Corporate sustainability : greenwash or a path to sustainable capitalism?

The problems of unsustainable development and the increased-awareness of corporate power in the global era have contributed to an agenda of corporate citizenship. This thesis explores the meanings and practices that fall under the banner of the triple bottom line of corporate citizenship through forty-two in-depth interviews with representatives from the corporate sector and NGO sector (including trade unions) in Australia. This purposive sample includes a specific range of corporate industries and NGO types, all of which have involvement with various areas of sustainability. Interviewees described their feelings and experiences in relation to the concept of the triple bottom line, the potential and limitations of this type of sustainability and the purpose and impacts of partnerships between NGOs and the corporate sector. On the basis of this research, this thesis argues that corporate citizenship is at best, a set of initiatives for making minor adjustments to the way companies perform their day-to-day operations and at worst, a program for improving corporate image rather than performance and for shifting the agenda of sustainable development toward corporate interests. While radical steps are required to achieve a sustainable society and environment, the terms of corporate citizenship offer very limited opportunities for change. The self-regulatory and market based model of citizenship does not challenge the impact of consumerism or the legitimacy of particular industry types and their products, except where threats are perceived to the longevity of the companies involved. Furthermore, while the exploitation of the environment and society has occurred as a result of corporate self-interest, corporate citizenship is justified on the same basis. The self-interest rationale and the tyranny of the economic bottom line in particular, substantially limit the fields of responsibility that can be included in the citizenship paradigm. While there are undoubtedly some well-intentioned corporate representatives who are working toward attaining a more sustainable corporate culture, the discourse is primarily used to shift the sustainable development agenda toward corporate paradigms and interests.

Within and against performativity : discursive engagement in adult literacy and basic education

