This study examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) from the retail sector deal with four challenges they face when adopting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies: the challenge of developing well-performing CSR projects and programs, building competitive advantages based on CSR, responding to local stakeholder issues in the host countries and learning from different CSR experiences on a worldwide basis. Based on in-depth case studies of two globally leading retail MNCs (with strong operations in Latin America), the concept of Transverse CSR Management (...) emerged. Transverse CSR Management is defined as a distinctive form of organizational configuration that crosses different functional areas, country operations, and the boundaries of the firm. In particular, this article makes three main contributions: (1) we identify four central challenges faced by MNC managers when developing their CSR strategies; (2) we propose the concept of Transverse CSR Management to face these central challenges (together, at the same time) and identify its key elements (top management, external stakeholders, functional areas, and country subsidiaries); and (3) we propose four mechanisms (hierarchical, relational, cultural, and collaborative) through which the concept of Transverse CSR Management can be implemented by practicing managers. This study provides valuable insights for MNC managers in headquarters and subsidiaries on the issues they need to address in order to successfully deal with the four CSRrelated challenges. (shrink)

A renewed interest into the philosophy of Bergson in the last decades brings his central notion duration to the fore of lively discussions. This renewed interest certainly has its source in Deleuze’s Bergsonism, where he declared Bergson’s philosophy as an alternative to phenomenology that dominated the philosophical discussions throughout the 20th century. Deleuze’s attempt to put Bergson as an alternative to phenomenology was a protest against the phenomenological tradition, which denounced Bergson’s analysis of duration as it is first developed in (...) Time and Free Will as remaining within the confines of psychological realism and reducing time to a flowing, fluid thing that resides in consciousness. In an attempt to contribute to the Deleuzian interpretation that defends Bergson’s notion of duration against its phenomenological criticisms, I argue in the present study that the notion of duration as developed by Bergson in Time and Free Will can be best interpreted in terms of a Leibnizian notion of force. Following Bergson’s criticism of reduction of time to a homogeneous medium in the work of Kant, I introduce Bergson’s analysis of duration as a drive that prolongs the past of consciousness into its present. In doing this I take a detour through Heidegger’s interpretation of Leibniz’s vis activa as drive. (shrink)

This study examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) from the retail sector deal with four challenges they face when adopting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies: the challenge of developing well-performing CSR projects and programs, building competitive advantages based on CSR, responding to local stakeholder issues in the host countries and learning from different CSR experiences on a worldwide basis. Based on in-depth case studies of two globally leading retail MNCs (with strong operations in Latin America), the concept of Transverse CSR Management (...) emerged. Transverse CSR Management is defined as a distinctive form of organizational configuration that crosses different functional areas, country operations, and the boundaries of the firm. In particular, this article makes three main contributions: (1) we identify four central challenges faced by MNC managers when developing their CSR strategies; (2) we propose the concept of Transverse CSR Management to face these central challenges (together, at the same time) and identify its key elements (top management, external stakeholders, functional areas, and country subsidiaries); and (3) we propose four mechanisms (hierarchical, relational, cultural, and collaborative) through which the concept of Transverse CSR Management can be implemented by practicing managers. This study provides valuable insights for MNC managers in headquarters and subsidiaries on the issues they need to address in order to successfully deal with the four CSR-related challenges. (shrink)

