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This paper aims to point out a way to overcome the circumstances that arose out of the global neoliberal system. It is argued that this is possible when all relevant actors in society cooperate and that a change in a way of thinking in the private sector needs to come from within.

The paper searches the alternative to neoliberalism in the social economy and responsibility paradigms by examining their theoretical and normative standpoints linking them to practical views.

The paper argues that the solution to the hegemonic neoliberalism is the new model of social economy which can be put in force only by simultaneous cooperation of all key actors in a society, and especially a driving force behind the existing economic system – the for‐profit sector. Lately it seems that its actors have, indeed, more actively take over their role within social economy, acknowledging the importance of the socially responsible behaviour.

The paper introduces a four‐leaf clover model of social economy actors and integrates the social economy paradigm with the notion of social responsibility of the for‐profit sector.

This purpose of this paper is to concern with the extent to which social economies can be constructed as alternatives to private and state markets and their purported neoliberal tendencies.

The paper presents a meta-evaluation of an integrated set of projects supported by philanthropic investment to build finance, skills, entrepreneurship, social enterprises and non-monetised trading in the age sector in Northern Ireland.

The programme had important successes in stimulating social entrepreneurship, improving employability and showing how social enterprises can be incubated and scaled to offer new services for older people. It also improved skills in contract readiness, but this did not translate into new borrowing or trading models, even among larger NGOs.

In that all economies are, to some extent, constructed and socially mediated, there is value in thinking through the components, relationships and projects that might make the ecosystem work more effectively. This should not just offer a counterweight to the market but could explore how an alternative arena for producing and consuming goods and services can be formed, especially among potentially vulnerable age communities.

The albeit, small-scale investment in a range of interrelated projects shows not only the value in experimentation but also the limits in planned attempts to construct social markets. The analysis shows that social economies need to respond to the priorities of older people, grown from community initiatives and better connected to the capabilities and resources of the sector.

This paper examines the role of government procurement as a social policy mechanism within a multilateral open trading system. Government regulations globally are being transformed to foster more responsible business conduct in multinational enterprises (MNEs). Yet, concern that sustainability may present a discriminatory barrier to trade has stalled the progress of sustainable public procurement (SPP) at the international level, raising questions regarding the role and scope of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) to align taxpayer-funded contracts with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.

With a focus on social sustainability, this paper reviews the grey and academic literature to assess the changing landscape of public procurement policy and supply chain legislation in high-income countries.

Frontrunner nations are adopting a mandatory approach to sustainable public procurement and due diligence legislation is elevating supply chain risk from reputational damage to legal liability. While technological innovation and the clean, green production of manufactured goods dominates the sustainable public procurement literature, the social aspects of sustainability poverty, inequality and human rights remain underrepresented.

The scope of this paper is limited to the examination of government procurement covered by the WTO-GPA (2012). Smaller value contracts, under the WTO-GPA thresholds and the category of defence are beyond the scope of the paper.

The paper focusses on the underserved topic of social sustainability in business-to-government (B2G) – business to government – supply chains arguing that for responsible business conduct to become a competitive advantage, it must be more meaningfully rewarded on the demand-side of all taxpayer-funded contracts in organisation for economic co-operation and development countries. The paper introduces the idea of priceless procurement as a mechanism to build system capacity in the evaluation of non-financial sustainability objectives.

To build the capacity to stimulate competition based on social and environmental policy objectives, the paper introduces the concept of priceless procurement in B2G contracts.

The present chapter is about social and cultural reproduction in education. However, it is not just concerned to illustrate again how classroom events reflect the inertia of dominant State ideologies. Rather, with a focus on classroom work and student and teacher talk, I will try to uncover some of the ways in which reproduction can be disrupted and disturbed as a basis for radical pedagogy (see also e.g. Giroux, 1983; Taylor, 2000). This commitment is in line with Troyna’s (1994) view of critical social research as research that doesn’t just describe what is going on, but also tries in some way to suggest what can be done to change things. In this way the chapter can hopefully offer something toward the rethinking of education practices. One hundred and twenty hours of participant observation and 20 hours of structured observation in mathematics lessons in three schools have been drawn on. Eighty and 10 of these (respectively) were in one school. In addition 30 conversational interviews with students and 10 with maths teachers have been made. All of these activities were part of a broader ethnographic study that involved half-time fieldwork in these schools from August 1997 to March 1999.

This paper aims to present an analysis of the role of financial incentives, moral hazard and conflicts of interests leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.

The study’s analysis has identified common structural flaws throughout the securitization food chain. These structural flaws include inappropriate incentives, the absence of punishment, moral hazard and conflicts of interest. This research sees the full impact of these structural flaws when considering their co-occurrence throughout the financial system. The authors address systemic defects in the securitization food chain and examine the inter-relationships among homeowners, mortgage originators, investment banks and investors. The authors also address the role of exogenous factors, including the SEC, AIG, the credit rating agencies, Congress, business academia and the business media.

The study argues that the lack of criminal prosecutions of key financial executives has been a key factor in creating moral hazard. Eight years after the Great Recession ended in the USA, the financial services industry continues to suffer from a crisis of trust with society.

An overwhelming majority of Americans, 89 per cent, believe that the federal government does a poor job of regulating the financial services industry (Puzzanghera, 2014). A study argues that the current corporate lobbying framework undermines societal expectations of political equality and consent (Alzola, 2013). The authors believe the Singapore model may be a useful starting point to restructure regulatory agencies so that they are more responsive to societal concerns and less responsive to special interests. Finally, the widespread perception is that the financial services sector, in particular, is ethically challenged (Ferguson, 2012); perhaps there would be some benefit from the implementation of ethical climate monitoring in firms that have been subject to deferred prosecution agreements for serious ethical violations (Arnaud, 2010).

