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The ethics of recent productivity improvement strategies requires an open and inclusive dialogue among diverse stakeholders, as well as customer-based accountability. By contrast, the expertise of managers in the past tended to drive a public productivity improvement process that involved little dialogue and customer-based accountability. This article examines fundamental values in productivity improvement and relates these to increased dialogue and cusomer-based accountability.

Discusses the purposes, structure, processes, and pitfalls associated with government‐business alliances built through very broad‐based strategic planning. The need for these aliances often arises from issues or threats that neither party can resolve by itself. Geovernment and business alliances exist in all societies, varying only in frequency of use and effectiveness. Very broad‐based strategic planning (VBBSP) efforts seek a broad consensus through an inclusionary approach that reaches out to embrace representatives of the relevant constituencies. Paralleling the examination of VBBSP skills and efforts, addresses the use of VBBSP approaches as a technique for developing an organizational vision among various constituents who make up an organization. Concludes not only that government‐business alliances are common and essential but also that VBBSP may be the most effective way to address the different processes and outcomes related to these alliances. VBBSP also offers considerable promise for building intra‐organizational consensus.

This essay explores the norms of civic duty, based on the legal, ethical, and practical interpretations of democratic citizenship. The authors find that interpretations of civic duty are dynamic and touch on a fundamental political question: What is the proper balance between elected officials and the professional civil service in a liberal democracy? They conclude that the norms of civic duty are political interpretations concerning an institutional struggle over governance as much as they are matters of law, ethics, and best practice. Successive interpretations of civic provide an opportunity for the renewal of citizenship while channeling political conflict into liberal democracy’s established institutions

This study aims to investigate the effects of religiosity level on the shopping orientation and behavior of Muslim customers and how to store image moderates this relationship.

This study uses a positive approach and partial least square analysis technique on samples of Muslim customers in major cities in Indonesia, who have purchased products in the Syariah supermarket such as Sakinah Supermarket and 212 supermarkets at least twice within the past three months. The sampling method used in this study is convenience sampling, with a total of 117 respondents.

The results reveal that religiosity level significantly affects the Muslim customers’ shopping orientation subsequently impacts consumer shopping behavior. The result is in line with the rising trend by a society that begins to define successful businesses that touch upon the spiritual aspects of the shoppers. Customers with higher religiosity prefer higher quality products and customers who have lesser levels of religiosity establish different shopping characteristics and behavior. This eventually forms an orientation in shopping behavior. Furthermore, it is found that the store image significantly strengthens the influence of the impact of shopping orientations on Muslim customers’ behavior.

Marketers can increase the image of Islamic stores by implementing the principle of a smile, greeting, address to every customer who shops, managing the cashier queue to prevent ikhtilath (meeting between men and women) and adding decorations and calligraphy ornaments. Marketers can create membership cards, posters or billboards about the products that are being discounted or promoted to increase customer numbers image enhancement.

This study used specific variables that represent religiosity in the retail sector. It offers an analysis of how Muslim customers’ religiosity can affect their shopping orientation and behavior. The study is conducted in Indonesia, where research on this topic is still limited.

Using a subsidiary of a multinational mining company in Ghana as a case, the purpose of this study is to examine the formal and informal forms and channels of sustainability reporting in the emerging economy’s context.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted amongst managers and employees of the mining company and members of their host community. Based on the interview themes, archival data were extracted from the 2020 Integrated Annual Report of the case company to corroborate the results from the interviews.

The authors found that most of the stakeholders from the host community interviewed were not aware and, to an extent, not interested in formal sustainability reports. In place of that, the management of the mining subsidiary uses informal channels of communication, including meetings and durbars, to verbally engage the local community and their representatives on sustainability matters. Whilst the formal sustainability reports met the internal requirements set by the parent company, the informal engagements were critical for gaining external legitimacy from the host community and other interest groups. Hence, the authors argue that mining companies and their subsidiaries, particularly in developing economies, need to consider informal forms of sustainability reporting alongside the formal channels to engage local communities to address sustainability issues and avert disruptions to their operations.

Sustainability reporting studies have focussed mainly on annual reports published in print or corporate websites, ignoring informal forms of sustainability reporting. This study sheds light on the informal forms of sustainability reporting. This is important as formal forms of sustainability reporting may be less useful for engaging local mining communities in developing economy contexts.

The effective management of industry/university research linkages has always been a challenge — for both partners. Moreover, a greater understanding is required for the role that these partners can play in developing strong linkages between them, particularly through mechanisms such as liaison offices and technology parks. This paper will examine the role of such mechanisms for the case of Greece. Basing on interviews with individuals in technology transfer process between academia and industry, it will examine the role and function of Academic Liaison Offices and Technology Transfer Units. Moreover, the development of effective strategies which is a matter for serious concern will be proposed in order to bridge the gap between them. Finally, the addressed model, such as a combined bridge linking both partners is to promote the liaison between the two and to overcome the traditional university structures which have not been designed for technology transfer purposes but for research and education only.

