Crowdfunding is regarded a financing mechanism that could improve the funding opportunities of businesses with a pro-social orientation. Indeed, it is assumed that on digital platforms, citizens are inclined to provide more support to projects with a social benefit than to those without such an orientation, with significant ethical implications for the common good. Yet, extant empirical evidence regarding such a claim is still inconclusive. To advance this discussion, the present paper analyzes the conditions that influence crowd support (...) for projects displaying a pro-social orientation on a reward-based crowdfunding platform. To build our hypotheses, we adopt the lens of framing theory, and we relate it to the digital context. Beginning from the premise that, on crowdfunding platforms, information about projects has a hierarchical structure, we argue that a project’s success crucially depends on how much its proponent emphasizes the pro-social cues within this structure. Moreover, we propose that because pro-social cues demarcate a project over others, the effectiveness of pro-social framing is enhanced when the number of projects on the platform, i.e., its crowdedness, increases. Logit estimates on 8631 Kickstarter projects indicate that pro-social framing is positively associated with success as we expected, yet only when it is moderately emphasized. Further, we find that crowdedness on the platform positively moderates the effect of pro-social orientation on success. (shrink)

The 1968 My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam and shocking events at Abu Graibh prison in Iraq in 2003 show that the behaviour of some in the American military has descended into barbarism. How strong is the military's commitment to avoiding misconduct and atrocity? This timely and compelling book asks critical questions and raises sobering issues the Australian Army can't ignore. Leading military personnel, aid workers, commentators and scholars discuss the Australian Army's commitment to behaving ethically and the challenges associated (...) with contemporary warfare. With chapters on social media and inciting violence, cyberweapons, and special operations and humanitarian deployments, 'Ethics Under Fire' offers a rare insight into the key issues facing the modern army, from technology and tactics to terrorism"--Back cover. (shrink)

Charles Darwin found much in Australia to challenge and inform his thinking. This book explores the impact that Darwin’s short visit to Australia in 1836 had on the man himself and on the emerging nation. Now, more than 170 years later, Darwin continues to influence Australian attitudes to life and living.

The article discusses the reasons for the construction, in the 1960s, of memorial to the victims of the former camp in Jasenovac in Yugoslavia, although no such memorial was built at the Sajmiste site. How should we explain and understand this difference and what do these two sites stand for in Yugoslav discourses about the past? I will argue that the memorial project for Jasenovac was, due to certain developments, seen as a substitute for similar plans at nearly all the (...) former camp locations in Yugoslavia. Because of this substitution, after the mid 1960s none of the other concentration camp sites in the country benefited from federal financing and thus all of them were excluded from having a real chance at being made into a proper memorial site. Tekst razmatra razloge za izgradnju spomen-podrucja posvecenog zrtvama logora Jasenovac u Jugoslaviji tokom sezdesetih godina XX veka, iako takav spomenik nije podignut na mestu logora na Sajmistu. Kako da objasnimo i razumemo tu razliku i koje je mesto ta dva logora u jugoslovenskim diskursima o proslosti? Tvrdim da je, zahvaljujuci odredjenim kretanjima, projekat za Jasenovac bio sagledavan kao zamena za slicne planove za bezmalo sva mesta gde su se nalazili logori u Jugoslaviji. Zbog te zamene, nakon sredine sezdesetih godina XX veka nijedno podrucje gde su se nalazili koncentracioni logori u zemlji nije dobilo saveznu finansijsku potporu, pa je svima njima uskracena mogucnost da budu pretvorena u odgovarajuce mesto secanja. (shrink)

This research explored the effect of explicit Interoceptive Attentiveness manipulation on hemodynamic brain correlates during a task involving interpersonal motor coordination framed with a social goal. Participants performed a task requiring interpersonal movement synchrony with and without a social framing in both explicit IA and control conditions. Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy was used to record oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin changes during the tasks. According to the results, the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in high-order social cognition and interpersonal (...) relations processing, was more responsive when inducing the explicit focus on the breath during the socially framed motor task requiring synchronization, as indicated by increased O2Hb. In the absence of a broader social frame, this effect was not significant for the motor task. Overall, the present study suggests that when a joint task is performed and the individual focuses on his/her physiological body reactions, the brain hemodynamic correlates are “boosted” in neuroanatomical regions that support sustained attention, reorientation of attention, social responsiveness, and synchronization. Furthermore, the PFC responds significantly more as the person consciously focuses on physiological interoceptive correlates and performs a motor task requiring synchronization, particularly when the task is socially framed. (shrink)

