Search results for: corporate citizenship
366 Technology Angels and Entrepreneurs: Insights from a Study in Poland
Authors: Rafal Morawczynski
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The paper presents results of a study of technology angels in Poland, who are important for the development of the high technology industries. For entrepreneurs, they offer not only capital but also expertise, engagement, and networking. A technology angel is a relatively new type of investor who invests in high-tech start-ups and supports their founders (entrepreneurs) in the development process of a new venture. Conclusions are drawn from a comparison between 8 technology angels and 7 'classical' business angels. Results present features and behaviors of technology angels that distinguish them from traditional (typical, classic) business angels. As this type of investor actively cooperates with entrepreneurs, the study focuses mainly on their perception of venture founders and several aspects of this cooperation: perception of entrepreneurs’ characteristics by angels, correction of expectations toward corporate governance, and 'value adding' activities.Keywords: business angels, entrepreneurs, Poland, start-up, technology entrepreneurship, venture capital
Procedia PDF Downloads 180365 Socio-Motor Experience between Affectivity and Movement from Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings
Authors: Manuela Gamba, Niki Mandolesi
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Teenagers today have little knowledge about how to move or play together. The adults who are part of sports culture must find an effective way to foster this essential ability. Our research in Italy uses a 'holistic model' based on fantasy literature to explore the relationships between the game identities and self-identities of young people and the achievement of psycho-motor, emotional and social well-being in the realms of sport and education. Physical activity projects were carried out in schools and extra-curricular associations in Rome, combining outdoor activities and distance learning. This holistic and malleable game model is inspired by fantasy accounts of the journeys taken in The Lord of Rings and Harry Potter books. We know that many have a lot of resistance to the idea of using fantasy and play as a pedagogical tool, but the results obtained in this experience are surprising. Our interventions and investigations focused on promoting self-esteem, awareness, a sense of belonging, social integration, cooperation, well-being, and informed decision making: a basis for healthy and effective citizenship. For teenagers, creative thinking is the right stimulus to involve and compare the story of characters to their own journey through social and self-reflective identity analysis. We observed how important it is to engage students emotionally as well as cognitively and that enabling them to play with identity through relationships with peers. There is a need today for a multidisciplinary synthesis of analog and digital values, especially in response to recent distance-living experiences. There is a need for a global reconceptualization of free time and nature in the human experience.Keywords: awareness, creativity, identity, play
Procedia PDF Downloads 185364 Split-Share Structure Reform and Statutory Audit Fees in China
Authors: Hsiao-Wen Wang
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The split-share structure reform in China represents one of the most significant milestones in the evolution of the capital market. With the goal of converting non-tradable shares into tradable shares, the reform laid the foundation and supported the development of full-scale privatization. This study explores China’s split-share structure reform and its impact on statutory audit fees. This study finds that auditors earn a significant statutory audit fee premium after the split-share structure reform. The Big 4 auditors who provide better audit quality receive higher statutory audit fee premium than non-Big 4 auditors after the share reform, which is attributable to their brand reputation, rather than the relative market dominance.Keywords: chinese split-share structure reform, statutory audit fees, big-4 auditors, corporate governance
Procedia PDF Downloads 387363 Community Education Leadership and Organizational Culture: Perceptions of Empowerment
Authors: Aisha M. Khairat
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Community education in the Arab Republic of Egypt is a model that provides education to remote, underprivileged villages and hamlets where children have no access to public education. The community education model is based on the philosophy of transforming individuals to reach their full potential and on instilling the seeds of empowerment and citizenship to induce societal transformation. This research aims at investigating the degree to which the leadership style and organizational culture of the Egyptian community schools demonstrates an empowering approach. Nile Valley NGO, an Egyptian Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) leading hundreds of Egyptian community schools was studied to investigate the perceptions of empowerment amongst its leadership. This in turn will have serious implications on the level of empowerment the communities managed by Nile Valley NGO are experiencing, and will serve as an indicator to the degree to which community schools are achieving their goals in transforming individuals and empowering communities and reforming Egyptian education – and not just a tool to reach literacy. This mixed-methods research utilized surveys and semi-structured interviews to capture the perceptions of empowerment in the views of a sample of 380 community schools facilitators (teachers) spanning 8 Egyptian governorates and Nile Valley NGO’s community education project team and leadership. The findings demonstrate interesting leadership approaches with traits from transformational and servant leadership theoretical models. The organizational culture at Nile Valley NGO reflects the universal dichotomy between market-oriented and humanitarian orientations. The perceptions of empowerment were positive, and several success stories were uncovered in spite of the many challenges faced on the national level and despite the scarcity or resources.Keywords: community education, community schools in Egypt, empowerment, organizational culture, leadership
Procedia PDF Downloads 163362 Role of Teachers in Fostering the Culture of Peace in Higher Education Context: A Literature Review
Authors: Maliheh Rezaei
