Corporate social responsibility: A strategy for sustainable business success. An analysis of 20 selected British companies

Purpose – This paper attempts to prove that strategically investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR) will maximize profits while satisfying the demands from multiple stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a quantitative analysis and exploratory approach. It studies the CSR practices of 20 selected UK companies. The analysis of CSR policies is based on the global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines. The analysis took a further step in examining the trends of earnings per share (EPS) of the selected companies. Findings – The findings revealed that out of the 20 selected companies, only four achieved all six guidelines as per the GRI. In regression analysis of the variables CSR and EPS, a very weak (causal) but positive relationship was evident (R2=0.147). Research limitations/implications – The study was applied to 20 selected companies in the UK. Future research should be extended to a larger sample in order to analyze the strength of the relationship between EPS and CSR. The study applied variables of CSR based on GRI. Other measures may reveal different insights. Practical implications – In the strategic sense, CSR investments are not just another business cost but are essential for a firm's continued survival in the ever increasingly competitive business world of today. This understanding is crucial as there is an escalation of concern by both society and corporations in the modern world. More so, it is increasingly and widely accepted that attempting to isolate business from society is unrealistic and that dichotomising economic and social objectives as distinct and competing is false. Originality/value – The paper applies the variable EPS and seeks to establish a relationship with the CSR as measured according to the GRI

Examining the public policy perspective of CSR implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the public policy perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa. There has been an increase in the number of countries adopting a national policy for CSR practice, particularly in the Western society. Despite the growing awareness about the role of government in CSR promotion, governments in Sub-Saharan Africa are yet to evolve policies that could help promote CSR in the region. As drivers of CSR, governments hold resources, like access to regulated parts of society that makes the inclusion of CSR opportunities relevant to strategic and operational management. From the extant literature, the role of government in defining and shaping the field of CSR is gaining wider acceptability. Design/methodology/approach - Using a qualitative research approach, this paper examines the current status of CSR implementation, particularly from the public policy perspective in selected Sub-Saharan African countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with policymakers and policy implementers. The study adopted a thematic analysis and developed a rigorous phenomenological design to reveal the insights to CSR policy-making. Findings - The findings established that the status of CSR implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa is influenced by absence of national CSR policy, CSR being mainstreamed in government constitution and CSR being a company initiative action to comply with international code of business conduct. Practical implications - The results of this study could have policy implications for both executive and MPs of national governments for CSR regulatory policies. Originality/value - In most developing countries, including Sub-Saharan African countries, the aforementioned institutional conditions are often an exception. There are both no legal and regulatory frameworks for Multinational Corporation activities and their socio-ecological impact, or such regulations may exist but are not adequately enforced (Rwabizambuga, 2007). This situation, unfortunately, has created a huge reporting gap between what organisations do and what they report regarding CSR. Hence, this original study adds to the body of knowledge for this region by revealing the central issues around the phenomenon

Rural inflammatory bowel disease care in Australia: disease outcomes and perceived barriers to optimal care

Background: This study aimed to describe and compare disease outcomes in rural patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), review perspectives regarding barriers to optimal rural IBD care and define non-gastroenterologist healthcare practitioners’ exposure to and knowledge of IBD. Method and Materials: Rural patients who had previously completed an IBD questionnaire were identified from a tertiary hospital IBD database and matched for disease, age and gender to metropolitan patients from this same database. A further rural IBD cohort was identified from a rural general practice database in Mount Gambier, South Australia. These patients were invited to complete the same IBD questionnaire relating to disease characteristics and a further questionnaire relating to perceived barriers to optimal care. A questionnaire was also sent to rural healthcare practitioners seeking perspectives on IBD practice, knowledge of IBD management and perceived barriers to care for rural IBD patients. Results: No statistically significant difference was found between rural and metropolitan IBD patients identified on the database. Thirty-three Mount Gambier rural patients returned questionnaires (response rate 30%). No significant difference was found between the Mount Gambier rural cohort and the IBD database metropolitan cohort for the majority of disease complications and outcomes; however variance in medication use and access to imaging was found. A total of 233 healthcare practitioners completed questionnaires (response rate 21%). The majority of rural practitioners felt comfortable with managing IBD, yet 80% of general practitioners felt uncomfortable using immunomodulators. Disease knowledge using a validated tool appeared satisfactory. Teleconferencing and information sessions were suggested as possible interventions to overcome the identified barriers. Conclusion: No statistically significant differences in the rate of patient reported disease complications were found. A variance of practice with respect to methotrexate, iron replacement and hydrocortisone therapy and use of MRI was noted. Descriptive data regarding perceived barriers in addition to these findings will help guide future interventions to enable equality of care for patients with IBD living in regional and remote locations.Bennett AL, Wichmann M, Chi JK, Andrews JM and Bampton P

