The CSR landscape: an overview of key theoretical issues and concepts

Questioning the way the business enterprise operates in contemporary society has become an established field of investigation. In the current global debate, corporate social responsibility (CSR) - and other terms that are linked to it such as sustainability and corporate citizenship - tend to be as much about semantics as substance. Therefore, the key to this book is the fundamental idea that drivers for change should be found primarily within the heart of organizations and expressed through various implementation strategies. As long as organizations are not embracing CSR as a fundamental element in business continuity, it will remain a mixture of semantics, avoidance, compliance and social philanthropy. This book captures and distils emerging implementation perspectives in terms of theory and practice in one concise volume and will help to unravel and demonstrate the possible changes and consequences of the adaptation of CSR

`Zealotry or nostalgic regret`? women leaders in technical and further education in Australia : agents of change, entrepreneurial educators or corporate citizens?

Education has been restructured in many Western post-industrial nation states during the 1990s. The Australian Technical and Further Education sector (TAFE) has been particularly susceptible to discourses of responsiveness to the market and the new entrepreneuralism. This article explores how women have been repositioned in contradictory and ambiguous ways as the new entrepreneurial middle managers by existing and emergent discourses that circulated in and through TAFE organizations. In turn, it points to how discourses of change management and client responsiveness took on particular readings within specific institutional and professional cultures of the eight Technical and Further Education institutions (TAFEs). At the same time, the restructuring that arose from the corporatization of TAFE, in a highly gendered process, through the twin strategies of marketization and the new managerialism produced new possibilities for individual women educators who moved up into middle management. Yet these individual women were positioned within highly masculinist 'neo-corporate bureaucratic cultures' that co-opted their passion for the capacity of education to make a difference and incorporated these new entrepeneurial work identities.

The effects of technical and social conditions on workplace trust

This paper investigates the extent to which the technical and social contexts of organizations independently affect levels of workplace trust. We argue that, in an organizational context, trust is not just a relationship between an individual subject (the truster) and an object (the trustee) but is subject to effects from the conditions of the work relationship itself. We describe the organizational context as comprising both a technical system of production (where work gets done through the specification of tasks) and a social system of work (where problems of effort, compliance, conformity and motivation are managed). We analyse the relationship between trust and these two aspects of workplace context (technical and social systems). We also operationalize this in terms of differences between industries,  occupational composition and human resource management practices. The model is tested using data drawn from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. The results confirm that differences in industry, occupational composition and HRM practices all impact on levels of workplace trust. We review these results in terms of their implications for future research into the problem of analysing variation in trust at both the workplace and individual levels.

A field test of the diversity-openness moderator model in newly formed groups: openness to diversity affects group decision effectiveness and interaction patterns

Detrimental effects of diversity in workgroups has frequently been observed but research identifying the factors that lead to negative or positive effects in heterogeneous groups is lacking. The perceived dissimilarity openness moderator model provides one explanation of the process by which diversity influences group affective, behavioral, and cognitive outcomes. Specifically the model identifies individual, group, and organizational openness as moderating the effects of diversity in workgroups. In this paper evidence is provided from a field study that increased openness to perceived dissimilarity leads to better outcomes in newly formed groups. This study also constitutes a significant building block toward the development of theory concerning the moderating variables of the relationship between diversity and group processes, and outcomes of organizations.

The role of benchmarking and service level agreement (SLA) practices in IT outsourcing success

Despite claims in the trade literature that a number of recommended practices have been proved to lead to IT outsourcing success, few of these practices have been subject to disconfirmatory research. Even fewer have been tested statistically to determine whether they generalize to wider populations, or to determine the magnitude of their effect. In this paper, several recommended outsourcing practices associated with service level agreements (SLAs) and benchmarking are investigated. These practices are recommended extensively on the basis of case study research, yet they do have downsides, and they add substantially to the transaction costs of outsourcing. Based on a large survey of organizations engaged in IT outsourcing, this paper established that developing detailed SLAs did improve cost and service outcome, and that clients who met with vendors more frequently to renegotiate service levels reported greater outsourcing success. The research also established that benchmarking both before outsourcing commences, and once the outsourcing contract is in place, led to improvements in cost and service outcomes. Benchmarking during the outsourcing contract had the greatest effect, accounting for 10% of the variance in a success vector that included strategic, technical, cost-related and service outcomes plus an overall evaluation of satisfaction and value.

Agile approaches to software maintenance : an exploratory study of practitioner views

Whilst there has been some research into the application of agile approaches to the world of software maintenance, in this paper it is argued that there has not been a coherent investiga-tion that focuses on the collection and analysis of the views and perceptions of agile software maintenance approaches held by experienced software maintenance professionals. In this paper, we report such an exploratory investigation, which has seeded the development of a simple framework for classifying collected views and perceptions. Specifically, a matrix framework has been introduced, to facilitate comparison of the levels of understanding of the issues affecting an agile adoption decision, and the extent to which an agile approach has been implemented. Examples of organizations operating in all four cells of this matrix have been presented.

Public sector ethics in Sweden : a 4P-model of internal and external determinants in codes of ethics

This article summarizes and aggregates the results of a study conducted of the largest 100 public sector organizations derived from three categories in Sweden. These categories of organizations comprise 40 entities of government, 40 municipalities, and 20 county councils. The objective was to describe the determinants of codes of ethics in Swedish public sector organizations. This research reports on the responses of 27 organizations that possessed a code of ethics. The principal contribution is a 4P-model of seven internal and external determinants in public sector codes of ethics. The identified determinants relate to four principal sectors of a society, namely: public community sector, private corporate sector, private citizen sector, and political/policy conduct sector.