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Peace education has been introduced into many higher educational contexts by designing different programs, expecting to result in constructive changes, specifically in post-conflict countries. Teachers are the potential agents of positive change who play a major role in fostering the culture of peace in their classes. The purpose of this literature review was thus to evaluate the implementation of peace pedagogies by teachers in the context of higher education. More specifically, it addressed a) the role and characteristics of teachers and b) the pedagogies that they used to construct the culture of peace. The systematic literature review was used and several inclusion criteria were applied. Only papers published in English, which contained the keywords of university, higher education, peace, peace education, and similar derivatives such as ‘peacebuilding’ in their title and/or abstract, were included in this review. Moreover, only papers that dealt with the actual implementation of peace education theories were investigated. Findings highlighted that most teachers relied on pedagogies adopted from social justice, global citizenship, and positive psychology practices aiming to foster positive human traits such as resilience, empathy and reflection that were also believed to play an important role in peacebuilding efforts. Nevertheless, the incorporation of peace remained peripheral. The main challenge to incorporate the tenets of peace education was the shortage of teachers who were skilled and qualified enough to incorporate and promote the culture of peace in their classes. This literature review presents the body of research that has linked peace education to Higher Education. Therefore, it informs teachers about the potential roles they have in creating a peaceful and sustainable future. It also presents them with more effective pedagogies and practices to successfully integrate peace-related activities in Higher Education.Keywords: culture of peace, higher education, teacher, pedogogy
Procedia PDF Downloads 189361 Towards A New Maturity Model for Information System
Authors: Ossama Matrane
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Information System has become a strategic lever for enterprises. It contributes effectively to align business processes on strategies of enterprises. It is regarded as an increase in productivity and effectiveness. So, many organizations are currently involved in implementing sustainable Information System. And, a large number of studies have been conducted the last decade in order to define the success factors of information system. Thus, many studies on maturity model have been carried out. Some of this study is referred to the maturity model of Information System. In this article, we report on development of maturity models specifically designed for information system. This model is built based on three components derived from Maturity Model for Information Security Management, OPM3 for Project Management Maturity Model and processes of COBIT for IT governance. Thus, our proposed model defines three maturity stages for corporate a strong Information System to support objectives of organizations. It provides a very practical structure with which to assess and improve Information System Implementation.Keywords: information system, maturity models, information security management, OPM3, IT governance
Procedia PDF Downloads 434360 Independent Audit in Brazilian Companies Listed on B3: An Analysis of Companies That Received Qualified Opinion and Disclaimer of Opinion
Authors: Diego Saldo Alves, Marcelo Paveck Ayub
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The quality of accounting information is very important for the decision-making of managers, investors government and other information users. The opinion of the independent audit has a significant influence on the decision-making, especially the investors. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the reasons that companies listed on Brazilian Stock Exchange B3, if they received qualified opinion and disclaimer of opinion of the independent auditors. We analyzed the reports of the independent auditors of 23 Brazilian companies listed in B3 that received qualified opinion and disclaimer of opinion between the years 2012 and 2017. The findings show that the companies do not comply the International Financial Reporting Standard, IFRS, also they did not provide documentation to prove the operations performed, did not account expenses, problems in corporate governance and internal controls.Keywords: audit, disclaimer of opinion, independent auditors, qualified opinion
Procedia PDF Downloads 186359 Covid Impact and Corporate Environmental, Social, and Governance Behavior
Authors: Yawen Xia, Rubi Yang, Jing Zhao
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We examine the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) decision-making of companies during turbulent times like COVID-19. We find that firms’ ESG reputation risk comove with their industry and local peers, suggesting that managers may follow their industry and local counterparts in engaging in irresponsible activities. Moreover, the comovement in reputation risk is attenuated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further analyses suggest that the reduction in comovement varies by state-level partisanship and death rate during the pandemic. Comovement in reputation risk declines more significantly in the Democratic states with stringent social distancing policies and in states with higher infection severity. Our findings suggest that social distancing provisions during COVID-19 may lead to a reduction in social activities and information sharing among enterprise managers.Keywords: ESG, Covid, peer pressure, local comovement, orporate governance
Procedia PDF Downloads 10358 Competitive Strategy that Affect to the Competitive Advantage for Hotel and Resort in Samut Songkram Province
Authors: Phatthanan Chaiyabut
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This research paper investigates whether the development of environmentally friendly practices by luxury hotel resorts can be used as a strategy for gaining competitive advantage through differentiation, and suggests ways to do it. The focus is on luxury hotel resorts in Samut Songkram Province, Thailand. A questionnaire was utilized as a tool to collect data. Statistics utilized in this research included frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and multiple regression analysis. Findings indicate that environmentally friendly development of hotel resorts in Samut Songkram Province has a very limited use as a corporate strategy. Only two luxury hotel resorts had it incorporated in their strategy, it is not much used in marketing indicating environmental issues are not seen as important. This was confirmed through the interviews with the managers that it is not seen as important issue to promote.Keywords: competitive advantage, competitive strategy, Samut Songkram Province, hotel and resort
Procedia PDF Downloads 267357 The Effect of Artificial Intelligence on Real Estate and Construction Marketing
Authors: Michael Saad Thabet Azrek
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Experiential advertising method is an unforgettable revel that remains deeply anchored within the customer's memory. Furthermore, client pleasure is defined as the emotional reaction to the stories provided that relate to precise products or services bought. Consequently, experiential advertising sports can influence the extent of consumer pleasure and loyalty. In this context, they have a look at pursuits to observe the connection between experiential advertising, purchaser satisfaction and loyalty to splendor merchandise in Konya. The outcomes of this examination confirmed that experiential marketing is an important indicator of consumer pride and loyalty, and that experiential advertising and marketing have a large positive impact on patron satisfaction and loyalty.Keywords: sponsorship, marketing communication theories, marketing communication tools internet, marketing, tourism, tourism management corporate responsibility, employee organizational performance, internal marketing, internal customer experiential marketing, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, social sciences.