The authors believe the paper makes a truly original contribution. They provide new insights via their analysis of the role of financial incentives, moral hazard and conflicts of interests leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the underpinning ideas of public procurement allowed for broader outcomes – a more strategic form of public procurement – to emerge. The paper contributes to the literature on public procurement by empirically addressing the evolution of procurement as a government policy lever in New Zealand so as to demonstrate how policy pragmatism can ensure a shift without a complete overhaul of a complex system.

The paper has used a single country case study to examine a recent development in procurement policy. The objectives of the paper are achieved by adopting a unique conceptual framework connecting ideas, sensemaking and bricolage.

The paper provides empirical and conceptual insights about how bricolage, or policy pragmatism, aids in dealing with the constraints of ideational legacies. It demonstrates a particular form of targeting in procurement, common in public administration but not well understood in the procurement field.

Single country case studies lack scientific generalizability. However, they add to the canon of knowledge that is lacking in the field of public procurement in this case. They also provide a stronger starting point for further research especially with respect to comparative studies.

The paper provides an excellent example of the development of procurement policy that is useful for procurement officials from other countries undergoing change or looking to update or create procurement policies. It shows a high-level process of implementation for government priority outcomes from a country well-known for its quality of public management and governance.

New Zealand has significant equity issues especially as related to its indigenous population. Procurement is being used increasingly as a lever to improve equity. This article includes information about New Zealand's uptake of social procurement.

This paper fulfils a need for greater understanding of how policy is “put together” and the dynamics at major points of change or the implications of policy changes. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this case study of procurement policy in New Zealand is original, and the author is aware of no other similar work emanating from New Zealand in the academic journals.

The objective of this paper is to introduce and describe a conceptual framework of corporate and business ethics across organizations in terms of ethical structures, ethical processes and ethical performance.

A framework is outlined and positioned incorporating an ethical frame of reference in the field of organizational chain management.

A number of areas and sub‐areas of corporate and business ethics are framed in the context across organizations.

The introduced framework should be seen as a seed for further development and refinement. It provides opportunities for further research of ethical concerns across organizations.

Organizations may benefit from the findings and insights presented and they may be used to enhance their ability to manage, monitor and evaluate ethical business practices across organizations.

Changing societal and market patterns may enforce organizations to address ethical concerns across organizations. A myopic approach restricted to the judicial system may become insufficient and unsatisfactory from the perspective of other stakeholders of the organization.

The framework makes a contribution bringing in ethical concerns across organizations, providing a basis for their ethical values and culture, as well as asymmetric relationships in terms of power and dependence. The authors believe that a true learning organization needs to realise the importance of an extended view of its endeavors of corporate and business ethics in terms of ethical structures, ethical processes and ethical performance across organizations.

Purpose– The article aims to examine principles of fair trade in public procurement in Europe, focusing on legal dimensions related to the European Public Procurement Directives. Design/methodology/approach– The article situates public procurement of fair trade products in relation to the rise of non‐state regulatory initiatives, highlighting how they have entered into new governance dynamics in the public sector and play a part in changing practices in sustainable procurement. A review of the legal position on fair trade in procurement law is informed by academic research and campaigning experience from the Fair Trade Advocacy Office. Findings– Key findings are that the introduction of fair trade products into European public procurement has been marked by legal ambiguity, having developed outside comprehensive policy or legal guidelines. Following a 2012 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is suggested that the legal position for fair trade in procurement has become clearer, and that forthcoming change to the Public Procurement Directives may facilitate the uptake of fair trade products by public authorities. However potential for future expansion of the public sector “market” for fair trade is approached with caution: purchasing fair trade products as a marker of sustainability, which started to be embedded within procurement practice in the 2000 s, is challenged by current European public austerity measures. Research limitations/implications– Suggestions for future research include the need for systematic cross‐institutional and multi‐country comparison of the legal and governance dimensions of procurement practice with regard to fair trade. Practical implications– The paper provides a clarification of current state‐of‐play with regard to legal aspects of fair trade in public procurement of utility for policy and advocacy discussion. Originality/value– The article provides needed elaboration on an under‐researched topic area of value to academia and policy makers.

Economic rationalism is a major driver of the education system in many parts of the world. In the scramble to facilitate economic rationalism, the education needs required at national level to keep nations, like Australia, competitive into the twenty‐first century have not been fully considered. Such countries have ignored the needs of education for the first‐tier requirements of global organisations. First‐tier decision making is that aspect of centralized decision making activities, usually in highly developed countries, undertaken by those who can direct and control organizations, confining the rest of the world to lower levels of activity and income. Income, status, authority and consumption patterns radiate out from this tier along a declining curve. Neglecting the needs of the first tier has relegated education users to a follower, second‐ or third‐tier position. This paper considers this three‐tier system and how it relates to the Australian context that aspires to a first‐tier position.

Two pillars of Western culture are the free market doctrine and democracy. The ability of these pillars to generate behavior that converges to a global ethical system is investigated. The market mechanism is no longer as described by Adam Smith, it is oligopolistic. Strategic architecture is outside the resources of many firms, a value free morality prevails, and government intervenes in the market. People believe that they are better off than in the past. However, the gap between the “haves” and “have‐nots” is widening. Market doctrine does not conform to ethical principles. Market freedom requires choice; it benefits corporations giving rise to three diverging classes in society. This type of imperialism potentially contains the seeds of its own destruction.