Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social reposibility of business'
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Nayak, Raveendra, and raveendranayak@yahoo com au. "Developing sustainable corporations in Australia." Swinburne University of Technology. Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, 2006. http://adt.lib.swin.edu.au./public/adt-VSWT20060320.110540.
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In the wake of the environmental degradation, social inequality and injustice, and the
incidents of corporate frauds and mismanagement reported in Australia, domestic
business organisations have been asked increasingly by Australian governments and
people to pursue sustainable business practices. As prime movers of creating wealth
and employment, business organisations have an important and legitimate role to play
in sustainable development, which is defined as a notion that meets the needs of
present without compromising the ability of future generations.
Corporate sustainability, which is a subset of the concept of sustainable development,
involves integrating financial, social, and environmental values into business policy,
planning, and decision-making requiring changes in organisational values,
perspectives, culture, structure, and performance measures. Many Australian
businesses are wary of meeting financial, social, and environmental objectives
simultaneously claiming the agenda as contradictory and almost unattainable, but the
demand for achieving corporate sustainability seems inescapable. Since Australian
businesses are facing a fierce competition in domestic market as a result of reducing
trade barriers, globalisation, and market deregulation, demanding them to contribute
more to sustainable development may appear to be unreasonable. Furthermore,
business managers are often wary of any organisational changes, as several of them
have failed in creating organisational value. As a consequence, business managers are
cautious of engaging in sustainable business practices.
In an attempt to unravel the above dilemma, this study mainly examined how to
enhance organisational value by sustainable business practices. It examined the two
dominant strategic management theories, i.e. Barriers to Entry theory and the
Resource-Based View (RBV) theory. It collected the data from 102 Australian
business organisations using a survey method. Based on its findings, this study makes a number of contributions to the theory and practice of strategic management.
Notable among them are, first, it shows that socially crafted business practices such
as knowledge management, customer relationship management, and stakeholder
management can have substantial leverage to building business competitiveness.
Second, it demonstrates that environment-oriented business practices can provide a
number of effective opportunities for increasing the height of entry barriers to new
competition. Third, this study concludes that social-oriented business activities are
almost ineffective as entry barriers to new competition. Fourth, it substantiates why
environment protection measures such as Environmental Management System (EMS)
are least contributing to business competitiveness. Finally, this study substantiates its
main claim that a business organisation can enhance its competitive advantage by
pursuing corporate sustainability principles. This study upholds the view that
business organisations have enlightened self-interest in following corporate
sustainability.
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Buzeta, Riquelme Sebastián. "Social Business." Tesis, Universidad de Chile, 2015. http://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/136722.
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Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en MarketingAutor no autoriza acceso a texto completo de su documento
Social Business es un emprendimiento que nace en Santiago de Chile, el cual se caracteriza por ser un servicio de asesoría empresarial flexible y adaptable a las necesidades que se tienen en torno a la gestión, control y medición de las interacciones dentro de las distintas redes sociales virtuales, en otras palabras, es un asesoramiento y análisis de la opinión pública presente en las redes sociales. El objetivo de Social Business es aportar al cliente información de valor para el desarrollo de su objetivo empresarial, detectando y utilizando influenciadores y estructuras sociales ya existentes para el desarrollo y alcance de las estrategias de la compañía. El enfoque del Social Business posibilita mejoras en cada uno de los departamentos o gerencias de la empresa, generando un involucramiento en todos los niveles, por cuanto, la ventaja competitiva no está solo en el acceso a la información, sino que lo relevante es la capacidad de analizarla y utilizarla en el momento adecuado, para la detección de oportunidades como también para el mejoramiento de procesos que pueden ser aquellos elementos que no son detectados al interior y que son “informados” por la opinión pública. El equipo de Social Business está formado por personas que además de ser profesionales de la Informática y Sociología son usuarios de las nuevas tecnologías, les apasiona su trabajo y se adaptan de manera fácil e integral a los requerimientos de los clientes. El presente documento, contiene un Plan de Marketing destinado a introducir a Social Business en el mercado, logrando identificar las oportunidades que se encuentran disponibles en la industria, identificando las fortalezas y debilidades del servicio, entre otros. Para lograr lo anterior, se ha realizado un detallado estudio recolectando información necesaria tales como las empresas participantes en el mercado, las características de éstas, el desarrollo de las características de Social Business requeridas por los clientes y los servicios actualmente ofrecidos por los actuales proveedores. Todo esto es considerado para tomar decisiones en cuanto a estrategias de entrada al mercado, estrategias de políticas de precio, estrategias comunicacionales con el fin de lograr una exitosa introducción en el mercado. Este plan de marketing está enfocado a la Región Metropolitana de Santiago, el cual es un mercado grande debido a la concentración de empresas con sede en la región y a la vez inmaduro en cuanto al tipo de servicio que Social Business provee, ya que por un lado los servicios entregados a las empresas hoy en día por los participantes del mercado son análisis cuantitativos y además la situación Politico / Económica del país hace que las empresas requieran alternativas completas pero a la vez más económicas que los estudios de mercado tradicionales.
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Wirtz, Michael [Verfasser]. "Social Business Innovations / Michael Wirtz." Wuppertal : Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, 2018. http://d-nb.info/1161116249/34.
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Ončo, Martin. "Transforming Organization into Social Business." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2012. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-162520.
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Social networks like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn offer the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with friends and family in our personal life through the social technology without seeing each other on daily bases. This different approach is already common to be used for the majority of people and brings new benefits to now-a-day global environment. The same users of these external social networks are working in companies with various internal collaboration and communication tools. This fact has become stimulus for the theory of using social network technologies inside of the organization called Social Business. Social Business brings multiple new benefits for the organization, which were not possible to be gain through the previous approaches of communication and collaboration. In the present work we study the process of transforming organization into Social Business.
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Van, Rensburg Liezl. "Business to business process integration : technical and social implementation considerations." Pretoria : [s.n.], 2006. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-01232008-155050.
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Goitom, Meron. "Shared Value Creation in Social Business Models : Shared value in social businesses: A business model approach." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Business Model Innovation (BMI), 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-27909.
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Walker, Reginald John. "Social auditing as social learning : a theoretical reconstruction." Thesis, University of Hull, 2007. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:7958.
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ITO, Sanae. "Social Business for Pro-Poor Growth." 名古屋大学大学院国際開発研究科, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2237/17740.
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Emam, L. "Social business models : effectuation in action." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2016. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3001002/.
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Social businesses combine features from profit-maximizing businesses and non-profit organizations that exist to satisfy social objectives. Little is however known about how a social venture unfolds through processes of opportunity identification, evaluation and exploitation. Adopting a processural lens for analysis, the current study seeks to answer the leading question: ‘How are opportunities formed and developed in social enterprise to ensure sustained value creation? This is done through connecting three related bodies of knowledge: entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and the business model literature to inform related queries that are directed towards (a) the description of a holistic pattern that demonstrates how a social entrepreneurial journey unfolds over time to ensure sustained value creation, (b) the explanation of the role that business model plays in the social entrepreneurial process, and (c) the identification of the role and pattern that processural theories (causation and effectuation) play to explain the social entrepreneurial process. With application to the Furniture Resource Centre (FRC) group, a leading UK social business, empirical analyses suggests two complementary opportunity-based views of the social entrepreneurial process; both of which support the dominance of an effectual approach to explain the formation and development of social entrepreneurial opportunities. These are ‘social entrepreneuring as a transformation from inchoate demand to a new artifact’ and ‘social entrepreneuring as an emergent opportunity-based hierarchy’.