Procedia PDF Downloads 8356 Development of Value Productivity in Automotive Industry
Authors: Jiří Klečka, Dagmar Čámská
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This paper is focused on the investigation of productivity (total productivity and partial productivity). The value productivity is an indicator of level and changes in technical economic efficiency of production factors. It represents an important factor in achieving corporate objectives. This text works with the contemporary concept of value productivity that means that indicators of the productivity express the effect of economic efficiency not only of inputs consumption, but also of inputs binding efficiency. This approach is based on principles of the economic profit, respectively the economic value added (EVA). The research is done on the sample of Czech enterprises operating in the automotive industry in the regions of Liberec and the Central Bohemia. The data sample covers the time period 2006-2011 which allows the comparison of development before crisis and during crisis period. It enables to discover the companies' reaction during crises and the regional comparison allows to showing if there are significant differences between regions.Keywords: automotive industry, Czech Republic, economic efficiency, regional comparison, value productivity
Procedia PDF Downloads 280355 Relationship between ISO 14001 and Market Performance of Firms in China: An Institutional and Market Learning Perspective
Authors: Hammad Riaz, Abubakr Saeed
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Environmental Management System (EMS), i.e., ISO 14001 helps to build corporate reputation, legitimacy and can also be considered as firms’ strategic response to institutional pressure to reduce the impact of business activity on natural environment. The financial outcomes of certifying with ISO 14001 are still unclear and equivocal. Drawing on institutional and market learning theories, the impact of ISO 14001 on firms’ market performance is examined for Chinese firms. By employing rigorous event study approach, this paper compared ISO 14001 certified firms with non-certified counterpart firms based on different matching criteria that include size, return on assets and industry. The results indicate that the ISO 14001 has been negatively signed by the investors both in the short and long-run. This paper suggested implications for policy makers, managers, and other nonprofit organizations.Keywords: ISO 14001, legitimacy, institutional forces, event study approach, emerging markets
Procedia PDF Downloads 152354 Webster´s Spelling Book: A Product of Language-in-Education Policies in the United States in the Early 1800s
Authors: Virginia Andrea Garrido Meirelles
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Noah Webster was a lexicographer and a language reformer and is considered the ‘Father of American Scholarship and Education’ because of the exceptional contributions he made as a teacher and grammarian. The goal of this study is to show that the success of his plan can be explained by the fact that it matched the language-in-education policies of his time. To accomplish that goal the present study analyzes the Massachusetts School Laws of 1642, 1647 and 1648 and compares them to the preface of the first edition of The Grammatical Institute of the English Language. The referred laws were three legislative acts enacted in the Massachusetts Colony and replicated almost identically in the other New England colonies. The purpose of those laws was to eradicate pauperism and poverty, on the one side, and to disseminate the idea of right citizenship, on the other. However, until the Declaration of Independence in 1776, all the primers used in the colony were printed in Britain. In 1783, Noah Webster published the first part of his Grammatical Institute of the English Language. In this book, the author states that his goal is to promote the republican principles that guide the civil rights of that time. The material included many texts taken from the Bible to inspire aversion to inadequate behavior and preference for service and good manners. In addition, its goal was to present ‘a new plan of reducing the pronunciation of our language to an easy standard,’ and in that way, create a unified language to abolish ignorance and language corruption. The comparison between the laws and Webster’s Spelling Book shows that the book is the result of the historical and political situation when it was conceived and it satisfied the requirements of the language-in-education policies of the time.Keywords: American English, language policy, the Massachusetts school laws, webster's spelling book
Procedia PDF Downloads 200353 Hijabs, Burqas and Burqinis: Freedom of Religious Expression In The French Public Sphere
Authors: John Tate
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In 2004, the French Parliament banned the “hijab” in public schools, and in 2010 it prohibited the “burqa” and “niqab” in “public places.” The result was a “secular” outcome involving the removal of these garments, often identified with Islamic religious and cultural practice, from the French public sphere. Yet in 2016, the French local council bans on the “burqini” were overruled by France’s highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État, allowing for their retention in the public sphere. Unlike the burqa and hijab bans, the burqini bans produced significant divisions at the highest echelons of the French political class, with the Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, and the President, François Hollande, finding themselves at odds on the issue. This article seeks to achieve four aims. It seeks to (a) explain the contrary outcomes between key French state institutions, such as the Conseil d’État and the French Parliament, concerning the hijab and burqa bans, and the Conseil d’État and French local councils, concerning the burqini bans; (b) to do so by identifying two qualitatively distinct, and at times incompatible, conceptions of laïcité, present within official French public discourse, and applied by these French state institutions to underwrite these respective outcomes; (c) explain why, given these contrary conceptions of laïcité, and these contrary outcomes, the widespread identification of laïcité with “secularism” is both misleading and inaccurate; and (d) provide an explanation why senior members of the French political class were divided on the burqini bans when they were not divided on the nation-wide prohibitions of the hijab in public schools and the burqa in public places. In regard to this last question, the article seeks to ask why the Burqini was “different”?Keywords: liberalism, republicanism, laïcité, citizenship
Procedia PDF Downloads 136352 Marketing Research and Analysis Improvement Effect on Production
Authors: Mina Zaky Sarofim Zaky
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Experiential marketing is a form of marketing that offers a unique integration of experiential and entertainment elements into a product or service. Experiential marketing is defined as an unforgettable experience that penetrates the customer's mind. Customer satisfaction is also defined as the emotional response to the experience provided with the purchased product or service. Experiential marketing activities can, therefore, affect the level of customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this context, the study aims to determine the relationship between experiential marketing, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in cosmetic products in Konya. The least squares method (PLS) was used to analyze the research data. Existing research has shown that experiential marketing is a significant predictor of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and that experiential marketing has a positive impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.Keywords: internet, marketing, tourism, tourism management corporate responsibility, employee organizational performance, internal marketing, internal customer experiential marketing, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, social sciences
Procedia PDF Downloads 32351 Comprehensive Interpretation of Leadership from the Narratives in Literature
Authors: Nidhi Kaushal, Sanjit Mishra
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Narrative writings in literature are ample source of knowledge and easily understandable. In every old tradition, we found that people learn ethics from oral tales. They had their leaders and lessons of leadership in their stories. In India, we have sufficient amount of stories of leaders. Whether the story is of an ordinary person or a corporate leader of large firm, it always has a unique message of motivation. The objective of this paper is to elaborate the story lines in literature and get the leadership lessons from them, so that we can set up a new concept of leadership based on scholarship of literature. This is our hypothesis that leadership lessons can be learned from the study of literary writings and it can also act an innovative way of learning the management skills through literature. The role of the leader can be familiarly communicated in the form of the tales. Describing a positive psychological narrative from the text is the best way to manifesting an idea into the minds of people. We accomplished this paper that leadership as an attribute can be learned from the folk psychological literary writings.Keywords: leadership, literature, management, psychology
Procedia PDF Downloads 262350 Knowledge Management in Practice: An Exploratory Study Applied to Consulting Firms
Authors: Evgeniya Ivanova
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Nowadays, in the literature, there is still no fixed definition of knowledge management that often remains only as an academic discipline. The current market situation is changing very quickly, the need of new technologies is high, and knowledge management is the area that ensures that the know-how has not been lost during market development and adoption. The study examines how knowledge management is being leveraged and practiced in the management consultancy companies and provides not only the tips and best practices of applied knowledge management approaches but also the validation matrix for its successful or unsuccessful implementation. Different knowledge management approaches are explored on the basis of their practical implementation, including related challenges, knowledge sharing process, and barriers that are typical for consulting firms mostly driven by the agile working culture. The relevance of proposed topic is confirmed by the finding that corporate working culture and the exponentially developing technologies have a direct impact on the success of practical implementation of knowledge management.Keywords: knowledge management, knowledge management in practice, consulting firm, knowledge management success
Procedia PDF Downloads 187349 Emerging Issues for Global Impact of Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) on Indian Economy
Authors: Kamlesh Shashikant Dave
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The global financial crisis is rooted in the sub-prime crisis in U.S.A. During the boom years, mortgage brokers attracted by the big commission, encouraged buyers with poor credit to accept housing mortgages with little or no down payment and without credit check. A combination of low interest rates and large inflow of foreign funds during the booming years helped the banks to create easy credit conditions for many years. Banks lent money on the assumptions that housing price would continue to rise. Also the real estate bubble encouraged the demand for houses as financial assets .Banks and financial institutions later repackaged these debts with other high risk debts and sold them to worldwide investors creating financial instruments called collateral debt obligations (CDOs). With the rise in interest rate, mortgage payments rose and defaults among the subprime category of borrowers increased accordingly. Through the securitization of mortgage payments, a recession developed in the housing sector and consequently it was transmitted to the entire US economy and rest of the world. The financial credit crisis has moved the US and the global economy into recession. Indian economy has also affected by the spill over effects of the global financial crisis. Great saving habit among people, strong fundamentals, strong conservative and regulatory regime have saved Indian economy from going out of gear, though significant parts of the economy have slowed down. Industrial activity, particularly in the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors decelerated. The service sector too, slow in construction, transport, trade, communication, hotels and restaurants sub sectors. The financial crisis has some adverse impact on the IT sector. Exports had declined in absolute terms in October. Higher inputs costs and dampened demand have dented corporate margins while the uncertainty surrounding the crisis has affected business confidence. To summarize, reckless subprime lending, loose monetary policy of US, expansion of financial derivatives beyond acceptable norms and greed of Wall Street has led to this exceptional global financial and economic crisis. Thus, the global credit crisis of 2008 highlights the need to redesign both the global and domestic financial regulatory systems not only to properly address systematic risk but also to support its proper functioning (i.e financial stability).Such design requires: 1) Well managed financial institutions with effective corporate governance and risk management system 2) Disclosure requirements sufficient to support market discipline. 3)Proper mechanisms for resolving problem institution and 4) Mechanisms to protect financial services consumers in the event of financial institutions failure.Keywords: FIIs, BSE, sensex, global impact
