Complexity of communicating social responsibility

It is recognised that organisations, consumers and businesses are increasingly more concerned with how business activities affect society. While research has explored specific types of techniques for communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR), there has not been a more general discussion of the considerations that organisations should make when determining the type of communications that should be used. This paper takes a managerial approach, discussing four broad issues associated with the communication of CSR: 1) intensity of action/positioning; 2) communicating action; 3) types of programs utilised and 4) integration issues. It is proposed that by understanding these issues organisations will be in a better position to ensure that the information is clearly communicated and understood by their various stakeholders. The benefits to be achieved will, however, be dependent on the objectives of the communication and thus it is suggested there is not one single appropriate approach to managing these issues.

Understanding issue complexity when building a socially responsible brand

Purpose of the Manuscript- To discusses the importance of understanding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by analysing the issues that comprise CSR. Without this understanding it will not be possible for organisations to develop responsible brands.

Approach – The paper draws on the existing business and marketing literature to define four aspects of issue complexity. It also draws on a range of real and hypothetical examples affecting local and global organisations to explain the four components.

Limitations – The work is conceptual in nature and additional research needs to be undertaken to better understand how organisations define the CSR issues that they will integrate into activities and how the management of these issues can be undertaken to ensure system wide implementation.

Practical Implications – The work suggests that by understanding the four components of issues complexity organisations will be in a better position to integrate CSR related branding. Without understanding these issues, organisations may potentially unintentionally exaggerate claims or set themselves up to be criticised that they are unfairly exploiting consumers’ interest in CSR issues.

Value- Previous research has documented the value of CSR, but to date there have been only limited attempts to systematically examine how managers could know whether they have considered the issue completely and realistically.

Building a corporate socially responsible brand : an investigation of organizational complexity

Past research has suggested that developing CSR linked brands is a complex activity that needs to consider the social issues being addressed as well as multiple facets of organisational activities. This paper proposes that organisational activities need to be considered at four different levels – corporate brand, product/line brands, location/functional activities and supply chain issues. The four activities are discussed and implications for developing CSR-leveraged brands are explored.

Building a corporate socially responsible brand : an investigation of issue complexity

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly being leveraged in branding activities. This paper suggests that there are four types of issue complexity associated with defining what issues should be considered for CSR branding activities to be effective. These include the number of social issues considered, diversity of sub-issues, measurement difficulties and
determination of appropriate performance levels. Some implications for developing CSR leveraged brands are discussed.

Global branding and strategic CSR : an overview of three types of complexity

Purpose – There is general agreement that global brands should ensure that they incorporate social responsibility. To do this properly, organisations must understand what it means to be socially responsible and how they can leverage their actions. The paper proposes consideration of three distinct areas: the range of social responsibility issues, what the organisations actually do and how to leverage those corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions. This paper seeks to conceptually develop these three areas of complexity – Issue, Organisational and Communication – as it is only after organisations understand these three areas that they can effectively leverage socially responsible activities in their brands.

Design/methodology/approach – This research undertakes a review and synthesis of the academic, practitioner and industry literature examining CSR and the brand, addressing the three areas of complexity – issue, organisational and communication.

Findings – The research finds that within these three areas of complexity there are a number of sub-issues that must be addressed if CSR is to be strategically integrated into a global brand. This includes sub-issues associated with social issue complexity (identification, heterogeneity, measurement, and interpretation); organizational complexity (overall corporate brand, multiple products and brands, functional activities, and supply chain); and communication complexity (intensity of action/positioning, communicating action, types of programs utilised, and integration issues.) It thus provides an agenda for future research.

Research limitations/implications – There is limited academic literature examining how global organisations incorporate CSR activities into their brand and the research proposes the issues that need to be considered when integrating CSR into branding strategy. Future research needs to be undertaken to explore the internal processes that global firms use to develop their CSR positioning strategies and some research propositions for future research are proposed. Additionally further exploration of each of the issues (and sub-issues) identified in this paper is warranted, and some suggestions are made for this.

Practical implications – The results of this study show that developing a CSR leveraged brand in a consistent way that is salient to all stakeholders is no simple task for global organisations. By considering the three areas of complexity developed here organisations will be able to better understand and align their activities in line with CSR related issues. Being global means that organisations will likely need to ensure they address the highest set of global expectations, as any lower level may be criticised as being less than appropriate.

Originality/value – The paper develops the sub-issues of issue, organisational and communication complexity associated with global brands' CSR activities. This strategic perspective goes beyond focusing on the tactical activities undertaken or the philosophical issue of whether CSR should be undertaken. The work therefore allows global organisations to look at CSR more strategically as a branding issue.