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Larimer, Lori. "Small business leaders and social responsibility." Thesis, Baker College (Michigan), 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10257793.
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The central question addressed was what motivates small business leaders to incorporate social responsibility in their companies' mission, vision, and culture. In particular, there is a knowledge gap about what motivates small business leaders to take both financial and non-financial actions to support their employees, their local economies, and their communities. Interviews with three small business owners in Michigan were coded to identify key emergent themes explaining why small business leaders contributed to their local communities. Theoretical or conceptual support for the study included Carroll's social performance model, Vroom's expectancy theory, and CCI strategies. The literature review included that of motivation and social responsibility. The interviews were coded, analyzed, and six themes emerged. The participants were concerned with being socially responsible and motivation comes from defining social responsibility and finding ways to fulfill a need. Employees play a key role in creating and continuing an environment set by the example of the owner and this is done through repetition, thus aligning business practices with being socially responsible. Lastly, connection to people helps build relationships, while being cognizant of initiatives to protect the environment, thus Going Green initiatives. After the research, the researcher developed the Small Business Community Involvement model (SBCI), based on the themes. This model can help small business leaders looking to partake in socially responsible activities. This study is significant because it will improve understanding of social responsibility in the small business sector.
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Groth, Ida Eikvåg, and Line Magnussen. "Social Entrepreneurship : Framework for feasibility analysis of social business concepts." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for industriell økonomi og teknologiledelse, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-15042.
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ABSTRACTPURPOSEWith the increased interest in social entrepreneurship demonstrated within business schools and academic environments, the adaption of existing academic entrepreneurial constructs for social entrepreneurship applications becomes relevant. The purpose of this thesis is to develop additional tools to the traditional feasibility analysis. The tools will be specifically directed at technology-based concepts, due to the increased employment of technology-based products to solve social problems, in combination with the authors’ engineering background, and the lack of academic contributions in this area.APPROACHA grounded theory approach is employed, in which unstructured interviews are used to collect data on the topic of social entrepreneurship from practitioners and academics. New theory is then developed through a discussion divided into three distinct parts, on the basis of empirical findings and existing literature, before new data is collected through a review of the proposed tools.CONCLUSIONSA total of seven analysis tools are introduced, where some are new constructs, while others are based on existing ideas, or even existing models introduced into a new context. A main characteristic of the tools is that they are not concerned with previously established and distinct sections of feasibility analysis, but rather address the interception between the established analysis components. This is the result of the discovery that the success of social business ideas seem to depend on the ability of the entrepreneur to maintain an overarching market and customer focus, which is infused in every aspect of the proposed venture, thus erasing the division between the Market and Industry section and other established sections of analysis.IMPLICATIONSThe main implication for analysts is the opportunity to discover fundamental opportunities and challenges in the process of solving a social problem by bringing a new product to market through the establishment of a new organization.FURTHER RESEARCHFurther research should include testing of the new tools in actual analysis of new ideas, as well as implementation in a complete analysis framework
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Pretorius, M., and D. Y. Dzansi. "A framework for measuring business social responsibility in micro and small business." Interim : Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol 6, Issue 2: Central University of Technology Free State Bloemfontein, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/11462/410.
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Published ArticleAlthough much work has been done on the society versus business relation issue, it has yet to cascade business social responsibility (BSR) to small ventures and especially rurally based ones where survival is a more pertinent goal. Most studies to date have focused on corporate and large organisations, thereby suggesting that BSR is not really a small business issue. A major consequence / cause of this apparent bias towards large business is limited research into how small ventures and especially rural ones perceive and apply BSR. This study proposes an instrument for measuring BSR in small ventures. Through empirical analysis the resultant instrument was found to be valid for measuring small business BSR and measured four dimensions thereof namely : Expected benefits; Community / customer practices; Realised / actual benefits, BSR awareness / attitude and employee practices. Through discriminant analysis, the identified factors of BSR are useful to classify ventures as high or low sales and profit performers, suggesting that information on a firm's BSR activities can be used as indicators of firm performance.
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Jarrett, Loran. "Social Media Deployment in a Business to Business Environment: Theory and Practice." Scholar Commons, 2018. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7527.
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Social media is increasingly being used by business-to-business (B2B) firms to engage with their customers as they seek to maintain and grow their relationship with their customers. In my dissertation, I examine what communication objectives B2B firms seek to achieve via social media at different stages of the relationship cycle (exploration, expansion, maturity). I then use a panel of social media experts to evaluate the social media efforts of these firms to determine how well these firms achieve their social media objectives. I then contrast how the social media communication objectives of these firms at different stages of the relationship line up with what academic literature suggests as being the most appropriate at the given stage of the relationship and thus highlight the gaps between theory and practice.
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Vandor, Peter, Reinhard Millner, Clara Maria Moder, Hanna Schneider, and Michael Meyer. "Das Potential von Social Business in Österreich." WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, 2015. http://epub.wu.ac.at/4683/1/WU_Studienbericht_%2D_Das_Potenzial_von_Social_Business__final_20151211.pdf.
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Der vorliegende Bericht stellt die Ergebnisse einer im Frühjahr 2015 durchgeführten Studie zum Thema "Das Potential von Social Business in Österreich" vor. Basierend auf einer systematischen Literaturrecherche, der Auswertung von Sekundärdatensätzen und einer ExpertInnenbefragung
(n=18), werden die derzeitige Bedeutung und das zukünftige Potential von Social Businesses analysiert. (authors' abstract)
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Teixeira, Rivanda Meira. "Small business and social responsibility in Brazil." Thesis, Cranfield University, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.309639.
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Reddy, Karnegari Keshav, Karnam Vikram SaiPrasad, and Gayasuddin Shaik. "An analysis of business through social media." Thesis, Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen Handels- och IT-högskolan, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-17306.
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In recent years social media has become ubiquitous and necessary for social networking and content sharing. Social media reached a stage where its impact is being felt by larger organizations that exist today. It has become necessary for the organizations to re-examine their existing business processes and formulate new business processes to compete in the globalized markets. In our paper we are going to deal with issues like how the social media affect the business processes and why they are affecting the business processes in contemporary organizations. The success of a business depends on effective implementation of its business processes. So these business processes when being designed several factors are being taken into consideration. Social media facilitates for the conjecture of a mixture of people from different domains for sharing of content, it serves as an important and indispensable factor in defining business processes.Program: Magisterutbildning i informatik
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Lo, Bobby. "Social media analytics in business intelligence applications." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46017.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-93).
Social media is becoming increasingly important in society and culture, empowering consumers to group together on common interests and share opinions through the Internet. The social web shifts the originators of content from companies to users. Differences caused by this dynamic result in existing web analytic techniques being inadequate. Because people reveal their thoughts and preferences in social media, there are significant opportunities in business intelligence by analyzing social media. These opportunities include brand monitoring; trend recognition, and targeted advertising. The market for social media analytics in business intelligence is further validated by its direct application in the consumer research market. Challenges lie ahead for development and adoption of social media analytics. Technology used in these analytics, such as natural language processing and social network analysis, need to mature to improve accuracy, performance, and scalability. Nevertheless, social media continues to grow at a rapid pace, and organizations should form strategies to incorporate social media analytics into their business intelligence frameworks.
by Bobby Lo.
M.Eng.
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Edwin, Cedric. "The social responsibility of Muslim business owners." Thesis, Liverpool Hope University, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.722147.
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You, Ya. "Social Media Effectiveness." Doctoral diss., University of Central Florida, 2013. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/6040.