Amaç: Kanserle yaşayan bireylerin (KYB) bakımında, resmiyette görünür olmayan ve çoğunlukla herhangi bir profesyonel donanıma sahip olmayan, ama sürecin başından sonuna, hasta bireye eşlik eden bakım verenler kritik öneme sahiptir. Baş etmesi zor bir hastalık olan kanserle mücadele eden bireylerin bakımında, bakım verenler fiziksel, zihinsel ve sosyal birtakım zorluklarla karşılaşmaktadır. Bu araştırma, KYB’lere bakım veren, yakınlarının karşılaştıkları zorlukları gündeme getirmeyi ve ihtimam etiği perspektifinden, bakım verenlerin bakımına yönelik öneriler sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Gereç ve Yöntem: Bu araştırma tanımlayıcı ve kesitsel olup araştırmanın (...) evreni Marmara Üniversitesi Pendik Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi (MÜPEAH) Onkoloji kliniğinde takip edilen, 15 Mart-5 Nisan tarihleri arasında kemoterapi ünitesine ve servis hizmetlerine başvuran KYB’lerin bakım veren yakınlarıdır. KYB’lere bakım verenlerin umutsuzluk derecelerini tespit etmek ve bunu etkileyen faktörleri ölçmek için, veri toplama aracı olarak; sosyodemografik sorular, bakım alan bireyin hastalık derecesine yönelik sorular ve Beck Umutsuzluk Ölçeği sorularından oluşan bir anket elden dağıtılmıştır. Anket bakım verene yönelik sosyodemografik sorular 8, KYB’nin hastalığının durumu ile ilgili sorular 7, Beck Umutsuzluk Ölçeği 20 olmak üzere 35 sorudan oluşmaktadır ve yaklaşık 10 dakikada tamamlanmaktadır. Elde edilen veriler önce Microsoft Excel aracılığıyla dijitalleştirilmiş, ardından IBM SPSS 27.0.1 sürümüyle analiz edilmiştir. Verilerin analizinde Ki-kare, Fisher’s Exact testi ve Pearson Korelasyon analizi kullanılmış, istatistiksel anlamlılık değeri için p<0.05 kabul edilmiştir. Bulgular: Ankete katılan 151 bakım verenin 83’ü (%55,3) kadın, 67’si (%44,7) erkektir. Katılımcıların yaş ortalaması 40,09’dur. Bakım verenlerin %41,1’i umutsuzluk düzeyi ölçeğinde “minimal ya da yok”, %39,7'si "hafif düzeyde", %13.2'si orta düzeyde ve %6’sı “aşırı düzeyde” skorunu almıştır. KYB’lere bakım verenlerin demografik özellikleri ile umutsuzluk düzeyi arasında anlamlı bir ilişki bulunmamıştır. Bakım verenlerin yaşı, cinsiyeti, medeni durumu, gelir durumu ve bakım verme süresi ile umutsuzluk skorları arasında anlamlı bir ilişki bulunmazken, eğitim seviyesi ile umutsuzluk skorları arasında anlamlı bir ilişki bulunmuştur. (p=0,019). Sonuç: Bakım verenlerin, umutsuzluk düzeyleri göz önüne alındığında, önemli psikolojik yükler taşıdığına ve bu yükün, özellikle bakım verenin eğitim seviyesi ile hastanın sağlık durumu arasında belirgin ilişkiler gösterdiğine ulaşılmıştır. Bu bilgiler ışığında, sosyodemografik özelliklerin bakım verenleri önemli ölçüde etkilediği görülmüştür. Bakım verenlerin duygusal yükleri, bakım alıcılarla olan ilişkileri ve bu sürecin hem bireysel hem toplumsal düzeyde getirdiği zorluklar ve sorumluluklar, ihtimam etiği kapsamında ele alınmıştır. Araştırma neticesinde bakım verenlerin karşılaştığı zorluklar ve ihtiyaçlarının daha geniş bir toplumsal ve etik perspektiften ele alınmasının gerekliliği ortaya konmuştur. Bakım verenlerin bakımına yönelik öneriler, duygusal destek; teorik eğitim ve bilgilendirme desteği; pratik ve uygulamalı destek; kaynak erişimi ve tahsisi; tanıma ve doğrulama başlıkları altında sunulmuştur. (shrink)

This article argues that corporate social responsibility may contribute to product differentiation in export markets and thus improve export performance. We test this argument by observing a period of decreasing export competitiveness in a leading emerging economy. Using a large-scale survey design with 252 questionnaires completed by mediumand large-sized Brazilian exporters, we used structural equations modelling to test our hypotheses. The results suggest that CSR product differentiation predicts export performance better than product quality differentiation and almost as well as product (...) innovation differentiation. Multi- group analysis further revealed that the positive and significant effect of CSR product differentiation on export performance is likely to be contingent on the number and type of countries that are targeted. Our study contributes to the literature on CSR and export performance by developing and empirically validating a model that explains under which conditions CSR-based product differentiation may lead to improved export performance. (shrink)

This article argues that corporate social responsibility (CSR) may contribute to product differentiation in export markets and thus improve export performance. We test this argument by observing a period of decreasing export competitiveness in a leading emerging economy (Brazil). Using a large-scale survey design with 252 questionnaires completed by medium- and large-sized Brazilian exporters, we used structural equations modelling to test our hypotheses. The results suggest that CSR product differentiation predicts export performance better than product quality differentiation and almost as (...) well as product innovation differentiation. Multi-group analysis further revealed that the positive and significant effect of CSR product differentiation on export performance is likely to be contingent on the number and type (developing vs. developed) of countries that are targeted. Our study contributes to the literature on CSR and export performance by developing and empirically validating a model that explains under which conditions CSR-based product differentiation may lead to improved export performance. (shrink)

