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This paper seeks to investigate to what extent (and why) CSR reporting in developing countries reflect instrumental and/or “political CSR” motivations and the types of organisational legitimacy sought in these circumstances.

We adopt a theoretical framework based on neo-institutional theory, “political CSR” framework and types of organisational legitimacy. This interpretive research is set in the Egyptian context post-2011 revolution. We first carry out a content analysis of web disclosures for 40 banks in 2013 and 2016 to ascertain the nature of CSR activities and any changes over time. Second, we draw on 21 interviews to tease out the implications of the change in societal expectations due to the revolution and to deepen our understanding of the organisational motivations underlying CSR reporting.

Following the 2011 revolution, the banks’ CSR reporting practices have gradually shifted from a largely instrumental “business-case” perspective towards a more substantive recognition of a wider set of societal challenges consistent with a political CSR perspective. Overall, the maintaining/gaining of legitimacy is gradually bound to the communication of accounts about the multi-faceted socially valued consequences or structures performed by banks. Our interview data shows that participants reflected on the legitimation challenges brought by the revolution and the limits of transactional strategies involving traditional constituents, with a preference for pursuing consequential and structural forms of moral legitimacy.

This study demonstrates a constructive shift by businesses towards engaging with the new social rules in response to sociopolitical changes and the need to achieve moral legitimacy. Hence, policymakers and stakeholders could consider engaging with different economic sectors to foster more transparent, accountable, and impactful CSR practices.

We highlight the implications of Scherer and Palazzo’s political CSR approach for accountability and CSR reporting. CSR reporting in some developing countries has typically been seen as peripheral or a symbolic exercise primarily concerned with placating stakeholders and/or promoting shareholders’ interests. We suggest that researchers need to be instead attuned to the possibility of a blend of instrumental and normative motivations.

The strategy of co-creation with customers is a fast-growing topic within the academic community, which companies are trying to master. This study aims to elucidate the range of possible co-creation strategies and identify how service firms can assess and improve co-creation to reap the most benefits.

This study examines 13 companies from five service industries, using netnography to analyse how they approach co-creation. The firms’ co-creation strategy is analysed according to the forms of co-creation they choose and the type of activities involved in the value chain, primary, support and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This study identifies three co-creation axes (C3) for companies: primary activities, support activities and CSR activities. Then, four levels of customer involvement (A4) are defined as follows: levels zero (await), one (advise), two (assist) and three (act). As such, this study positions firms according to the A4C3 customer-centric matrix.

In this co-creation benchmark, firms should use the A4C3 customer-centric matrix to understand their positions vis-à-vis competitors. This allows firms to establish an appropriate co-creation strategy for their services so that customers are the actors in their personalised service.

This study is the first to propose a framework through which a company can identify three types of co-creation activities (primary, secondary, CSR; C3), using it to increase co-creation and draw inspiration from other companies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate corporate governance (CG) practices of banking organizations in Egypt and seeks to understand the extent these can be considered socially constructed phenomenon.

Through a qualitative research design underpinned by a combination of phenomenological and social constructivist paradigms the paper undertakes a grounded theory study of CG in a specific context (the Egyptian banking sector). The paper is based on a survey and 58 semi-structured interviews.

CG as a dynamic and context-based phenomenon, which requires a processual mode of analysis rather than the widely accepted static approach. Empirical evidence that concerns whether the adoption of CG is based on achieving legitimacy is provided, which identifies that this is difficult to understand through traditional shareholder-stakeholder theories; economic rationality and efficiency fail to fully explain CG and investigation requires phenomenological constructivist approaches. Relationships between substantive and formal theories are identified and explored.

Identification of the structural factors affecting CG in Egyptian banking, the processes involved for its handling and the consequences of the interaction between these areas provide policy-makers with an in-depth understanding which is necessary for effective governance reform. Through memos, coding and categorization the relationships between substantive theory and practice are rendered explicit.

The paper demonstrates that through a phenomenological constructivist perspective a qualitative research design can offer new insights into CG phenomenon. The paper heeds calls for empirical research in CG that takes into account the institutional environment within which it is embedded.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the choice and ongoing evaluation of a firm’s business model, as a matter of strategic guidance, are key aspects of corporate governance (CG), with particular reference to risk management (RM) in Islamic banks.

This research uses a case study approach, with a single case, which was chosen as it fits very well the purpose of this research. The data collection was based largely on documentary evidence. Company data were collected from company annual reports, press releases and legitimate web sites. The ORBIS Bank Focus database was also used to produce a comparative financial analysis.

The study findings illustrate how an apparently successful business model may fail due to an inherent instability that could have been identified through the application of careful risk analysis (including stress testing) in the choice and ongoing evaluation of the business model, which robust CG and strategic guidance require. In particular, Arcapita’s problems illustrate the dangers to Islamic financial institutions (IFI) from business models that involve undue exposure to liquidity risk.

The issues raised in the paper are important in that Islamic banking and finance is an integral part of the global banking and finance industry. Investors and regulators are now requesting corporate management to provide improved service to shareholders and other stakeholders alike. IFI rely on the confidence of investors and market participants, just like conventional institutions and when this confidence erodes, it may prove difficult to regain.

The global credit crisis of 2008 caused significant difficulties to firms, especially financial institutions, even with substantial government intervention in the economy, which raised some issues of CG and ethics.

This paper extends the knowledge of the potential effects of weaknesses in CG and RM, with specific reference to strategic guidance in the choice and ongoing evaluation of a firm’s business model, especially in relation to the Islamic banking sector. It also provides a telling illustration of the need for the enhancements of the Basel Committee’s prudential requirements set out in the various Basel III documents.

The paper aims to analyse bottom of the pyramid (BoP) customers’ (e.g. Bangladeshi farmers) use and appropriation of mobile telephony and to critically identify a suitable research strategy for such investigation.

Concentrated ethnographic immersion was combined with both methodological and investigator triangulation during a four-month period of fieldwork conducted in Bangladeshi villages to obtain more robust findings. Concentrated immersion was required to achieve relatively speedier engagement owing to the difficulty in engaging with respondents on a long-term basis.

The farmers’ use of mobile telephony went beyond the initial adoption, as they appropriated it through social and institutional support, inventive means and/or changes in their own lifestyle. The paper argues that technology appropriation, being a result of the mutual shaping of technology, human skills and abilities and macro-environmental factors, enables users to achieve desired outcomes which may not always be the ones envisaged by the original designers.

The paper contributes to two major areas: first, it identifies technology appropriation as an important and emerging concept in international marketing research; second, it suggests a concentrated form of ethnographic engagement for studying technology appropriation in a developing country context.

A good understanding of the dynamic interplay between users’ skills and abilities, social contexts and technological artefacts/applications is required in order for businesses to serve BoP customers profitably.

The paper presents a dynamic model of technology appropriation based on findings collected through a pragmatic approach by combining concentrated ethnographic immersion with methodological and investigator triangulation.