The sustainable green movement is significantly gaining momentum around the globe and South Africa needs to follow suit. However, such a movement needs to be significantly tested. It is therefore essential to present both foundation and supplementary research in the primary concepts within this topic in order to lay the groundwork for future analysis. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the cost‐effectiveness of the heat recovery ventilation (HRV) technology incorporated within Lincoln on the Lake, against a direct‐expansion (DX) ducted system of conventional practice utilising the life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) to determine if the sustainable option is the better choice.

This paper is a case study, based on a green building in KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa using a ten step life cycle cost analysis.

In terms of the LCCA performed at Lincoln on the Lake, this case study has found that sustainable measures were far more cost effective over the 20 year study period than that of the comparable conventional system. The life‐cycle cost analysis tool has provided a simple, uniform and predetermined manner for which the life‐cycle costs of sustainable designs can be successfully quantified.

The value which sustainable building practices can pose, has not been fully realised among clients and professionals within the South African construction industry due to lack of proof that value incentives do exist. This paper, therefore, emphasizes that savings can be made over the long term by going the sustainable route.

The objective of this paper is to collate and debate the main issues driving the stakeholder theory academic debate.

First, a discussion of the stakeholder concept is set out before moving on to the history and nature of stakeholder theory. The work proceeds with an attempt to bring together systematically the points of divergence among researchers interested in stakeholder theory, and, finally, there is a brief discussion of these theoretical loopholes in conjunction with a proposed research agenda for the field.

Based on the unification of the theoretically problematic issues, research agenda are put forward with the objective of clarifying doubts and resolving the controversies ongoing among academics. As regards the formulation of stakeholder theory, one question requiring resolution is that of the stakeholder concept itself. Additionally, further research should focus on the boundaries as to what constitutes a stakeholder group as well as defining the criteria for attributing individual membership of one or another group. In practical theoretical application, it is correspondingly necessary to target research on aspects such as conflicts of interest between stakeholders and management difficulties in coping with multiple objectives. Finally, there is a need for research that systematizes the knowledge produced with the objective of attaining the theoretical convergence necessary for the development of stakeholder theory.

The main contribution of this paper derives from the systematization of the various shortcomings that need overcoming within the framework of stakeholder theory and the identification of research agendas.

This paper aims to investigate the link between a sustainable supply chain and companies’ financial performance (FP) and provide empirical evidence about the relationship between these two constructs. This link is an important, but still unclear, subject.

Multivariate measures of sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP are used for Granger causality tests on a large, diverse sample of 3,900 companies in a time frame of eight years (2004-2011).

Results indicate general bidirectional causality between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ margins and revenue. However, the link between firms’ profitability and sustainable supply chain performance is unidirectional. In addition, the recent financial crisis altered this link between the studied constructs. Finally, a wide diversity in relationship patterns between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP emerges when the full sample is divided into different geographical regions and economic sectors as specified by the Global Industry Classification Standard system.

This research makes recommendations for improving several processes, such as stakeholder evaluation of the sustainable supply chain performance of companies worldwide and manager testing of environmental policy outcomes.

Building on the mostly qualitative literature on sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP, this research provides quantitative evidence of the gaps between these constructs. This research contributes to the discussions of supply chain management, environmental practices and the drivers of companies’ environmental and financial success.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how disclosure of employee issues by a large UK bank may or may not promote transparency and accountability (as assessed by the completeness of the account) toward the employee stakeholder group, and to shed light on the implications of the organisation‐society relationship for employee accountability.

The intrinsic stakeholder framework forms the basis of the qualitative, longitudinal analysis. It is adopted as the moral ground for the provision of a “complete” account of employee issues. In seeking to shed light on the organisation‐society relationship and its implications for reporting on employee issues the authors build a broader theoretical framework incorporating various social and political theories dealing with legitimacy, political economy, and language and rhetoric. Interpretive and critical approaches are employed. The analysis draws on an extensive review of published materials relating to employment in the UK retail banking industry and NatWest in particular, impacts of workplace changes occurring in the banking sector, and to the economic, social and political environment over the period of the study.

The findings indicate that what and how NatWest reported on employee issues was influenced by considerations other than transparency and employee accountability. The analysis highlights the complexity of the role of disclosures in the organisation‐society relationship and consequently the limitations of the use of a single theoretical framework to interpret disclosures.

The longitudinal analysis indicates how reporting practices are issue and context dependent and points to the limitations of theorising in corporate social reporting based on a single time frame and a limited analysis of the reported issues.

In highlighting a lack of accountability to employees, the findings have implications for the development of reporting standards on issues relevant to employees. Over time, it is hoped that development of an employee inclusive reporting framework, along with exposure of the contradictory role that reports may play in promoting accountability, will contribute toward improved employee management practices.

This study contributes to the corporate social reporting literature by extending the analysis beyond the firm focused stakeholder management perspective to considering disclosures from a moral perspective and the extent to which the complex organisation‐society relationship might work against the promotion of transparency and accountability toward stakeholders (specifically employees). In this way, through an in‐depth longitudinal analysis of disclosures from multiple perspectives, the paper contributes to theorising of the role of social disclosure in the organisation‐society relationship.