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Forward-thinking companies are interested in promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) while remaining profitable. Some critics have raised concerns regarding the motivations of companies that engage in CSR, suggesting that inauthentic efforts are little more than “green-washing.” However, when efforts are integrated into the core values of a company, it is likely that CSR can result in important benefits for companies and communities. In this study, we present a case study of Cotopaxi, an outdoor products company located in Salt Lake City, UT. During the early spring and summer of 2016, Cotopaxi developed a computer coding and filmmaking workshop for refugee youth to assist them in learning marketable skills for future employment. During the course of the workshop, the authors volunteered with individuals from Cotopaxi, Adobe, Goldman Sachs, and local universities to assist in the workshop. We interviewed volunteers to determine what motivated them to participate. By analyzing the interviews, we identified three specific volunteer types: Experienced Volunteers, Kindred Spirit Volunteers, and Emerging Volunteers. We suggest that by understanding these volunteer types, organizations can leverage overlapping values between volunteers and the organization to create more authentic CSR efforts.

Medical uncertainty is recognized as a critical issue in the sociology of diagnosis and medical sociology more generally, but a neglected focus of this concern is the question of patient decision making. Using a mixed methods approach that draws upon autoethnographic accounts and third-party interviews, we aim to illuminate the dilemmas of patient decision making in the face of uncertainty. How do patients and supportive caregivers go about navigating this state of affairs? What types of patient–doctor/healthcare professional relationships hinder or enhance effective patient decision making? These are the themes we explore in this study by following patients through the sequence of experiencing symptoms, seeking a diagnosis, evaluating treatment protocols, and receiving treatments. In general, three genres of culturally available narratives are revealed in the data: strategic, technoluxe, and unbearable health narratives.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of the DeBoer fellowship, a citizen leadership development program in Myanmar. The challenge in Myanmar of catalyzing transformative change facing government and civil society cannot be overstated. Autocratic, centralized, and a traits-based approach to leadership has been, until recently, the primary way to assess leaders in Myanmar. In this dynamic civic context, new ways of leading and learning are needed.

Interviews of DeBoer fellowship alumni were analyzed using a single case study method. The project focuses on individual participants of the program as the primary unit of analysis. In addition, direct observation and contributions from DeBoer fellowship administration and faculty were used to describe this case study.

The DeBoer fellows understood their challenge as one of energize others, a concept of adaptive leadership. Moreover, individuals experienced deep degrees of transformational development. Civic agency was the least noticable concept that was studied.

Future research could more explicitly measure and examine the degree to which civic agency is being nurtured in leadership development programs.

Civic leadership curriculum designers should be more conscious of adult development theory when choosing programming objectives and activities.

Leadership development initatives in more authoritative systems can be effective developmental experiences for participants who are motivated to improve their organizations and communities.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first effort to analyze a citizen leadership program in Myanmar.

The purpose of this paper is to offer case studies of hedge fund fraud, solutions that could mitigate hedge fund fraud risk, and a proposal for the industry to establish a hedge fund information depository (HFID) where participants/stakeholders could provide information on any hedge fund on regular basis.

Four major hedge fund fraud cases, Bayou Funds, Lipper Holdings, Manhattan Investment Fund and Maricopa Investment Corporation are used as examples of the complete absence of independent oversight and the application of HFID.

The paper finds that investors in the four funds lost more than $1.3 billion. In all four fraud cases, independent oversight and compliance function were conspicuously missing. In each fraud case there was at least one serious alert (warning) that took place at least 14 months prior to SEC first filing against the fund.

Some hedge fund industry stakeholders may reluctantly join HFID due to concern over possibly disclosing information deemed crucial for their own competitive advantage.

Had third parties become aware of the alerts, they could have made a different investment or business decision. Most importantly, this depository would allow all hedge fund industry stakeholders (accountants, administrators, auditors, investors, marketers, prime brokers, custodians and regulators) to communicate with one another regularly.

The paper makes two proposals: the founding of a hedge fund information depository; and outsourcing of the compliance function for hedge funds where it is more cost effective.