Procedia PDF Downloads 433348 Using Human-Centred Service Design and Partnerships as a Model to Promote Cross-Sector Social Responsibility in Disaster Resilience: An Australian Case Study
Authors: Keith Diamond, Tracy Collier, Ciara Sterling, Ben Kraal
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The increased frequency and intensity of disaster events in the Asia-Pacific region is likely to require organisations to better understand how their initiatives, and the support they provide to their customers, intersect with other organisations aiming to support communities in achieving disaster resilience. While there is a growing awareness that disaster response and recovery rebuild programmes need to adapt to more integrated, community-led approaches, there is often a discrepancy between how programmes intend to work and how they are collectively experienced in the community, creating undesired effects on community resilience. Following Australia’s North Queensland Monsoon Disaster of 2019, this research set out to understand and evaluate how the service and support ecosystem impacted on the local community’s experience and influenced their ability to respond and recover. The purpose of this initiative was to identify actionable, cross-sector, people-centered improvements that support communities to recover and thrive when faced with disaster. The challenge arose as a group of organisations, including utility providers, banks, insurers, and community organisations, acknowledged that improving their own services would have limited impact on community wellbeing unless the other services people need are also improved and aligned. The research applied human-centred service design methods, typically applied to single products or services, to design a new way to understand a whole-of-community journey. Phase 1 of the research conducted deep contextual interviews with residents and small business owners impacted by the North Queensland Monsoon and qualitative data was analysed to produce community journey maps that detailed how individuals navigated essential services, such as accommodation, finance, health, and community. Phase 2 conducted interviews and focus groups with frontline workers who represented industries that provided essential services to assist the community. Data from Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the research was analysed and combined to generate a systems map that visualised the positive and negative impacts that occurred across the disaster response and recovery service ecosystem. Insights gained from the research has catalysed collective action to address future Australian disaster events. The case study outlines a transformative way for sectors and industries to rethink their corporate social responsibility activities towards a cross-sector partnership model that shares responsibility and approaches disaster response and recovery as a single service that can be designed to meet the needs of communities.Keywords: corporate social responsibility, cross sector partnerships, disaster resilience, human-centred design, service design, systems change
Procedia PDF Downloads 146347 Dialectics of Modern Law: Perspectives and Strategies of Resistance from the Margins
Authors: Nisar Alungal Chungath
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“No human being is illegal" has become a dictum strongly upheld in the context of global immigration and migration, highlighting the ethical and moral dimensions of how societies and governments treat individuals and communities who have crossed political borders or are living in a country without legal authorization. It seeks to shift the focus from categorizing human beings as illegal immigrants to recognizing their inherent human rights and the complexities of their circumstances. As a complex social phenomenon, law has been a crucial instrument in shaping, regulating and governing human societies and vice versa. The law has now become a humongous political project of the modern majoritarian regimes to democratically illegitimize and illegalize the unpopular sections and minorities. Drawing from the theoretical frameworks of dialectics, the paper explores the philosophical underpinnings of the historical evolution and dynamic nature of modern law. The paper employs a phenomenological approach to analyze the dialectical relations between individuals, societies, and legal systems, aiming to shed light on the ethical and political implications of these interactions. By examining the historical essence of law, its relationship with social and cultural norms, and the role of power dynamics, this article argues for constantly maintaining the dialectics of law—the dynamic interplay between legal norms, social practices, cultural values, and historical contexts through a philosophical and phenomenological lens, in order to bridge the gap between universal principles and particular contexts. The paper will shed light to the dialectics of the law in the context of instances of the legal persecutions of the modern secular democracies such as Citizenship Amendment Act-2019, India.Keywords: phenomenology, dialectic, modern law, politics, resistance, margins
Procedia PDF Downloads 50346 Climate Change Law and Transnational Corporations
Authors: Manuel Jose Oyson
