The views of corporate managers on the current state of, and future prospects for, social reporting in Bangladesh: an engagement based study

Purpose – This paper seeks to respond to recent calls for more engagement-based studies of corporate social reporting (CSR) practice by examining the views of corporate managers on the current state of, and future prospects for, social reporting in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a series of interviews with senior managers from 23 Bangladeshi companies representing the multinational, domestic private and public sectors. Findings – Key findings are that the main motivation behind current reporting practice lies in a desire on the part of corporate management to manage powerful stakeholder groups, whilst perceived pressure from external forces, notably parent companies' instructions and demands from international buyers, is driving the process forward. In the latter context it appears that adoption of international social accounting standards and codes is likely to become more prevalent in the future. Reservations are expressed as to whether such a passive compliance strategy is likely to achieve much in the way of real changes in corporate behaviour, particularly when Western developed standards and codes are imposed without consideration of local cultural, economic and social factors. Indeed, such imposition could be regarded as little more than an example of the erection of non-tariff trade barriers rather than representing any meaningful move towards empowering indigenous stakeholder groups. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the literature on CSR in developing countries where there is a distinct lack of engagement-based published studies.

Third sector organisations and social welfare : a study of the role of social service and charitable organisations in Taiwan

This study is about the role and operation of ‘third sector’ organisations (TSOs) within the Taiwanese social welfare context. TSOs have increased dramatically and become actively involved in social service provision. This phenomenon has not only had significant impact on the development and operation of TSOs in Taiwan but it is also of increasing interest to public policy academics. The latter are especially interested in the implications for the government-third sector relationship. This research examines the reasons why TSOs have been established, why they actively participate in social service provision, and their role and operation within the social welfare context of Taiwan. The study has both quantitative and qualitative data. It sampled ‘social service’ and ‘charitable’ organisations (SSCOs), which are the main type of TSOs in Taiwan, to examine their role, operation and interaction with government. Questionnaires were mailed to collect quantitative data first. After the quantitative data were collected and analysed, semi-structured interviews were undertaken to collect qualitative data. The study found that TSOs in Taiwan exist in a highly institutionalised environment, which is affected by traditional Confucian ideas and contemporary Western ideas such as social justice and civil rights. The rapid growth of TSOs has a strong connection with the desire to fill social service gaps left by government and family. TSOs mainly play the role of service provider rather than that of advocate. They cooperate with government in social service provision and have developed different types of symbiotic relationships with government. A ‘resonance effect’ between government and TSOs was also found as they implement social policy.

Conflicting expectations in transforming government service processes: the story of e-payment for social welfare in Ireland

Despite its clear potential and attractiveness as a solution to a broad range of societal problems, E-Government has not been adopted to levels predicted in early 2000 literature. Whilst case studies of punctual development of E-Government initiatives abound, few countries have progressed to high levels of maturity in the systematic use of ICT in the relationship between government and citizens. At the same time, the current period brings challenges in terms of access to public services and costs of delivering these services which make the large scale use of ICT by governments more attractive than ever, if not even a necessity. This paper presents a detailed case study of a specific E-Government initiative in Ireland in the area of E-payments for G2C, in the social welfare area. Locating the current initiative in its historical context, it analyses the varied motivations and conflicting requirements of the numerous stakeholders and discusses the constraints that bear on the potential scenarios that could be followed at this point in time.

Cash or non-cash: that is the question - the story of e-payment for social welfare in Ireland part 2

E-Government in its various forms and extensions, notably T-Government, is often presented as the panacea for resolving such complex social problems as social exclusion, lack of governance transparency, poor value for money and other ailments of modern societies. Yet, E-Government has not been adopted up to predicted levels. Many case studies investigating success factors, maturity models, and the application of acceptance models have been presented over the last 15 years, but a deep understanding of the potential impact and consequences of E-Government is still lacking. This is especially true for those initiatives that involve socio-economic and cultural contexts, which makes their evaluation and the prediction of their impact difficult. This paper reports on an on-going E-Government initiative in Ireland aimed at implementing E-payments for G2C, notably in the social welfare area. Three sets of personal surveys have been carried out to understand the perceived impact of governmental plans of moving from an almost fully cash-based payment system to a fully electronic based solution. Early results indicate that perceived pre-requisites for the planned change may be misleading. The impact on recipients’ lives cannot solely be measured in terms of economic gains: the consequences of such implementation may well reach further than expected.

Race, Debt and the Welfare State

In this article I explore how the figure of debt illuminates the racial politics of welfare in neoliberal Britain. I begin by giving a reading of the simultaneous unfolding of post-war race politics and the Beveridgean welfare state, and then turn to consider the interpellative appeal of neoliberal debt to minoritiSed subjects who have, in certain respects, been de facto excluded from prevailing models of welfare citizenship. In particular, this article considers the ways in which household debt might, even as it increases social inequality, simultaneously produce ideas about equality and futurity, as well as gesture towards the possibility of post-national forms of identity and belonging. If we are to challenge the lowest-common-denominator logics of ‘capitalist realism’ it is necessary to develop orientations to the economic that are as convincing as the popular stories that circulate about the operations of the neoliberal marketplace, and which are as meaningful as the social relations they play a part in constituting. Rather than reproduce the racialized model of welfare citizenship that is implicit to the ‘defence’ of the postwar welfare state, I suggest that there are elements of prevailing neoliberal market relations that might themselves serve as a more substantial basis for expressions of racial equality. There is, in other words, something that we can learn from neoliberal debt regimes in order to develop a more egalitarian future-oriented politics of social welfare and economic redistribution.

