CONSUMERS OF THE WORLD EXCLAIM:"WE WANT SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, PUBLIC POLICY AND CORPORATE ETHICS!"

This study is related to public policy issues, such as the ethics of marketing practices and the dynamics of popular culture. Although textbooks often present the consumer as a rational decision maker, often harmful for consumer activities of the individual or society. Often, the consumer's worst enemy is himself. Growth is still important, even morally required, if individuals and society towards improving the living standards of the peoples of the world. Socio-philosophical concept of social justice is an attribute that you should hold shares or individual therapy or groups in society, within the existing social order and moral or desirable. Values govern our actions and personality. Knowledge and understanding of business values gives the company the ability to control and manage in a sustainable manner, its future. Managers should sacrifice their own needs in favor of employee needs, and the last would have to give up their ambitions and needs, to eliminate customer sacrifice. Equality and freedom are two forms of the same fundamental values. Current marketing is a factor of democratization. Companies traded on the market, falling into one of two dichotomous situation: the mission and their action in the service of others, the community, its employees and the environment, or choose the dishonor, deceiving their confidence. Marketing itself is a subject of intense dispute. Today, competitiveness is the productivity growth in the use of resources. All forms of pollution are manifestations of economic waste. Companies that take a code of honor are reciving medals. Lack of Ethics is charged!marketing ethics, corporate social responsibility, consumer behavior, morality, role of marketing

Stakeholders’ views on improving the organic certification system: Results from an EU level workshop

The FP7 CERTCOST project has the overall objective to give recommendations to the public authorities and private actors in the whole organic certification chain on how to improve the organic food certification systems in terms of efficiency, transparency and cost effectiveness. According to the project description (the Description of Work, or DoW) this will be done based on a scientific economic in depth analysis of the certification systems from the farmer to the consumer in 5 EU countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom), plus Switzerland and the candidate country, Turkey. To safeguard that the CERTCOST objectives, work plan and methodology is in line with the expectations of key stakeholders from all levels of the certification chain the DoW foresaw a Stakeholder workshop to be organised in the beginning of the project. The current report documents the main points of the discussions and recommendation given by the stakeholders at this CERTCOST Stakeholder workshop, which took place on November, 13-15, 2008 in Izmir, Turkey, 2.5 months after the project had started. A total of 20 stakeholders were invited, of whom 16 could participate in the workshop. The participant profile included both users and providers of the certification system at different levels such as representatives of farmers’ organizations certification/control bodies, government authorities, EU Commission, processors/ traders, private experts/consultants. Together with the representatives of the partner institutions in the CERTCOST project, the total number of workshop participants was 35 representing 12 European countries. Given the diverse backgrounds of the workshop participants, a working group approach (World Café approach) was applied in order to give the participants the opportunity to reflect their experiences and ideas on the implementation of the project in a synergetic, comfortable and free environment. After a brief presentation of the project, outlining the tasks of the work packages and describing the proposed links between the project and the stakeholders by the project coordinator, the stakeholders were divided into four groups according to their level in the organic certification chain, as farmers, processors/traders, certification bodies and consumers. Two working group sessions were carried out around the questions provided to the stakeholders before the workshop through electronic mails. The questions had been compiled based on input from the managers of the four work packages which were relevant to the workshop discussion. After the first working group session, a plenary discussion session for clustering of the output given by the working groups, their validation and assessment was carried out. In the second session of the working groups, it was rather aimed to harmonize the understanding between the diversified opinions mentioned in Session 1. The working group approach concluded in a final plenary discussion. On the second day, the CERTCOST work package managers presented how the discussions, comments and inputs of the working group sessions could impact on their working plans. In the final session the stakeholders were addressed directly for providing further ideas both on the project and on future collaboration options. The workshop was strongly focused on the identification of key characteristics of cost factors along the supply chain in relation to their impact on the quality of the given service. However a broad range of related subjects were discussed. The Stakeholder workshop put forward that, the ‘cost’ was among the most important topics relating to the certification system performance. The focus of the project aiming at cost effectiveness and not cost minimization was confirmed by the stakeholders. All of the stakeholders present in the workshop demonstrated elevated levels of interest on several outputs of the project. The workshop revealed very positive expectations among the stakeholders towards the risk based approach to be followed in the CERTCOST project. The detailed picture of the organic certification sector obtained through the workshop will constitute an important input to the CERTCOST project and the workshop is considered to be a successful first step in the project-stakeholder interaction. The Stakeholder workshop provided important insight into the many discussion subjects of the organic certification systems in the EU and worldwide, among others the following should be mentioned. Farmers expect to have, clear rules, fair implementation, and high skilled guidance in the inspection and certification process, and underline the need for training of farmers and certifiers and for better communication between all parties in the certification chain. Processors point out the need for a good relationship with the inspectors and certifiers as well as the fact that there existed different schemes in different countries regarding the inspection process and the related cost structure. They also highlighted the difficulty of managing the relations with increasing number of different standards and different certification bodies. It is agreed that consumers expect something they can trust and they can easily recognize, a label, a logo, a certifier, a brand, a farmer or the word ‘organic’; at local, regional, national, or EU-level. It is also concluded that whether, why and how much some consumers might be willing to pay more for particular logos was unknown and was needed to be investigated. Authorities/certification bodies stress that the issue of knowledge and education is extremely important and that there are complex legislations, no common standards, and differences within and between countries. They underline that there are different catalogues in different countries to deal with irregularities which should be harmonized. They emphasize that a clear definition of certification should be made covering its objectives, principles and tools. While on some of the issues there has been a highlighted consensus among the groups, on some others contrasting ideas became evident. Among those subjects of absolute agreement were the importance of and the need for a more clear understanding of the certification system, its components and rules by all the parties involved. Education and elevated levels of necessary skills from farmer to inspector and to consumer; increased transparency and information exchange, well defined relationships between parties were considered to be an indispensable basis for a well functioning and more efficient certification system. The inspection concept came into prominence, with a discussion on policing vs. development approaches. While an efficient and comparable control system was judged to be crucial, promising private governmental formulations were agreed to be based on country conditions. Complexity of the legislation and lack of transparency were the remarkable barriers to a more efficient control system. The EU logo and the new EU Regulation for organic certification were also discussed among stakeholders. It was suggested that the EU logo might have the potential to boost demand in the ‘less developed’ organic markets, but more promotion then currently planned would be needed. It was agreed that most consumers do not look for logos of particular standards but for the word ‘organic’ and/or an organic logo they are familiar with. This might be different for ‘committed’ organic consumers in more mature markets. Overall, it was agreed that ‘trust’ is the most crucial aspect of organic certification regarding the consumer side. The issue of multiple certification and standards appeared to be a factor deserving more attention in the certification world. Harmonization in certification of the same characteristic of a product was deemed necessary. On the other hand, exchange of experiences and cooperation with markets like ‘Fair Trade’ was agreed to be potentially beneficial

