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1 – 8 of 8Melissa Carlisle, Melanie I. Millar and Jacqueline Jarosz Wukich
This study examines shareholder and board motivations regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) to understand boards' stewardship approaches to environmental issues.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines shareholder and board motivations regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) to understand boards' stewardship approaches to environmental issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Using content analysis, the authors classify CSR motivations in all environmental shareholder proposals and board responses of Fortune 250 companies from 2013 to 2017 from do little (a shareholder primacy perspective) to do much (a stakeholder pluralism perspective). The authors calculate the motivational dissonance for each proposal-response pair (the Talk Gap) and use cluster analysis to observe evidence of board stewardship and subsequent environmental disclosure and performance (ED&P) changes.
Findings
Board interpretations of stewardship are not uniform, and they regularly extend to stakeholders beyond shareholders, most frequently including profit-oriented stakeholders (e.g. employees and customers). ED&P changes are highest when shareholders narrowly lead boards in CSR motivation and either request both action and information or information only. The authors observe weaker ED&P changes when shareholders request action and the dissonance between shareholders and boards is larger. When shareholders are motivated to do little for CSR, ED&P changes are weak, even when boards express more pluralistic motivations.
Research limitations/implications
The results show the important role that boards play in CSR and may aid activist shareholders in determining how best to generate change in corporate CSR actions.
Originality/value
This study provides the first evidence of board stewardship at the proposal-response level. It measures shareholder and board CSR motivations, introduces the Talk Gap, and examines relationships among proposal characteristics, the Talk Gap, and subsequent ED&P change to better understand board stewardship of environmental issues.
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Kaela Jubas and Shauna Butterwick
This paper discusses insights from a study of women working, or seeking or preparing for work, in the information technology (IT) field. At issue is how and whether alternative…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper discusses insights from a study of women working, or seeking or preparing for work, in the information technology (IT) field. At issue is how and whether alternative career pathways and informally acquired skills and knowledge, as well as the operation of gender in learning and work, are acknowledged by employers, colleagues and participants themselves.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the qualitative technique of life and work history, this study mapped varied learning pathways of women working in the IT field. We used a feminist approach to explore this field, which is characterised as both highly masculine and filled with opportunities for all workers, including women.
Findings
Juxtaposing categories present in the data, such as female and male, formal and informal education, work and learning, hard and soft skills, and centre and periphery, we establish that binary constructs are both persistent and tenuous.
Research limitations/implications
Our analysis challenges assumptions about educating the global workforce and the learning pathways within the IT field. Moreover, it suggests the usefulness of further qualitative research on this topic in other geographic locations or fields of work.
Originality/value
In questioning epistemological and social binaries, our analysis contributes to the re‐theorisation of conceptions of knowledge and learning. In moving from an either/or to a both/and understanding of them, we offer a different way of talking about how they can be understood.
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Sarah Leidner, Denise Baden and Melanie J. Ashleigh
The purpose of this paper is to explore how Green (environmental) Human Resource Management (GHRM) policies can elicit green employee behaviours. This study explores the role of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how Green (environmental) Human Resource Management (GHRM) policies can elicit green employee behaviours. This study explores the role of sustainability advocates, who are leaders and managers in pursuit of their firm’s environmental agenda, in the design and delivery of GHRM policies, communication, recruitment and selection, environmental training, rewards and incentives.
Design/methodology/approach
In this qualitative study, eighteen semi-structured interviews with sustainability advocates in European firms were conducted and analysed.
Findings
GHRM practices are not in themselves peripheral, intermediate or embedded, but shaped by contextual situations. Sustainability advocates’ intentions do not seem to match GHRM policy design, i.e. they try to elicit value-based behaviours by using self-interest-based approaches, leading to misalignments between the attitudes and behaviours policies attempt to elicit, and the type of behaviours they elicit in practice.
Research limitations/implications
This study explores GHRM practice implementation experienced by leaders and managers. Further research on the role of the HR function and recipients of GHRM is needed.
Practical implications
Practitioners need to be aware that organisational incentives (GHRM policies) that reflect self-interest can lead to self-interest-based behaviour and may be short-lived. A careful consideration of contextual factors will inform the selection of suitable GHRM policies. Environmental training completion rates seem an unsuitable metric for senior management bonuses.
Originality/value
This paper investigates the design and implementation stage of GHRM, leading to an identification of GHRM policies as peripheral, intermediate or embedded. This creates an in-depth knowledge on the efficacy of GHRM policies and their relation to the environment.
