Thesis (M.L.S.)--University of Toledo, 2004. / Typescript. "A thesis [submitted] as partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Liberal Studies degree." Bibliography: leaves 69-71.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, 2008. / Adviser: Evan J. Ringquist. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Western Ontario (Canada), 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Com. (Economics))-University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Recent economic crises coupled with corporate scandals have plunged the world into the greatest financial predicament it has faced in almost a century. Deregulation has empowered business leaders and their subsequent unethical behaviour has undermined the very foundations of the world’s financial and business infrastructure. It is perplexing that corporate social responsibility (CSR) spend is the first area of business to suffer cutbacks during challenging times – especially since it is often the lack of ethic that has led to such crises in the first place. The cosmic exploration of CSR over the past 50 years has left academics and business leaders with a lack of causal evidence as to the value of behaving in a socially responsible manner. This research tests the theory that CSR can have strategic implications and is pivotal for organisational sustainability. The research uses four constructs of corporate strategy that could be related to CSR, namely: centrality, specificity, proactivity and voluntarism. The research has found that CSR can in be aligned with corporate strategy and assist firms in reaching their long-term goals. It has also found the term “strategic CSR” to be relevant in organisations. The paper proposes a framework that organisations can use to approach CSR in a strategic manner and to create value from CSR. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming more central to the success of corporations, and its importance within South Africa is pertinent given that the transition from apartheid has yet to be followed by an equalling of society, with social and economic divisions persisting. As one of the most emotive basic human rights, health care provision remains unequal, with the private sector still serving an historically advantaged minority and the public sector carrying the burden of the populist majority. This study explored the role the of the private health care sector in light of the growing importance of CSR, against the backdrop of the national health insurance debate and the understanding of the role the private sector can play in achieving the national health care objectives. Exploratory research and qualitative analysis methodology were carried out for this research, utilising in-depth semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with ten private health care sector executives. Whilst the private sector executives intellectually understood their specific context and a growing expectation of society from business, in practice the actions of CSR were still grounded in philanthropic activities. Most respondents acknowledged that more should and could be done, with the primarily obstacle being identified as a lack of teamwork and coordination across businesses in the private sector. The public sector is seen as failing, and the private sector sees itself playing a more active role in service delivery and aiding government with the training of the much needed skills within the public sector. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Organisations operate under unpredictable business environments. These business environments can be classified into internal and external environments. The decision taken by organisations to allocate resources for CSR depends on business environments. Organisations have no control of external business environments. Global financial crisis is an example of an external business environment of which organisations have no control over. The event in the business environments can influence the organisation to review its CSR operations. The beneficiaries of the organisation's CSR program get affected by such decision reviews and face even bigger challenges.

Currently corporate scandals are making headlines in the news. Stakeholders are demanding transparency through better information disclosure in order to curtail this problem and to regain trust. Businesses must find better and more effective ways of communicating not only financial but also non-financial information to these stakeholders. Information disclosures in both annual reports and on websites are important but the two media are used differently. Online CSR disclosures provide timely information and will meet stakeholders’ demands for greater speed and volume of information disclosure. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the current level of online CSR disclosures among public listed companies in Malaysia, with particular reference to the influence of leadership variables. This study seeks to explain any variations in online CSR disclosures by using the following variables as the explanatory factors: ethical leadership behaviours, consisting of people orientation, fairness, power sharing, concern for sustainability, ethical guidance, role clarification and integrity; leadership styles, comprising transactional and transformational leadership styles; and leader roles. In investigating this issue, a quantitative approach was employed using a sample of 100 top Malaysian public listed companies. The data collection started with examining corporate websites using a disclosure index, followed by a questionnaire survey to grasp employees’ opinions on their leaders’ ethical leadership behaviours, leadership styles and leader roles. Due to the limitations of a quantitative approach, seven semi-structured interviews with managers were conducted to give context to the quantitative findings as well as supplement the data. The results show that Malaysian companies’ level of online CSR disclosure was low and the majority of companies did not fully utilise their websites to disseminate CSR information, although all the companies had websites. The results of the multiple regression indicated that ethical guidance, concern for sustainability and integrity contributed to the amount of CSR information disclosed on the Malaysian companies’ websites but interestingly, these were inverse relationships. Consequently, the interview findings revealed that not all leadership variables were perceived by managers to be determinants of online CSR disclosures. The inverse relationships were possibly due to factors such as leader’s confidence, moral recognition, personal recognition, external factors and cultural factors. This research contributes to the understanding of corporate voluntary disclosure strategies through the focus on online CSR disclosure. Prior disclosure studies emphasize financial, accounting and economic related variables as determinants to online CSR disclosures. This study provides a new insight for company leaders, policy makers and academics on how the behaviours of leaders, who are key corporate players, can impact the setting of CSR goals and enhance transparency by disclosing online.

Marketers have made attempts to understand the disconnect between consumers’ expressed desire to engage in sustainable behavior and their lack of adoption of sustainable products with ambiguous results. Because companies that engage in sustainability initiatives often focus on either environmental or social sustainability, the broader impact of sustainability is not always understood. When a company makes a promise to be socially sustainable, consumers may also think that the company is environmentally sustainable and vice versa. Moreover, consumer evaluations of companies that make promises to be either socially or environmentally sustainable may be different if the company later delivers a success along the same versus the other dimension of sustainability. A success along a sustainability dimension that matches the initial sustainability promise is referred to here as a paired success. Alternatively, complementary successes incorporate both sustainability dimensions, where a company first promises to be sustainable along one dimension of sustainability but later delivers a successful outcome along the other sustainability dimension. Attitudes are expected to be enhanced when a company delivers a complementary because the company has accounted for consumers’ interconnection of the sustainability dimensions. A failure to be sustainable along either dimension is predicted to diminish consumer evaluations of the company. Four experiments were conducted to explore the interconnection between social and environmental sustainability and its effect on consumer evaluations of the company. Study 1 first examines the prediction that consumer perceptions of social and environmental sustainability are interconnected in consumers’ minds. Study 2 then examines how consumers’ attitudes towards companies that make either social or environmental sustainability promises compare to companies that do not make sustainability promises. Additionally, study 2 investigates how consumer attitudes towards companies are impacted by paired and complementary successes and sustainability failures. Study 3 explores the psychological mechanisms of perceived sincerity and competence. Finally, study 4 is a behavioral choice experiment used to generalize the findings to actual behavior, exploring how the interconnectedness of social and environmental sustainability influence consumer product choices. The findings from these studies offer insights into how consumers perceive companies that consider both the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability.