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The purpose of this paper is to inform the business management literature that focuses on the perceptions of business professionals towards the multidimensional and highly complex concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This study is based on a sample of 118 Greek business executives/middle managers having different functional positions. A questionnaire based on the works of Quazi and O’Brien (2000) and Welford et al. (2007) was designed and used for data collection.

Key findings denote occupational health and safety, benign environmental management as well as responsible production methods as the top CSR priorities. Two different CSR viewpoints emerged from the factor analysis reflecting a pragmatic and a more socially responsive interpretation of corporate responsibility. Cluster analysis confirmed such contrasting perspectives allowing the partition of data in distinctive groups according to the relative inclination on either of the identified viewpoints. Similarity measures obtained from cluster analysis also verified the different CSR positions.

The paper explores CSR perceptions, as predictor factors of CSR performance, in three different groups of Greek business professionals. It contributes to the literature of CSR perspectives from South-East European countries where there is a distinct lack of empirical studies on managerial attitudes.

Racialized class formation is a process in which both racial formation and class formation shape the experiences of African Americans in the stratification system. This occurs for blacks in differing social classes. However, this chapter focuses on African Americans in the professional middle class. The professional middle class as a whole has grown substantially under postindustrialism. Racialized class formation has been greatly shaped by the nature of state policy regarding citizenship rights and has varied in the transition from the pre-civil rights era to the post-civil rights era. This chapter utilizes historical, interview, and secondary data to analyze experiences of the “first generation” of black professionals to integrate employment in mainstream institutions after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The focus is on the processes of recruitment, hiring, and promotion, as well as relations with clientele among those black professionals and how their middle class employment experiences are racialized.

This paper addresses the reasons why Chinese businesses have long been identified as subordinate to world‐class brand owners; why “global” own brand developments are considered to be beyond their competence.

In this paper, we use an institutional perspective to examine the difficulties faced by Chinese firms in own brand development, using empirical data derived from a research project into the business strategies of Hong Kong firms, and contrasting these with the case of what is one of China's most successful foreign ventures, Haier.

The familial form appears to be transforming, due to the employment of a growing stratum of professional middle managers and Chinese family business firms appear to be developing into fully functionally integrated hierarchies capable of product and market development of own branded products. Three institutional supports make this possible. First, the development of parts of the People's Republic of China (PRC) into a quasi‐market economy created a regionally close and large market. Second, technology transfers from leading overseas consumer product brand owners’ supported the development of more sophisticated products and firm capabilities. Third, a steady supply of skilled graduates from Hong Kong and the mainland enabled firms to move further up the value chain and exert more control over their manufacturing and related activities. To go truly global, however, more is required: social capital that connects the firm to the local and national party elites, something that mainland firms may find easier than those from Hong Kong.

Gaining the data meant negotiating access through young professional managers now emerging from Hong Kong universities and was achieved through personal contacts; thus the sample is a small four‐case study. The counterfactual case of Haier is derived not from original research but from website material.

Successful original equipment manufacturing business that goes global will, in addition to the institutional supports identified in the Hong Kong cases, also require elite patronage, social capital and political support.

The paper is of value to managers and consultants interested in international business in China.

This paper analyzes the connection between black political protest and mobilization, and the rise and fall of a black urban regime. The case of Oakland is instructive because by the mid-1960s the ideology of “black power” was important in mobilizing two significant elements of the historically disparaged black community: (1) supporters of the Black Panthers and, (2) neighborhood organizations concentrated in West Oakland. Additionally, Oakland like the city of Atlanta also developed a substantial black middle class that was able to mobilize along the lines of its own “racialized” class interests. Collectively, these factors were important elements in molding class-stratified “black power” and coalitional activism into the institutional politics of a black urban regime in Oakland. Ultimately, reversal factors would undermine the black urban regime in Oakland. These included changes in the race and class composition of the local population: black out-migration, the “new immigration,” increasing (predominantly white) gentrification, and the continued lack of opportunity for poor and working-class blacks, who served as the unrequited base of the black urban regime. These factors would change the fortunes of black political life in Oakland during the turbulent neoliberal era.

Large corporate policy changes usually take the form of a top-down approach based on a clearly envisioned routine and an implementation plan. Yet, the authors report on a study of a bottom-up approach in which key members of a service company created a new hiring routine that supported a company-wide new human resource management (HRM) hiring policy without any prior envisioned plan. We pay particularly close attention to the perspectives of this company’s HRM professionals, line managers, and middle-level managers. The authors used the literature on routine dynamics to examine in detail which actions were taken by key members in this organization to create the new hiring routine. Through in-depth interviews, the authors found that line managers, HRM professionals, and middle-level managers significantly differed in their points of view regarding their role in the new hiring routine, and how it should work best. As a result of these different points of view, the actors took different actions that nonetheless contributed to building the new routine including creating new internal and external connections, supplying expertise, and ensuring oversight of the new way of hiring. The authors also observed that the creation of this new routine also implied conflicts as a result of different points of view and actions. Nonetheless, the end result was the establishment of a new company-wide accepted hiring routine that even surpassed the expectations of top management. With this study, the authors contribute to the literature on routine dynamics by demonstrating the generative potential of multiple points of view and conflicts in creating new routines involved in large corporate policy change by showing how misalignments between the actors’ perspectives do not need to hamper the creation of new action patterns but rather support it.

