Thèse--Rennes. / "Bibliographie": p. [347]-356.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-155).

The importance of corporate social responsibility (hereinafter referred to as CSR) is on the rise, and more and more companies are engaging in activities such as cause-related marketing, employee volunteering and/or corporate philanthropy, commonly referred to CSR programmes. More than 80 % of Fortune 500 companies deal with CSR issues in the United States. In Europe the number of companies doing this is also growing, led by companies such as The Body Shop and SAP. What are the reasons for this trend? On the one hand, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of bad business practices in times of increasing media coverage and advanced information technology. Twitter storms and Facebook campaigns have enabled consumers to exert their powers of protest and boycotting, resulting in negative economic consequences for the companies. For instance the Coca-Cola #notinmyfridge twitter campaign is said to have had an impact on the company’s global sales due to the negative publicity. On the other hand, there is evidence that CSR is not only “the moral thing to do”, but also has a positive impact on the company’s relationships with its stakeholders, such as employees, customers and consumers. CSR is reported to have a positive impact on both consumer product responses as well as its attitude towards the company, including consumers’ identification with the company. <img src="file:///page4image15696" />Still, there are still many knowledge gaps with regards to how these CSR programmes are being developed and implemented today. In addition to this, there is limited research on how the programmes are being perceived by stakeholders such as customers, consumers, employees and leaders, or indeed what the main driving forces are behind setting up such programmes. Is it a desire to be a great company or just a precaution to avoid “twitter"-storms?

CSR Reporting has already been in the mainstream as a common practice of 21st–century business. The benefits of CSR reporting go beyond obtaining license to operate. It also enhances the competitiveness of companies and fosters investor confidence. CSR reporting in China has been growing very fast in recent years due to the increasing pressure from the regulators as well as companies’ stakeholders including buyers, investors as well as local communities. Some of them recognized the benefits and importance of CSR reporting while some merely fulfilled the minimum statutory requirements to publish CSR reports. The CSR reports published by the Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong were examined in this study to assess their quality. When compared to the selected CSR reports by Hong Kong leading companies/organization, the reports published by Chinese companies were of relatively low quality in general with a few outstanding examples. The weakest areas included the way to determine report content and report assurance. This often led to information bias that the companies omit negative and sensitive CSR issues. It is recommended to fully adopt international reporting guidelines such as Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines, and thus the report content will be more relevant and comparable. Another major part of this study was a questionnaire survey targeting CSR specialists in Hong Kong to identify their views on CSR reporting in China. The result echoed with the findings from the report benchmarking that the specialists reckoned that the CSR reports produced by Chinese companies have room for improvement. Introducing mandatory CSR disclosure requirement was widely supported. Nevertheless, clear guidance and sufficient support in capacity building for the companies are recommended before launching mandatory CSR disclosure requirements to ensure report quality so that the reports will consist of meaningful and significant CSR information to their stakeholders. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

This dissertation examines the strategic deployment of evidential resources in communicative interactions among Nantis, an Arawak people of Peruvian Amazonia. In particular, this work focuses on Nantis' uses of evidentials to modulate representations of responsibility, and shows that two distinct types of responsibility must be distinguished in order to account for the socially instrumental properties of evidential resources: event responsibility and utterance responsibility. Event responsibility concerns praiseworthiness or blameworthiness for happenings in which the relevant individual is causally implicated; while utterance responsibility concerns the socially salient attributes of an utterance (e.g. truthfulness), and not the utterance's consequences. Evidential resources are shown to mitigate event responsibility in Nanti interactions by serving as a pragmatic metaphor, whereby the sensory directness or indirectness encoded by evidentials yields inferences regarding individuals' participation in, and responsibility for, events. The use of evidential resources, principally quotative resources, to modulate utterance responsibility operates on quite different principles. Specifically, quotative resources serve to individuate utterances by attributing them to a particular source, thereby rendering explicit that individual's commitment to the stances expressed by the quoted utterance. In doing so, the use of the quotative resource emphasizes that individual's responsibility for the expressed stance. Quotative resources are also employed to decrease a first party's responsibility for a stance, by attributing it to a third party. In this case, inferences based on the Maxim of Quantity lead interactants to infer reduced commitment on the part of the first party on the basis of the attribution of strong commitment to a third party. Both epistemic stance and a variety of moral and evaluative stances are relevant to utterance responsibility. Significantly, utterance responsibility is one of the few areas in which a pragmatic tie exists between evidentiality and epistemic modality, indicating the relative marginality of epistemic modality to evidentiality in Nanti, even at the level of pragmatics. An ethnographic and historical sketch of the Nanti people is provided, and a grammatical description of the Nanti language is also included. / text