Development of a diversity openness climate organizational measure

Although research on the diversity climate of organizations is said to be imperative for researchers and practitioners, parsimonious attempt has been made to develop its measurement items. This paper describes the development of diversity openness climate organizational measures (DOCOM). The development process involved multi-faceted input of 104 diversity stakeholders across 3 Australian states, across five industries including both private and public sectors. Final results of the Q-sort methodology produced a stable two-factor structure comprised of 21 items. Factor 1 reflected the "diversity open situation of the organization" and Factor 2 reflected "on-going recognition and support for minority members". Construct validity study included data from 15 multinational organizations. Overall, results suggest that the diversity openness climate of organizational measures (DOCOM) is a valid measure that should prove useful in the field of workforce diversity.

Benchmarking publishing activity of U.S. colleges and universities across the leading journals : a grouped evaluation

This paper examines institutional research productivity across two sets of journals – Hult et al. (1997) and Polonsky and Whitelaw (2006), based on institutions' Carnegie Foundation Classification, funding type (private or public) and whether institutions' offer PhD's in marketing. It is identified that while Research Intensive institutions publish more than other types of organizations across journal types, the type of funding and offering PhD's in Marketing are equally if not more important. As such, institutions seeking to compare themselves to other institutions should choose a 'similar' set of institutions on which to base any comparisons.

Monitoring and motivating outworkers : the case of the AMP and the sale of industrial life insurance 1905-1940

The development of labor management practices in the financial services sector provides an interesting insight into how problems associated with agency issues were overcome. Within financial institutions and other white collar occupations, the use of internal labor markets emerged as an effective means of both controlling and motivating employees. However such management techniques were only effective in cases where work tasks could be internalized. The business of some types of organizations necessitated a division of work tasks between those undertaken within the office and those undertaken outside the office. The management and sale of insurance products is a case in point. This paper explores the development of processes implemented to resolve a specific type of labor management issue, namely the control of workers under conditions of uncertainty. Using the example of the Australian Mutual Provident (Australia's largest life insurer), it analyses how and why particular work relations procedures were developed.

A comparison of business ethics commitment in private and public sector orgnaizations in Sweden

This paper reports the results of a study of the top 500 private sector organizations and the top 100 public sector organizations in Sweden. It is a replication of the study by Svensson et al. (2004). The aim of the study was to describe and compare the business ethics commitment of organizations across the two sectors. The empirical findings indicate that the processes involved in business ethics commitment have begun to be recognized and acted upon at an organizational level in Sweden. Some support is provided to show that codes of ethics are developing in some of Sweden’s largest private and public sector organizations – although this is happening to a lesser extent in the public sector. It is noted that an effect of a code of ethics on the bottom line of the business was acknowledged by respondents in both private and public sector organizations. We believe that the supporting measures of business ethics commitment appear to be underutilized in both private and public sector organizations in Sweden (among those that possess codes of ethics), thus indicating that the commitment to business ethics in Swedish organizations has potential for future development.

Women in ICT project management and society : snapshot of a decade and a conduit for sustainable progress

In the past decade, the power of pervasive Internet has permeated global businesses, as the world became interconnected. During this momentous decade, the proportion of women working in the information communication technology (ICT) industry as project managers increased, triggered by the opportunities presented by this brave new networked world. This trend posed new complexities in organizations and resulted in some significant changes in the societal composition. This paper provides a snapshot of the progress of women project managers in the ICT sector over the past decade, their challenges and the approach of some businesses to address these, leveraging on opportunities presented by emerging or evolving technologies. The research reported in this paper synthesizes literature reviews, previous research and a cross-sectional global survey that was conducted in 2010, within ICT sector that sought perceptions of women who work in the ICT sector regarding the constructive role of organizations and ICTs in their progress over the decade.

Assessing impact of micro finance on poverty alleviation - Bangladesh perspective

“Micro finance” or its major part “micro credit”, both used interchangeably, is an important institutional device for alleviating poverty of the poor people. Micro finance concept was first developed and initiated in Bangladesh in the late seventies with a view to help the people living below the poverty line. Since its inception to till date, there has been tremendous growth of organizations, known as MFIs (Micro Finance Institutions), in this field to deal with the micro finance/credit activities. Despite this, the poverty situation of the poor people who have already used the micro finance programs was not improved substantially. The few MFIs have their own programs to conduct survey on impact assessment of their individual micro credit activities. The present study will focus on the impact assessment of micro finance activities on some variables of poverty alleviation, the extent to which these programs helped loanees to become micro finance graduates and the relevant suggestions as to the success of the micro finance activities.

The ethical difference of Organization

Noting that from its very inception Organization laid claim to having a central interest in the ethics and politics of organization, in this article we review contributions to the Journal over the past 20 years in order to consider the ethical thinking that has developed. We suggest that there is a common thread of ethical interest that characterizes much of this work—one that clearly differentiates it from more conventional approaches to business ethics. While business ethics has as its locus of interest the ethicality of organizations themselves, central issues that have emerged in Organization concern how individuals might (or might not) maintain a valued experience of themselves as ethical subjects despite the behaviour of organizations, and how organizational arrangements might be politically contested in the name of ethics. We explore this in relation to a question that unites much of the study of ethics in Organization: how do we live (and work) together in a world beset by difference? We consider this question in terms of the issue of ethical subjectivity and the relation between an ethics of consensus and an ethics of difference. The article concludes much as the Journal started—with the proposal that ethics remains a pressing challenge for critical scholarship and practice.