Can mandated adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) improve firm value? Most CSR adoption is purely voluntary. However, governments regularly encourage CSR adoption with soft regulations that vary from simply endorsing and symbolically supporting CSR to requiring the adoption of specific practices. Governments have resisted fully mandating CSR because there is some concern universally that mandated CSR may reduce firm value. There is, however, no empirical clarity as to whether mandated CSR impedes or improves firm value. We address this uncertainty (...) by analyzing the effects of the mandated adoption of CSR that the government of India legislated in 2014. Drawing on a sample of 1,526 publicly traded firms and deploying a combinative analytical framework comprising an event study, regression discontinuity design, and a difference-in-differences technique, we conclude that India’s CSR mandate did, in fact, increase value for all firms bound by the mandate. This value-enhancing effect was greater for foreign firms relative to domestic firms. Our results refute previous research showing that India’s CSR mandate diminished firm value. (shrink)

Implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) in supply chains is not a trivial task. In fact, many firms in recent years have publicly proclaimed that in order to keep their CSR commitments, they had to reduce reliance on external suppliers by vertically integrating their operations. Our aim in this article is to examine whether there is truly a relationship between a firm’s CSR performance and its level of vertical integration. Drawing on a multi-industry sample of 2,715 firm-year observations, and after addressing (...) endogeneity concerns, we demonstrate that firms with higher CSR performance tend to vertically integrate more (or, outsource less). We also demonstrate that this tendency is weaker for firms that have higher degrees of asset specificity or international diversification. Our core conclusion is that CSR performance and outsourcing are at odds, but firms can reconcile this tension by deepening their collaborations with suppliers. (shrink)

The business case for social responsibility is one of the most widely studied topics in the business and society literature that focuses on large firms. This attention is understandable because large firms have an obligation to shareholders who, as commonly assumed, seek to maximize returns on their investments, in turn, pressing corporate managers to show that firms’ expenditures in social engagement would pay off. Small firms, on the other hand, rarely face such pressures, yet the BCSR logic is increasingly applied (...) to small firms as well. Our primary objective in this paper is to examine whether and how much do small firm owners’ perceptions of BCSR affect the firm’s social engagement. In finding a fine-grained answer to those questions, we consider BCSR as a two-dimensional construct consisting of tangible and intangible benefits, and also integrate the BCSR perspective with the slack resource perspective to offer a motivation-capacity lens to examine firm’s social engagement. Drawing on a multi-industry sample of 478 small firms in the US, we find that while small firm owners’ perceptions about potential tangible benefits of social engagement are not related to the firm’s social engagement, perceptions about potential intangible are positively related. Firm's financial performance is also positively related to its social engagement, but there is no interaction between potential benefits and financial performance. This study contributes to an improved understanding about small firms’ social engagement, which still remains an understudied area. Our results are in line with studies which argue that firms’ social engagement is a response to institutional factors. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one of the ways through which companies gain legitimacy. However, CSR actions themselves are subject to public skepticism because of increased public awareness of greenwashing and scandalous corporate behavior. Legitimacy of CSR actions is indeed influenced by the actions of the company but also is rooted in the basic cultural values of a society and in the ideologies of evaluators. This study examines the legitimacy of CSR actions of publicly traded forest products companies as compared (...) to family-owned forest products companies. Results indicate a lower legitimacy for CSR actions of publicly traded companies than for family-owned companies. The study also examines the effect of social responsibility orientation (SRO) of evaluators on the legitimacy accorded to companies' CSR actions. We found that SRO was negatively associated with legitimacy, especially for women. Perceived profitability of companies was negatively associated with legitimacy of CSR actions for publicly traded but not for family-owned companies. (shrink)

