As corporate social responsibility (CSR) grows increasingly well known and accepted worldwide, organizations attempt to make sense of their social strategies bridge the gap between their current situation and what their stakeholders expect of them. If social strategies represent a potential stepping stone to more sophisticated forms of CSR, then research must investigate the strategies that organizations have adopted. After defining a framework for classifying and analyzing organizations' social strategies, this article considers empirical evidence from (...) 10 case studies in Colombia to reveal how organizations might build on their social involvement to engage in more sophisticated CSR practices. The framework also suggests some different trajectories that organizations might follow. (shrink)

During the last decade and a half, Estonia has concentrated predominantly on economic development in its narrowest sense. Currently, the emphasis is gradually moving towards a broader approach, including an increasingly social agenda. The research question here concerns the awareness of corporate social responsibility among Estonian owners and managers. Empirical research in Estonia indicates that there has been a shift towards recognizing the importance of social responsibility, but this primarily concerns the “lower layers” of social (...) responsibility, recognizing the importance of economic responsibility and in some respects also public responsibility. Responses in interviews show a certain amount of personal initiative, but these are single examples rather than a general trend and are not enough to change the overall picture. Still, in any assessment of the current situation regarding social responsibility in Estonia, emphasis should be laid on the fact that changes are taking effect and will continue to do so. In transition economies, including Estonia, we should not overlook the fact that, at least in the early years of transition, the focus is on a rapid economic development where the social side will inevitably be left in the background and economic development will take place at the expense of social and environmental development. (shrink)

This paper provides preliminary insights into the process of sense-making and developing meaning with regard to corporate social responsibility (CSR) within 18 Dutch companies. It is based upon a research project carried out within the framework of the Dutch National Research Programme on CSR. The paper questions how change agents promoting CSR within these companies made sense of the meaning of CSR. How did they use language (and other instruments) to stimulate and underpin the contextual essence of (...) CSR? Why did they do that in this particular way? What were the consequences of this approach for shaping the process of CSR in their company? Did their efforts contribute to a new way of thinking and acting or was it merely putting old wine in new barrels? A preliminary conclusion is that change agents use above all linguistic artefacts (words and notions) and carry out practical projects while constructing meaning. Still, the meaning of meaning itself remains highly intangible, situational and personality related. (shrink)

As Kenneth Pimple points out, scientists’ responsibilities to the larger society have received less attention than ethical issues internal to the practice of science. Yet scientists and specialists who study science have begun to provide analyses of the foundations and scope of scientsts’ responsibilities to society. An account of contributions from Kristen Shrader-Frechette, Melanie Leitner, Ullica Segerstråle, John Ahearne, Helen Longino, and Carl Cranor offers work on scientists’ social responsibilities upon which to build.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between positive psychological quality and college students’ sense of responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship from the perspective of positive psychology, explore the cultivation model that can effectively improve college students’ sense of responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship, and promote their success in entrepreneurship. In this study, a total of 1,500 college students were selected for questionnaire survey. ANOVA was used to analyze the differences of innovation and entrepreneurship (...) class='Hi'>responsibilities in demographic variables; factor analysis models were used to explore the factors that influence college students’ sense of responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship; and Spearsman correlation and linear regression were used to analyze the relationship between college students’ positive quality and innovation and entrepreneurship. The results showed that the average scores of individual responsibility, team responsibility and social responsibility were 3.290, 3.624 and 3.720, respectively; individual responsibility differed significantly at the grade level; group responsibilities and social responsibilities were significantly different at the grade and gender levels; the linear fitting between benevolence, super-excellence, bravery, restraint, and wisdom with team responsibilities all reached significant levels, among which the wisdom coefficient was the highest; the linear fitting between syngroup, excellence, bravery, modesty and wisdom with social responsibility reached a significant level, among which the wisdom coefficient was the highest; the linear fitting between syngroup, excellence, bravery, modesty and wisdom with personal responsibility reached a significant level, among which the coefficient of excellence was the highest. This indicated that positive psychological qualities such as syngroup, excellence, modesty, benevolence, super-excellence, bravery, restraint, and wisdom were the influencing factors of college students’ sense of responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship. Among them, the role of wisdom is the most noteworthy in predicting social and group responsibilities, and super-excellent is the most significant predictor for individual responsibility. (shrink)

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not new. Many entrepreneurs created and developed companies along the time, with a strong sense of ethical and social responsibility. This article presents an example of how CSR was conceived and put into practice when Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros was created in Barcelona in 1905, following the life and ideas of its founder, Francesc Moragas, a lawyer with a deep commitment for social action (...) and a successful conception of the technical and economic dimensions of a financial and social institution. (shrink)

