A Critical Theoretical perspective is used to analyse the underlying logic of globalization (flexible capital accumulation) as problematic for social policy and programs. Conflicts between economic accumulation and political legitimation emerged as contradictory stagflation leading to delinking the gold standard and abandonment of the Keynesian consensus and Bretton Woods system. The Macdonald Royal Commission on Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada abandoned its claim to public enlightenment and social consensus in validating free trade. The economic constitution of free trade limits social rights and future political intervention into the economic sphere. The social orientation to emancipation and well-being are restrained to utilitarian discourse. Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School is compared with positivism and interpretivism within an analytic frame of ontology, epistemology and methodology. The historical background of the Frankfurt School is discussed with contributions by Adorno, Foucault, Freud, Habermas, Honneth, Horkheimer, and Marcuse. A meta-theoretical framework is developed for use in social work theory and practice. Jiirgen Habermas' Theory of Social Action is analysed within the frame as arguing the good life in the public sphere. Habermas' interpretation of the crisis of the welfare state as the colonization of the lifeworld by strategic communication is applied to the recent free trade and social policy debate. Universal pragmatics and the criteria of universal validity claims is developed. A communication assessment method is developed from Habermas' universal validity claims criteria and theory of communicative action. The typological criteria is used to measure public consensus on The Globe and Mail Newspaper coverage of Canadian public sphere discourse on free trade and social policy from 1980 to 1995. A multi-stage sample of textual arguments is deconstructed and analysed within an "ideal speech situation" of the hermeneutic-dialectical computer program ATLAS/ti. Qualitative analysis and statistical measures of Chi-Square Analysis and Dendrograms are adapted to the validity claim criteria to describe the results. Methodological results are tentative, and presented as an exploration of theory applied to method which is useful for social work theory and practice. The importance of the Habermasian revision of Critical Theory to social work theory and practice is discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- Lincoln University, 2008. / Also available via the World Wide Web.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-08T14:53:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1223967 bytes, checksum: e7ddc07e077e29ba4df142948034d2a8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-06-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The constant technological evolution and the globalization phenomena have been aroused organizations to looking for both new ways to deal with the market and the new environmental business. Among these new ways of dealing with the market it is the Business Social Responsibility that is beginning to making part of the policy and companies principles. On this perspective, this study attempts to analyze in a general way how a company in the food sector, located in Ceará state, behaves itself with respect to the Business Social Responsibility principles through the stakeholders perception set who are directly and indirectly involved and have information about the company under analysis. The research was based on three-dimensional Carroll`s model (1979), which seeks to fully understand the essentials aspects of corporative social performance according to the dimensions of the categories of social responsibility (economic, legal, ethical and voluntary), the types of response behavior (reactive, defensive, accommodative and proactive), and the actions areas/company programs (consumption, environment, discrimination, product safety and security in the work). The work is classified as a case study of descriptive-exploratory character that through a qualitative and quantitative approach carried out through fields research, where were applied interviews with a semi-structured guide, evaluated through analysis of the information content, and questionnaires to the internal and external stakeholders that not take part in the company. The data were evaluated by using the STATATM program. The results showed that the internal stakeholders perceive that the company has operations predominantly in the economic responsibility field, especially in the administration and production employees view, indicating that the actions are focused on profit maximization. But, for the managers, stands up the legal responsibility, as well as for the external stakeholders like customers, community and suppliers. Now the consumers and partners emphasized that the company assumes financial and voluntary responsibility respectively, indicating that the company develops social actions that enhance the community quality life in its surroundings. In the behavior and response fields it can be observed in the point of view of three of the five external stakeholders types the predominance of proactive behavior (community, suppliers and partners), but for customers and consumers the company has accommodative behavior. For the internal stakeholders predominated the feeling that the activities are having developed as a means to obey the requirements, being, therefore, defensive. In relation to the actions/programs, it is perceived that was unanimous between all internal and external stakeholders, that for this company the product security is the basis of its performance in the