Search results

Political Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), based on ideas about deliberative democracy, have been criticised for increasing corporate power and democratic deficits. Yet, deliberative ideals are flourishing in the corporate world in the form of dialogues with a broad set of stakeholders and engagement in wider societal issues. Extractive industry areas, with extensive corporate interventions in weak regulatory environments, are particularly vulnerable to asymmetrical power relations when businesses engage with society. This paper aims to illustrate in what way deliberative CSR practices in such contexts risk enhancing corporate power at the expense of community interests.

This paper is based on a retrospective qualitative study of a Canadian oil company, operating in an Albanian oilfield between 2009 and 2016. Through a study of three different deliberative CSR practices – market-based land acquisition, a grievance redress mechanism and dialogue groups – it highlights how these practices in various ways enforced corporate interests and prevented further community mobilisation.

By applying Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, the analysis highlights how deliberative CSR activities isolated and silenced community demands, moved some community members into the corporate alliance and prevented alternative visions of the area to be articulated. In particular, the close connection between deliberative practices and monetary compensation flows is underlined in this dynamic.

The paper contributes to critical scholarship on political CSR by highlighting in what way deliberative practices, linked to monetary compensation schemes, enforce corporate hegemony by moving community members over to the corporate alliance.

This paper aims to systematically review over two decades of academic articles on romance fraud to provide a holistic insight into this crime and identify literature gaps.

More than two decades of peer-reviewed academic journal articles from 2000 to 2023 were systematically reviewed using multiple search engines and databases for relevant papers, identified through searches of paper titles, keywords, abstracts and primary texts.

The findings reveal 10 themes: i) the definitions and terminology of romance fraud; ii) romance fraud’s impact on victims; iii) the profile of romance fraud criminals and victims; iv) romance fraud methods and techniques; v) why victims become susceptible to romance fraud; vi) the psychology of romance fraud criminals; vii) the links between romance fraud and other crimes; viii) the challenges of investigating romance fraud; ix) preventing romance fraud and protecting victims; and x) how romance fraud victims can be supported.

The paper reveals implications regarding the future direction of policy and strategy to address the pervasive low reporting rates and narratives of shame bound with victims of this crime.

Romance fraud is a serious crime against individuals with impacts beyond financial losses. Still, this fraud type is under-researched, and the literature lacks a holistic view of this crime. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic literature review providing a holistic view of romance fraud. It combines evidence across the academic landscape to reveal the breadth and depth of the current work concerning romance fraud and identify gaps in the understanding of this fraud crime.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether indicating victims of sexual attacks actively resisted their attacker or froze during their assault affected perceptions of victim blame, perpetrator blame and seriousness of the crime. We also tested whether victim and perpetrator gender or participants’ rape myth endorsement moderated the outcomes.

This study was a cross-sectional, vignette survey study with a 2 × 2 between-participants experimental design. Participants read a mock police report describing an alleged rape with a female or male victim who either resisted or froze, while perpetrator gender was adjusted heteronormatively.

Freezing and male victims were blamed more than resisting and female victims. Perpetrators were blamed more when the victim resisted, but male and female perpetrators were blamed equally. Seriousness of the crime was higher for male perpetrators and when the victim resisted. Female, but not male, rape myth acceptance moderated the relationship between victim behaviour and outcome variables.

This study highlights the influence of expectations about victim behaviour on perceptions of rape victims and the pervasive influence of rape myths when evaluating female rape victims. The data is drawn from the German border region of the Netherlands, which is an especially valuable population given the evolving legal definitions of rape in both countries.

Active shooter incidents have risen considerably in recent years, elevating public and law enforcement focus on improving response to these incidents. The contemporary policy for reacting to an active shooter event is for the officers who first arrive on the scene to move quickly to engage and neutralize a shooter, prioritizing victim safety and minimizing loss of life. This study provides a preliminary understanding of the police view regarding their role in active shooter events and their experiences with active shooter training.

