Notion Of Social Responsibility Research Articles

La Red Iberófona para la Responsabilidad Social en Salud. Una estrategia vital para confrontar los retos de la salud en contextos de incertidumbre y cambios constantes

The notion of social responsibility is becoming and will become more important as time goes by, because of the global awareness of the need to understand the human being and the effect of multiple interactions on the well-being of our societies, especially on health. Therefore, all institutions and all citizens will be called upon to assume some responsibility for maintaining and sustaining it.In September 2022, the Iberophone Network for Social Accountability in Health (RIRSS) was presented in Brussels, with the aim of responding effectively to the health demands of our populations, through close collaboration between all the Spanish Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa, America, Asia, and Europe that make up what has been called the Iberophone countries. This geopolitical "territory" groups, together thirty countries and more than 800 million people, whose health is the responsibility of all those involved in the health systems and the professionals who work in them. In the current global context, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, perhaps the major uncertainty that current generations have ever experienced, with wars, pandemics, environmental and economic crises, technological developments such as artificial intelligence and much more, we urgently need to work together to respond effectively to the health demands of our populations, who are increasingly distrustful of the management of their governments, politicians and institutions to preserve and maintain their health. Promoting a network based on our common history and our way of seeing the world, surely different from the most widespread and sponsored Anglo-Saxon vision, is the challenge, we invite you to take part in. The purpose of this article is to present the vision and strategic lines of this project.

Social Responsibility through the Lens of Emmanuel Levinas and the Filipino Value of Sociality

Social responsibility is incumbent upon all human beings because all are called to be ethical toward their neighbors in a disinterested way. What social responsibility demands is radical and is met when we heed the plea of that anonymous other whose face, both high and humble, triggers our guilt for the good life we enjoy and their dire condition. As Levinas insists, the face of the Other summons us to action. Where in our experience as Filipino can we locate such a high ethical standard? Many Filipino scholars claim that sociality is one of the strongest traits of the Filipino people. They are resilient in the face of trials and tribulations because of the person next to them who is willing to lend a helping hand. In the present world order and the current Philippine context, there is a high demand for each person to act more responsibly toward the person next to him. Social responsibility is challenged by the renewed threats of war on a global scale, the resurgence of old injustices like corruption and grave abuse of power, and, likewise by rampant violation of human rights. Therefore, in this article, we ask the primary question: where in our experiences as human beings can we find the notion of social responsibility that recognizes the inviolability of the Other? In answering this, the following tasks are undertaken: first, an exposition of the brief outline of Levinas’ notion of responsibility; second, an unfolding of Filipino sociality through the concepts of kapwa and pagpapakatao; and third, a thematic discussion of the converging and diverging points between Levinas’ notion of social responsibility and Filipino sociality to show that responsibility is a universal value with many faces.

Student volunteerism as a thread of community engagement: its salience to social work education

ABSTRACT The advancement of community engagement as an interrelated aspect of teaching and research compels social work education to consider how it may create opportunities to strengthen notions of social responsibility amongst its students. Volunteerism offers one promising pathway whereby students can appreciate societal problems and learn a diverse range of skills in community organizations or spaces that are relevant to the profession. This paper presents data from a qualitative inquiry with child and youth care students (N = 14), who spent time doing voluntary work in vulnerable communities, organizations and in vulnerable community areas, in South Africa. Semi structured in depth interviews and a reflective group discussion was used to understand the student volunteer experience more closely and the opportunities it brings to advance learning in a social work context. The study found through these objectives, enhanced opportunities for acquiring discipline specific knowledge and the acquisition of important values and principles to support their professional journey. Most importantly it exemplified the need for partnerships between disciplinary departments in universities and communities to be strengthened as part of social responsiveness.