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in its most recent report for the entire world “to both mitigate and adapt to climate change if it is to effectively avoid harmful climate impacts.” The IPCC observed “with high confidence” a more rapid rise in total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions from 2000 to 2010 than in the past three decades that “were the highest in human history”, which if left unchecked will entail a continuing process of global warming and can alter the climate system. Current efforts, however, to respond to the threat of global warming, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, have focused on states, and fail to involve Transnational Corporations (TNCs) which are responsible for a vast amount of GHG emissions. Involving TNCs in the search for solutions to climate change is consistent with an acknowledgment by contemporary international law that there is an international role for other international persons, including TNCs, and departs from the traditional “state-centric” response to climate change. Putting the focus of GHG emissions away from states recognises that the activities of TNCs “are not bound by national borders” and that the international movement of goods meets the needs of consumers worldwide. Although there is no legally-binding instrument that covers TNC activities or legal responsibilities generally, TNCs have increasingly been made legally responsible under international law for violations of human rights, exploitation of workers and environmental damage, but not for climate change damage. Imposing on TNCs a legally-binding obligation to reduce their GHG emissions or a legal liability for climate change damage is arguably formidable and unlikely in the absence a recognisable source of obligation in international law or municipal law. Instead a recourse to “soft law” and non-legally binding instruments may be a way forward for TNCs to reduce their GHG emissions and help in addressing climate change. Positive effects have been noted by various studies to voluntary approaches. TNCs have also in recent decades voluntarily committed to “soft law” international agreements. This development reflects a growing recognition among corporations in general and TNCs in particular of their corporate social responsibility (CSR). While CSR used to be the domain of “small, offbeat companies”, it has now become part of mainstream organization. The paper argues that TNCs must voluntarily commit to reducing their GHG emissions and helping address climate change as part of their CSR. One, as a serious “global commons problem”, climate change requires international cooperation from multiple actors, including TNCs. Two, TNCs are not innocent bystanders but are responsible for a large part of GHG emissions across their vast global operations. Three, TNCs have the capability to help solve the problem of climate change. Assuming arguendo that TNCs did not strongly contribute to the problem of climate change, society would have valid expectations for them to use their capabilities, knowledge-base and advanced technologies to help address the problem. It would seem unthinkable for TNCs to do nothing while the global environment fractures.Keywords: climate change law, corporate social responsibility, greenhouse gas emissions, transnational corporations
Procedia PDF Downloads 340345 Web-Based Instructional Program to Improve Professional Development: Recommendations and Standards for Radioactive Facilities in Brazil
Authors: Denise Levy, Gian M. A. A. Sordi
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This web based project focuses on continuing corporate education and improving workers' skills in Brazilian radioactive facilities throughout the country. The potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) shall contribute to improve the global communication in this very large country, where it is a strong challenge to ensure high quality professional information to as many people as possible. The main objective of this system is to provide Brazilian radioactive facilities a complete web-based repository - in Portuguese - for research, consultation and information, offering conditions for learning and improving professional and personal skills. UNIPRORAD is a web based system to offer unified programs and inter-related information about radiological protection programs. The content includes the best practices for radioactive facilities in order to meet both national standards and international recommendations published by different organizations over the past decades: International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN). The website counts on concepts, definitions and theory about optimization and ionizing radiation monitoring procedures. Moreover, the content presents further discussions related to some national and international recommendations, such as potential exposure, which is currently one of the most important research fields in radiological protection. Only two publications of ICRP develop expressively the issue and there is still a lack of knowledge of fail probabilities, for there are still uncertainties to find effective paths to quantify probabilistically the occurrence of potential exposures and the probabilities to reach a certain level of dose. To respond to this challenge, this project discusses and introduces potential exposures in a more quantitative way than national and international recommendations. Articulating ICRP and AIEA valid recommendations and official reports, in addition to scientific papers published in major international congresses, the website discusses and suggests a number of effective actions towards safety which can be incorporated into labor practice. The WEB platform was created according to corporate public needs, taking into account the development of a robust but flexible system, which can be easily adapted to future demands. ICTs provide a vast array of new communication capabilities and allow to spread information to as many people as possible at low costs and high quality communication. This initiative shall provide opportunities for employees to increase professional skills, stimulating development in this large country where it is an enormous challenge to ensure effective and updated information to geographically distant facilities, minimizing costs and optimizing results.Keywords: distance learning, information and communication technology, nuclear science, radioactive facilities
Procedia PDF Downloads 188344 Information Technology and Business Alignments among Different Divisions: A Comparative Analysis of Japan and South Korea
Authors: Michiko Miyamoto
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This paper empirically investigates whether information technology (IT) strategies, business strategies, and divisions are aligned to meet overall business goals for Korean Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), based on structure based Strategic Alignment Model, and make comparison with those of Japanese SMEs. Using 2,869 valid responses of Korean Human Capital Corporate Panel survey, a result of this study suggests that Korean human resources (HR) departments have a major influence over IT strategy, which is the same as Japanese SMEs, even though their management styles are quite different. As for IT strategy, it is not related to other departments at all for Korean SMEs. The Korean management seems to possess a great power over each division, such as Sales/Service, Research and Development/Technical Experts, HR, and Production.Keywords: IT-business alignment, structured based strategic alignment model, structural equation model, human resources department
