Browsing by Subject "Corporate Social Responsibility"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    An Assessment and Simulation Methodology of Sustainability in Manufacturing System
    (2018-06) Islam, Md
    This thesis work presents a new integrated framework to connect the economic, environmental and social factors, and to analyze sustainability performance of the system by balancing these factors. Sustainable manufacturing systems should be profitable and environmentally friendly while being safe both physically and socially for everyone in the system. This thesis work highlights the main aspects and requirements of sustainability, which are related to manufacturing systems, demonstrating that there are other aspects of sustainability in general that are not reflective on manufacturing. This work also highlights many useful assessment indices of manufacturing sustainability, which makes quantification, and then comparison and optimization of system performance possible. A comparative study on the existing sustainability assessment tools is performed to classify these tools based on appropriateness to manufacturing systems and limitations by reviewing the significant research work in system modeling for assessing and optimizing manufacturing sustainability. The review has revealed that the triple bottom line TBL factors, economic, social and environmental, are difficult to evaluate and optimize simultaneously due to the complex nature of manufacturing systems and the wide variety of processes and type of the system. Furthermore, the review has demonstrated that there is significant research gap in considering social sustainability for overall sustainability characterization. The consideration and the integration of social sustainability with other factors make this framework unique and more functional. Three case studies have been conducted to understand the applicability of this novel framework. The first case study reveals the difficulties associated with achieving social sustainability as most of the parameters in social sustainability are intangible in nature that’s why it is difficult to optimize the parameters associated with social sustainability. The last two case studies are analyzed to evaluate the sustainability in oil and gas industry with the help of fuzzy interference modelling. Fuzzy interference modelling is the core unit of decision making and mathematical reasoning of the sustainability assessment simulation, when the outcomes are uncertain. The modelling is built with the help of triangle membership functions to fuzzify the variables. Fuzzy rules like ‘IF THEN’ along with operators “OR” or “AND” then come into play for generating necessary decision rules. In this work, these decision rules aggregately simulate and generate the overall sustainability assessment results for case studies 2 and 3. All case studies strongly demonstrate the pragmatic and facile application of the proposed framework to assess the overall sustainability in continuous manufacturing context. Finally, the scope of future research work is also presented for the proposed novel framework.
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    Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility and Online Donation in Intercollegiate Sports
    (2015-07) Hwang, Geumchan
    Intercollegiate athletic departments are relying more on fundraising revenues through donations to cover increasing operating costs. However, there have been no effective strategies through CSR activities to attract college sport fans' online donation intentions. This study examined strategic CSR initiatives in intercollegiate sports. The study was conducted in the form of two sub-studies to students, faculty/staff, alumni, and local resident fans of the University of Minnesota. The first study examined how CSR initiatives through the official athletic site affected fans' online donation intentions in the form of online survey. Study one results revealed 1) information quality of CSR initiatives through the official athletic site affected fans' e-satisfaction with CSR initiatives; 2) fans' e-satisfaction with CSR initiatives affected fans' identification with the athletic department, attachment to the university, and fans' online donation intentions; and 3) ease of donation, utility satisfaction, and receiving services affected fans' online donation intentions. Study two examined how fans' online donation intentions were different according to type of CSR initiatives (fan participatory / information delivery) and media (social media / traditional media) in the form of experimental survey. Study two results demonstrated using fan participatory CSR initiatives had a greater effect on a fan's online donation intention to the athletic department than using information delivery CSR initiatives. In the case of media, communicating CSR initiatives through social media had a greater effect on a fan's online donation intention than communicating CSR initiatives through traditional media.
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    Two essays on the effect of social norms on marketing actions
    (2012-12) Mallucci, Paola
    Research has demonstrated that social norms can impact behavior and consumption in a meaningful way. A better understanding of social norms can result in a better understanding of consumers and of market dynamics and indicate a way for firm to improve their profitability.In Essay 1: The Effect of Social Pressure on Corporate Social Responsibility, I investigate consumers' reactions to products that include donations (a form of Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR). I identify ``warm glow'' and ``social pressure'' as the two principal drivers. On one hand, products offered by CSR-engaged firms are more appealing because of the warm glow consumers derive from choosing a product associated with a donation to their favored causes; such products directly enhance customer utility. On the other hand, once donations reach a threshold amount, consumers might feel social pressure to reciprocate the firm's donation. While such pressure can move some consumers to buy the product, it reduces utility and can lead some consumers to opt out of the market. Plainly, warm glow is favorable to selling CSR products, but does social pressure aversion imply that rational firms will never employ such appeals? Large numbers of firms do rely on social pressure based appeals (e.g., the Pink Ribbon campaign for breast cancer). When and why is this a wise choice?In two separate experiments, I find evidence for warm glow and social pressure effects. I formalize and quantify these effects with a novel utility function that embodies these opposing effects and find them to be of the same order of magnitude; hence, both are managerially relevant. To develop this idea further, I build a model of a profit-maximizing firm that recognizes these warm glow and social pressure aversion preferences of its customers. Under a duopolistic market structures, I find that if warm glow is large enough, a firm will also engage in social pressure appeals despite its customers' aversion to social pressure. Put differently, despite its negative effect on consumers' preferences, employing social pressure in a CSR context can be profitable. Why? Intuitively, social pressure diminishes price sensitivity. In Essay 2: Fairness Ideals in Distribution Channels, I examine the norm of fairness. Existing research suggests that concerns for fairness may significantly affect the interactions between firms in a distribution channel. I analytically and experimentally evaluate how firms make decisions in a two-stage dyadic channel, in which firms decide on investments in the first stage and then on prices in the second stage. I find that firms' behavior differs significantly from the predictions of the standard economic model and is consistent with the existence of fairness concerns. Using a Quantal Response Equilibrium (QRE) model, in which both the manufacturer and retailer make noisy best responses, I show fairness significantly impacts channel pricing decisions. Additionally, I compare four principles of distributive fairness: strict egalitarianism, liberal egalitarianism, and libertarianism, previously considered in the fairness literature, and a new principle of distributive fairness the sequence-aligned ideal that is studied first time in literature. Surprisingly, the new ideal, according to which the sequence of moving determines the formation of equitable payoff for players, significantly outperforms other fairness ideals.