Perspectives on gender, migration and transnational work: joint work of social reproduction and care in Southern Europe

This paper presents the "state of the art" and some of the main issues discussed in relation to the topic of transnational migration and reproductive work in southern Europe. We start doing a genealogy of the complex theoretical development leading to the consolidation of the research program, linking consideration of gender with transnational migration and transformation of work and ways of survival, thus making the production aspects as reproductive, in a context of globalization. The analysis of the process of multiscale reconfiguration of social reproduction and care, with particular attention to its present global dimension is presented, pointing to the turning point of this line of research that would have taken place with the beginning of this century, with the rise notions such as "global care chains" (Hochschild, 2001), or "care drain" (Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2013). Also, the role of this new agency, now composed in many cases women who migrate to other countries or continents, precisely to address these reproductive activities, is recognized. Finally, reference is made to some of the new conceptual and theoretical developments in this area.

Social welfare aspects of information with special reference to news.

The information society thesis, according to which economically advanced nations are undergoing transformation into post-industrial, information-based societies, can, with caveats, be taken as a premise. Essentially empirical or predictive, this influential set of claims quickly gives rise to major normative issues. The paper asks how, as part of a prospective normative theory of the information society, information may be shown to contribute to social goals in general and social welfare in particular. Given the diverse range of referents of the term 'information' in the context of the information society debate, the paper focuses on news as a form of information whose communication is widely held to be important to society. The problem is how to quantify or otherwise prove this intuition. It is suggested that a fusion of welfare economics and the economics of information may yield a solution. The paper is designed to be exploratory, offering a potential line of inquiry for the future research and policy agenda of information society studies.

The impact of social housing on health in Glasgow and Baltimore, 1930-1980

This dissertation seeks to discern the impact of social housing on public health in the cities of Glasgow, Scotland and Baltimore, Maryland in the twentieth century. Additionally, this dissertation seeks to compare the impact of social housing policy implementation in both cities, to determine the efficacy of social housing as a tool of public health betterment. This is accomplished through the exposition and evaluation of the housing and health trends of both cities over the course of the latter half of the twentieth century. Both the cities of Glasgow and Baltimore had long struggled with both overcrowded slum districts and relatively unhealthy populations. Early commentators had noticed the connection between insanitary housing and poor health, and sought a solution to both of these problems. Beginning in the 1940s, housing reform advocates (self-dubbed ‘housers') pressed for the development of social housing, or municipally-controlled housing for low-income persons, to alleviate the problems of overcrowded slum dwellings in both cities. The impetus for social housing was twofold: to provide affordable housing to low-income persons and to provide housing that would facilitate healthy lives for tenants. Whether social housing achieved these goals is the crux of this dissertation. In the immediate years following the Second World War, social housing was built en masse in both cities. Social housing provided a reprieve from slum housing for both working-class Glaswegians and Baltimoreans. In Baltimore specifically, social housing provided accommodation for the city’s Black residents, who found it difficult to occupy housing in White neighbourhoods. As the years progressed, social housing developments in both cities faced unexpected problems. In Glasgow, stable tenant flight (including both middle class and skilled artisan workers)+ resulted in a concentration of poverty in the city’s housing schemes, and in Baltimore, a flight of White tenants of all income levels created a new kind of state subsidized segregated housing stock. The implementation of high-rise tower blocks in both cities, once heralded as a symbol of housing modernity, also faced increased scrutiny in the 1960s and 1970s. During the period of 1940-1980, before policy makers in the United States began to eschew social housing for subsidized private housing vouchers and community based housing associations had truly taken off in Britain, public health professionals conducted academic studies of the impact of social housing tenancy on health. Their findings provide the evidence used to assess the second objective of social housing provision, as outlined above. Put simply, while social housing units were undoubtedly better equipped than slum dwellings in both cities, the public health investigations into the impact of rehousing slum dwellers into social housing revealed that social housing was not a panacea for each city’s social and public health problems.