Some environmental activists occasionally use the argument that poverty is ‘no excuse’ for not going green and denounce discourses putting forward social conditions as unduly exculpatory. Employing participant observation among middle-class activists mobilising to diffuse environmental lifestyles in socially diverse suburbs near Paris, the article explores their relation to the working class and examines the consequences of their endeavours on local class relations. It describes the tension between their goal of mainstreaming environmental reflexivity and the stubborn existence of material (...) inequalities and constraints. While their efforts are configured by a moral economy of environmental responsibility which assigns an undifferentiated moral obligation to consume sustainably to all individuals, they make sense of social differences by drawing on culturalist representations of poverty and folk social theories. These sense-making practices enhance rather than alleviate attributions of blame against working-class people and contribute to reinforcing the activists’ dominant symbolic position. (shrink)

AimOur study aimed to investigate the effect of social responsibility on the subjective well-being of volunteers for COVID-19 and to examine the mediating role of job involvement in this relationship.BackgroundNowadays, more and more people join volunteer service activities. As we all know, volunteer work contributes to society without any return. Volunteers often have a strong sense of social responsibility and reap subjective well-being in their dedication. Although research shows that social responsibility will drive them to participate (...) in volunteer work actively, it is less clear whether job involvement will impact their subjective well-being.MethodsThe data were collected in the precaution zone in Shanghai, China, from April to May 2022. A sample of 302 volunteers for COVID-19 completed the social responsibility scale, subjective well-being scale and job involvement scale in the form of an electronic questionnaire on their mobile phones. A structural equation model was adopted to verify the research hypotheses.ResultsSocial responsibility was significantly and positively related to volunteers’ subjective well-being and job involvement. Job involvement fully mediates the relationship between volunteers’ social responsibility and subjective well-being.ConclusionSocial responsibility is critical to predicting volunteers’ subjective well-being. Job involvement plays an intervening mechanism in explaining how social responsibility promotes volunteers’ subjective well-being. (shrink)

Since scholarly interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has primarily focused on the synergies between social and economic performance, our understanding of how (and the conditions under which) companies use CSR to produce policy outcomes that work against public welfare has remained comparatively underdeveloped. In particular, little is known about how corporate decision-makers privately reconcile the conflicts between public and private interests, even though this is likely to be relevant to understanding the limitations of CSR as a means (...) of aligning business activity with the broader public interest . This study addresses this issue using internal tobacco industry documents to explore British-American Tobacco’s (BAT) thinking on CSR and its effects on the company’s CSR Programme. The article presents a three-stage model of CSR development, based on Sykes and Matza’s theory of techniques of neutralization, which links together: how BAT managers made sense of the company’s declining political authority in the mid-1990s; how they subsequently justified the use of CSR as a tool of stakeholder management aimed at diffusing the political impact of public health advocates by breaking up political constituencies working towards evidence-based tobacco regulation; and how CSR works ideologically to shape stakeholders’ perceptions of the relative merits of competing approaches to tobacco control. Our analysis has three implications for research and practice. First, it underlines the importance of approaching corporate managers’ public comments on CSR critically and situating them in their economic, political and historical contexts. Second, it illustrates the importance of focusing on the political aims and effects of CSR. Third, by showing how CSR practices are used to stymie evidence-based government regulation, the article underlines the importance of highlighting and developing matrices to assess the negative social impacts of CSR. (shrink)

According to attention-based theories, to explain organizational attention is to explain organizational behavior. In our study, we test the model of situated attention and firm behavior by examining the effects of attention structures and allocation of attention on organizational outcomes. We hypothesize a positive relationship between attention structures and the allocation of organizational attention that, in turn, has an effect on financial performance. Using a unique data set composed of indicators of social responsibility published by 338 Brazilian organizations between (...) 2001 and 2007, we find support for our hypotheses. Our findings suggest that organizational attention to social issues fully mediates the relationship between attention structures and financial performance. (shrink)

In France, some institutions seem to call for the engineer’s sense of social responsibility. However, this call is scarcely heard. Still, engineering students have been given the opportunity to gain a general education through courses in literature, law, economics, since the nineteenth century. But, such courses have long been offered only in the top ranked engineering schools. In this paper, we intend to show that the wish to increase engineering students’ social responsibility is an old concern. We (...) also aim at highlighting some macro social factors which shaped the answer to the call for social responsibility in the French engineering “Grandes Ecoles”. In the first part, we provide an overview of the scarce attention given to the engineering curriculum in the scholarly literature in France. In the second part, we analyse one century of discourses about the definition of the “complete engineer” and the consequent role of non technical education. In the third part, we focus on the characteristics of the corpus which has been institutionalized. Our main finding is that despite the many changes which occurred in engineering education during one century, the “other formation” remains grounded on a non academic “way of knowing”, and aims at increasing the reputation of the schools, more than enhancing engineering students’ social awareness. (shrink)