The main objective of this study is to develop an accounting and reporting system for the costs of corporate social responsibility performance. Secondary objectives of the study are: (1) to review the current issues of corporate social responsibility to be measured and reported; (2) to provide some guide-lines to help a company's management in selecting the socially relevant activities; (3) to investigate the rationale for corporate social involvement; (4) to indicate the legal minimum requirements in the major areas of corporate social performance; (5) to determine the concept of accounting for corporate social performance and the appropriate method for measuring and reporting the costs of such performance; and (6) to ascertain the current state of corporate social reporting practice in the United Kingdom. To achieve these objectives, the study begins by discussing the social activities to be covered in corporate social reporting. The rationale for initiating corporate social activities is also discussed and some guide-lines are offered. Moreover, the social actions which should be taken by all British companies, as they are legally required, are examined. Thereafter, the current development of accounting for corporate social responsibility is reviewed and it is concluded that this sort of accounting is still in its infancy. The reasons for which accountants should be concerned with corporate social responsibility accounting are then presented. The concept of accounting for corporate social performance is discussed and the scope of the concept determined. Several approaches for measuring and reporting corporate social performance are examined and it is indicated that the cost approach is the proper method to be employed in this study. Then, the cost concepts of accounting for corporate social performance are discussed from both accounting and economic points of view, and a method for measuring the social costs of a company's economic activities is presented. After reviewing the literature, an attempt is made to develop a framework for accounting and reporting of corporate social performance costs. The identification and classification of such costs are presented and the accounting treatment of these costs is discussed. Separate disclosures of such costs in the traditional financial statements are suggested and illustrated in this study. Finally, a survey of the current state of corporate' social reporting practice in the United Kingdom is given. This survey involved the analysis of corporate social responsibility disclosures in the annual reports and accounts of 207 companies extracted from the top 265 of the 1000 largest U. K. industrial companies. The results of the survey and examples of corporate social responsibility disclosures are presented. The detailed analysis is provided in an Appendix.

No description available.

No description available.

Šiame darbe aptariamos materialinės atsakomybės pagal darbo teisę sąlygos ir subjektai. Darbe lyginamuoju teisės aiškinimo metodu nagrinėjami naujai priimto Darbo kodekso ir Darbo įstatymų kodekso materialinės atsakomybės nuostatų skirtumai. Analizuojant teisinį reguliavimą, taip pat paliečiami materialinės atsakomybės taikymo praktikoje ypatumai- pateikiamos konkrečios Lietuvos Aukščiausiojo Teismo Civilinių bylų skyriaus teisėjų kolegijos nutartys bei nutarimai, taikantys ir aiškinantys materialinę atsakomybę reguliuojančias normas. Išskiriami atskiri darbo teisinių santykių šalių materialinės atsakomybės dėl neturtinės žalos padarymo atvejai, nurodoma, kaip suprantama neturtinė žala, padaryta darbuotojui ir darbdaviui (juridiniam asmeniui). Lyginamuoju metodu nagrinėjami užsienio šalių įstatymai, įtvirtinantys šios atsakomybės sąlygas ir subjektus. Darbo pabaigoje pateiktose išvadose atskleidžiamos teorinės bei praktinės problemos, kylančios taikant darbo teisinių santykių šalims materialinę atsakomybę. / Material responsibility under labour law has occured in order to provide the consensus of employee‘s and employer‘s interests. Since the former is recognized as weaker party of labour relationship, provisions of material responsibility protect his financial interests. On the other side, it is also an effective mean of securing the property of employer. Having this social importance in mind, thesis investigates two majour clauses of material responsibility under labour law, the conditions and subjects. Accordingly, the difference of legal provisions of newly issued Labour Code and the Code of Labour Laws is discussed under a comparative method of study. Pursuant to these provisions, the rulings of Judicial Board of Civil Cases Department of Supreme Court of the Republic of Lithuania dealing with material responsibility are provided. Separate cases of material responsibility due to non-material damage caused to a party of legal labour relationship are observed, refering to the meaning of this kind of damage, specifically, done to the employee and employer (corporation). Laws of foreign countries, relating the conditions and subjects of material responsibility are considered as well. There are conclusions made at the end of the thesis, revealing both theoretical and practical problems, arising when applying material responsibility to a party of legal labour relationship.

This study explores the role engagement in a school-based music ensemble plays in the development of social responsibility in middle school students. The study involved 9 music students, 18 non-music students, and 5 teachers at a suburban middle school in Coquitlam, B.C. Students were compared using three measures – office referral data, a Social Responsibility Quick Scale, and a moral dilemma writing activity – and were subsequently interviewed to determine their thoughts on how musical engagement in music classes might impact their development of social responsibility. Interviews with teachers focused on activities that they believe foster social responsibility as well as their perspectives on this area of child development. Students are referred to the office for misbehaviour at school, and office referral data for the entire school population revealed that students in music classes are referred significantly less often than students not engaged in music (males p = .001; females p = .005). Musically engaged students achieved higher assessed scores on the Social Responsibility Quick Scale and the moral dilemma activity, but the statistical significance of these relationships is questionable owing to the small sample size. Interviews with students and teachers suggested that public performance, music teacher mentorship, and shared in-group responsibilities contribute to fostering development of social responsibility in music students.