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Over the last decade, the advent of social media such as online product reviews (e.g., Amazon.com),blogs and other social networking sites (e.g., Facebook.com) has dramatically changed the way consumers obtain and exchange information about products. This dissertation investigates the impact of various types of social media on product performance and compares the effectiveness of social and traditional media under various conditions. Specifically, the first chapter performs a meta-analysis of consumer-generated WOM elasticity in social media to identify the factors that influence the impact of WOM on product sales and to assess the generalizability of the relationship. The second chapter examines how social media may influence product performance in different product contexts as compared with traditional media, which assists managers in making better media decisions. Taken together, this dissertation evaluates the progress in this field, and then takes a step further by applying past findings to understand how social media may perform at various stages in the product lifecycle.Ph.D.
Doctorate
Dean's Office, Business Administration
Business Administration
Business Administration; Marketing
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Adeagbo, Adebowale. "Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship in practice." Thesis, Bournemouth University, 2008. http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/10421/.
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In my practice experience and exploration of literature, I discovered that there are limited examples and research about organisations that aim to change from a charity to a social enterprise. In addition to this, there are limited knowledge and understanding about what social enterprise and social entrepreneurship are and a lack of frameworks that will enable one to know a social enterprise and social entrepreneur when you see one. This research, therefore, is an exploration of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship in practice, arriving at working definitions and frameworks. It examines the process, experiences and challenges that come with an organisation - Age Concern Bexley - changing from a charity to a social enterprise. The research then shares the experiences and the challenges that come with such organisational change The research also examines and exposes my role and experiences - as the Chief Executive, social entrepreneur, leader and change agent, during this period. The research then provides an insight into the self-discovery, self evaluation and reflections of a social entrepreneur in practice, especially from the insider practitioners' perspective, thereby enabling seeing social enterprise and social entrepreneurship from the lens of a social entrepreneur. This research does not look into the issues surrounding governance during this change; as recent researches concluded that governance have little impact in this context( Young,2006). My view is that governance is importany and relevant; although the experience during this research does highlight that it was not a major issue. However,I would recommend it as an area of and for future research. The research combines empiricism and rationalism with iterations. In the research, I applied methodical pluralism as overarching research methodology by applying a portfolio of methodologies, using different methods to gather necessary data from different sources. The research contributest o practice with the establishment of a social enterprise service at Age Concern Bexley whilst also developing a set of high-level challenges that organisations that aim to explore social enterprise need to be aware of and how to manage them. The research contributes to theory by arriving at a working definition and framework of social enterprise. It also provides a better understanding of social entrepreneurship in practice and the role of a social entrepreneur as a leader and change agent. Other contributions to theory are the employment of metaphors to explain organisational change,the application of socio-psychological theory of labelling to explain the deviancy of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship and argument for sector differentiation, that is, social enterprise as a distinct sector. Some other contributions to practice are the showcasing of social enterprise in practice, the establishment of Bexley Social Enterprise Consortium, the establishment of an international development social enterprise organisation - Hephzibah - and the aim of establishing a social enterprise academy in Nigeria. These are to enable me put into further practice, what I have learnt through this research. The research concludes that the practice of social enterprise is here to stay, that social entrepreneurial organisations need social entrepreneurs in leadership and that it will be challenging for existing charities to convert in totality to social enterprises. 12
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Li, Juan Julie. "Social relations of foreign firms in China a focus on trust, network ties and social capital /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2006. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B36296326.
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Hartley, Richard Dunsby. "The business of teaching the teaching of business : using social constructivist techniques to teach business-orientated advanced GNVQs." Thesis, n.p, 2001. http://dart.open.ac.uk/abstracts/page.php?thesisid=110.
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Hiepler, Miriam [Verfasser]. "Social capital and social networks in family business succession processes / Miriam Hiepler." Siegen : Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Siegen, 2019. http://d-nb.info/1182681352/34.
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Timperley, Stephen. "Corporate Social Responsibility Indexes: Measure for Measure." The University of Waikato, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10289/2372.
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This thesis investigates criteria used by research agencies that publish ratings of business organisations in respect of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and the relationship of these criteria to underlying ethical principles. Companies are rated according to CSR criteria. Observation of different rating agencies' results for the same, or similar organisations, shows a significant variation in results. Variations in rating must result either from different criteria being applied or from criteria addressing similar topics being assessed in a different way. Criteria from different rating agencies are found to be comparable. Thus if rating criteria are derived from an ethical view of the responsibilities of business organisations, then inconsistent results may be explained by variations in the ethical basis of corporate social responsibility used by agencies. Subject companies are rated under broad categories such as corporate governance, human rights and the environment. These categories contain specific criteria. My investigation compares the criteria used by major rating agencies and identifies the ethical basis, if any, that can be attributed to each criterion. The study finds that there are clearly identifiable links between a number of criteria used by each rating agency and the ethical theories selected for evaluation. Further, there is sufficient difference between the agencies to characterise each in relation to one or more of the ethical theories selected. There is inconsistency, however, within each agency's basis of principles as well as between agencies, which indicates an unsatisfactory lack of explicit relationship between the general, and reasonably consistent, definition of corporate social responsibility and application of coherent ethical principles. In practical terms around 10% of all investments in the United States, representing 2.3 trillion dollars, are invested in ethical or screened funds that rely on these and similar rating agencies results to determine CSR performance of firms. The large variation in results demonstrated in my thesis suggests that very significant financial decisions are based, at least in part, on inconsistent data. I suggest in my conclusion that if agencies were to consider, justify and clearly state the ethical basis from which their criteria derive, then investment managers and their clients could be more certain that their CSR principles were being upheld.
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Cheung, Yu Ha. "Dispositional antecedents of career success a social network perspective /." Diss., Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10355/5894.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006.The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (March 2, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.
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Smith, N. Craig. "Ethical purchase behaviour and social responsibility in business." Thesis, Cranfield University, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/1826/3390.
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This thesis is about the decisions made in markets: whether decisions
and what decisions are made by consumers. It isa study in consumer
sovereignty and particularly In the way this may be used In ensuring
social responsibility In business.
Pressure group influence on purchase behaviour, particularly in the
use or threat of consumer boycotts, suggests an extension of consumer
sovereignty beyond its mere technical meaning within economics to a
more literal meaning. Consumer authority in the marketplace may not
simply refer to the more immediate characteristics of the offering
such as product features or price but, as boycotts show, other charac-
teristics such as whether the firm has investments in South Africa.
Consumer boycotts are but the most manifest and organised form of
purchase behaviour influenced by ethical concerns. Yet ethical
purchase behaviour, although found in many markets, is largely unre-
cognised In the literature.
The novelty of this topic and the perspective on consumer sovereignty
entailed an emphasis on conceptualisation in the research. The nature
of capitalism and consumer sovereignty, the ideology of marketing, the
problem of the social control of business, and pressure groups in the
political process and their strategies and tactics, are explored to
develop an argument which supports the notion of ethical purchase
behaviour. A model is proposed identifying a role for pressure groups
In the marketing system, explaining ethical purchase behaviour at the
micro level by recognising negative product augmentation. Survey
research and case studies support the model and the argument.
Guidelines for action are proposed for pressure groups and business,
suggesting both seek to influence a legitimacy element in the
marketing mix. At a more conceptual level, consumer sovereignty is
shown to offer potential for ensuring social responsibility in busi
-
ness. Of the three mechanisms for social control of business, the
market may be used to greater effect through ethical purchase beha-
vi our. However, consumer sovereignty requires choice as well as
information. Pressure groups may act as a countervailing power by
providing the necessary information, but competition is essential for
choice.