Holding safely : guidance for residential child care practitioners and managers about physically restraining children and young people

Residential child care is intensive and at times very diffificult work. Staff in residential childcare, therefore, need training, advice, supervision and support in undertaking this demanding work, since they are often doing the hardest of social care jobs. This good practice guidance has been commissioned to assist practitioners in working out policies and practices for restraining children and young people where no other appropriate options are available

Guidance on minimising the use of physical restraint in Scotland’s residential child care establishments

This guidance has been developed by a working group drawn from a comprehensive group of stakeholders representing all sectors, including the regulatory and inspection agencies and advocacy services. The main task of the group was to, building on the guidance in Holding Safely, clarify procedures for staff, service users and regulators, and help staff to understand when it is safe and appropriate to restrain a child

Managing environments

Although a context might be solid - like a building - it has different meanings for the people who use it. The impact of the physical space is the focus for 'Managing environments'. Peace and Reynolds note that any one environment may be multifunctional. Taking an innovative approach to management, they argue that a residential care home, for example, may be simultaneously a place for living for residents, working for staff and managers and visiting for relatives and other professionals. The atmosphere in a care home makes a critical difference to the experience of service users who live there. The authors review how the environmental factors that influence care may be managed and how the careful design and us of space can contribute to improved quality of life in the management of care. Peace and Reynolds also consider relationships between people, places and quality, recognising the impact of the manager on caring environments. A focus on practice here emphasises the role of the manager in drawing out debates over values and best practice to help care workers feel supported and confident about the care they provide

Guiding Behavior of Children

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Exploring some standard-setters’ views in respect of asset recognition

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with four Standards-setters: three International Accounting Standards Board members and a Canadian Accounting Standards Board staff member –who has been working on the IASB’s Conceptual Framework project – in particular, the elements and recognition phase. These interviews were conducted from May to June 2008 and were directed towards seven related themes taken from the litarture: the definition of an asset, the recognition of an asset, asset recognition is a-priori to asset measurement, the resource in respect of intangible assets comprises ‘rights’, entity specific versus market specific events, separability, internally generated intangible assets. As one can observe from their personal views, they were not inclined towards the use of asset recognition criteria preferring instead to rely upon compliance with the definition of an asset and then an asset’s subsequent measurement