food market. In a general way, the application of the methodology proposed by Carroll (1979) allowed to concluded that in the stakeholders perception the company do not have structured policies of RSE acting in a punctual manner through an Educational Institute, which develops activities specifically for capacity building. / A constante evolução tecnológica e a globalização têm despertado as organizações para uma procura intensa por novas formas de lidar com o mercado e com a nova conjuntura empresarial. Dentre essas novas formas de lidar com o mercado está a Responsabilidade Social Empresarial que está começando a fazer parte da política e dos princípios das empresas. Sobre essa perspectiva, esta pesquisa objetiva analisar como uma empresa do setor alimentício, localizada no estado do Ceará, se comporta quanto aos princípios da Responsabilidade Social Empresarial por meio da percepção do conjunto de stakeholders que direta e indiretamente estejam envolvidos e que possuam informações sobre a empresa em análise. A pesquisa baseou-se no modelo tridimensional de Carroll (1979), que busca compreender de forma integral os aspectos essenciais da performance social corporativa de acordo com as dimensões de categorias de Responsabilidade Social (econômica, legal, ética e voluntária); os tipos de comportamento de resposta (reativa, defensiva, acomodativa e pró-ativa); e as áreas de ações/programas da empresa (consumo, meio ambiente, discriminação, segurança do produto e segurança no trabalho). O trabalho classifica-se como estudo de caso de caráter descritivo-exploratório que por meio de uma abordagem quali-quantitativa realizada através de pesquisas de campo, aplicou-se entrevista com roteiro semi-estruturado, avaliadas através de análise de conteúdo das informações, e questionários a stakeholders internos e externos à empresa, analisados por meio do programa STATATM. Os resultados apontaram que os stakeholders internos vêem que a empresa possui atuação predominantemente no campo de responsabilidade econômica, principalmente na visão dos funcionários da administração e produção, evidenciando que as ações se voltam para a maximização de lucros. Mas para os gestores sobressai-se a responsabilidade legal, assim como também os stakeholders externos do tipo clientes, comunidade e fornecedores. Já os consumidores e parceiros salientam que a empresa assume responsabilidade econômica e voluntária respectivamente, denotando que a empresa desenvolve ações sociais que elevam a qualidade de vida da comunidade que fica ao seu entorno. No campo de comportamentos e respostas pode-se observar na visão de três dos cinco tipos de stakeholders externos a predominância de comportamento pró-ativo (comunidade, fornecedores e parceiros), mas para clientes e consumidores a empresa possui comportamento acomodativo. Para os stakeholders internos predominou que as atividades se desenvolvem como meio de obedecer às exigências, sendo, portanto, defensivo. Em relação às ações/programas, percebe-se que foi unânime entre todos os stakeholders internos e externos, que para essa empresa, a segurança do produto é a base de sua atuação no mercado de alimentos. De modo geral, a aplicação da metodologia de Carroll (1979) permitiu concluir que na percepção dos stakeholders a empresa não possui políticas estruturadas de RSE, atuando de forma pontual por meio de um Instituto Educacional, o qual desenvolve atividades especificamente de formação profissional.

Submitted by Maria Dulce (mdulce@ndc.uff.br) on 2014-05-14T20:13:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Santos, Raphael Freitas-Tese-2013.pdf: 3530229 bytes, checksum: 8bbe268e432c3b7255a5c6e9301ab651 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-05-14T20:13:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Santos, Raphael Freitas-Tese-2013.pdf: 3530229 bytes, checksum: 8bbe268e432c3b7255a5c6e9301ab651 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Esta tese procura analisar a dinâmica econômica e social de um circuito mercantil que nas primeiras décadas do século XVIII teve um papel fundamental na história da América portuguesa: o Caminho dos Sertões e dos Currais da Bahia. Através de dados, informações, registros e, sobretudo, da trajetória de indivíduos que atuaram nas rotas comerciais que ligavam Minas à Bahia buscamos descortinar, não apenas o fluxo mercantil, mas também as práticas e as estratégias adotadas pelos agentes durante a sua vivência dos mercados. Com isso tornou-se possível conhecer melhor nuances sobre a história de lugares entrecortados pelo circuito mercantil em foco, bem como alcançar interessantes conclusões com relação a aspectos da colonização portuguesa da América, e da dinâmica do comércio Atlântico, antes da emergência efetiva do Capitalismo. / This thesis seeks to analyze the social and economic dynamic for an important mercantile route for the history of the Portuguese America in the first decades of the eighteenth century: the Caminho dos Sertões e dos Currais da Bahia (the hinterland and cattle shed path of Bahia). Some data, some information, some registers and, mostly, some individual life story of those who worked on the routes which connected the captaincy of Minas Gerais to the captaincy of Bahia have revealed to us, not only the mercantile flows, but also, the strategies and the practices of the merchants in their daily life in the markets. This effort made possible to know better some details of the history of some places in the path of the focused mercantile route. Besides, it made us reach some interesting conclusions about some aspects of the Portuguese colonization in America and about the dynamic of the Atlantic trade before the effective rising of the capitalism system.