The globalization movement in recent decades has meant rapid growth in trade, financial transactions, and cross-country ownership of economic assets. In this article, we examine how the globalization of national business systems has influenced the framing of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This is done using text analysis of CEO letters appearing in the annual reports of 15 major corporations in Sweden during a period of transformational change. The results show that the discourse about CSR in the annual reports has (...) changed from a national and communitarian view of social responsibility (cf. a negotiated view of CSR) toward an international and individualistic view of social responsibility (cf. a self-regulating view of CSR). The article contributes theoretically (1) by adding a national–global dimension to previous conceptualizations of CSR and (2) by showing that the rise of CSR discourse and activities in the last 10 years does not have to imply an increased commitment and interest in corporate responsibility per se, only that there are increased societal expectations that corporations should develop the capability to act more independently as moral agents. (shrink)

Social media are increasingly important in the news menu of media users. Differences in news production processes between traditional and social media may lead to differences in how political and social issues are depicted, and this may, eventually, have consequences for the information that reaches citizens about an issue. Against this background, this study compares content across the two media types to examine whether and how the framing of a sociopolitical issue differs between newspaper articles and posts (...) on social media. The empirical analyses are based on a content analysis of newspaper articles (n = 414) and social media messages (n = 2,771) conducted in the context of the socially contested issue of raising the retirement age in the Netherlands. Findings suggest that different content production processes can still lead to similar outcomes as both media types emphasize problems with (instead of solutions to) the retirement age issue. Our findings also confirm differences across traditional and social media, although these differences are substantially relatively small. While traditional news media emphasize conflict-related frames more often than social media, social media present more frame diversity in solutions. (shrink)

In this article, we claim that recent developments in climate science and renewable energy should prompt a reframing of debates surrounding climate change mitigation. Taken together, we argue that these developments suggest (1) global climate collapse in this century is a non-negligible risk, (2) mitigation offers substantial benefits to current generations, and (3) mitigation by some can generate social tipping dynamics that could ultimately make renewables cheaper than fossil fuels. We explain how these claims undermine familiar framings of climate (...) change, wherein mitigation is understood as self-sacrifice that individuals and governments must be morally persuaded or incentivized to undertake. [Open access]. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the view that realism about a social kind K entails that the grounding conditions of K are difficult (or impossible) to manipulate. In other words, we define social kind realism in terms of relative frame manipulability (RFM). In articulating our view, we utilize theoretical resources from Epstein’s (Epstein, The ant trap: Rebuilding the foundations of the Social Sciences. Oxford University Press, 2015) grounding/anchoring model and causal interventionism. After comparing our view with causal (...) and principle-based (Tahko, Synthese 200(2):1–23, 2022) proposals, we motivate RFM by showing that it accommodates important desiderata about the social landscape (such as recognizing the context-relativity of social properties and the emancipatory dimension of social practice). Finally, we consider three objections. First, we tackle frame-necessitarianism (FN), the view that social kind frames are metaphysically necessary (and thus unmanipulable). Secondly, we engage with what Epstein (Epstein, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 99(3):768–781 2019a) calls UNIVERSALITY (the view that social kinds can hold in the absence of anchors) and we argue that it should also be resisted. Finally, we tackle a recent objection from Mason’s (Mason, Philosophical Studies, 178(12):3975–3994) essentialism about social kinds. (shrink)

