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This paper examines the network dynamics of the cross-border trades utilizing Social Network Analysis (SNA) based on data obtained from the WTO-OECD Trade in Value Added database from 2000-2011. The main results of this paper are as follows: regarding the top 10 in-degree centrality industries, industries in China, Germany, and the U.S. have emerged as the largest importers of foreign value added, implying that the global production network is dominated by two different types of industries. The first type includes processing and assembling functions in China and Germany. The other type of industry involves foreign value added largely for domestic final demand in the U.S. Secondly, there are also two types of brokerage roles. U.S. industries are operating in a liaison role, while Chinese and German industries are mostly operating as coordinator or gatekeeper. Thirdly, manufacturing industries in China and Germany which have emerged as higher in-degree centrality incur a large portion of their value added from the logistics industry. This suggests that those leading industries with the highest characteristics of hubness in the global production network cannot sustain their network status without efficient utilization of the logistics industry.

The value added statement has been voluntarily reported by South African companies for many years despite reservations about its usefulness. This article examines current literature on value added statements in two areas: the usefulness of the value added statement in South Africa and the relevance of social accounting theories in explaining its continued disclosure in South African listed companies’ annual reports. It also reports the results of a questionnaire survey addressed to preparers of value added statements.The research studies examined in the literature review indicate that legitimacy theory is more likely to provide an explanation for the disclosure of value added statements in annual reports in South Africa. The results of the empirical survey indicate that the majority of the respondents are of the opinion that it is desirable to prepare a value added statement, but that it is not used in the majority of companies. Furthermore, the reasons advanced by the preparers for the desirability of the value added statement provide some evidence that legitimacy theory may be behind the propensity of companies to publish a value added statement. The article recommends that the preparation of the value added statement should be standardised. However, the disclosure of an independently prepared value added report may be more useful to all users.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the significance of Web 2.0 and social media for organizational development and adaptation to an ever‐changing business environment and its successful managing. A model is proposed based on the concepts of innovative economy, knowledge management and social media for value creation in knowledge‐based industries.

The paper examines critical factors that influence the role of social media in organizational change and value creation in knowledge‐based industries.

The paper contributes to discussion about the increasingly important role of social media in the value added chain in knowledge‐based industries.

Social media are still an emerging phenomenon and further studies are required to investigate these relationships over a longer period of time.

The topic is relevant for designing corporate strategies in knowledge‐based companies becoming a part of global networks. Better understanding of the impact of social media on value added could significantly enhance both the top and bottom lines.

The paper explores when and why the inexpensive, but increasingly wider, use of social media in knowledge‐based industries is preferred to traditional media. This paper intends to give executives practical hands‐on advice for using social media in business campaigns.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between economic upgrading (implementing higher value-added activities) and social upgrading (improvements in workers’ rights and employment) of supplier firms in global value chains (GVCs) governed by multinational enterprises (MNEs). This paper answers Buckley and Ghauri’s (2004) and Buckley and Strange (2015) calls to incorporate other theoretical approaches within the international business (IB) literature. Furthermore, the paper also responds to Lee and Gereffi (2015) argument, published in Critical perspectives on international business, of the need to incorporate the social impact of upgrading in the IB literature.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with representatives from five supplier firms each in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as well as with industry representatives.

Governance patterns within GVCs can create the conditions for economic upgrading leading to social upgrading achievements. Institutional factors also affect the conditions for social upgrading. Although moving to higher value-added activities is critical for supplier firms, this does not necessarily lead to social upgrading. This paper’s research findings suggest that the combination of economic and social upgrading is positively associated with suppliers manufacturing high value-added products and operating in relational networks. In contrast, economic upgrading, by itself, was limited to those firms manufacturing low value-added products, typically those in captive networks.

This research is among an emerging body of literature seeking to integrate the GVC literature with the IB field. Importantly, it also contributes to the GVC literature by providing insight into an under-theorized aspect – the relationship between social and economic upgrading.

This paper seeks to critically review developments in the literature spanning personnel management, HRM, learning organization and intellectual capital approaches to employee utilization and development. The purpose being to identify the benefits, limitations and lessons for the management of people in the co‐operative and mutual sectors.

The problem of inadequate Personnel or HRM systems in the majority of co‐operatives has been established by the author over a period of seven years, field work with co‐operative organizations including the international co‐operative alliance (ICA), asian confederation of credit unions (ACCU), and the British society for co‐operative studies. Direct interviews and a sample of HRM and Membership Relations audit forms developed as part of the ongoing field research and special project work have been applied to various co‐operative contexts in all the regions of the ICA.

The findings are that co‐operatives generally are lagging behind the private sector in their application of all four approaches. Mostly smaller co‐operatives lack effective basic personnel systems and few of the larger co‐operatives go beyond HRM. This failure to develop clear programs for the utilization and development of their people is a missed opportunity.

The membership base and its roots in a community of shared interests means that, whilst co‐operatives have lessons to learn from all four approaches, they can and must go beyond them if they are to optimize their people‐centered business advantage in the marketplace.

