Frankenstein and Bladerunner Table

IdeaFrankensteinContextBladerunnerContext Doppelganger, defining qualities of humans and monsters†¢Doppelgangers confront †¢Ambiguity of narrative: M not real unless F story verified > connection between the two (Gothic) †¢Quest for knowledge, revenge, masculinity, eloquence, love of nature: M: â€Å"The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal nature bade me weep no more† and F: â€Å"my spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature† †¢Humanity vs. ambition †¢Solidarity vs. connection Blurring between the two – creativity, logic, beauty, abhorrence †¢Abomination as human > moral dilemma. Isolated, Laconian figure during monologue evokes pity. Rhetorical questions â€Å"Why should I pity man more than he pities me? Shall I respect man when he condemns me? † †¢Ã¢â‚¬Å"the sun shone upon me as upon man†Ã¢â‚¬ ¢City vs. Country, industrial revolution †¢Gothicism – nature, horror, monsters within society †¢Science overthrowing God – still human? †¢Doppelgangers confront †¢Knowledge vs. instinct †¢Group vs. isolated genius †¢Deckard ‘becomes’ a replicant Replicants positioned as logical, responsive , intuitive, beautiful: Z: vitality; L: revenge, fear, brutality; P: Roy’s kiss, positioning of tongue, immature, instinctive, honest kiss with R in front of S; R: instinct, reason, curiosity, humour, understanding and acceptance †¢Z: public place: mash of culture with their hats on, no connection except murder and death †¢L: D’s doppelganger? R (empathy and connection to D) shoots him †¢P: death of abandoned toy: materialism killed her: laughing doll †¢R: renewal, baptism, dove, blue light sky, lasting connection to D†¢Impersonal information society †¢Migration – different cultures > globalisation Contraception†¢ Responsibility of creator and ethical responsibilitie s of scientists†¢F vs. M †¢Tacit deal – F made M so he is responsible for him †¢M = empathy, F = selfishness, ambition †¢V: greatest good for greatest number †¢Progress needs to be tempered by human empathy †¢Pride and ambition lead to suffering †¢Usurpation of God contradicts responders beliefs and highlight ethical breach â€Å"I should have been your Adam, but I am the fallen angel [Lucifer]† †¢F pleads for a mate. Foucaulian shift: M more human â€Å"You must create a mate for me†¦ I demand it as a right to which you must concede† > â€Å"You are my creator but I am you master – obey! †¢empiricism and modernism †¢scientific development and industrial revolution – no questioning of morals – pantheism †¢well received because of hierarchical society – F tells all levels to â€Å"seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition† – confirmation of values†¢ Tyrell vs. Roy †¢Created seeks out creator – dopplegangers †¢Created more perfect than creator †¢Created still dependant though independent of creator †¢Ethereal vs. physical/ sensual †¢Creations ‘more human than human’ †¢Science and progress at detriment of humanity †¢Impersonal and personal connections Tyrell objectifies replicants: â€Å"she is an experiment, nothing more,† â€Å"you are the prodigal son†Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Consumerism †¢Globalisation – transnationalism †¢Capitalism †¢Loss of identity through loss of culture †¢Mass migration †¢Technology as a part of life Criticism of genius†¢Ã¢â‚¬Ëœgenius’ > pride, ambition > downfall †¢Genius removes you from human connection > God complex †¢Progress must not give way to indulgence †¢M. objectified in the quest for scientific advancement †¢Superficiality of society and lack of concern for human suffering †Å"If you could precipitate me into one of those ice- rifts†¦ you would not call it murder. †¢F’s creation and pride is corruption of God’s work (storm) †¢Ã¢â‚¬Å"the cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, he saw around him noting but a dense and frightful darkness† †¢Ã¢â‚¬Å"as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump†¦ entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood† foreshadowing †¢Destruction of innocence and family – Elizabeth, Clerval, William†¢Scientists, philosophers and historians elevated to great levels of importance †¢Reactionaries to change †¢Man creating own destiny – Reformation Effects of industrial revolution – science at the cost of humanity – grave robbers †¢Setting: distinction between nature and human society, the sublime, Romanticism – Byron a nd Percy (criticism – applies both F and M to nature), comfort, science lab and university. †¢Questions pantheism and ‘casual’ science, galvanism†¢Being removed from being human > holding yourself above others > detriment †¢Instinct and logic is greater than intellect (more human) †¢Overcrowded, paradoxical city, C’s inhospitable lab, T’s Godlike palace, S’s dilapidated and pathetic home†¢Impersonal corporatism, mass media †¢Migration – take over of minority groups Archetypical evil genius – society moe used to impersonal figures of power The agony of isolation and the Outsider†¢Progress – isolation †¢Don’t take human connection for granted †¢Destruction of Bride: M’s last hope of connection destroyed (setting) lose hope †¢Humanity vs. M †¢M vs. F†¢Shelley affair > socially shunned †¢Prejudice when revealed she was author (young, 19yo woman)â⠂¬ ¢Genius > isolation †¢Knowledge = power †¢Safety in numbers†¢Tough military life, searching for stability, wanting what’s impossible †¢Impersonal corporate worlds

The government of Australia economic policies is failing Australians

This has increased caused an increase in debt due to loss of employments. This has fur reaching effects in accounts of most institutions which those who are laid off have financial transactions with.Most of those who are laid off are servicing loans or paying for goods or services which they got on credit now they can’t afford to pay. The loans will accrue interest for the months they will not be serviced and most of them would be difficult to be repaid hence financial institutions will report high rate of loan default.Those who will manage to pay might pay it over a long period so they shall pay it with more interest. Companies which have sold goods of on services will have to involve debt collectors who they have to pay commission which would be more than they had budgeted.Companies which are lying of staff are being involved in calculations of benefits and other payments dues. They will also need to recalculate expenses to be incurred based on the staffs that are left such as office expenses.The Australia government will loss on income tax and companies dealing with pension funds will pay more this financial year which would affect their books of accounts.If the government will not put on measures to lower the unemployment rate it shall affect accounting records of different economic sectors. The effects will be realized in this financial year and subsequent years depending on how different sectors shall be able to adapt.ReferencesThe Editor, 2009, Govt policies costing jobs, Available at http://www.wabusinessnews.com.au/en-story/1/71103/Govt-policies-costing-jobs-Turnbull