A Critical Theoretical perspective is used to analyse the underlying logic of globalization (flexible capital accumulation) as problematic for social policy and programs. Conflicts between economic accumulation and political legitimation emerged as contradictory stagflation leading to delinking the gold standard and abandonment of the Keynesian consensus and Bretton Woods system. The Macdonald Royal Commission on Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada abandoned its claim to public enlightenment and social consensus in validating free trade. The economic constitution of free trade limits social rights and future political intervention into the economic sphere. The social orientation to emancipation and well-being are restrained to utilitarian discourse. Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School is compared with positivism and interpretivism within an analytic frame of ontology, epistemology and methodology. The historical background of the Frankfurt School is discussed with contributions by Adorno, Foucault, Freud, Habermas, Honneth, Horkheimer, and Marcuse. A meta-theoretical framework is developed for use in social work theory and practice. Jiirgen Habermas' Theory of Social Action is analysed within the frame as arguing the good life in the public sphere. Habermas' interpretation of the crisis of the welfare state as the colonization of the lifeworld by strategic communication is applied to the recent free trade and social policy debate. Universal pragmatics and the criteria of universal validity claims is developed. A communication assessment method is developed from Habermas' universal validity claims criteria and theory of communicative action. The typological criteria is used to measure public consensus on The Globe and Mail Newspaper coverage of Canadian public sphere discourse on free trade and social policy from 1980 to 1995. A multi-stage sample of textual arguments is deconstructed and analysed within an "ideal speech situation" of the hermeneutic-dialectical computer program ATLAS/ti. Qualitative analysis and statistical measures of Chi-Square Analysis and Dendrograms are adapted to the validity claim criteria to describe the results. Methodological results are tentative, and presented as an exploration of theory applied to method which is useful for social work theory and practice. The importance of the Habermasian revision of Critical Theory to social work theory and practice is discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The topic of this diploma thesis is the commercialization of civic organizations, which we understand as the process in which they take over some procedures, methods and strategies of the commercial sector in order to generate some profit. As the highest level of commercialization, this work considers the transformation of civil organization into a so called social enterprise.At the next potential level, this civic organization would become a pure market enterprise acting as socially responsible. Thus, a social enterprise is defined as a civic organization, for which profiting is just as important as an increase in public benefit by fulfilling of its own altruistic mission. However, it is said that this social mission may be threatened by the economic one. Whereas the social enterprise combines those two opposing attributes in the form of a social and economic mission, it is considered to be controversial. That's why the aim of this diploma thesis is to determine the importance of a transformation of civic organization into the social enterprise for its life and how this transformation affects its functioning and its essence. The diploma theses is based primarily on the theory of civil society, the civil sector, the social economy and the theory of social enterprise. It is a case study, which...

Thesis (M. Tech. (Business administration)) - Central University of technology, Free State, 2012 / Research evidence suggests that South African small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) are not making the desired impact on their societies because they are unable to create jobs. The normative assertion is that by engaging in socially responsible activities, SMMEs will be able to enhance their impact on society. Much “noise”, effort and resources are being made available to South African SMMEs to encourage them to embrace this concept of social responsibility as it is also touted to result in business benefits. Socially responsible behaviour by SMMEs has therefore become an important national issue in South Africa. However, in spite of this realisation, very little is known about how seriously the South African SMMEs really consider and approach the whole issue of business social responsibility (BSR) precisely because of the dearth of empirical research on the subject. Without empirical evidence from systematic research, it becomes extremely difficult to tell for sure what these SMMEs think of and are really doing in terms of BSR; what obstacles they face in their BSR endeavours; what support they need; among others. Without such information, policy makers cannot reasonably be expected to formulate appropriate support mechanisms to enhance the BSR efforts of these SMMEs. In the end, communities like Botshabelo (in the Free State Province of South Africa) might lose out on the benefits that are usually associated with BSR performance of SMMEs. The purpose of this study was to provide such information. Specifically, the research investigated the following issues: SMMEs understanding of BSR; BSR as a sound business philosophy/practice for SMMEs; Why SMMEs undertake BSR; SMMEs’ attitude towards BSR; Barriers to SMMEs’ BSR engagement; and main BSR activities of SMMEs. In this study, research was conducted on the SMMEs of the Botshabelo industrial estate. After a thorough literature review, data were collected from 170 respondents on 137 out of the 150 SMMEs operating in Botshabelo. The results of the data analysis suggest that the SMMEs investigated have a good understanding of the concept and its value. However, the SMMEs focus mainly on employee and customer issues while showing less concern for community and environmental issues. The SMMEs also encounter barriers to BSR engagement which mostly have to do with lack of time. Based on these findings, recommendations are made regarding policy and further research.