Corporate social responsibility in times of crisis

This contribution evaluates the United States (U.S.) government’s policies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmentally-sustainable behaviors. It looks at the establishment of particular corporate citizenship procedures and expectations. US entities, including bureaus, agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have often interpreted their own view on business ethics and stakeholder engagement, within their own regulatory context. This conceptual paper suggests that relevant policies, guidelines and communication on corporate citizenship and their disclosures can change the companies’ attitudes toward CSR, sustainability and corporate governance reporting. It has presented numerous opportunities for businesses to engage in CSR practices in order to create value for themselves and for others. In conclusion, as corporate citizenship and social responsibility policies are widely-understood, accepted and implemented by stakeholders, there will be greater convergence of laudable behaviors. This will ultimately bring positive implications for a sustainable and fair future for all.peer-reviewe

Ripples in a pond: Do social work students need to learn about terrorism?

In the face of heightened awareness of terrorism, however it is defined, the challenges for social work are legion. Social work roles may include working with the military to ensure the well-being of service-men and women and their families when bereaved or injured, as well as being prepared to support the public within the emergency context of an overt act of terrorism. This paper reviews some of the literature concerning how social work responds to confl ict and terrorism before reporting a smallscale qualitative study examining the views of social work students, on a qualifying programme in the UK, of terrorism and the need for knowledge and understanding as part of their education

On multiple epistemologies of secularism: Toward a political economy critique

The chapter has three main parts, the first of which sets out with the introduction of a dyadic category of secularism questioning the dominant paradigm that views secularism as a Western cognitive type. The category in question is built up for a different paradigm by a political economy approach that analyzes the emergence of liberal capitalist world-economy, and the due institutional, political, and social processes. The second part contextualizes secularism in the parameters of neoliberal global capitalist world-economy and its postmodern, neoconservative political hegemony to offer a different context and to extend the previous historical analysis of the political economy of secularism to the contemporary phase. The third part traces the imperial logos critiqued by the Western left, and the (even unconsciously attended) misgivings of Western intellectualism due to an inherent Orientalism when it comes to the treatment of secularism in the Other. The third part also lays bare the particular necessities of the terrain on which the intellectuals in the periphery have to operate. All in all, the chapter seeks to uproot the persistent understandings of secularism and draw attention to the roots of secularism in political economy. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020