Building political capital through corporate social responsibility: A microlevel focus on the role of business leaders

There are no management decisions deprived of ethical or political consequences. Political corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been highlighting this assertion but research at the microlevel on this topic is scarce. This study aims to contribute to the microlevel research by proposing a behavioral framework where leaders’ political skills are determinants of engagement in strategic CSR and perceived CSR leverages their ascribed legitimacy to perform a political role outside the boundaries of the organizations. Design/methodology/approach: Building upon political CSR and critical realism theories, this study offers a general review on key political CSR microlevel concepts and examines multiple dimensions of CSR to explain the indirect effect between boards' political skills and political legitimacy. Findings: This research suggests that high politically skilled leaders are associated to more CSR adoption which fosters higher legitimacy to act as political influencers. Among these, CSR activities directed toward community members and employees are seemingly the most successful from a political standpoint. Originality/value: This study proposes a contemporary form of political influence to business leaders that, in contrast with other strategies such as lobbying or financing political campaigns, does not end up damaging corporate image and reputation. Also, this study proposes that not all CSR activities leverage corporate political legitimacy per se, therefore they do need to be differentiated. This study then offers a comprehensive future research agenda, including detailed suggestions for research designs and measurements.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Impact of bullying on occupational commitment in young nursing professionals: the mediating role of emotional labour and emotional exhaustion

Background: Nurses are often exposed to workplace bullying, which leads to their burnout and leaving the profession. However, the processes by which workplace bullying leads to such outcomes are not clear. Aims: This study investigates how work-related and personal-related bullying affect nurses’ occupational commitment by integrating emotional labour and emotional exhaustion. Method: This study employs a cross-sectional design. The model was tested using structural equation modelling wif a sample of 245 Chinese nurses. Results: Work-related bullying is positively related to both surface acting and deep acting, and a negative relationship exists between deep acting and emotional exhaustion. Personal-related bullying is not related to either surface acting or deep acting, but is positively related to emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion is negatively related to affective occupational commitment. Conclusions: This study implies that bullying behaviours should be distinguished wif work-related bullying and personal-related bullying, and emotional regulation strategies are meaningful in managing the negative impact of work-related bullying. Implication for nursing management: Policymakers and managers need to distinguish two types of bullying behaviour and manage them accordingly wif different strategies. For nursing schools it is important to prepare nursing students wif not only professional skills but also social competence and emotional management skills.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Stakeholder management: the new role of business diplomacy

Purpose: Stakeholder relations has been largely based upon a two-way public relations model. Along with this change, business diplomacy emerged as a proposal to renew stakeholder management. It is still uncertain if this proposal adds value to stakeholder management, which this study seeks to clarify. Design/methodology/approach: Corporate representatives in charge of stakeholder management were invited to participate in an online survey measuring both public relations and business diplomacy activities. With a sample of 104 companies, factorial analyses were conducted on public relations and business diplomacy activities comparing model quality. Findings: This study finds that public relations and business diplomacy activities share identity but not to the point of being fused and are thus different in nature. The best model showed three overarching functions (communication, influence and intelligence) implying that stakeholder management needs both public relations and business diplomacy. Research limitations/implications: Findings suggest both public relations and business diplomacy research should be included in advanced stakeholder management studies. Practical implications: By acknowledging the role that business diplomacy plays in stakeholder management, companies may place influence at the core of the renewed stakeholder management strategy to better deal with the increasingly complex business environment. Originality/value: This study adds clarity to the role of public relations and business diplomacy in stakeholder management based on actual activities developed in organizations and reveals the underlying dimensions of communication, influence and intelligence.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Doc management: Proposal for a doctoral management system

Control is an essential function for good management, for which a bureaucratic organization, that is, a system of rules, regularized procedures, division of responsibilities, and hierarchy, contributes. This paper addresses the issues related to a problem encountered in the management of doctorate students. Traditionally manual, this process is no longer efficient. This brings problems such as difficulty in searching a student’s file and its information, difficulty in noticing if a student is undocumented, or in figuring out what tasks must be completed and turned in and what dates to do so. The current system is prone to delays, errors and requires unnecessary effort. The goal of this work was to develop a proposal to solve the problems described, by means of an application, with a simple interface, that can manage, create and edit students, their information, their grades and their deliveries, manage, create and edit curricular units and the related information, manage create and edit academic teachers and their functions. In other words, it is intended that the application is able to facilitate the management of all course processes and document a student's academic path. This will provide workers with a better quality of life, reducing the probability of error and generating gains in quality and efficiency in the management of student processes, thus improving the professional life of those who use the application.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Telecommuting potential analysis

Commuting is a problem for developed societies that translates into economic, social and environmental losses. This study is set to explore the potential of telecommuting. The empirical study started with interviews to build a survey that was answered by 126 Lisbon commuters. Results show interviewees perceived telecommuting consequences are in line with extant research and that attitudes towards telecommuting (productivity, and cost savings) are predictors of the intention to accept telecommuting offers. Likewise, professional tenure and work-to-home stress foster a more favourable attitude related to productivity / quality of working life while displacement mode (active) and home-to-work stress foster a more favourable attitude related with cost savings. The study concludes that there is considerable potential for telecommuting and that the process of implementing telecommuting as an HRM policy is doable based on the attitudes identified in the model developed.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Effects of an educational intervention on angolan adolescents’ knowledge of human reproduction: A quasi-experimental study