African American culture

African American Culture The African American culture is one of the more diverse cultures out there. Many of these people practice different beliefs. African Americans live in all parts of the world and just like other cultures African Americans have people that live in what is considered poverty some that are considered middle class and some considered upper class. African Americans come with a lot of interesting thing like the language they speak which is called Ebonics and all the different stereotypes with black American some being negative and some positive. There are three main religions practiced in the black American culture. The first is the most common and that is Christianity, Which is known as the black church. Christianity started back in the slavery days. Many slaves that were brought over were stripped of the African belief system and denied free religious practice; this forced them to become Christians. However slaves managed to hold onto some practices by putting them into Christian worship in secret meetings that were held. These practices include dancing, shouts and African rhythms and enthusiastic singing. Another religion practice in the black culture is Islam. Islam was founded in Detroit Michigan in the 1930’s by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad. Many blacks converted to Islam because they believed that Christianity was what the white slave owners used to control the minds of blacks. Today Islam in the black community is made up of black Americans that come from various backgrounds. The last most common religious practice is Judaism. There are a little over 150,000 African Americans that practice Judaism today. Some of these are members to mainstream Jewish groups like the reform, conservative, or orthodox branches of Judaism. Others belong to non-mainstream Jewish groups like black Hebrew Israelites. The socioeconomic status in black American is a lot different from other status in the American culture, somewhat to the lower end. The median of income in the African American families is just over 34,218, the lowest of any racial group. One out of every five black families lives in poverty. Black men in America hold the highest rate for unemployment, nearly doubling for Caucasian men. Black men that are employed have the second highest median earnings of any other minority group. Single black women with children median income is 29,958. Nearly one out of every three black households is headed by a single woman, highest in female-headed households. Forty percent of the black single mothers are considered poor. African Americans make up 12. 9 percent of the United States population. They are the second largest minority population, following Hispanics. Majority of the blacks live in the south totaling up 55. 6 percent of the black population. The top three states being Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia. The state that has the highest population of African Americans is New York. The African American culture is much bigger than a micro culture. This is because a micro-culture is a small group of people who share the same values, beliefs, and behaviors. The reason why the African American culture is not a micro culture is because there are all types of black Americans of all different types just like any other race. For example you have African Americans the practice different religions. You also have black Americans that come from all over the United States in different cities and neighborhoods with different ways of living and growing up. There are a few concepts in the text that are relevant to the African American culture. The first concept is one of the biggest and that is stereotyping. The systematic study of racial and ethnic stereotypes began in the United States in the 1930s with a study conducted by David Katz and Kenneth Braly. They presented college students with a list of 84 adjectives (lazy, ignorant, and stupid. ) and the traits that came up for black Americans were superstitious, lazy, happy go luck, ignorant, musical, religious. They found out all those traits came up consistently on each students list. Since then there has been a number of different researchers that have replicated Katz and Braly work. In today’s world you find and still here a lot of the stereotypes such as blacks are more athletic, their very loud, they all live in bad neighborhoods, they don’t work. There are a lot of different explanations and ideas why stereotypes on African Americans seem to dominate people’s way of thinking. For example stereotypes are well established in children’s memories well before they acquire the intellectual ability to question or evaluate them. By seeing how parents act and talk about the black community. We also get stereotype ideas by what is on the television and movies now days. The movies and shows always seem to try to make the â€Å"stereotypical† black man or woman. Another Concept that is relevant to the black American culture is the Black English dialect, and Ebonics. A primary way in which members of culture group define themselves and establish in-group and out-group identities is through verbal language. African American differs in their use of language, which is labeled as â€Å"Black language†, â€Å"Black Dialect†. The term Ebonics was first brought up in 1973 and refers to a grammatically complex African American speech pattern. Ebonics or Black language is a unique language created by the slaves. According to John Rickford an Ebonics scholar. He explains Ebonic pronunciations include the omission of the final consonant in words like pas (past) or han (hand) and the pronouncement of the vowel in words like my ride (mah rahd). Overall the African American speech acts are more animated, lively, and forceful than a lot of other cultures speeches. The last relevant concept that will be discussed is the culture and cognition. Culture and cognition refers to people from different areas and backgrounds and how they view and see things. This comes into play with African Americans that grow up in poverty or live with a single parent. Even though this can be associated with any race and culture its more likely with black Americans. With watching an interview on real sports with Bryan Gumble there was a black American on there and he explained the difference between black children growing up and every other culture you had to focus on only one thing to get out of poverty, his reference was â€Å"the hood†. He explained that growing up the only thing that could get black children out of the hood was sports. It wasn’t good grades and doing well in school because that was just a bonus. He said good grades wouldn’t pay for college but a football or basketball scholarship would. By all that he didn’t think a lot of other cultures had to worry about those things, that’s what made African American think and act different in different situations. In conclusion, the African American culture has many different religions they practice; they stay in all parts of the United States and just like multiple other cultures, people seem to stereotype. All in all the African American culture is one of the more diverse cultures out there.

Financial Crises in the United States Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Financial Crises in the United States - Essay Example These events have also led to major banks of the US creating an emergency package to rescue any ailing financial institution which is in need of assistance. The Federal government has also moved in to ensure that it has a bailout package to rescue financial institutions. The New York Times article expresses concern about the greater repercussions of these events. It worries that it would increase the unemployment rate (Sorkin, 2008). It also is concerned about the thousands of employees working at Merrill and Lehman Brothers. The precarious condition of these companies was because of their inadequate investments in real estate during an economic boom. These investments were not secure which weakened the financial conditions of both companies. Most banks did not want to purchase Lehman Brothers because of the essential risks associated with it. The article also expresses concern about the financial health of AIG (Sorkin, 2008). It can be concluded that these events have sent shockwave s throughout the American financial system. In this article, it is learned that the Federal Reserve has not reduced interest rates which has been demanded by Wall Street and financial institutions. But despite this, the Federal Reserve states in the article that it would closely monitor and observe the crisis. It has been investigating and analyzing the financial crisis which has slowed down economic growth in the United States of America (Reddy, 2008). Other major actions have included lending government support for troubled financial institutions. The main focus of the article is about whether further reducing the interest rates will have any impact on the economy or not. One school of thought believes that lowering the interest rates further would be risky and devastating for the US economy. Others blame the Federal Reserve for keeping low interest rates since 2001 (Reddy, 2008). They blame this for

Personal statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 33

Personal Statement Example I am almost through pursuing the undergraduate degree and I am determined to learn more about marketing but specifically the world of advertising. In my undergraduate studies, other than the marketing elective, I also took global branding as the other elective. This involved learning about the immense world of branding and the cultures that fuel it from a global perspective. This elective opened up my curiosity further about the marketing course in general. Advertising is my special course because it involves engaging in an endless pool of creative possibilities. I am not one of the most creative of the individuals in the world but I still have my own share of bright ideas which if polished with further education can be perfected and especially when using technology. I do not have a very elaborate or really amazing experience in the marketing field or even specifically in advertisement. This has been mainly because of working in a family business during my holidays and hence my experience is not in one special business area but is rather rounded. I have only been able to attend a single internship during my entire course period but since I am in my final year of undergraduate study, I plan on securing another internship or at least a job I a marketing company. My lack of work experience in the marketing field or advertising specifically is in no way a hindrance to my planned career path but is merely a stumbling block which I plan on turning into a stepping stone. My educational experiences for the entire undergraduate study has taught me that in order to succeed in marketing or in making of any advertisement, an understanding of the business working as well as the global understanding of the global business trends in an important background. I have acquired the general business working concept and with my theoretical knowledge on marketing, I am ready to focus my

Human Resource Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Human Resource Management - Assignment Example Leadership Development Challenges – an Analysis Among many challenges that HR faces, leadership development is one of the most crucial for developing organization’s capability to accomplish leadership tasks at different levels and meet company objectives. It will be most appropriate, at this juncture, to quote Peter Drucker before describing how HRM can play a pivotal role in solving the leadership development issue. â€Å"It (leadership) is not ‘making friends and influencing people’ – that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations" (Drucker, 1986 p.159). Drucker has succinctly described leadership requirements in the above sentences; however, it is crucial to explore why leadership development has become so important in the current times. In wake of globalization, the business environmen t has changed drastically. In the last decade or so, changes have happened so rapidly that future has become unpredictable. Challenges are so complicated that there are no straight solutions to the problems involved. The world has become increasingly seamless and resources move quickly across the globe. Even small changes lead to large effects in any organization. Solutions need to emerge from within as they cannot come from outside. That is where leadership development challenges of HRM are significant in the years to come.