Consumer sovereignty Is the rationale for capitalism, the political-
economic system in the West. This study questions the basis of such a
system if political or ethical, as well as economic decisions, are not
made by consumers in markets. Hence the argument for ethical purchase
behaviour becomes an argument for capitalism.
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Madurapperuma, Wasanthi. "Social networks of entrepreneurs and small business growth." Thesis, University of Reading, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.553031.
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Small businesses are regarded by policy makers and academics alike as being significant sources of wealth creation, employment generation and innovation. Yet, few small businesses grow. One possible way of explaining why so many businesses do not succeed is through the notion of 'barriers'. Social networks can mitigate those barriers. Previous studies on networks typically identify and predict what kinds of networks affect firm success, rather than attempt to explain how or why this is the case. This thesis' aim is to elaborate on the understanding of the impact of networks on small business growth. To achieve this aim, a qualitative study was conducted on 107 ethnic, small business owners in Sri Lanka and 86 South-Asian ethnic, small business owners in the United Kingdom using semi-structured interviews. The purpose of the study was three-fold: firstly, its purpose was to examine how and why small business networks develop, from the perspectives of ethnic, small business entrepreneurs, secondly, to explore whether and to what extent the effect of the institutional context on social networks differed between the UK and Sri Lanka, and thirdly to explore what the implications of these differences had for business performance. Data was analysed using non-parametric statistical techniques. First, the study examined how and why small business networks developed. The results supported the conflicting pattern from the literature and were able to reconcile it. The analysis confirmed that access to different resources required different types of relations in terms of density and ties strength. Next, the research found ethnic entrepreneurs in the UK and SL show institutional differences in trust and social network characteristics. Finally, the findings suggested that the relationship between networks and small business growth is mixed. While structural characteristics of advisor and business network are more robust in explaining sales performance in the UK, relational characteristics of advisor and business networks are more forceful in explaining sales performance in Sri Lanka. These findings imply that successful entrepreneurs are those who can develop the right kind of relationship with others. The result of this research indicates the value of studying small businesses owned by a particular ethnic group and the importance of gaining a greater understanding of ethnic entrepreneurship.
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Dearden, Joseph. "Public sector business collaborating : a social constructionist perspective." Thesis, University of Derby, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10545/317458.
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This research study explores the perceptions and experiences of individuals involved in the business collaborations of the Coal Authority (TCA) with other public and private sector organisations. The study offers two major contributions to professional knowledge and practice. The first is that the social and behavioural activities associated with the business collaboration process are of as much concern as the economic and structural aspects. The second is a conceptual model and framework which makes sense of the public sector business collaborating process, and identifies behaviours and practices which are perceived by the participants to positively contribute to successful business collaborating and to minimise the risk of inter-organisational collaboration failure. The research accounts underpinning the study are based on the researcher's direct observation, interviews, accounts and life experiences of over fifty individuals that he engaged with during his thirty months involvement within the research process. This was complemented by his reflective diary recording in real time the thought processes from the participants in both the public and private sector involved in business collaborating on a day-to-day basis, as he immersed himself in a purposeful way in the research setting. Twenty-four of the collaborators work for public sector organisations, twenty-nine work in the private sector. Thematic discourse analysis was used to interpret their life experiences and develop the framework around the four perspectives that emerged. The four perspectives are: • The context perspective • The business and strategy perspective • The delivery perspective • The people perspective Personal reflections on the research process and the framework are based on the Kirkpatrick (1967) four level theoretical model for the evaluation of learning and development outcomes. The researcher also describes the changes in behaviour and practices within TCA with regard to the way the people within TCA interact and collaborate with people from other organisations as a result of the study and its findings. Finally, the researcher demonstrates his achievement of the six learning outcomes of his DBA doctoral programme.
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Gerlach, Neil (Neil Allen) 1963 Carleton University Dissertation Sociology and Anthropology. "'Flexible' social governance; interrogating 1990s business restructuring discourse." Ottawa, 1995.
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Guo, Ching Q. (Ching Qing). "Blogonomics : business and social changes from the blog." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44707.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-100).
Back in 2003, Blogs as well as wikis started the Web 2.0 frenzy with online community networks and user generated content. Web 2.0 has recently cooled down, but it may have started a new era. The purpose of this paper is to explore the blogonomics - the business, as well as social, changes blogs have brought to us. It applies system thinking to analyze blogs, from blog elements (forms) to blog systems, and then to major components in the blog ecosystem. This paper focuses on the returns on blogs (ROB), mainly the business impact. Blog marketing, including word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) and blog ads, has been discussed extensively along with the business models that can monetize blogs. It also proposes to use blogs as innovative tools for collaboration and content management. This paper primarily targets companies interested in the benefit from blogs. Furthermore, it hopes to explore a few innovative blog business models for entrepreneurs and serve anyone who is genuinely interested in blogs and Web 2.0.
by Ching Q. Guo.
S.M.
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Betts, Jocelyn Paul. "The business enterprise in mid-Victorian social thought." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.607663.
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Liu, Y. (Yahui). "The influence of social media on business processes." Master's thesis, University of Oulu, 2013. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201310121791.
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Business process reengineering (BPR) has been discussed over 20 years. Nowadays, social media is widely used by companies in doing business. It plays the role to influence business processes. This thesis aims to answer the question: “How does social media change the major business processes?” The prior research in the disciplines of BPR and social media is reviewed first. Based on the literature, a framework used to illustrate the influence of social media on business processes and degrees is developed. In the framework, four types of communication (firm-to-customer communication, customer-to-firm communication, internal-firm communication, and customer-to-customer communication) are discussed in four main business processes (marketing/sales, services, product, and personnel.) Finnair, because of its activity of using social media, is introduced in detail as an example. The story of Finnair using social media supports the framework. The relationship between BPR and social media is found that is medium.
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O'Leary, Tim. "Managing business change projects : a social practice perspective." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2010. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/152065/.
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This research responds to calls from several fields (including project management and organisational change) questioning the engineering paradigm of objective rationality, systems control and universally-applicable structured methods underpinning conventional ‘best practice’ approaches to managing business change projects. The call is for better understanding of the reality of business change projects as experienced by the people working on them, and for improved theory based on that. This research seeks to explore whether more effective approaches to delivering benefits from business change in organisations could be developed by taking a social practice perspective - focusing on the dynamic and complex processes of social interaction, power relations, and social construction of day-to-day reality. To address these questions, an 18-month ethnographic, participant/observer study has been carried out within a large UK public sector organisation, observing events and behaviours on a day-to-day basis from a practitioner’s perspective, using narrative to capture the complexity of the social reality of project life with all its uncertainty, politics, and emotion. This fieldwork, combining both objectively-observed and subjectively-interpreted findings,identifies some generic intersubjective ‘key aspects’ of business change projects. These ‘key aspects’ have then been interpreted using theoretical concepts from five leading theoretical frameworks (Giddens’ structuration theory, Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Actor-network theory (ANT), Weick’s sensemaking, and Strauss’s symbolic interactionist theory of action). A multi-level theoretical model rooted in the epistemological characteristics of social reality is developed from the relationships emerging from the empirical findings and by employing some of the most relevant theoretical constructs. The model is found to be consistent with practice-based research findings from research into project success in general, and with some approaches to managing uncertainty in projects. The implications of the model for practice are explored, directing attention away from control procedures and detailed planning to a range of more productive management interventions.
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Wing, Kathryn Elizabeth. "Nonprofit-business partnership : the social construction of value." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51001/.