This article presents the results of an inductive, interpretive case study. We have adopted a narrative approach to the analysis of organizational processes in order to explore how individuals in a financial institution dealt with relatively novel issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The narratives that we reconstruct, which we label 'idealism and altruism', 'economics and expedience' and 'ignorance and cynicism' illustrate how people in the specific organizational context of a bank ('Credit Line') sought to cope with an attempt (...) at narrative imposition. In particular, our work exemplifies how people in organizations draw on shared discursive resources in order to make sense of themselves and their organizations. We illustrate how many people within the bank found it hard to integrate the normative case for CSR with their version of a narrative identity which had, and continued to be, centred on economic imperatives for new initiatives. Our article demonstrates both the value of the analysis of shared narratives, and represents an attempt to deal adequately with the polyphony of organizational voices, in case studies of CSR. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the putative growth of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Singapore. A key impetus for the nascent CSR movement in twenty-first century Singapore is the economic imperative. As a trade-dependent industrializing economy, the economic development drive coupled with the need for international expansion has made it necessary for Singapore businesses to be cognizant of the growing CSR movement in the western, industrialized world. The government supports the CSR endeavour with an instrumental bent, where CSR ideas (...) and concepts are adapted, incorporated, and promoted in various sectors of the economy. This paper assesses the state’s active encouragement of CSR in various facets of economic life in Singapore. The government sees itself as a promoter and practitioner of CSR. For instance, Singapore’s unique tripartite labor relations have recently emphasized a CSR gloss while CSR is also touted as being beneficial for corporate governance as well as improving the competitiveness of companies and improving the quality of life. However, CSR is too often seen as another form of corporate governance. This paper argues that the CSR drive in Singapore coheres with the government’s pragmatic approach to governance broadly conceived. There are many intrinsic and tangible benefits in the government being seen as an active promoter of CSR in various facets of Singapore life. The close association with the various concerns of CSR ensures that the government is seen to be involved in issues, such as environmentalism, work–life balance, anti-corruption, and philanthropy, that concern and appeal to the younger generation of Singaporeans. The CSR endorsement by the state, while not taking a legislative framework and still very much a private sector-driven initiative, is in accord with Singapore’s political and cultural values where the promotion of social responsibility (individual and group), harmony, cohesion, and stability in a multi-racial, multi-religious, and multi-lingual society are very much valued. In studying the putative CSR movement in Singapore, a sense of the values that the state, in partnership with the business world, hopes to inculcate would be evident. (shrink)

A philosophical account of personal identity - in terms of the maintenance of fundamental beliefs, principles and commitments by spatiotemporally continuous particulars - is sketched, an account which is able to incorporate a social and relational conception of personal identity, and thus serve as the basis for a social psychological theory of personal identity - in terms of the pursuit of identity projects’within social collectives. Some implications of this theory are developed, concerning the relation between identity and (...) individualism, responsibility and social labeling. The theory develops an account of the social constitution of personal identity that is consistent with a realist conception of social psychological theories of identity: as objective theoretical descriptions of the social dimensions of identity. (shrink)

Shareholders with standard monetary preferences will give a manager incentives to increase firm profits, which can be achieved with equity grants. When shareholders are socially responsible, in the sense that they also value corporate social performance, it is not clear which incentives the manager should receive. Yet, in a standard principal–agent model, we show that the optimal contract is surprisingly simple: it consists in giving equity holdings to the manager. This is notably because the stock price will incorporate (...) expected profits as well as the social performance of the firm, to the extent that it is valued by shareholders. Consequently, equity holdings give the manager incentives to jointly maximize the profits and the social performance of the firm according to shareholders’ preferences. To facilitate alignment of interests, more socially responsible firms will optimally hire more socially responsible managers. We conclude that neither the shareholder primacy model nor equity-based managerial compensation is necessarily inconsistent with the attainment of social objectives. (shrink)

Scientists’ sense of social responsibility is particularly relevant for emerging technologies. Since a regulatory vacuum can sometimes occur in the early stages of these technologies, individual scientists’ social responsibility might be one of the most significant checks on the risks and negative consequences of this scientific research. In this article, we analyze data from a 2011 mail survey of leading U.S. nanoscientists to explore their perceptions the regarding social and ethical responsibilities for their nanotechnology research. (...) Our analyses show that leading U.S. nanoscientists express a moderate level of social responsibility about their research. Yet, they have a strong sense of ethical obligation to protect laboratory workers from unhealthy exposure to nanomaterials. We also find that there are significant differences in scientists’ sense of social and ethical responsibility depending on their demographic characteristics, job affiliation, attention to media content, risk perceptions and benefit perceptions. We conclude with some implications for future research. (shrink)

