Strategically leveraging corporate social responsibility

orporate social responsibility (CSR) is changing the rules of branding but it is unclear how. While the literature offers a range of approaches seeking insight to how to manage CSR-related issues, practitioners are left in a state of confusion when having to decide on how to tackle CSR in a way that benefits both the corporate brand and society at large. based on qualitative empirical research, this article offers a framework for companies to address CSR and their brands strategically, whether as entrepreneurs, performers, vocal converts, or quietly conscientious. We define these categories according to the level of involvement, integration, and the key initiator of the CSR focus. This article concludes with suggestions practitioners should keep in mind when aiming to balance stakeholder tensions and to achieve consistency in their corporate branding and CSR efforts

ExpandED Schools National Demonstration: Lessons for Scale and Sustainability

Can schools and community organizations come together to provide children with critical enrichment activities that enhance knowledge and expand horizons beyond core academics during the school day? This report by Policy Studies Associates, Inc., highlights some ways in which they might.The report investigates schools' use of the ExpandED Schools model, which seeks to use partnerships between public schools, community organizations and intermediary organizations to increase enrichment opportunities for children. In the model, regular school staffers focus largely on core academics, while a community-based organization offers enrichment activities during expanded school hours. A third, intermediary organization often coordinates and supports the effort.Researchers studied the use of this model in 10 schools in three cities—New York City, Baltimore and New Orleans—over four years. In this report, they identify the parts of the model that were easiest for the schools to implement, parts that proved more challenging and strategies schools used to overcome hurdles along the way.It finds that the partnerships were generally most successful in adding new activities to an expanded school day and were able to coordinate efforts between school staff and community organizations. But many schools struggled to find reliable sources of funding and to use data to drive programming and instruction

Thinking strategically about customers: a view from the health and fitness industry

Customer retention is considered to be one of the key areas for most service providers in the UK Health and Fitness Industry. Much of the existing research and activity concerning customer retention is considered at a tactical, operational level with little emphasis being placed on the strategic considerations that an organisation needs to consider in order to move toward a customer-centred philosophy. This paper suggests that customer retention levels can be improved by thinking more strategically about the organisational purpose, its resources and customers

Strategic Philanthropy: Creating Opportunity, Building Wealth, and Driving Community Change

For decades, foundations have invested in a range of approaches that enable families to move forward -- to live in safe homes and communities, start their own businesses, pursue education, secure jobs and advance careers, access health care, and save for the future.Despite these investments, the gap continues to widen between the haves and have-nots, driven by barriers that are increasingly complex, intertwined, and exacerbated by dwindling public and private resources.In this context, new and more collaborative solutions are needed for advancing and sustaining greater economic security, opportunities for growth, and upward mobility. A mounting body of evidence demonstrates that when sector-based investments in education, housing, microenterprise, job training, health care, or community development are connected through a framework of asset building, the impacts are stronger and more sustainable.Through this strategic approach, foundations increase the scale and scope of their work, and more effectively shift the trajectory from vulnerability to opportunity for many of the nation's families. Whether new to the asset building conversation or a proven pioneer, funders will find in this paper compelling evidence about the increased importance and relevance of connecting asset building to existing grant making strategies. This paper illuminates why assets matter and how foundations across sectors are investing in asset building for greater collective impact. It also provides guidance for foundations looking for ways to leverage the asset building framework to advance the impact of their work

Reflections on relationship-building between tangata whenua and local government: Notes from research and practice

In this paper, the author takes a reflective look at two areas: the preliminary discussions and fieldwork they undertook to set up a collaborative doctoral research project exploring relationship-building between tangata whenua and local government (regional and district councils); and their practice as a community psychologist within local government, advising on social research and community participation in a number of environmental management projects

Conceptualising the research–practice–professional development nexus: mobilising schools as ‘research-engaged’ professional learning communities

This paper argues the need for coherent, holistic frameworks offering insightful understandings as well as viable, connected and synergistic solutions to schools in addressing pressing problems arising from the acknowledged gaps between research, practice and professional development. There is a need to conceptualise a comprehensive conceptual framework that rationalises, constructs and connects salient professional development concepts and practices fit for purpose in twenty-first-century schools. Specifically, three themes conceptualise existing problems faced by schools and their possible solutions: first, bridging the research–policy–practice gap by mobilising knowledge more effectively through knowledge producers and consumers working collaboratively; second, valuing and integrating both tacit knowledge and academic coded knowledge; and third, raising the professionalism and reflectivity of teachers and leaders. However, a new organisational and human infrastructure is needed to enable these solutions to be realised in school practice. Arguably, three responses are critical to this challenge of knowledge mobilisation; all are achievable through the powerful unifying concept of the ‘research-engaged school’. The three responses are: research engagement on the part of all teachers and leaders; creating schools and school networks as professional learning communities; and adopting a workable methodology (namely, research–design–development) for teachers and leaders to put research into practice and tailor innovations to specific school contexts

Virtual HR Departments: Getting Out of the Middle

In this chapter, we explore the notion of virtual HR departments: a network-based organization built on partnerships and mediated by information technologies in order to be simultaneously strategic, flexible, cost-efficient, and service-oriented. We draw on experiences and initiatives at Merck Pharmaceuticals in order to show how information technology in establishing an infrastructure for virtual HR. Then, we present a model for mapping the architecture of HR activities that includes both internal and external sourcing options. We conclude by offering some recommendations for management practice as well as future research

The effect of organizational culture on CRM success

Copyright @ 2013 EMCIS.The aim of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework exemplifying the effect of organizational culture on the success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems' implementation. This is deemed significant as yet little research has investigated the role of organizational culture as a critical success factor to CRM implementation. The proposed theoretical framework is developed based on the notion that nurturing an organizational culture that promotes adaptive learning leads to better management of customer information that in turn improves the quality of customer information, which is considered a key contributor to successful implementation of CRM initiatives. The Competing Values Framework (CVF) is used to measure "Organizational Culture" since it has proven its validity in examining the effect of organizational culture on organizational effectiveness and performance