Procedia PDF Downloads 262343 Participatory Democracy to the Contemporary Problems of Polish Social Policy
Authors: Agnieszka Szczudlińska-Kanoś
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Nowadays the participation of citizens in public life increasingly effect on management at all levels of public authority. Today, however, democratic systems in many countries, also in Poland, based on the first - on the institutions of representative democracy, which is mainly on elections, party activity, on the other hand - on the basic instruments of direct democracy, which, in particular, we can include a referendum or initiative of citizenship - although these are often rather complementary. Other forms of participatory democracy, such as deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting, public consultation in practice in many countries are still rare. Appropriate use of the potential invested in participatory democracy can bring enormous and multilateral benefits. On the one hand, local and regional communities taking an active part in public life express their needs, point out problems and thus affect the decisions of public authorities. Authorities using knowledge acquired from the citizens also implement the policy tailored to their needs, thus obtaining support in the next election. The purpose of this study is to show how the Polish citizens affect to resolve issues of social policy pursued at different levels of government. This problem is very important because today the observed changes seen in virtually all fields of life create new social problems, which nowadays are no longer only the problems of the region, the country but they are international, global issues. From such this perspective we should talk about them, discuss, try to solve at all levels. Article will be useful not only theorists involved in the management of the public, local government, or social but also practitioners - local government acting as their functions at different levels of government. Conclusions drawn from the publication will also be useful to politicians and those directly affecting for: functioning social security systems, the scope and quality of public services and the overall shape of the contemporary social policy in different countries.Keywords: social policy, local government, social participation, social services
Procedia PDF Downloads 272342 The Mediatory Role of Innovation in the Link between Social and Financial Performance
Authors: Bita Mashayekhi, Amin Jahangard, Milad Samavat, Saeid Homayoun
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In the modern competitive business environment, one cannot overstate the importance of corporate social responsibility. The controversial link between the social and financial performance of firms has become a topic of interest for scholars. Hence, this study examines the social and financial performance link by taking into account the mediating role of innovation performance. We conducted the Covariance-based Structural Equation Modeling (CB-SEM) method on an international sample of firms provided by the ASSET4 database. In this research, to explore the black box of the social and financial performance relationship, we first examined the effect of social performance separately on financial performance and innovation; then, we measured the mediation role of innovation in the social and financial performance link. While our results indicate the positive effect of social performance on financial performance and innovation, we cannot document the positive mediating role of innovation. This possibly relates to the long-term nature of benefits from investments in innovation.Keywords: ESG, financial performance, innovation, social performance, structural equation modeling
Procedia PDF Downloads 89341 The Impact of Political Connections on the Funtion of Independent Directors
Authors: Chih-Lin Chang, Tzu-Ching Weng
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The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between corporate political ties and independent directors' functions. With reference to the literature variables such as the characteristics of the relevant board of directors in the past, a single comprehensive function indicator is established as a substitute variable for the function of independent directors, and the impact of political connection on the independent board of directors is further discussed. This research takes Taiwan listed enterprises from 2014 to 2020 as the main research object and conducts empirical research through descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis. The empirical results show that companies with political connections will have a positive impact on the number of independent directors; political connections also have a significant positive relationship with the functional part of independent directors, which means that because companies have political connections, they have a positive impact on the seats or functions of independent directors. will pay more attention and increase their oversight functions.Keywords: political, connection, independent, director, function
Procedia PDF Downloads 88340 A Thorough Analysis of the Literature on the Airport Service Quality and Patron Satisfaction
Authors: Mohammed Saad Alanazi
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Satisfaction of travelers with services provided in the airports is a sign of competitiveness and the corporate image of the airport. This study conducted a systematic literature review of recent studies published after 2017 regarding the factors that positively influence travelers’ satisfaction and encourage them to report positive reviews online. This study found variations among the studies found. They used several research methodologies, and datasets and focused on different airports, yet, they commonly categorized airport services into seven categories that should receive high intention because their qualities were found increasing review rate and positivity. It was found that studies targeting travelers’ satisfaction and intention of revisiting tended to use primary sources of data (survey); meanwhile, studies concerned positivity and negativity of comments towards airport services often used online reviews provided by travelers.Keywords: business Intelligence, airport service quality, passenger satisfaction, thorough analysis
