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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 November 2023

Donna Marshall, Jakob Rehme, Aideen O'Dochartaigh, Stephen Kelly, Roshan Boojihawon and Daniel Chicksand

This article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, the authors use a new conceptualization of…

Abstract

Purpose

This article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, the authors use a new conceptualization of controversial industries, focused on harm and solutions, to investigate the reports of 28 companies in seven controversial industries: Agricultural Chemicals, Alcohol, Armaments, Coal, Gambling, Oil and Tobacco.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors thematically analyzed company reports to determine if companies in controversial industries discuss their controversial issues in their reporting, if and how they communicate the harm caused by their products or services, and what solutions they provide.

Findings

From this study data the authors introduce a new legitimacy reporting method in the controversial industries literature: the solutions companies offer for the harm caused by their products and services. The authors find three solution reporting methods: no solution, misleading solution and less-harmful solution. The authors also develop a new typology of reporting strategies used by companies in controversial industries based on how they report their key controversial issue and the harm caused by their products or services, and the solutions they offer. The authors identify seven reporting strategies: Ignore, Deny, Decoy, Dazzle, Distort, Deflect and Adapt.

Research limitations/implications

Further research can test the typology and identify strategies used by companies in different institutional or regulatory settings, across different controversial industries or in larger populations.

Practical implications

Investors, consumers, managers, activists and other stakeholders of controversial companies can use this typology to identify the strategies that companies use to report controversial issues. They can assess if reports admit to the controversial issue and the harm caused by a company's products and services and if they provide solutions to that harm.

Originality/value

This paper develops a new typology of reporting strategies by companies in controversial industries and adds to the theory and discourse on social and environmental reporting (SER) as well as the literature on controversial industries.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 36 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 September 2022

Dagmara Lewicka

The importance of trust in student–university relations is relevant not only for the quality of the educational process and the satisfaction with studying achieved by students…

1674

Abstract

Purpose

The importance of trust in student–university relations is relevant not only for the quality of the educational process and the satisfaction with studying achieved by students, but also for the importance of positive evaluation of HEIs to others. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify the stages and mechanisms that build trust in student–university relations, the causes of trust violation and trust repair practices.

Design/methodology/approach

Public university students from Poland (16) and Germany (12) took part in the study based on semi-structured interviews. The research procedure followed an inductive approach. In addition, the critical events technique was used to identify trust violation and trust repair practices.

Findings

The study identifies the stages of the HEIs trust building process and the mechanisms upon which it is built. It attempts to catalogue trust violations, distinguishing three groups of “perpetrators” and categories of their differentiation in terms of their impact on trust. The study indicates ad hoc, informal methods of trust repair applied at HEIs and their conditions.

Practical implications

This study provides useful guidance for managers on how to build and maintain trust in HEIs.

Originality/value

The issue of trust building in HEIs is relatively new and therefore has not been sufficiently recognised to date. This study is the first to the author's knowledge to comprehensively address the problem of trust building, pointing out the mechanisms on which the formation of trust in HEIs is based. This study provides a novel contribution to the limited literature on trust violation and trust repair in HEIs.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 35 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 5 March 2018

Louca-Mai Brady, Lorna Templeton, Paul Toner, Judith Watson, David Evans, Barry Percy-Smith and Alex Copello

Young people’s involvement should lead to research, and ultimately services, that better reflect young people’s priorities and concerns. Young people with a history of treatment…

4464

Abstract

Purpose

Young people’s involvement should lead to research, and ultimately services, that better reflect young people’s priorities and concerns. Young people with a history of treatment for alcohol and/or drug problems were actively involved in the youth social behaviour and network therapy study. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of that involvement on the study and what was learnt about involving young people in drug and alcohol research.

Design/methodology/approach

The initial plan was to form a young people’s advisory group (YPAG), but when this proved problematic the study explored alternative approaches in collaboration with researchers and young people. Input from 17 young people informed all key elements of the study.

Findings

Involvement of young people needs to be dynamic and flexible, with sensitivity to their personal experiences. Engagement with services was crucial both in recruiting young people and supporting their ongoing engagement. This research identified a need to critically reflect on the extent to which rhetorics of participation and involvement give rise to effective and meaningful involvement for young service users. It also highlights the need for researchers to be more flexible in response to young people’s personal circumstances, particularly when those young people are “less frequently heard”.

Research limitations/implications

This research highlights the need for researchers to be more flexible in response to young people’s personal circumstances, particularly when those young people are “less frequently heard”. It highlights the danger of young people in drug and alcohol research being unintentionally disaffected from involvement through conventional approaches and instead suggests ways in which young people could be involved in influencing if and how they participate in research.

Practical implications

There is an apparent contradiction between dominant discourses and cultures of health services research (including patient and public involvement) that often do not sit easily with ideas of co-production and young people-centred involvement. This paper provides an alternative approach to involvement of young people that can help to enable more meaningful and effective involvement.

Originality/value

The flexible and young people-centred model for involvement which emerged from this work provides a template for a different approach. This may be particularly useful for those who find current practice, such as YPAG, inaccessible.

Details

Drugs and Alcohol Today, vol. 18 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1745-9265

Keywords

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