The instrumental benefits of firm’s CSR activities are contingent upon the stakeholders’ awareness and favorable attribution. While social media creates an important momentum for firms to cultivate favorable awareness by establishing a powerful framework of stakeholder relationships, the opportunities are not distributed evenly for all firms. In this paper, we investigate the impact of CSR credentials on the effectiveness of social media as a stakeholder-relationship management platform. The analysis of Fortune 500 companies in the Twitter sphere reveals that (...) a higher CSR rating is a strong indicator of an earlier adoption, a faster establishment of online presence, a higher responsiveness to the firm’s identity, and a stronger virality of the messages. Incidentally, the higher CSIR rating is also found to be associated with the stronger virality. Our findings also suggest that socially responsible firms can harvest proactive stakeholders’ participation without investing more resources. As the first study that conceptualizes the social media as a proponent of CSR, this paper contends that “being socially responsible” makes more practical sense for firms with the rise of social media. (shrink)

This article presents a three-stage model of how isomorphic mechanisms have shaped corporate social responsibility reporting practices over time. In the first stage, defensive reporting, companies fail to meet stakeholder expectations due to a deficiency in firm performance. In this stage, the decision to report is driven by coercive isomorphism as firms sense pressure to close the expectational gap. In the second stage, proactive reporting, knowledge of CSR reporting spreads and the practice of CSR reporting becomes normatively sanctioned. (...) In this stage, normative isomorphism leads other organizations to look to CSR reporting as a potential new opportunity for achieving the firm’s goals. In the third stage, imitative diffusion, the defensive reporters together with the proactive reporters create a critical mass of CSR reporters that reaches a threshold at which the benefits of CSR reporting begin to outweigh any costs due to mimetic isomorphism. The study finds support for the model in an examination of Fortune 500 firms from 1997 to 2006. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to analyse the effect of high school scholarships tied to community service on the development of secondary school students in Northwest China. Using data from three rounds of surveys of thousands of students in 298 classes in 75 high schools in Shaanxi province, the paper documents the implementation of the Compassionate Heart Scholars Program and evaluates the effect of the programme on the educational performance, self‐esteem, self‐efficacy and social responsibility of the participants. (...) We present evidence that part of the protocol of the programme improves the academic performance and self‐esteem of those involved in the programme. The community service part of the programme is shown to raise the self‐efficacy and the sense of social responsibility of the programme participants. One striking result is that the test scores of the community service participants do not appear to be adversely affected, even though they spend considerable time doing community service. The findings of this study, therefore, suggest that adding extra‐curricular community service to school curricula may be a win–win–win strategy, for the students, for schools and for the local communities served. (shrink)

Drawing on a qualitative study of women who cared for their elderly mothers, this article explores women's experiences of feeling responsible for elderly relatives. The minimal provision of public services for old people and the relative absence of brothers and husbands from family caregiving emerge as material constraints shaping women's sense of obligation. This is affirmed by ideologies and assumptions about women's association with caring and family ties that permeate subjects' accounts of their situations. Translating their sense of (...) obligation into their lives is a contradictory process characterized by ambivalence and guilt that stifle complaint. Further exploration of the social processes that sustain the inequitable division of caring labor can contribute to interpretations, practices, and policies that benefit rather than constrain women. (shrink)