The complexity of social practice : understanding inertia and change in maternity care organizations

Beyond the limited efficiency and economy goals of neoliberal health policy lies the promise of genuine health services reform. In maternity care in particular, recent policy developments have sought to make the management of birth more ‘women-centred and family-friendly’. Interprofessional collaboration and greater consumer participation in policy and decision-making are key means to achieve this goal, but changing the entrenched system of medicalised birth remains difficult. Recent social contestation of maternity care has destabilised but not eradicated pervasive medical hegemony. Further reform requires analysis both of institutionalised patterns of power, and attention to the fluidity and situated knowledge shaping organisational and professional practices. Accordingly, this paper outlines a framework with which to explore the multi-layered social processes involved in implementing organisational and cultural change in maternity care. Analysis of social interventions in health systems, we suggest, can be advanced by drawing on strands from critical organization studies, complexity and critical discourse theories and social practice approaches.

Pollutants increase song complexity and the volume of the brain area HVC in a songbird

Environmental pollutants which alter endocrine function are now known to decrease vertebrate reproductive success. There is considerable evidence for endocrine disruption from aquatic ecosystems, but knowledge is lacking with regard to the interface between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, we show for the first time that birds foraging on invertebrates contaminated with environmental pollutants, show marked changes in both brain and behaviour. We found that male European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) exposed to environmentally relevant levels of synthetic and natural estrogen mimics developed longer and more complex songs compared to control males, a sexually selected trait important in attracting females for reproduction. Moreover, females preferred the song of males which had higher pollutant exposure, despite the fact that experimentally dosed males showed reduced immune function. We also show that the key brain area controlling male song complexity (HVC) is significantly enlarged in the contaminated birds. This is the first evidence that environmental pollutants not only affect, but paradoxically enhance a signal of male quality such as song. Our data suggest that female starlings would bias their choice towards exposed males, with possible consequences at the population level. As the starling is a migratory species, our results suggest that transglobal effects of pollutants on terrestrial vertebrate physiology and reproduction could occur in birds.

Temporal causality and the dynamics of judicial appellate caseload, real income and socio-economic complexity in Australia

This study applies Granger causality tests within a multivariate error correction framework to examine the relationship between judicial caseload, real income and urbanization for Australia using annual data from 1904 to 2001. Decomposition of variance and impulse response functions are also considered. The Granger causality results as well as the decomposition of variance and impulse response functions suggest that urbanization is the most exogenous of the three variables in both the long run and short run while judicial caseload and real income are relatively exogenous in the short run.

Behind the scene of knowledge sharing : the impact of task complexity

Numerous empirical studies on knowledge management have examined the relative effectiveness of various enablers, such as organizational structure, technology, culture, managerial system and strategy for knowledge creation and sharing in organizations. While these studies play a critical role in helping us to appreciate the importance of organizational enablers in knowledge management, they have neglected to examine the possible effects of task complexity on the nature and efficacy of knowledge sharing. This study investigates how task complexity influences the mode and effectiveness of knowledge sharing among professional accountants in Malaysia. In particular, it highlights the relationships between different task dimensions and modes of knowledge sharing, and the impact of knowledge sharing on professional competency. This study adopts a process oriented approach based on Nonaka’s (1994) knowledge sharing model. This study reveals that task complexity is significantly related to knowledge sharing. Tasks carried out by professional accountants vary from repetitive or clearly-defined procedural tasks to unstructured tasks that required professional judgment and expertise for successful task performance. While professional accountants are generally keen to gain access to knowledge databases to source for possible task solutions, they are generally hesitant to share their tacit knowledge by transforming the knowledge into explicit form. The finding suggests that there may be cultural-related factors that inhibit sharing of one’s tacit  knowledge totally and completely. This study also shows the existence of a  significant relationship between knowledge sharing and professional  competency, suggesting that the importance of the internalization mode of  knowledge sharing in sustaining the competitive edge of professional  accountants.

Parasites affect song complexity and neural development in a songbird

There is now considerable evidence that female choice drives the evolution of song complexity in many songbird species. However, the underlying basis for such choice remains controversial. The developmental stress hypothesis suggests that early developmental conditions can mediate adult song complexity by perturbing investment in the underlying brain nuclei during their initial growth. Here, we show that adult male canaries (Serinus canaria), infected with malaria (Plasmodium relictum) as juveniles, develop simpler songs as adults compared to uninfected individuals, and exhibit reduced development of the high vocal centre (HVC) song nucleus in the brain. Our results show how developmental stress not only affects the expression of a sexually selected male trait, but also the structure of the underlying song control pathway in the brain, providing a direct link between brain and behaviour. This novel experimental evidence tests both proximate and ultimate reasons for the evolution of complex songs and supports the Hamilton–Zuk hypothesis of parasite-mediated sexual selection. Together, these results propose how developmental costs may help to explain the evolution of honest advertising in the complex songs of birds.

