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Today, multinational corporations demonstrate commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by adopting global voluntary initiatives and codes of conduct and by publishing annual reports on their social behaviour. This research examines how the cross-­‐ country variation of CSR behaviour of firms can be explained by the ‘Varieties of Capitalism' theory, and explores whether the CSR behaviour of firms changes when operating across borders. A large-­‐N sample of the Fortune global 500 firms and a small-­‐N sample of five multinational oil companies operating in Nigeria were taken to test the research hypotheses, using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Some support was found for the Varieties of Capitalism theory. In particular, firms from the United States, a liberal market economy, are less likely to adopt global voluntary initiatives compared with firms from coordinated market economies or Mediterranean-­‐type economies. State-­‐owned firms, which are mainly headquartered in non-­‐OECD countries, are also less likely to adopt global initiatives, but the ones that do have high levels of adherence. External actors, such as international organisations, civil society organisations and philanthropic organisations are important in influencing a firm's commitment to CSR. Content analysis reveals that, in general, all corporations report on the same topics, with emphasis placed on what is perceived to be important to the stakeholders. This research found that the adoption of global initiatives and the reporting on social behaviour are headquarters-­‐orientated activities, and that there is often a disconnection in corporate social behaviour between the headquarters and the subsidiary. Because the CSR behaviour of firms clearly changes when operating across borders, the participation in voluntary initiatives should be done at a local and at headquarter level. Furthermore, the lack of participation in global initiatives by US firms and subsidiaries raises questions about the effectiveness and purpose of these initiatives.

<p>In this thesis, I will assess the question of what it means to be responsible for an action, and attempt to unify the various concepts around the conception of answerability. Focusing on that notion, I argue, will gives a better understanding of the other proposed conceptions of responsibility: that of attributability and that of accountability. I will come up with three connected definitions corresponding to these notions, and show that once we refine our concept of responsibility, it is possible for an agent to be responsible in one way, and not another. I demonstrate this contention on the test case of the psychopath.</p><p>Keywords: moral responsibility, answerability, psychopathy</p> / Dissertation

D.Ed. (Psychology Of Education) / In this thesis an effort was made to propose a concept of the development of responsibility during adolescence. The intention, more specifically, was to describe the development of some aspects of responsibility in adolescents who have Afrikaans as mother tongue. The motivation for doing the research was: Firstly, it is an accepted fact that adolescents and youths receive less guidance today from home, church, and community than they did in the past, while guidance to reach adulthood also means guidance to accept responsibility. Secondly, to develop a sense of responsibility, and to fully accept responsibility, are seen as the ultimate aims of education. Thirdly, the different aspects of a sense of responsibility, and the influence of the community and the educational setting on the development of these aspects of responsibility, have not been established yet...

The thesis deals with responsibility management and its information support. The main objective of the thesis is to design the system of responsibility management in a particular company. The first part of the thesis deals with theoretical aspects of responsibility management and its information support. This part is divided into three chapters. The first chapter shows the background of responsibility management, the second chapter is about responsibility accounting. The last chapter of the theoretical part handles with performance measuring of responsibility centers. The second part of this thesis, that includes one extensive chapter, deals with responsibility management in a particular company.

A research report presented to The Department of Social Work School of Human and Community Development Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand In partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Social Development March, 2016 / Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is now moving beyond being peripheral to business to becoming an integral part of it. Although there is a sizeable amount of literature on CSR, there is still no standard and agreed definition of CSR. The way CSR must be implemented and evaluated also remains a topic of debate. This gap is problematic as increasingly governments are involving corporations to address the inequalities that exist in society. At the same time several studies suggest that organizations struggle to have robust and effective CSR practices within their organizations. In South Africa, several legislations have been put in place to indirectly involve the private sector to address the inequalities arising out of the Apartheid and the BBBEE Act of 2003 has been instrumental in shaping the developmental path of post-apartheid South Africa, thus making implementation and reporting of CSI initiatives more important than ever before. The study sought to explore the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of the Sanlam Foundation in the Western Cape, South Africa. The study adopted a qualitative case study design and the study population consisted of officials drawn from Sanlam Foundation and its implementing organizations. Participants were drawn from Sanlam Foundation’s implementing partners and key informants who are senior officials of the Sanlam Foundation also participated in the study. A sample of eight participants and two key informants and were drawn using purposive sampling. Semi structured interview schedules were used to collect data using face to face interviews with both participants and key informants. The findings revealed that monitoring, evaluation and reporting of CSR initiatives remain the biggest challenge in implementing of CSR initiatives. The findings also establish that there remains a gap in the NGOs’ and funder’s understanding of the reporting content. Measuring and expressing qualitative impact is a challenge for NGOs. The report recommends that both funders and partners must understand the implications of monitoring and evaluation of programmes. It also emphasizes the need to have simplified discussions with partners at inception to understand their views and develop project specific reporting templates that justify project specific impact. It is anticipated that the research findings will enable Sanlam Foundation and other companies to strengthen their CSR activities.