Critical evaluations of the current movement of corporate social responsibility commodification have neglected an important question: How do CSR professionals manage the tensions resulting from the search for both profit and social responsibility? This article addresses this question by analyzing the discourse of CSR consultants with the aim of understanding how they deal with such tensions through identity work. Our findings suggest that people who claim, or who are ascribed, paradoxical professional identities may engage in ‘paradoxical identity mitigation’ (...) – a process whereby the concomitant and paradoxical use of linguistic strategies is aimed at simultaneously embracing and distancing oneself from contradictory identity demands. In uncovering how CSR professionals discursively manage the tensions engendered by CSR commodification, our results also advance current knowledge of CSR by shedding light on the underlying processes whereby new ‘hybrid’ identities are constituted and mobilized by actors to make sense of their professional activities. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute to understanding the changing role of government in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR). Over the last decade, governments have joined other stakeholders in assuming a relevant role as drivers of CSR, working together with intergovernmental organizations and recognizing that public policies are key in encouraging a greater sense of CSR. This paper focuses on the analysis of the new strategies adopted by governments in order to promote, and encourage businesses to (...) adopt, CSR values and strategies. The research is based on the analysis of an explanatory framework, related to the development of a relational analytical framework, which tries to analyze the vision, values, strategies and roles adopted by governments, and the integration of new partnerships that governments establish in the CSR area with the private sector and social organizations. The research compares CSR initiatives and public policies in three European countries: Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom, and focuses on governmental drivers and responses. The preliminary results demonstrate that governments are incorporating a common statement and discourse on CSR, working in partnership with the private and social sectors. For governments, CSR implies the need to manage a complex set of relationships in order to develop a win–win situation between business and social organizations. However, the research also focuses on the differences between the three governments when applying CSR public policies. These divergences are based on the previous cultural and political framework, such as the welfare state typology, the organizational structures and the business and social and cultural background in each country. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility and environmental sustainability have become urgent concerns for contemporary businesses. This study focuses on the interplay between corporate social responsibility perceptions and pro-environmental behaviour in response to experts’ call for research on the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility. In addition, it reveals the mechanism underpinning how perceived CSR shapes pro-environmental behaviour in an understudied developing context. Empirically, a qualitative multiple-case research design is utilised by selecting three business schools from Peshawar, Pakistan. Fourteen semi-structured interviews (...) were conducted with senior management and faculty to collect data. Besides primary data, a qualitative documentary review is used to enhance the research. Data analysis is done through the thematic network technique. Plantation, cleanliness, waste reduction, and energy conservation are the environmental aspects of CSR as regarded by employees. In addition, perceived CSR shapes pro-environmental behaviour via environmental knowledge and awareness, eco-civic sense, environmental values, personality traits, religious perspective, and perceived organisational support for the environment. This study provides original additions to the CSR literature by suggesting eco-civic sensibility and religious perspective as new CSR drivers for pro-environmental conduct. Incorporating stakeholder salience into the context of the present study also advances CSR research. The findings are also valuable for management to make the CSR agenda of business schools more strategic, comprehensive, and centred on the priorities of salient stakeholders. (shrink)

Responsible sustainable consumer behavior involves a complex pattern of environmental and social issues, in line with the view of sustainability as a construct with both environmental and social pillar. So far, environmental dimension was far more researched than social dimension. In this article, we investigate the antecedents of both environmentally and socially RSCB and willingness to behave in environmentally/socially responsible way. We include measures of concern, perceived consumer control/effectiveness, personal/social norms and ethical ideologies/obligation to better explain (...) and extend the traditional theory of planned behavior. Additionally, we test the impact of information availability about environmental or social impact on RSCB. Our findings on a representative sample of 426 respondents show that in general, antecedents of environmentally and socially responsible sustainable consumption are similar in their effect on consumer behavior, with personal norms, concern and ethical ideologies having the strongest impact on RSCB. When comparing both types of behavior, socially responsible behavior is more influenced by perceived behavioral control and possibly social norms than environmentally responsible behavior, while information availability plays its role for both behaviors. Sustainable responsible consumption can be achieved by embracing both dimensions of sustainability and consumers need to have a sense for both social and environmental issues. The complexity and struggles between doing what is good for environment and society could be the reason why consumers have difficulties achieving sustainable responsible consumption. (shrink)

There is a large body of literature that examines different dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Africa, with many focusing on the false promises of these corporate initiatives. Contrary to simplistic claims of CSR being merely window-dressing, however, this paper reveals that although several rhetorical proclamations underpin the idea, such statements are often given instrumental meaning through diverse mechanisms (e.g., interpretation of cues toward the proactive (re)construction of identity, (inter)subjective discourses on social legitimacy, and acts of “issue (...) selling”) that help to enact particular characteristics of the corporation. The paper specifically employs the organizational concepts of sensemaking and sensegiving to explain how, through CSR activities, hydrocarbon companies in Ghana construct and (re)affirm a particular reality for its stakeholders. The findings suggest that by having significant leverage over the (re)construction of its identity and claims around social legitimacy and performance, the corporation gives sense to and further sustains its authority over societal norms and expectations around what social responsibility entails. The evidence presented contributes to scholarship that considers the corporation as a complex nexus of multiple relations, contested narratives, and practices. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility research has mainly focused on understanding the antecedents and outcomes of CSR adoption. Yet, little is known about the organisational process of ‘CSR engagement’ and how this would affect organisational identity. We mobilise Basu and Palazzo’s cognitive and linguistic notions of sense-making and Brickson’s organisational identity orientation to frame how rural community banks in Ghana engage with CSR. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with RCB directors, managers and other stakeholders, we conceive of the CSR engagement process (...) as one that allows for the communication and orientation of organisational identity through an ‘informal co-creation’ involving organisational actors and stakeholders. Our findings also emphasise the ‘cultural/political’ modes of justification put forward by RCBs in their CSR engagement. Lastly, we tentatively propose the notion of an ‘opaque context’ to highlight settings that are less concerned about public visibility, and where the focus is instead on the direct interactions between organisations and stakeholders in a given social context. (shrink)

