Suchergebnisse

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is argued to be a flawed concept in the same way as sustainable development in that it seeks to combine two aspects which are incommensurable. Nevertheless CSR contains an expanding space for social and environmental concerns under the guise of stakeholder management which undoubtedly influences the commercial bottom line. It is proposed that the concept of corporate citizenship is separated from what is now termed corporate social responsiveness to encompass truly ethical and normative considerations which in business should be manifested by a wholehearted acceptance of the need for regulation, lobbying for the universality of that regulation and an avoidance of undue influence on government. Proper roles for the three partners in society, namely government, commerce and civil society are explored together with the nature of citizenship.

AbstractThe introduction of the Twinning instrument as its principal institution‐building mechanism in countries applying to join the European Union saw the appearance of a vocabulary very much at divergence with the language associated with other 'Technical Assistance' programmes. The arbitrary and connotational character of this heavily metaphorical terminology has differentiated Twinning from other programmes in the minds of those involved in the programme. At the same time, however, it has also resulted in a measure of ambiguity and confusion among project 'partners'—principally over their roles and responsibilities. This problem could be overcome by targeting any one of the three points in Peirce's semiotic model: by changing the signs of twinning; by re‐attuning the users' interpretants; or by bringing the object, the Twinning programme itself, closer to how the signs of twinning are actually perceived and understood. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Purpose
While progress has been made in the realm of teaching about sustainability to business students, integrating sustainability into experiential learning with a systemic mindset has been identified by leading scholars as an area for improvement. The purpose of this paper is to describe a pilot project in which students prepared a sustainability report for a client company and to answer the question of whether the experiment yielded the anticipated benefits.


Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents an initiative that was part of an MBA course delivered at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland by an international team of professors. The multinational group of students was confronted with the task of preparing an integrated sustainability report for a large corporation.


Findings
The initiative creates opportunities for both students and commercial organizations to understand large business commercial activities from a sustainability perspective. This paper identifies the next steps for others to build upon.


Originality/value
The paper explains the experiential learning opportunity that was created, describes how students rose to meet the challenge, discusses the benefits that accrued to students, professors and a commercial organization and shares some guidance for those seeking to emulate this practice.