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The recent burgeoning of academic and practitioner interest in nonprofit-business partnership and other forms of cross-sector social partnership (CSSP) reflects their perceived importance as mechanisms for creating value, by addressing intractable social, economic and environmental problems (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012a; Le Ber & Branzei, 2010a; Porter & Kramer, 2011; Selsky & Parker, 2005). The literature identifies an emerging trend over the past few decades towards strategic nonprofit-business dyadic partnerships, whose stated aim is, at least in part, the creation of social value, alongside organizational value for the participating organizations (Seitanidi & Crane, 2009; Vock, Van Dolen & Kolk, 2013; Waddock, 1988). This research reconceptualizes value as a socially constructed, discursively constituted concept. It tracks the evolution of a time-limited dyadic nonprofit-business partnership between a credit card company and a young people’s charity in the United Kingdom, in real time. The empirical work commenced at the very outset of the PhD, progressing in tandem with the exploration of relevant literatures. The initial research question was intentionally broad, with sub-questions emerging inductively from the data analysis. The overarching research question is: “How do partners involved in nonprofit-business partnership construct value through their discourse?”. This positions the thesis to investigate how partnership talk functions, which is identified as an under-researched aspect of nonprofit-business partnership and other forms of CSSP. The particular perspective on discourse theory adopted for this thesis draws on the work of discursive psychologists, such as Potter and Wetherall (1987), but is also sensitized by post-structuralist ideas. It therefore recognizes the multiplicity of possible interpretations and questions conceptions of value which treat it as an objective concept, existing outside of discourse. It combines ethnographic techniques with discourse analysis, taking full advantage of the high level of pre-negotiated access to this case. This enables the detailed analysis of partnership talk to be integrated with an ethnographic sensitivity to context. This research opens up the ‘black box’ of partnership talk to reveal the micro-level discursive practices through which the partners deploy their communicative skills to construct the value of the partnership. In this thesis, partnership talk is found to be characteristically both collaborative (as opposed to competitive) and asymmetrical (in terms of its structure). However, where the partners engage in joint planning activity and the funding relationship is not salient, the talk becomes more symmetrical, with both partners contributing to the dialogue on a more equal basis, thus more conducive to the co-creation of value. The findings capture discursive practices involved in aligning for value, building value and affirming value in collaborative partnership talk. Where the partnership talk becomes misaligned, for example, where tensions or sensitivities arise, the partners employ various discursive practices to defend and repair the value of the partnership and to avoid overt conflict. A key contribution of this research is a multi-level Value Construction Model, which is grounded in the close analysis of partnership talk. This is not a positivistic or prescriptive model, but rather a descriptive and explanatory model, based on patterns discovered inductively in partnership talk data and recognising the diversity of cases and research settings and the complexity of multi-party partnership talk.
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Brunner, L. D. "Family business and crisis : a psycho-social perspective." Thesis, University of the West of England, Bristol, 2016. http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/28566/.
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The aim of this research was to answer two initial key research questions: What can a psycho-social beneath-the-surface perspective contribute to a better understanding of and learning about family businesses where the public world (external) and the intimate (internal) world are so deeply interrelated? Which theoretical perspectives and conceptual frameworks help to understand family business and crisis? A starting assumption of this project was that, besides the business dimension, a quantitative rational approach alone would also not allow full grasp of the intensity of the emotions and affects at play in family business life. Therefore a psycho-social approach, through its commitment to psychoanalysis, to beneath the surface exploration and to other non-rationalist understanding of human phenomena together with a continuous interplay in bridging theory and practices in a systematic way, seemed the most appropriate methodology and method. The main bulk of this research comprises two case studies on two Italian family businesses, based mostly on primary data from field work collection and some secondary data analysis. In order to build the case studies, the main actors of each company were interviewed. A qualitative “Free Association Narrative Interview (F.A.N.I.)” approach (Hollway and Jefferson, 2000) based on a non-directive “life history” interview which elicits the stories of the interviewees, was used. The companies’ business data were analysed as means of triangulation, together with my own professional long term experience working with family businesses as a background source. Data analysis was carried out in order to build the storyline of the two case studies, through the identification of themes and associative thinking, and to compare the two case studies. Furthermore an original dynamic conceptual framework about crisis has been developed and applied to the field material that was collected. This research dissertation is an original contribution both conceptually to the topic of family business and crisis and in terms of application of a psycho-social methodology to a type of research object - family business - which had never been explored in psycho-social studies. This research confirms how a psycho-social approach contributes to identifying and shedding light on significant themes and findings on family business dynamics and crisis such as: the role of family in family business; family unity; generational transition and transgenerational trauma and pain; succession and Oedipal and sibling dynamics, trauma and crisis; ambiguity and crisis.
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Forson, Cynthia. "Social embeddedness, 'choices' and constraints in small business start-up : black women in business." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2007. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1687.
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Historically, black women's labour market experiences in the UK have been largely framed by factors that encouraged the racialisation of women's work. migration patterns, changes in the global economy and government policy which led to concentrations of black women working in employment personal and health services and hotel and catering services. Self-employment seems to offer minority groups a way out of the gendered and racialised employment structures. This doctoral thesis demonstrates the lack of attention given to the experiences of black women. that is. those for whom the literature on a) gender and, b) ethnicity provide only a partial account. This thesis has sought to address this partiality. Critical insights emerge from the adoption of an original, in-depth and multi-layered qualitative methodological approach to the examination of the motivations and start-up experiences of black women in the legal and African-Caribbean hairdressing sectors, examining macro, meso and micro influences on their self-employment experiences. The thesis establishes a link between the wider structures of gender, ethnicity and class set within specific historical and contemporary sectoral contexts, and black women's self-employment experiences. The study also demonstrates the intersectional nature of the influence of these structures, highlighting black women's entrepreneurship as being framed by an interlocking influence of gender, ethnicity and class in contrast to the one dimensional perspective of much current literature. Using Pierre Bourdieu's sociological concepts of field, habitus, strategies, dispositions and capital within a feminist paradigm the thesis contributes to a growing body of post-colonial feminist literature through a reconceptualisation of the relations of dominance and resistance in the self-employment experiences of black women. It also offers policy makers concerned with the use of self-employment as a means of addressing the inequalities that black women face in the labour market and BME women's under-representation in self-employment. a new understanding of the dynamics of black women's business experiences that will aid in the formulation of policy and support initiatives that meet the needs of black women.
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Milashevich, Anna. "Re-visioning business : archetypal patterns in the business domain and their relation to the concept of business creativity." Thesis, University of Essex, 2017. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/21358/.
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The principal aim of the thesis is to re-vision what I am calling ‘the business domain’ by showing how different archetypal energies of the collective unconscious operate in it and how they structure the domain’s creative dynamics. In this task, I am drawing on a range of Jungian theories. While the psychoanalytic organisational approach, with its focus on the personal/group unconscious, is well developed, the Jungian organisational approach is in its infancy with the result that little is said in the relevant literature to date about collective unconscious dominants, the archetypes. The introduction of this perspective involves arguing against the prevailing psychoanalytic emphasis on the pathological aspects of the business domain. The key value of the archetypal approach is that it exposes the inherent tensions within business life. In addition, it adds a much-needed catalyst for bringing insight into creativity and innovation as they manifest in the business domain. Jungian psychology, as I argue, offers a perspective that is instructive for grasping the complexities of creativity in business, which differs from manifestations of creativity in other domains such as the arts and sciences. Jungian psychology could thus make a valuable contribution to the analysis of business dynamics. I will also demonstrate how the archetypal approach can be helpful in containing the unconscious projected contents (both personal and collective) inherent in the business domain. As a first step in delineating the value and scope of an archetypal understanding of the dynamics in the business domain, this thesis invites further consideration of the question about how this approach can be used to construct a theoretical framework for analysing the business domain and what this framework could look like.