Outcomes and patients’ perspectives of transition from paediatric to adult care in inflammatory bowel disease

This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/AIM: To describe the disease and psychosocial outcomes of an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) transition cohort and their perspectives. METHODS: Patients with IBD, aged > 18 years, who had moved from paediatric to adult care within 10 years were identified through IBD databases at three tertiary hospitals. Participants were surveyed regarding demographic and disease specific data and their perspectives on the transition process. Survey response data were compared to contemporaneously recorded information in paediatric service case notes. Data were compared to a similar age cohort who had never received paediatric IBD care and therefore who had not undergone a transition process. RESULTS: There were 81 returned surveys from 46 transition and 35 non-transition patients. No statistically significant differences were found in disease burden, disease outcomes or adult roles and responsibilities between cohorts. Despite a high prevalence of mood disturbance (35%), there was a very low usage (5%) of psychological services in both cohorts. In the transition cohort, knowledge of their transition plan was reported by only 25/46 patients and the majority (54%) felt they were not strongly prepared. A high rate (78%) of discussion about work/study plans was recorded prior to transition, but a near complete absence of discussion regarding sex (8%), and other adult issues was recorded. Both cohorts agreed that their preferred method of future transition practices (of the options offered) was a shared clinic appointment with all key stakeholders. CONCLUSION: Transition did not appear to adversely affect disease or psychosocial outcomes. Current transition care processes could be optimised, with better psychosocial preparation and agreed transition plans

Rural inflammatory bowel disease care in Australia: disease outcomes and perceived barriers to optimal care

Background: This study aimed to describe and compare disease outcomes in rural patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), review perspectives regarding barriers to optimal rural IBD care and define non-gastroenterologist healthcare practitioners’ exposure to and knowledge of IBD. Method and Materials: Rural patients who had previously completed an IBD questionnaire were identified from a tertiary hospital IBD database and matched for disease, age and gender to metropolitan patients from this same database. A further rural IBD cohort was identified from a rural general practice database in Mount Gambier, South Australia. These patients were invited to complete the same IBD questionnaire relating to disease characteristics and a further questionnaire relating to perceived barriers to optimal care. A questionnaire was also sent to rural healthcare practitioners seeking perspectives on IBD practice, knowledge of IBD management and perceived barriers to care for rural IBD patients. Results: No statistically significant difference was found between rural and metropolitan IBD patients identified on the database. Thirty-three Mount Gambier rural patients returned questionnaires (response rate 30%). No significant difference was found between the Mount Gambier rural cohort and the IBD database metropolitan cohort for the majority of disease complications and outcomes; however variance in medication use and access to imaging was found. A total of 233 healthcare practitioners completed questionnaires (response rate 21%). The majority of rural practitioners felt comfortable with managing IBD, yet 80% of general practitioners felt uncomfortable using immunomodulators. Disease knowledge using a validated tool appeared satisfactory. Teleconferencing and information sessions were suggested as possible interventions to overcome the identified barriers. Conclusion: No statistically significant differences in the rate of patient reported disease complications were found. A variance of practice with respect to methotrexate, iron replacement and hydrocortisone therapy and use of MRI was noted. Descriptive data regarding perceived barriers in addition to these findings will help guide future interventions to enable equality of care for patients with IBD living in regional and remote locations.Bennett AL, Wichmann M, Chi JK, Andrews JM and Bampton P

The Role of Individual Variables, Organizational Variables and Moral Intensity Dimensions in Libyan Management Accountants’ Ethical Decision Making

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and (in Libya) Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world