Relational values help explain green infrastructure preferences: The case of managing crane habitat in Hokkaido, Japan

Abstract The initial purpose of our study was to understand preferences of stakeholders on green infrastructure for flood control using a discrete choice experiment. However, the results of our study included unexpected findings. According to the utility theory of economics, an inexpensive green infrastructure scenario should have been chosen under ceteris paribus conditions, but our results differed from this expectation. Inconsistent results like ours are often interpreted as indicating bias and/or questionnaire design issues. However, our results can be interpreted using relational values. We studied green infrastructure in a large‐scale flood control basin in Naganuma, a town in the Hokkaido prefecture in Northern Japan. We conducted a discrete choice experiment with town residents as stakeholders of the green infrastructure. Through the examination of choice and membership parameters of our results, we interpreted that individual identity and place attachment, which are types of relational values, are taken into consideration in the choice situation of the discrete choice experiment. We also found that a notion of social responsibility, which is also a relational value, can help us to understand unexpected findings that cannot be interpreted in terms of economic theory alone. Relational values contribute to our interpretation of preferences related to managing ecosystem services with implications for green infrastructure, culturally significant wildlife, wildlife‐related recreation and flood control. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Aging in community: the case of Hesperus village in Vaughan in Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the evolving notion of aging in community, by presenting findings of a qualitative, descriptive study conducted in Hesperus Village, a unique community for predominantly older adults located in Vaughan in Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this exploratory study was to gauge the benefits and challenges of aging in community, and develop conceptualization of the nature and form of attached social relationships and community concerns. Eight semi-structured, in-depth interviews with open-ended questions of residents and a manager were conducted. Findings indicated that aging in this community included a mix of resident co-caring and formal caring practices; that traditional forms of management style are shifting to democratic self-governance practices and that forging links with the wider community is linked to the sharing of resources and inter-generational bartering of services. The implications of aging in community point toward the notion of social responsibility as a potential strategy toward sustainable practices; and that sharing resources with the wider community may have cost-saving implications. This study serves as a call for further research and advocacy in addressing an all-encompassing service delivery model to age in community from birth until death, linking aging in place and dying in place agendas.

The construction of Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence in the fifteenth century: between accountability and technologies of government

ABSTRACT Accounting practices played a fundamental role in the construction of Brunelleschi’s dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence during the fifteenth century. This study examines the accountability practices and government technologies adopted by the Opera del Duomo, the organisation entrusted to build and maintain the Cathedral of Florence, between 1420 and 1436, when the dome was constructed. This research draws on the theories of Foucault and Dean regarding technologies of government within quasi-public administrations to explain historical evidence for the accountability practices supporting Brunelleschi’s dome construction. Through the collected evidence, we identify the application of ‘technologies of government’ hundreds of years before Foucault’s arguments about governmentality. We also describe a system of accountability, especially downward accountability, inspired by religious values that pays attention to users, the local community and other affected constituents as a result of the Opera’s special status as a ‘quasi-public’ (but formally private) administration. Our findings touch on the willingness to account for and report public funding, the presence of checks and balances inside the governance framework, the active engagement of citizens and local partners to achieve consensus, and notions of social responsibility toward the workers who helped to build the dome.

Welfare transformations and expectations of sameness. Living on the margins in Denmark

In Denmark, as in other welfare societies worldwide, the organisation and ideology of welfare are becoming increasingly influenced by neoliberal ideas. In practice, this means that the original intention behind the provision of social support, which was grounded in the notion of social responsibility, is gradually being pushed aside by notions of responsibilisation, with concepts such as deservingness and work ethic appearing to dominate the discourse. Based on long-term fieldwork and interviews conducted with socially disadvantaged Danes living on social security, this article engages with the current debates regarding responsibility and highlights some of the challenges arising from living a life that diverges from what has been termed Danish ‘in-between middle-classness’. We argue that the divergence between the promise of welfare, the current landscape of political regulation and expectations of individual responsibility leads to new forms of uncertainty, as experienced by those who depend on the services provided by the welfare state. One implication of this is that welfare seems to increasingly be tied to an agenda of sameness, whereby citizenship stems less from a imagination of sameness than from an expectation of sameness.