The Collapse And Recovery Of Societies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Collapse And Recovery Of Societies - Essay Example He argued that geography had a large role in determining which societies advanced and which stagnated. By advancement, this does not pertain to a Eurocentric thinking, but one where a greater value was placed on societies that were able to defend themselves from the colonization attacks of the Europeans. After all, numerous societies that did not withstand the technology, resources, and diseases of the European conquistadores mostly died out centuries ago. Societies collapsed because of environmental and human-made constraints and problems, and they recovered because of the ability of humans to be flexible and to adapt to their conditions, sometimes to the extent of being inhuman to other human beings. Environmental limitations delayed the growth of societies or led to their collapse. Diamond compared and contrasted the availability of plants and animals that can be domesticated in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Papua New Guinea. He learned that countries with highly advanced societies ha d more domesticated animals and plants. Of the fourteen animal species that can be domesticated, 12 are native to Eurasia (Diamond, 2005, episode 1). South America domesticated the llama, while the farmers of New Guinea domesticated the pig. But pigs cannot plow farm lands, and by the time the Europeans arrived at Papua New Guinea at the 20th century, New Guinean farming depended on their hands (Diamond, 2005, 1). As for the distribution of domesticated plant species in the world, many of them are native to Europe and Asia, such as wheat, barley and rice. Only two plant species are native to Tropical Africa (sorghum and yams), only one is native to the Americas (corn), and one in Papua New Guinea (taro). Australian natives had no domesticable plant available to them (Diamond, 2005, 1). The distribution of natural resources proves that geography consequently affected the interests and activities of the people. Human-made problems contributed to the collapse of civilizations. The sect ion â€Å"Recovery in China: The Ming Dynasty† described the descent of the Mongol’s Yuan dynasty. Some of their major problems are economic and political by nature. Financial mismanagement disabled the state from supporting public goods and services. In addition, political division produced factions among Mongols. Soon, the Mongols left China altogether in a state of financial and political ruin. In the case of the Incas, their civilization died because of the steel technology of the Europeans, among other factors. In Episode 2 of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond (2005) explained the geographical advantages of the Europeans. Geography provided Europe with rich sources of iron and wood, and a climate that suited high-temperature metallurgy (Diamond, 2005, 2). Geography helped the communication of ideas and technologies too. Gunpowder travelled thousands of miles, where it originated from China and exported to Spain (Diamond, 2005, 2). At the same time, the competition i n Europe resulted to a kind of â€Å"medieval arms race† (Diamond, 2005, 2). Pizarro's conquistadors already accessed the latest and best weapons technology: guns and swords (Diamond, 2005, 2). The Incas, on the contrary, did not work on iron as a weapon and did not have access to gun power (Diamond, 2005, 2). Warfare technology did not reach their isolated territories too (Diamond, 2005, 2). Hence, the Incas faced the problem of poor access to resources and knowhow regarding warfare technology. Through the â€Å"steel† part of the colonization process, a hundred conquistadores were enough to wipe out tens and

Australia taxation law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Australia taxation law - Essay Example The first task identified was the determination of whether, for tax purposes, the Finlays are considered residents of Australia. The determination was made that the Finlays were considered residents based upon the residency test. According to Australian Tax Law the Finlays are considered residents because they were in Australia for 6 months or more during the 2006/2007 tax year. They also meet residency requirements because they met one or more of the three statutory residency tests. They are considered residents because they maintain a residence in Australia, have resided in Australia for 6 months during the tax year, and they contribute to the superannuation retirement fund. The biggest question to answer about residency and foreign income is what is taxable and what is not taxable. It has already been determined that the Finlays meet residency requirements for tax purposes. Although the tax forms ask for foreign income and foreign taxes paid on those earnings, the tax forms do not explain why. The first determination was that the income was earned in a country that has already taxed the income. If the foreign income was earned but not taxed it would be subject to taxation by the Australian Government. ... d States and Australia was created for "the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income" (Australian Taxation Office website). This protocol covers all aspects of income earned in the United States. Most specifically, relating to this case study, income earned within the United States is taxed by the United States. Any income not taxed is considered taxable income in Australia and residents of Australia are subject to taxation on that income earned. It is very important for the individual to report foreign income and whether or not it was taxed. All records relating to the income and taxes paid should be kept as proof of income earned and taxes paid. Taxation also applies to dividends earned, interest earned, royalties, and capital gains earned in the United States. In this case study Andrew's earnings were taxed but dividends, capital gains, and interest earned in the United States were not taxed so they are subject to taxation i n Australia. Other instance where income may not have been taxed by the United States include the following: 1) the income is less than the amount where taxation begins 2) the income falls into an exempt category in the foreign country 3) a memorandum of understanding exists 4) The income consists of supplements paid by the Australian Staffing Assistance Scheme 5) The foreign country levies a tax but does not have a system in place to collect those taxes TaxPack and Forms. This case study was completed using the Australian Taxation Office's "TaxPack" retrievable from their website at www.ato.gov.au. The TaxPack for individuals, supplement section, and Business and professional items schedule for individuals 2007. In addition, the rental property worksheet was used to

Flying the flags Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Flying the flags - Essay Example The airline industry is significant considering that it is one of the largest capital intensive industry segments and in addition to its contribution to the GDP it also provides employment options to a large number of individuals. The airline industry is prone to various external aspects like oil price, government regulations and market distortions. However the airline industry has shown signs of revival with all the major economies in Europe being put back on the path of economic growth. A report by Mott McDonald pegs the present value of the airline market in Europe would increase by approximately 2.3 percent by the year 2025 (Mott McDonald, 2011). Another significant aspect that has changed the shape of the aviation industry is the advent of Low Cost Carriers (LCC) following the de regulation of the aviation industry by the European and US governments. These players have grabbed a significant market share owning to their aspect of low cost which has provided them with a competitiv e advantage (European Commission & United States Department of Transportation, 2010, p.3). Mergers and acquisitions have become one of the most vital strategies that have been adopted by market players across the world including Europe to increase their market share as a means to improve the product mix (Siebert, 1989, p.10-11). Review of the EU Airline industry Europe constitutes one of the most important markets for the participants of the airline industry. The mammoth size of the European aviation market can be analysed from the fact that there are approximately 450airpots in the region which ferried approximately 751 million passengers in 2009 alone. The market has about 150 scheduled airline companies including full service and low cost carriers. In addition to this fact the aviation industry provided direct employment to about 500000 individuals and had an approximate turnover amounting 100 billion Euros as of the year 2009. The aviation industry apart from being a significant contributor towards the economy and growth of the region also serves as a means to bring together people from different regions and provides integration or all the member states of Europe as well as with the rest of the world (European Commission, 2011, p.5). Figure 1: 20 Year forecast for the Airline Industry (Source: Mott McDonald, 2011) The figure above shows the forecasted growth rates in both cargo as well as passenger segments of the European aviation market. It is clear from the figure that the airlines industry in Europe is expected to show growth rates of 5 percent and 6.1 percent in the passenger and cargo sections respectively by the year 2026 on a year on year basis. This is even more significant considering the fact that the European airline market was severely impacted by the terrorist attacks in US in 2001 as well as the financial meltdown in the recent years. The recovery of nations in the European Union has again created hopes for the resurgence of the European air line industry. Figure 2: Major Market Players in Europe and their levels of consolidations (Source: Buttner & Burger, 2008, p.8) The major market players in the European Union are shown in the figure above. The major airlines of the EU are trying to aggressively expand their business by undertaking consolidations by using strategies like mergers and

