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Institutional Forces (institutional + force)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	42%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	42%

Selected Abstracts

From necessity to responsibility: evidence for corporate environmental citizenship activities from a developing country perspective

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2007
Fatma Küskü
Abstract The objective of this study is to focus on corporate activities conducted to protect and preserve the environment, and to evaluate these activities with respect to social responsibility in a developing country setting. This study also tries to find out whether corporations take part in these activities due to social expectations and legal obligations or due to their own social awareness. The data was collected from Turkey, which is a good example of a developing country with its economic situation. Corporations from the automotive, pharmaceutical and textile industries were studied, as the products and the process of production of these industries pose a threat to the environment. The research findings show that in adopting environmental citizenship policies corporations are more influenced by ,obligatory regulations' coming from institutional forces than by ,voluntary regulations' coming from their own social awareness. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

Beyond the Anglo-Saxon and North European models: social partnership in a Greek textiles company

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2006
Elias Galinos
ABSTRACT Much of the literature examining social partnership focuses on either Anglo-Saxon or North European countries, differentiating between liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs). These studies argue, quite correctly, that the institutional forces shaping partnership in the two types of economy differ markedly, with the consequence that partnership takes somewhat different forms at the workplace. By contrast, there is only limited research on social partnership in Mediterranean economies,such as Greece,even though there are strong reasons to suggest it may be quite different from both LMEs and CMEs because of relatively recent military influence at state level and less well-developed systems of industrial relations at organisational level. This article examines the forces operating both at national and at local level that facilitate or hinder the development of social partnership. It is based on the results of interviews with government, industry and union officials and a case study of partnership in a textiles company in northern Greece. It concludes that institutional forces provided workers with more protection than they would have achieved in an LME but that ultimately competitive pressures and a lack of effective workplace representation limited the degree to which the state can influence the processes and outcomes of social partnership at local level. [source]

Contrasting Institutional and Performance Accounts of Environmental Management Systems: Three Case Studies in the UK Water & Sewerage Industry*

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 4 2007
Anja Schaefer
abstract This paper presents results from a longitudinal, qualitative study into the adoption of environmental management systems (EMS) in three companies in the UK water & sewerage industry. Based on institutional theory and the literature on EMS, four factors related to the adoption of EMS are identified: external and internal institutional forces, environmental performance issues, and economic performance issues. While previous literature has often assumed a balance of performance and institutional factors or a preponderance of performance factors, the results of this study indicate that institutional forces are the predominant drivers. The results further indicate that environmental performance issues become less important over time, whereas institutional drivers and economic performance rationales increase in importance over time. While conforming to institutional pressures can result in improved economic performance of a company, adoption of environmental management systems mostly on the basis of institutional and economic factors has wider repercussions for the state of corporate environmental management and progress towards greater ecological sustainability of business. [source]

Fragile Convergence: Understanding Variation in the Enforcement of China's Industrial Pollution Law

LAW & POLICY, Issue 1 2010
BENJAMIN VAN ROOIJ
Official statistics and independent survey data show that in the last decade China has witnessed a remarkable change in its enforcement of environmental pollution violations, moving toward more formalistic and coercive law enforcement with more enforcement cases as well as higher fines. The data also show that there is considerable regional variation with coastal areas having more and higher punishments than those inland. This article explores these findings, seeking to understand the explanation and meaning of these temporal and regional variation patterns. The study shows how enforcement varies when there is a convergence of governmental, social, and economic institutional forces. The article argues that the basis for such convergence has been fragile, as national pressures have lacked consistency and local community and government support evaporates when dominant sources of income are at stake. [source]

Accommodation and Resistance: Latinas Struggle for Their Children's Education

ANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2003
Professor Irma M. Olmedo
Accommodation and resistance are not dichotomous phenomena but, rather, interwoven strategies for immigrants trying to survive in a cultural environment different from their own. Both strategies are responses to conflict, especially in the education of children. This article examines these conflicts among two generations of Latinas, and the ways in which they capitalized on their funds of knowledge to resolve conflicts. The issues involve not only differences in cultural practices and beliefs but also how these are shaped by participants' social positions and the institutional forces that threaten their beliefs. [source]

Research Beyond the Pale: Whiteness in Audience Studies and Media Ethnography

COMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 2 2005
Vicki Mayer
This article examines the role of whiteness as a structuring absence to ethnographic audience research. After ignoring whiteness altogether, media ethnographers have tended to essentialize whiteness within narratives of structural dominance or individual vulnerability. Using poststructuralist theories of language, whiteness, and hegemony, the author argues that these narratives for whiteness can be traced to experiences in the field that are shaped by historical and institutional forces outside of the field. Researchers both perform whiteness in the field, by claiming its privilege and hiding its visibility, and codify whiteness for others to identify outside the field. To illustrate, the author examines "narcissistic whiteness" and "defensive whiteness" as two articulations that are visible in her own field notes, interpreted through unifying narratives and rearticulated through an alternative reading of the notes. [source]