This book explores the current forms of social science theorization starting from some federative themes: Agency, Anthropocene, Coloniality, Intersectionality, Othering, Singularization, Technoscience and Uncertainty. The book proposes a reconstruction of contemporary social theory starting from some thematic issues rather than starting from authors or schools of thought. It emphasizes the usefulness of a rhizomatic way of thinking that recognizes the importance of interconnections, heterogeneity and multiplicity in understanding the complexity of global societies. Focusing on federative themes, it highlights (...) some heuristic and conceptual tools that intersect and intertwine in different themes, returning a complex toolbox for the social sciences, adaptable to different contexts and situations, enriched by voices and theoretical perspectives deriving from reflections on the social that the modern and Eurocentric perspective has tended to marginalize. The book is intended for an academic audience interested in social theory. It is also intended for students from a wide range of disciplines undertaking social science studies. (shrink)

Social entrepreneurship is perceived as a legitimate and innovative solution to social problems. Yet, when one looks at the literature one finds that the social problems that the SE movement seeks to address and how these problems are identified and defined are not studied. This lack of attention to the defining of social problems in SE has implications for the domain for problems do not exist unless they are recognized and defined, and those that define problems (...) have influence on how these will eventually be addressed. Our paper presents an analysis of framing activities in SE done by the actors involved in the development and promotion of the SE movement. Our analysis reveals that these actors are concerned with creating an ecosystem to support social entrepreneurs. Critical analysis of discourses of these actors reveals a powerful mobilization discourse, one that supports social entrepreneurs as the agents of change. We also find that as the SE movement emerged at the beginning of a cycle of protest against capitalist systems, their framing of SE as system changing of these very systems therefore finds strong resonance with a wide variety of actors. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, the phenomenon of socially responsible investing has become more widespread. However, knowledge about the individual socially responsible investor is largely limited to descriptive and comparative accounts. The question of "why do some investors practice socially responsible investing and others don't?" is therefore still largely unanswered. To address this shortcoming in the current literature, this paper develops a model of the decision to invest socially responsibly that is grounded in the cognition literature. The hypotheses proposed in (...) the model are tested with an experimental survey. The results indicate that the framing of the investing situation influences the likelihood of engagement in socially responsible investing and how much return the individuals are willing to sacrifice when choosing socially responsible over conventional investments. The study does not find support for a relationship between expectations about corporate social responsibility and the likelihood of engagement in socially responsible investing. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that gender is a primary cultural frame for coordinating behavior and organizing social relations. I describe the implications for understanding how gender shapes social behavior and organizational structures. By my analysis, gender typically acts as a background identity that biases, in gendered directions, the performance of behaviors undertaken in the name of organizational roles and identities. I develop an account of how the background effects of the gender frame on behavior vary by the (...) context that different organizational and institutional structures set but can also infuse gendered meanings into organizational practices. Next, I apply this account to two empirical illustrations to demonstrate that we cannot understand the shape that the structure of gender inequality and gender difference takes in particular institutional or societal contexts without taking into account the background effects of the gender frame on behavior in these contexts. (shrink)

Interview of Vsevolod Khoma with Professor Tamara Yashchuk within the framework of the research program “Ukrainian Philosophy of the 60s-80s of the 20th Century” of the Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy.

I put forward an externalist theory of social understanding. On this view, psychological sense making takes place in environments that contain both agent and interpreter. The spatial structure of such environments is social, in the sense that its occupants locate its objects by an exercise in triangulation relative to each of their standpoints. This triangulation is achieved in intersubjective interaction and gives rise to a triadic model of the social mind. This model can then be used to (...) make sense of others’ observed actions. Its possession plays a vital role in the development of the capacity for false belief reasoning. The view offers an integrated account of the development of social cognition from primary intersubjectivity to level-2 perspective taking. It incorporates insights from interactionism and mindreading theories of social cognition and thus offers a way out of the stalemate between defenders of the two views. Because psychological sense making is perspectival, the frame problem does not arise for social reasoners: the perspective they bring to bear on the action that is to be interpreted constrains the information they can select to make sense of what others do. (shrink)