We conducted a survey of 413 sworn personnel across three US cities. Analyses examine differences in officers’ training experiences across the agencies and predictors of a sense of duty to prioritize victims’ lives over that of officers.

Officers’ training experiences differed by agency, yet most officers supported a duty to sacrifice their lives to prioritize victims’ safety during active shooter incidents. Officers with more years of experience have lower odds of supporting a duty to sacrifice their lives to save victims during an active shooter situation relative to less experienced officers. Respondents who recall officer safety among the top three most memorable topics from their recent active shooter training also have lower odds of supporting a duty to sacrifice.

The authors add knowledge about police officers’ experiences with active shooter training and officers’ opinions about their role in responding to active shooter incidents. We discuss implications of the findings relative to police culture and training and suggest directions for future research.

The paper aims to explore the relationship between accounting and racial violence through an investigation of sharecropping in the postbellum American South.

A range of primary sources including peonage case files of the US Department of Justice and the archives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) are utilised. Data are analysed by reference to Randall Collins' theory of violence. Consistent with this theory, a micro-sociological approach to examining violent encounters is employed.

It is demonstrated that the production of alternative or competing accounts, accounting manipulation and failure to account generated interactions where confrontational tension culminated in bluster, physical attacks and lynching. Such violence took place in the context of potent racial ideologies and institutions.

The paper is distinctive in its focus on the interface between accounting and “actual” (as opposed to symbolic) violence. It reveals how accounting processes and traces featured in the highly charged emotional fields from which physical violence could erupt. The study advances knowledge of the role of accounting in race relations from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, a largely unexplored period in the accounting history literature. It also seeks to extend the research agenda on accounting and slavery (which has hitherto emphasised chattel slavery) to encompass the practice of debt peonage.

This study explores the evolving dynamics of participatory accountability within humanitarian contexts, where digitally connected crisis-affected populations demand better accountability from aid organisations, and as a result, shift traditional hierarchies and relationships between humanitarian agencies and beneficiaries.

This study employs a case study approach, focussing on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to investigate how participatory accountability manifests outside formal practices and re-emerges in social media spaces. The study analyses internal organisational challenges and explores the implications of digital platforms on humanitarian practices. The authors employ Chouliaraki and Georgiou's (2015, 2019, 2022) networks of mediation, particularly intermediation and transmediation, to understand how digital expressions translate to offline contexts and reshape meanings and actions.

The study reveals that social media platforms enable beneficiaries to demand participatory accountability beyond traditional practices, democratising humanitarian response and challenging power structures. These effects are multifaceted, introducing enhanced democratic and inclusive humanitarian aid as well as new vulnerabilities. Digital intermediaries and gatekeepers play pivotal roles in curating and disseminating crisis-affected voices, which, when transmediated, result in nuanced meanings and understandings. Positive effects include capturing the potential of digital networks for democratic aid, while negative effects give rise to moral responsibilities, necessitating proactive measures from the ICRC.

This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the impact of digital technology, particularly social media, on participatory accountability. It expands the understanding of the evolving landscape of accountability within the humanitarian sector and offers critical insights into the complexities and dual purposes of participatory accountability in contexts of resistance. Employing Chouliaraki and Georgiou's networks of mediation adds depth to the understanding of digital technology's role in shaping participatory practices and introduces the concept of transmediation as a bridge between digital expressions and tangible actions.

The purpose of the article is to show the regime of truth in the institutional commissions that have the objective of restoring history by establishing a democratic, equitable, comprehensive, inclusive and fair criterion against the attempts of re-victimization and suppression of memory that Western political and cultural traditions have installed through their mechanisms of power.

Based on the analysis of the cases of Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, they establish the material conditions from which prejudices and hegemonic stereotypes are intertwined to reproduce serious violations of human rights in democratic political and epistemic frameworks. The colonial function of the truth commissions in Mexico is analyzed, which are presented as mechanisms for social development, political and colonial reproduction of liberal democracy.