This article adopts an issues management approach to corporate social responsibility implementation. Issues evaluation, which is an integral component of issues management, can be conducted by using the concept of three expectational gaps. However, the concept of expectational gaps suffers from an ambiguity that limits its application to issues evaluation. The legitimacy gap concept is used in this article to clarify the ambiguity surrounding expectational gaps. The study thus develops a four-gap framework for conducting a quantitative issues evaluation. This framework (...) is applied to six social and six environmental issues in the context of the forest products industry in the Northwest United States by means of a survey of 278 society and 94 industry respondents. Results empirically demonstrate the existence of expectational gaps and also provide insights into the nature of misalignment between societal and business perceptions along these social and environmental issues. Appropriate managerial responses are suggested to narrow or bridge different types of gaps. (shrink)

Business legitimacy is important for any business, especially in times of economic downturn and increased media attention on corporate scandals. However,legitimacy is a quality that comes from society itself, sometimes influenced by the actions or image of the firm, but also rooted in the basic cultural values of the population. This study takes “legitimacy gap” as its dependent variable, defining it as the difference between expected and observed levels of social and environmental performance for both publicly-traded and family-owned business. The (...) study was conducted with a random sample using mailed surveys, and was oriented towards the forest products sector. Results indicate that family-owned businesses have lower legitimacy gaps (therefore, higher legitimacy) than publicly-traded companies, especially when the latter are considered very profitable. These findings were especially strong for women and for respondentswith a high social responsibility (SRO) orientation. (shrink)

Thus far, the academic focus has been limited to understand how hybrid organizations balance goal plurality. However, the question how hybrids engage (or fail to engage) local communities in this process and the potential challenges involved has remained unaddressed. Relying on an inductive multiple case study of six Canadian community forest enterprises (CFEs), we describe dilemmas that arise between community engagement and CFEs’ other goals that form their social mission, as well as a distinct set of compromise tactics to address (...) them. We further identify a tension that arises from two distinct dimensions inherent to community engagement that are inherently interwoven yet contradicting. We add to research on paradox by showing that tensions not merely arise between outcome-focused goals that stem from organizational hybridity, but demonstrate that individual goal prescriptions in itself entail elements that cause tension, and warrant paradoxical management to ensure hybrids’ success in fulfilling their overall mission. (shrink)

Corporate net-zero carbon emission pledges abound and so does skepticism about the results they could deliver. Three approaches proposed here can ensure these pledges alleviate, rather than aggravate, the climate crisis.

Firms engage in social responsibility activities for diverse reasons. This study focuses on understanding firms' instrumental motivations for engaging in socially responsible activities. We suggest that the instrumental motivations underlying firms' corporate social responsibility engagement are associated with their market, learning, and risk-related behaviors; thus, we identify market orientation, learning orientation, and risk-taking attitudes as three constructs that influence firms' CSR engagement. This research was conducted in the Norwegian firewood sector, in which CSR expectations are high and in which we (...) expect CSR engagement to be encouraged by both instrumental and normative motivations. The firms in this study are micro-firms with fewer than 10 employees and represent an important but highly neglected segment of firms in CSR research. Data obtained from 230 firms were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Our results indicate that market orientation, learning orientation, and risk-taking attitudes affect social responsibility toward different stakeholder groups in different ways. In some cases, the size and age of firms also affect these relationships. (shrink)

This paper proposes that issues evaluation can be conducted by a framework which integrates the concept of a legitimacy gap with expectational gaps (factual, conformance, and ideal gaps). Using this framework, this paper empirically demonstrates the existence of expectational gaps in the context of the forest products industry by means of a quantitative survey. Results indicate that significant expectational gaps exist. This framework may have relevance for both issues management and legitimacy scholars.

The fifth volume of Richard Rorty's "Philosophical papers" published by Cambridge University Press, consists of the works which American philosopher wrote at the very dawn of his career in 1960s and early 1970s. In these essays Rorty addresses issues of transcendental argumentation, the internalism/externalism controversy, mind-body dualism and psychophysical monism, semantic truth, reference and justification. Supplemented by Daniel Dennett's Foreword, the book gives an excellent idea of Rorty's «analytical» writings and his evolution from eliminative materialism to pragmatism.

