Corporate social responsibility has become an accepted part of business for organizations of any size. Organizations are not only expected to be profitable and successful, but they are also expected to be responsible global citizens. However, though this has become an accepted part of business, there remain many areas of CSR research that are under researched. This study examined the top 16 CSR programs of organizations headquartered in the United States to better understand what they communicate about their programs, their relationship with both the news media and government entities, which issues they address the most, and where they implement their programs throughout the world. This study found that the organizations examined concerned themselves the most with stakeholder involvement and engagement. It also found that nearly half of the initiatives analyzed centered around environmental issues. These organizations implemented programs that had a strong fit both with what they as an organization do well and also with issues that align with their corporate values.

There are diverse participants in the student housing development in campus KTH, in which everyone plays a role and has his own claim and influence.  The stakeholder theory provides a pluralistic perspective and various analyzing techniques to get a better understanding of the question “who or what really matters” in the student housing development process.    The aim of this paper is to conduct an empirical stakeholder analysis for the student accommodation projects in campus KTH. The research work is done using stakeholder definitions and analysis techniques derived from relevant literature, based on the stakeholder data gained directly and indirectly form interview informants and open sources.  In the analysis, the author firstly attempts to identify—and map out—the student housing project’s stakeholders and their “stake”, influence and claims. The prioritizing of stakeholders is then studied based on the stakeholder information aforementioned, using Mitchell etc’s (1997) salience class model. The interactions between multi-stakeholders are also revealed to interpret their joint influence on various development activities. Finally, a framework of engagement strategies towards individual stakeholders in different stages is formed by the author, aiming to provide implications for the stakeholder management of the student housing projects.  The conclusion of this study summarizes the main findings of the stakeholder analysis. Considering subjectivity is the most noticeable limitation in this study, it is suggested that future studies focus more on the relatively objective evaluation of importance of stakeholders. Questionnaire may be a feasible method to gather reliable information and stakeholder analysis techniques derived from the literature can provide guidance to decrease bias in stakeholder evaluation and analysis / Det finns flera olika deltagare för utvecklingen av studentbostäder på campus KTH, där alla spelar en egen roll och har sina egna krav och inflytande. Intressentteorin tillhandahåller ett pluralistiskt perspektiv och diverse analystekniker för att få en bättre förståelse i frågan "Vem eller vad är verkligen avgörande" i utvecklingsprocessen för studentbostäder.  Syftet med denna uppsats är att genomföra en empirisk intressentanalys för studentboende projekten på campus KTH. Forskningsarbetet görs med hjälp av intressentanalysstekniker härledda från litteraturen, baserat på intressentdata som erhållits direkt och indirekt från intervjuinformanter och öppna källor. I analysen försöker författaren identifiera och kartlägga studentboende projektens intressenter och deras "stake", inflytande och påståenden. Prioritering av intressenter studeras sedan baserat på intressentinformationen ovan, med hjälp av Mitchell etcs (1997) salience-klassmodell. Samspelet mellan flera intressenter visas också på för att tolka deras gemensamma påverkan på olika utvecklingsaktiviteter. Slutligen bildas en ram av engagemangsstrategier mot enskilda intressenter i olika etapper av författaren, som syftar till att ge konsekvenser för intressenthanteringen av studentboende projekten. Slutsatsen av denna studie sammanfattar de viktigaste resultaten av intressentanalysen.  Att ta hänsyn till subjektivitet är den mest märkbara begränsningen i denna studie, framtida studier föreslås fokuserar mer på den relativt objektiva utvärderingen av intressenternas betydelse. Frågeformuläret kan vara en genomförbar metod för att samla tillförlitlig information och intressentanalys tekniker som är erhållna från litteraturen kan ge vägledning för att minska partiskhet i bedömning och analys av intressenter.

