This paper aims to contribute to the present debate about business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that the Journal of Business Ethics is hosting. Numerous contributions argued theoretical frameworks and taxonomies of CSR practices. The authors want to ground in this knowledge and provide further evidence about how companies adopt CSR practices to address stakeholders’ claims and consolidate their trust. Evidence was provided by a longitudinal case study about an Italian food company that is one of the largest producers (...) of baby food. This company reshaped its corporate strategy along three decades through the adoption of CSR practices in order to win stakeholders’ trust about food safety and supply chain behaviour. The empirical exercise was informed by a literature review of the relevant contributions in terms of CSR business practices and levels of efforts to adopt them. In light of this review, the authors adopted for the research framework the taxonomy of business practices proposed by Spiller (2000, “Ethical Business and Investment: A Model for Business and Society”, Journal of Business Ethics 27, 149-160) and the levels of commitment towards CSR proposed by Stahl and Grigsby (1997, Strategic Management; Total Quality & Global Competition (Blackwell, Oxford)). The main findings are discussed in order to argue theoretical implications and identify further areas of research and debate. (shrink)

A partir de la situación crítica de la modernidad, el autor afirma que todo ser humano perspicaz y amante de la vida se pregunta con angustia por nuestro destino colectivo. Como una respuesta a esta interrogante, el presente artículo examina diversas perspectivas evolucionarias universales de amplia escala temporal, apoyándose particularmente en el enfoque de la Fe Bahá’í, desde la que presenta un análisis sobre el rol de la religión, para abordar finalmente aquellos procesos que podrían orientar a una sociedad civil (...) mundial hacia una espiritualidad encarnada en los procesos sociales, desde nuestra condición actual concebida como el momento de la gran bifurcación y de la era de las comunidades. (shrink)

The interpretation of Hegel has been a focal point of philosophical controversy ever since the beginning of the twentieth century, both among Marxists and in the major European philosophical schools. Yet despite wide differences of emphasis most interpretations of Hegel share important similarities. They link his idea of Reason to the revolutionary and rationalist tradition which led to the French Revolution, and they interpret his dialectic as implying a latently atheist and even materialist world outlook. Lucio Colletti directly challenges (...) this picture of Hegel. He argues that Hegel was an essentially Christian philosopher, and that his dialectic was explicitly anti-materialist in both intention and effect. In contrast to earlier views, Colletti maintains that there is no contradiction between Hegel’s method and his system, once it is accepted that his thought is an exercise in Absolute Idealism stemming from a long Christian humanist tradition. He claims, on the contrary, that intellectual inconsistency is rather to be found in the works of Engels, Lenin, Lukás, Kojève and others, who have attempted to adapt Hegel to their own philosophical priorities. Colletti places his argument in the context of a broad re-examination of the whole relationship between Marxism and the Enlightenment, giving novel emphasis to the relationship between Marxism and Kant. He concludes by re-asserting the importance in Marxism of empirical science against the claim of “infinite reason,” while at the same time showing how Marx did transform key ideas in Hegelian thought to construct a consistently materialist dialectic. (shrink)

The Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) represents a set of life-long disorders. In particular, subjects with ASD can display momentary behaviors of acute agitation and aggressiveness called crisis behaviors. These events are problematic for the subject and care providers but little is known about their occurrence, namely, possible relations among intensity, frequency, and duration. A group of ASD subjects (n=33) has been observed for 12 months reporting data on each crisis ( n = 1137 crises). Statistical analysis did not find significant (...) results, while the relation between crisis duration and frequency showed a good fit to a “power law” curve, suggesting the application of Self-Organized Criticality (SOC) model. The SOC is used to describe natural phenomena as earthquakes, bank failures of rivers, mass extinctions, and other systems where a type of “catastrophic events” is necessary to maintain a critical equilibrium. In a sense, subjects at risk of crisis behavior seem to fit the same model as seismic zones at risk of earthquakes. The employment of the same strategies, as those successfully developed for known SOC systems, could lead to important insights for ASD management. Moreover, the SOC model offers possible interpretations of crisis behavior dynamics suggesting that they are unpredictable and, in a sense, necessary. (shrink)