The study is dedicated to the work of Crimean scholar Ahmad bin ‘Abdallah al-Qrimi, who was one of the most advanced interpreters of the Ibn Arabi’s and Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi’s Sufi philosophy. Ahmad al-Qrimi employed Ibn Sina’s views on division of essence and existence, as well as some concepts of Maturidi kalam. His manuscript work “Advise for the Perplexed and Key for the Exigent” shows main dimensions of Ahmad al-Qrimi’s thought as following: 1) The notion of Being in the works (...) of Ibn Arabi and Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi is interpreted as the idea of necessary existence, as suggested by ibn Sina; 2) the conception of the identity of the absolute and necessary being is understood as the only right approach for the solution of polemics between adepts and critics of Sufism; 3) conception of “correlation” is considered as solution for the problem of relations between mind and reality. (shrink)

Interview with Yaroslava Stratii, dedicated to the history of studies of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s manuscript inheritance in Kiyv and Lviv from 1968. The interview was prepared by the activists of the Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy, organized at the Department of the History of Philosophy.

Sociological accounts usually emphasise the primacy of phenotype (cor, colour) over ancestry for orienting concepts of ‘race’ in Brazil. In this paper, I present an alternative account of the cultural and political significance of ancestry in contemporary Brazil, drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with 50 Brazilians who had recently taken personalised DNA ancestry tests. The interviewees’ attitudes towards their ancestry are interpreted in relation to Brazil’s longstanding national myth of mestiçagem and the history of eugenic Whitening ideologies (ideologias do branqueamento) (...) that have sought to erase traces of Brazil’s African origins. However, they are also interpreted also against the backdrop of contemporary Black Movement activism that aims to actively recovering Afro-Brazilian histories and memories from these processes of erasure. (shrink)

Tevhid İslam inancının özünü oluşturan temel ilkedir. Yaratılışla beraber bütün peygamberlerin Allah adına ortaya koydukları akidedir. Bu inanç tek ilah çevresinde oluşan düşünme biçimini, hayat tarzını ifade eder. Bu bağlamda inanç, ibadet ve muamelat unsurlarının birbirleriyle anlamlı birlikteliğinin sonucudur. Tevhid sadece Allah’ın zatına yönelik söylemler olmayıp Allah-kâinat kilişkisinin nasıl işlediğini belirleyen sistemdir. Bu ilişkide Allah ile kâinat arasına etkin kuvvetler sokuşturmak mümkün değildir. Allah’ın, yaratıklarıyla özelde ise insanla olan ilişkisi esnasında O’nu pasif konumda bırakacak her türlü inanç ve düşünce tevhidin (...) karşısında yer almaktadır. Bu çalışmada İslam inancının temel doktrini olan tevhid inancının inşa süreci, bu bağlamda şirke yöneltilen eleştiriler Kur’ani perspektiften incelenecektir. Özellikle tevhidi anlatımların yoğunlaştığı alanlar belirlenecektir. Söz konusu anlatımların vahiy sürecindeki anlaşılma şekli ön plana çıkarılmaya çalışılacaktır. (shrink)

This paper is an endeavor to discuss Gilbert Ryle’s philosophy of mind in convergence with some contemporary debates, particularly the “immediacy” debate of first-person authority. An attempt has been made to show that Ryle’s thought when analyzed through the prism of immediacy debate of first-person authority also seems to claim and endorse first-person authority.

Chemical castration laws, such as one recently adopted in the U.S. State of Louisiana, raise challenging ethical concerns for physicians. Even if such interventions were to prove efficacious, which is far from certain, they would still raise troubling concerns regarding the degree of medical risk that may be imposed upon prisoners in the name of public safety as well as the appropriate role for physicians and other health care professionals in the administration of pharmaceuticals to competent prisoners over the inmates’ (...) unequivocal objections. This paper argues that the concerns raised by chemical castration are grave enough that, until they are adequately addressed by policymakers, physicians ought not to participate in the process. (shrink)

