Corporate Social Responsibility expresses a situation in which companies adopt a broader business view assuming their impact on society. While some firms start to develop their strategies focusing on responsibility, recent discussions in the Higher Education Institutions query the contribution of University Social Responsibility. Nowadays, Universities should not only do some add-on philanthropic things, but should change their strategies and really build a responsible approach into their management activities and also into their education and research programs. In this research paper we propose a modelling framework for student base analysis in order to test whether Higher Education Institutions use a long-term horizon perspective and involve all stakeholders in their strategy, especially students, to be able to optimize their positive impact in society and also to reduce negative impact if needed. Supported by the scarce academic literature in the field, selected indicators are determined to build constructs related to University Social Responsibility and to develop a structural model able to explain their relationship of causality with students' satisfaction. The conclusion after the statistical analysis procedure applied to a sample of 392 students in courses devoted to Business Management at the university in Brazil is positive, confirming the hypotheses developed in the conceptual model. In addition, the internal social entrepreneur at the University emerges as a driver of change, as a guarantee of endogenous development of responsibility. To finish some suggestions emerge for the future research agenda in the field.
The changing nature of employment and work causes new demands in society, such as work-life balance, that has emerged in labor relations as an important aspect of a healthy work environment. In this context, Best Companies to Work for are a reference in caring for their staff, and it is well known that new generations—that frequently use the Internet to be informed—are making their decisions as job seekers by checking and comparing corporate websites. In order to learn from the best companies, but also to discover what could be improved by identifying the gaps, this study observes the current work-life balance practices in the last Best Companies to Work for awarded by Fortune. The main contribution of this work is the development of a weighted index for benchmarking purposes considering the preferences of new generations at work. The study demonstrates that the best companies still report low levels of work-life balance information. The main implication drawn from the study, due the requirements of new generations at work and the rapidly emerging field of e-recruiting, is the need for human resource departments to fit work and personal life in a fluid way, while maintaining a healthy balance. It is also recommended for companies to improve their disclosure of work-life practices on line for attracting talent from Millennials and Generation Z.
This paper examines the extent to which the information on Social Responsibility (SR) that managers of firms in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura in Spain have determined their positive predisposition towards the practical exercise of environmentally responsible actions. With the theoretical background of Market Orientation (MO), a conceptual model of causal relationships is defined and is contrasted empirically with a structural equations model for a sample of 758 SME's in Extremadura. The results verify that the greater the concern for seeking and receiving information about SR, the greater the tendency towards environmentally responsible management, and the greater the importance given to the disclosure of the SR the firm itself practises. Consequently, the provision of information, awareness, and training related to SR promoted by managers or fostered by business organizations and public administrations will have a positive effect on the orientation towards environmental protection.
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