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Pu, Zenan, and Boopathi Eswaramoorthy. "To Boldly Trust Which No One Has Trusted Before : Trust in Business to Business Relationship from Social Interaction to Social Cognition." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-60390.
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Purpose:The purpose of this master dissertation is to examine current research on trust and its building process in business to business relationship from marketing and behavioral sciences perspectives. Research Questions: (1) What relationships do inter-organizational trust and inter-personal trust have? (2) How trust is built from perspectives of business and behavioral sciences? (3) What benefits and limitations do trust researches in behavioral sciences have, comparing to trust research in marketing? Research Design/Methodology: Qualitative research conducted a literature review between business administration and behavioral sciences, and interdisciplinary interviews with nine scholars and four business managers. Meanwhile, criteria are generated to ensure research quality. Findings: The finding of this research claims that interpersonal and interorganizational trusts are linked with organizational learning theory. Trust-building process is a social cognition sequence, which developed based on theory of social cognition and social interaction. A conceptual framework of trust-building process on the basis of social cognition was developed. Managerial Implications: This research suggests that mangers need to improve companies’ learning and cognition capability in order to identify new business opportunities, reduce the risk on mistakenly trust ineptitude partners, and increase companies’ competitive advantages.
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Kah, S. "An investigation into social impact practice in social enterprises." Thesis, Liverpool John Moores University, 2018. http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/9290/.
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This study aims to investigate social impact practice in social enterprises in the UK. It explores the drivers and implementation of social impact, how social impact is assessed, the barriers to social impact assessment. This study adopts a qualitative case study approach. Specifically, multiple case studies of social enterprises. The approach to data collection was semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals with expert knowledge of social impact. This study found that internal mechanisms and external institutions drive social impact. The organisations reviewed their culture and structure to understand the norms and identify capabilities. Stakeholder engagement was paramount to social impact captured. Social impact is captured for accountability, social investment readiness, and to build trust with stakeholders. However, they face barriers such as resource constraints and capturing indirect social impact. The study uncovered that the council for voluntary service legal structure impedes access to social investment. This study contributes to normative isomorphism and the micro-context of institutional theory by presenting an in-depth understanding of internal mechanisms agenda for social impact. It also contributes to the intra-organisational development of social enterprises through the review of organisational culture and structure. This investigation provides an in-depth understanding of the rationale and process to social impact assessment. It provides six stages to social impact assessment based on social enterprises operating in the financial support and service sector. Also, it presents practical implications for senior management, board of directors, funders, and policy-makers due to their influence on social impact. Providing the extensive experiences of the boards in the social sector, they should capitalise on their networks by encouraging cross-sector collaborations. Funders need to take into consideration the organisational size and needs of the region in the funding criteria. Policy-makers could remove barriers on the council for voluntary service and community interest company legal structures to encourage cross-sectoral engagement.
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El-Tahan, Samir, and Daniela Poblete. "Social media use in B2B context : A multi-case study on the use of social media by B2B companies." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för marknadsföring (MF), 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-65203.
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In the past decade, there has been a transformation in how businesses are done, many business chose to adopt digitization and others were forced to go with the flow. As a part of this digital revolution, social media has reserved a big share of this transformation in how companies do their marketing and communicate their product and brand image to their customers. Social media in a business to customer context has been very common since the birth of social media, companies had realized its benefit, and however, it is still in an early phase in a business to business context. Social media has become an effective marketing tool for B2B companies, yet, there are still drawbacks when companies fail to know how to use such platforms to their benefit and merely have a shy presence or do not have a well-defined strategy to the use of social media in the most effective way. A vital step when incorporating social media in marketing is to create a clear goals and metrics. However, it has been seen that many companies lack the expertise, resources and the know-how, to implement a social media marketing strategy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the practices of B2B companies when they use social media without a clearly defined social media marketing strategy, what they do when they use social media.
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Virkkunen, Paula, and Elsi Norhio. "Becoming a Social Media Influencer : Describing the journey of becoming a successful social media influencer." Thesis, Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, Företagsekonomi, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-44168.
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Yan, Lina, and Carol Musika. "The Social Media and SMEs Business Growth : How can SMEs Incorporate Social Media." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för organisation och entreprenörskap (OE), 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-74702.
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Background: The dramatic increase of the popularity of social media has affected in a large extent how SMEs reach and engage with their target customers to promote their products or services and to brand their firms. How SMEs incorporate social media for better business growth has gained huge attention from both academic and industrial sectors. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate the aspects that are incorporated by SMEs when implementing social media in order to gain knowledge how SMEs could incorporate those factors when implementing social media. Research questions: What are those aspects that SMEs are incorporating to implement social media? Methodology: This study adopts six semi-structured interviews with six case organizations to identify and evaluate the aspects that are incorporated by SMEs to implement social media in the context of Sweden. Three small size and three medium-size firms in Växjö, Sweden who use social media for business purposes have been selected. Conclusion: The findings of this research identified and evaluated several aspects that are incorporated by all SMEs to implement social media in the context of Sweden: decision making about platform(s) and their deploying; governance responsibility; value metrics; accessibility; risk management; online community followers growing; content creation and updating; incentive strategy; monitoring social media sites; comments utilizing for future development; message processing rules; customer feedback timelines and report creating and sharing. The result shows the new approach of social media implementation which brought by Culnan, McHugh, and Zubillaga (2010) can help the researchers to identify and evaluate the aspects that SMEs are incorporating to implement social media, and chose to acquire knowledge that they can take advantage of from those aspects to incorporate and reinforce their social media implementation. Equally by putting into practice these aspects SMEs foster their growth in a number of ways such as customer relations, external and internal communication and several other ways.
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Paulsen, Zenley Olivia. "An evaluation of the impact of the business in society programme on business students at the University of Stellenbosch Business School." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/96203.
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Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.The global business environment has undergone a systemic transformation that has influenced the way we see and do business. Central to this transformation is the rising importance of environmental sustainability, social responsibility and sound corporate governance. Given these changes, leaders require training and education about building a values-based, ethical business platform in order to operate effectively. Therefore, it is imperative that business people are appropriately educated in the art of handling matters of this nature. The primary aim of this research study is to evaluate the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) education on future business leaders by comparing the expected outcomes of a specific educational curriculum with its actual real-world outcomes. The University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) introduced a module called Business in Society in 2011. This duration of the module is one full semester. At the time, the course outline stated that the aim of the programme was to improve the decision-making ability of students about ESG issues in the business context. Participants who were busy studying or had graduated from the programme were expected, in reasonable measure, to be able to formulate appropriate responses to the challenges and opportunities inherent in matters of the environment, sustainability and governance. The primary aim of this study was therefore to review and assess both current student’s and graduates’ envisioned and practical application of theory, their environmental and social awareness levels and any significant changes in ethical outlook and values, or lack thereof. The secondary aim of the study was to assess the quality of the educational intervention itself. In order to review the impact of the programme on participants, the study focused on the subjective experience of the students, their perceptions of the programme and their subsequent behaviour in the workplace as an outcome. The research involved a two-tier approach. The first tier entailed the deployment of surveys to the randomly selected graduates of the programme. The second tier involved interviews with randomly selected respondents in the first round of surveys. These research participants were current and former students of the programme. The expectation was to find that these future business leaders were properly equipped and educated to make the right decisions concerning sustainability issues and ethical dilemmas. Based on the results of the survey, it was evident that the majority of students had come away with a positive experience of the Business in Society Programme, and that the course had had a positive impact on their lives both professionally and personally. The results of the interview analysis offered a holistic review of the experience of students in relation to their learning, the essential learnings and practical application, and the extent of the impact on their personal and professional lives. Recurrent themes which came to light in the analysis were the increase in awareness and the absence of practical engagement. There was a general discontent with the delivery of the course, in particular its lack of practical emphasis, and fragmentation in delivery. Recommendations to improve the course are supplied and may be utilised and implemented at the discretion of the Business School.
