Firm ownership structure impact on corporate social responsibility: evidence from austerity U.K.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly important sustainable development issue in U.K. The main contribution of this study is to examine how firm ownership structure impacts good corporate governance and CSR in U.K. during austerity conditions. Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the U.K. government introduced austerity conditions which impacted firm CSR activities. From the initial sample of more than 250 firms, 50 consistently remain listed on the FTSE4good index during 2008–2012 and are analysed. The definition of CSR distinguishes voluntary and mandatory CSR construct. Findings indicate Board ownership structure and satisfactory firm performance impact on the level of voluntary CSR. Board ownership results suggest increased institutional and non-CEO shareholdings support a higher level of voluntary CSR engagement, whilst increased CEO shareholdings lead to a lower level of investment in voluntary CSR. In terms of satisfactory firm performance, results suggest positive attainment discrepancy supports a higher level of voluntary CSR, whereas greater potential organisational slack leads to a lower level of voluntary CSR investment. Effective governance and voluntary CSR association is more pronounced under conditions of high attainment discrepancy and low organisational slack. The findings suggest implications for adapting firm decision-making latitude and government policy between austerity and prosperity conditions

The impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure on financial performance : evidence from the GCC Islamic banking sector.

This paper examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance for Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region over the period 2000–2014 by generating CSR-related data through disclosure analysis of the annual reports of the sampled banks. The findings of this study indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between CSR disclosure and the financial performance of Islamic banks in the GCC countries. The results also show a positive relationship between CSR disclosure and the future financial performance of GCC Islamic banks, potentially indicating that current CSR activities carried out by Islamic banks in the GCC could have a long-term impact on their financial performance. Furthermore, despite demonstrating a significant positive relationship between the composite measure of the CSR disclosure index and financial performance, the findings show no statistically significant relationship between the individual dimensions of the CSR disclosure index and the current financial performance measure except for ‘mission and vision’ and ‘products and services’. Similarly, the empirical results detect a positive significant association only between ‘mission and vision’ dimension and future financial performance of the examined banks

Synthesising Corporate Responsibility on Organisational and Societal Levels of Analysis: An Integrative Perspective

This article develops an integrative perspective on corporate responsibility by synthesising competing perspectives on the responsibility of the corporation at the organisational and societal levels of analysis. We review three major corporate responsibility perspectives, which we refer to as economic, critical, and politico-ethical. We analyse the major potential uses and pitfalls of the perspectives, and integrate the debate on these two levels. Our synthesis concludes that when a society has a robust division of moral labour in place, the responsibility of a corporation may be economic (as suggested under the economic perspective) without jeopardising democracy and sustainability (as reported under the critical perspective). Moreover, the economic role of corporations neither signifies the absence of deliberative democratic mechanisms nor business practices extending beyond compliance (as called for under the politico-ethical perspective). The study underscores the value of integrating different perspectives and multiple levels of analysis to present comprehensive descriptions and prescriptions of the responsibility phenomenon

Token Presence or Substantive Participation? A Study of Labor Trustees on Pension boards

Labor participation, Pensions boards, Union voice, Labor trustees,

A personal knowledge management metamodel based on semantic analysis and social information

This article describes the development of a functional architecture for personal knowledge management (PKM), defined from the lessons-learnt concept registered in a mass-use social network analyzed with an algorithm of machine learning. This functional architecture applies, in practical manner, the implementation of a registry system of the personal lessons learnt in the cloud through a Facebook social network. The process starts by acquiring data from the connection to a non-relational database (NoSql) in Amazon’s SimpleDB and to which a complementary analysis algorithm of machine learning has been configured for the semantic analysis of the information registered from lessons learnt and, thus, to study the generation of organizational knowledge management from PKM. The result is the design of a functional architecture that permits integrating the Web 2.0 application and a semantic analysis algorithm from unstructured information by applying machine learning techniques

Modeling the Colombian Swine Supply Chain from a Knowledge Management Perspective

The Colombian swine supply chain (CSSC) has a low level of national competitiveness compared to other supply chains such as coffee and fruit. While consumption of pork has raised in Colombia, most dealers are importing it from The United States and Canada, since farmers in those countries have received agricultural incentives to breed and commercialize pigs. Additionally, agribusiness have received technological developments to share information and develop the swine sector. This article aims to state theoretical Knowledge Management (KM) dimensions for CSSC that were built under authors’ assumptions on the literature. These were proposed to identify the competitiveness level in CSSC, because only two different kinds of measuring for swine competitiveness were found, but on the other hand, no model about Swine Supply Chain (SSC) was found. Perspectives of researching KM in CSSC would integrate stakeholders using a technological web platform which allows interchange of information among them.La cadena de suministro porcina colombiana (CSSC) tiene un bajo nivel de competitividad nacional en comparación con otras cadenas de suministro como café y frutas. Si bien el consumo de carne de cerdo ha aumentado en Colombia, la mayoría de los comerciantes la importan de Estados Unidos y Canadá, ya que los ganaderos de esos países han recibido incentivos agrícolas para criar y comercializar cerdos. Adicionalmente, la agroindustria ha recibido desarrollos tecnológicos para compartir información y desarrollar el sector porcino. Este artículo tiene como objetivo establecer las dimensiones teóricas de la Gestión del conocimiento (KM) para CSSC que se construyeron bajo los supuestos de los autores en la literatura. Estos fueron propuestos para identificar el nivel de competitividad en CSSC, debido a que solo se encontraron dos tipos diferentes de medición para la competitividad porcina, pero por otro lado, no se encontró un modelo sobre Cadena de suministro porcina (SSC). Las perspectivas de investigar KM en CSSC integrarían a las partes interesadas utilizando una plataforma web tecnológica que permita el intercambio de información entre ellos