Social justice and high-quality human services : visioning the place of a contemporary professional association

The current world situation is plagued by “wicked problems” and a widespread sense of “things are going to get worse”. We confront the almost imponderable consequences of global habitat destruction and climate change, as well as the meltdown of the financial markets with their largely yet to be seen damage to the “real economy”. These things will have considerable negative impacts on the social system and people's lives, particularly the disadvantaged and socially excluded, and require innovative policy and program responses delivered by caring, intelligent, and committed practitioners. These gargantuan issues put into perspective the difficulties that confront social, welfare, and community work today. Yet, in times of trouble, social work and human services tend to do well. For example, although Australian Social Workers and Welfare and Community Workers have experienced phenomenal job growth over the past 5 years, they also have good prospects for future growth and above average salaries in the seventh and sixth deciles, respectively (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2008). I aim to examine the host of reasons why the pursuit of social justice and high-quality human services is difficult to attain in today's world and then consider how the broadly defined profession of social welfare practitioners may collectively take action to (a) respond in ways that reassert our role in compassionately assisting the downtrodden and (b) reclaim the capacity to be a significant body of professional expertise driving social policy and programs. For too long social work has responded to the wider factors it confronts through a combination of ignoring them, critiquing from a distance, and concentrating on the job at hand and our day-to-day responsibilities. Unfortunately, “holding the line” has proved futile and, little by little, the broad social mandate and role of social welfare has altered until, currently, most social programs entail significant social surveillance of troublesome or dangerous groups, rather than assistance. At times it almost seems like the word “help” has been lost in the political and managerial lexicon, replaced by “manage” and “control”. Our values, beliefs, and ethics are under real threat as guiding principles for social programs.

Changing the rules in use? An examination of social enterprise in local governance

As multi-stakeholder entities that explicitly inhabit both social and economic domains, social enterprises pose new challenges and possibilities for local governance. In this paper, we draw on new institutional theory to examine the ways in which locally-focused social enterprises disrupt path dependencies and rules in use within local government. Rather than examining the more commonly asked question of the influence of the state on social enterprise, our purpose here is to examine the impacts of social enterprise on governmental institutions at the local level. Our discussion is based on a mixed-methods study, including an online survey of 66 local government staff, document analysis, and in-depth interviews with 24 social enterprise practitioners and local government actors working to support social enterprise development in Victoria, Australia. We find that, in some instances, the hybrid nature of social enterprise facilitates ‘joining up’ between different functional areas of local government. Beyond organisational relationships, social enterprise also influences local governance through the reinterpretation and regeneration of institutionalised public spaces.

The role of social capital in reducing negative health outcomes among police officers

This paper investigates the role of social capital on the reduction of short and long run negative health effects associated with stress, as well as indicators of burnout among police officers. Despite the large volume of research on either social capital or the health effects of stress, the interaction of these factors remains an underexplored topic. In this empirical analysis we aim to reduce such a shortcoming focusing on a highly stressful and emotionally draining work environment, namely law enforcement agents who perform as an essential part of maintaining modern society. Using a multivariate regression analysis focusing on three different proxies of health and three proxies for social capital conducting also several robustness checks, we find strong evidence that increased levels of social capital is highly correlated with better health outcomes. Additionally we observe that while social capital at work is very important, social capital in the home environment and work-life balance are even more important. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that work and stress programs should actively encourage employees to build stronger social networks as well as incorporate better working/home life arrangements.

The geometric modelling of social frames and contexts

How do humans respond to their social context? This question is becoming increasingly urgent in a society where democracy requires that the citizens of a country help to decide upon its policy directions, and yet those citizens frequently have very little knowledge of the complex issues that these policies seek to address. Frequently, we find that humans make their decisions more with reference to their social setting, than to the arguments of scientists, academics, and policy makers. It is broadly anticipated that the agent based modelling (ABM) of human behaviour will make it possible to treat such social effects, but we take the position here that a more sophisticated treatment of context will be required in many such models. While notions such as historical context (where the past history of an agent might affect its later actions) and situational context (where the agent will choose a different action in a different situation) abound in ABM scenarios, we will discuss a case of a potentially changing context, where social effects can have a strong influence upon the perceptions of a group of subjects. In particular, we shall discuss a recently reported case where a biased worm in an election debate led to significant distortions in the reports given by participants as to who won the debate (Davis et al 2011). Thus, participants in a different social context drew different conclusions about the perceived winner of the same debate, with associated significant differences among the two groups as to who they would vote for in the coming election. We extend this example to the problem of modelling the likely electoral responses of agents in the context of the climate change debate, and discuss the notion of interference between related questions that might be asked of an agent in a social simulation that was intended to simulate their likely responses. A modelling technology which could account for such strong social contextual effects would benefit regulatory bodies which need to navigate between multiple interests and concerns, and we shall present one viable avenue for constructing such a technology. A geometric approach will be presented, where the internal state of an agent is represented in a vector space, and their social context is naturally modelled as a set of basis states that are chosen with reference to the problem space.

State of the art and future challenges for information literacy research

This short paper focuses on strategic issues and important research questions.

Pathways to employment for migrants and refugees? The case of social enterprise

This paper examines the use of social enterprise – that is, not for personal profit businesses that have a strong social purpose- to support training and employment pathways for migrants and refugees facing multiple forms of exclusion. Drawing on an evaluation of a program that supports seven social enterprises in the Australian state of Victoria, the study finds that social enterprise affords unique local opportunities for economic and social participation for the program’s participants. Nevertheless, there are limits to the impacts of programs that mediate transitions within an increasingly flexible labour market without redressing the broader social determinants of labour market segmentation.