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The recent wave of protests on courts and fields all over the world has brought increased attention to the potential of sport to address social justice. Basketball in particular has been the subject of both celebration and outrage. Building off the theorizing of sport as a contested space, we examine the work of three artists/artist collectives; Abigail Smithson, Maria Molteni and New Craft Artists in Action, and Noah Cohan and John Early of Whereas Hoops, who have all directly engaged with the basketball court as a site filled with cultural meaning and struggle. All three of the respective bodies of work were developed in the past 10 years and emerge from the heightened social and racial tension of the time, as well as the increasingly apparent link between sports, politics, and race within our larger society. Examining the work reveals the importance of the basketball court as a site simultaneously of celebration, play, surveillance, policing, community, history, cultural exchange, and racialization. We explore the potential for artists to engage with and transform sport spaces through an edited group interview, giving the artists the chance to reflect on their practices as well as the limitations of working as an activist and artist in the realm of sports in their own words. Through conversation, the chapter focuses not just on finished pieces of art but also on the process of making the work in the ever familiar and culturally rich environment of the basketball court.

A computer analysis of the Italian canned meat market and a synthesis to bring out the salient factors to develop a strategic approach and definition of operating activities. Qualitative studies reveal a strong resistance in consumer attitudes, mainly due to prejudice. However, the recent research helps in the interpretation of these attitudes towards the canned meat market.

Ulla Andin received her MD in 2007 at the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University, in the Department of Geriatric Psychiatry. The title of her dissertation was Vascular Dementia, Classification and Clinical Correlates. She is a specialist in geriatrics and has been working as a senior physician at Skaraborg Hospital Group since 2008. Her focus is on elderly patients with multiple illness. Earlier in her career, she worked as a senior physician at USÖ (Universitetssjukhuset i Örebro), where she focused on patients with dementia. In addition, she has served as a supervisor for young physicians.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a path analysis of data coming from a citizen's satisfaction survey to support decision makers in quality service improvement. In detail, the survey aims to measure citizen's satisfaction of an Italian local Public Administration regarding the “infant school (0‐6 years) enrollment service”.

The survey represents an experimentation of an original model measuring customers' satisfaction toward on‐line services. Some statistical methods to analyse a given dataset from different points of view are selected.

Outcomes of descriptive statistics as well as of multivariate data analysis to summarize information variables are presented. A new multivariate statistical technique, Probabilistic Expert Systems (PES) (Cowell et al.), is proposed to simulate corrective actions (scenarios) and to suggest the best one for the service quality improvement.

The paper shows that statistical methods are able to support the decisional process because they allow the development of information (gathered from survey) into know‐how. However, managers need to join together both statistical information and experience by means of a systematic method, in order to take effective decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between community of place and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lombard industrial districts in Italy.

A brief literature review of international authors from the stakeholder approach and Corporate Community Relations (CCRs) field is presented. This paper refers to a survey of Lombard industrial districts conducted by ALTIS. The data were collected via a telephone survey from 834 firms.

The main finding is that managing CCRs is of major importance for company success. The results of the survey show that there are some tools and actions that Italian industrial district SMEs use to interact with their particular communities of place to develop effective and coherent relationships with their stakeholder groups. Moreover, although the survey shows that though SMEs do implement different CCR activities, they are not able to communicate these effectively through systematic communication strategies. However, the narrow sample includes only a sample of some Lombard districts. Nonetheless, the findings indicate that effective CCR seems to confer competitive advantage based on stakeholder responses and rewards sought.

The framework could assist in supporting CCR developments between industrial districts as various players would know how to improve CCR activities. One further suggestion is that University and Research Centers could have a role to play in creating and communicating codified knowledge concerning community relations in industrial districts, while other public players still have to develop specific tasks in improving infrastructures.

This study is in line with the main focus of CCR, which is in striving to meet stakeholder and societal needs. However, industrial district SMEs have to learn how to communicate their CCR activities from the examples set by large Italian companies. The paper links the notion of CCR with tools and actions to develop meaningful relationships with both community of place and interest. Moreover, considering the survey results, a new framework for local player roles is proposed.

This contribution aims to clarify the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an issue of governance and a strategic tool more than a mere communication activity, with a potential impact on both organizations and their economic and financial performance.

The paper provides an overview of the literature contribution on CSR and its impact on value, offering a new conceptual model useful both for managers and relevant stakeholders in assessing, through an integrated approach, the company performance.

The analysis focuses on how CSR investments can create value for companies and for stakeholders in general. This can occur if the related benefits exceed the related costs, generating a favorable balance toward what we called the virtuous cycle of CSR. This cycle is made up of four steps – decision, design, action and result – that define a potential value creation path that a responsible firm can take, assuming that it integrates a social agenda into its competitive strategy and assuming that the market appreciates real and effective social efforts of companies.

Because the descriptive chosen approach, the research could be enriched with a quantitative analysis to test the proposed propositions further.

This paper fulfils the need, identified in the major literature, of a temporary ceasefire on corporate social performance and its link to financial performance, focusing on tools and instruments that can practically modify the companies' approach to CSR and the evaluation processes of its impact on business, strategy and disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to study how a small to medium‐size enterprise (SME) in Campania (Italy) integrated sustainability into its corporate strategy, and how its sustainable corporate strategies reflect on intangible assets.

The paper, an exploratory study based on grounded theory, analyzes are interviews with the entrepreneurial team and top and middle management. Findings are integrated with documentary analysis, internal process data and archival material.

Ethics and value systems play a significant role in devising sustainable corporate strategy. Competitive strategies, innovation, quality and responsibility are reflected in management procedures and the supply network system involving partners in sustainable innovation processes.

A single case study obviously limits the generalizing of the findings.

Entrepreneurs and managers can benefit from the study to build a relational network for sustainable development.

The process of sustainable value creation, sharing and the co‐creation of knowledge emerges fully in the case study analyzed. The study pivots on issues of innovation and eco‐sustainability as drivers for corporate sustainability and business ethics.

Purpose – This chapter frames the topic of organizing for sustainable health care in terms of the environmental trends that have rendered current health care approaches unsustainable, the embeddedness of health care in society's triple bottom line, and the need to build adaptive capability within the complex health care ecosystem.

Design/methodology/approach – We synthesize documented trends and empirical findings regarding the viability of current approaches to health care, and provide a theoretically framed treatment of the adaptation process in the complex health care system that can lead to the emergence of sustainable approaches.

Findings – There is a misfit between current approaches to delivering health care and the requirements and trends in contemporary society. Fundamental transformation is required that entails a broadening of purpose, a future orientation, and a rethinking of how health care adds value and how it is embedded in society.

Originality/value – By reconceptualizing health care reform as intricately related to societal sustainability and the triple bottom line, we open the possibility of transcending a narrow focus on reengineering to create more efficient organizations and work processes that consume fewer resources and deliver greater value. We invite health care practitioners and scholars to rethink all the connections in the health care ecosystem, and the need to build in self-organizing capabilities and adaptive capacity. The cases in this book provide knowledge from systems engaged in fundamental transformation, analyzed through the lenses of theoretical frameworks that help us better understand essential dynamics involved in creating sustainable health care systems.