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Purpose – This chapter explores the m+eaning and significance of family business social responsibilities (FBSRs) using a metasystem approach, placing emphasis on the role of the family.

Design/Methodology/Approach – We employ a revelatory case study to investigate the complexity of family business (corporate) social responsibility. The main case, a German shoe retailer, is supplemented by other case illustrations that provide additional insights into FBSR.

Findings – To fully understand social responsibility in a family firm context, we need to include social initiatives that go beyond the actual family business as a unit. This FBSR connects family members outside and inside the business and across generations. As FBSR is formed through individual and family-level values, its character is idiosyncratic and contrasts the often standardized approaches in widely held firms.

Practical Implication – Family businesses need to go beyond the business as such when considering their engagement in social responsibility. Family ownership implies that all social initiatives conducted by family members, regardless if they are involved in the firm or not, are connected. This includes a shared responsibility for what family members do at present and have done in the past.

This chapter explores distributed leadership in volunteer multistakeholder groups tackling complex problems, focusing on community organizing practices to bridge the gap between health and health care in Columbia, South Carolina. Columbia faces increasing chronic disease, high rates of uninsured, unequal access to healthcare services, and rising costs. Regional leaders periodically tackled these problems together but faced challenges common to multistakeholder groups. In 2010, leaders from Columbia partnered with the authors in a learning enterprise to find new, more sustainable ways to address these challenges. Together we adapted a community organizing approach to develop distributed leadership skills necessary to overcome the challenges of volunteer multistakeholder groups and transform the health system in a local area. In the first year, teams provided health screenings to over 1,000 residents; over 3,000 residents exercised leadership to improve community health; over 5,000 residents pledged to improve their health. Clinic hours were extended; new health coaches focused on primary care and wellness programs. Providers and payers committed to reinvesting a share of savings in the community, which has a voice in their use. We show that developing distributed leadership via community organizing offers an approach to solving seemingly intractable community problems.

This narrative inquiry centers on teachers' longitudinal experiences of policy-related reforms systematically introduced to T. P. Yaeger Middle School, a campus located in the fourth largest, second most diverse city in America. The embedded research study, with roots tracing back to 1997, uses five interpretive tools to capture six mandated changes in the form of a story serial. Special research attention is afforded pay-for-performance, the sixth reform in the series. The deeply lived consequence of receiving bonuses for his teaching performance prompted Daryl Wilson, Yaeger's long-term literacy department chair, to proclaim “data is [G]od.” Wilson's emergent, inventive metaphor aptly portrays the perplexing conditions under which his career ended, and how my long-term research project likewise concluded.

In attempts to defuse racial tensions on campus, higher education administrators have often commissioned special units and campus-wide initiatives. Historically, these commissions often address racial challenges in higher education that impact both faculty and students. If designed and deployed carefully, these commissions can be very useful mechanisms to address sensitive racial, religious, and linguistic concerns on campus. Despite the prevalence of studies that discuss racial experiences on campus, far less scholarship has focused on the effectiveness of these commissions and the dialogic strategies that faculty of color have employed in their service.

This study draws on three major findings. First, the chapter explores why the presidential commission structure is a powerful mechanism for improving dialogue about racial and ethnic issues on campus. Former commissioners discuss its potential for addressing the complex and interlocking concerns of faculty, staff, and students of color. Second, although the commission’s structure is promising, we present numerous problems that require further attention. We discuss how the emphasis on dialogue and less dedication to targeted actions and policies may actually undermine the goals of commissions like these and further frustrate aggrieved faculty, staff, and students. Third, the chapter highlights successful and unsuccessful strategies for sustaining fruitful dialogue that lead to an increased understanding and acceptance of diverse viewpoints and perspectives. These findings have specific relevance for international faculty and faculty of color interested in ways to be more proactive in shaping existing programs, policies, and approaches to meet the diverse needs of university life.

This chapter examines the interrelationships between internationalization and product diversification among the world's l35 largest food and beverage enterprises. Based on the argument that food and beverage enterprises enjoy economies of scope when moderately diversifying into new countries and product areas, but encounter resource constraints when extremely diversified and internationalized, we expect to find an inverted U-shaped relationship between the two strategies. Nevertheless, we find that the relationships between the two strategies show both an inverted U-shaped (when geographic diversification is the dependent variable and product diversification the independent one) and a U-shaped pattern (when product diversification is the dependent variable and geographic diversification the independent one). These results imply that the relationships between internationalization and product diversification among food and beverage enterprises are more complex than currently conceived.

A new form of learning space has emerged across the world, marking a shift from Do-It-Yourself to Do-It-Together. This space, generically known as a makerspace, is located in accessible and affordable venues, both within communities and serving communities. It offers a resource that allows people to discover their latent capabilities through exploration, experimentation and iteration, alongside the knowledge openly shared by those around them. The underlying rationale is found in the work of John Dewey, notably Democracy and Education (D&E, 1916). This chapter examines this newer form of space to gain insight into what it implies for learning and education. It commences with a reflection of salient aspects of Dewey’s D&E (1916) and how this informs understanding on what is desirable in a learning space. This is followed by a reflection upon research on makerspaces to establish how they can be conceptualized. A case study provides rich insights into characteristics, ethos and practices, while acknowledging that each space is unique and not representative of them all. Nevertheless, it foregrounds the essence of what defines a makerspace. The chapter closes with discussion of the implications and what may be concluded.

Whatever has transpired between the publication of Dewey’s D&E (1916) and the present, his vision of the empowered individual clearly manifests in the makerspace. It allows individuals to break free from the limitations of the formal educational system and, as part of a social learning community, discover their potential in new, natural, non-linear and often unexpected ways. Further, and perhaps only just beginning to be understood, is its wider potential to ignite alternative approaches on how to contribute to society and catalysing new directions for the future of work. With increasing research insights alongside broadened awareness of the possibilities, individuals can gain the capability to design and build for their future – that is only limited by their capacity to imagine it.

In this chapter the author examines intergenerational transmissions of kindness through four generations of women in her family. Employing an autoethnographic approach (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011), the author shares her journey of understanding the importance of studying kindness in academia by acting as the connective tissue between the stories and how the author finds the meaning of kindness through her own experiences and interpretations. Using a research methodology called sensebreaking (Pratt, 2000), the author reveals how kindness acts as a catalyst to help recover from challenges by nurturing self-worth. Sensebreaking undoes meaning-making by disrupting the sensemaking process when contradictory evidence causes individuals to question their interpretation (Mirbabaie & Marx, 2020). The author demonstrates how these women struggle with the deep-rooted need for independence and dignity when facing a challenge and define random acts of kindness from others. Across the four generations, a theme of generativity is revealed, showing a need to nurture and guide younger people and contribute to the next generation.