The qualitative results allow considering the way in which the different truth commissions in Mexico have been strongly linked to epistemic mechanisms in which truth and justice favor the reproduction of established relationships based on race, social class and gender. Especially in the so-called democratic transition, violence, truth and justice come together to highlight power relations in situations that have been disavowed by the intelligentsia.

The limitations of the research are found in the historical configuration of the truth commissions in Mexico. The data, references and assessments are crossed by the initial function of the truth commissions and the establishment of apparatuses and mechanisms based on transitional justice. Based on this, it can be considered a methodological oversight to shift the analysis of truth commissions toward a critical assessment of the truth as a regime of government and hegemonic and colonization criteria from two very specific cases.

The originality of the work is found in the critical discernment of truth as a political category and the coloniality of power.

The purpose of this study is to determine the psychological features of providing initial psychotherapeutic assistance to victims, in particular to military servants.

Theoretical analysis of scientific works; observation of servicemen in hospital conditions; conversations with servicemen and doctors; and interviews with foreign colleagues.

As a result of theoretical and empirical research, it was found that initial psychological assistance is more effective if it is provided in a timely and comprehensive manner in cooperation with medical assistance, if the recommended exercises are performed systematically by the victim and if a certain algorithm for providing initial psychotherapeutic assistance is used.

The authors present their own algorithm for providing initial psychological assistance to military servants: psychophysiological stabilization; adjustment of emotional balance; restoration of cognitive processes and acquisition of constructive coping strategies; and formation of life meanings that provide an opportunity to survive the crisis period of life. In this paper, the authors also note the importance of providing psychological first aid to victims of extreme situations in a timely manner, which helps reduce the intensity of symptoms of acute stress disorder and reduces the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The purpose of this study is to explore the genocidal impacts of uranium mining for Native Americans in the Northwest and Northern Plains, as well as their resistance to historical and contemporary acts of colonialism.

Using a case study approach, this study gathered qualitative data from various government, tribal and news sources to investigate the extent of ecological violence experienced by Native Americans specific to uranium mining processes on Spokane Indian Reservation, Pine Ridge Reservation and Wind River Reservation.

Native Americans in the Northwest and Northern Plains are victimized by the capitalism-genocide involved in uranium production. The consequences of the uranium industry boom in the 1950s–1980s has left Native Americans with degraded lands, polluted water sources and a legacy of adverse health effects, including some of the highest rates of cancer.

The work discussed in this paper offers possibilities for collaborating with Native Americans to develop more sustainable energy options for the USA to make the necessary shift away from fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

Prior research has addressed the genocidal impacts of uranium mining for Native Americans in the Southwest USA and claimed these actions were direct consequences of toxic colonialism, capitalistic agendas and the treadmill of production (Fegadel, 2023). Most uranium was recovered from ore deposits within the Colorado Plateau, and most abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) are located within the same region. Tribes residing in the Northwest and Northern Plains have, however, experienced similar plights as those in the Southwest, but these issues have not been widely examined.

The paper discusses how the management of a sports and fashion company, which we refer to as NULMA, successfully applied the neo/normative control technology “karma organisation” and gained employee engagement. Whereas other studies have documented employee resistance to organisational cultures when used for managerial control, our case demonstrates resistance to management practices that employees find inconsistent with the dominant karma culture.

The study is based on a six-year longitudinal organisational at-home ethnography conducted by one of the authors using methods of both participant and non-participant observation, semi-structured interviews and collaborative production of secondary data in the case organisation.

While our research shows that management can successfully apply neo/normative control which employees accept and support, we further show that employees mobilise the same values to resist management when it fails to deliver on the commitments and promises of the organisational culture.

The study contributes to the literature on organisational culture and, in particular, neo/normative control by theorising employee resistance as being by “accident”, by which we mean an inherent negative potentiality co-invented and released by managers establishing a “karma organisation”. Our theorising culminates in a discussion of the study’s implications for research and practice.