Contrato de seguro social: a perspectiva de pactuação securitária responsável à luz da interpretação constitucional democrática

Trata-se de uma abordagem social do contrato de seguro, com estudo sobre as premissas do Estado Democrático de Direito e a influências que seus princípios devem ter na realização do contrato securitário, bem como nas obrigações das partes com relação ao instrumento contratual. Além disso, faz-se uma exposição sobre a forma interpretativa mais adequada para uma análise do pacto securitário do ponto de vista da responsabilidade social, finalizando-se com as maneiras que as seguradoras podem promover a social responsabilidade em sua atuação no mercado, principalmente com relação aos seus segurados.

Reflexions on the concept of scientific social responsibility: the case of Brazilian Psychology

In Brazil, the concept f social responsibility has been largely discussed in the past few decades. Due to the polysemy of this notion, in this paper, I sought to discuss and problematize some of its current uses, taking as a case study papers and books in Psychology. To do so, I conducted a literature review on physical and virtual databases and organized the information produced in two analytic frames: the first one presents the ways the notion of social responsibility is addressed in each of the texts and the second presents a synthesis of the previous frames. The analysis of these materials suggests that there are many objectives, justifications, methods and theories that support social responsible practices. So it is important not to only say someone is socially responsible, but explicit what one means when uses this expressions, as well as the epistemological, ontological and political precepts that underlies it.

The experimental generation: networks of interdisciplinary praxis in post war British art (1950–1970)

This special double issue of ISR came out of a conference we organized together in 2014, exploring an apparent convergence of interest in art and science around the notion of social responsibility ...

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE MILITARY PROFESSIONAL

Threats and challenges of the modern world put forward ever increasing demands as to a military professional’s individuality, his/her occupational, moral and psychological qualities. In this context the problem of a military professional’s social responsibility is of particular importance. In order to resolve it the essence of social responsibility is to be determined. The issue of servicepersons’ social responsibility has been highlighted in a number of works by both Ukrainian and foreign researchers. In particular, O. Petrov, S. Karpukhin, Yu. Chernavin, Ye. Kireev, O. Glasunov and some others initiated its scientific foregrounding, singled out some important aspects and ways of their further investigation. At the same time, the question of the essence of the social responsibility of a military professional’s individuality still remains unresolved. The initial point for the analysis of the essence of the social responsibility of a military professional’s individuality lies in understanding it as a specific manifestation of the social responsibility of social subjects which reflects its ontological traits and particularities. However, it’s necessary to state that among the scientists there is no mutual understanding as to the essence of the social responsibility of social subjects. The main difficulty here lies in understanding the essence and the meaning of the notions of «responsibility», «social responsibility» and «social subject’s social responsibility». According to this, the analysis of servicepersons’ social responsibility first of all requires the clarification of these notions by determining their categorical status. From the standpoint of hermeneutics methodology the introduction of the notion of social responsibility came as a logical consequence of scientific investigation of the problem of responsibility in general. Thus, it was initiated by the fact that responsibility cannot be reduced to social sanctions and mutual demands alone. Social responsibility is the way of social existence, and of relations among social subjects (people, social and sociopolitical institutions). In this respect it does not equal responsibility as a sum of certain sanctions but has its own meaning. The meaning of social responsibility reflects two aspects of cooperation among social subjects: the character of social subject’s fulfillment of its destination and duties; social sanctions applied against social subject by society for social consequences of its activity or inactivity.The notion of «social subject’s social responsibility» (including servicepersons) – is the one that reflects one of the aspects of social responsibility, namely the attitude of the social subject towards the implementation of its mission and destination, fulfillment of its civil and professional duties.From the standpoint of gnosiological approach social responsibility of the military professional is seen as a social phenomenon, whose evolution and development are determined by the place, role and function of the Armed Forces, historical mission of servicepersons and their social-typological characteristics as a specific professional group in the society.From the standpoint of ontological approach social responsibility of the military professional is seen as a social quality whose aim lies in the attitude to the realization of servicepersons’ destination and mission as well as in the fulfillment of civil and military duties.According to the structural-functional approach social responsibility of the military professional is seen as a synthesizing component of the system of subject’s relations with the surrounding world, as a system-building element and as a system of coordinates for public life, grounded on the degree of subject’s identification with society, its understanding of the essence of life, historical mission and determines the content and direction, way and character of an individual’s life as well as life of communities in different spheres of social being. According to the sociological approach social responsibility of the military professional is seen as a social responsibility of different groups of servicepersons depending on their categories. Separate elements of servicepersons social responsibility act as dominant components which acquire corresponding status under corresponding circumstances.According to the axiological approach social responsibility of the military professional is seen as an important military-professional and social value that synthesizes servicepersons’ system of values and stands up as their embodiment into servicepersons’ lives. From the standpoint of synergetic approach social responsibility of the military professional is seen as a system with the following characteristics: openness and nonlinearity of development; changeability and steadiness; subordination to randomness in the general process of functioning and development; subordination to random impact on the process of natural functioning and development; choice of the development direction; alternativeness of development directions; existence of social responsibility’s own development tendencies as a self-organizing system; controlled development under self-organizing conditions.Thus, we can claim that social responsibility of the military professional is his/her attitude to fulfilling civil and military duties determined by the place and role of servicepersons in the life of the society and by the Armed Forces functions. Social responsibility is implemented in the choice of the action and behavior modes.

