Search results

In an examination of class inequality in education in the Republic of Ireland over the period from the late 1990s to the mid 2000s, this chapter reveals class inequality in educational outcomes within social groups as well as across social groups, and places particular attention on the non-manual group. Within this group, a clear distinction can be made between those classified as having an ‘intermediate non-manual’ position and those classified as holding an ‘other (lower) non-manual’ position in terms of their educational performance at secondary education and subsequent access to higher education, which persists over the period. This finding has been revealed by disaggregating the non-manual group into the ‘intermediate non-manual’ and ‘other (lower) non-manual’ groups, a practice that has not been used by analysts in the past in the Irish context. In this chapter, we engage with theories of class which offer a framework for understanding educational inequality and in particular, why members of the same social class groups experience different educational outcomes.

The three papers in this section include theoretical and conceptual discussions, such as the definition of social class, how social mechanisms can be elaborated and tested, and a discussion on occupational segregation by cognitive ability.

The purpose of this paper is to compare internal and external job mobility (quits and promotions) as separate mechanisms for workers improving earnings and job fit.

The authors sample the core workforce from the British Household Panel Survey, estimating the effects of quits and promotions on two sets of outcomes. The first is subjective; satisfaction with work, pay and hours. The second is objective realities about the job; gross monthly pay and weekly working hours. The authors use linear fixed-effects estimation to control for individual heterogeneity.

Quits and promotions are distinctly different mechanisms for improving earnings and job fit. Quits improve measures of job fit (satisfaction with work, pay and hours) but have little effect on earnings. Internal promotions bring earnings growth but have little effect on job fit. The findings shed light what drives “voluntary” mobility; internal mobility may be driven by higher “reservation wages” and career progression, while external mobility may be driven by job matching and the need to find more appropriate work.

Researchers should treat mobile labour markets with scepticism. The growth of “boundaryless careers” may closer resemble a release valve for poor working conditions in a varied market than a growth in new opportunities for earnings and career progression.

Studies of job mobility overwhelmingly focus on the effects quitting without explicitly comparing this mobility to promotions. This omission gives an incomplete picture of mobility. Bringing promotions back into the discussion, helps to understand why workers commit to internal careers and firm tenure. The paper shows that quits and promotions yield distinctly different outcomes for core workers, despite both mobility types being labelled “voluntary”. Thus, the authors show that inequality in earnings and working conditions is closely tied to access to the “life-chances” of mobility; those who are able to pursue promotion are rewarded objectively; those who quit for a new employer seek a better job fit.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the driving forces of environmental management practices in mining and manufacturing firms using data from Ghana.

Prior exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, based on questionnaire survey data, were used to study the driving forces of environmental management practices in the extractive and manufacturing firms using institutional theory.

Environmental management practices by organizations in Ghana are driven by regulatory and the mimetic pressures. Normative pressure has no significant effect on environmental management practices. The authors found no difference between the extractive and the manufacturing sectors as far as the results are concerned.

The results indicate the importance of regulatory bodies in developing good environmental policies that are implemented and monitored in order to achieve improved environmental performance. Effective implementation of environmental policies is likely to motivate other firms to mimic the actions of implementing organizations. One limitation of this work is the use of data from Ghana. It is important for other researchers to assess these relationships using data from a wider geographical area.

The results indicate that organizations implement environmental management practices as a result of coercive and mimetic pressures. In practice, it is therefore important for the regulatory bodies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency Ghana, to be very innovative in developing good environmental regulations that are monitored to ensure implementation by all polluting sources. This is because the results indicate that the monitoring of regulations by regulatory bodies seems to be connected to the implementation of these regulations. Such implementation is also expected to be benchmarked by other firms, thereby influencing the “greening” agenda in Africa.

The study illustrates and provides some insights, and builds on the literature in the area of green supply chain strategies for a developing country’s environment. This is one of the few studies that investigate the driving forces of environmental management implementation using the institutional theory based on data from the African business environment.

This paper aims to investigate, using an exploratory approach, how environmental values and beliefs about sustainable labelling shape consumer attitude towards sustainable wine.

Data were collected with an online survey from 495 Italian wine drinkers in 2013. The survey was advertised through websites, blogs, social networks and emails. Based on background research and literature review, ten hypotheses were tested. Then a structural equation model was constructed using latent variables to test the causal links specified in the model.