Developmental stress, social rank and song complexity in the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

Bird song is a sexually selected trait and females have been shown to prefer males that sing more complex songs. However, for repertoire size to be an honest signal of male quality it must be associated with some form of cost. This experiment investigates the effects of food restriction and social status during development on song complexity in the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris). Birds that experienced an unpredictable food supply early in life produced a significantly smaller repertoire of song phrases than those with a constant food supply. Social status during development was also significantly correlated with repertoire size, with dominant birds producing more phrase types. This study therefore provides novel evidence that social as well as nutritional history may be important in shaping the song signal in this species.

Evil and the complexity of history : a response to Durston

Kirk Durston recently presented an argument aimed against evidential arguments from evil predicated on instances of suffering that appear to be gratuitous; ‘The consequential complexity of history and gratuitous evil’, Religious Studies, 36 (2000), 65–80. He begins with the notion that history consists of an intricate web of causal chains, so that a single event in one such chain may have countless unforeseen consequences. According to Durston, this consequential complexity exhibited by history negatively impacts on our grasp of the data necessary to determine whether or not an evil is gratuitous. He therefore concludes that our epistemic condition poses an insurmountable barrier towards the inference from inscrutability to pointlessness. By way of reply, I contend that Durston's argument is flawed in two significant respects, and thus the evidential argument emerges unscathed from his critique.

Complexity sciences and business ethics : a different perspective

This paper strives to shed some light on organizations' behaviours and practices of business ethics in the marketplace and the surrounding society by the aid of complexity sciences. For this purpose, a conceptual discussion will be based upon the causal frameworks of teleology introduced by Stacey, Griffin and Shaw (2000).

Complexity, age and motor competence effects on fine motor kinematics

Prehension is a fundamental skill usually performed as part of a complex action sequence in everyday tasks. Using an information processing framework, these studies examined the effects of task complexity, defined by the number of component movement elements (MEs), on performance of prehension tasks. Of interest was how motor control and organisation might be influenced by age and/or motor competence. Three studies and two longitudinal case studies examined kinematic characteristics of prehension tasks involving one-, two- and three-MEs: reach and grasp (low-complexity); reach, grasp and object placement (moderate-complexity); and reach, grasp and double placement of object (high-complexity). A pilot study established the suitability of tasks and procedures for children aged 5-, 8- and 11-years and showed that responses to task complexity and object size manipulations were sensitive to developmental changes, with increasing age associated with faster movements. Study 2 explored complexity and age effects further for children aged 6- and 11-years and adults. Increasing age was associated with shorter and less variable movement times (MTs) and proportional deceleration phases (%DTs) across all MEs. Task complexity had no effect on simple reaction time (SRT), suggesting that there may be little preprogramming of movements beyond the first ME. In addition, MT was longer and more on-line corrections were evident for the high- compared to the moderate-complexity task for ME1. Task complexity had a greater influence on movements in ME2 and ME3 than ME1. Adults, but not children, showed task specific adaptations in ME2. Study 3 examined performance of children with different levels of motor competence aged between 5- and 10-years. Increasing age was associated with shorter SRTs, and MTs for ME1 only. A decrease in motor competence was associated with greater difficulty in planning and controlling movements as indicated by longer SRTs, higher %DTs and more on-line corrections, especially in ME2. Task complexity affected movements in all MEs, with a greater influence on ME1 compared to Study 2. Findings also indicated that performance in MEs following prehension may be especially sensitive to motor competence effects on movement characteristics. Case studies for two children at risk of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) revealed two different patterns of performance change over a 16-17 month period, highlighting the heterogeneous nature of DCD. Overall, findings highlighted age-related differences, and the role of motor competence, in the ability to adapt movements to task specific requirements. Results are useful in guiding movement education programmes for children with both age-appropriate and lower levels of motor competence.

A study of job satisfaction and tax complexity

The introduction of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Australia) was an attempt to decrease the complexity of the tax system, but the issue of complexity is still evident. Accounting practitioners are becoming overwhelmed with the amount of tax legislation and researchers have suggested that they are less satisfied in their jobs as a result. This study examines whether tax complexity affects accounting practitioners' job satisfaction. Demographic and personality factors are considered. The issues that were investigated further include practitioner perceptions of the most complex area(s) of tax law and the primary causes of a complex tax system. It was found that although tax complexity is causing job dissatisfaction, demographic factors and personality characteristics do not appear to be significant factors. Instead, the large volume of tax law was identified as having the most significant impact on complexity (resulting in widespread dissatisfaction) and income tax was regarded as the most complex area.