Krishna's Neglected Responsibilities: Religious devotion and social critique in eighteenth-century North India

AbstractThis article examines the literary strategies employed by a devotional poet who wrote about recent events in the eighteenth century, in order to shed light on contemporary notions of social responsibility. Taking the poetic treatment of Ahmad Shah Abdali's invasion of North India and the sacking of Vrindavan in 1757 as its primary focus, the article will discuss how political and theological understandings of lordship converged at a popular level, such that a deity could be called to account as a neglectful landlord as well as venerated in abhakticontext. It examines the redaction of tropes inherited from bothvaisnavaliterature and late Mughal ethical thought, and considers the parallels between theHarikala Beli, a Braj Bhasha poem, and immediately contemporary developments in Urdu literature, particularly theshahr ashobgenre. As such, it uses poetic responses to traumatic events as a guide to the interaction between multiple intellectual systems concerned with human and divine expectations and obligations.

Counterculture and Alternative Media in Utopian Contexts: A Slice of Life from the Rainbow Region

Counterculture and Alternative Media in Utopian Contexts: A Slice of Life from the Rainbow Region

Caring for our own: why there is no political demand for new American social welfare rights

In Caring for Our Own, Sandra Levitsky has written a moving and perceptive account of the dilemma facing those who provide care for frail family members. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation with family caregivers and the social workers that attempt to ameliorate their burden, this book uncovers the complex ideological and political factors that have made long term care the neglected stepchild of the welfare state in the United States.-Jill Quadagno, Mildred and Claude Pepper Eminent Scholar in Social Gerontology, Florida State University Aging populations and dramatic changes in health care provision, household structure, and women's labor force participation over the last half century have created what many observers have dubbed a crisis in care: demand for care of the old and infirm is rapidly growing, while the supply of private care within the family is substantially contracting. And yet, despite the well-documented adverse effects of contemporary care dilemmas on the economic security of families, the physical and mental health of family care providers, the bottom line of businesses, and the financial health of existing social welfare programs, American families have demonstrated little inclination for translating their private care problems into political demands for social policy reform. Caring for Our Own inverts an enduring question of social welfare politics. Rather than asking why the American state hasn't responded to unmet social welfare needs by expanding social entitlements, this book asks: Why don't American families view unmet social welfare needs as the basis for demands for new state entitlements? How do traditional beliefs in family responsibility for social welfare persist even in the face of well-documented unmet need? The answer, this book argues, lies in a better understanding of how individuals imagine solutions to the social welfare problems they confront and what prevents new understandings of social welfare provision from developing into political demand for alternative social arrangements. Caring for Our Own considers the powerful ways in which existing social policies shape the political imagination, reinforcing longstanding values about family responsibility, subverting grievances grounded in notions of social responsibility, and in some rare cases, constructing new models of social provision that would transcend existing ideological divisions in American social politics. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/sociology/9780199993130/toc.html