Environmental management has increasingly become a participatory process. In recent times, emphasis has been placed on watershed-based solutions to remediate the problems of diffuse source pollution and to engage stakeholders in designing solutions. Water quality models are an integral part of this process; such models are often inaccessible to lay stakeholders. A review of the literature suggests that properly applied partnerships have several benefits that go beyond decision-making. Stakeholder education and enhancements to the eventual outcome from stakeholder insight and support are two such benefits. To aid engineers and scientists, who often do not interact directly with other stakeholders, several best practices were identified that may be applied to develop, manage, and evaluate stakeholder partnerships. Environmental Decision Support Systems (EDSSs) have been shown to be an effective way to promote stakeholder partnerships in environmental decision-making. Many current EDSSs were designed to be used by experts, thus limiting their effectiveness for stakeholder engagement. Often, these EDSSs, if designed for lay stakeholders, were not coupled with water quality models. To demonstrate that complex water quality models may be made accessible to stakeholders, without any significant changes to the modeling scheme, a web-based EDSS was developed for the Occoquan Reservoir, located in northern Virginia, U.S.A., and its tributary watershed. The developed EDSS may also be readily extended to other watersheds and their modeling programs. The current implementation of the EDSS enables users to modify land use and analyze simulated changes to water quality due to these modifications. A local-network server cluster, based on the Locally Distributed Simultaneous Model Execution (LDSME) framework, was also developed and served as a backend to the EDSS. The server cluster can support simultaneous execution of multiple water quality models or any other software on disparate computers. This system was employed to study pre-development and other land use modification scenarios in the Occoquan Watershed. The pre-development scenario offers an easy-to-understand and universally-applicable baseline for measuring waterbody and watershed restoration progress. It enabled computation of a measure called the "developed-excess," which is independent of local conditions and may be used for comparisons among various watershed sub-divisions or between watersheds. / Ph. D.

Engineered products can impact the day-to-day life of their users and other stakeholders. These impacts are often referred to as the product's social impacts. Products have been known to impact the people who use them, design them, manufacture them, distribute them, and the communities where they exist. Currently, there are few methods that can help an engineer identify, quantify, predict, or improve a product's social impact. Some companies and organizations have tried to identify their impacts and, for example, set goals for achieving more sustainable business practices. However, engineers, in large part, do not have methods that can help improve the sustainability and social impacts of their products. Without new methods to help engineers make better product decisions, products will continue to have unanticipated negative impacts and will likely not reach their true social impact potential. Engineers working in the field of Engineering for Global Development (EGD) are especially in need of methods that can help improve the social impacts of their products. One of the purposes of creating products in EGD is to help solve problems that lead to improved quality of life for people and communities in developing countries. The research in this dissertation presents new methods developed to help engineers understand, predict, and improve the social impact of their products. Chapter 2 introduces the Product Impact Metric, a simple metric engineers can use to quantify their products impact on improving the quality of life of impoverished individuals in developing countries. Chapter 3 introduces a method that engineers can use to create product-specific social impact metrics and models. These models are used to predict the social impacts of an expanded US-Mexico border wall on immigrants, border patrol officers, and local communities. Chapter 4 shows a method that allows engineers to create social impact models for individuals within a population. Using data available through online databanks and census reports, the author predicts the social impact of a new semi-automated cassava peeler on farmers in the Brazilian Amazon. In Chapter 5, the author presents a method for engineers to optimize a product according to its social impact on multiple stakeholders. Inspired by existing literature on multi-stakeholder decision making, eight different optimization problem formulations are presented and demonstrated in an example with the cassava peeler. Chapter 6 presents the author's experience in co-designing a semi-automated cassava with the Itacoatiara Rural Farming Cooperative. The peeler was designed and built by the author and is used as the example in Chapters 4 and 5. Finally, Chapter 7 shows the conclusions the author has in completing this research. Comments are made as to the difficulties encountered in this research (specifically data quality and validation), and the author makes suggestions of possible future work.