Purpose Late in 2019, massive protest demonstrations rocked both Chile and Colombia. They were an expression of discontent with the economic model and social policies implemented in both countries in recent decades. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Chilean and Colombian news websites framed these social protests and what aspects of the social movements promoted these media to public opinion. Design/methodology/approach The methodology of this research is empirical; the authors use quantitative and discourse analysis (...) techniques to study the news published by the top three most visited main news websites in each country and deduce the main frameworks emerging from them. After analyzing the framing of reality by media in 4,252 news items, the authors suggest that the main news portals in these Latin American countries not only portrayed the collective actions but also promoted interpretations that did not necessarily reflect the demands of the demonstrations. Findings The findings were that in the 2019 protests in Chile and Colombia, the media approach to collective action was not necessarily positive for the activists. This was mainly because framing in the Chilean and Colombian websites had to do with negative aspects of the movements, such as violence or economic costs. Originality/value The originality and value of this research is that despite the fact that there are abundant case studies on the relationship between social movements and media framing in the literature, this study adds to the current knowledge because it compares two Latin American countries and focuses on Web news portals. (shrink)

Australia's Coalition Against Duck Shooting sees duck-shooting as a social problem and as an injustice with moral, legal and environmental consequences. The small animal liberationist group has succeeded in dramatically reducing the numbers of duck shooters in Victoria, which is the home of duck-shooting in Australia. The Coalition's framing work with the public via the electronic media involves three parts: a diagnosis , a prognosis and a motivational frame , all of which construct hunting as a cruel, antisocial blood (...) sport that ought to be banned. In this article, television news bulletins and feature stories from the 1993 and 1994 campaigns are analyzed to show how CADS makes and sustains its claims. In addition to 90 pages of transcripts of news commentaries and descriptive accounts of the visuals, the data include tape-recorded interviews with some of the duck liberationists involved in the campaign. (shrink)

Refugee crises are one of the grand challenges of the 21st century. Despite the theoretical importance attached to value created for beneficiaries in the partnership literature, research tends to focus on internal processes and value created for partners and partnerships, leading to widespread calls to further specify the value created by partnerships for beneficiaries. Applying an analytical framework from the value creation and social impact literatures, we report on a study of multiple social partnerships of a nongovernmental organization (...) in the refugee issue field. Our results demonstrate that frames of refugees held by partners and in partnerships’ implementation contexts shape the value creation activities undertaken for beneficiaries, and determine whether value is created and what types of value. The dual contribution of this article comprises a rare empirical study of value creation activities for beneficiaries (here, refugees) and theorization of how and when implementation context affects value creation by partnerships. (shrink)

The emergence of nanotechnology, with all its promises of economic, social, and medical benefits, along with dire predictions of environmental, health, and safety threats, has occasioned an active debate in the Science and Technology Studies field, in which we have seen five distinct conversations that frame the discussion. The topical threads include ethics, regulation, opportunities and threats including utopian/dystopian visions of the future, public perception, public participation. These conversational distinctions are not absolutes with firm borders as they clearly overlap (...) at many points. Nonetheless, common to all is a strong sense that control and consequence are significant problems that have yet to be addressed adequately by the promoters of nanotechnology. A final section addresses articles on nanotechnology that exemplify the social construction theory of technology. We include herein a selective summary of this recent body of science, technology, and society (STS) journal literature focused on the social and ethical interactions of nanotechnology (SEIN) that has emerged in the last few years. The intent is not to be encyclopedic in coverage, but rather to seek to understand, in a general way, the key issues and concepts STS scholars are discussing. It is clear that STS-oriented scholars are well poised to grapple explicitly with the cultural, socio-political, and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. Drawing on understandings of earlier socio-technical areas of interest and concern—nuclear power, genetically modified organisms, the human genome—such scholars have moved well beyond the questions of whether and where nanotechnology intersects society. More important is their effort to seek an understanding in depth of exactly how they are socio-politically, culturally, and ethically interconnected. In doing so, SEIN studies have at the same time become increasingly diverse and more sophisticated and mature over the course of the past decade. Scholars have quite rightly recognized the inadequacies of blanket ideas of moratoria versus non-regulatory environments, utopian versus dystopian futures, and whether or not the public has a role to play in nanotechnology decision making. Rather, a more sophisticated, often case specific, flexible understanding of the societal context of a given issue or concern is called for. (shrink)

