Seeking legitimacy through CSR: Institutional Pressures and Corporate Responses of Multinationals in Sri Lanka

Arguably, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of multinational enterprises (MNEs) are influenced by a wide range of both internal and external factors. Perhaps most critical among the exogenous forces operating on MNEs are those exerted by state and other key institutional actors in host countries. Crucially, academic research conducted to date offers little data about how MNEs use their CSR activities to strategically manage their relationship with those actors in order to gain legitimisation advantages in host countries. This paper addresses that gap by exploring interactions between external institutional pressures and firm-level CSR activities, which take the form of community initiatives, to examine how MNEs develop their legitimacy-seeking policies and practices. In focusing on a developing country, Sri Lanka, this paper provides valuable insights into how MNEs instrumentally utilise community initiatives in a country where relationship-building with governmental and other powerful non-governmental actors can be vitally important for the long-term viability of the business. Drawing on neo-institutional theory and CSR literature, this paper examines and contributes to the embryonic but emerging debate about the instrumental and political implications of CSR. The evidence presented and discussed here reveals the extent to which, and the reasons why, MNEs engage in complex legitimacy-seeking relationships with Sri Lankan institutions

“It’s Like Hating Puppies!” Employee Disengagement and Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been linked with numerous organizational advantages, including recruitment, retention, productivity, and morale, which relate specifically to employees. However, despite specific benefits of CSR relating to employees and their importance as a stakeholder group, it is noteworthy that a lack of attention has been paid to the individual level of analysis with CSR primarily being studied at the organizational level. Both research and practice of CSR have largely treated the individual organization as a “black box,” failing to account for individual differences amongst employees and the resulting variations in antecedents to CSR engagement or disengagement. This is further exacerbated by the tendency in stakeholder theory to homogenize priorities within a single stakeholder group. In response, utilizing case study data drawn from three multinational tourism and hospitality organizations, combined with extensive interview data collected from CSR leaders, industry professionals, engaged, and disengaged employees, this exploratory research produces a finer-grained understanding of employees as a stakeholder group, identifying a number of opportunities and barriers for individual employee engagement in CSR interventions. This research proposes that employees are situated along a spectrum of engagement from actively engaged to actively disengaged. While there are some common drivers of engagement across the entire spectrum of employees, differences also exist depending on the degree to which employees, rather than senior management, support corporate responsibility within their organizations. Key antecedents to CSR engagement that vary depending on employees’ existing level of broader engagement include organizational culture, CSR intervention design, employee CSR perceptions, and the observed benefits of participation

Reduction of allogeneic red blood cell usage during cardiac surgery by an integrated intra- and postoperative blood salvage strategy: Results of a randomized comparison

The amount of allogeneic blood transfusion may relate to worse outcome in cardiac surgery. The reinfusion of red blood cells (RBCs) lost by patients, including those of chest drains, is a promising strategy to minimize allogeneic transfusions

Reduction of allogeneic red blood cell usage during cardiac surgery by an integrated intra- and postoperative blood salvage strategy: Results of a randomized comparison

The amount of allogeneic blood transfusion may relate to worse outcome in cardiac surgery. The reinfusion of red blood cells (RBCs) lost by patients, including those of chest drains, is a promising strategy to minimize allogeneic transfusions

Unbalanced 6p translocation as primary karyotypic anomaly in secondary acute non-lymphocytic leukemia. Cancer Genet Cytogenet ,1992.

A case of acute nonlymphocytic leukemia after radiochemotherapy for Hodgkin's disease, with a rearrangement of 6p23 region, is described. This chromosome change, which has been previously reported in secondary leukemias or myelodysplastic syndromes, was an isolated karyotypic anomaly in our case, which strongly supports the nonrandom involvement of chromosome 6p in induced leukemias

Trisomy 14 in hematological diseases. Another non-random abnormality within myeloid proliferative disorders.

Two cases of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and a case of acute nonlymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL) with a trisomy 14 are presented. The series of results derived from our cases, and those previously reported, strongly suggest that this anomaly may be another nonrandom change, confined within myeloid disorders and associated with patients' advanced age, marked tendency to bone marrow dysplastic features, normal platelet values, and not unfavorable prognosis

Application of fluorescence in situ hybridization in defining a complex t(9;21;22)Ph formation.

We describe the application of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in a case of suspected chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), cytogenetically characterized by a t(21;22) with no clear involvement of chromosome 9. The dual color FISH technique, performed using specific painting probes for chromosomes 9,21,22 and a BCR/ABL translocation probe, enabled us to confirm the diagnosis of CML by detecting the BCR/ABL rearrangement on chromosome 22q and the involvement of chromosome 9 in a variant translocation t(9;21;22)

Long term remission of T-lymphoid extramedullary blast crisis of chronic myelogenous leukemia following allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.

Extramedullary blast crisis (EBC) with T-lymphoid phenotype has been reported rarely and generally associated with extremely poor prognosis. We describe a case of T-lymphoid EBC in which long-lasting remission was observed following intensive chemotherapy and allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). Characterization of bone marrow (BM) and lymph node (LN) cells was performed by means of morpho-cytochemical, cytogenetic, immunophenotypic and molecular analyses. These showed, together with a marrow picture consistent with typical Ph'+ chronic myelogenous leukemia, the expansion of an early T-lymphoid (CD7+/TdT+) LN cell population exhibiting the same bcr rearranged pattern and an additional Ph' chromosome. At the present time, 33 months after BMT, the patient is alive and well, with persistent clinical, hematological, cytogenetic and molecular evidence of complete remission