When conflicts regarding industrial operations erupt between countries, relationships between corporations and stakeholders may be affected. We combine insights from stakeholder theory and studies on government and corporate social responsibility to investigate how intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement. Relying on attribution theory and a qualitative analysis of the Finnish Metsä-Botnia (hereafter Botnia) company during the intergovernmental conflict between Uruguay and Argentina, we explore the mediating role of political attributions—defined as the stakeholder network actors’ inferences regarding governmental motives—in the process by (...) which intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement. We induce three types of political attributions: instrumentalizing, which points to the undeclared instrumental motives of governments; radicalizing, which refers to the beliefs that governments immoderately intensify confrontation; and acting in bad faith, which relates to the perceptions that governments act in inconsistent and/or morally inappropriate ways. Our results show how these attributions combine in specific configurations to explain how intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement throughout the conflict. Our study theorizes the role of governments as stakeholders in stakeholder engagement and expands organizational studies of attribution to the stakeholder and global levels. (shrink)

This study shows how institutional work contributes to institutional resilience in extreme operating environments. The authors draw from a longitudinal analysis of the operations of Desjardins International Development, a French Canadian nongovernmental organization that, both before and after the major earthquake of 2010, supported the implementation of cooperative banking in Haiti. Building on a unique access to DID’s internal documents as well as on 49 interviews with DID employees, the authors highlight the ways in which political, technical, and cultural forms (...) of institutional work triggered the emergence of social capital, which in turn supported the rise of new forms of institutional work that enabled institutional resilience. The results show how organizational activities focused on shaping institutions may have unintended effects that enable institutional resilience in EOEs, and demonstrate how the accumulation of institutional work by an organization contributes to the enhancement of its social capital. (shrink)

This study investigates the influences of the strategy tripod, an established concept in the international business literature, on a corporate social responsibility -based differentiation strategy for export firms. This strategy is conceived as consisting of product-level and firm-level CSR. Using a sample of 195 Brazilian export firms, the authors find that innovation capabilities, international market exposure, and institutional pressures significantly influence product-level CSR; however, the latter two factors influence firm-level CSR only through their mediating effects on product-level CSR. This study (...) contributes to the existing CSR and IB literature in three ways. First, it integrates and systematizes the factors influencing CSR-based strategies into the three categories represented by the legs of the strategy tripod to help elucidate the previous research on the factors that drive CSR. Second, it suggests that exporters’ CSR strategies can be affected by social and environmental institutions based outside their home countries. Third, this study contributes to filling an important empirical gap in the research on CSR by focusing on export ventures from emerging countries. (shrink)

70 ans après "L'Être et le Néant", que reste-t-il de l'existentialisme via Jean-Paul Sartre? Comme le suggère humoristiquement l'auteur dans son titre, a-t-il toujours une existence, quelle peut-elle bien être? Les grands mythes philosophiques sont-il inscrits dans l'instant D'une époque ou seraient-ils éternels? Au-travers des personnages des "Mains Sales", la pièce de théâtre emblématique sartrienne, et en particulier de Hugo Barine, on approche d'une certitude : c'est en s'éloignant de l'instantanée de la politique que la philosophie peut s'inscrire dans la (...) durée d'une civilisation. Sartre sur son bidon en 1968, après avoir éclairé le monde des idées, a fait un ultime "choix" pathétique. (shrink)

The bear, says Hierocles, is aware that its head is easily injured, and instinctively uses its paws as a protection. The three following lines in the papyrus are badly damaged– καν εί π.ε … δεηθεί Του | βαλανεíον κρημν | πáλιν ύ;β εθεíησιν ε | αυΤήν. This is followed by a description of what the bear does when it is pursued and comes to a precipice. It inflates itself and trusts to the inflation to break its fall. It is hardly (...) possible to restore the damaged lines. Von Arnim thinks that the sense required is: ‘wenn die Bärin, vom Jäger verfolgt, eines Bades bedarf oder auf ihrer Flucht an einen Abgrund kommt,πáλιν ύπ èψίησιν εαψτήν’ But a sensible bear would hardly think of taking a bath when pursued by the hunter. It might take to the water; but the Greek for this would be somewhat different. As I read the passage, there is no reference to the bear as pursued by the hunter till line 34, where I would read πоιεî δè τò τοιóνδε , since the phrase εί δ υν διοκμéνμ in line 38 is resumptive, and implies that the pursuit must have been alluded to before. But before line 35 H. is only describing what the bear does to protect its head in the ordinary routine of its life when it is not harassed by the hunter. It wants a bath, and finds that it cannot reach the water without clambering down an overhanging bank It will not climb down head foremost, but guards its head by sliding backwards down the bank. As the bear would want its bath because it was hot, it is perhaps not too hazardous to conjecture that some phrase such as xs03F0xs2135ν ει π ε<ζομéν πνíγηι δεμθεíν του β. should find its place in line 31. (shrink)