1. Sui Quaderni filosofici di Lenin.--2. Materialismo dialettico e irrazionalismo.

L’article présente une réflexion sur la question du temps dans les processus de migration et mise au travail des travailleurs et travailleuses détachés dans l’agriculture intensive. Nous proposons d’analyser le rapport entre les temporalités imposées aux détachés pour répondre aux besoins productifs et leurs conduites temporelles. Il s’agit de comprendre comment les personnes détachées vivent ces temporalités, mais aussi comment elles se les réapproprient et/ou les contournent afin de les articuler aux espaces-temps de la reproduction sociale. Notre recherche s’appuie sur (...) une enquête qualitative menée auprès des ouvriers et ouvrières mis à disposition des exploitants par des agences d’intérim espagnoles dans trois départements du sud de la France. L’analyse, structurée autour des parcours migratoires, du système du détachement et des temps sociaux, nous permet de saisir les effets des politiques migratoires sur les parcours des saisonniers dans les temps longs ; de retracer des stratégies de dépassement des temporalités imposées, qui amènent à l’installation et à l’emploi direct ; d’identifier les tentatives de « faire communauté » à travers des initiatives commerciales et récréatives collectives développées dans les temps libres. (shrink)

Durante el proceso independentista rioplatense, el ejemplo de los Estados Unidos, país también independizado de un imperio mediante una revolución, estuvo presente de modo permanente en la prensa y en los discursos de la dirigencia rioplatense, en particular la de Buenos Aires. Este artículo rastrea esas apreciaciones a lo largo del cuarto de siglo que siguió a la revolución de 1810, cuando fueron abrumadoramente positivas (a pesar de que a nivel diplomático la relación estuvo cargada de tensiones). Autonomistas e independentistas, (...) republicanos, federales, proteccionistas, todos pudieron referenciarse en los Estados Unidos. Pero las miradas de admiración fueron más allá: el caso norteamericano pudo ser utilizado a su favor por grupos diferentes y para proyectos políticos muy distintos. Incluso los centralistas enemigos del federalismo encontraron en la experiencia estadounidense argumentos útiles. En 1831, un incidente en las islas Malvinas produjo un quiebre diplomático y prefiguró miradas menos favorables sobre los Estados Unidos. (shrink)

Comments on the view of life shared by existential protagonists in six works by Woolf, Greene, Golding, Faulkner, Ellison, and Malamud.

The paper responds to the recent calls for further evidence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on the extant literature, the authors identify four characteristics contended by academicians as peculiarities of SMEs’ approach to CSR: the intrinsic relationship between CSR and corporate strategy motivated by the need to continuously dialogue with stakeholders; the centrality of the entrepreneur's ethos in CSR decisions; the coexistence and the cross‐effect of economically instrumental and ethically motivated CSR policies; and (...) the finalization of CSR initiatives to specific firm growth objectives. These four peculiarities are explored in the case of an Italian medium‐sized company operating in the furniture industry. The outcomes show how the four peculiarities are salient in analyzing the CSR approach by the company and suggest areas for further research aimed at developing a thorough theory of CSR in SMEs. In particular, we deepen the analysis of the nature of the uniqueness of medium‐sized companies’ approach to CSR, providing possible interpretations of the reasons making medium‐sized companies’ approach to CSR different from both small and large companies. (shrink)

The paper responds to the recent calls for further evidence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on the extant literature, the authors identify four characteristics contended by academicians as peculiarities of SMEs’ approach to CSR: the intrinsic relationship between CSR and corporate strategy motivated by the need to continuously dialogue with stakeholders; the centrality of the entrepreneur's ethos in CSR decisions; the coexistence and the cross-effect of economically instrumental and ethically motivated CSR policies; and (...) the finalization of CSR initiatives to specific firm growth objectives. These four peculiarities are explored in the case of an Italian medium-sized company operating in the furniture industry. The outcomes show how the four peculiarities are salient in analyzing the CSR approach by the company and suggest areas for further research aimed at developing a thorough theory of CSR in SMEs. In particular, we deepen the analysis of the nature of the uniqueness of medium-sized companies’ approach to CSR, providing possible interpretations of the reasons making medium-sized companies’ approach to CSR different from both small and large companies. (shrink)