The field of adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) has undergone dramatic changes in recent years with the advent of labour market programs, accreditation, competency-based assessment and competitive tendering for program funds. Teachers' working conditions have deteriorated and their professional autonomy has been eroded. ALBE has been increasingly instrumentalised to fulfil the requirements of a marketised economy and conform to its norms. The beliefs and value systems which traditionally underpinned the work of ALBE teachers have been reframed according to the principle of 'performativity' and the demands of the 'performative State' (Lyotard, 1984: 46, Yeatman 1994: 110). The destabilisation of teachers' working lives can be understood as a manifestation of the 'postmodern condition' (Lyotard 1984; Harvey 1989): the collapse of the certainties and purposes of the past; the proliferation of technologies; the impermanence and intensification of work; the commodification of knowledge and curricula; and the dissolving of boundaries between disciplines and fields of knowledge. The critiques of the modernist grand narratives which underpin progressivist and critical approaches to adult literacy pedagogy have further undermined the traditional points of reference of ALBE teachers. In this thesis I examine how teachers are teaching, surviving, resisting, and 'living the contradictions' (Seddon 1994) in the context of struggles to comply with and resist the requirements of performativity. Following Foucault and a number of feminist poststructuralist authors, I have applied the notions of 'discursive engagement' and 'the politics of discourse' (Yeatman 1990a) as a way of theorising the interplay between imposed change and teachers' practice. I explore the discursive practices which take place at the interface between the 'new' policy discourses and older, naturalised discourses; how teachers are engaged by and are engaging with discourses of performativity; how teachers are discursively constructing adult literacy pedagogy; what new, hybrid discourses of 'good practice' are emerging; and the micropractices of resistance which teachers are enacting in their speech and in their practice. My purpose was to develop knowledge which would support the reflexivity of teachers; to enrich the theoretical languages that teachers could draw upon in trying to make sense of their situation; and to use those languages in speaking about the dilemmas of practice. I used participatory action research as a means of producing knowledge about teachers' practices, structured around their agency, and reflecting their standpoint (Harding 1993). I describe two separate action research projects in which teachers of ALBE participated. I reflect on both projects in the light of poststructuralist theory and consider them as instances of what Lather calls 'within/against research' (Lather 1989: 27). I analyse written and spoken texts produced in both projects which reflect teachers' responses to competency-based assessment and other features of the changing context. I use a method of discourse mapping to describe the discursive field and the teachers' discursive practices. Three main configurations of discourse are delineated: 'progressivism', 'professional teacher' and 'performativity'. The teachers mainly position themselves within a hybridising 'progressivist /professional teacher' discourse, as a discourse of resistance to 'performative' discourse. In adapting their pedagogies, the teachers are in some degree taking the language and world view of performativity into their own vocabularies and practices. The discursive picture I have mapped is complex and contradictory. On one hand, the 'progressivist /professional teacher' discourse appears to endure and to take strength from the articulation into it of elements of performative discourse, creating new possibilities for discursive transformation. On the other hand, there are signs that performative discourse is colonising and subsuming progressivist /professional teacher discourse. At times, both of these tendencies are apparent in the one text. Six micropractices of resistance are identified within the texts: 'rational critique', 'objectification', 'subversion', 'refusal', 'humour' and 'the affirmation of desire'. These reflect the teachers' agency in making discursive choices on the micro level of their every day practices. Through those micropractices, the teachers are engaging with and resisting the micropractices and meanings of performativity. I apply the same multi-layered method of analysis to an examination of discursive engagement in pedagogy by analysing a transcript of the teachers' discussion of critical incidents in their classrooms. Their classroom pedagogies are revealed as complex, situated and eclectic. They are combining and integrating their 'embodied' and their 'institutional' powers, both 'seducing' (McWilliam 1995) and 'regulating' (Gore 1993) as they teach. A strong ethical project is apparent in the teachers' sense of social responsibility, in their determination to adhere to valued traditions of previous times, and in their critical self-awareness of the ways in which they use their institutional and embodied powers in the classroom. Finally, l look back on the findings, and reflect on the possibilities of discursive engagement and the politics of discourse as a framework for more strategic practice in the current context. This research provides grounds for hope that, by becoming more self-conscious about how we engage discursively, we might become more strategic in our everyday professional practice. Not withstanding the constraints (evident in this study) which limit the strategic potential of the politics of discourse, there is space for teachers to become more reflexive in their professional, pedagogical and political praxis. Development of more deliberate, self-reflexive praxis might lead to a 'postmodern democratic polities' (Yeatman 1994: 112) which would challenge the performative state and the system of globalised capital which it serves. Short abstract Adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) teachers have experienced a period of dramatic policy change in recent years; in particular, the introduction of competency-based assessment and competitive tendering for program funds. 'Discourse politics' provides a way of theorising the interplay between policy-mediated institutional change and teachers' practice. The focus of this study is 'discursive engagement'; how teachers are engaged by and are engaging with discourses of performativity. Through two action research projects, texts were generated of teachers talking and writing about how they were responding to the challenges, and developing their pedagogies in the new policy environment. These texts have been analysed and several patterns of discursive engagement delineated, named and illustrated. The strategic potential of 'discourse polities' is explored in the light of the findings.

Social entrepreneurship and experiential learning

Social enterprises and entrepreneurship are about accountability not just to commercial imperatives but to the wide range of stakeholders in a social enterprise, potentially an area of great tension. Social responsibility is about a commitment to society or community, entrepreneurship is usually understood to provide a business outlook on the enterprise - it needs to be sustainable commercially and balanced carefully.
To educate the modem or millenniallearner (born after about 19t1O and grappling with burgeoning youth needs for creative employment developmem) into developing a small to medium enterprise with a social responsibility, modem postgraduate coursework programs have looked closely at experiential learning. This provides a transformative learning through workplace-based projects and strategic business conceptuaUsing. This paper will include a case study of two postgraduate coursework units New Ventures in Creative Enterprise, and Building Creative Teams, part of a Masters in Communication/Creative Enterprise. These provide experiential learning about strategic planning for startup creative businesses, and work-based projects which build on interpersonal skills for ongoing success.