To investigate the impact of framing on rule-breaking in social dilemmas, we incorporated a rule in a 1-shot resource game with 2 framing treatments: in one frame, we offered a give-some dilemma (i.e., a variant of a public goods game), and in the other frame, a take-some dilemma (i.e., a variant of a commons dilemma game). In each frame, all participants were part of 1 single collective sharing a common good. Each participant was initially equipped with 1 of 5 (...) different endowments of points from which they must give/were allowed to take amounts to/from the common good. The rule established outcome equality between participants by prescribing the exact amounts of what to give/take to/from the common good, which was finally divided equally among participants. Participants decided whether to cooperate and comply with the rule or to break the rule to their own advantage and to the detriment of the collective (i.e., giving lower/taking higher amounts). The results of an online experiment with 202 participants showed a significantly higher proportion of individuals breaking the rule in the take-some dilemma than in the give-some dilemma. In addition, endowment size influenced the proportion of rule-breaking behavior in the take-some dilemma. However, the average amounts of points not given/taken too much were not different between the 2 dilemma types. (shrink)

Interview of Vsevolod Khoma with Professor Tamara Yashchuk within the framework of the research program “Ukrainian Philosophy of the 60s–80s of the 20th Century” of the Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy.

Human beings are not general problem solvers. Their mental architecture is modular and the microfoundations for the social sciences have to take that into consideration. Modularity means that there are hardwired and softwired functionally specific subroutines, such as face recognition and habits that make the individual particularly sensitive to a narrow range of information from both inside and outside. Goals are the most important creators of modules that contain both hard- and softwired submodules. Goals determine what we attend to, (...) what information we are sensitive to, what information we neglect, what chunks of knowledge and what concepts are being activated at a given moment, what we like and dislike, what criteria for goal achievement are being applied, etc. Overarching goals govern large classes of submodules, and therefore the social sciences have to deal especially with these overarching goals. Three such overarching goals are identified: hedonic, gain, and normative goals. At every given moment one of them is focal (a goal-frame) and self-regulation is the process by which humans balance the dominance of goal-frames. In turn, self-regulation (here seen as the heart of ‘social rationality’), depends much on social circumstances that are open to sociological investigation. (shrink)

This research responds to urgent calls to fill knowledge gaps on COVID-19 in communicating social distancing messages to the public in the most convincing ways. The authors explore the effectiveness of framing social distancing messages around prosocial vs. self-interested appeals in driving message compliance and helping behavior. The results show that when a message emphasizes benefits for everyone in society, rather than solely for the individual, citizens find the message more persuasive to engage in social distancing, and (...) also more motivating to help others. The results further demonstrate that the proposed effects are higher for individuals who have a lower locus of control and lower fear of coronavirus as prosocial messages lead them to feel a joint responsibility in protecting from the pandemic. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. (shrink)

This paper develops a framework for conceptualising social justice in education, drawing particularly on Martha Nussbaum's (2000) capabilities approach. The practical case for consideration is that of widening participation and pedagogical implications in higher (university) education in England. While the paper supports the value and usefulness of Nussbaum's list of ten capabilities for developing a more radical and challenging language and practice for higher education pedagogies, it also argues that her approach is limited. Other ways of conceptualising social (...) justice are also required in order to develop adjudicating theories which enable us to judge which practices take us closer to social justice. An argument is made for ‘bivalent’ theorising which integrates individual and institutional development and agents and social structures. (shrink)

This paper develops a framework for conceptualising social justice in education, drawing particularly on Martha Nussbaum's (2000) capabilities approach. The practical case for consideration is that of widening participation and pedagogical implications in higher (university) education in England. While the paper supports the value and usefulness of Nussbaum's list of ten capabilities for developing a more radical and challenging language and practice for higher education pedagogies, it also argues that her approach is limited. Other ways of conceptualising social (...) justice are also required in order to develop adjudicating theories which enable us to judge which practices take us closer to social justice. An argument is made for 'bivalent' theorising which integrates individual and institutional development and agents and social structures. (shrink)

