Corporate Social Responsibility: International Perspectives

In this introduction to the special issue, we provide a brief review of the CSR literature with attention to some of the difficulties in globalizing the existing CSR concepts. Following this we provide a brief summary of each of the four papers that comprise the special issue, with emphasis on the unique contribution of each.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic Implications

We describe a variety of perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which we use to develop a framework for consideration of the strategic implications of CSR. Based on this framework, we propose an agenda for additional theoretical and empirical research on CSR. We then review the papers in this special issue and relate them to the proposed agenda.

Ideabook: Libraries for Families

The IDEABOOK is a research-based framework to guide and broaden family engagement in libraries.The framework helps libraries move beyond thinking of family engagement as random, individual activities or programs, but rather as a system where library leadership, activities, and resources that are linked to goals. The framework represents a theory of change that begins with a set of elements—leadership, engagement, and support services—that build a pathway for meaningful family engagement beginning in the early childhood years and extending through young adulthood.This IDEABOOK was developed for anyone who works in a library setting—from library directors and children's and youth librarians, to volunteers and support staff—and shares many innovative ways that libraries support and guide families in children's learning and development

Influences on Sales Practices as Perceived by Individuals in a Sales Position

There is no doubt that in today\u27s business environment, organizations face stiff competition. Survival of the organization turns toward measurement of success by means of quantitative as compared to qualitative approaches. In other words, the raw sales numbers are often used as a measurement of success, not necessarily the quality of the sales transaction. The integral link between the organization\u27s product and service to the customer resides with the sales associate. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of what influences personal ethics and attitudes regarding sales practices from the perspective or experience of the sales associate. Using the qualitative research approach insight into this area of study was gained through the perception of the individuals working in the sales environment. A total of five participants were interviewed from car dealerships in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. This type of organization was selected because it sells its product directly to the customer. To gain this understanding the researcher studied what moral integrity meant to the participants, their perspective on ethical sales practices, how sales goals impact sales practices, and what they considered to be the characteristics of a leader. A glimpse into organizational provided training was also obtained. The researcher recognizes that the number of participants is low. However, the insights that were provided are perspectives that should be taken into consideration but are not intended to be generalized to all sales associates. By creating this awareness, it is the researcher\u27s aim that this insight will broaden the role and responsibility of the ethical leader

Courtship and Copulation in Glaucous-Winged Gulls, Larus Glaucescens

Using video recordings and scan counts, I examined the occurrence, sequences, and durations of behavior and environmental factors associated with courtship and copulation in glaucous-winged gulls, Larus glaucescens. Males and females in a pair had equivalent pre- and post-Mount behavior occurrences and durations. The main courtship sequence was Head Toss -- Courtship Beg/Respond -- Mounted/Mount, and felames appeared to initiate transitions between these pre-Mount behaviors. More Mounts occurred during the egg-laying stage of the breeding season, but copulation duration, wing-flag duration, and cloacal contacts per copulation showed no significant differences across sampling periods. Poisson analysis showed no significant grouping of Mounts in time during the days sampled. Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) disturbance was correlated with increased courtship and copulation frequency. Other environmental factors affecting courtship and copulation included day of year, tide height, and solar elevation. Peak Mounts and Courtship Begs per territory occurred two days before the Courtship Feeds and 10 days before peack clutch initiations

Early-Childhood Teacher Candidates’ Service Learning with Family Book Celebrations

An associate professor and a public school district administrator formed a family-school-community partnership to introduce family book celebrations to an early-learning center located in a high-poverty area in a midwestern city with more than 80% of children (n=75) who attended the center qualifying for free and reduced lunch. Primary goals for the celebrations were (a) to offer a venue for book-related experiences with families of children attending the early-learning center; (b) to engage early-childhood teacher candidates in service with families in an authentic and meaningful way; and (c) to analyze efficacy of the service-learning experience on teacher candidates. Overall, teacher candidates reported benefits in working with families, fostering interaction, and using props and concrete materials to promote successful book celebrations. Although this service-learning experience was relatively small, limited, and exploratory, it served as an initial study to inform further inquiries into early-childhood undergraduate service- learning experiences with families

A Community Coalition Promotes Family Literacy with Story Celebrations

A coalition is typically formed between individuals or groups to bring unique strengths together in a cooperative manner to address a common cause. In our community, an alliance was formed to raise public consciousness about the impact of family reading on children\u27s literacy development. As a coalition, we planned, organized and funded literacy-related events or story celebrations in multiple locations throughout the community. In this article, I describe and provide rationale for creating a coalition that advocates for family literacy

Observing mergers of non-spinning black-hole binaries

Advances in the field of numerical relativity now make it possible to calculate the final, most powerful merger phase of binary black-hole coalescence for generic binaries. The state of the art has advanced well beyond the equal-mass case into the unequal-mass and spinning regions of parameter space. We present a study of the nonspinning portion of parameter space, primarily using an analytic waveform model tuned to available numerical data, with an emphasis on observational implications. We investigate the impact of varied mass ratio on merger signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) for several detectors, and compare our results with expectations from the test-mass limit. We note a striking similarity of the waveform phasing of the merger waveform across the available mass ratios. Motivated by this, we calculate the match between our 1:1 (equal mass) and 4:1 mass-ratio waveforms during the merger as a function of location on the source sky, using a new formalism for the match that accounts for higher harmonics. This is an indicator of the amount of degeneracy in mass ratio for mergers of moderate-mass-ratio systems.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.