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This paper examines whether shareholders consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance when voting on corporate governance change proposals submitted by dissident shareholders. These proposals recommend changes to the corporate governance status quo and are made by dissident shareholders who are dissatisfied with the company’s existing governance practices.

Using 195 governance change proposals voted on during 2013, the paper examines the relationship between CSR performance (obtained from the MSCI database) and the level of voting support for these proposals.

This study finds that shareholder support for corporate governance change proposals submitted by dissident shareholders is positively related to firms’ CSR concerns, especially environmental concerns.

The findings suggest that shareholders may be concerned with the potentially adverse effects of weak CSR performance, especially poor environmental performance, and may support changes to corporate governance structures when a company’s CSR and environmental performance is weaker.

As the first research to examine the relationship between CSR and proposed changes to corporate governance, this study provides unique insights into shareholder perceptions of the value of CSR based on shareholders’ support (or lack thereof) for governance changes proposed by dissident shareholders.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the companies’ motivations to issue or not issue voluntary standalone corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports in the Canadian context.

The authors realized a questionnaire survey that asked Canadian companies why they do or do not issue standalone CSR reports, what their motivations and costs are, and the extent to which they comply with GRI guidelines.

The results show that larger firms issue standalone CSR reports. As larger firms have more political visibility and are subject to greater external scrutiny than smaller firms (Watts and Zimmerman, 1986), the findings indicate that firms primarily issue standalone CSR reports in response to external scrutiny by stakeholders, which is consistent with a stakeholder perspective. The survey also identifies that ancillary motivations for Canadian firms for issuing standalone CSR reports are consistent with legitimacy and signalling perspectives.

The authors acknowledge that the generalizability of the findings is limited due to the sample being situated within a single national context. The inferences drawn from such a sample in Canada may not be applicable to other countries with different national institutional contexts. In addition, the small size of the sample may limit the generalizability of the findings. The authors also did not specifically consider the quality of the CSR reports in the study. Finally, the work may be affected by the inherent weaknesses associated with survey research, including the inherent bias of the individuals responding to the survey.

The research adds to the growing body of research on voluntary CSR disclosures, with particular reference to the Canadian context.

Although most corporate directors face reelection by shareholders each year, directors of companies with classified boards are elected for multiple-year terms. Classified boards may engender managerial entrenchment, which may make directors less responsive to shareholders’ interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Alternatively, classified boards may engender a longer-term focus, which could make the board more willing to engage in projects with longer-term benefits, such as CSR. This study aims to assess whether larger boards, with potentially more diverse voices, may be positively related to CSR, and a larger board may change the classified boards/CSR relationship.

The authors examine the relationship between board type (companies with and without classified boards), board size and CSR for 4,489 firm-years (1,540 with classified boards and 2,949 without classified boards) from 2013 through 2015.

The authors find no difference in CSR strengths between companies with and without classified boards, but the authors do find that companies with classified boards have more CSR concerns than companies without classified boards. For all types of boards, a larger board size is associated with more CSR strengths and reduces the negative impact of having a classified board on CSR concerns.

Classified boards may be less responsive to shareholders’ preference for reduced company CSR concerns, but an increase in board size can mitigate this effect.

Classified boards may weaken a company’s CSR performance.

This is the first paper to consider the relationship between classified board and CSR.

The purpose of this study is to validate the Matten and Moon (2008) implicit-explicit corporate social responsibility (CSR) model by examining whether the respective differences in CSR practices between Europe and the USA reflect their respective societal expectations.

The principal component analysis is used to develop an innovative societal expectations index (SEI). This study tests the relationship between SEI and CSR through panel data and t-tests.

The empirical findings show a significant association between the SEI and all forms of CSR, which provides empirical support for Matten’s and Moon’s implicit-explicit framework.

This study is the first to develop an SEI to validate the Matten and Moon (2008) model that predicts implicit countries would adopt and conform to broader societal expectations for CSR, and therefore be more likely to embrace CSR activities than their counterparts in explicit countries.