The paper suggests a new strategy for co‐operatives of Co‐operative Social Capital Management to help them compete, whilst retaining their co‐operative difference.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the direct and indirect impacts of social organization in promoting Chinese economic growth. It adopts empirical research to test the correlated hypotheses, and tries to put forward some policy suggestions.

Social organizations are measured by four indicators in this paper. It proposes five hypotheses about the impact of social organization on economic growth and builds an economic growth model including social organization. The ordinary least squares and stepwise regression methods are conducted to estimate the economic growth model with the data from 1999 to 2015.

Through the empirical analysis, it finds that the added value of social organization, human capital, investment and government budget expenditure affect economic growth significantly. The number of social organization at the end of each year has a positive significant effect on entrepreneurship, while the added value and growth rate of it have a negative effect on it. The numbers of social organization and full-time employee have significant effect on number to workers in the labor force. Only the number of social organization has positive significant effect on public education.

This paper conducts an empirical study on the impact of social organization on economic growth in China and fills a gap of the role of social organization on the economy in developing countries. The results provide referenced information for public policy-making.

The purpose of the paper is to examine five themes arising from definitions of corporate social responsibility (CSR): responsibility to the community and society; promoting democracy and citizenship; reducing poverty and the inequality between rich and poor; employee rights and working conditions; ethical behaviour. The paper also aims to evaluate three important articles on CSR, and investigate conceptual value added, with reference to these five themes.

The paper uses a Hegelian dialectical method to analyse CSR. This method is used to evaluate Friedman's classic 1970 article, the 2004 Christian Aid Report, the 2006 Corporate Watch Report and the conceptual value added aspects of CSR.

The evidence suggests strongly that, irrespective of the subjective will of CEOs, corporate profitability acts as a fetter to authentic social responsibility.

As CSR tends to be reduced to a range of marketing techniques, of varying degrees of sophistication, the paper calls for a discussion on ways in which producers and distributors can become authentically responsible to the societies in which they operate.

An analysis of CSR that employs Hegelian dialectics provides a means of explaining the relevance of the contradictions inherent in contemporary corporate and consumer behaviour. A study of these contradictions helps us to understand the widely reported gulf between the theory and practice of CSR advocates. Such an understanding is likely to be of value to those academics, students and others seeking to theorise, and bring into being, authentic social responsibility.

Most businessmen and managers are now aware that ‘things are not what they used to be’ and they never will be the same again. The reasons for this are many and cover rapid technological development, increased education and training, a greater social awareness, pollution of the environment, growth of markets, increasing standards of living, increased competition for the world's natural resources, inflation on international basis and Government involvement in increasing areas of our individual way of life. The latest developments are to be seen in; • the need for two of the world's industrial nations to have Economic Stabilisation Programmes or Prices and Incomes Policy, both to counter inflation • the fact that the United Kingdom has joined the EEC and is thus part of the large market created • leading businessmen and managers are becoming more aware of the need for new social contracts to cover customers, shareholders and employees • the negotiating power of certain groups of workers and their impact on the lives of all • the inequalities that still exist in our society and are of the concern of politicians, companies, unions and individuals • the growing impersonality of the larger units of business supposedly in the interest of efficiency, which do not seem to have produced the benefits that it was claimed would benefit everyone • the profit motive and market economic forces are no longer acceptable to the increasing majority of people who are now looking for more from life • the failures in communicating to people and in allowing them to be involved in decisions which affect them.

Research on social enterprise and social entrepreneurship has sought to examine the role that can be played by selling to the public sector in the generation of social enterprises' traded income. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the perceived barriers to engaging in a procurement relationship from the point of view of social enterprise practitioners and public sector procurement professionals.

This paper stems from focus group work carried out during 2007 with social enterprise practitioners and public sector procurement professionals.

The analysis of these “voices” demonstrates the progress that has been made in various parts of the UK towards a procurement relationship between the public sector and the social enterprise sector that is more mutually beneficial. However, it also permits reflection on the barriers and challenges that still remain for social enterprises that wish to sell to the public sector.

This paper, therefore, highlights the key areas of support that are needed by both sides in order to create a more productive two‐way relationship. In turn, this allows the paper to reflect on how future research into this topic can support action “on the ground”.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that models farmers’ strategic decision making, taking into account that farmers adapt to institutional changes, given the social structure in which they are embedded.

First, a theoretical framework was developed using the reasoned action approach, innovation diffusion research, identity research, and the theory of structuration. Second, the framework was refined based on insights gained through semi-structured interviews with seven pork farmers and six pork farming experts on innovation decisions in general and added-value market adoption in particular.

The farmer decision-making framework distinguishes personal characteristics, social influence related to reference groups, and the institutional context that determines the space for manoeuvre. The interviews reveal the importance of context specific factors, such as trust in policy and market requirements, and point at general mechanisms of path dependency as a result of previous decision making and social influence related to identity reference groups.

The authors include feedback mechanisms between on the one hand social structure and institutional context, and on the other, farmer decision making. The framework is designed to explore the combined influence of factors of decision making on sector behaviour and study the relation between individual and collective behaviour.