Margaret Sanders influences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Margaret Sanders influences - Essay Example At that time it was the early deaths of many women forced to bear far too many children that prompted Sanger’s actions. We know today that bearing many children takes a huge toll on the mothers, and we also recognize the importance of population control. However, in the early part of the twentieth century the attitude was very different. Many churches taught that it was the Christian duty to have as many children as possible to honor God and love Jesus. Though Sanger never said it in so many words, she certainly believed, as shown by her actions, that Jesus does not love hunger forced upon children by men who think they know God’s mind. In her debate with Russell she even mentions that poor children are destined to a life of hard labor and an early death. She blames rising insanity on the reproduction of women in the sex trade with venereal disease. The Roman Catholic church still forbids artificial birth control as do some protestant churches, citing several quotes from the Bible that could be interpreted as forbidding it. At the same time, the rights of women in marriage were nonexistent. A woman had to submit to her husband whenever he wanted sex or he could simply stop feeding her, as Sanger also pointed out in that debate. Frankly, Sanger was desperate to free women from this kind of slavery and she believed that she was also saving the children and even their fathers from losing the mother. Her own mother died young after having six children. "She associated it with dim fears of her father, sorrow and drudgery after the death of her mother, bitterness over the ostracism which a Catholic town dealt the village agnostics daughter, and jealousy toward the gracious ladies who lived on the hilltops.1 Sanger’s activism was actually begun when she started associating with the activists who populated. Her husband’s successful career allowed them access to Mabel Dodge’s Salon where Sanger met such luminaries as Big Bill Haywood,

Jon Lebed Essay Example for Free

Jon Lebed Essay Summary: In this case study we learn about Jonathan Lebed, at 15 years old, the youngest person during that time and the first minor to ever to face proceedings by the SEC for stock-market fraud. In 2000, Jonathan Lebed caused chaos in the stock trading industry and was accused of â€Å"pumping and dumping† stocks over the Internet. Between September 1999 and February 2000 Lebed made hundreds of thousands of dollars by posting in internet chat rooms and on message boards encouraging people to buy penny stocks he already owned, thus, according to the SEC, artificially raising the price of the stock. Lebed was found guilty by the SEC of wrong doing under Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 which addresses fraud in the use on interstate commerce. Under these acts it is unlawful for a person to intentionally provide false statements for the purposes of deceiving buyers. The SEC settled with him for a $285,000 of his earnings. His actions proved that the Internet could be a very powerful tool for fraud. The Context: The moral tone of the case study we were given to read, written by Michael Lewis, almost seemed to be a defense as to why what Jonathan had done should have been acceptable. Lewis seemed to portray Jonathan as just a kid doing what all financial analyst and stock gurus do daily, but since Jonathan was 15, and doing it well, then the Securities and Exchange Commission was â€Å"picking† on him. At times in the story their was a sense on emotional disarray, and no one wanting to be the blame or accept responsibility for the situation, especially between Jonathans, his mother, and father. Broader Ethical Perspective: In the case it was obvious that Jonathan did not have the best interest of all the parties involved in his best interest, which to me constitutes for one of the first red flags of the lack of ethical behavior. He also never showed care or any remorse of any potential wrong doing for anyone who may have been a victim to his gimmicks; he never took responsibility for his actions.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries

Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries Corporate Social Responsibility in developing countries such as India using Tata Nano as a case study 1. Introduction A companys main business objective is maximisation of shareholders wealth by means of achieving higher profit. Business managers are entrusted with shareholders money so that they could run the company efficiently and profitably. According to Sloan (1964) â€Å"the strategic aim of a business is to earn a return on capital and if any particular case the return in the long run is not satisfactory, then the deficiency should be corrected or the activity abandoned for a more favourable one.† This suggests that companies are run for profit motives and this should be the top most priority of any management. However Globalisation has brought about a change in notion concerning the business objective of any company, arguments are being put forward that the business activities must take into account human and social welfare. According to Peter Drucker (1954), â€Å"the enterprise is an organ of society and its actions have a decisive impact on the social scene. It is thus important for management to realize that it must consider the impact of every business policy and business actions upon society. It has to consider whether the action is likely to promote the public good, to advance the basic belief of society, to contribute to its stability, strength and harmony†. A business enterprise is a major user of nature, society and environment; therefore it must be responsible towards their protection and development. Depletion of natural resources and causes like global warming has brought a lot attention to the sustainable use of these resources and companies are going to play a major role in ensuring this. So this marks a shift in the company objective that no longer can they only be guided by the sole aim of making profit but they should be take actions to ensure the welfare of the society in which they operate. This brings out the concept of â€Å"Corporate Social Responsibility†: Corporations acting as citizens of a society in a responsible manner ensuring the well beings of others in the society. The International Standards Organisation (ISO) describes CSR as â€Å"a balanced approach for organisations to address economic, social and environmental issues in a way that aims to benefit people, community and society† (ISO, 2002). 1.1 Rationale behind the Research Corporate social responsibility has gained widespread attention in most developed countries; policies practices are being developed by corporations to abide by standards of environment pollution, use of human capital etc. However in less developed countries this is not a much heard or debated topic. According to Steiner Steiner (2000), â€Å"In less developed countries there is often no indigenous sense of corporate responsibility.† There are a lot of loopholes in the system and business activities are not often concentrated on human/ social welfare. Austin (1990) argues that the extremity and pervasiveness of poverty in less developed countries places a special responsibility on business, as a vehicle for creating economic progress that will help alleviate this deprivation. With developing economies a lot of importance is given to industrial upliftment and that might come at a cost of social welfare or benefit. This research aims to identify the CSR policies and practices being in use in developing countries such as India with a special reference to TATA Nano. India is a developing country which has recorded a growth rate of more than 9% for 3 years upto 2008 and has seen a decade of 7% growth. (www.economicshelp.org: accessed on 10th January 2010). In spite of the global economic slowdown is slated to grow at around 7.5% for this year (2010). The rapid growth in economy has increased the standards of living and has created huge disposable income among Indians. The car manufacturers are taking advantage of this huge growth and are coming up with various models to tap into this growing market. TATA one of the most reputed business firms of India have come up with a car called TATA Nano which is slated to be the cheapest car in the world. The price is kept at $2500 which is equivalent to 100,000 INR. The objective behind this to make four wheelers available to every common man in India; this is touted to be a very big success. I have my own reservations concerning it; what if masses can afford this car, will it not increase the fuel consump tion, thereby creating more pollution? Will it not put a huge burden on roads which are already suffering from traffic congestion? This research aims to find out whether TATA is acting in a responsible manner by launching this car. 1.2 Objectives The research can be subdivided into four parts: 1. To identify the state of CSR in developing countries such as India 2. To evaluate public awareness concerning issues such as CSR in India 3. To evaluate the impact of TATA Nano on environment, traffic congestion, demand for fuel etc 4. To suggest a number of ways in which companies in developing countries can develop frameworks to act in a more responsible manner 2. Literature Review There are numerous ways to classify the literature on CSR in developing countries i.e. in terms of content (thematic coverage), type (epistemological approach), and level (focus of analysis). The analysis would be done by each way separately: 2.1 Content Theme We would use the same classification as Lockett et al. (2006) did, the CSR literature can be categorized into four CSR themes: social, environmental, ethics, and stakeholders. One point that immediately comes to light by applying this categorization to the literature on CSR is that, in contrast to Lockett et al.s (2006) findings that most CSR articles in top management journals focus on ethical and environmental themes, most scholarly work on CSR in developing countries focuses on the social theme. Also social issues are in general given more political, economic, and media coverage in developing countries than environmental, ethical, or stakeholder issues (Schmidheiny, 2006). 2.2 Knowledge Type Lockett et al. (2006) had also classified the CSR literature by knowledge type. He found even split between theoretical and empirical research. Lockett et al. (2006) found that 89% of theoretical CSR papers are non-normative, in the CSR in developing countries literature, the balance is far more evenly split. This is mainly because relatively large number of papers on the role of â€Å"business in development† tends to adopt a normative, critical perspective (Blowfield and Frynas, 2005). Also if we see empirical research, there are also differences. According to Lockett et al. (2006), the CSR literature is dominated by quantitative methods (80%), while CSR papers on developing countries are more likely to be qualitative. Most research on CSR in developing countries to date has either generalized about all developing countries (e.g. Frynas, 2006), or focused at a national level. In terms of generic literature, Corporate Citizenship in developing countries (Pedersen and Huniche, 2006) is a useful compendium, as are special issues on CSR in developing countries that have appeared in the Journal of Corporate Citizenship (issue 24, 2006), International Affairs (81(3), 2005) and Development (47(3), 2004). Despite the focus on countries in the literature, only about a fifth of all developing countries have had any CSR journal articles published on them. Of these, the most commonly analyzed and written about countries are China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, and Thailand. Analysis at a regional level (notably Africa, Asia, and Latin America) is becoming more common, but papers at the sector, corporate, or individual level remain relatively scarce. 2.3 Global Most of the literature concentrates on CSR in a global context and there is very little empirical research on the nature and extent of CSR in developing countries. One notable exception is Baskins (2006) research on the reported corporate responsibility behavior of 127 leading companies from 21 emerging markets across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe, which he compares with over 1,700 leading companies in high-income OECD countries. Looking at three generic indicators of CSR, Baskin (2006) finds that emerging market companies have a respectable representation in the Dow Jones â€Å"Sustainability Index† and show rising levels of take-up of the Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 14001. Baskin (2006) also showed that emerging markets lag the OECD significantly on reporting on business ethics and equal opportunities, are roughly at par on environmental reporting, and show comparable reporting variance on women on company boards, training and occupation al health and safety . Despite the limitations of using reporting as an indicator of CSR performance and the danger of representing regions by just a few countries (e.g. only two of the 53 countries in Africa were included in the sample), the Baskin (2006) study does provide some insight into the level of CSR activity in developing countries, concluding that: ‘there is not a vast difference in the approach to reported corporate responsibility between leading companies in high income OECD countries and their emerging-market peers. Nonetheless, corporate responsibility in emerging markets, while more extensive than commonly believed, is less embedded in corporate strategies, less pervasive and less politically rooted than in most high-income OECD countries (p. 46). 