Corporate social responsibility as a framework for gender equality: Mapping of gender equality standards for sustainable development

Corporations address gender equality issues in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development. As in other areas of CSR, various standards, certifications, and similar initiatives have been proposed to promote gender equality. Despite an increasing number of self-regulation and signaling schemes being proposed, their study has been overlooked by the scholarly literature. This article tries to shed light on these standards through a two-stage exploratory study. First, the main worldwide initiatives that focus on gender equality standards are scrutinized and mapped. Second, their main characteristics are analyzed, based on a content analysis of the information disclosed by organizations that foster the most relevant initiatives. A systematic analysis of relevant gender equality standards is provided. This work highlights a dispersion and lack of uniformity in terms of missions, results, measurement, and even the definition of gender equality or the term used to refer to it. No framework has prevailed. Gender equality standards lack gender mainstreaming and intersectionality is invisible. The business case appears to be the main driver of gender equality standards. The present study is one of the first attempts to thoroughly examine the institutional design of gender equality standards, their standard-setting process as well as their enforcement. We suggest a rethink of the policies that promote the gender equality standards in organizations, as well as a need for collaborative work between managers and policymakers towards the use of common terminology, indicators, and uniformity regarding the terms to be certificated.This study the project METASTANDARDS; the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities; the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI); and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) of the European Union (project reference PGC2018-098723-B-I00)

Getting In and Out of the House: The Worlds of In-House Counsel, Big Law, and Emerging Career Trajectories of In-House Lawyers

The traditional story of in-house counsel is of a transformation and triumph over “Big Law” in a zero-sum game for power, prestige, and money. That story, however, is inaccurate descriptively, prescriptively, and normatively. Descriptively, in-house lawyers were part of the legal elite dominating corporate counseling before large law firms first rose to power and prominence. In-house counsel then lost ground and the position of general counsel to Big Law lawyers between the 1940s and 1970s, only to mount an impressive comeback to elite status beginning in the 1970s. Yet the in-house comeback was not a simple power struggle with Big Law. Rather, modern in-house lawyers including the “new” general counsel came from within the ranks of Big Law, an offshoot rather than a competitor of large law firms, sharing Big Law’s background, training, and, more importantly, professional values, ideology, and ethos. Thus, the story of in-house lawyers and their relationship with Big Law is one of a complex symbiotic affiliation, not a competitive zero-sum game

Increasing women's participation in industrial trades

As private sector industrial employers continue to struggle with the adverse effects caused by a shortage of skilled trade workers, opportunities are created to meet this challenge while reducing the gendered division of labour in northeastern British Columbia. Canadian 2002 statistics illustrated women represented 4% of the industrial skilled trade workforce, which is attributed to a range of barriers.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b160052

AI, Equity, and the IP Gap

Artificial intelligence (AI) has helped determine vaccine recipients, prioritize emergency room admissions, and ascertain individual hires, sometimes doing so inequitably. As we emerge from the Pandemic, technological progress and efficiency demands continue to press all areas of the law, including intellectual property (IP) law, toward incorporating more AI into legal practice. This may be good when AI promotes economic and social justice in the IP system. However, AI may amplify inequity as biased developers create biased algorithms with biased inputs or rely on biased proxies. This Article argues that policymakers need to take a thoughtful and concerted approach to graft AI into IP law and practice if social justice principles of access, inclusion, and empowerment flow from their union. It explores what it looks like to obtain AI justice in the IP context and focuses on two areas where IP law impedes equitable AI-related outcomes. The first involves the civil rights concerns that stem from trade secrets blocking access and deflecting accountability in biased algorithms or data. The second concerns the patent and copyright doctrine biases perpetuating historical inequity in AI-augmented processes. The Article also ad- dresses how equity by design should look and provides a roadmap for implementing equity audits to mitigate bias. Finally, it briefly examines how AI would assist with adjudicating equitable IP law doctrines, which also tests the outer limits of what bounded AI processes can do

Mark(et)ing Nondiscrimination: Privatizing ENDA with a Certification Mark

People in the United States strongly support the simple idea that employers should not discriminate against gays and lesbians. In a 2003 Gallup poll, eighty-eight percent of respondents said that homosexuals should . . . have equal rights in terms of job opportunities. Even prominent social conservatives- such as George W. Bush-give lip service to the idea that employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong. But gay rights advocates have achieved only modest legal reform on this issue. Seventeen states have prohibited employment discrimination against gays and lesbians. A seemingly modest bill, the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA), which only prohibits disparate treatment on the basis of sexual orientation, has been introduced several times in Congress, always without success. ENDA has little chance of passing during the Bush administration unless midterm elections in 2006 radically change the face of Congress. Civil rights advocates may even abandon ENDA and instead promote a broader, omnibus civil rights improvement act, in which employment rights for gays would presumably play a part. This Article attempts to extend ENDA rights to individual employees by another means. The certification mark, a little-known piece of intellectual property, provides a mechanism for employers to commit to the exact substantive duties of ENDA. We have created a symbol, an FE inside a circle, that we call the Fair Employment mark

Challenging chains to change: Gender equity in agricultural value chain development

Often efforts to improve value chains miss out half of the population – the female half. How can this be changed? Drawing on dozens of cases, and covering a wide range of crops and livestock products, this book explains how development organisations and private entrepreneurs have found ways to improve the position of women in value chains. In bringing together the fields of gender and value chains, the title offers compelling arguments to improve value chain performance – with both women and men able to enjoy the benefits