Organization communication regarding ISO 26000 practices in South Korea: focusing on the enlarged scope

ISO 26000, issued on November 1, 2010, has enlarged the scope of social responsibility (SR) from corporations to all types of organizations. This article examines how organizations that traditionally have not been concerned with this term, such as public or governmental institutions and nonprofit organizations, interpret this new standard and the notion of SR, especially in the South Korean context. For this research, we observed the SR-related reports and media activity of seven Korean organizations: Korean Standards Association (KSA), the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE), Gangdong-gu Office (GDG), Christian Ethics Movement of Korea (CEMK), LG Electronics Union (LGEU), Collective Action (CA), and Working Together Corporation (WTCO). We also carried out interviews with experts in these organizations, who largely work on the subject. Using the organizing theory frame (enactment–selection–retention) of Karl E. Weick, we analyzed three elements of the organizational communication of these institutions: strategy, ISO 26000 messaging, and receivers of the information. ISO 26000 was first actively used in public organizations (e.g., KSA, MKE, and GDG) as a policy tool to expand the concept to all aspects of Korean society, and was later used in certain nonprofit organizations (e.g., LGEU and CEMK) as a new paradigm, creating new concepts such as union SR and churches’ SR that partially accept the international standard in different contexts. Some civil societies, such as CA and WTCO, observe the phenomenon in a passive way to see if it could promote the social values of their organizations. Lastly, in spite of the scope enlargement, we note that SR is still in the range of corporate SR, and the application process in South Korea shows that the social aspect is more easily ignored than the economic and environmental aspects.

The assessment of medical subject mamagers’ knowledge on topic of social responsibility

Over the years the notion of social responsibility in management was only related to economic subjects. Nowadays, a growing number of researchers is of the opinion that in managing subjects which offer social services including medical subjects, we also should implement its rules. However, it seems that in practice the knowledge of managers and employees on that subject is very limited and therefore, it has no reflection is the activities of medical subjects. The author of the article focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of using CSR in managing health care facilities.

The illusion of righteousness: corporate social responsibility practices of the alcohol industry.

BackgroundCorporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an integral element of how the alcohol industry promotes itself. The existing analyses of CSR in the alcohol industry point to the misleading nature of these CSR practices. Yet, research has been relatively sparse on how the alcohol industry advances CSR in an attempt to facilitate underlying business interests, and in what ways the ongoing display of industry CSR impacts public health. This paper aims to investigate the alcohol industry’s recent CSR engagements and explain how CSR forms part of the industry’s wider political and corporate strategies.MethodsOur study used qualitative methods to collect and analyse data. We searched for materials pertaining to CSR activities from websites of three transnational alcohol corporations, social media platforms, media reports and other sources. Relevant documents were thematically analysed with an iterative approach.ResultsOur analysis identified three CSR tactics employed by the alcohol companies which are closely tied in with the industry’s underlying corporate intents. First, the alcohol manufacturers employ CSR as a means to frame issues, define problems and guide policy debates. In doing this, the alcohol companies are able to deflect and shift the blame from those who manufacture and promote alcoholic products to those who consume them. Second, the alcohol corporations promote CSR initiatives on voluntary regulation in order to delay and offset alcohol control legislation. Third, the alcohol corporations undertake philanthropic sponsorships as a means of indirect brand marketing as well as gaining preferential access to emerging alcohol markets.ConclusionsThe increasing penetration and involvement of the alcohol industry into CSR highlights the urgent needs for public health counter actions. Implementation of any alcohol control measures should include banning or restricting the publicity efforts of the industry’s CSR and informing the public of the alcohol industry’s notion of social responsibility. More significantly, an internationally binding instrument should be called for to enable countries to differentiate between genuine concerns and spurious altruism, and in doing so, resist the industry’s attempt to erode alcohol control.