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Guillaume, Yves R. F. "Relational diversity, social integration and individual effectiveness : a social self-regulation perspective." Thesis, Aston University, 2008. http://publications.aston.ac.uk/15312/.
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Relational demographers and dissimilarity researchers contend that group members who are dissimilar (vs. similar) to their peers in terms of a given diversity attribute (e.g. demographics, attitudes, values or traits) feel less attached to their work group, experience less satisfying and more conflicted relationships with their colleagues, and consequently are less effective. However, qualitative reviews suggest empirical findings tend to be weak and inconsistent (Chattopadhyay, Tluchowska and George, 2004; Riordan, 2000; Tsui and Gutek, 1999), and that it remains unclear when, how and to what extent such differences (i.e. relational diversity) affect group members social integration (i.e. attachment with their work group, satisfaction and conflicted relationships with their peers) and effectiveness (Riordan, 2000). This absence of meta-analytically derived effect size estimates and the lack of an integrative theoretical framework leave practitioners with inconclusive advice regarding whether the effects elicited by relational diversity are practically relevant, and if so how these should be managed. The current research develops an integrative theoretical framework, which it tests by using meta-analysis techniques and adding two further empirical studies to the literature. The first study reports a meta-analytic integration of the results of 129 tests of the relationship between relational diversity with social integration and individual effectiveness. Using meta-analytic and structural equation modelling techniques, it shows different effects of surface- and deep-level relational diversity on social integration Specifically, low levels of interdependence accentuated the negative effects of surface-level relational diversity on social integration, while high levels of interdependence accentuated the negative effects of deep-level relational diversity on social integration. The second study builds on a social self-regulation framework (Abrams, 1994) and suggests that under high levels of interdependence relational diversity is not one but two things: visibility and separation. Using ethnicity as a prominent example it was proposed that separation has a negative effect on group members effectiveness leading for those high in visibility and low in separation to overall positive additive effects, while to overall negative additive effects for those low in visibility and high in separation. These propositions were sustained in a sample of 621 business students working in 135 ethnically diverse work groups in a business simulation course over a period of 24 weeks. The third study suggests visibility has a positive effect on group members self-monitoring, while separation has a negative effect. The study proposed that high levels of visibility and low levels of separation lead to overall positive additive effects on self-monitoring but overall negative additive effects for those low in visibility and high in separation. Results from four waves of data on 261 business students working in 69 ethnically diverse work groups in a business simulation course held over a period of 24 weeks support these propositions.
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Hildebrand, Anna, and Anna Schmidt. "Corporate Social Responsibility som varumärkesstärkande aktivitet?" Thesis, Uppsala University, Department of Business Studies, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-88429.
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På en konkurrenskraftig marknad är det viktigt för företag att differentiera sig genom ett starkt varumärke. Genom att vara en ”god medborgare” i form av Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, kan företagstärka relationen mellan kund och företag och på så sett varumärket. CSR innebär att företag på frivillig grund integrerar sociala och miljömässiga hänsyn i sin verksamhet och i sin samverkan med intressenterna, utöver vad lagen kräver. Syftet med uppsatsen är att redogöra för hur företag arbetar med CSR och vidare diskutera vad som stärker ett varumärke, för att sedan klargöra om och hur företagens CSR-arbete kan definieras som varumärkesstärkande. CSR-arbetet kan delas in i Lantos tre kategorier etiskt, strategiskt och altruistiskt och enligt resultatet i uppsatsen kan endast strategisk CSR ses som varumärkesstärkande. Drivkraften bakom engagemanget i CSR-frågor ses antingen som ett business case eller som ett ethics case. Strategisk CSR är snarlik business case då den ekonomiska vinningen är syftet med handlingen. Vid altruistisk CSR och ethics case är det istället viljan att göra ”det rätta” som är syftet. Allt CSR-arbete som på något sätt kommuniceras till företagets intressenter ses indirekt som varumärkesstärkande då arbetet skapar tillit och förtroende för varumärket. Då nästan allt arbete med CSR kommuniceras på något sätt, antingen externt på hemsidor och genom rapporter eller internt till medarbetare, är det varumärkesstärkande enligt teorier om hur ett varumärke stärks.
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Axell, Sandra, and Minéa Rudin. "Corporate Social Responsibility som varumärkesbyggande verktyg." Thesis, Stockholm University, School of Business, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-6383.
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Bakgrund: Debatten om Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) har pågått i över 40 år och har under de senaste åren blivit allt mer aktuell även i Sverige. Detta till följd av dels de ökade krav som medarbetare och konsumenter ställer på företagen och dels på grund av en ökande internationalisering, en snabbare informationsspridning och ett hårdare företagsklimat. Idag finns flera exempel på företag som kompletterar målet om att maximera vinsten med ett mål om socialt ansvarstagande. Samtidigt strävar dagens marknadsförare i allt större utsträckning efter att skapa holistiska marknadsförings-aktiviteter, med syfte att bygga ett starkt varumärke som kan skapa konkurrensfördelar. Syfte: Denna uppsats har till syfte att öka förståelsen för CSR:s påverkan på ett företags varumärke. Detta genom att fokusera undersökningen på hur CSR påverkar ett varumärkes identitet och dess betydelse i handeln Business to Business. I uppsatsen vill vi visa på vad som är viktigt att fokusera på vid genomförandet av CSR-aktiviteter. Undersökningen: I vår undersökning har vi genomfört fallstudier av två företag, Santa Maria och Chiquita. Detta har kompletterats med intervjuer av nyckelpersoner på några av Sveriges största butikskedjor inom dagligvaruhandeln. Detta för att undersöka deras relation till de två undersökta företagen och synen på deras CSR-strategier. Slutsats: Utifrån den insamlade sekundärdatan och de genomförda intervjuerna har det framkommit att det finns en positiv inverkan på varumärken om CSR-arbetet är implementerat, kommunicerat och kopplat till affärsverksamheten. Studien har även visat att CSR-strategin måste tilltala företagets intressenter för att företaget ska kunna skapa sig konkurrensfördelar gentemot de andra aktörerna på marknaden. Nyckelord: CSR, varumärken, Business to Business, dagligvaruhandeln.
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Dinter, Barbara, and Anja Lorenz. "Social Business Intelligence: a Literature Review and Research Agenda." Universitätsbibliothek Chemnitz, 2013. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:ch1-qucosa-105870.
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The domains of Business Intelligence (BI) and social media have meanwhile become significant research fields. While BI aims at supporting an organization’s decisions by providing relevant analytical data, social media is an emerging source of personal and individual knowledge, opinion, and attitudes of stakeholders. For a while, a convergence of the two domains can be observed in real-world implementations and research, resulting in concepts like social BI. Many research questions still remain open – or even worse – are not yet formulated. Therefore, the paper aims at articulating a research agenda for social BI. By means of a literature review we systematically explored previous work and developed a framework. It contrasts social media characteristics with BI design areas and is used to derive the social BI research agenda. Our results show that the integration of social media (data) into a BI system has impact on almost all BI design objects.
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Seiliūtė, Jovita. "Evaluation of social responsibility consolidation potential in business organizations." Doctoral thesis, Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network (LABT), 2013. http://vddb.laba.lt/obj/LT-eLABa-0001:E.02~2013~D_20130327_100515-64064.