2.4 Regional Asia Major coverage of the Asia in the field of CSR often focus on China (e.g. Zhuang and Wheale, 2004), India (e.g. Balasubramanian et al., 2005), Indonesia (e.g. Blowfield, 2004), Malaysia (e.g. Zulkifli and Amran, 2006), Pakistan (e.g. Lund-Thomsen, 2004), and Thailand (e.g. Kaufman et al., 2004). Other countries that have had less attention include Bangladesh (Nielsen, 2005), the Pacific Forum Islands (Prasad, 2004), Sri Lanka (Luken and Stares, 2005), and Vietnam (Prieto-Carron, 2006b). Birch and Moon (2004) noted that â€Å"CSR performance varies greatly between countries in Asia, with a wide range of CSR issues being tackled (e.g. education, environment, employee welfare) and modes of action (e.g. foundations, volunteering, and partnerships)†. In one of the survey on CSR reporting in Asia, Chapple and Moon (2005) find that nearly three quarters of large companies in India present themselves as having CSR policies and practices versus only a quarter in Indonesia and between t hese two extremes are Thailand (42%), Malaysia (32%), and the Philippines (30%). They also infer from the research that the evolution of CSR in Asia tends to occur in three waves, first being community involvement followed by successive second and third waves of socially responsible production processes and employee relations. In a comparative survey of CSR in 15 countries across Europe, North America, and Asia, Welford (2005) speculates that the low response rates from countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, and Thailand may in itself be an indicator of CSR being less prevalent in developing countries. This seems to be borne out by the research findings, in which these countries fairly consistently underperform when compared with developed countries across 20 aspects of CSR measured by the survey. Africa The literature on CSR in Africa is predominantly based on South Africa (Visser, 2005a), while other pockets of research exist for Cà ´te DIvoire (e.g. Schrage and Ewing, 2005), Kenya (e.g. Dolan and Opondo, 2005), Nigeria (e.g. Amaeshi et al., 2006), Tanzania (e.g. Egels, 2005), and Mali and Zambia (e.g. Hamann et al., 2005). Very few papers are focused on industry sectors, with traditionally high impact sectors like agriculture (e.g. Blowfield, 2003), mining (e.g. Kapelus, 2002), and petrochemicals (e.g. Acutt et al., 2004) featuring most prominently. Two of the best sources of literature on Africa are Corporate Citizenship in Africa (Visser et al., 2006) and the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Africa (issue 18, summer 2005). The latter concludes that ‘academic institutions and researchers focusing specifically on corporate citizenship in Africa remain few and under-developed (Visser et al., 2005: 19). This is confirmed by a review of the CSR literatu re on Africa between 1995 and 2005 (Visser, 2006a), which found that that only 12 of Africas 53 countries have had any research published in core CSR journals, with 57% of all articles focused on South Africa and 16% on Nigeria. The latter partly reflects the high media profile generated around corporate citizenship issues and the petrochemical sector, especially focused on Shell and their impacts on the Ogoni people (Ite, 2004). Economic and philanthropic aspects of CSR, rather than the legal and ethical responsibilities, will continue to dominate CSR conceptualization and practice in Africa (Visser, 2007). Corporate social responsibility in South America is not as much covered subject as other underdeveloped countries (Haslam, 2007), the focus has been mainly concentrated on Argentina (e.g. Newell and Muro, 2006), Brazil (e.g. Vivarta and Canela, 2006) and Mexico (e.g. Weyzig, 2006), although Nicaragua (Prieto-Carron, 2006a) and Venezuela (Peindado-Vara, 2006) also feature. De Oliveira in 2006 has noted that the Corporate social responsibility agenda in South America has been heavily influenced by socio-economic and political conditions, which have invariably led to problems like, unemployment, in- equality, and crime. Schmidheiny has in 2006 stated that Corporate social responsibility has ushered a positive effect in South America. The trend towards increasing CSR in the region has been generally upward. For example, Correa et al. has reported in his article in 2004 that by 2004 there were thousand South American companies which were member of organization called EMPRESA (the hemisphe re-wide CSR network), another three hundred companies were members of the â€Å"World Business Council† for Sustainable Development, also another fourteen hundred had obtained ISO 14001 certification, and one hundred eighteen had signed UN Global Compact. 2.5 Motivations Until now we have classified the CSR literature on a regional level. To further see the difference between the CSR in developing countries and developed countries we would now isolate motivations for CSR in developing countries, with the help of this we would be able to see why the CSR in developing countries is so unique. Some of the motivations for CSR that I have isolated with the help of literature review are: 2.5.1 Cultural Tradition The term CSR has been widely used in western countries and hence there is a widespread believe that CSR is a Western thing but on the contrary there is evidence that CSR in developing countries has been around for centuries and its man pillar has been deep-rooted indigenous cultural traditions of philanthropy and business ethics. An excellent example was given by, Visser and Macintosh in 1998 they have quoted that â€Å"the ethical condemnation of usurious business practices in developing countries that practice Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity dates back thousands of years†. Another example was given by Frynas (2006) ‘business practices based on moral principles were advocated by the Indian statesman and philosopher Kautilya in the 4th century BC. If we take South American context, Sanborn (2002), quoted in Logsdon et al. (2006) that ‘varied traditions of community self-help and solidarity stretch back to the regions pre-Hispanic cultures, and include t he mutual aid societies, trade unions and professional associations that emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Logsdon et al.s (2006) stated that â€Å"One myth is that CSR in Mexico is new, another is that US firms brought CSR to Mexico, and a third is that CSR as practised by Mexican firms simply reflects the CSR patterns and activities of US firms†. Even if we take CSR for more modern times I have found that it was heavily influenced by local culture, Vivess (2006) had conducted survey of over 1,300 enterprises in South America, his findings were that the regions religious beliefs are one of the major motivations for CSR. Also Nelson (2004) founded that Buddhist traditions in Asia are aligned with CSR. Also for Asia, Chapple and Moon (2005) had reached a same conclusion, that â€Å"CSR does vary considerably among Asian countries but that this variation is not explained by [levels of] development but by factors in the respective national business systems†, t his was consistent with Birch and Moons (2004) finding in his paper for the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Asia. If we take African the findings are same, Amaeshi et al. (2006) found that CSR in Nigeria is heavily influenced by local socio-cultural influences like communalism, ethnic religious beliefs, and charitable traditions. 2.5.2 Political Upheaval CSR in developing countries are heavily influenced by the social and political reforms, which drives business behavior towards integrating social and ethical issues. De Oliveira (2006) has argued that â€Å"the political and associated social and economic changes in Latin America since the 1980s, including democratization, liberalization, and privatization, have shifted the role of business towards taking greater responsibility for social and environmental issues†. A recent example can be the case of South Africa, the political changes towards democracy and end of decades of apartheid have been a significant driver for CSR, through the practice of improved corporate governance (Roussouw et al., 2002), collective business action for social upliftment (Fourie and Eloff, 2005) has led to black economic empowerment (Fig, 2005), and business ethics (Malan, 2005). Visser (2005a) lists more than a dozen examples of socio-economic, environmental, and labor-related legislative reform i n South Africa between 1994 and 2004 that have a direct bearing on CSR. Another excellent example can be given of many central and eastern European countries which have been recently inducted into European Union, these countries have now shifted towards CSR .(Baskin, 2006). 2.5.3 Social and Economic Conditions It is often said that the CSR in developing countries is directly shaped by the social conditions and economic environment present in the country in which firms operate and the development priorities this creates. Amaeshi et al. (2006), had argued that â€Å"CSR in Nigeria is specifically aimed at addressing the socio-economic development challenges of the country, including poverty alleviation, health-care provision, infrastructure development, and education. This, they argue, stands in stark contrast to many Western CSR priorities such as consumer protection, fair trade, green marketing, climate change concerns, or socially responsible investments.† Schmidheiny (2006) had questioned the appropriateness of foreign CSR approaches, citing examples from South America, where the most important issues like poverty, illiteracy, crime and tax avoidance are not included in the CSR conceptions in developed countries, but if we consider locally developed CSR approaches, then they are m ost likely to respond to the many local social and environmental problems, such as deforestation, unemployment, income inequality, and crime (De Oliveira, 2006). 2.5.4 Poor Governance CSR can be seen as a form of private or self governance or a response to poor governance (Levy and Kaplan, Chapter 19). A particular important aspect of the CSR for developing countries is the fact it is often seen as a way to plug the gaps left by weak, corrupt, or under-resourced governments that fail to adequately provide various social services. Furthermore, â€Å"as many developing country government initiatives to improve living conditions falter, proponents of [CSR and bottom of the pyramid] strategies argue that companies can assume this role†. Such proponents of CSR, Blowfield and Frynas (2005) observe, â€Å"an alternative to government† which is â€Å"frequently advocated as a means of filling gaps in governance that have arisen with the acceleration of liberal economic globalization†. A survey was conducted by â€Å"World Business Council for Sustainable Development† (WBCSD 2000) in their report they illustrated that, when asked how CSR should be defined, peoples in Ghana stressed ‘building local capacity and ‘filling in when government falls short. Moon (2002a) in his paper has argued that, this phenomenon is part of a broader political shift towards ‘new governance or â€Å"alternate governance† approaches, here the local governments are trying to share responsibilities and to develop more effective modes of operation, the reason may be result of overload or of a view that they do not have a monopoly of solutions for society. This is often in the form of social partnerships with non-profit and for-profit organizations. Moon et al. (2005) has cited this phenomenon as an example of companies acting in a ‘civic republicanism mode. In addition to being encouraged to step in where once only governments acted, through the mechanism of either privatization or welfare reform, Matten and Crane (2005) also suggest that companies enter the arena of citizenship where government has not as yet administ ered citizenship rights, for example, improving working conditions in sweatshops, ensuring for employees a living wage, and financing the schooling of child laborers in the absence of legislation requiring this. However, this approach is not without its share of criticism ,Hamann et al. (2005) had argued that CSR is not adequate response to these governance gaps and that more proactive steps involving local government towards accountability and inclusiveness is necessary. Blowfield and Frynas (2005) had questioned the very logic: â€Å"Is CSR a stepping-stone on the path to better national regulation in developing countries? Or is it part of a longer term project for overcoming the weaknesses of territorially prescribed judicial and welfare mechanisms that is, addressing the limitations of the nation-state in regulating a global economy?† There are also serious questions about the dependencies this governance gap approach to CSR creates, especially where communities become re liant for their social services on companies whose primary accountability is to their shareholders. Hence, multinationals may cut expenditure, or disinvest from a region if the economics dictates that they will be more profitable elsewhere. There is also the issue of perceived complicity between governments and companies, as Shell all too painfully experienced in Nigeria (Ite, 2004). 