State and national initiatives provide teachers opportunities for interdisciplinary units with increased significance of non-fiction in English Language Arts and decreased reliance on the textbook in history and social studies. In these three disciplines, beginning in elementary school, students are expected to scrutinize multiple trade books of the same event, era, or person to construct understandings. Trade books are a logical curricular link between these three curricula. The initiatives, however, do not prescribe specific curricular materials; teachers rely on their own discretion when selecting available trade books. Historical misrepresentations have been found to emerge within trade books to varying degrees, yet only a few empirical studies have been conducted. We empirically evaluated trade books centered on the Anne Sullivan Macy, Helen Keller’s teacher. Celebrated as the Miracle Worker, she remains a relatively obscure figure. As a child, Macy faced the desertion or death of every family member and struggled to overcome poverty and isolation. Macy’s story, thus, complements Keller’s in consequential ways. We report various historical misrepresentations within the trade books and provide ancillary primary sources for teachers interested in addressing the historical omissions.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The purpose of this paper is to show how a new academic library works.

The author used statistical data and anecdotal evidence.

The findings were that digital library materials have dramatically changed how libraries operate.

The library featured in this story is the University of Calgary’s main library which is called the Taylor Family Digital Library, which is meant to be a library with digital technology as its main focus.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on major issues involved in setting up a digital library, with special attention given to the University of Calgary’s new Taylor Family Digital Library, which was started in 2006 and completed in 2011 at a cost of $203 million.

The paper will begin with a description of the targeted users. It will discuss user expectations for the digital library, which are often focused on the distributive function of the library to provide rapid and easy access to resources such as licensed e-journals and e-books. It will then explore issues related to the productive function, the digitization of collections. Finally, the paper will address the question: what purposes does digitization of collections serve?

Although digital materials are becoming more popular with university library users, university libraries are not yet ready to abandon print library materials altogether for a wide variety of reasons.

This is a case study of a library that claims to be unique: a university library which is truly digital in nature.

Many “Divas” despite possessing destructive character traits ironically become successful entrepreneurs thus illustrating an alternative “storied” social construction of entrepreneurship. This influences how female entrepreneurs are perceived in the popular press and can be manipulated as an alternative entrepreneurial reality. The purpose of this paper is to build upon research into entrepreneurial identity introducing the “Diva” concept.

The qualitative methodological approach involves an analysis of biographies of famous Diva's to identify common themes; and an internet trawl to identify supplementary micro‐biographies and newspaper articles on “Divas”. This tripartite approach allows rich data to be collected permitting a comparative analysis.

This empirical paper presents the socially constructed nature of entrepreneurial narrative and the “Diva storyline” demonstrating the influence of journalistic licence upon how successful women are portrayed. The paper adds incremental credence to power of male‐dominated journalistic practices to vilify enterprising behaviour to sell newspapers.

An obvious limitation to the work is that the sample of articles and biographies selected were chosen via search parameters which mention the word “Diva”. Nevertheless, there is scope for further “more detailed” research into the phenomenon to flesh out the model built in this preliminary paper.

An important implication for scholars and journalists is the need to reconsider how we tell and decode entrepreneur stories. As researchers, we need to recognise that there are other avenues for women to become entrepreneurs than to become businesswomen and that it is alright for women to reject the “entrepreneur” label.

This paper informs our understanding of the socially constructed nature of how we tell, understand and appreciate entrepreneur stories. It thus makes a unique contribution by illustrating that the storylines which constitute the “Diva cycle” are constructed from the same storylines that we associate with entrepreneur stories but narrated in a different order. It provides another heuristic device for understanding the social construction of gendered entrepreneurial identities making it of interest to feminist scholars of entrepreneurship and to social constructionists alike.

This paper aims to show that the Spanish central administration, as a representative of the Napoleonic tradition, has undergone considerable managerial changes in non‐autonomous and semi‐autonomous agencies characterised by their direct involvement in service delivery in spite of the failure of macro‐changes and radical reforms of public administration.

This paper provides case studies of “paths” of changes in three organisations.

Through “layering” and “diffusion” of institutions as social mechanisms included in the historical new institutionalism account for innovation, specific organisations like the tax agency, social security and property registry have become more managerial in a state dominated by public law.

More in‐depth case studies would make possible generalisation of how small changes can produce similar impacts or results than reform efforts at the macro‐level.

The use of historical neo‐institutionalism and the exam of mechanisms as “layering” and “diffusion” for explaining change is presented.