The paper responds to the recent calls for further evidence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on the extant literature, the authors identify four characteristics contended by academicians as peculiarities of SMEs’ approach to CSR: the intrinsic relationship between CSR and corporate strategy motivated by the need to continuously dialogue with stakeholders; the centrality of the entrepreneur's ethos in CSR decisions; the coexistence and the cross‐effect of economically instrumental and ethically motivated CSR policies; and (...) the finalization of CSR initiatives to specific firm growth objectives. These four peculiarities are explored in the case of an Italian medium‐sized company operating in the furniture industry. The outcomes show how the four peculiarities are salient in analyzing the CSR approach by the company and suggest areas for further research aimed at developing a thorough theory of CSR in SMEs. In particular, we deepen the analysis of the nature of the uniqueness of medium‐sized companies’ approach to CSR, providing possible interpretations of the reasons making medium‐sized companies’ approach to CSR different from both small and large companies. (shrink)

Come si può intuire dalle parole contenute nel titolo e nel sottotitolo del volume di Giovanni Durbiano, la pertinenza del lavoro con questioni di ordine filosofico è qui dichiarata. Il tema del libro muove da una ricognizione di carattere storiografico dell’architettura italiana, ma più in specifico tratta del ruolo e dello statuto sociale, politico ed epistemico che il sapere e il fare dell’architetto hanno rivestito nella storia recente. Si tratta di un lavoro che possiede un carattere qua...

This book identifies and presents the four main network-based methodologies including network analysis, Boolean network simulation modeling, artificial neural network simulation modeling, and agent-based simulation modeling in addition to their conceptual-epistemological implications and concrete applications within the social and natural sciences.

The seminal contribution of Sen (1976) led to a new way to conceptualize and measure absolute poverty, by arguing for the need to ‘take note of the inequality among the poor’ (Sen 1976: 227). Since then, the ‘Inequality’ of poverty has become the third ‘I’ of poverty, which together with the ‘Incidence’ and the ‘Intensity’ of it constitute the dimensions deemed relevant for poverty evaluation. In this paper, we first argue that the interest in the third ‘I’ of poverty actually (...) originates from aprioritarian(Parfit 1995) rather than an egalitarian attitude. Further, we illustrate the inability of the three ‘I's to fully comprise the criteria for the assessment of poverty which are de facto adopted by existing poverty indices. Some of them resolve distributional conflicts by following leximin, hence assigning a pivotal role to the worst off. We question the desirability of leximin, and conclude that giving absolute priority to the worst off is plausible only in cases where the latter has been identified by an exogenous threshold demarcating a significant difference in human suffering. Finally, we explore to what extent prioritarianism and the sufficiency argument of Frankfurt (1987), Crisp (2003) and Casal (2007) can help conceptualize giving absolute priority to individuals or groups indentified by exogenous (poverty and ultra-poverty) thresholds. (shrink)

By comparing developments in two southern Italian factories, this article contrasts “aggregative” and “deliberative” procedures in trade unions. In one of the plants, the preferences of some of the workers appear to have been changed by deliberation. The process of rational persuasion seems to have required, however, more than sheer circulation of information. Based on this evidence, the article argues that when a potential conflict of interests is involved, speakers need to provide evidence that they are animated by a “communicative” (...) rather than “strategic” intent. This implies validating their implicit claim to sincerity of communication. (shrink)

Based on field research at both the national and local levels, this article reconstructs the emergence of negotiated policy making in Italy in the 1990s. It argues that standard corporatist theory is totally incapable of accounting for the particular organizational mechanisms through which, at critical moments, that is, the moments in which policy change had to be introduced, consensus was mobilized among both middle-level union structures and rank-and-file workers in Italy. In fact, absent centralized organizational capacities, the Italian unions relied (...) heavily on democratic decision-making procedures. These procedures strengthened the unions' capacity to hold to their side of the bargaining in national negotiations through essentially two types of mechanisms, aggregative and deliberative. (shrink)

An educational philosophy that appeals to the immutable element in things, to their eternal properties, to the truths that hold in any age, and simply urges that empirical methods are not the only methods, really is defending a negative position.

The essay deals with the subject of the curriculum as it was elaborated by the philosopher Jaques Maritain during the period of his stay in the United States and condensed above all in the 1943 text Education at the Crossroads. Maritain, above all a political philosopher, intends to present a line of personal and social education to the generations emerging from the Second World War. It was necessary to rethink education not only in the theoretical field but also in the (...) operational one, in particular in the main formative structure of the community: School and University. The design that comes out is very structured: aimed at proposing a new order of studies both with regard to the School and the University. (shrink)