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Due to the growing importance of social responsibility in business processes, various topics of corporate social responsibility are being versatile and exhaustively examined and discussed in the scientific literature, but still there is a lack of research and discussions on implementation, consolidation and development measures of corporate social responsibility, in particular the employees of organization as a key one. Considering the relevance of the consolidation and development of corporate social responsibility and basing on the analysis of concepts of social responsibility and theories of its consolidation measures as well as analysis of employees’ evaluations, in the dissertation the implementation state of corporate social responsibility in Lithuania is revealed and, by comparing it with the state of play in Belarus, new opportunities for the consolidation of corporate social responsibility are disclosed. Additionally, during the search of new consolidation measures of corporate social responsibility, differences of business and public sector social responsibility are presented, at the same time appraising the role of the public sector in consolidation and development processes of corporate social responsibility, and the issues of evaluation of organization’s assumed level of social responsibility and of impact of socially responsible behaviour on organization itself and its interests groups are analyzed. As well the dissertation delivers the disclosure of potential... [to full text]Nors didėjant socialinės atsakomybės svarbai verslo procesuose verslo socialinės atsakomybės tematika mokslinėje literatūroje įvairiapusiai ir išsamiai tiriama ir aptariama, tačiau pasigendama tyrimų ir diskusijų apie verslo socialinės atsakomybės įgyvendinimo, įtvirtinimo ir plėtros priemones, o ypač apie organizacijų darbuotojus, kaip pagrindinį verslo socialinės atsakomybės įgyvendinimo ir įtvirtinimo įrankį. Atsižvelgiant į verslo socialinės atsakomybės įtvirtinimo ir plėtros klausimų aktualumą, disertacijoje, remiantis socialinės atsakomybės koncepcijų ir įtvirtinimo priemonių teorijų bei darbuotojų vertinimų analizėmis, atskleidžiama verslo socialinės atsakomybės įgyvendinimo būklė Lietuvoje ir, lyginant su jos būkle Baltarusijoje, nustatomos socialinės atsakomybės įtvirtinimo verslo organizacijose galimybės. Be to, naujų verslo socialinės atsakomybės įtvirtinimo priemonių paieškos metu, išsamiai aptariami verslo ir viešojo sektoriaus socialinės atsakomybės skirtumai, įvertinant viešojo sektoriaus vaidmenį verslo socialinės atsakomybės įtvirtinime ir plėtroje, ir analizuojama organizacijos prisiimto socialinės atsakomybės lygio ir socialiai atsakingos elgsenos poveikio pačiai organizacijai ir jos interesų grupėms vertinimo problematika. Taip pat disertacijoje atskleidžiamas darbuotojų savybių įtakos verslo socialinės atsakomybės įtvirtinimui potencialas, pasiūlant pilotinį darbuotojų savybių įtakos socialinės atsakomybės įtvirtinimui verslo organizacijoje modelį. Due... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]
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Rodriguez, Donaire Silvia. "Social media, interactive tools that change business model dynamics." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/83599.
Full textAbstract:
The aim of this research is two-folded. On the one hand, it attempts to assist
employers of Catalan micro-retailers in designing, implementing and developing their
Social Media strategy as a complementary channel of communication. On the other
hand, it attempts to contribute to the research community with a better understanding
on both which building block of the micro-retailer¿s Business Model is more
influenced by the customer level of interaction by means of the Social Media and how
a transformation can be observed in the micro-retailers¿ Business Models as a result
of the Social Media implementation.
The research question to be answered in this paper is how the transformation of the
activity system of the micro-retailers¿ Business Model would allow the emergence of
a Participatory Business Model by means of Social Media. To carry out this research
the Participatory Action Research methodology was used, whose contribution has two
results: the one is more practitioner oriented and the other is more academic.
The incipient results of the research showed a scarce transformation of Catalan microretailer¿s
business model as a consequence of the implementation of social media.
However, it is significant enough to be considered as more than just a simple adoption
of an alternative channel of communication.
One of the main contributions is related to how customer influences the activity
system of the micro-retailer¿s business model beyond four levels of customer
interaction (communication, interaction, participation and collaboration) by means of
social media. On the one hand, the activity system of a business model is referred to
the eight building blocks of Osterwalder, Pigneur and Tucci (2005) research that
includes customer segment, customer relationship, distribution channel, capabilities,
partner, value configuration, value proposition, profit and cost. On the other hand, the
four defined levels of customer interaction are based on the literature of group
collaboration systems.
The results showed that not all the building blocks forming the business model are
influenced by consumer interaction. The only building blocks influenced by an initial
communication level in the current social media strategy implementation stage of our
sample (five micro-retailers) are the following: customer segment, customer
relationship, distribution channel, value proposition and cost. This incipient stage of
transformation can be justified by a lack of effort made due to the small size of the
business and a lack of team working inside the companies, easily adapting to changes.
It can also be justified by the fact it was carried out by the micro-retailers only during
a short period of time (14 month).
Another contribution of the paper shows that Social Media transformation drives a
BM innovation according to the following mediator elements: (1) the dynamic
capabilities, (2) the ability of learning, (3) the dedicated effort, (4) the implementation
time and (5) the level of customer participation.
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Russell, Ellina Osseichuk. "CEO and CSR : business leaders and corporate social responsibility." Thesis, Robert Gordon University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10059/506.
Full textAbstract:
The increasing commercial and social pressure for business leaders to act in a socially responsible manner is undermined by the lack of standards in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) legislation, auditing, indexing, and reporting. Moreover, CSR research is fragmentary and often missing empirical corroboration. It lacks synthesis, uses CSR concepts and terms ambiguously, and is inconsistent in the identification of CSR practices, its formulation and institutionalisation. This study addresses these gaps and discontinuities by first synthesising a range of theories into an explanatory framework. This framework provides the pre-understanding for the collection and analysis of qualitative data drawn from the UK oil and gas industry. The findings highlight the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of CSR operationalisation. The analysis emphasises the dependence of CSR strategy formulation on business leaders’ personal beliefs and biases. These beliefs are tempered by balancing shareholders’ interests and stakeholders’ expectations, and are affected by the global (in the case of corporations) or the local (in the case of corporate subsidiaries and small-medium size enterprises) contexts. These appear to be the main factors influencing leaders’ CSR decisions. The findings also demonstrate a number of challenges that business leaders face when reconciling personal, organisational, industry, global, and societal values and ethical beliefs; and balancing traditional organisational goals, such as profit maximisation, with increased stakeholder empowerment in granting social legitimacy. In addition, the exploration of CSR institutionalisation reveals different approaches in corporate subsidiaries, which fluctuate between the CSR practices of corporate headquarters and those of SMEs. The analysis of these findings results in a proposed hybrid model of CSR Institutionalisation in the oil and gas industry, with a breakdown of identified factors affecting corporate, SMEs’, and subsidiaries’ leaders’ CSR decisions. This thesis contributes to the literature by proposing a number of concepts, including: CSR Nexus and CSR Dynamics models as conceptual syntheses of the theoretical framework; an empirically corroborated CSR Operationalisation model within the studied organisations suggesting a nonconformance with extant CSR research; an observed matrix of business leaders’ CSR Motivations highlighting their diversity in corporations, SMEs, and corporate subsidiaries. Finally, a conceptual CSR Convergence model is proposed, which outlines a comprehensive approach to CSR education and implementation. In a weak and ambiguous CSR regulation and legislation environment, this study endeavours to bridge the gap between CSR research, business organisations, and stakeholders by contributing to the enhancement of CSR understanding, education, and implementation.