Ustekinumab as Induction and Maintenance Therapy for Crohn’s Disease

BACKGROUND Ustekinumab, a monoclonal antibody to the p40 subunit of interleukin-12 and inter-leukin-23, was evaluated as an intravenous induction therapy in two populations with moderately to severely active Crohn’s disease. Ustekinumab was also evaluated as subcutaneous maintenance therapy. METHODS We randomly assigned patients to receive a single intravenous dose of ustekinumab (either 130 mg or approximately 6 mg per kilogram of body weight) or placebo in two induction trials. The UNITI-1 trial included 741 patients who met the criteria for primary or secondary nonresponse to tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists or had unacceptable side effects. The UNITI-2 trial included 628 patients in whom conventional therapy failed or unacceptable side effects occurred. Patients who completed these induction trials then participated in IM-UNITI, in which the 397 patients who had a response to ustekinumab were randomly assigned to receive subcutaneous maintenance injections of 90 mg of ustekinumab (either every 8 weeks or every 12 weeks) or placebo. The primary end point for the induction trials was a clinical response at week 6 (defined as a decrease from baseline in the Crohn’s Disease Activity Index [CDAI] score of ≥100 points or a CDAI score <150). The primary end point for the maintenance trial was remission at week 44 (CDAI score <150). RESULTS The rates of response at week 6 among patients receiving intravenous ustekinumab at a dose of either 130 mg or approximately 6 mg per kilogram were significantly higher than the rates among patients receiving placebo (in UNITI-1, 34.3%, 33.7%, and 21.5%, respectively, with P≤0.003 for both comparisons with placebo; in UNITI-2, 51.7%, 55.5%, and 28.7%, respectively, with P<0.001 for both doses). In the groups receiving maintenance doses of ustekinumab every 8 weeks or every 12 weeks, 53.1% and 48.8%, respectively, were in remission at week 44, as compared with 35.9% of those receiving placebo (P = 0.005 and P = 0.04, respectively). Within each trial, adverse-event rates were similar among treatment groups. CONCLUSIONS Among patients with moderately to severely active Crohn’s disease, those receiving intravenous ustekinumab had a significantly higher rate of response than did those receiving placebo. Subcutaneous ustekinumab maintained remission in patients who had a clinical response to induction therapy. (Funded by Janssen Research and Development; ClinicalTrials.gov numbers, NCT01369329, NCT01369342, and NCT01369355.

Is the meiofauna a good indicator for climate change and anthropogenic impacts?

Our planet is changing, and one of the most pressing challenges facing the scientific community revolves around understanding how ecological communities respond to global changes. From coastal to deep-sea ecosystems, ecologists are exploring new areas of research to find model organisms that help predict the future of life on our planet. Among the different categories of organisms, meiofauna offer several advantages for the study of marine benthic ecosystems. This paper reviews the advances in the study of meiofauna with regard to climate change and anthropogenic impacts. Four taxonomic groups are valuable for predicting global changes: foraminifers (especially calcareous forms), nematodes, copepods and ostracods. Environmental variables are fundamental in the interpretation of meiofaunal patterns and multistressor experiments are more informative than single stressor ones, revealing complex ecological and biological interactions. Global change has a general negative effect on meiofauna, with important consequences on benthic food webs. However, some meiofaunal species can be favoured by the extreme conditions induced by global change, as they can exhibit remarkable physiological adaptations. This review highlights the need to incorporate studies on taxonomy, genetics and function of meiofaunal taxa into global change impact research

The Itinerary of Autophagosomes: From Peripheral Formation to Kiss-and-Run Fusion with Lysosomes

Macroautophagy, a constitutive process in higher eukaryotic cells, mediates degradation of many long-lived proteins and organelles. The actual events occurring during the process in the dynamic system of a living cell have never been thoroughly investigated. We aimed to develop a live-cell assay in which to follow the complete itinerary of an autophagosome. Our experiments show that autophagosomes are formed randomly in peripheral regions of the cell. They then move bidirectionally along microtubules, accumulating at the microtubule-organizing centre, in a similar way to lysosomes. Their centripetal movement is dependent on the motor protein dynein and is important for their fusion with lysosomes. Initially, autophagosomes dock on to lysosomes, independent of lysosomal acidification. Two kinds of fusion then occur: complete fusions, creating a hybrid organelle, or more often kiss-and-run fusions, i.e. transfer of some content while still maintaining two separate vesicles. Surprisingly, the autophagolysosomal compartment seems to be more long lived than expected. Our study documents many aspects of autophagosome behaviour, adding to our understanding of the mechanism and control of autophagy. Indeed, although the formation of autophagosomes is completely different from any other vesicular structures, their later itinerary appears to be very similar to those of other trafficking pathways