Both academic and practical attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been increasing over the past few decades. Past research on CSR largely focuses on the positive side of corporate social issues management, explaining why and how firms engage in CSR activities and how such engagement influences corporate financial performance. Paying little attention to the negative side of social issues management, this research has generated little understanding as to why firms, even those with a strong record of CSR investment, commit irresponsible activities. In this study, we focus on corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) and explore the antecedents and consequences of CSiR. From a strategic management perspective, we propose four key antecedents of CSiR, including selective management of stakeholders, technical orientation, past history, and performance pressure. We also propose that CSR moderates the negative effect of CSiR on corporate financial performance. We used an unbalanced dataset of large U.S. corporations from 1991 – 2009 to test our theory, and most of the hypotheses were supported. We discuss the implications of our findings and the contributions of this study to research on organizational misconduct, stakeholder theory and strategic management.

Many highly recognizable apparel brands are voluntarily adopting corporate social and environmental sustainability plans. This thesis evaluated the sustainability initiatives of the lululemon athletica Corporation and the operations of one of its retail stores, lululemon athletica Polo Park in Winnipeg, Manitoba. lululemon athletica Inc. was compared with industry sustainability leaders Nike, Timberland and Mountain Equipment Co-op. This comparison revealed that lululemon athletica has few sustainability best practices and little and out of date sustainability information available to their stakeholders. At the store level, two surveys were conducted to determine the employee and customer knowledge of sustainability initiatives at the company and store level. It was determined that employees require more training and stronger senior and middle management presence for sustainability initiatives to be a success, and that customers do not associate lululemon athletica with sustainability. lululemon athletica does not communicate about sustainability sufficiently to create a buzz about sustainability.

This thesis interrogates the social/political stakes in three nonfiction narratives of life and death: Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Peter Gzowski's The Sacrament and John and Jean Silverwood's Black Wave. An analysis of Nietzsche's concept of "freedom as responsibility," as developed by contemporary theorists of freedom and the body, especially Wendy Brown and Judith Butler, provides the ground for this theoretical examination. Additionally, Fred Alford's consideration of "freedom with" and Laurence Gonzales's interrogation of the conditions of survival help delimit this site of contest. Each of the texts is critiqued in terms of its engagement with freedom as a practice of responsibility grounded in recognition of mutual vulnerability and enacted through a contest for meaning. / Graduate

Syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera hur företag definierar socialt ansvar samt varför företag redovisar sitt sociala ansvar. Det empiriska materialet samlades in genom sju semistrukturerade intervjuer, där respondenter fick besvara frågor kring socialt ansvar och deras redovisning. Studiens resultat visar på att socialt ansvar är ett begrepp som är beroende av situation och individ, definitionen av socialt ansvar är även kopplat till vilken verksamhet företag bedriver.  Vilken tolkning företaget gör av begreppet socialt ansvar, leder till att syftet med redovisningen av det varierar. En anledningen till att företag väljer att redovisa sitt sociala ansvar är för att de anser att det är ett sätt att visa sina intressenter vad företaget har gjort, en form av marknadsföringsmaterial. Vidare kan det sociala ansvaret även redovisas av den anledning att företag anser att det är en naturlig del av verksamheten, i likhet med företagets redovisning av de miljömässiga och ekonomiska delarna. Orsaker till dessa variationer är för att socialt ansvar är kontextberoende, vilket gör att det inte finns något rätt eller fel när det gäller vad socialt ansvar är.

Syfte och frågeställningar: Att undersöka vilka budskap om CSR som företag i en kritiserad bransch förmedlar i marknadskommunikation. Dessutom att få indikationer på hur denna kommunikation uppfattas av studenter som ingår en generation som är kritisk till marknadskommunikation och reklam. Metod och material: En textanalytisk del av ett antal reklamfilmer och annonser från McDonald’s, Max och Burger King, detta utifrån retoriken. Fokusgruppsdiskussioner med ett antal studenter för att få en bild av deras uppfattning av dessa reklamfilmer och annonser. Huvudresultat: De tre företagen fokuserar på ämnen som de antingen förväntas ta ansvar för, eller som de har kritiserats för, dessa ämnen berör sociala eller miljömässiga frågor. Studenterna som deltagit uppskattar ansvarstagande, men är kritiska till reklam. Beroende på vilket företag som är avsändare ifrågasätter de i olika grad företagens egentliga syfte med kommunikationen.

The doctrine of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged and developed rapidly as a field of study. It is a framework for the role of business in society, setting standards of behaviour to which a company must subscribe to impact society in a positive and a productive manner at the same time as abiding by values which exclude profit seeking at any cost. The emergence of ethical investment, social enterprise, business ethics, environmental practices, a human rights approach to recruitment and employment conditions, and investment in the community are examples of such impacts. This research examines the Islamic perspectives of CSR, and argues that, CSR is not a subject alien to Islam, as it is deeply inscribed in Shari'ah. In particular, the thesis has showed the relevance of CSR as a globally accepted practice to Islamic banks. The Islamic banking system has an in-built dimension that promotes social responsibility, as it resides within a financial trajectory underpinned by the forces of Shari'ah injunctions. These Shari'ah injunctions interweave Islamic financial transactions with genuine concern for ethically and socially responsible activities at the same time as prohibiting involvement in illegal activities or those which are detrimental to social and environmental well-being. To further investigate whether the stakeholders of Islamic banks truly subscribe to the idea of CSR, this study provides empirical evidence based on a survey which was conducted on seven stakeholder groups (customers, depositors, local communities, managers, employees, regulators and Shari'ah advisors) of Islamic banks in Malaysia. The findings of this study reveal that stakeholders of Islamic banks in Malaysia have generally positive views of CSR. One of the most important reflections of their positive attitude is that CSR factors are evidenced as one of the important criteria in their banking selection decisions. Overall the study provides a clear justification and indication from a theoretical point of view and empirical evidence from stakeholder perspectives about the relevance and significance of CSR to Islamic banks in Malaysia.