Background: Refugees and refugee claimants experience health needs upon arrival in Canada. Retrenchments to the Interim Federal Health program (IFHP) in 2012 greatly reduced healthcare access for refugee claimants, generating concerns among healthcare providers and other stakeholders affected by the reforms. In 2014 a new IFH program temporarily reinstated access to some health services however, little is known about the reforms and more information is needed to map its impact on key stakeholders. This study aims to examine the perception of key stakeholders regarding the impact of the 2014 reforms on the policy’s intermediary goals: access and provision of healthcare. Methodology: Data was collected using semi-structured key informant interviews with refugee health policy stakeholders (n=23), refugees and refugee claimants (n=6), policy makers and government officials (n=5), civil society organizations (n=6) and professionals and practitioners (n=6). Data was analysed using a constant comparative approach with NVivo 10 (QSR International). A stakeholder analysis was used to map out key stakeholder perceptions, interests and influences in refugee health policy and a content analysis was further employed to abstract themes associated with barriers and facilitators to access and provision of healthcare in the current situation. Results: The findings provide information for management of stakeholder engagement revealing the perceptions of key stakeholders on the 2014 reforms: eight were opposed to the reforms, eight held mixed positions, four supported the reforms and one did not comment. Five facilitators to accessing healthcare were identified. Eighteen themes emerged under four health care access and provision barrier categories: cognitive, socio-political, structural and financial. There were four common themes perceived among all stakeholder groups: lack of communication and awareness of refugee and provider, lack of care provider training leading to unfamiliarity with IFHP, lack of continuity and comprehensive care and the political discourse leading to refugee and claimant social exclusion. Other common barrier themes included healthcare affordability for refugees and the healthcare system, fear of the healthcare system, and interaction with the Ontario Temporary Health Program. Conclusion: The study highlights that reforms to the IFHP in 2014 have transferred refugee health responsibility to provincial authorities and healthcare institutions resulting in bureaucratic strains, inefficiencies, overburdened administration and increased health outcome disparities as refugees and claimants choose to delay seeking healthcare due to existing barriers. There are some benefits to the reforms, but the lack of support and mixed opinions among the majority of stakeholders emphasize the need for reformulation of policy with stakeholder engagement. This study recommends future refugee health reform strategies incorporate stakeholder leadership, cooperation and perspectives, as revealed in this research, to successfully move healthcare policy from theory to practice. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

With the expansion of underpinning technologies, advanced digital technologies and innovations are transforming many aspects of human daily life, such as education, health, and business productivity. Today, the implementation of digital technologies is considered a characteristic of modern societies. However, while society is becoming increasingly dependent on digital technology and e-innovations in business and trade, the need for paying adequate attention to the societal side of this transformation is also becoming prominent. As a generation setting the future orientation of emerging digital innovations, we hold the ethical responsibility to build an inclusive playground for the current and future generations. Such an ethical responsibility urges attending to societal and humanitarian concerns of the current digital transformation into account. As our perception has evolved over the past decades, we perceive societal consideration as a backbone supporting long-term value creation and equitable welfare. Hence, this PhD thesis investigates the associated societal impact of digital technologies.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Die Implementierung digitaler Lehrformate stellt Stakeholder an Hochschulen vor unterschiedliche Herausforderungen, da beispielsweise die Entwicklung derartiger Formate eine Veränderung bisheriger Vorgehensweisen und Arbeitsprozesse erfordert. Mit dem Ziel, die Stakeholder im Zuge der Entwicklung digitaler Lehre zu unterstützen und den identifizierten Herausforderungen zu begegnen, stellt die vorliegende Dissertation die Rollen, Aufgaben und Verantwortlichkeiten sowie die Bedürfnisse und Kooperationen der Stakeholder in den Mittelpunkt. In diesem Zusammenhang kommen in den insgesamt zwölf Forschungsbeiträgen der kumulativen Dissertation verschiedene Forschungsmethoden der Sozialwissenschaft sowie Literaturanalysen zum Tragen, wodurch bezugnehmend auf digitale Hochschullehre die Flipped Classroom Entwicklung, der Wandel zum Flipped Classroom und die Entwicklung von Online-Lehre analysiert werden. Aufgrund der im Jahr 2020 ausgebrochenen Corona-Pandemie wurden die Erkenntnisse der Flipped Classroom Forschung insbesondere bezüglich des agilen Vorgehens und der Change Management Orientierung auf die Entwicklung von Online-Lehre übertragen, damit Stakeholder an Hochschulen sowohl während als auch nach der Corona-Pandemie von den gewonnenen Erkenntnissen, den entwickelten Modellen sowie den abgeleiteten Handlungsempfehlungen dieser Dissertation profitieren können.