Search results

The purpose of this paper is to increase the student's knowledge of the value chain and its importance in managing costs.

The approach takes the form of a teaching case with practical implications, which also includes teaching notes.

It is important to effectively manage a company's value chain. A clear understanding of the value chain, combined with effective management of all aspects of the value chain can often lead to a competitive advantage in today's business environment.

A company can improve decision making with a clear understanding of the value chain.

This case presents a practical and straightforward approach for instructors to explain the value chain concept and how important managing the value chain can be to the company's overall success.

This qualitative paper is about social reporting in response to an incident that involved the loss of human life. It examines Loblaw’s disclosures following the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed over 1,100 Bangladeshi workers.

This article draws on Suchman’s (1995) comprehensive legitimacy typology to interpret Loblaw’s disclosures about the collapse in both mass media coverage of the tragedy and the company’s quarterly, annual and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports.

Loblaw worked on many fronts to secure stakeholders’ support in the aftermath of the fatal incident. Through their social disclosures, Loblaw simultaneously managed exchange, dispositional, consequential, procedural, structural, personal and cognitive legitimacy, striving to demonstrate that, notwithstanding the incident, the company was still conforming to its social contract.

This research operationalizes all aspects of Suchman’s legitimacy typology in the context of social reporting. In particular, the paper further develops the concept of cognitive legitimacy. This should be of benefit to other CSR researchers.

The loss of human life during business operations is one of the most terrible events an organization can face. Corporate activities leading to loss of human life are obviously far from being socially acceptable. Stakeholders are likely to disapprove such activities and reconsider their support, which can threaten the survival of the organization. It is thus of utmost importance to understand the strategies used by corporate managers in their attempt to secure ongoing stakeholder support.

This paper innovates by focusing specifically on social disclosures about a negative event. In so doing, it also contributes to a small, but important, literature within CSR research that examines incidents resulting in the loss of human life. The paper adapts and applies Suchman’s legitimacy framework to interpret social reporting in response to a specific instance of loss of life, the Rana Plaza building collapse. Finally, this paper mobilizes the notion of cognitive dissonance to further develop Suchman’s notion of cognitive legitimacy.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature investigating disclosure reactions to legitimacy threats by analyzing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure reactions to catastrophic accidents suffered by major airlines.

The authors use content analysis to examine changes in annual report disclosure in response to four separate airline disasters. The authors adopt two classification schemes and two measurement approaches to explore these changes.

The authors find that for three events the organizations appear to have responded with considerable increases in CSR disclosure that are consistent with attempts of legitimation. For one of the events examined, the authors find no disclosure response and suggest that this could be due to the company’s unwillingness to accept responsibility.

The study’s focus on major airlines that have suffered an accident with available annual reports in English meant that other companies had to be excluded from the analysis.

The findings demonstrate the use of the annual report as a legitimation tool and further highlight the need for greater transparency and comparability across publications.

The paper adds to the scarce literature examining corporate disclosure reactions following threats to their social legitimacy.

The purpose of this paper is to review the use of content analysis in social and environmental reporting (SER) research. It explores how the relevant literature has evolved over time and particularly how recent developments have affected the validity and reliability challenges that researchers face when executing the method.

The paper combines a quasi-systematic review of the literature employing content analysis (examining a sample of 251 studies published over the last 40 years in a wide array of journals with interest in the field), with a largely interpretive meta-analysis, using an index, considering the research questions asked and frameworks used as well as the specific content analysis decisions.

A number of issues of concern in the use of the method are identified, mainly over comparability and reliability of coding schemes. Potential explanations are developed and methodological refinements that could enhance the usefulness of content analysis methods in SER research are subsequently proposed.

It should be acknowledged that, as 251 SER studies have been reviewed, there is always the possibility that some unique studies that could have contributed in the discussion have been ignored.

By reviewing the use of the method in a comprehensive sample of 251 SER studies published over the last 40 years in a wide array of journals with interest in the field, the paper also offers a guide for researchers (particularly in the SER field) wishing to employ content analysis in the future.

The paper contributes to the literature by offering a critical and comprehensive review of the method’s theoretical underpinnings and application in SER research, and by describing changing patterns in content analysis, in order to help build a more secure foundation for future work.

Northern Ireland is attempting to move from a divided society model of policing to a democratic policing model. One of the key components of the reform agenda is the issue of human rights. A key test of the attempt to place human rights at the forefront of the reforms is the attempt to integrate human rights into every aspect of police training. In this article, the new training curriculum of the Police Service of Northern Ireland is examined to determine whether and how human rights are being integrated into the training modules in an effort to better understand the dimensions of democratic police reforms. Field observations of training sessions indicate that a holistic approach to human rights is being employed in addition to a legalistic approach.

