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Political Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), based on ideas about deliberative democracy, have been criticised for increasing corporate power and democratic deficits. Yet, deliberative ideals are flourishing in the corporate world in the form of dialogues with a broad set of stakeholders and engagement in wider societal issues. Extractive industry areas, with extensive corporate interventions in weak regulatory environments, are particularly vulnerable to asymmetrical power relations when businesses engage with society. This paper aims to illustrate in what way deliberative CSR practices in such contexts risk enhancing corporate power at the expense of community interests.

This paper is based on a retrospective qualitative study of a Canadian oil company, operating in an Albanian oilfield between 2009 and 2016. Through a study of three different deliberative CSR practices – market-based land acquisition, a grievance redress mechanism and dialogue groups – it highlights how these practices in various ways enforced corporate interests and prevented further community mobilisation.

By applying Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, the analysis highlights how deliberative CSR activities isolated and silenced community demands, moved some community members into the corporate alliance and prevented alternative visions of the area to be articulated. In particular, the close connection between deliberative practices and monetary compensation flows is underlined in this dynamic.

The paper contributes to critical scholarship on political CSR by highlighting in what way deliberative practices, linked to monetary compensation schemes, enforce corporate hegemony by moving community members over to the corporate alliance.

The major purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of job competency in the effect of transformational leadership to performance of university lecturers. This article also attempts to examine the direct effect of transformational leadership on job competency and lecturer performance.

For the purpose of the study, quantitative research was applied by conducting an empirical survey with the active participation of 223 lecturers. The survey was conducted in ten high-ranked private universities in Jakarta, Indonesia. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed for the measurement and structural model analyses.

The results reveal that the effect of transformational leadership on lecturer performance is expressed only by indirect effect (through lecturer competency). Even though transformational leadership has a positive direct effect on lecturer performance, it is not statistically significant. This paper highlights the crucial role of lecturer competency in the performance of academic scholars. The findings suggest transformational leadership is fundamental in fostering competencies, which, in turn, improve the work performance of university lecturers.

This study makes significant contributions to the understanding of the interaction between transformational leadership and performance in higher education, and the statistical significance of lecturer work competency in mediating this relationship. The results of this study provide a snapshot of the contextual mechanism linking transformational leadership and lecturer performance.

The United Nations (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) places partnerships as a vital mechanism, which strengthens the implementation of change strategies. The SDG targets are ambitious; acknowledging the interconnected multifaceted issues that are currently facing society. Similarly, social marketing thought is transitioning to embrace systemic change strategies, realising no one organisation can have an impact on the emerging grand challenges. Partnerships are the 5th P in the social marketing mix, however, partnerships is also a nebulous term which has been criticised for lacking theoretical development. This study aims to answer the call from both the UN and social marketing community for further research to guide the development and implementation of impactful transformative partnerships.

A robust mixed method approach to develop and test a social marketing partnership model is presented. Trust and relationship commitment are at the forefront of successful partnership exchanges. Morgan and Hunt’s (1994) trust and relationship commitment model is extended into the social marketing domain.

The findings validate Hasting’s (2003) call for social marketers to listen to their commercial marketing counterparts, positioning trust and commitment as essential to change strategies. As the degree of complexities in the multifaceted world continues to accelerate, partnerships for change (UN SDG #17) will pay off, driving more effective and smarter collaborations amongst a diverse range of stakeholders at different levels in different networks. Partnerships will elevate social marketing to deliver systemic transformation for complex problems with far reaching collective and sustainable consequences.

With trust/mistrust critical to successful exchanges and exchange central to social marketing, quantitative measurement of the antecedents to and outcomes of partnerships can inform the evaluation, impact and management of social marketing interventions.

Three contributions are made, which support the selection, implementation and evaluation of social marketing partnerships. Key social marketing partnership characteristics are operationalised supporting the partnership selection process. Measurement scales are developed to assist in evaluating partnership relationships over time. The model is empirically tested to investigate the relationships between key mediating variables of social marketing partnerships.

This paper presents a validated 5th P Partnership model for social marketers, accelerating social marketing’s capacities to deliver systemic transformation for complex problems with far reaching collective and sustainable consequences and UN SDG #17.

Current online business development redistributes last-mile logistics (LML) from consumer to retailer and producer. This paper identifies how empirical LML research has used and defined logistic performance measures for key grocery industry actors. Using a multi-actor perspective on logistic performance, the authors discuss coordination issues important for optimising LML at system level.

A semi-systematic literature review of 85 publications was conducted to analyse performance measurements used for effectiveness and efficiency, and for which actors.

Few empirical LML studies exist examining coordination between key actors or on system level. Most studies focus on logistic performance measurements for retailers and/or consumers, not producers. Key goals and resource utilisations lack research, including all key actors and system-level coordination.

Current LML performance research implies a risk for sub-optimisation. Through expanding on efficiency and effectiveness interplay at system level and introducing new research perspectives, the review highlights the need to revaluate single-actor, single-measurement studies.

No established scientific guidelines exist for solving LML optimisation in the grocery industry. For managers, it is important to thoroughly consider efficiency and effectiveness in LML execution, coordination and collaboration among key actors, avoiding sub-optimisations for business and sustainability.

The study contributes to current knowledge by reviewing empirical research on LML performance in the grocery sector, showing how previous research disregards the importance of multiple actors and coordination of actors, efficiency and effectiveness.

The article analyzes how oil price fluctuations are reflected in the management of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) based on its balance sheet (BS) and particularly how oil price fluctuations affect Pemex's corporate income.

The author uses a vector auto-regressive (VAR) model with seven variables for the period 1977–2019. The first variable is the oil price and the others belong to Pemex's BS: total income, sales revenue, operating costs, investment, payment of taxes, duties and contributions (TDC) and the payment of interest on debt.

The results show that in an environment of elevated fiscal burden that is of an excessive payment of tax by Pemex to the state, the price increases positively affected the income obtained from sales, but that surplus is used primarily to finance the fiscal expenses coming from the TDC, which is associated with the production and commercialization of hydrocarbons; physical and financial investment is disconnected from the evolution of price. Under a fiscal scheme that extracts, on average, 98.46% of Pemex's income, investment is not a priority.

The findings of the research have important implications for Mexico's energy policy because of affecting the long-term financial and productive sustainability of Pemex.

First, the study contributes to the literature on oil prices in Mexico by analyzing Pemex's fiscal burden from a corporate finance perspective, an area in which there are few rigorous studies. Second, the study contributes by providing quantitative support for the relationship between oil prices and BS variables through the VAR model.