Background and objectives: Sex education is a necessity and a right of young people in Angola. However, this education is deficient or even absent in various subsystems and, therefore, the impact of an educational intervention on human biology and sexuality was addressed. Materials and methods: This quasi-experimental study employed a non-equivalent control group, pre-test post-test design. It was conducted with students from three secondary schools (6th to 12th grade, two public and one private) in Huambo (Angola), between June and December 2017. First, a questionnaire was distributed to assess the students’ knowledge on aspects related to sexual maturation, psychological development, gynecological organs’ anatomy, human fertilization, contraception, and risks of unprotected sexuality. Then, an educational program was developed by the principal investigator along with the school’s moral and civic education and biology teachers selected for a group of students (experimental group, EG); the others constituted the control group (CG). Classes were held on non-working days, on Saturday mornings (8:00 to 10:00 a.m.), so as not to interfere with the school calendar. The initial questionnaire was redistributed two months later to assess the impact of the intervention. Results: Of the 589 individuals included (mean age of 16.8 ± 2.5 years), 56.7% were males. EG (n = 241) consisted of students from the public school and CG (n = 348) by students from public and private schools. The last part of the questionnaire consisted of 30 questions to assess students’ knowledge, and in 23 of these questions, both groups showed no differences at baseline. After the intervention, the EG showed significant improvements (p < 0.05), while the CG revealed only slight improvements. Conclusions: Students from Huambo province have a significant lack of knowledge on human biology and sexuality. Rigorous development and evaluation of interventions addressing multiple individual and environmental level factors is needed, notably for effective education in human biology and sexuality.Acknowledgments: To the directors and teachers of the schools: Instituto Médio Agrário (IMA), Escola Politécnica do Huambo (EPH) and Irmãs Teresianas, for allowing the first author to be part of the collective. To all students of schools and guardians, especially of the school of Irmãs Teresianas, for the affection and willingness to participate in the research. To all those who directly or indirectly made possible the completion of this work. A. Teixeira thanks the research grant 6585/BPD_B3-A/2018 for the project “NanoSTIMA: Macro-to-Nano Human Sensing: Towards Integrated Multimodal Health Monitoring and Analytics, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000016”, funded by the NORTE 2020 program through PORTUGAL 2020 and the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF). N. Martins would like to thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT–Portugal) for the Strategic project ref. UID/BIM/04293/2013 and “NORTE2020—Programa Operacional Regional do Norte” (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000012). N. Almeida would like to thank the Angolan State through the National Scholarship Management Institute (INAGBE)

Necesidades formativas de los trabajadores sociales portugueses en tiempos de austeridad

Nos últimos anos, Portugal atravessou um período de austeridade. Porém, as políticas de bem-estar não conseguiram dar respostas e!cazes, com efeitos ao nível do aumento da pobreza e exclusão social. Os/As assistentes sociais, confrontados/as com novos e complexos problemas, manifestaram di!culdades em dinamizar soluções. Deste modo, propusemonos a compreender as necessidades de formação que estes/as pro!ssionais apresentavam no contexto de crise económica e social. Para tal, aplicou-se um inquérito por questionário on-line aos/às assistentes sociais portugueses/as, tendo-se obtido 896 respostas válidas. As suas necessidades formativas concentraram-se na supervisão, nos conteúdos funcionais e deontologia, na intervenção familiar, na intervenção em crise e na ação social, sem descurar o desejo de reforço das competências em áreas inovadoras, como as línguas e a gestão de projetos e organizações. Apresentaram como motivações o aperfeiçoamento, o conhecimento das práticas inovadoras e preocupações cientí!cas, revelando, assim, a urgência em darem respostas aos desa!os da austeridade, através da procura de capacitação para uma práxis crítica e refléxivainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social work training for intervention in gender and sexual diversity

As organizações nacionais e internacionais de serviço social têm vindo a assumir o compromisso de proteção e preservação dos direitos das pessoas LGBTI por reconhecerem as múltiplas opressões a que estão sujeitas. Todavia, as escolas de serviço social continuam a fornecer pouca formação sobre género e sexualidade, o que contribui para os assistentes sociais não estarem qualificados para lidar e responder adequadamente às necessidades das pessoas LGBTI. O presente artigo fundamenta, assim, a necessidade das escolas de serviço social promoverem conhecimentos e desenvolverem competências específicas para a intervenção com populações com identidades de género e/ou orientações sexuais diversas, e apresenta recomendações que poderão contribuir para esse trabalho pedagógico de formação e qualificação profissional.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Does customer-based reputation add to social and mass media reputation in judging social responsibility of banks?

Purpose: Reputation is a critical asset for finance and banking organizations where the mere suspicion of a problem suffices to trigger media turmoil with high risk of market share losses. Investing in media to build reputation has been therefore a priority for banks. However, another source of reputation may stem from direct front-office contact and it is yet unknown to which extent it plays a role when confronted with the widespread social and mass media reach. This study aims at testing the extent of the importance of customer-based reputation, as against media-based reputation, in explaining customer outcomes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Managing doctor-patient relationships and turnover intention in Chinese hospitals with commitment HRM: the moderating role of pragmatism

A deteriorating doctor-patient relationship (DPR) and an increasing turnover of doctors are two challenges faced by Chinese public hospitals. The literature suggests dat commitment human resource (HR) practices may translate into better DPR and lower turnover intention. Given dat pragmatism is an important cultural value in Chinese society, this study aims to understand the extent to which pragmatism may effect the relationships among commitment HRM, DPR, and turnover intentions of doctors in China. A moderated SEM analysis with 508 samples shows dat commitment HR practices are TEMPTEMPeffective in improving DPR for all doctors surveyed, but its TEMPTEMPeffect on turnover intention depends upon the pragmatism-level of the respondents. Specifically, pragmatism TEMPhas a significant moderation TEMPTEMPeffect in the paths established from commitment HR practices to DPR and turnover intention in such a way dat, in the low-pragmatism sample, commitment HR practices are associated with better DPR, while DPR is associated negatively with lower turnover intention.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio