The first decade of the 21st Century has heightened interest in the ethical and social positioning of companies.  However, one of the real dilemmas associated with the movement toward more “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) is the lack of any real […]

Stephen Machett of the Australian made a fairly cogent commentary on the recent “Smart Manufacturing” report that was released in the last week by the Australian government.  The logic of this “independent” report was that Australia was losing the productivity […]

New polls frequently announce that a significant proportion of the population is concerned about an issue or willing to sacrifice for a cause, from environmental sustainability to third world debt. However, standard polls don’t accurately measure people’s true beliefs.

The recent news out of the RIO+20 summit is dire.  No collective agreement, no institutional change, no investment.  The difference between RIO+20 versus Kyoto was that at least Kyoto created an agreement that no one really abided by (and probably […]

Over the last decade we have seen increased interest in the societal role of corporations.  A cursory Google time line indicates that up until around 1998 mentions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) was relatively constant and fairly low but since […]

For tablet computer visionary Roger Fidler, a lot of what-ifs – The Washington Post. This story is yet another one of those hard luck “I had the idea first but am a poor schmuck while others are billionaires” cases. We […]

Late last year The PBS News Hour aired a discussion where various pundits and think tank researchers attempted to rationalize some survey results showing that “conservatives where happier than liberals (Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals? | PBS NewsHour | […]

If press reports and general news reports are to be believed the issues of environmental sustainability, climate change, pollution and habitat destruction are topics critical to not just social development but economic prosperity as well.  The awarding of the Nobel […]

Timothy Devinney, author of the recent book The Myth of the Ethical Consumer, spoke with Justmeans about the danger of assuming that consumers care about sustainability.  Devinney notes “The way in which people conceptualize social consumption is fundamentally wrong…. If […]

Despite differences of opinion about the efficacy of corporate social responsibility, there is a general consensus among academics, policy makers, and practitioners that corporations operate with a social sanction that requires that they operate within the norms and mores of […]