This study interrogates the Gap campaign from a political economic perspective to determine whether it goes beyond merely touting the virtuous line of social responsibility. Critics cite the irony of capitalist-based solutions that perpetuate the inequities they are trying to address. Others suggest the aid generated is problematic in and of itself because it keeps Africa from becoming self-sufficient. This research contends the purpose of the Gap’s participation is genuine, going beyond window dressing and the surface level benefit of (...) capitalistic enterprise, and is in fact linked to a higher motive of propagating ethical trade which ultimately offers African beneficiaries a path to financial independence. However, because the message of the current Gap advertising campaign does convey a false sense of doing good, another advertising approach is warranted. (shrink)

This paper takes as its focus the adoption by the Co‐operative Wholesale Society of what appears to be a socially responsible stance on food labelling practice and policy through the publication of a public report and a proposed code of practice.The central issue in the debate surrounding labelling is the question of ‘asymmetric information’. In order to function, markets need perfect information. The existence of asymmetric information gives rise to ‘market failure’ which prevents the ‘free market’ from functioning according to (...) the laissez faire model. It can be argued that regulation will overcome this problem. However, this paper counters this argument on several grounds. In the first part of the paper labelling is examined as a textual construction, and ethical dimensions are revealed through an awareness of discourse and signification, which gives rise to a view of packaging as a version of reality partially built through connotation and association.The second part of the paper examines political and regulatory concerns. Marketing and economic theories are discussed in terms of their impact upon ethical issues in food labelling. Sense is made of various arguments about the policy and practice of food regulation – particularly in the wake of the James Report calling for the establishment of a Food Standards Agency. Tactics for resisting regulation are also examined. The paper analyses the role and motivation of the CWS in taking these steps.Consideration is given to the issue of where responsibility for information giving and public health education might lie, and what phenomena act as barriers to increased public awareness and action on dietary matters. Finally the debate over food labelling is used as an example of why it is problematic to promote the free market model as the only sensible alternative to other modes of economic organisation. (shrink)

We can often achieve together what we could not have achieved on our own. Many times these outcomes and actions will be morally valuable; sometimes they may be of substantial moral value. However, when can we be under an obligation to perform some morally valuable action together with others, or to jointly produce a morally significant outcome? Can there be collective moral obligations, and if so, under what circumstances do we acquire them? These are questions to which philosophers are increasingly (...) turning their attention. It is fair to say that traditional ethical theories cannot give a satisfying answer to the questions, focusing as they do on the actions and attitudes of discreet individual agents. It should also be noted that the debate surrounding collective moral obligations is ongoing and by no means settled. This chapter discusses and compares the different attempts to date to answer the above questions. It proposes a set of meta-criteria—or desiderata— for arbitrating between the various proposals. (shrink)

Global citizenship is a positive outcome often associated with participation in study abroad. One essential building block of global citizenship is a sense of empathy toward those of other cultures. This paper proposes a study of variables that may increase intercultural empathy and global citizenship due to a study abroad experience. Proposed variables contributing to intercultural empathy include integration with the host culture, program duration, the economic and cultural distance of the host country, and the incorporation of guided reflection (...) and cultural study in the program content. The proposed study aims to provide guidelines that can be used in designing future study abroad programs to increase students’ sense of individual social responsibility. (shrink)

Utilitarian and deontological moral theories are often accused of failing to develop a convincing account of an agent's moral psychology, and so failing to provide an adequate theory of moral motivation that sustains their conception of morality as involving generally overriding moral duties. As a result of this apparent conflict between an agent's psychology and the demands of morality, many suggest making dramatic revisions to our conception of morality. I argue here that a more promising response is to examine where (...) it is that morality fits into human psychology, and then build a theory of moral motivation that sustains ordinary conceptions of morality from this foundation. To do this, I start by looking at Hume's account of moral motivation, which is grounded in a rich and full moral psychology. In an attempt to show that his theory provides a promising foundation for a contemporary theory of moral motivation, I explore his account of acting from duty and develop a new interpretation of his theory of moral motivation that fits most consistently with both his criticism of other accounts and his more general claims about the virtue of justice. I argue that Hume offers an account of justice as being always valuable in virtue of being a necessary condition to the enjoyment of one's good character. I go on to suggest that pride in one's character, what we might now call personal integrity, commits each agent to acting with a sense of duty, and enables her to attain a level of social interaction that is necessary for her psychological development, yet not possible without a commitment to justice. After defending this interpretation of Hume, I extend this basic notion of personal integrity and demonstrate how this idea, combined with the workings of empathy and the psychological need for positive social interaction, generates a viable theory of moral motivation that maintains the common conception of morality as involving generally overriding moral duties while avoiding threats of alienation. (shrink)