Asynchronous current account trends between North and South of the Euro Area were accompanied by significant appreciations of real exchange rate originating in the strong shifts in consumer prices and unit labor costs in the periphery economies relative to the core countries of the Euro Area. The issue is whether the real exchange rate is a significant driver of persisting current account imbalances in the Euro Area considering that, according to some authors, differences in domestic demand are more important than is often realized. In the paper we examine relative importance of real exchange rate and demand shocks according to the current account adjustments in the Euro Area member countries. Our results indicate that while the prices and costs related determinants of external competitiveness affected current account adjustments primarily during the pre-crisis period, demand drivers shaped current account balances mainly during the crisis period.

The 2008/2009 World Financial Crisis underlined the importance of social responsibility for the sustainable functioning of economic markets. Heralding an age of novel heterodox economic thinking, the call for integrating social facets into mainstream economic models has reached unprecedented momentum. Financial Social Responsibility bridges the finance world with society in socially conscientious investments. Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) integrates corporate social responsibility in investment choices. In the aftermath of the 2008/2009 World Financial Crisis, SRI is an idea whose time has come. Socially conscientious asset allocation styles add to expected yield and volatility of securities social, environmental, and institutional considerations. In screenings, shareholder advocacy, community investing, social venture capital funding and political divestiture, socially conscientious investors hone their interest to align financial profit maximization strategies with social concerns. In a long history of classic finance theory having blacked out moral and ethical considerations of investment decision making, our knowledge of socio-economic motives for SRI is limited. Apart from economic profitability calculus and strategic leadership advantages, this paper sheds light on socio-psychological motives underlying SRI. Altruism, need for innovation and entrepreneurial zest alongside utility derived from social status enhancement prospects and transparency may steer investors’ social conscientiousness. Self-enhancement and social expression of future-oriented SRI options may supplement profit maximization goals. Theoretically introducing potential SRI motives serves as a first step toward an empirical validation of Financial Social Responsibility to improve the interplay of financial markets and the real economy. The pursuit of crisis-robust and sustainable financial markets through strengthened Financial Social Responsibility targets at creating lasting societal value for this generation and the following.

Many critical descriptions can be found for public relations. While research has so far been limited to describing the negative image of the PR profession or has understood it as a peripheral problem, this chapter takes a more fundamental approach. Focusing on media relations as part of PR, the concerns about the profession are to be understood as a central part of its social identity, which others have initially assigned to it. This subsequently shapes their behaviour towards PR professionals, specifically spokespersons, just as it shapes the spokespersons' self-perception. Media relations is therefore characterised by something discrediting, which shapes the attitudes and behaviour of both the publics and the spokespersons themselves. In sociology, this is described by Erving Goffman's concept of stigma, which serves as the theoretical framework of the chapter. Drawing on Habermas, the discrediting characteristic of media relations is determined by the self-interest, success- and power-oriented character of strategic action. The empirical study, a survey of 429 journalists and spokespersons in Germany, addresses the following two research questions: How widespread is the stigma of spokespersons among spokespersons and journalists? And: What are the consequences of perceived stigma for job satisfaction? The findings are somewhat ambivalent showing that, on the one hand, about three out of five journalists stigmatise spokespersons. On the other hand, only about one in five spokespersons perceive themselves as stigmatised.

Business failure is often described as a Rites of Passage for entrepreneurs. But what does this actually mean? This chapter returns to the original Rites of Passage material, from cultural ethnographers in the early twentieth century. By doing so, the author re-conceptualizes contemporary business failure as the Rites of Business Failure comprising a three-stage transitional process of separation, transition, and incorporation, which has a more socialized and a better understood role in society. Taking a sensemaking perspective, the author portrays the need for greater support for entrepreneurs as they experience business failure and re-establish their life. The author proposes many of the challenges entrepreneurs face over the Rites of Business Failure can be addressed through tailor-made training programs, networks, mentors, and role models which can all be utilized to assist people after the setback of business failure. Theoretically, the chapter contributes to literature on sensemaking and business failure. Practically, it holds implications for policy makers and practicing entrepreneurs.