1,720,957 research outputs found
An investigation into the relationships between corporate social responsibility, community-company trust, corporate performance and social performance: A case of petrochemical industry and community in Ghana
No full textThere has been impressive growth in output and revenue of the oil and gas companies in Ghana for the last decade. However, our current review shows that there are vulnerable and untrustworthy relationships between companies and community members in the Sekondi-Takoradi district in Ghana, which is one of the major oil and gas mining areas. Although earlier research demonstrated that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) influences financial growth, current CSR research does not explain CSR, community-company trust, social performance and corporate performance relationships. CSR research is highly context-specific, with limited case studies in the Ghanaian context. Therefore, this research aims to validate the CSR, community-company trust (CCT), corporate performance (CP), and social performance (SP) constructs in the Ghanaian context and examines their relationships. This study also examines the effects of gender and stakeholder differences in the hypothesised relationships.
This thesis defines CSR as the voluntary contributions of the Ghanaian petrochemical companies to the local community for the improvement of life standards and social wellbeing of the community while maintaining ethical values, ecological balances, and improving natural environment through mutual respect and better practices. CCT is defined as mutual belief aiming to work together to improve corporate business and social outcomes. CP is defined as company revenues, market share and profits; and finally, SP is defined as result-oriented outcome measures for the betterment of the society where the company is located. While CSR is corporate activities, SP is CSR’s outcome measure.
The pragmatic research paradigm with the concurrent mixed-methods approach was followed. The pen and paper-based survey resulted in 211 valid responses for hypotheses testing and the one-on-one interviews involved 10 company executives and 20 community participants. The one-on-one interviews in the qualitative phase were used to explain the quantitative results. There were six causal and four mediational hypotheses that confirmed the research model of this thesis. The results of the Multigroup Analysis (MGA) also confirmed the effects of gender and stakeholder differences in the model. Survey data were analysed using the Partial Least Squares-based Structural Equation Modelling technique (PLS-SEM), and interview data were analysed through the content analysis procedure.
The study shows that both CSR and CCT influence SP, and both CSR and SP influence CP. Although CSR is found to influence CCT, CCT does not influence CP. Results also confirm that CCT and SP have partial mediational effects between CSR and CP in the study context. The results of the multi-group analysis (MGA) also show that group effects are significant due to gender and stakeholder differences. The qualitative findings also revealed that bribery, corruption, gender bias, employment discrimination and poverty are of concern in the Sekondi-Takoradi community.
The major theoretical contributions of this thesis include the definition and validation of the CSR, trust (CCT), corporate performance (CP) and social performance (SP) constructs in the contexts of the Sekondi–Takoradi petrochemical companies and communities in Ghana. There are methodological contributions to this study. These are the adoption of the pragmatic research paradigm with the concurrent mixed-methods approach, and the use of PLS-SEM in the data analysis procedure. In addition, each of the constructs included multiple items, and those were validated statistically. Corporate managers could use the CSR, CCT, SP and CP measures for periodic checks to examine how companies are performing. These checks can inform where managers are missing issues and need to improve, and where they have improved over time. The findings suggest a strong need for a consultative or participatory approach in the governance strategies at the local, regional, and national levels to determine the priority areas of CSR activities for the local community and its outcomes (e.g., social performance) both short-term and long-term. The research suggests developing and operationalising an agreement between companies, the community, and other stakeholders in order to strengthen relationships, build mutual trust and implement the CSR programs as promised.
The findings revealed that there is a need for proper education and training programs in CSR, corporate and community relationships, governance, transparency, accountability and participation in government, in the company, and at the community level. Overall, this could enhance trustworthy and sustainable relationships. The policy implications of this study suggest, too, that Ghana should progress towards suggesting that companies become members of the International Council on Mining and Metal (ICMM) and implement strong and engaged relationships with the local community to establish trust and respect with the aim of achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs), corporate performance and social performance indicators and removal of poverty and unfair discrimination. However, this study only included two petrochemical companies and a community group located in the Sekondi-Takoradi area in Ghana, and thus the findings are formally limited to the study context
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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