Quality improvement collaboratives (QICs) are a popular approach to improving healthcare services and patient outcomes. This paper evaluates a QIC implemented by a large, integrated healthcare organisation in Wales in the UK.

This evaluation study draws on two well-established evaluation frameworks: Kirkpatrick's approach to gather data on participant satisfaction and learning and Stake's approach to gather data and form judgements about the impact of the intervention. A mixed methods approach was taken which included documentary analysis, surveys, semi-structured interviews, and observation of the QIC programme.

Together the two frameworks provide a rounded interpretation of the extent to which the QIC intervention was fit-for-purpose. Broadly the evaluation of the QIC was positive with some areas of improvement identified.

This study is limited to a QIC conducted within one organisation. Further testing of the hybrid framework is needed that extends to different designs of QICs.

A hybrid framework is provided to assist those charged with designing and evaluating QICs.

Evaluation studies are limited on QICs and if present tend to adopt one framework. Given the complexities of undertaking quality improvement within healthcare, this study uniquely takes a hybrid approach.

The author's objective is to reveal the consumer responses to information disclosure strategies regarding controversial ethical issues.

The author is interested in how voluntary disclosure of questionable business practices by chocolate manufacturers regarding child labor exploitation at cocoa plantations influences consumer behavior. A total of 120 students participated in an experimental study in which the author manipulated awareness of ethical issues in the chocolate industry and corporate disclosure strategy. The author measured willingness to pay (WTP) and consumer perceptions about the firm's commitment to corporate social responsibility.

The study found that voluntary disclosure of unethical business practices by a firm was not damaging in terms of consumer perceptions. When public awareness was limited, disclosing participation in unethical behavior did not influence WTP for the firm's products. When public awareness was high, disclosing this negative information is even more beneficial than no disclosure and generates similar responses to including only positive elements in the firm's communication, provided that the firm commits to eliminate its unethical practices.

Voluntary negative social disclosure will not hurt a firm's performance in terms of sales, given the disclosure is transparent and this suggests a credible commitment to improve its practices regarding the issue.

The author investigates the optimal strategy for a firm to disclose ethical infractions. She demonstrates that being open about them does not necessarily damage a firm's reputation and suggests under which conditions this is the case.

Millennials have an interest in luxury and premium products across all types of goods, but little is known about how this translates into their preferences for wine. In general, Millennials are spending less per bottle on wine than older generations, but what are the characteristics of the subset of Millennials who are spending more on wine? The purpose of this article is to develop an understanding of Millennials’ buying habits with regard to higher-priced, luxury wines.

A survey instrument was designed and used to collect responses from 189 Millennial wine drinkers in the US. Statistical tests and a binary probit model were used to analyze the results.

The findings suggest that there is a subset of US Millennials that present a viable market for luxury wines.

This research is limited by the sample itself, as a relatively small, convenience sample of Millennial wine drinkers.

Wineries interested in targeting a Millennial crowd will benefit by recognizing that male, married Millennials with annual incomes of over $50,000 are more likely to buy higher-priced wines. In addition, findings suggest that traditional and non-traditional outlets for wine information are being used as these Millennials seek out information about wine.

While Millennial wine consumers are still developing their tastes, this is one of the first articles to isolate the Millennials who are buying higher-priced wines. This research sheds light on a potentially lucrative consumer segment.

The increasing responsibility of organisations towards society and the environment has inverted the relationship between accounting and accountability, leading to accountability-based accounting systems. This study aims to explore the debate on accountability for climate change within the integrating thinking (IT) perspective. Ascertaining the most significant trends in the debate around purposes and performance that characterise climate mitigation engagement and their connections, the study would explore if and to what extent organisations are tackling climate actions.

A narrative review of the extensive academic literature developed from the Kyoto Protocol to date was performed. After selecting a representative sample, papers were analysed with the support of a new analytical framework that involves three dimensions – answerability, enforcement and outcome – and governance schemes that emerge from the involvement of the private and public sector and civil society. With the support of NVivo software, themes arisen were analysed and coded. Key items were labelled, creating specific nodes and synthesised into the proposed framework.

A “silo approach” largely characterises the debate on accountability for climate change. The most significant reasons behind the shortcomings of extant climate actions may be retrieved firstly in the weakness of the motivations that guide organisations to operate in a climate-friendly way.

This study underlines the need for a 360° integrated approach for strategically tackling climate actions.

This study would represent a further step towards an integrated approach for studying organisations behaviours in the “climate war”, embracing the connectivity between purposes and outcomes, capitals and the relationships amongst the various stakeholders.