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of business news coverage of corporate social responsibility within a comparative international context by investigating two business newspapers, The Wall Street Journal from the United States and The Financial Times from the United Kingdom. Drawing on the news framing research and the implicit and explicit CSR framework of Matten and Moon, this content analysis shows that business news coverage of CSR in the United States and in the United Kingdom differs in (...) terms of news framing, motive attributions of CSR as a concept, motive attributions of referenced companies in relation to CSR, general tone toward the concept of CSR, and the general tone toward referenced companies in relation to CSR. Most significantly, findings suggest that business news plays different roles in constructing and legitimizing CSR in the two countries. In the United States, CSR’s legitimacy and its conceptual positivity may be more implied through the coverage of singular events or actors, whereas in the United Kingdom, CSR’s illegitimacy and its conceptual negativity may be more exposed for further discussion through the coverage of larger societal contexts. Other theoretical as well as practical implications are also discussed. (shrink)

This article considers the problem of how employees and observers of business ethics behaviors often do not know how to safely and effectively engage with business ethics issues and cases. The ameliorative method of social situational business ethics framing was analyzed. Key parts of the related literature from philosophy, sociology, organizational studies, and business ethics are reviewed. A literature gap between general framing theory and business ethics was identified with respect to the need for social situational framing in (...) business ethics at the micro individual, meso organizational, and macro institutional levels. Theoretical propositions for bridging the literature gap and a wide variety of business ethics engagement case examples are developed as illustrations of and support for the propositions. Practical social situational business ethics framing implications for safe and effective business ethics engagement are considered. (shrink)

The authors deploy an epistemic framework to represent culture and model the acquisition of cultural behavior. Yet, the framing inherits familiar problems with explaining the acquisition of norms. Such problems are conspicuous with regard to human societies where norms are ubiquitous. This creates a new difficulty for the authors in explaining change to mutually exclusive organizational structures of human life.

This article examines the emergent relationship between epistemic responsibility and frame awareness in early childhood, wherein a mother uses language socialization practices to guide her child into a new frame. The pair co-constructs the parameters of the new frame through negotiation of epistemic responsibility and remedial interchanges. The analysis demonstrates that these remedial interchanges arise from conflicting understandings of the embeddedness of frames and the epistemic dynamics that these frames entail. The child maintains epistemic primacy in her concurrent (...) play frame, which carries over to the recording activity given that the recording activity is embedded within her larger play frame. I argue that the data predict epistemic responsibility to be acquired earlier than the ability to shift epistemic dynamics outside of role-play. This study contributes to our understanding of frame and epistemic development in early childhood. (shrink)

This article considers the problem of how employees and observers of business ethics behaviors often do not know how to safely and effectively engage with business ethics issues and cases. The ameliorative method of social situational business ethics framing was analyzed. Key parts of the related literature from philosophy, sociology, organizational studies, and business ethics are reviewed. A literature gap between general framing theory and business ethics was identified with respect to the need for social situational framing in (...) business ethics at the micro individual, meso organizational, and macro institutional levels. Theoretical propositions for bridging the literature gap and a wide variety of business ethics engagement case examples are developed as illustrations of and support for the propositions. Practical social situational business ethics framing implications for safe and effective business ethics engagement are considered. (shrink)

I put forward an externalist theory of social understanding. On this view, psychological sense making takes place in environments that contain both agent and interpreter. The spatial structure of such environments is social, in the sense that its occupants locate its objects by an exercise in triangulation relative to each of their standpoints. This triangulation is achieved in intersubjective interaction and gives rise to a triadic model of the social mind. This model can then be used to (...) make sense of others’ observed actions. Its possession plays a vital role in the development of the capacity for false belief reasoning. The view offers an integrated account of the development of social cognition from primary intersubjectivity to level-2 perspective taking. It incorporates insights from interactionism and mindreading theories of social cognition and thus offers a way out of the stalemate between defenders of the two views. Because psychological sense making is perspectival, the frame problem does not arise for social reasoners: the perspective they bring to bear on the action that is to be interpreted constrains the information they can select to make sense of what others do. (shrink)