Procedia PDF Downloads 67339 The Examination of Organizational DNA of General Directorate of Youth and Sport Organization of Fars Province Based on Hnald Model
Authors: Mehdi Rastegari Ghiri, Mohammad Reza Baradaran, Zahra Mirsanjari
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The aim of the present study was the investigation of DNA Corporate General Administration of Sports and Youth in Fars province. The descriptive research method is a survey that was conducted by field survey. For data collection, questionnaires were used that designed based on Hnald and Silverman model. In this model the organizational DNA model is stated in four types: objective, individualistic, field-oriented and Spiritual. The reliability of the questionnaire by the researcher obtained by using Cronbach's alpha equal to 89/0 respectively. The statistical population includes all managers and specialists of Fars Province Directorate of Youth and Sport that 48 of them were selected as the samples of the research. The results showed the organizational DNA Directorate General for Youth and Sports Organization of Fars province has a field –oriented and nearly field-oriented DNA.Keywords: organizational, DNA, Hnald, Silverman model
Procedia PDF Downloads 441338 A Framework for Evaluating the QoS and Cost of Web Services Based on Its Functional Performance
Authors: M. Mohemmed Sha, T. Manesh, A. Ahmed Mohamed Mustaq
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In this corporate world, the technology of Web services has grown rapidly and its significance for the development of web based applications gradually rises over time. The success of Business to Business integration rely on finding novel partners and their services in a global business environment. But the selection of the most suitable Web service from the list of services with the identical functionality is more vital. The satisfaction level of the customer and the provider’s reputation of the Web service are primarily depending on the range it reaches the customer’s requirements. In most cases the customer of the Web service feels that he is spending for the service which is undelivered. This is because the customer always thinks that the real functionality of the web service is not reached. This will lead to change of the service frequently. In this paper, a framework is proposed to evaluate the Quality of Service (QoS) and its cost that makes the optimal correlation between each other. Also this research work proposes some management decision against the functional deviancy of the web service that are guaranteed at time of selection.Keywords: web service, service level agreement, quality of a service, cost of a service, QoS, CoS, SOA, WSLA, WsRF
Procedia PDF Downloads 405337 The Messy and Irregular Experience of Entrepreneurial Life
Authors: Hannah Dean
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The growth ideology, and its association with progress, is an important construct in the narrative of modernity. This ideology is embedded in neoclassical economic growth theory which conceptualises growth as linear and predictable, and the entrepreneur as a rational economic manager. This conceptualisation has been critiqued for reinforcing the managerial discourse in entrepreneurship studies. Despite these critiques, both the neoclassical growth theory and its adjacent managerial discourse dominate entrepreneurship studies notably the literature on female entrepreneurs. The latter is the focus of this paper. Given this emphasis on growth, female entrepreneurs are portrayed as problematic because their growth lags behind their male counterparts. This image which ignores the complexity and diversity of female entrepreneurs’ experience persists in the literature due to the lack of studies that analyse the process and contextual factors surrounding female entrepreneurs’ experience. This study aims to address the subordination of female entrepreneurs by questioning the hegemonic logic of economic growth and the managerial discourse as a true representation for the entrepreneurial experience. This objective is achieved by drawing on Schumpeter’s theorising and narrative inquiry. This exploratory study undertakes in depth interviews to gain insights into female entrepreneurs’ experience and the impact of the economic growth model and the managerial discourse on their performance. The narratives challenge a number of assumptions about female entrepreneurs. The participants occupied senior positions in the corporate world before setting up their businesses. This is at odds with much writing which assumes that women underperform because they leave their career without gaining managerial experience to achieve work-life balance. In line with Schumpeter, who distinguishes the entrepreneur from the manager, the participants’ main function was innovation. They did not believe that the managerial paradigm governing their corporate careers was applicable to their entrepreneurial experience. Formal planning and managerial rationality can hinder their decision making process. The narratives point to the gap between the two worlds which makes stepping into entrepreneurship a scary move. Schumpeter argues that the entrepreneurial process is evolutionary and that failure is an integral part of it. The participants’ entrepreneurial process was in fact irregular. The performance of new combinations was not always predictable. They therefore relied on their initiative. The inhibition to deploy these traits had an adverse effect on business growth. The narratives also indicate that over-reliance on growth threaten the business survival as it faces competing pressures. The study offers theoretical and empirical contributions to (female) entrepreneurship studies by presenting Schumpeter’s theorising as an alternative theoretical framework to the neoclassical economic growth theory. The study also reduces entrepreneurs’ vulnerability by making them aware of the negative influence that the linear growth model and the managerial discourse hold upon their performance. The study has implications for policy makers as it generates new knowledge that incorporates the current social and economic changes in the context of entrepreneurs that can no longer be sustained by the linear growth models especially in the current economic climate.Keywords: economic growth, female entrepreneurs, managerial discourse, Schumpeter
Procedia PDF Downloads 286