Integrative Learning Toward Social Responsibility in Teaching Engineering

Technical University of Madrid, within the Spanish context, has profited of the introduction of a System of Internal Quality Assurance to build a road on the grounds of previous work on the culture of ethics in engineering. This way may drive the students training to incorporate in their curricula instruments leading to the recognition and acquisition of social responsibility. The road is paved with various educational elements, either mandatory such as the Mentoring project (aiming to minimize the gap in the transit between high school and university from a logistical point of view), or optional such a set of three: Monitoring (a system of academic support for improving the performance of in the students in their learning outcomes when face difficulties), Service Learning and Social Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Values in Engineering. This strategy combined with the convergence to the European Higher Education Area allows the selection of students able to integrate in their professional assets the idea and the commitment of making the human development more sustainable.

Developing an Integration Framework for Crowdsourcing and Internet of Things With Applications for Disaster Response

The crowdsourcing and Internet of Things (IoT) have played a significant role in revolutionizing the information age. In response to pressing need, we have attempted to develop a theoretical framework which can help disaster relief workers to improve their coordination using valuable information derived using comprehensive crowdsourcing framework. In this study we have used two-prong research strategies. First we have conducted extensive review of articles published in reputable journals, magazines and blogs by eminent practitioners and policy makers followed by case studies: stampede in Godavari River at Rajahmundry (2015), earthquake in Nepal (2015), flood in Uttarakhand (2013). Finally we have concluded our research findings with further research directions.

Ethical Behavior and the Development Paradigm

Marketplace ethical behaviour is quite difficult to practice because it stands at cross purposes with commercial objectives. Both companies and consumers look for short term benefits in preference over practices that are sustainable or planet friendly. The thinking that dominates development economics globally is to buy, use and throw. Companies like to launch new products all the time encouraging consumers to buy new and bigger models, packaged attractively, on which margins are higher, throwing away perfectly fine and working products. Ethical behaviour – whether it is sourcing of raw materials to paying workers adequately – entails additional costs and efforts. Modifying behaviour or inculcating long term thinking is not an easy task. This chapter looks at existing behaviour both of companies and consumers. It also describes ways in which business and government policy needs to change to encourage long-term thinking in society to change lifestyles across the board.

Business and Technology Trends in Social CRM

Social media technologies have transformed the traditional CRM applications landscape in many ways. Apart from extending the traditional customer touch points, social media technologies play a critical role in integrating the activities involved in operational and analytical CRM. This chapter explores the business and technology trends in social CRM and examines current social CRM solutions and their capabilities in the analytical and operational (sales, service, and marketing) efforts of organizations. The chapter also discusses the technological and managerial challenges organizations may face in embracing social media technologies in their customer relationship management processes.

Women as Social Entrepreneurs in Turkey

Entrepreneurship has been an attractive topic for scholars over several decades. However, social entrepreneurship has remained relatively understudied in scale and scope. More specifically, the aspect of women in entrepreneurship is mostly untouched. Therefore, this chapter aims to examine the role of women in social entrepreneurship in an emerging economy such as Turkey. This research provides literature on definitions of social entrepreneurship and the differences between social entrepreneurship and business entrepreneurship by taking the historical development of entrepreneurship into account. Secondary data of four difference-maker women entrepreneurs are demonstrated through analyzing videos, newspapers, websites, and interviews of the entrepreneurs. Four different life stories of social entrepreneurs suggest that Turkish women social entrepreneurs face many challenges from their environment. The life stories indicate that they touched women's lives by improving their social status as well as economic conditions.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Business

In this article, the authors propose an analysis of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) concept together with an emphasis on the role it plays in the context of sustainable development. The article includes a synthesis of the various theoretical approaches to CSR, an overview of the development of CSR practices at a national and an international level, certain authors' for and against arguments are related to generalising these practices, trends regarding CSR practices at international level, as well as an analysis of the CSR practices in Romania. The research conclusions express the author's own points of view on the development of corporate social responsibility initiatives at company level and the related benefits thereof.

Crowdsourcing the Disaster Management Cycle

Crowdsourcing is a communication platform that can be used during and after a disastrous event. Previous research in crisis crowdsourcing demonstrates its wide adoption for aiding response efforts by non-government organizations and public citizens. There is a gap in understanding the government use of crowdsourcing for emergency management, and in the use of crowdsourcing for mitigation and preparedness. This research aims to characterize crowdsourcing in all phases of the disaster management cycle by government agencies in Canada and the USA. Semi-structured interviews conducted with 22 government officials from both countries reveal that crisis crowdsourced information is used in all phases of the disaster management cycle, though direct crowdsourcing is yet to be applied in the pre-disaster phases. Emergency management officials and scholars have an opportunity to discover new ways to directly use crowdsourcing for mitigation and preparedness.

Social Responsibility, Shared Value, and Business Modelling

While more and more businesses incorporate sustainability in their core business strategy, there has recently been a shift from corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the notion of creating shared value (CSV). This thesis investigates the emergence of new hybrid enterprises and innovative business models. Starting from a literature review about CSR and its evolution into the “Big Idea” proposed by Porter and Kramer, the chapter will analyse the link between business and society, especially in the developing countries where this link is stronger. The main aim is to identify the most effective business models that enhance the competitiveness of a company, while simultaneously advancing the economic and social conditions in the communities in which it operates. The general idea is that enterprises should have longer-term perspective on how they operate in relation to the external society and environment, addressing societal needs and challenges through the business itself, within a business model.

Sustainability and Competitive Advantage

Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility have been perceived for many years by companies only as an annoyance, involving regulations and extra cost. The recent economic downturn and increasing stakeholder pressure have forced businesses to embrace the complexity and interdependencies between shareholder value and sustainable value. Sustainability-driven innovation is the key to overcoming the old conflict between economic and social objectives and, as in the case of Patagonia Inc., is paying off for a growing number of companies as it generates a sustainable competitive advantage. This chapter explores ways in which corporations can pursue economic, social, and environmental objectives simultaneously while creating shared values. It also looks into the very complex issue of measuring both the business and social impacts of shared-value strategies.

Framing Sustainable Practices

This paper develops and clarifies social intrapreneurship theory by examining the “how” of effective intrapreneurial championing. More specifically, the authors consider the following research question: How does the manner in which middle managers frame sustainable practices influence successful championing outcomes? The authors integrate the natural-resource-based view of the firm with research on middle management championing behaviors and issue-contingent models of ethical decision making to propose a model of sustainability championing for social intrapreneurs. To that end, propositions are developed concerning the relationship between the types of sustainable practice championed, how the argument for a given practice is framed, and successful championing outcomes. This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on social intrapreneurship, providing insight into how intrapreneurial championing can be more effective and building a foundation for future research.