Search results
1 – 10 of over 14000The purpose of this paper is to reflect on those “meeting points” and “encountering places” where the action of individuals, families, corporations, NGOs and public policies can…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on those “meeting points” and “encountering places” where the action of individuals, families, corporations, NGOs and public policies can optimize the advancement of social citizenship within the European context.
Design/methodology/approach
An analysis of the worlds of welfare capitalism is contrasted with a corporate social responsibility (CSR) typology of policy governance. It serves the purpose of highlighting not only institutional arrangements and operational welfare rationales, but also value‐systems and cultural tenets shaping commonalities and diversities in public policy governance in the European Union.
Findings
Considerations are made on the impacts that both the global order and the “new social risks” (NSR) have for the promotion of CSR and the advancement of social citizenship. The case of the reconciliation of work and family life illustrates how CSR might induce a greater role for businesses in welfare development.
Research limitations/implications
Further research is needed to establish the linkages between the welfare regime approach and the models of public policy supports for CSR.
Originality/value
The paper is original in its theoretical linking of welfare mix, CSR and social citizenship with regard to the improvement of citizens’ living conditions.
Details
Keywords
Hasan Aydin and Muhammed Cinkaya
The aspects of global citizenship, education and diversity are framing a paradigm that encapsulates how education can develop the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes of…
Abstract
Purpose
The aspects of global citizenship, education and diversity are framing a paradigm that encapsulates how education can develop the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes of learners needed for securing a world which is more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable. The determination of students’ attitudes toward global citizenship education and diversity is a phenomenal issue of the past several decades. This study aims to develop an attitude scale to quantify the attitudes of students, the content of courses and instructors toward global citizenship education and diversity.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the factor structure and internal consistency of “Global Citizenship Education and Diversity Scale” (GCEDS) were analyzed, and validity and reliability of the scale were assessed. Two sample groups of participants were used in the assessment of the scale. The first sample group (exploratory factor analysis group) was composed of 147, and the second group (confirmatory factor analysis [CFA] group) was composed of 257 undergraduate students from three different large public universities in Turkey.
Findings
CFA confirmed the structure that emerged in the explanatory factor analysis. In this context, “GCEDS” is a valid and reliable scale.
Details
Keywords
Heidi Hirsto, Saija Katila and Johanna Moisander
The purpose of the paper is to discuss and illustrate how contemporary market discourses rearticulate socio-political relationships and identities, including the rights, duties…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to discuss and illustrate how contemporary market discourses rearticulate socio-political relationships and identities, including the rights, duties, and opportunities of individuals and categories of individuals as citizens. More specifically, the purpose is to analyze how “economic citizenship” is articulated and negotiated in the intersection of (Nordic) welfare state ideals and shareholder-oriented market discourses. The paper further elaborates on how different identity markers, especially gender and class, intersect in these articulations and contribute to exclusionary practices.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper approaches the articulation of economic citizenship through an empirical study that focusses on business media representations and online discussions of a major factory shutdown in Finland. Drawing from discourse theory and the notions of representational intersectionality and translocational positionality, the paper analyzes how gender and class intersect in the construction of economic citizenship in the business media.
Findings
The study illustrates how financialist market discourses render citizenship intelligible in exceedingly economic terms, overriding social and political dimensions of citizenship. The business media construct hierarchies of economic citizens where two categories of actors claim full economic citizenship: the transnational corporation and the transnational investor. Within these categories, particular systems of privilege intersect in similar ways, rendering them masculine and upper middleclass. Whether interpreted as hegemonic or counter-hegemonic, the financialist discourses rearticulate the social hierarchies and moral landscape in Finnish society.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to critical/feminist management studies by elaborating on the role of the business media as an important site of political identity work, positioning, and moral regulation, where neoliberal ideas, based upon and reproducing masculine and elitist systems of privilege, appear as normalized and self-evidently valued.
Details
Keywords
Yitzhak Berman and David Phillips
This paper introduces the concept of ‘social quality’ as a measure of quality‐of‐life and it sets out a framework for identifying social indicators of the relationship between…
Abstract
This paper introduces the concept of ‘social quality’ as a measure of quality‐of‐life and it sets out a framework for identifying social indicators of the relationship between information and social quality. Social quality has four elements: socio ‐ economic security, social inclusion, social cohesion and empowerment. Illustrative indicators are identified at both national (Demos) and community (Ethnos) level for four different aspects of each social quality element: input, process, outcome and impact. Then the distribution of information and social quality between Demos and Ethnos levels is investigated. It is concluded that usable indicators of all aspects of each element of social quality can be identified and that analysis of informational social quality at Demos and Ethnos level can add to knowledge about information provision and policy, particularly with reference to minority and marginal communities.
Details
Keywords
The aim of the article is to discuss the challenges from immigration to Nordic (gender) politics, theories and research. The research question is to what extent Nordic welfare and…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the article is to discuss the challenges from immigration to Nordic (gender) politics, theories and research. The research question is to what extent Nordic welfare and gender equality politics is based on exclusive solidarity biased towards the native majorities. A key issue is how Nordic gender theory and research has addressed multiple inequalities. The article briefly revisits the academic debates about gender equality, diversity and multiculturalism, which arguably represent two different paradigms: multicultural approaches have addressed the accommodation of minorities with diversity as the key concept, while feminist approaches have focused on gender (in)equality with gender as the key concept.
Design/methodology/approach
The intersectional approach suggests that increased migration and mobility present similar challenges for the two bodies of thought to address complex and multiple inequalities within and beyond the nation state. The main part explores “the multicultural dilemma” in greater detail focusing on the intersections between gender and etho‐national minorities in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Findings
Perceptions of diversity and gender equality/women's rights are contextual and dynamic as intersecting diversities and inequalities are embedded in national histories, institutions and policies. Scholars have demonstrated that the discourse about women's rights and gender equality has become an intrinsic part of Nordic identities and belongings. The article suggests that the new forms of inequalities among women can be interpreted as a Nordic gender equality paradox between the relative inclusion of the native majority women and the relative marginalization of women from diverse ethnic minorities in society.
Originality/value
The intersectionality approach to gender and ethnicity in Scandinavia is in this article combined with a transnational approach to gender, diversity and migration.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this article is to assess whether the ECS succeeds in respecting the needs of broadcast content, especially given its accepted importance by the European Union and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to assess whether the ECS succeeds in respecting the needs of broadcast content, especially given its accepted importance by the European Union and the member states for society at a social, political, educational and cultural level.
Design/methodology/approach
The article looks at the issue of access to broadcast content from the perspective of the viewer or citizen. In doing so, the article focuses on specific provisions in the ECS which aim to ensure access to infrastructure: Articles 5 and 6 Access Directive and Article 31 Universal Service Directive and questions whether these provisions provide sufficiently for a diverse range of broadcast content.
Findings
The paper concludes that protection awarded is focussed more on market considerations than non‐economic considerations and that citizens' interests, as opposed to those of the consumer, are not adequately protected.
Originality/value
This paper considers the telecommunications framework from a broadcasting perspective in some detail; most analyses of this legislation emphasise competition law issues in a telecommunications framework.
Details
Keywords
Roberto Fernández-Villarino and J. Andrés Domínguez-Gómez
This study aims to explore how responsible corporate behaviour, specifically self-imposed financial regulatory control, might subsequently be reflected in the financial…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how responsible corporate behaviour, specifically self-imposed financial regulatory control, might subsequently be reflected in the financial performance of companies subject to such regulation.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors aim to explore how financial compliance in the form of the Economic Control Regulation (ECR) has impacted on the financial performance of professional football clubs in Spain. To this purpose, the authors adopted a quasi-experimental before and after study design. This type of design assesses the object of study before and after a specific event in order to determine whether this event has had any effects on the object. In this case, the event was the coming into effect of the ECR in the fiscal year of 2012, and the object hypothetically affected was the clubs’ economic performance.