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental impacts of Business Social Responsibility (BSR) of the tourism industry in South Africa with a special focus on the Western Cape region. The study was based on the premise that little is known regarding the role and contribution of BSR of the tourism sector to the three critical challenges: poverty, unemployment and inequality that South Africa is facing. The effectiveness of South African tourism policies in guiding the industry and the extend of compliance were assessed. Extensive relevant literature was reviewed, providing a framework for the analysis and interpretation of the research findings. Different types of tourism businesses, 307 in total, were surveyed in the Western Cape Province using stratified sampling. Government tourism departments and community organisations were identified as the key informants. Mixed research methods were applied, allowing for various tools and techniques to be used. Research data was analysed using qualitative and quantitative techniques. The research findings were analysed and interpreted using theoretical realism and neoliberalism frameworks. The findings indicated that the government developed a series of regulations and procedures to guide the tourism sector. Key role players and international investors design and implement BSR activities with complete disregard of intended community stakeholders. There is little or no significant participation in the design stage of intended stakeholders. Targeted communities are not able to raise critical issues largely because of poverty and unemployment. Though there are regulations such as B-BBEE, employment equity, BSR policies governing various tourism businesses have largely ignored these regulations. Attracting investors has been a major concern for the government with little concern of the nature of activities, impacts and their contributions on reducing the triple challenges in the country. This study contends that the current policies and regulatory frameworks are much too market friendly. Hence, the tourism industry has largely been able to implement policies that favours market goals. Some tourism BSR policies are aligned to the province’s institutional framework while others are not, indicating a lack of sustainable development. A model is proposed to improve the implementation of tourism BSR activities and policies / Geography / D. Phil. (Geography)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is one important response to the increasing amounts of criticism levelled at corporations. A number of studies have focused on CSR in a range of industries; however, some contentious industries, e.g. the gambling industry, remain unexplored. Mobilizing CSR in a novel setting not only enhances the knowledge of CSR and gambling, but also provides an overview of this industry itself. This thesis attempts to investigate three questions: to what extent does the gambling industry disclose CSR-related data, how is CSR understood in this industry and why does the gambling industry engage in CSR? This thesis provides a general overview of the international gambling industry and an in-depth investigation of Macao's gambling industry. The research design of the thesis employs mixed methods: content analysis and semi-structured interviews. The principal research is based on 49 interviews. This thesis advances three main arguments. First, it will be argued that there are relatively low volumes of Corporate Social Disclosure (CSD) and Responsible Gambling (RG) disclosure in the international gambling industry, which can be viewed as a legitimising strategy. Second, in Macao's gambling industry, it is argued that organisations in this industry tend to place a greater emphasis on positive social impacts, while obscuring such negative impacts as gambling addiction and health-related issues. Third, this thesis holds that organisations in Macao's gambling industry engage symbolically, rather than substantively, with CSR and RG in order to manage stakeholders' perceptions in an attempt to gain different sources of legitimacy and in turn to enhance its economic interests. In conclusion, the gambling industry does not entirely conform to the institutional environment, which poses a challenge to the organisational legitimacy literature. This thesis introduces a necessary caution into the discussions about the extent of CSD, CSR, and RG in this industry more generally.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2004. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The cultural industries have been identified by the South African government as having significant potential to generate employment and hence alleviate the wide spread poverty suffered by many in the country. They have invested in the cultural industries with a view to developing SMMEs that have the potential to generate sustainable livelihoods. Craft, in particular is seen as an ideal vehicle through which poverty alleviation can take place, due to the combination of low technology requirements with high levels of manual labour. This study looks at one such multi-site craft-based poverty alleviation programme, Phumani Paper, and assesses the impact that it has had on the poverty of its participants (so far). Drawing on relevant theory “poverty” is defined as a deficiency with regard to three aspects of people’s lives: income, “human development” and capacity building. The results of the study indicate that the program did contribute to human development, but that income generation was less successful. In this regard success seems to depend on conditions at three levels of a programme: the programme management, the project model and the individual participants. Strategic intervention on these three levels will ensure that the impact of craft on poverty is more effective. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die kulturele nywerhede is deur die Suid-Afrikaanse regering geïdentifiseer as ‘n potensiële bron van werkskepping om te help om wydverspreide armoede in die land aan te spreek. Die regering het op kulturele terrein belê in klein- en medium sakeondernemings met die hoop dat hulle kan bydra tot die skepping van volhoubare bestaansgeleenthede. Kunsvlyt word as ‘n ideale roete tot armoede verligting gesien a.g.v. die kombinasie van lae tegnologie vereistes en intensiewe handearbeid. Die studie kyk na een sodanige kunsvlyt-gebaseerde programme vir armoedeverligting, nl. Phumani Paper, en meet die impak wat dit (tot dusver) op die armoede van diegene gehad het wat aan die program deelneem. Gebasseer op relevante teorie word “armoede” in hierdie studie gedefinieer as 'n gebrek op drie terreine van mense se lewens: inkomste, “menslike ontwikkeling” en kapasiteitsbou. Die resultate van die studie toon aan dat die program bygedra het tot menslike ontwikkeling, maar dat die skepping van inkomste minder suksesvol was. Sukses in hierdie verband blyk af te hang van kondisies op drie vlakke van 'n program: die programbestuur, die projek-model en die individuele deelnemers. Strategiese intervensie op hierdie drie vlakke sal verseker dat die impak van kunsvlyt op armoede meer effektief is.