Researchers have noted that the level of contact respondents have with people who have a mental illness and how they attribute responsibility for these conditions contribute to their desire for social distance. Given that the literature suggests that increased contact is associated with reduced social distance and that social distance is highest when individuals are considered personally responsible for their situation, this thesis examines how much of the variation in the desire for social distance is accounted for by both the levels of contact and the attribution of personal responsibility. Ordinary least squares regression was used to analyze the 2007 Alberta Survey (N=1073). Results show that knowing someone, besides oneself, who has received treatment for a mental illness and attributing responsibility for a mental illness onto the individual explain some of the variation in the desire for social distance. The methodological limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

The collapse of WorldCom (USA 2002), Enron (USA 2001), Exxon Valdez (USA 1989) and Union Carbide (India 1984) has inevitably invited tighter scrutiny from the public on unethical business practices. In order to be competitive in today's market economy, businesses need to be socially responsible and sensitive to the interests of various stakeholders, including the environment and society in general. / A study of senior managers' perceptions of CSR is vital as they are the most influential people in an organization, possessing the requisite power and resources to achieve its expectations. The petrochemical industry is chosen in this study due to its highly environmentally sensitive nature. In this research project, the CSR perceptions of senior managers in the petrochemical industry in Malaysia are examined from the perspectives of their demographic attributes, specific organizational characteristics and organizational culture. The main objectives are to study the CSR perceptions of senior of senior managers in the Malaysian petrochemical industry, to analyse the complex relationships among the moderating variables and CSR perceptions, as well as study the relationships among the four types of responsibilities of Carroll's (1979) CSR construct. Multivariate analysis, namely MANOVER, is used to analyse the complex relationships among senior managers' CSR perceptions, their demographic attributes, organizational characteristics and organizational culture. / The research findings indicate that there are simultaneous relationships among the variables correlated with the CSR perceptions of senior managers. These findings can provide useful guidelines in formulating organisational CSR policies, and human resource recruitment policy, as well as in designing training programs to increase CSR awareness among the employees. The CSR perceptions of the senior managers surveyed support Carroll's (1979) CSR model that the economic and legal responsibilities are viewed as more important than ethical and discretionary responsibilities. The relationships among the four types of responsibilities are also found to be consistent with the literature. Content analysis is used to supplement the quantitative analysis to give an overview of CSR in the Malaysian petrochemical industry by understanding the organisational culture pertaining to CSR. It is important to note that all participating companies are committed to being socially responsible in protecting the environment, despite the different levels of emphasis given in their organisational documents. / Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2007

This research investigates the responsiveness of companies in the Australian packaging supply chain to stakeholder concerns about the environmental impacts of packaging. The National Packaging Covenant (NPC), which was introduced in 1999, is based on the principle of shared responsibility for the 'life cycle' environmental impacts of packaging. This principle is commonly referred to as 'product stewardship' (PS). The primary focus of the thesis is corporate environmental policies and practices, but within a broader institutional framework. The institutionalisation of PS as a relatively new framework for corporate behaviour is occurring within an 'organisational field' at several levels. At the broadest (macro) level it is being institutionalised through the interaction of the state, industry associations and environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs) in policy processes. Within the packaging supply chain (meso level) it is being institutionalised through changes to corporate policy and practice within different sectors of the packaging supply chain, including raw material suppliers, packaging manufacturers, product manufacturers (brand owners) and retailers. Within individual firms (micro level) PS is being institutionalised through the interaction of functional groups with different interests, allegiances and stakeholders. At a macro level the institutionalisation of PS as the solution to the perceived 'packaging problem' is linked to the relative power of the industry coalition in policy negotiations and the deregulatory approach to policy making within federal and state governments. Within this environment, companies have sought to maintain or enhance organisational legitimacy by developing policies and practices that institutionalise PS in the way they do business. The responsiveness of companies in different industry sectors is evaluated by examining the PS policies and practices of 30 large companies in the Australian packaging supply chain. The results show that companies are acting to reduce the environmental impacts of packaging, but most are only doing the minimum required to meet public expectations. The research also found a significant gap between the performance of the beverage and packaging manufacturers and retailers. This reflects, at least in part, the fact that beverage and packaging manufacturers have a longer history of exposure to interest group pressure on this issue. Decision-making within individual companies is also driven by corporate policies on environmental and social responsibility, which in turn appear to be linked to industry sector, company size and country of origin. Most companies are focusing on strategies which achieve both environmental and financial savings. This reflects the competitive nature of the industry and the pressure being imposed on companies, by their customers, to reduce supply chain costs. It is also consistent with the voluntary and flexible nature of the NPC, which allows individual companies to choose strategies that support other business objectives. However, while this approach is likely to achieve incremental improvements, it may not meet the expectations of some government agencies and ENGOs for more rapid and substantial reductions in packaging waste. Companies in the packaging supply chain face a continuing challenge to maintain their legitimacy in the face of ongoing stakeholder concerns about their products.