2.5.5 Crisis Response Crises associated with developing countries have in the past affected CSR responses. These crises can come in the form of economic, social, environmental, health-related, or industrial accident. An excellent example was quoted by Newell (2005) that â€Å"the economic crisis in Argentina in 2001-2 marked a significant turning point in CSR, prompting debates about the role of business in poverty alleviation†. Another example can be of climate change (Hoffman, 2005) and HIV/AIDS (Dunfee, 2006) these crises have bought CSR in developing countries into lime-light. Catastrophic events with immediate impact are often more likely to elicit CSR responses, especially of the philanthropic kind. The companys quick response to the Asian tsunami is an excellent case (Fernando, 2007). However, companies can also have negative affect like industrial accidents. Examples include Union Carbides response to the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India (Shrivastava, 1995) and Shells response to the hanging o f human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria in 1995 (Wheeler et al., 2002). 2.5.6 Market Access Not all the intention of the companies in developing the CSR is for good, some companies may also see these unfulfilled human needs as an untapped market. This can be corroborated from the fact that there lies burgeoning literature on ‘bottom of the pyramid strategies, which refer to business models that focus on turning the four billion poor people in the world into consumers (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002; London and Hart, 2004; Rangan et al., 2007). CSR may be working towards enabling companies in developing countries which are trying to access markets in the developed world. An example in this support can be given from, Baskin (2006), he had identified that â€Å"competitive advantage in international markets as one of the key drivers for CSR in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia†, also Arayas (2006) survey of CSR reporting among the top two hundred and fifty companies in South America found that â€Å"businesses with an international sales orientation were almost fiv e times more likely to report than companies that sell products regionally or locally†. This is has become increasingly relevant as more and more companies from developing countries are moving towards globalization and in their effort they need to comply with international stock market listing requirements, including various forms CSR code compliance (Visser, 2005a). The above argument was also stated by Chapple and Moons (2005) study of 7 countries in Asia, which found a strong relationship between international exposure, either in terms of international sales or foreign ownership, and CSR reporting. CSR is also sometimes used as a partnership approach to creating or developing new markets. Another example in support towards this, is the case of , AED and Mark collaboration with Exxon Mobil that has created a viable market for insecticide-treated mosquito nets in Africa, while improving pregnant womens access to these nets, through the delivery of targeted subsidies (Diara et al., 2004). Similalry, ABB used a partnership approach to CSR to deliver a rural electrification project in Tanzania (Egels, 2005). 2.5.7International Standardization There is a widespread belief that the Western countries has imposed CSR approaches on the global South, but on the contrary there is ample evidence present to suggest that CSR codes and standards are a key driver for CSR in developing countries. For example Baskins (2006) survey of CSR practices in emerging markets has indicated towards growing acceptance rate of ISO 14001 and the â€Å"Global Reporting Initiatives Sustainability Reporting Guidelines†. These codes are now used as a CSR response in sectors that are prevalent in developing countries, such as horticulture (Dolan and Opondo, 2005), cocoa (Schrage and Ewing, 2005), and textiles (Kaufman et al., 2004), as well as some social issues in developing countries, like child labor (Kolk and Van Tulder, 2002) or women in the workplace (Prieto-Carron, 2004). In general it is seen that CSR is driven by standardization imposed by MNCs in striving to achieve global consistency among its subsidiaries and operations in developing countries. For example, Chapple and Moon (2005) found that â€Å"multinational companies are more likely to adopt CSR than those operating solely in their home country, but that the profile of their CSR tend to reflect the profile of the country of operation rather than the country of origin†. 2.5.8 Investment Incentives Multinational companies investments in developing countries are generally linked to the social conditions prevalent in those countries (Gabriel, 1972). Now a day these investments are being screened for CSR performance. In response to this socially responsible investment (SRI) is becoming a major factor CSR in developing countries. Baskin (2006) had noted â€Å"that approximately 8% of emerging market companies on the Dow Jones World Index is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, compared with around 13% of high-income companies†. In other developing countries, like South Africa, the SRI trend is well researched (AICC, 2002). The SRI movement in the 1980s had led to the anti-apartheid disinvestment phenomenon, also since 1992, South Africa has introduced twenty SRI funds which track companies social, ethical, and environmental performance (Visser, 2005a). According to research by the â€Å"African Institute of Corporate Citizenship â€Å"(AICC) (2002), the size of the South African SRI market in 2001 was already 1.55% of the total investment market. In an another major development, in May 2004, the Johannesburg Securities Exchange had launched its own tradable SRI Index, the first of its kind in an emerging market (Sonnenberg et al., 2004). A similar index was also introduced in Brazil. Closely linked to the literature on SRI in developing countries is the debate about the business case for CSR. Very few instrumental studies have been done, a survey done in Thailand by Connelly and Limpaphayom (2004) had showed that environmental reporting had not negatively impacted on short-term profitability and has in fact generated a positive relationship with firm valuation. More generally, a report by Sustainability (2002) uses case studies to illustrate various business benefits associated with addressing sustainability in developing countries. Furthermore, Goyal (2006) contends that CSR may serve as a signaling device for developing countries seeking to assess foreign direct investment proposals by unknown foreign firms. 2.5.9 Stakeholders In general the governmental has not got strong control or prohibitive laws over the social, ethical, and environmental performance of companies in developing countries, hence in its absence activism by stake- holder groups has become major source of CSR. Lund-Thomsen (2004) had described describes this as â€Å"an outcome of micro-level struggles between companies and communities over the distribution of social and environmental hazards which are created when global political and economic forces interact with local contexts around the world†. In research it was found that there are mainly four kinds of groups namely development agencies (Jenkins, 2005), trade unions (Kaufman et al., 2004), international NGOs (Christian Aid, 2005), and business associations (WBCSD, 2000) has emerged as the most impotant activists for CSR. These four groups had also provided a support for local NGOs. Another goup has also emerged in recent times namely media, it has also emerged as a key support er for promoting CSR in developing countries (Vivarta and Canela, 2006). Activism by these groups in developing countries has taken various forms, which was classified by Newell (2001) â€Å"as civil regulation, litigation against companies, and international legal instruments†. Of these, civil regulation is perhaps the most common and effective. Bendell (2000) describes this as the theory that ‘businesses are being regulated by civil society, through the dual effect of negative impacts from conflict and benefits from collaboration [which] provides new means for people to hold companies accountable, thereby democratising the economy directly. There are numerous examples of civil regulation in action in the developing world of which South Africa is a rather striking case in point (Visser, 2005a). This has manifested itself mainly through community groups challenging companies over whether they are upholding the constitutional rights of citizens. Various land mark cases b etween 1994 and 2004 suggest that, although civil society still tends to lack capacity and resources in South Africa, this has been an effective strategy. Stakeholder activism has also taken a constructive approach towards encouraging CSR, through groups like the National Business Initiative and partnerships between business and NGOs. Stakeholder activism can also be a source of criticism of CSR, arguing that it is an inadequate response to the social and environmental challenges of developing countries. The Christian Aid (2005) report Behind the Mask: The Real Face of Corporate Social Responsibility epitomizes this critical approach, and may be a driver for an enlarged conception and practice of CSR in developing countries. 2.5.10 Supply Chain Management Another Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries Corporate Social Responsibility in developing countries such as India using Tata Nano as a case study 1. Introduction A companys main business objective is maximisation of shareholders wealth by means of achieving higher profit. Business managers are entrusted with shareholders money so that they could run the company efficiently and profitably. According to Sloan (1964) â€Å"the strategic aim of a business is to earn a return on capital and if any particular case the return in the long run is not satisfactory, then the deficiency should be corrected or the activity abandoned for a more favourable one.† This suggests that companies are run for profit motives and this should be the top most priority of any management. However Globalisation has brought about a change in notion concerning the business objective of any company, arguments are being put forward that the business activities must take into account human and social welfare. According to Peter Drucker (1954), â€Å"the enterprise is an organ of society and its actions have a decisive impact on the social scene. It is thus important for management to realize that it must consider the impact of every business policy and business actions upon society. It has to consider whether the action is likely to promote the public good, to advance the basic belief of society, to contribute to its stability, strength and harmony†. A business enterprise is a major user of nature, society and environment; therefore it must be responsible towards their protection and development. Depletion of natural resources and causes like global warming has brought a lot attention to the sustainable use of these resources and companies are going to play a major role in ensuring this. So this marks a shift in the company objective that no longer can they only be guided by the sole aim of making profit but they should be take actions to ensure the welfare of the society in which they operate. This brings out the concept of â€Å"Corporate Social Responsibility†: Corporations acting as citizens of a society in a responsible manner ensuring the well beings of others in the society. The International Standards Organisation (ISO) describes CSR as â€Å"a balanced approach for organisations to address economic, social and environmental issues in a way that aims to benefit people, community and society† (ISO, 2002). 