“One of the Most Crying Needs of the Present Time”: The Call for a Christian Daily Newspaper

This historical examination of the decades-long call for a Christian daily newspaper in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries explicates the broadly felt desire for such a publication, and, in the process, it unpacks the tension between the sacred and the secular, revealing the efforts of a religious community of discourse—as it recognized the growing power of the press over public opinion and modern life—to confirm journalists as moral agents who would reconnect facts with values and to hinge the notion of social responsibility to the news ethic of daily secular journalism.

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Parental decisions about vaccination: Collective values are important

Tarrant and Thompson report a study of parental perceptions and attitudes to vaccination in a highly immunised population. Such information is important in understanding and drawing out elements of a successful immunisation programme. What then are the insights from this study that might translate to other population settings? This study, looking at childhood immunisation through the lens of the parent, supports the existing knowledge on what makes an immunisation programme successful.1 These ranged from individual cognitions and attitudes to family and social factors to system factors. Individuals perceived the benefits of vaccines as outweighing the risks. These positive perceptions were supported by aspects of the social environment, including beliefs about infectious disease threats, ideas of social responsibility, high levels of declared trust in authorities, a willingness to conform and a strong sense of societal responsibility. Finally, success was achieved with system factors, including free, comprehensive and accessible child health services and mandatory vaccination for school entry. Australia's success in achieving high immunisation rates, at least 93% for two-year-olds,2 is a result of a similar range of factors, with the exception of mandatory vaccination. Of note, mandatory vaccination may offer little advantage when other system factors and inducements contribute to timely high coverage of vaccines in young children.3 However, in societies with high vaccination rates, and a low incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases, the perceived threat of disease may be lower and people may see immunisation as unnecessary. Clearly, an understanding of vaccination as a wider social good is important, and countries such as Hong Kong appear to have key cultural elements to support this. Do parents in Western countries like Australia lack the same kind of ideological support for vaccination as the authors suggest? We would argue that notions of social responsibility and the collective good are important, but less manifest aspects of vaccine decision making. Studies from the USA and Australia have revealed what many health professionals assume to be the ‘missing elements’ in cognitive processes regarding vaccination.4,5 That is, decisions to immunise are mediated in part by what other parents are perceived to be doing, by what one feels he or she should do and by notions of what it means to be a ‘good’ citizen and parent. A US study by Hershey et al. tested the extent to which a regard for others influenced vaccination decisions. They concluded that people were more likely to vaccinate if they perceived others were doing so (known as bandwagoning). Parents could also be motivated by altruism if vaccination was urged in that way.4 A 1999 Sydney study found that, in their support for vaccination, parents not only valued the benefits of protecting their own individual child but mothers from a range of socio-economic and educational backgrounds also understood and appreciated the social nature of the vaccination decision.5 For some, vaccination was a way of contributing to the health of the broader community and future generations. As a result, some conveyed a strong intolerance of people who forego vaccination for their children because unvaccinated children were seen as a threat to others. These findings challenge the assumption that parents in developed countries are ‘more focused on individual rights’ and are not able to see value in the contribution to the health of others that vaccination brings. What does this mean for the clinician encountering a parent who is not sure about vaccination? For parents to make informed decisions about vaccination, they need to understand both its risks and benefits, including societal benefits. Informing parents that their decision to have their children vaccinated will provide protection for their own children and others is an important aspect of vaccine-risk communication and should not be overlooked on the assumption that parents in Western countries might only consider their own children when deciding about vaccination.