The results show that attitude towards sustainable-labelled wine is shaped by both environmental and quality beliefs about sustainable wine, while it is not affected by the economic dimension of sustainability. In addition, age appears to have a slight effect on attitude because young consumers seem to be more interested in sustainability aspects of food products than older people are.

The paper suggests that company communication strategies should focus on sustainable issues to meet the requirements of environmentally conscious consumers. At the same time, sustainable certification on wine labels may help wineries to become more competitive using verifiable sustainable claims to differentiate their products.

The work adds to the literature on wine marketing by evaluating which variables influence consumer attitude towards sustainable-labelled wine and, at the same time, to what extent sustainable aspects are important during wine purchase.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

This chapter forwards a justification, an explanation, and numerous examples related to an emerging integrated sustainability management theory and its connections to other management theories and key-related concepts including systems and immersion. An integrated approach to sustainability solutions presents several implications for educators, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, including the need to consider urgent and immediate responses that address sustainability crises at multiple levels and in multiple systems. This chapter is intended to promote reflection, dialogue, and a collective call to action to secure a sustainable world for present and future generations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of both environmental practices and corporate environmental performance on competitiveness. It determines the mediating effects of corporate environmental performance on the relationship between environmental practices and competitiveness.

This study adopts a cross-sectional survey method. The data were collected from 155 industrial companies from Libya and analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results indicate that environmental performance partially mediates the relationship between environmental practices and competitiveness. The mediating effects occur between competitiveness and green conventional practices, organisational practices and stakeholders’ integration.

The study used a self-reported questionnaire completed by managers in Libyan industrial companies. As such, the survey data might be subject to social desirability. Additionally, the results of the study may be generalised only to a similar environment and stage of development.

The results can help companies better understand how to improve their current resources base by building incremental capabilities, which, in turn, protect the surrounding environment and enhance their competitiveness.

This study is the first to have considered the issue of incremental capabilities in the environmental domain, which can contribute significantly to better understanding the role of incremental capabilities in improving the competitiveness of companies. Additionally, it provides empirical evidence on the state-of-art of environmental practices and their consequences in less-developed countries which are characterised by scarcity of research.

Differences in institutional environment and governance structures pave the way for heterogeneous nature of different businesses; this, in turn, shapes the way various sections of society act toward each other enacting their responsibilities. Taking into account the unique institutional environment and governance structures of firms in developing economies, this paper aims to build on the “stakeholder theory” to address the issue of the implementation of corporate social responsibilities (CSR) practices in these economies, particularly India. This paper also aims to uncover the saliency (legitimacy and power) of different stakeholder groups on different aspects of a firm’s CSR activities. Further, as most of the firms in developing economies are family-run firms, the paper examines role of organizational leadership in shaping firms’ CSR strategies.

Integrating literature on “stakeholder theory” and CSR, this paper examines the implementation of different CSR practices by family-run firms in India. This paper uses survey research to collect data from 80 privately held family firms operating in apparel and textiles industry in India. The data have been collected from respondents holding top leadership positions in the sample firms.

The findings indicate that pressure from primary stakeholders (i.e. customers, employees and shareholders) and CSR-oriented leadership belief significantly influence organizational implementation of CSR practices, whereas pressure from secondary stakeholder (i.e. community groups and non-governmental organizations) was found to be insignificant. Further, CSR-oriented leadership belief moderated the relationship between primary stakeholder pressure and organizational implementation of CSR practices. The findings equally highlighted lower saliency of secondary stakeholder’s legitimacy and power because of weak institutional mechanisms, while on the other hand, the primary stakeholders exert considerable power because of the direct nature of transactional legitimacy, further accentuated by the governance structure in family firms.

This paper is among the very few studies that address the issue of CSR among family-run businesses in developing economies. Existing frameworks on analyzing firm’s implementation of CSR practices does not recognize the inherent heterogeneity among different stakeholder groups. Recognizing that different stakeholders have different levels of influence over firms, this paper categorized the stakeholders’ groups into primary and secondary to analyze their differential impact over firms. Additionally, given the critical role of leadership belief in the implementation of CSR practices, this paper analyzed the moderated effect of CSR-oriented leadership belief toward developing a more robust model of CSR implementation.