Differences in social responsibility toward youth - A case study based comparison of cooperatives and corporations

This study examines companies' responsibility for young people from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) point of view. We compare cooperatives with listed companies in regard to responsibility for young people. Much research has been carried out about CSR, but comparative studies about the CSR programs of listed companies and cooperatives concerning young generation are lacking. In addition, CSR studies rarely discuss the relationship between an organization and the young generation. The theoretical framework consists of literature of CSR including stakeholder theory and cooperative values and principles. The study uses qualitative comparative case study design. We examined why, how and to what extent listed companies and customer- owned cooperatives take responsibility for young people as well as how can companies' youth responsibility be seen in their CSR strategy and stakeholder discussions. The major research focus is: Are there differences in the companies' responsibility actions due to different ownership and stakeholder structures? The findings indicate that cooperatives engage more in youth collaboration than listed companies do. The main reasons for this are the cooperatives' local ownership and stakeholder structure and value-based operations. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.</p

Values of Entrepreneurship Education in EU-countries

The main aim of our research study was to find out the most important issues around which entrepreneurship education (EE) in EU-countries should be constructed. That way we are able to propose some values of EE. The quantitative survey data (N 124) were collected in 16 EU-countries in December 2010-April 2011 through an internet-based questionnaire of important issues of EE. As a result of the survey we created a list of 12 values of EE. This research will lead to further development of the EE and its evaluation, because evaluation should be based on values

Drivers of joint cropland management strategies in agri-food cooperatives

[EN] In several Spanish regions, collective action through production and marketing cooperatives has traditionally concentrated the food supply of small and medium-sized farms. However, many cooperatives are threatened by the risk of abandonment of members' cropland, which reduces their sourcing capacity. In this context, joint cropland management initiatives have become a useful form of social and organizational innovation. This research's contribution is twofold: it examines the relevance of some drivers of this organizational innovation, and it determines the cooperative characteristics or combinations of characteristics that can sufficiently explain the adoption of a joint cropland management strategy. Some cooperatives' features have been a priori identified as related to the achievement of joint cropland initiatives: economic size, social innovation, innovative behavior, and collaborative orientation. The study is mainly based on data from a cooperatives survey, and fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) methodology has been used. The analysis has been completed by surveying cooperatives' managers about their opinions on a joint cropland management strategy's main advantages and drivers. Results indicate that social and economic innovation, size, and propensity to cooperate with other cooperatives are key factors that help create a cooperative profile capable of tackling the challenge of land abandonment and the consequent loss of production.Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain, European Regional Development Fund, European Commission. Project "Strengthening innovation policy in the agri-food sector" (RTI2018-093791-B-C22).Piñeiro, V.; Martinez Gomez, VD.; Melia-Marti, E.; García Alvarez-Coque, JM. (2021). Drivers of joint cropland management strategies in agri-food cooperatives. Journal of Rural Studies. 84:162-173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.04.003S1621738

Implementing Continual Service Improvement Process for Aberdeen Standard ITSS Division

The thesis is about process implementation theory and the start of a real-life case study. It describes the needs of new process implementation in the Aberdeen Standard Investments Information Technologies Support Services (ITSS) division. The theory part presents how continual improvement process can be implemented by using best practises. It describes all critical steps that need to be followed to have successful process implementation. The study presents three well-known continuous service improvement frameworks such as Six Sigma, Lean and ITIL CSI and why one of them was selected over the others. It gives responses to two major questions: how teams in the division are currently managing improvement work and how to create and implement global improvement process for the ITSS division? It contains the start of real-life case how process implementation was managed in real life and what were the differences from theory. The thesis works as a case example how to do a successful implementation by following best practises. The work contains the following main areas: presenting the company, team and the current situation, introducing well-known continuous improvement processes, highlights the selection of the right method to ensure best approach, taking step-by-step point of view to implementation stages, presenting the start of the real life project, highlighting major risks in the process, summary of the best practises during the implementations work. The best practices are based on Six Sigma – the define, measure, analyse, design and verify (DMADV) approach. By using the DMADV approach possibilities are created to success in the process implementation because the DMADV framework is designed to support implementation of new processes and activities