Findings
The authors can confirm that in general terms and for the whole set of clubs analysed, the ECR has had a strong and positive effect on financial performance.
Research limitations/implications
In this study, the authors wish to establish a link between the idea of “compliance” and that of “responsible corporate management practice”. It is not just a matter of compliance with the law. The fact of complying with certain laws could, in general terms, or from the point of view of common sense, be qualified as “responsible behaviour”. However, under the contemporary concept of corporate responsibility, compliance with the law is a behaviour that must be taken for granted. Responsibility, therefore, would entail going beyond such expected behaviour to one that exceeds the environment's expectation of the corporate actor.
Practical implications
What extent improvements in financial performance have also boosted social performance. Confirming such a positive effect endorses the argument that ethical improvements in corporate culture have a general effect on business sustainability in its different aspects: economic, social, environmental and in governance.
Social implications
The authors may foresee that the culture of compliance will spread from the finance departments to other management areas. Its connection with ethical business practice is directly linked to the more complex concept of the “citizen company”. There are suggest interesting bases on which professional football clubs might move from a traditional profit-oriented company model towards a more contemporary one oriented towards relationships of integrity with the sport's environment. This study shows that the ECR has been a starting point for the development of Spanish professional football clubs towards this type of “citizen company”.
Originality/value
It was a single-sector study whose principal value lies in the verification of whether responsible economic management (the main consequence of applying the ECR) had any effects on company profits, financial results and other important indicators. In addition to fostering responsibility, this new management model involves a special innovation, as it is based on self-regulation (i.e. on regulations not imposed by national or supranational states), designed and implemented to ensure the sector's viability.
Details
Keywords
Despite the growing amount of research on the social and organizational role of legitimacy, very little is known about the subtle discursive processes through which organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the growing amount of research on the social and organizational role of legitimacy, very little is known about the subtle discursive processes through which organizational changes are legitimated in contemporary society. The purpose of this paper is to explore the subtle processes of interdiscursivity and intertextuality through which an organization constructs a sense of legitimacy.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the case of a newly privatized oil company in a transitional, post-communist economy, the authors’ research uses critical discourse analysis to analyze the annual reports, corporate press releases, and relevant media from the four years following privatization.
Findings
The authors argue for a relational understanding of legitimacy construction that emphasizes how legitimacy relies on the multiple processes of intertextuality linking corporate narratives and media texts. Corporate narratives are not produced solely by the discourses that occur at the individual and organizational levels; they are also produced by the much broader discourses that occur at the societal level.
Originality/value
This study’s main contribution is that it reveals the intertextual and interdiscursive construction of corporate narratives, which is a key element in understanding how discourses around privatization are interlinked and draw upon other macro-level discourses to construct legitimacy.
Details
Keywords
This paper presents an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by supply chain management undergraduates in response to the question: “What is sustainability?” Having to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by supply chain management undergraduates in response to the question: “What is sustainability?” Having to explain sustainability pictorially forced students to distill what the essence of sustainability meant to them and provided insights into how they perceived sustainability and their roles in achieving sustainability in the context of supply chain management.
Design/methodology/approach
Students were asked to draw and answer the question “What is sustainability?” These drawings were discussed/interpreted in class. All drawings were initially examined quantitatively, before a sample of four were selected for presentation here.
Findings
Freehand drawing can be used as part of a critical pedagogy to create a visual representation to bypass cognitive verbal processing routes. This allows students to produce clear, more critical and inclusive images of their understanding of a topic regardless of their vocabulary.
Practical implications
The authors offer this as a model for educators seeking alternative methods for engaging with sustainability and for creating a learning environment where students can develop their capacity for critical self-reflection.
Originality/value
This study shows how a collaborative learning experience facilitates learners demonstrating their level of understanding of sustainability.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0718
Details