; and 4) that perceptual content consists of basic-level categories and not richer contents.

Presenting a comprehensive portrayal of the reading of Chinese and Buddhist philosophy in early 20th-century German thought, Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in early Twentieth-Century German Thought examines the implications of these readings for contemporary issues in comparative and intercultural philosophy. Through a series of case studies from the late 19th-century and early 20th-century, Eric Nelson focuses on the reception and uses of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism in German philosophy, covering figures as diverse as Buber, Heidegger, and Misch. He argues that (...) the growing intertextuality between traditions cannot be appropriately interpreted through notions of exclusive identities, closed horizons, or unitary traditions. Providing an account of the context, motivations, and hermeneutical strategies of early twentieth-century European thinkers' interpretation of Asian philosophy, Nelson also throws new light on the question of the relation between Heidegger and Asian philosophy. Reflecting the growing interest in the possibility of intercultural and global philosophy, Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in early Twentieth-Century German Thought opens up the possibility of a more inclusive intercultural conception of philosophy. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/chinese-and-buddhist-philosophy-in-early-twentieth-century-german-thoug ht-9781350002562/#sthash.1lY6OTYj.dpuf. (shrink)

kant’s critique of pure reason undertakes a systematic investigation of the possibility of synthetic cognition a priori so as to determine whether this kind of cognition is possible in the case of traditional metaphysics.1 While much scholarly attention has been devoted to the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments as well as to that between the a priori and the a posteriori, less attention has been devoted to understanding exactly what cognition is for Kant. In particular, it is often insufficiently (...) clear what kind of mental state cognition is, what the exact nature of the conditions on cognition is, and how they are satisfied in the case of human beings. To bring greater clarity to... (shrink)

At some point in the future – perhaps within the next few decades – it will be possible for foetuses to develop completely outside the womb. Ectogenesis, as this technology is called, raises substantial issues for the abortion debate. One such issue is that it will become possible for a woman to have an abortion, in the sense of having the foetus removed from her body, but for the foetus to be kept alive. We argue that while there is a (...) right to an abortion, there are reasons to doubt that there is a right to the death of the foetus. Our strategy in this essay is to consider and reject three arguments in favour of this latter right. The first claims that women have a right not to be biological mothers, the second that women have a right to genetic privacy, and the third that a foetus is one's property. Furthermore, we argue that it follows from rejecting the third claim that genetic parents also lack a right to the destruction of cryopreserved embryos used for in vitro fertilization. The conclusion that a woman possesses no right to the death of the foetus builds upon the claims that other pro-choice advocates, such as Judith Jarvis Thomson, have made. (shrink)

Although advance directives are widely believed to be a key way to safeguard the autonomy of incompetent medical patients, significant questions exist about their moral authority. The main philosophical concern involves cases in which an incompetent patient no longer possesses the desires on which her advance directive was based. The question is, does that entail that prior expressions of medical choices are no longer morally binding? I believe that the answer is “yes.” I argue that a patient’s autonomy is not (...) respected by honoring the desires she used to have but no longer does. I also consider and reject the view that honoring an advance directive that reflects the patient’s previous values must be in that patient’s best interests. If that is correct, then advance directives in the kind of case at issue are not morally binding. (shrink)

stefanie grüne takes issue with our claim that for an object to be given, this object must exist. On her view, givenness, according to Kant, does not require the existence of the object, but only its real possibility. She develops her critique in three steps. First, she argues that the reason why Kant requires objects to be given in intuition is that otherwise our concepts would not have ‘objective reality’ and would thus not constitute cognitions. But since the objective reality (...) of a concept corresponds to the real possibility of its object, this is supposed to show that givenness does not require existence. Second, she challenges our remarks on mathematical cognition, claiming that in the... (shrink)

The essay begins with a detailed consideration of the introduction of incommensurability by Feyerabend in 1962 which exposes several historically inaccurate claims about incommensurability. Section 2 is a coneise argument against causal theories of reference as used as arguments against incommensurability. We object to this strategy because it begs the question by presupposing realism. Section 3 introduces and discusses a hypothesis that w'e call meta-incommensurability which provides the reason for the wide-spread accusation of question-begging and use of circular argumentation among (...) the proponents of both realist and non-realist interpretations of science. (shrink)

This paper is about the neglected question of what sort of things we are metaphysically speaking. It is different from the mind-body problem and from familiar questions of personal identity. After explaining what the question means and how it differs from others, the paper tries to show how difficult it is to give a satisfying answer.