This paper argues for the necessity of universal health care (as well as universal free education) using a different argument than most that have been made heretofore. It is not meant to conflict with but to strengthen the arguments previously made by others. Using the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution we argue that universal health care in this day and age has become a necessary condition if the ideals of life, liberty and (...) the pursuit of happiness are to be more than an empty promise and if the discussion of “promoting of general welfare” in the preamble is to have any meaning. (shrink)

Traditionally floods have been understood to be acts of God or nature, with localised impacts afflicting those who choose to live or to invest capital in lowland and coastal locations. This central idea of causation, located outside human agency, survives somewhat precariously today, but is reflected in the lack of any right to protection from flooding in England and Wales. However in 1930 new legislation institutionalised a social framing of the impact of floods as part of a wider national (...) problem. This related the interests of lowland agriculture and land drainage to the national economic and military interest. Modernising and expanding agricultural production was a political priority from the 1930s to the 1980s. The cost of preventing flooding and draining land was transferred from the affected landowners to the nation as a whole. River and coastal engineering was central to the new policy, and by the early 1970s much of the riverine and coastal environment was radically altered by flood defence structures and associated land drainage. As a result of food over-production and conflicts with conservation interests in the early 1980s, the emphasis has shifted from drainage to flood defence, while risk reduction and environmentalist values have also been promoted. The institutional arrangements from 1930 largely survive, however, and a new coherent social framing has failed to emerge. It is argued that for a risk-oriented framing to succeed, new assumptions about causation and a new ethical outlook are now needed. Emphasis on flood 'control' rather than 'defence', and a shift in priorities from economic benefits towards human rights and intrinsic value in nature are proposed as key elements in such a reframing. (shrink)

This article discusses African feminist approaches to decolonization and social transformation. In recent years, there has been a significant shift in African feminist scholarship towards African concerns and Africa-centered solutions. Today’s turn to Indigenous knowledge, social structures, and gender relations is no longer just about shedding light on the precolonial past, but about fundamentally changing the epistemic framework in the sense of developing alternative epistemologies beyond the dominant ‘Western’ framework. But what is meant by ‘alternative epistemologies’? How do (...) African feminist thinkers conceptualize social change today? And how do they relate epistemic and social change in their thinking? These questions are explored in this article, focusing on work by Sylvia Tamale (Uganda), Wangari Maathai (Kenya), and Anthonia Kalu (Nigeria) and drawing on the discourse of ecofeminism and Ubuntu as two models of alternative epistemologies. (shrink)

Prosocial crowdfunding was originally conceived as a financial mechanism to assist vulnerable unbanked populations, typically excluded from formal financial markets. It subsequently grew into a billion-dollar scheme in the multi-billion-dollar crowdfunding industry. However, recent evidence claims prosocial crowdfunding may be shifting away from its goal to support the poor and underserved. Drawing on a composite social responsibility and framing theory framework, we examine the role that vulnerability plays in successfully raising funds in a prosocial crowdfunding context. We conduct multilevel (...) logistic regressions on a sample of microloans allocated to 105,727 ventures in 64 countries. Our results indicate that applying for funds through a field partner which caters to vulnerable populations may in fact have a negative effect on the entrepreneur’s request to be fully funded. Notwithstanding, framing the entrepreneur as being female or rural as key characteristics of individual vulnerability increases the project’s likelihood to be fully funded. This conflict offers noteworthy theoretical and practical implications for ethics in prosocial crowdfunding, an understudied field of research. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to illustrate evolutionary explanations for the emergence of framing effects, discussed in detail in Cristina Bicchieri’s The Grammar of Society . We show how framing effects might evolve which coalesce two economically distinct interactions into a single one, leading to apparently irrational behavior in each individual interaction. Here we consider the now well-known example of the ultimatum game, and show how this ‘irrational’ behavior might result from a single norm which governs behavior in multiple games. (...) We also show how framing effects might result in radically different play in strategically identical situations. We consider the Hawk-Dove game (the game of chicken) and also the Nash bargaining game. Here arbitrary tags or signals might result in one party doing better than another. (shrink)