Through a single‐person career/life history of a human resource (HR) manager, the purpose of this paper is to illuminate the relationship between professional identity and “being” a manager in the context of a “whole life”.

The approach of this paper is to use an extended interview with a single HR management professional to consider the complexities and discontinuities of managing a professional and personal life. The interview is considered in light of Alvesson's seven images of self‐identity.

Managers are constantly negotiating a professional identity, “being” a manager and a career in the context of their whole life. In developing managers in an increasingly stressful and competitive environment, the intersection between the various elements of a manager's life should be taken into account.

Closer attention should be paid to the lives of managers in the context of their identity and careers. Research should more closely consider, in detail, the lived experiences of managers and professionals.

Management development should focus on lived experiences of managers rather than competency and skill development. Managerial performance is related to the coping and sensemaking that occurs within specific contexts and management development professionals should focus more on these aspects of a “managerial life”.

The value of the paper is in highlighting the importance of very focussed and very personal management development.

Are business outcomes due primarily to entrepreneurial and managerial ability or are they mainly the result of business content? The purpose of this study is to explore this question by comparing the railroads of Victoria and Queensland (Australia) and the South-West and Northern Plains of America between 1881 and 1900. Given the commonalities of the four railway systems in terms of their economic orientation towards rural custom, and their marked difference in terms of ownership, one would expect similarities in their financial circumstances if outcomes were primarily determined by fluctuations in global commodity markets. Conversely, marked differences would be expected if outcomes primarily resulted from managerial initiative.

Conceptually, this study is informed by the idea that social and economic outcomes are shaped by long historical movements, with meaningful structural change occurring rarely but to great effect. In exploring this concept through a comparison of the railways of Australia and the American West, the study draws on two forms of archival evidence. One source of evidence relates to railroad management, operations and finances. Figures cited come primarily from Australian railway commissioners’ reports and Poor’s Manual of the Railroads of the USA. The other source of evidence relates to agricultural statistics. These are drawn from official reports.

This study argues that effective strategic decision-making can only occur if we understand the structural changes that alter our world. In the late nineteenth century, the Australian and American railroads servicing newly settled rural regions were financial failures because management failed to appreciate the structural changes that the revolution in steam-powered transport had initiated; a revolution which resulted in commodity prices – and hence, the railway rates for farm produce – being determined by global demand and supply balances rather than by local factors. As a result, they continued a policy of expansion that was no longer financially justified.

This study seeks to contribute to a fundamental debate in historical studies and management about the drivers of social and economic change. Increasingly, there is acceptance of the view that historical circumstances are inherently unstable and what counts is the particular change cascading through a myriad of “events”. This study points in a contrary direction, suggesting that business outcomes are primarily determined by deep structural shifts that can be understood and steered but seldom opposed.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

This study addresses the gap in research concerning student attitudes toward ethics and social responsibility (E&SR) within diverse organizational contexts, specifically as they transition into managerial and non-managerial roles.

A total of 425 business students from four universities participated. To determine statistically significant differences between potential managers and non-managers (M&NM), a paired comparison inferential t-test was employed.

The study revealed positive E&SR attitudes among business students. However, it differed from existing literature by finding a significant difference in perceived E&SR importance between aspirants in managerial and non-managerial positions. Notably, non-managerial students exhibited significantly stronger support for these principles.

This study, conducted in an emerging economy, offers a unique perspective by analyzing E&SR perceptions across both potential management and non-management employees. Given the direct and indirect influence employee perceptions have on business performance, this research sheds light on the crucial role of E&SR in management practices. The findings are further substantiated by robust data and include implications for human resource management, along with suggestions for future research directions.

Various aspects of managerial and professional employees in Australia are examined in an attempt to establish if the Australian experience is similar to that reported in other countries where “management” appears to have emerged as a third force between the employers and organised labour. It is argued that the new style manager is a younger, more highly educated “professional” but that the managerial function is also changing. A survey, conducted in Australia during 1985 of senior executives and 14 large scale organisations from both the public and private sector, provides the basis for this report of the changing characteristics of managerial and professional employees in Australia. Areas explored include the proportion of managers and professionals as a percentage of the labour force; particular characteristics which are emerging; education levels and qualifications; the process governing the movement of managers within the labour market; the effect of recent legislation on remuneration systems; and the degree of union membership among managers.