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The Peruvian Canon system was designed to collect a percentage of taxed profits from the country's natural resource industries and redistribute these funds into communities that are important to the natural resource extraction process. However, these communities often lack significant basic resources, such as adequate public health facilities and basic medical supplies. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This analysis focusses on the political and economic factors within Peru's Canon distribution system and proposes public policy strategies that could more effectively ensure natural resource profits reach extraction zone communities.

Policymakers should consider the implementation of policies that require a transparent Canon collection and distribution system. Policies should be developed that mandate an adequate percentage of Canon funds for investment in Peru's public health system.

A significant portion of the available literature on local conditions within natural resource extraction communities and systematic empirical data available are lacking.

This analysis can lead to the development and implementation of public policy that more effectively targets improvements throughout Peru's natural resource communities.

The purpose of this research is to explore the product-agency benefits that emerge as consumers interact with products, and how these benefits shape consumer experiences and marketing-related outcomes.

Sixty-one depth interviews were conducted, and 78 written narratives were collected from informants, which explored how products had changed consumers’ lives. The authors applied the tenets of grounded theory in the analysis of their text, creating abstract categories or tropes that reflected consistent patterns in their consumers’ experiences.

The findings support that the conceptualization of agentic benefits should be broadened. The research identifies five salient product-agency benefits: regulation, clarification, transcendence, discovery and growth.

Prior conceptualizations of agency in marketing focus almost solely on control, yet the authors find that multiple product-agency benefits emerge, supporting the need for a broader understanding of product-related agency. The authors also find these benefits can be anticipated or unanticipated. It is also important to note that the benefits can be paradoxical, in that while they often yield positive outcomes, at times they can produce unintended and even negative consequences.

Incorporating consumers’ (vs researchers’) benefit perceptions into theory building and preference models will enhance understanding of consumer behavior and improve predictive power of preference and choice forecasts. The five salient product-agency benefits provide mechanisms for segmentation and building meaningful relationships with consumers, can propel product development and assist in creating more effective marketing–communication strategies.

The paper offers a broader, more nuanced conceptualization of agency beyond control. It identifies five types of product-agency benefits that reflect a wide spectrum of consumers’ lived experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between qualitative measures of a firm's Board of Directors and its corporate social performance (CSP).

CSP is a function of qualitative measures of a firm's Board of Directors, as well as firm risk and financial performance. A longitudinal sample of 104 Canadian firms is used.

Board independence is positively related to social performance but shareholder orientation is not. In addition, a positive relationship between social performance with both financial performance and debt is found.

Although the sample is small and restricted to Canadian firms, the results are quite robust. Future studies should consider using qualitative measures on a larger international sample of firms.

This paper uses qualitative measures – the degree of independence of the Board and the Board's level of shareholder orientation – to examine the interrelationship between a firm's Board of Directors and its CSP.

Community forest enterprises (CFEs) represent a unique business model in the forest sector which has significant potential to foster community development through sustainable utilization of forest resources. However, CFEs are mired in numerous management challenges which restrict their ability to harness this potential. This paper identifies those challenges and, by drawing on the field of social enterprises, offers specific solutions to address them. The paper also enriches the social enterprise literature by highlighting the role of decentralized decision-making and community empowerment in achieving sustainable development.

Using qualitative meta-synthesis, the paper first identifies key challenges from the CFE literature. It then draws on the social enterprise literature to distill actionable insights for overcoming those challenges.

The study reveals how the social enterprise literature can guide CFEs managers in making decisions related to human resource management, marketing, fundraising, developing conducive organizational cultures and deploying performance measures.

The paper provides novel and actionable insights into managing and scaling CFEs. It also identifies opportunities for future inter-disciplinary research at the intersection of decentralized management of natural resources and social enterprises that could facilitate progress toward achieving sustainable development.

The aim of this paper is to identify the principles and characteristics of a learning conference which uses action learning and action research (ALAR) processes to create: optimal learning for all participants through a collaborative, inclusive conference culture; further knowledge creation in publishing conference papers post‐conference through a supportive research culture.