Cultural Context of Multilevel Collective Social Actions: Framing, Reflection, Resonance and the Impact of Global and Local Anti-Poverty Movements In political science as well as in other social sciences much attention has been paid during recent years to the rapid growth of national and transnational activist networks and their increasing impact on domestic and world politics. Together with the proliferation of literature on the topic, concepts of collective action frames, framing processes, mobilizing ideas and meanings and their (...) cultural resonance have gained considerable currency. However, less has been written about the possibilities of and the constraints on the circulation of collective action frames or about the connection between the cultural adaptation of frames and the results of actual collective struggles. The paper explores this understudied issue both theoretically and empirically. After identifying possible links between collective action framing processes and the representational practices of particular cultures based on a review of existing theoretical approaches, the functional consequences are demonstrated by the example of the Global Call for Action against Poverty international campaign and the Czech national variant. (shrink)

ABSTRACTCompared to other social sciences, it appears economists enjoy overwhelming influence in policy debates. What are the ethical concerns that should bear upon the exercise of such voice? Two forms of conflict of interest are explored here: funding sources may undermine objectivity in framing the research agenda as well as through the better-known route of influencing research outcomes. What questions get asked or ignored, and the methodological approach that economists choose, may be influenced by funders. Considerations of personal advancement (...) may influence how, when and what research is disseminated. The absence of debate on accountability of economists-as-advisors is worrying. Self-regulatory processes are needed so that power is exercised with greater responsibility. (shrink)

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the perceptions related to ethics and cheating among a representative sample of primarily female undergraduate students, compared to trends reported in the literature. Focus groups were organized to discuss nine scripted questions. Transcripts and audiotapes were analyzed and four main themes emerged: demographics of those who cheat, students’ perceptions of cheating, the role of technology in cheating, and consequences of cheating, including students’ attitudes and behaviors related to reporting cheating incidents. Bandura’s (...) Social Cognitive Theory served as the theoretical framework to understand students’ varying perceptions of and justification for cheating, as well as the dynamics of honor code violations, via group discussion. Viewpoints on cheating were regularly discussed and contradictory views were identified related to frequency and justification for cheating. Utilizing the constant comparative method, students mentioned time limitations, and pressure from peers, parents, and professors as reasons to cheat. They also discussed pressures to achieve high grades for acceptance into graduate programs. Students were also reluctant to report their classmates for cheating incidents. Repeated and comprehensive education on ethical behavior is warranted. (shrink)

How is time framed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) talk? The literature mostly fails to analyze how multiple CSR activities are framed from a temporal perspective. Moreover, those researchers who undertake temporal framing tend to overlook the role of home-country cultural characteristics. Using a mixed-method analysis of 2,720 CSR reports from developing country companies, we show that CSR talk is mostly framed in the future tense when firms communicate complex human rights issues such as slavery or child labor, while (...) the past and present tenses are more frequent when they report on philanthropy and other cause-related activities. We find that these effects are stronger when firms are from countries characterized by greater uncertainty avoidance. We contribute to the CSR communication literature by showing that temporal references in CSR talk tend to differ, depending on the company-level control of CSR activities, and by highlighting uncertainty avoidance’s role as a boundary condition for aspirational talk’s performativity. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic was a global health crisis that required US residents to understand the phenomenon, interpret the cues, and make sense within their environment. Therefore, how the communication of COVID-19 was framed to stakeholders during the early stages of the pandemic became important to guide them through specific actions in their state and subsequently with the sensemaking process. The present study examines which frames were emphasized in the states' press releases on policies and other COVID information to influence (...) stakeholders on what to focus on to help with sensemaking during the crisis. We conducted content analysis on 602 press releases from 50 US states using an unsupervised machine learning approach called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The results show that health communication using press releases to help the public make sense of the crisis were framed to include health frames as well as economic frames. Health communication messages are typically framed with health and safety measures; however, this study shows that economic frames were emphasized more than public health frames in the government's health communication for COVID-19, which forced both large and small businesses to engage in specific socially responsible activities that were previously voluntary to support public health safety. (shrink)

On November 2019, the world commemorated the 30th anniversary of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UNCRC noted that “the press and other media have essential fu...