Suchergebnisse

Roelen, K. and Camfield, L., editors. 2015: Mixed Methods Research in Poverty and Vulnerability. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Xiii + 281 pp. $100.00 (hardcover), $79.99 (eBook). ISBN: 978–1-137–45250–4 (hardcover). ISBN: 978–1-137–45251–1 (eBook).

AbstractCorporate social responsibility (CSR) has an increasingly important role in organizations, which are taking a proactive stance in the inclusion of concerns and initiatives at this level. This theme has an impact on employees, namely in the meaningfulness through work. Thus, this research aims to assess whether the CSR affect the meaningfulness through work, and whether the degree of incorporation and the design and implementation approach interfere in this relationship. The results, obtained from 235 responses, suggest that it is not CSR policies and practices that impact meaningfulness through work. For this feeling to be achieved, it is necessary for employees to perceive CSR as embedded and the design and implementation of policies and practices to be bottom‐up. In other words, for CSR to lead to real benefits for employees, organizations must make a genuine and substantial commitment to it.

Institutions such as the European Commission have committed themselves to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their 2020 Strategy for Europe, being that an increasing number of companies are developing corporate volunteering (CV) as part of their CSR policy. The purpose of this paper is to study the impacts of CV implementation on three stakeholders: the company, the community, and the employees. Through a survey targeting employees with experience in CV, it was possible to conclude, generally, that the main perceived impact is increasing employee satisfaction level; that CV impacts are partially influenced by gender, the respondents' frequency in CV activities, and preferences; and, finally, that CV impacts are mainly explained in the company by self-serving purposes, in the community by the anticipation of benefits, and for employees by the social exchange, attribution, and identification psychological theories.

Purpose
Rather recently, corporate volunteering (CV) has become a relevant topic of academic research. Nonetheless, there is still uncertainty about several aspects of the relationship between volunteerism and the corporate realm and research on the relationship between CV and employer attractiveness is scarce. This study aims to attempt to fill this gap by studying the influence that the perceived importance attributed by prospective applicants to the opportunity of engaging in CV programs may have on employer attractiveness while also pondering the existence of an indirect relationship between CV and employer attractiveness mediated by the individual cognition of corporate morality (CM).


Design/methodology/approach
To fulfill the objectives of this research, and test its hypothesized model, the authors opted to use a quantitative methodology via survey by questionnaire of Portuguese students who are close to entering the job-seeking process or are currently involved in it, either passively and actively. Data on 238 Portuguese students was collected mainly through social media channels such as LinkedIn and Facebook and was analyzed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 25 software and the IBM SPSS AMOS extension, using a structural equation model to test the hypotheses and obtain insight into the relationships between the variables.


Findings
A theoretical model was elaborated based on the literature reviewed and was used to validate the existence of a positive direct relationship between CV and employer attractiveness, CV and CM and between CM and employer attractiveness. Finally, it was observed that CV could prompt an indirect effect on the socioethical perception of employer attractiveness, mainly due to the mediating mechanism of the individual cognition of CM.


Research limitations/implications
This study has some limitations that should be acknowledged and considered in future studies, namely, the diversity of the sample, as it was essentially formed by students enrolled in the University of Porto and studying mainly in the areas of social sciences, trade and law. It is also worth noting that a global analysis of the employer attractiveness attributes was not considered, focusing instead on the social and ethical spectrum of employer attractiveness. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that different individuals prioritize distinct attractiveness attributes.


Practical implications
Through the present study, it was understood that CV programs constitute a desired and pertinent tool that should be adopted by firms (employers) to establish a strong position in the job market. These findings are particularly useful for the area of human resources management, which is in charge of finding the most adequate applicants in the job market. Furthermore, for the variable of CM, the authors noticed that there is a theoretical lack of measurement instruments. Consequently, the measure advanced in this study represents an important theoretical and methodologic contribution to the literature.


Social implications
CV is a concept that is yet maturing within the Portuguese business environment. As such, this study delivers useful insights regarding Portuguese applicants' growing interest around CV, their concerns about the social, ethical and humanitarian attributes of firms and their beliefs regarding the morality of firms' social policies and actions. Hence, it allowed us to comprehend that by developing a structured CV program, an employer may be able to enhance other essential concepts for Portuguese prospective applicants, respectively, employer attractiveness and CM.


Originality/value
This study corroborates the premise that corporate community involvement activities, namely, CV, hold a positive effect in terms of perceived employer attractiveness. Moreover, it is consistent with the idea that CV programs foment a feeling of intimacy between individuals and firms, consequently creating a perception of morality as part of the firms' intrinsic traits. Finally, it corroborates and extends for the case of prospective applicants the conclusion that individuals may be relatively more concerned with the motives behind firms' corporate social responsibility practices than with the content of such practices.

This paper aims to map and analyze the scientific production of social innovation, resulting in a contribution to the literature review and guidelines for future research. A bibliometric analysis was conducted to explore the trends on the topic. The primary objectives are (1) to identify how the literature defines the concept of social innovation and to track its evolution; (2) to measure productivity and identify key authors and scientific journals with the highest impact in the field and the association networks between their respective institutions and countries of origin; (3) to analyze and map citations, co-citations, and research topics to pinpoint the topics and dimensions related to social innovation in order to propose future research. Our paper clarifies the concept of social innovation, reports the progresses achieved within this research field, and measures the productivity on this specific topic.