The Article focuses on the concept of social solidarity, as it is used in the Report of the International Bioethics Committee On Social Responsibility and Health. It is argued that solidarity plays a major role in supporting the whole framework of social responsibility, as presented by the IBC. Moreover, solidarity is not limited to members of particular groups, but potentially extended to all human beings on the basis of their inherent dignity; this sense of human solidarity (...) is a necessary presupposition for a genuinely universalistic morality of justice and human rights. (shrink)

A longitudinal study of 308 white -collar U.S. employees revealed that feelings of hope and gratitude increase concern for corporate social responsibility. In particular, employees with stronger hope and gratitude were found to have a greater sense of responsibility toward employee and societal issues; interestingly, employee hope and gratitude did not affect sense of responsibility toward economic and safety/quality issues. These findings offer an extension of research by Giacalone, Paul, and Jurkiewicz.

Responsible Investing is on the rise. In ten years time, what started as an ideologically motivated practice by often religiously inspired investors has become amainstream activity. Through the Principles for Responsible Investing a large group of institutional investors representing tens of trillions of dollars have become involved in and transformed the practice. A major change refers to a change in definition and the disappearance of ethics, which was replaced by a focus on governance. However, society is not taking unethical investments (...) practices lightly. It increasingly confronts investors with potential consequences of the investments and calls for impact measurement: what is the social, ethical and environmental impact of the investments? (shrink)

This study interrogates the Gap (RED) campaign from a political economic perspective to determine whether it goes beyond merely touting the virtuous line of social responsibility. Critics cite the irony of capitalist-based solutions that perpetuate the inequities they are trying to address. Others suggest the aid generated is problematic in and of itself because it keeps Africa from becoming self-sufficient. This research contends the purpose of the Gap's participation is genuine, going beyond window dressing and the surface level benefit (...) of capitalistic enterprise, and is in fact linked to a higher motive of propagating ethical trade which ultimately offers African beneficiaries a path to financial independence. However, because the message of the current Gap (RED) advertising campaign does convey a false sense of doing good, another advertising approach is warranted. (shrink)

Current research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) illustrates the growing sense of discord surrounding the ‘business of doing good’ (Dobers and Springett, Corp Soc Responsib Environ Manage 17(2):63–69, 2010). Central to these concerns is that CSR risks becoming an over-simplified and peripheral part of corporate strategy. Rather than transforming the dominant corporate discourse, it is argued that CSR and related concepts are limited to “emancipatory rhetoric…defined by narrow business interests and serve to curtail interests of external stakeholders.” (Banerjee, (...) Crit Sociol 34(1):52, 2008). The paper addresses gaps in the literature and challenges current thinking on corporate governance and CSR by offering a new conceptual framework that responds to the concerns of researchers and practitioners. The limited focus of existing analyses is extended by a holistic approach to corporate governance and social responsibility that integrates company, shareholder and wider stakeholder concerns. A defensive stance is avoided by delineating key stages of the governance process and aligning profit centred and social responsibility concerns to produce a business-based rationale for minimising risk and mainstreaming CSR. (shrink)

The attempt to define meaning arouses numerous questions, such as whether life can be meaningful without actions devoted to a central purpose or whether the latter guarantee a meaningful life. Communities of inquiry are relevant in this context because they create relationships within and between people and the environment. The more they address relations—social, cognitive, emotional, etc.—that tie-in with the children’s world even if not in a concrete fashion, the more they enable young people to search for and find (...) meaning. Examining the way in which philosophical communities of inquiry serve as a dialogical space that enables a search for meaning on the personal and collective plane, this article seeks to expand the discussion of how/whether finding meaning on a private or communal level can promote recognition of the existential uniqueness of each individual and the development of a sense of responsibility for him or her. Grounded in the writings of Matthew Lipman, it links his ideas about finding meaning in philosophical communities of inquiry with those of Jean-Paul Sartre, Viktor Frankl, and Emmanuel Levinas, in particular with regard to the association between meaning and responsibility. (shrink)

