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Ethics is fundamentally a science of social and collective responsibility. Ethics concerns human behavior as responsible or accountable. Because of the nature of social interaction, certain members of the society will bear greater authority, and hence, greater individual and social responsibility than others. In our world, personal responsibility and social responsibility are hardly separable. Personal responsibility becomes responsibility for the world because the person and the world are inseparable. In this chapter, we use the term responsibility from a legal, ethical, moral, and spiritual (LEMS) standpoint as some promise, commitment, obligation, sanctioned by self, morals, law, or society, to do good, and if harm results, to repair harm done on another. Hence, responsibility from a moral perspective is trustworthiness and dependability of the agent in some enterprise. Its inverse is exoneration – the extent to which one is excused from commitment and repairing the harm done to others by one’s actions. We apply the theories and constructs of executive responsibility to two contemporary cases: (1) India’s Super Rich in 2014 and (2) the Fall and Rise of Starbucks. After exploring the basic notion of responsibility, we present a discussion on the nature and obligation of corporate responsibility into three parts: Part I: Classical Understanding and Discussion on Corporate Responsibility; Part II: Contemporary Understanding and Discussion on Corporate Responsibility, and Part III: A synthesis of classical and contemporary views of responsibility and their applications to corporate executive responsibility.

This paper highlights that the strategic use of design, a competitive pattern typically associated with creative industries, those creating and trading meanings, also characterizes industries that produce functional or utilitarian goods not typically considered creative. The paper explores the origins of this phenomenon in the context of three industry settings: cars, speciality coffee and personal computers. The analysis theorizes three distinct strategic paths that explain how design may become an institutionalized aspect of competition in industries that are not creative. We explain how firms link their products to the identities of their users, how design is linked to stakeholders' emotions and visceral reactions to products and how intermediaries are relevant to enhancing attention to design. Illuminating these strategic paths allows harnessing some of the well-established understandings about competition in creative industries towards understanding competition in noncreative industries.

This chapter theorizes the outrageous consumer response that may follow the communication of political corporate social responsibility (CSR). We consider two recent cases (Starbucks’s offer to hire refugees and Pepsi’s appropriation of protest movements in an ad) and how consumers-citizens reacted when these corporations communicated political issues. By drawing from psychoanalytic concepts, we illustrate how consumers’ outrage, expressed in angry social media comments, and in the creation and sharing of memes, is cathartic of unconscious repressed matter: the realization of their own powerless and the domination of corporations. We further note how these expressions of outrage may be understood to result from defense mechanisms such as denial, displacement, or more complex sublimation that help consumers maintain a position of passive domination by corporations. Like all psychoanalytic applications, our interpretation represents only a plausible metaphor that can explain the “irrational” behavior of consumers. Positivist traditions of CSR theorization may demand further causal studies to confirm the ideas we express. Our study is an original exploration of what underlies consumer responses to political CSR. These cases could inform academics and practitioners working in the business and society arena asking them to re-evaluate whether and how political CSR should be communicated, and the implications of the rapid diffusion of messages in social media that include mocking parody and offensive brand comments.

Consumer-generated advertisements are advertisements made by consumers for brands they love and hate. This study considers why consumers create their own brand commercials and how to classify the types of commercials they make. The chapter also discusses the attitude of companies toward consumer-generated advertisements and the effect of companies’ attitudes on the commercials. The study compares two different brands with a different attitude toward consumer-generated advertisements – Starbucks and Chipotle. An active and positive attitude of the company toward consumer-generated advertisements results in more positive advertisements.

Courses in strategic management should teach future strategists how to react to unexpected strategic events such as the appearance of innovative technologies, proposed mergers, drastic changes in production costs, or major actions by competitors or customers. Strategic events often trigger important changes in strategies, and reactions to strategic events make the difference between long-run success and failure. Courses can teach students about the philosophical and psychological difficulties posed by complex environments and uncertain futures and teach some procedures that help to assure that important issues receive consideration. Research may be able to identify some decision-making heuristics that foster success.

This chapter examines the phenomena of third places as institutions that provide social interaction outside of home and work. The study explores the different types of third places and the opportunities and challenges offered by each. This is a conceptual paper that examines different conceptualizations of third places using brand examples to highlight the ways in which organizations try to benefit from society's need for a neutral gathering place. The chapter highlights the growth of organizations seeking to benefit from the phenomena of third places and the opportunities for them to profit further. The chapter also highlights the potential for virtual third places to enhance opportunities for increasing brand awareness and sales of products and services at other third places. The chapter identifies ways in which hospitality organizations can capitalize on the public's need for third places. The study moves the discussion beyond the rather limited perspective Oldenburg presented and shows how the needs of a new generation may require more flexibility and excitement than other generations. The study also highlights the ways in which organizations use a combination of third places to their benefit. Third places create opportunities for social interaction and community building and benefit organizations once they position themselves to achieve the status of third places. This chapter compares different conceptualizations of third places and shows the similarities and differences between them. It shows how organizations may position themselves to appeal to different generations seeking a third place.

Over the last three decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has evolved significantly as a worldwide trend in both the management literature and the modern economy. However, it is still at its infancy stage in the developing countries like Malaysia. It is more prevalent in the coffee industry, due to the challenges that this industry encounters. In addition, not much information is available in the academic literature in order to understand these challenges that this industry is facing in performing CSR. Therefore, this chapter aims to highlight the main challenges that the coffee franchise industry faces in incorporating the activities of CSR in their operations. Lack of top management support, performing CSR in isolation, and lack of capable employees to do CSR are some of the major challenges. This chapter is expected to advance the knowledge about CSR practices and challenges in the Malaysian context.