Business community partnerships in New Zealand : understanding experiences of 'partnership'

This research examined business community partnerships that address social issues. The study demonstrated that 'pragmatic' versions of partnership are more concerned with the self-interests of the stakeholders, rather than shared community concerns. The findings highlight trust, power and the negotiation of mutual interests as critical issues to understanding business community partnerships in the NZ context.

Social work and welfare education without discrimination : are we there yet?

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has identified education as one of five crucial issues relating to the settlement of African Australians into the Australian community from a human rights perspective (AHRC 2009:5). In this paper I advocate that social work and welfare work in Australia are placed in important and multi dimensioned positions in relation to our complicities, responsibilities and potentialities with this educational human rights issue. As a Technical and Further Education (TAFE) welfare and University social work educator, I offer an outline of the ‘mutual respect inquiry approach’ that developed between myself and Southern Sudanese Australian students as a basis for discussion, reflection and change. I seek to stimulate thinking and action, particularly among those welfare work and social work educators, practitioners and students who identify as critical and anti-oppressive, to consider how these approaches can be realised and reshaped in practice to enhance not only Southern Sudanese Australians' right to education that is 'without discrimination', but indeed all students in our diversity.

Apprehending business and society

This paper claims to make a contribution by addressing a significant number of epistemological, theoretical and methodological problems in the business and society literature. We identify six sets of potential influences promoting corporate social responsibility. The private sector encompasses intra-organisational obligations and pressures from competitors, investors and consumers. Governmental and non-governmental organisations exert regulatory pressures. Calling upon radical institutional theory, we address each set with respect to its conceptual arguments, its empirical salience in terms of the latest relevant research, and our considered opinion regarding its prospects to be a significant factor in promoting outcomes consistent with social welfare. The conclusion addresses their combined potential to put capitalism on a firmly sustainable track, or whether they amount to an ideological distraction from capitalist pathologies. A call is made for fresh imaginings of the discourse.

How do Australian small and medium enterprises communicate their environmental improvement activities online?

There have been calls in the IS/eBusiness literature for research on "green" IS/IT in a Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) context. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature has neglected the issue of how SMEs can use websites to communicate their environmental improvement activities. This paper links these two previously separate disciplines by reporting on a content analysis of 443 Australian SME websites from four industry sectors to identify if and how they use websites to communicate their environmental improvement activities. The study found that 47 websites were communicating such activities in some form. A detailed analysis was undertaken of these 47 websites to identify emergent themes relating to how these SMEs were communicating their environmental improvement activities. These themes resulted in a reconceptualisation of the traditional "4 Ps" of marketing for online communication of environmental improvement activities by SMEs: profile; product; process; and prominence.

Extractive transnational corporations, intrastate conflict and peacemaking : frameworks and best practice

This thesis explores the role of mining and oil transnational corporations in corporate peacemaking. That is, helping to bring together warring parties in intrastate conflict to enable them to conduct peace negotiations and then, supporting these negotiations. Key concerns, and new theory, frameworks and best-practice in corporate peacemaking are proposed.

Implanting sustainability in business strategies : CSR, ethics or the law

This paper elucidates the conundrum faced by Australian businesses in developing ‘sustainable’ business strategies that are acceptable to a multiplicity of stakeholders. A content analysis of the web pages for leading Australian companies indicates that there is little tangible evidence that sustainable business practices are being implemented. The authors propose several directions for research into substantive issues between ethical behaviour, corporate social responsibility and environmentally sustainable behaviour for businesses. Each of these areas is developing research in relative isolation. However, we argue that this paradigmatic divide is limiting the opportunities for research to provide real insight into seemingly intractable problems.

Designing for learning : online social networks as a classroom environment

This paper deploys notions of emergence, connections, and designs for learning to conceptualize high school students’ interactions when using online social media as a learning environment. It makes links to chaos and complexity theories and to fractal patterns as it reports on a part of the first author’s action research study, conducted while she was a teacher working in an Australian public high school and completing her PhD. The study investigates the use of a Ning online social network as a learning environment shared by seven classes, and it examines students’ reactions and online activity while using a range of social media and Web 2.0 tools.

The authors use Graham Nuthall’s (2007) “lens on learning” to explore the social processes and culture of this shared online classroom. The paper uses his extensive body of research and analyses of classroom learning processes to conceptualize and analyze data throughout the action research cycle. It discusses the pedagogical implications that arise from the use of social media and, in so doing, challenges traditional models of teaching and learning.

Total safety culture by behavior-based safety approach

Safety is a social responsibility and providing a safe working environment is the obligation of a responsible employer. Working safely can generate direct financial benefits. However, poor safety planning and management may lead to tremendous adverse effects on cost, time and quality of a project. Statutory liabilities and heavy fines directly increase project cost; losing working hours as a result of safety incident impacts on the project programme. When tradesmen are working in an unsafe site environment, the project quality may be affected. Therefore, promoting "safety" is always the very first and utmost priority in any large scale projects. Bodley (2000) argues that culture involves what people think, what they do, and what they produce. In order to provide a safe working environment, one of the best ways is to create a safety culture within the organization, because organizational-cultural factors play an important role in safety management. Geller emphasises the importance of safety culture and further states that behaviour-based safety (BBS) is a useful approach to uphold organizational safety culture. The basic premise of BBS is self-perception and the degree of self-perception will lead to pleasant safety outcomes. This degree can be measured by level of workers' involvement. When everyone in the project is accountable to safety, they will contribute positively. This paper is a case study reviewing how BBS approach fosters safety culture leading to ultimate success. The model illustrated by the case study will be useful to analyze the organizational safety culture quantitatively.

Clarifying the link between social capital and MSME innovation performance : the role of absorptive capacity

A conceptual framework is proposed in this article showing how the social capital of a community shapes the innovation performance of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through the exercise of absorptive capacity as the mediating phenomenon between the two. Its significance stems from the unprecedented effort of explaining how community social capital matters in the innovation performance of MSMEs, a departure from previous studies which typically examined market-related or hierarchical social capital in the form of formal networks and directly linking them to firm innovation without due regard to knowledge management within the firm as an antecedent of organizational innovation. The aim is to stimulate further thinking and empirical research on the subject of social capital of a community in an MSME and/or entrepreneurial context.

Vested interests in addiction research and policy alcohol industry use of social aspect public relations organizations against preventative health measures

Aim It has been proposed that alcohol industry ‘social aspects/public relations’ organizations (SAPROs) serve the agenda of lending credibility to industry claims of corporate responsibility while promoting ineffective industry-friendly interventions (such as school-based education or TV advertising campaigns) and creating doubt about interventions which have a strong evidence base (such as higher taxes on alcoholic beverages). This paper investigated whether submissions to Australia's National Preventative Health Taskforce (NPHT) from alcohol industry bodies regarding the Australian SAPRO, Drinkwise, have used this organization to demonstrate corporate responsibility while promoting industry-friendly interventions.

Method Submissions to the Australian National Preventative Health Taskforce (NPHT) discussion paper Australia, the healthiest country by 2020 (n = 375) were examined to identify those with primary alcohol content. A thematic analysis of the resulting 33 submissions was conducted to determine which organization, institution or individual discussed Drinkwise.

Setting Australia.

Findings Nine of the 33 submissions discussed Drinkwise; all were submitted by the alcohol industry or its affiliates. Every industry submission referred to Drinkwise either as providing evidence of social responsibility or by suggesting the industry-friendly actions of Drinkwise as alternatives to those recommended by the NPHT report.

Conclusions Drinkwise has been used by the alcohol industry to create an impression of social responsibility while promoting interventions that maintain profits and campaigning against effective interventions such as higher taxes on alcohol.