Motivations for an organisation within a developing country to report social responsibility information

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to describe and explain, using a combination of interviews and content analysis, the social and environmental reporting practices of a major garment export organisation within a developing country.

Design/methodology/approach – Senior executives from a major organisation in Bangladesh are interviewed to determine the pressures being exerted on them in terms of their social and environmental performance. The perceptions of pressures are then used to explain – via content analysis – changing social and environmental disclosure practices.

Findings – The results show that particular stakeholder groups have, since the early 1990s, placed pressure on the Bangladeshi clothing industry in terms of its social performance. This pressure, which is also directly related to the expectations of the global community, in turn drives the industry's social policies and related disclosure practices.

Research limitations/implications – The findings show that, within the context of a developing country, unless we consider the managers' perceptions about the social and environmental expectations being imposed upon them by powerful stakeholder groups then we will be unable to understand organisational disclosure practices.

Originality/value – This paper is the first known paper to interview managers from a large organisation in a developing country about changing stakeholder expectations and then link these changing expectations to annual report disclosures across an extended period of analysis.

Structure of unemployment in country Victoria

Investigates the extent of structural unemployment in country Victorian regions through analysing labour force statistics by region, industry, age, gender and occupation. It was found that female workers in country Victoria and the young are the most likely to be structurally unemployed. There are indications that the structural unemployment problem is getting worse despite the continued fall in the unemployment rate.

From country town to provincial city : Albury, 1934-1949

Examines the process of urbanisation in non-metropolitan New South Wales by focusing on the transition of Albury from country town to provincial city. The study traces changes in function, form, government and society.

Optimal models for the provision of postgraduate programmes in TESOL for tertiary teachers of English in a developing country

Investigates the major theoretical and practical issues related to distance education and English language teacher retraining. Suggests a number of models for the provision of Australian postgraduate programmes in TESOL for the upgrading of the teaching qualifications of Vietnamese tertiary teachers of English.

Mnemonia country

Wood, DVD player and screen, spy-hole, 500 watt interrogation light, ergonomic interrogation chair, windscreen wiper motor and car battery 2x3x1.6m. Includes the film rendition.

Clade, country and region-specific HIV-1 vaccines : are they necessary?

Today, scientists are often encouraged to custom-design vaccines based on a particular country or clade. Here, we review the scientific literature and then suggest that the overwhelming endeavor to produce a unique vaccine for every world region or virus subtype may not be necessary.

Healthy minds for country youth : help-seeking for depression among rural adolescents

Objective: To assess depression recognition, barriers to accessing help from health professionals and potential sources of help for depression among rural adolescents.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Setting: Two rural secondary schools in south-east South Australia.

Participants: Seventy-four secondary school students aged 14 to 16 years.

Main outcome measure(s): Depression recognition was measured using a depression vignette. Helpfulness of professionals, barriers to seeking help and help-seeking behaviours for depression were assessed by self-report questionnaire.

Results: Depression was identified in the vignette by 73% (n = 54) of participants. Participants indicated that it would be more helpful for the vignette character to see other health professionals (98.6%, 95% CI, 92.0–100.0%) than a doctor (82.4%, 72.1–89.6%). Barriers to seeking help from doctors and other health professionals were categorised into logistical and personal barriers. Participants agreed more strongly to personal (mean = 2.86) than logistical barriers (mean = 2.67, P < 0.05) for seeing a doctor. Boys and girls responded differently overall, and to personal barriers to seeing an other health professional. Sources of help were divided into three categories: formal, informal and external. Informal sources of help (mean = 4.02) were identified as more helpful than both formal (mean = 3.66) and external sources (mean = 3.72, P < 0.001). Gender differences were observed within and between the three sources of help categories.

Conclusions: Recognising symptoms of depression was demonstrated in this study. Helpfulness of professionals, barriers to seeking help and potential sources of help for depression were identified. More work is required for improving depression literacy and providing effective interventions specifically for rural adolescents.

Managerial approaches to deal with corruption and bribery in a host country

This paper discusses two current managerial approaches in dealing with corruption and bribery in a multinational business context, namely the 'when in Rome approach' and 'the legal compliance approach'. It briefly revisits the impact of corruption on business and society and proposes a third approach, that is, 'stakeholder compliance approach' on part of multinational business managers in dealing with corruption/bribery.

The role of agregate demand and supply shocks in a low-income country : evidence from Bangladesh

This paper explores the relative role of aggregate demand and supply shocks in affecting the output level and inflation rate in a low-income country vulnerable to various economic shocks. The study uses Bangladesh data, and following Cover et al (2006), employs a modification of the Blanchard-Quah (BQ) approach, in which the two shocks are allowed to be correlated. Strong evidence is found for the hypothesis that aggregate demand and supply shocks are interrelated in Bangladesh. For the case in which causality is assumed to be running from demand to supply shocks, it was found that an independent supply shock plays significant role for fluctuations in inflation, which was absent in the standard BQ model. The results suggest that a tightening of monetary policy may lead to an adverse effect on the long-run growth potential and some supply-side policies may be required to supplement contractionary monetary policy in combating inflation in Bangladesh.