Marketing Strategies of Mobile Game Application Entrepreneurs

Mobile game application entrepreneurs can offer many benefits to the U.S. economy; however, 80% of the entrepreneurs in this study stated that marketing their mobile applications was a major business challenge. Successful strategies that entrepreneurs have used to overcome their mobile game application marketing challenges may be beneficial to other entrepreneurs. Based on Schumpeter\u27s theory of economic development and new value creation of technological innovation, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the strategies that entrepreneurs have used to market their mobile game application development businesses successfully. Twenty mobile game application entrepreneurs from northern California, who successfully sustained their businesses for 3 or more years, completed semistructured interviews. The entrepreneurs responded to open-ended questions designed to determine how they successfully marketed their mobile game applications. Moustakas\u27s modified van Kaam method was used and included coding and organizing data into 5 primary themes that emerged from the analysis. The primary themes that emerged from the analysis were marketing challenges, social network influences, financing opportunities, innovative marketing approaches, and marketing strategies. The findings suggest that social media and networks are essential for marketing success, and mobile games should be innovative to ensure competitive advantages. The knowledge generated from this study may help mobile game entrepreneurs successfully market their mobile game applications and sustain their business. An increased number of businesses may lead to social change by helping to create jobs, thus reducing unemployment

Business plan: biological Milk production in Azores: BioAçores

According to Mahatma Gandhi, "The Earth provides enough to satisfy every person's need but not every person's greed". Considering that, the Autonomous Region of the Azores, as an insular archipelago with unique characteristics, connecting European mainland to American one, has the duty to protect the environment. Since always, the dairy sector assumed itself as predominant in the environmental, economic and touristic dimension of the region. Milk, cows, green pastures, all of this make part of our culture and daily routine; most of all make part of ourselves. Owing to the fact that we live in a globalized world, the continuous sectors' development is imperative, otherwise, they can be outdated. Nowadays, consumers are not the same as before, they are more informed, value their health and well-being, a lot of them influenced by social media. Besides all of those facts mentioned before, it is important to highlight that there is oversupply of conventional milk comparatively to the industry's demand, resulting in a low price paid to milk producers, less than previous years. Those aspects resulted in the Business Plan development to the biological milk's production in São Miguel Island, which is an underexplored product, so far. The project has the purpose the certified production of a Portuguese premium milk, with higher nutritional and environmental components than conventional milk. Summarizing, the BioAçores project aims to differentiate in the national panorama for its social responsibility allied with sustainable consumption of higher quality products, affecting directly the Azorean economy.De acordo com Mahatma Gandhi, "The Earth provides enough to satisfy every person's need but not every person's greed". Deste modo, a Região Autónoma dos Açores, como arquipélago insular com características peculiares, que conecta o continente europeu ao continente americano tem o dever de preservar o meio ambiente. Desde sempre que o setor dos lacticínios se assumiu como preponderante tanto na vertente ambiental, económica e mesmo turística da região. O leite, as vacas, os pastos verdejantes fazem parte da nossa cultura e quotidiano, acima de tudo, fazem parte de nós. Face a vivermos num mundo cada vez mais globalizado, o desenvolvimento contínuo dos setores é imperativo, correndo o risco de serem ultrapassados pela concorrência. Hoje em dia, os consumidores já não são os mesmos que os de outrora, são mais informados, prezam pela sua saúde e bem-estar, muitos deles influenciados pelas redes sociais. Para além dos factos supramencionados, denota-se que excesso de oferta de leite convencional face à procura das indústrias, resulta num valor pago aos produtores abaixo do que era praticado em anos anteriores. Estes aspetos resultaram no desenvolvimento do Plano de Negócios para a produção de leite biológico na ilha de São Miguel, produto ainda pouco explorado na região. O projeto tem como objetivo a produção certificada de um leite premium português, com componentes nutricionais e ambientais mais vantajosas que o leite convencional. Em suma, o projeto BioAçores pretende assim diferenciar-se no panorama nacional pela sua responsabilidade social aliada ao consumo sustentável de produtos com qualidade superior no mercado, impactando diretamente a economia açoriana

An Empirical Study of Gender and Race in Trademark Prosecution

This Article is the first to empirically examine the extent to which women and minorities succeed in prosecuting trademark applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). Trademark registration is an important measure of entrepreneurial activity and progress in business, education, and the arts. To explore how women and minorities are succeeding in this domain, we compared 1.2 million trademark applications over thirty years with demographic information on race and gender. We analyze whether trademark prosecution reflects systematic underrepresentation of women and minorities similar to those reported in patent and copyright prosecution. We found that trademark data showed significant differences from the other two federal intellectual property (“IP”) regimes. Our analysis reveals that women regularly secure trademark registration at a higher rate than men. Women are underrepresented in the pool of trademark applicants compared to their presence in the population, but not all minority groups are underrepresented. For women and underrepresented minorities, the disparity is decreasing at a rate not seen in other IP registration systems. While recent work has significantly advanced our understanding of trademark prosecution, no published studies consider the race and gender of trademark applicants. By filling that void, this Article substantially contributes to our understanding of minority intellectual property ownership and provides a new foundation for policy shifts and further research to assure that intellectual property ownership paths, theory, law, and reform are grounded in equality