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Melanie Barlow, Bernadette Watson, Kate Morse, Elizabeth Jones and Fiona Maccallum
The response of the receiver to a voiced patient safety concern is frequently cited as a barrier to health professionals speaking up. The authors describe a novel Receiver Mindset…
Abstract
Purpose
The response of the receiver to a voiced patient safety concern is frequently cited as a barrier to health professionals speaking up. The authors describe a novel Receiver Mindset Framework (RMF) to help health professionals understand the importance of their response when spoken up to.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework draws on the broader receiver-focussed literature and integrates innovative findings from a series of empirical studies. These studies examined different receiver behaviour within vignettes, retrospective descriptions of real interactions and behaviour in a simulated interaction.
Findings
The authors' findings indicated that speaking up is an intergroup interaction where social identities, context and speaker stance intersect, directly influencing both perceptions of and responses to the message. The authors' studies demonstrated that when spoken up to, health professionals poorly manage their emotions and ineffectively clarify the speaker's concerns. Currently, targeted training for receivers is overwhelmingly absent from speaking-up programmes. The receiver mindset framework provides an evidence-based, healthcare specific, receiver-focussed framework to inform programmes.
Originality/value
Grounded in communication accommodation theory (CAT), the resulting framework shifts speaking up training from being only speaker skill focussed, to training that recognises speaking up as a mutual negotiation between the healthcare speaker and receiver. This framework provides healthcare professionals with a novel approach to use in response to speaking up that enhances their ability to listen, understand and engage in point-of-care negotiations to ensure the physical and psychological safety of patients and staff.
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Wentao Gu, Lixiang Li, Shangfeng Zhang and Ming Yi
The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of the firm's entrepreneurship for the transformation of circular economy (CE). The role of entrepreneurship is thought to be…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of the firm's entrepreneurship for the transformation of circular economy (CE). The role of entrepreneurship is thought to be important for the process of four Rs in the CE, and the authors have tried to study the role and impact path of entrepreneurship in CE.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data from Chinese listed firms are collected, and a measure of digital technology is constructed by text mining method. Mediation analysis method is used to test the proposed hypothesis.
Findings
The results show that the innovation entrepreneurship has a significant positive impact upon the CE and digital technology is playing a mediating role in the impact path. However, the business entrepreneurship is negatively affecting the CE adoption. Also, the proportion of shares hold by the institution has a heterogenous influence for the innovation entrepreneurship.
Practical implications
This study guides policy makers about the role of entrepreneurship and the mediating effect of digital technology and to encourage the adoption of CE for firms.
Originality/value
This study reveals the mediation effect of digital technology in the impact of entrepreneurship on CE in the emerging market. The heterogeneity of the proportion of shares hold by the institutions is also analyzed in the empirical study.
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– The aim of this article is to explore how, and to what extent, American advertising and its consumerist messages infiltrated Irish society in the period 1922-1960.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this article is to explore how, and to what extent, American advertising and its consumerist messages infiltrated Irish society in the period 1922-1960.
Design/methodology/approach
The article is based on an analysis of primary and secondary sources.
Findings
The article argues that American advertising practices and messages influenced the advertising industry in Ireland. It also contributed to the technical, style and content of Irish advertising and informed the Irish woman's view of American consumerism. Finally, it suggests that Irish society was more open to external influences, which challenges the narrative of Ireland as a closed society before 1960.
Originality/value
The article is based on extensive original research and opens up a number of new areas of research relating to the history of consumerism and advertising in Ireland.
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Kim Poldner and Rolien Blanken
Teaching formats for both BA/MA students and MBA/PhD students in sustainable entrepreneurship and strategic management are offered in the teaching notes.
Abstract
Study level/applicability
Teaching formats for both BA/MA students and MBA/PhD students in sustainable entrepreneurship and strategic management are offered in the teaching notes.
Subject area
This case juxtaposes the company’s core values of gender equality, sustainability and inclusivity, with the financial pressures of expanding global operations in COVID-19 times.
Case overview
This case illustrates the founding and growth of i-did in the broader context of the global circular textile industry. Being the first company that reclaims value of discarded textiles by making design products out of felt, the dilemma is on how i-did can create a blueprint for sustainable leadership in a scalable (financial) business case.
Expected learning outcomes
The learning outcomes of this case are as follows: to understand the concepts of circular economy and social impact and how they can be translated to business; to apply their knowledge of strategy and entrepreneurship for sustainable business innovation; to be able to analyze a company according to the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically around gender issues, inclusivity and diversity; to evaluate opportunities for multiple value creation in business; and to have the knowledge and capacity to create a circular business with the help of the Business Model Template.
Social implications
This case engages students in critically reflecting on sustainability concepts in relation to i-did (theoretical value) and applying novel business model innovation tools to a real-world enterprise (practical value). The students get the chance to explore the ethical challenges the two entrepreneurial leaders face between short-term economic gains (or maybe even survival) and their core values of (gender) inclusivity, circularity and diversity.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes and a summarizing two-pager are available for educators.
Subject code
CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.
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