This article extends our understanding of the firm–nongovernmental organization relationship by emphasizing the role of language in shaping organizational behavior. It focuses on discursive and rhetorical activity through which firms and NGOs jointly – and not always consciously – define boundaries for socially acceptable corporate behavior. It explores the discursive legitimation struggles of a leading Finnish forest industry company StoraEnso and Greenpeace during 1985–2001 and examines how these struggles participated in the definition and institutionalization of corporate social responsibility. I (...) find a mixture of rational and moral struggles as a key feature of this legitimation work and show how different manifestations of these struggles act as a central mechanism that redefines what the boundaries of corporate responsibility are in a specific setting at a given point of time. The study illustrates how the actors’ ability to sense the public’s views contribute to rhetorical difficulties of the industry and unintended societal consequences for the activists, and how the rational and moral struggles build up in time to trigger changes in the actors’ sensemaking and actions. (shrink)

'Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is conceptualized in many ways. We argue that one cannot be indifferent about the issue of its conceptualization. In terms of methodology, our position is that any conceptual discussion must embed CSR in political theory. With regard to substance, we link up with the discussion on whether CSR must be defined on the basis of a tripartite or a quadripartite division of business responsibilities. We share A. B. Carroll's intuition that a quadripartite division is (...) called for as a basis to define CSR. However, defending the quadripartite division of business responsibilities requires that the distinctions between economic, legal, ethical and discretionary business responsibilities be made intelligible. Carroll's account is defective in this respect. We argue that contemporary Neo-Kantian political ethics is able to make sense of these distinctions, because of its specific interpretation of liberalism. Interestingly, from a conventional liberal perspective this interpretation of liberalism is atypical, as it extends public morality beyond the domain of the law. (shrink)

Human aesthetic practices show a sensitivity to the ways that the appearance of an artefact manifests skills and other qualities of the maker. We investigate a possible origin for this kind of sensibility, locating it in the need for co-ordination of skill-transmission in the Acheulean stone tool culture. We argue that our narrative supports the idea that Acheulian agents were aesthetic agents. In line with this we offer what may seem an absurd comparison: between the Acheulian and the Quattrocento. In (...) making it we display some hidden richness in what counts as an aesthetic response to an artefact. We conclude with a brief review of rival explanations—biological and/or cultural—of how this skills-based sensibility became a regular feature of human aesthetic practices. (shrink)

Over the past decades, the modernization of agriculture in the Western world has contributed not only to a rapid increase in food production but also to environmental and societal concerns over issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, soil quality and biodiversity loss. Many of these concerns, for example those related to animal welfare or labor conditions, are stuck in controversies and apparently deadlocked debates. As a result we observe a paradox in which a wide range of corporate social responsibility (...) initiatives, originally seeking to reconnect agriculture and society, frequently provoke debate, conflict, and protests. In order to make sense of this pattern, the present paper contends that Western agriculture is marked by moral complexity, i.e., the tendency of multiple legitimate moral standpoints to proliferate without the realistic prospect of a consensus. This contention is buttressed by a conceptual framework that draws inspiration the contemporary business ethics and systems-theoretic scholarship. From the systems-theoretic point of view, the evolution of moral complexity is traced back to the processes of agricultural modernization, specialization, and differentiation, each of which suppresses the responsiveness of the economic and legal institutions to the full range of societal and environmental concerns about agriculture. From the business ethics point of view, moral complexity is shown to prevent the transformation of the ethical responsibilities into the legal and economic responsibilities despite the ongoing institutionalization of CSR. Navigating moral complexity is shown to require moral judgments which are necessarily personal and contestable. These judgments are implicated in those CSR initiatives that require dealing with trade-offs among the different sustainability issues. (shrink)

Today a failure of the physical sciences accompanies a failure of the social sciences; and the failure of both consists in part in this: in the lack of a fully-developed and implemented sense of social responsibility. Both have denied guilt for their shortcomings in this respect: advancing rationalizations to the effect that social reform is not the task of science; that objectivity suffers if such motivations are allowed to become involved; and that science makes its most (...) valuable contributions to social welfare rather by maintaining a strict laboratory manner of impartiality. Implied often, as well, is the conclusion that not science itself but the misuse of science; not the patience and care of science itself but the impatience and carelessness of non-scientists is responsible for the miscarriage of its contributions. (shrink)

This article examines the different discursive resources on which small business owner–managers draw when understanding their sense of self in relation to corporate social responsibility. In the small business context, identity provides a justifiable framework to study corporate social responsibility, as decisions regarding socially responsible activities are mainly taken by managers and stem from their sense of who they are in the world. On the basis of 25 thematic interviews with owner–managers, two broad discursive resources were (...) found that describe how they actively seek to create and legitimise their sense of self within the discussion on corporate social responsibility. These discursive resources are called being altruistic and being instrumental. The findings emphasise that the essential and also the most challenging feature in small business owner–managers' identity work is the process of reconciling economic values with the social and ethical aspects of business life. (shrink)