The study of identity crosses all disciplinary borders to address such issues as the multiple interactions of race, class, and gender in feminist, lesbian, and gay studies, postcolonialism and globalization, and the interrelation of nationalism and ethnicity in ethnic and area studies. Identities will help disrupt the cliche-ridden discourse of identity by exploring the formation of identities and problem of subjectivity. Leading scholars in literary criticism, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy explore such topics as "Gypsies" in the Western imagination, the mobilization (...) of the West in Chinese television, the lesbian identity and the woman's gaze in fashion photography, and the regulation of black women's bodies in early 20th-century urban areas. This collection of twenty articles brings together the special issue of Critical Inquiry entitled "Identities" (Summer 1992), two other previously published essays, and five previously published critical responses and rejoinders, all of which is interrogated in two new essays by Michael Gorra and Judith Butler. Contributors include Elizabeth Abel, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Akeel Bilgrami, Daniel Boyarin, Jonathan Boyarin, Judith Butler, Hazel V. Carby, Xiaomei Chen, Diana Fuss, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Avery Gordon, Michael Gorra, Cheryl Herr, Saree S. Makdisi, Walter Benn Michaels, Christopher Newfield, Gananath Obeyesekere, Molly Anne Rothenberg, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Sara Suleri, Katie Trumpener, and Joseph Valente. (shrink)

Postmodernism seemed to promise an end to the grim Cold War era of nuclear confrontation and oppressive ideologies. This expanded edition brilliantly elucidates this hall of mirrors with Richard Appignanesi's witty and easy-to-follow text and the inspired cartoonist Chris Garratt.

One of the most fundamental tenets of medical research, enshrined in the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, is that scientific investigation involving human beings requires the informed consent of the subjects.

Vahyin akılla, bilimin dinle, benliğin yaratıcıyla, dünyanın ahiretle çeliştiğini düşünen Batı modernitesi en güçlü etkisini kendi yuvası Avrupa’da gösterdikten kısa bir süre sonra 18. yüzyılda komşu topraklara Afrika ve Asya’ya dünya görüşünü neşretmiştir. Napolyon’un Mısır işgali kuşkusuz bu etkinin Arap dünyası sathında kıvılcımı olmuştur. Başta Mısır insanı olmak üzere tüm Arap dünyası basın ve yayın yoluyla Batı tarzı yaşam tarzı ile tanışmış ve kendi geleneği aleyhinde olumsuz etkilenmiştir. Bu olumsuz etkiyi kendi toplumunda gören Menfalûtî, halkına karşı sorumluluk hisleriyle vaaz ve (...) irşat içerikli edebi eserler ortaya koymuştur. Ancak onun bu eserlerinde çoğu zaman karamsar bir üslup kullandığı ifade edilmiştir. Hikâyelerinde seçtiği karakterlerin başlarına gelen acı felaketlerin eserlerine melankolik bir hava kattığı belirtilmiştir. Bu makale yazarın bu karamsar üslubu benimsemesinin nedenlerinden biri üzerine duracaktır. (shrink)

The jurists, taking as reference the texts and the experiential studies of the period, preached various provisions regarding the issues such as fetal development, full birth or birth and death in this process. The majority made evaluations on the basis of the hadith about the fetal development process -mentioned in three separate periods of forty days-, but it was observed that this did not overlap with some medical guidance. Because the development period expressed by the jurists could not be prolonged, (...) it was determined that this process was completed before according to modern medicine. Jurists stated that he did not have any law regarding the fetus born before this period, since it was based on this period, and evaluated and evaluated whether those born later were alive or not. It has been presented in different jurisprudence in terms of various branches in fiqh, which is called “frequency” of the previous abortion effect after/during the full birth, and which is considered to be soul-blowing at the end of four months. These conflicts affected sons' abilities such as bathing, shrouding, burial and burial of the miscarriage. The mother also created many provisions such as her legal status such as nifas, talaq and ummu'l-veled, punishment lessons such as abortion and gurra, financial concepts such as heir and inheritance, and its effects on conditional contracts. In our study, in the event that the fetus dies due to the cell in the womb where the study medical information is located, the protections against it and the judgment it gives birth to in relation to it are discussed. (shrink)