Thesis advisor: Diana Pullin / Within the education field evaluation exists on many levels. In a school district it is routine to find superintendents evaluating principals, principals evaluating teachers, teachers evaluating student work and parents evaluating all aspects of the school community. The purpose of this study was to investigate the manner in which public school superintendents perceived that they evaluated principal performance. The eight participants in the study were Massachusetts public school superintendents. The superintendents originated from districts located in eastern Massachusetts. Participants were interviewed about their principal evaluation activities and asked to provide documents relevant to the ways in which they evaluated principals. This study was specifically focused on three research questions. The first question dealt with the types of criteria and evidence a superintendent considered when evaluating a principal. The second question dealt with the processes and practices a superintendent employed to determine the degree to which a principal met the aforementioned criteria. The final question dealt with the level of consistency between principal evaluation practices advocated in the literature and the actual practice of evaluating principals as conducted by this study’s participants. The findings of this study indicated that principal evaluation is an incredibly complex endeavor. The study also identified several areas in which the principal evaluation can be strengthened in order to enhance principal leadership. The identified areas included the articulation of principal evaluation activities that are more cognizant of the local school environment, the need to better assist beginner superintendents as the evaluate principals and the need to provide superintendents with more time to thoroughly evaluate principal performance. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

A series of China’s product safety scandals have recently aroused global concerns over the business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China. General public believe that companies have a responsibility towards the society that goes beyond their obligation of maximizing profits. The aims of this research are to understand the development of CSR in China over the past few years and measure the effects of CSR on firm performance by examining the standalone CSR reports for the period 2008-2009. The latest data indicate that Chinese companies have been making progress in their CSR practices. The results of this study show that the prior financial performance is positively associated with CSR disclosure and the CSR disclosure has a significant and positive effect on the firm financial performance in the next year.

archives@tulane.edu / This dissertation examines the relationship between ignorance and responsibility. Ignorance is often treated as an excuse, but there are times when ignorance does not excuse. Ignorance that does not excuse is usually known as culpable ignorance. Since ignorance is largely an epistemological concept, the difference between culpable and exculpating ignorance suggests a connection between epistemology and theories of responsibility that has gone relatively unexplored. The following work explores this connection and argues that incorporating epistemological theories will help provide a robust account of both the ignorance excuse and culpable ignorance. The project begins by pointing out that some highly intuitive accounts of culpable ignorance seem remarkably like theories of epistemic justification. As such, epistemic justification seems like the best candidate for an epistemological concept that might share a connection with the culpable ignorance literature in moral philosophy. I argue that there is a theory of epistemic justification that captures our intuitions regarding culpable ignorance. Its close connection to our practices gives us good reason to think that, if this theory of justification is right, then the following is true: one’s ignorance exculpates only if it is justified, and one’s ignorance is culpable only if it is not justified. I call this the Justification Thesis. Once I establish the Justification Thesis, I defend it against various possible objections. First, the Justification Thesis is a derivative account of culpable ignorance, and it is often thought that derivative accounts are forced into responsibility skepticism. I argue that this is not true. Second, it is often thought derivative accounts like the Justification Thesis are open to a large class of counterexamples. I examine a few common alleged counterexamples and argue that they trade on ambiguities that, I suggest, are shared by every purported counterexample. When disambiguated it turns out they are not counterexamples after all. Third, some question whether ignorance with moral content exculpates. I argue that the Justification Thesis captures our intuitions regarding moral ignorance. Finally, I address a challenge to the initial assumption that culpable ignorance does not excuse and argue that this challenge is mistaken. / 1 / Nathan W. Biebel

<p>Den rekordartade tekniska utvecklingen som världen har utsatts för under de senaste 100 åren har lett till att vi nu får se dess negativa biverkningar, förstörelsen på vår natur. Detta har i sin tur lett till att organisationer fått upp ögonen för fördelarna som uppstår med att arbeta mot miljöförstörelsen. Nya organisationer och företag gör entré på marknaden hela tiden och alla, nya som gamla, spelar en stor roll för vår miljö. Genom att arbeta för en minskad miljöpåverkan kan en organisation inte endast skaffa sig konkurrensfördelar utan även skapa ett bättre samarbete med intressenter och sina anställda.</p><p>Denna framväxt av miljömedvetna organisationer gjorde det intressant för oss som författare att titta närmare på hur dessa organisationer använder sig av grön marknadsföring. Vi valde att applicera det på en kommun, nämligen Halmstad kommun. En kommun har, precis som ett företag, mål med sin verksamhet, och detta är oftast att skapa vinst och tillväxt. Vidare har samtliga marknadsföringsmässiga mål som skall ligga i linje med organisationens övergripande mål. Det var därför intressant för oss att se vad kommunen hade för marknadsföringsmässiga mål och om grön marknadsföring användes för att uppnå dessa. Vårt huvudproblem lyder enligt följande: ” Vad har Halmstad kommun för marknadsföringsmässiga mål och används grön marknadsföring för att nå dessa?” </p><p>Syftet med uppsatsen blir således att förklara, beskriva och undersöka vad Halmstad kommun har för marknadsföringsmässiga mål och om grön marknadsföring används för att uppnå dessa. Halmstad kommun är en ekokommun och vi vill även se om de kan dra någon nytta av det i sin marknadsföring. Metodkapitlet ger en närmare beskrivning kring hur vi rent praktiskt har gått tillväga med våra undersökningar. Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ ansats där vi har intervjuat åtta olika respondenter.</p><p>I den teoretiska referensramen behandlar vi relevanta teorier som vi anser oss behöva för att besvara vårt problem. Vi presenterar teorier kring begreppet Corporate Social Responsibility, grön marknadsföring, varumärke och ekokommun. I empiriavsnittet redogör vi för resultatet av intervjuerna som vi gjort med personer anställda på Halmstad kommun. Vidare i analyskapitlet ställs den insamlade teorin mot vår insamlade empiri. I det avslutande kapitlet, slutsats, görs en djupare analys där vi konstaterar att Halmstad kommun i allra högsta grad använder sig medvetet eller omedvetet av grön marknadsföring för att uppnå sina marknadsföringsmässiga mål. Vi lämnar även rekommendationer på hur kommunen kan öka sin grad av grön marknadsföring.</p>