Nietzsche has a surprisingly significant and strikingly positive assessment of mathematics. I discuss Nietzsche's theory of the origin of mathematical practice in the division of the continuum of force, his theory of numbers, his conception of the finite and the infinite, and the relations between Nietzschean mathematics and formalism and intuitionism. I talk about the relations between math, illusion, life, and the will to truth. I distinguish life and world affirming mathematical practice from its ascetic perversion. For Nietzsche, math is (...) an artistic and moral activity that has an essential role to play in the joyful wisdom. (shrink)

Number words seemingly function both as adjectives attributing cardinality properties to collections, as in Frege’s ‘Jupiter has four moons’, and as names referring to numbers, as in Frege’s ‘The number of Jupiter’s moons is four’. This leads to what Thomas Hofweber calls Frege’s Other Puzzle: How can number words function as modifiers and as singular terms if neither adjectives nor names can serve multiple semantic functions? Whereas most philosophers deny that one of these uses is genuine, we instead argue that (...) number words, like many related expressions, are polymorphic, having multiple uses whose meanings are systematically related via type shifting. (shrink)

Personal identity deals with questions about ourselves qua people (or persons). Many of these questions are familiar ones that occur to everyone at some time: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die? Discussions of personal identity go right back to the origins of Western philosophy, and most major figures have had something to say about it. (There is also a rich literature on personal identity in Eastern philosophy, which I am not competent (...) to discuss. Collins 1982 is a good source.). (shrink)

This book examines the logical foundations of visual information: information presented in the form of diagrams, graphs, charts, tables, and maps. The importance of visual information is clear from its frequent presence in everyday reasoning and communication, and also in compution. Chapters of the book develop the logics of familiar systems of diagrams such as Venn diagrams and Euler circles. Other chapters develop the logic of higraphs, Pierce diagrams, and a system having both diagrams and sentences among its well-formed representations. (...) Syntax, semantics, rules of inference and soundness and completeness results are provided for each of the systems. In addition to developing the logic of diagrams, key questions about the status of visual information Hammer discusses, such as the relationship between the language and visually-presented information. (shrink)

Introduction to the Scientific Proof of the Natural Moral Law This paper proves that Aquinas has a means of demonstrating and deriving both moral goodness and the natural moral law from human nature alone. Aquinas scientifically proves the existence of the natural moral law as the natural rule of human operations from human nature alone. The distinction between moral goodness and transcendental goodness is affirmed. This provides the intellectual tools to refute the G.E. Moore (Principles of Ethics) attack against the (...) natural law as committing a "naturalistic fallacy". This article proves that instead Moore commits the fallacy of equivocation between moral goodness and transcendental goodness in his very assertion of a "naturalistic fallacy" by the proponents of the natural moral law. In the process the new deontological/kantian theory of natural law as articulated by John Finnis, Robert George, and Germain Grisez is false historically and philosophically. Ethical naturalism is affirmed as a result. (shrink)

Despite decades of detailed work on legal doctrine, significant basic confusion is still evident in the concept of »human dignity« according to article 1 of the German constitution. This confusion threatens to carry over into the guarantee of human rights at the level of the European Union. Thus, it is necessary to subject the concept to methodological inspection. This is the undertaking of this article. The most important result consists in the recommendation, not to seek »the« right interpretation of »human (...) dignity «, but rather to understand the concept as a means which can take definitional form in accordance with our needs and purposes. Those who attribute to human dignity the task of an absolute protection of the core area of the human, will also prefer a narrow concept of human dignity. Such a concept is presented here in the form of the »ensemble-theory of human dignity«. (shrink)

Two of the most basic questions regarding self-deception remain unsettled: What do self-deceivers want? What do self-deceivers get? I argue that self-deceivers are motivated by a desire to believe. However, in significant contrast with Alfred Mele’s account of self-deception, I argue that self-deceivers do not satisfy this desire. Instead, the end-state of self-deception is a false higher-order belief. This shows all self-deception to be a failure of self-knowledge.

This paper argues for a noncognitiveist computationalism in the philosophy of mind. It further argues that both humans and computers have intentionality, that is, their mental states are semantical -- they are about things in their worlds.

The apparent fact that each of us coincides with a thinking animal looks like a strong argument for our being animals (animalism). Some critics, however, claim that this sort of reasoning actually undermines animalism. According to them, the apparent fact that each human animal coincides with a thinking body that is not an animal is an equally strong argument for our not being animals. I argue that the critics' case fails for reasons that do not affect the case for animalism.