The 2010 World Congress of the Action Learning and Action Research Association (ALARA) is showcased to exemplify a learning conference, using the PIP (preamble–interview–postscript) framework to demonstrate the utility of this new genre for research and writing conference papers and action research models as frameworks to support publishing articles.

Discussion offers ways to enhance opportunities for conference learning through creative purposeful activities that promote collaboration, critical thinking and reflection, and models of action research cycles to progress research from conference presentation to journal article.

The paper makes the crucial link between conference procedure and publication of learning from conference to extend knowledge creation. The PIP model used here presents ways for novice researchers to network with experienced researchers through interview, for professional development, career advancement and publication.

Identifies three “pillars” of US retirement benefits policy (savings, redistribution and insurance) and outlines the legislative development of private pensions since the 1920s. Supports reform of the social security system and proposes that employee contributions should be held in privately managed, government qualified accounts while employer contributions should continue to be used by the federal government to help low earners. Calculates the final values arising from three different levels of contribution for buying a qualified minimum benefit retirement annuity. Discusses some features of this idea in greater detail, shows how it relates to the three “pillars” and believes it could reduce the burden of social security on employers.

The purpose of this article is to identify various methods for responding to sexual harassment, defined in terms of quid pro quo and a hostile work environment, on an individual basis within an organisation. Four individuals typically involved in sexual harassment cases are discussed: the supervisor or manager, the victim, any witnesses, and the perpetrator. Based on an analysis of the literature, individual efforts should be focused on prevention of sexual harassment by guarding one’s own behaviour and stopping potential problems early. A simple test to prevent sexual harassment used by a prominent company is given.

Electric vehicles are often positioned as a politically easy option for low-carbon mobility, compared to other options, such as cycling, public transit, and walkable communities. This is difficult to assess confidently, however. The rate of adoption for electric vehicles that will be necessary over the next few decades to avoid the worst consequences of climate change will bring about new political struggles. This chapter uses a political-economic analysis to discuss what these struggles might look like. Using literature on the structure of automobility, along with evidence on the ways which electric vehicles disrupt the existing systems built around private car use, it discusses how a rapid transition to electric mobility will affect the material interests of various groups. One big impact will be on production, where the radical changes necessary to re-tool the auto industry to build electric vehicles will create major risks for car companies and their workers. A second impact will be on infrastructure, where the conversion of parking space into electric vehicle charging stations could arouse local political opposition, particularly in cities. Finally, electric vehicles might conflict with the cultural and symbolic lock-in of conventional vehicles, resulting not only in slower adoption but also the potential for active resistance against electric vehicle policies and infrastructure. Taken together, this implies that electric vehicles will not be a form of low-carbon mobility that is free of political struggle. Widespread electrification of private automobility could be aggressively opposed by powerful groups who have strong economic incentives to do so.

One in every five of the almost 17 million inhabitants in the Netherlands is a first- or second-generation migrant. The largest immigrant groups with a non-Western background are Turks Moroccans, Surinamese and Antilleans. Their labour market position is precarious, as is indicated by higher levels of unemployment, larger dependency on temporary (rather than fixed) contracts and lower job levels. Substantial part of the migrants perceives that their weaker position is due to discrimination. Statistical analyses and field experiments show discrimination in hiring and indicate that part of the differential position of migrant workers in the Dutch labour market may be attributed to discrimination as well. At the work floor, migrants experience more discrimination than native Dutch, mostly in the form of hurtful jokes. Research that focuses on more discrimination grounds shows that ethnic background is not the only, nor the most important ground of perceived discrimination. Age and disability are also major grounds of perceived discrimination. Discrimination is a heavily debated topic that polarizes political debate and public opinion. It has shown to have mobilizing powers in politics. The high levels of public attention for the topic not only spurs citizens’ initiatives and governmental policies for combating it but may also facilitate recognition of discriminatory practices resulting in relatively high levels of perceived discrimination within a European context.

Discusses prevention of lead poisoning among US children, claiming that it is entirely preventable yet is the most common environmentally induced disease in children. Outlines the extent of the problem then focuses on legislation, what the various acts were meant to achieve, and how they can be enforced. Explains how sociological skills were used in the author’s work for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Indicates that sociologists can help in a number of fields not immediately linked to sociology.