1.1 Rationale behind the Research Corporate social responsibility has gained widespread attention in most developed countries; policies practices are being developed by corporations to abide by standards of environment pollution, use of human capital etc. However in less developed countries this is not a much heard or debated topic. According to Steiner Steiner (2000), â€Å"In less developed countries there is often no indigenous sense of corporate responsibility.† There are a lot of loopholes in the system and business activities are not often concentrated on human/ social welfare. Austin (1990) argues that the extremity and pervasiveness of poverty in less developed countries places a special responsibility on business, as a vehicle for creating economic progress that will help alleviate this deprivation. With developing economies a lot of importance is given to industrial upliftment and that might come at a cost of social welfare or benefit. This research aims to identify the CSR policies and practices being in use in developing countries such as India with a special reference to TATA Nano. India is a developing country which has recorded a growth rate of more than 9% for 3 years upto 2008 and has seen a decade of 7% growth. (www.economicshelp.org: accessed on 10th January 2010). In spite of the global economic slowdown is slated to grow at around 7.5% for this year (2010). The rapid growth in economy has increased the standards of living and has created huge disposable income among Indians. The car manufacturers are taking advantage of this huge growth and are coming up with various models to tap into this growing market. TATA one of the most reputed business firms of India have come up with a car called TATA Nano which is slated to be the cheapest car in the world. The price is kept at $2500 which is equivalent to 100,000 INR. The objective behind this to make four wheelers available to every common man in India; this is touted to be a very big success. I have my own reservations concerning it; what if masses can afford this car, will it not increase the fuel consump tion, thereby creating more pollution? Will it not put a huge burden on roads which are already suffering from traffic congestion? This research aims to find out whether TATA is acting in a responsible manner by launching this car. 1.2 Objectives The research can be subdivided into four parts: 1. To identify the state of CSR in developing countries such as India 2. To evaluate public awareness concerning issues such as CSR in India 3. To evaluate the impact of TATA Nano on environment, traffic congestion, demand for fuel etc 4. To suggest a number of ways in which companies in developing countries can develop frameworks to act in a more responsible manner 2. Literature Review There are numerous ways to classify the literature on CSR in developing countries i.e. in terms of content (thematic coverage), type (epistemological approach), and level (focus of analysis). The analysis would be done by each way separately: 2.1 Content Theme We would use the same classification as Lockett et al. (2006) did, the CSR literature can be categorized into four CSR themes: social, environmental, ethics, and stakeholders. One point that immediately comes to light by applying this categorization to the literature on CSR is that, in contrast to Lockett et al.s (2006) findings that most CSR articles in top management journals focus on ethical and environmental themes, most scholarly work on CSR in developing countries focuses on the social theme. Also social issues are in general given more political, economic, and media coverage in developing countries than environmental, ethical, or stakeholder issues (Schmidheiny, 2006). 2.2 Knowledge Type Lockett et al. (2006) had also classified the CSR literature by knowledge type. He found even split between theoretical and empirical research. Lockett et al. (2006) found that 89% of theoretical CSR papers are non-normative, in the CSR in developing countries literature, the balance is far more evenly split. This is mainly because relatively large number of papers on the role of â€Å"business in development† tends to adopt a normative, critical perspective (Blowfield and Frynas, 2005). Also if we see empirical research, there are also differences. According to Lockett et al. (2006), the CSR literature is dominated by quantitative methods (80%), while CSR papers on developing countries are more likely to be qualitative. Most research on CSR in developing countries to date has either generalized about all developing countries (e.g. Frynas, 2006), or focused at a national level. In terms of generic literature, Corporate Citizenship in developing countries (Pedersen and Huniche, 2006) is a useful compendium, as are special issues on CSR in developing countries that have appeared in the Journal of Corporate Citizenship (issue 24, 2006), International Affairs (81(3), 2005) and Development (47(3), 2004). Despite the focus on countries in the literature, only about a fifth of all developing countries have had any CSR journal articles published on them. Of these, the most commonly analyzed and written about countries are China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, and Thailand. Analysis at a regional level (notably Africa, Asia, and Latin America) is becoming more common, but papers at the sector, corporate, or individual level remain relatively scarce. 2.3 Global Most of the literature concentrates on CSR in a global context and there is very little empirical research on the nature and extent of CSR in developing countries. One notable exception is Baskins (2006) research on the reported corporate responsibility behavior of 127 leading companies from 21 emerging markets across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe, which he compares with over 1,700 leading companies in high-income OECD countries. Looking at three generic indicators of CSR, Baskin (2006) finds that emerging market companies have a respectable representation in the Dow Jones â€Å"Sustainability Index† and show rising levels of take-up of the Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 14001. Baskin (2006) also showed that emerging markets lag the OECD significantly on reporting on business ethics and equal opportunities, are roughly at par on environmental reporting, and show comparable reporting variance on women on company boards, training and occupation al health and safety . Despite the limitations of using reporting as an indicator of CSR performance and the danger of representing regions by just a few countries (e.g. only two of the 53 countries in Africa were included in the sample), the Baskin (2006) study does provide some insight into the level of CSR activity in developing countries, concluding that: ‘there is not a vast difference in the approach to reported corporate responsibility between leading companies in high income OECD countries and their emerging-market peers. Nonetheless, corporate responsibility in emerging markets, while more extensive than commonly believed, is less embedded in corporate strategies, less pervasive and less politically rooted than in most high-income OECD countries (p. 46). 2.4 Regional Asia Major coverage of the Asia in the field of CSR often focus on China (e.g. Zhuang and Wheale, 2004), India (e.g. Balasubramanian et al., 2005), Indonesia (e.g. Blowfield, 2004), Malaysia (e.g. Zulkifli and Amran, 2006), Pakistan (e.g. Lund-Thomsen, 2004), and Thailand (e.g. Kaufman et al., 2004). Other countries that have had less attention include Bangladesh (Nielsen, 2005), the Pacific Forum Islands (Prasad, 2004), Sri Lanka (Luken and Stares, 2005), and Vietnam (Prieto-Carron, 2006b). Birch and Moon (2004) noted that â€Å"CSR performance varies greatly between countries in Asia, with a wide range of CSR issues being tackled (e.g. education, environment, employee welfare) and modes of action (e.g. foundations, volunteering, and partnerships)†. In one of the survey on CSR reporting in Asia, Chapple and Moon (2005) find that nearly three quarters of large companies in India present themselves as having CSR policies and practices versus only a quarter in Indonesia and between t hese two extremes are Thailand (42%), Malaysia (32%), and the Philippines (30%). They also infer from the research that the evolution of CSR in Asia tends to occur in three waves, first being community involvement followed by successive second and third waves of socially responsible production processes and employee relations. In a comparative survey of CSR in 15 countries across Europe, North America, and Asia, Welford (2005) speculates that the low response rates from countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, and Thailand may in itself be an indicator of CSR being less prevalent in developing countries. This seems to be borne out by the research findings, in which these countries fairly consistently underperform when compared with developed countries across 20 aspects of CSR measured by the survey. Africa The literature on CSR in Africa is predominantly based on South Africa (Visser, 2005a), while other pockets of research exist for Cà ´te DIvoire (e.g. Schrage and Ewing, 2005), Kenya (e.g. Dolan and Opondo, 2005), Nigeria (e.g. Amaeshi et al., 2006), Tanzania (e.g. Egels, 2005), and Mali and Zambia (e.g. Hamann et al., 2005). Very few papers are focused on industry sectors, with traditionally high impact sectors like agriculture (e.g. Blowfield, 2003), mining (e.g. Kapelus, 2002), and petrochemicals (e.g. Acutt et al., 2004) featuring most prominently. Two of the best sources of literature on Africa are Corporate Citizenship in Africa (Visser et al., 2006) and the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Africa (issue 18, summer 2005). The latter concludes that ‘academic institutions and researchers focusing specifically on corporate citizenship in Africa remain few and under-developed (Visser et al., 2005: 19). This is confirmed by a review of the CSR literatu re on Africa between 1995 and 2005 (Visser, 2006a), which found that that only 12 of Africas 53 countries have had any research published in core CSR journals, with 57% of all articles focused on South Africa and 16% on Nigeria. The latter partly reflects the high media profile generated around corporate citizenship issues and the petrochemical sector, especially focused on Shell and their impacts on the Ogoni people (Ite, 2004). Economic and philanthropic aspects of CSR, rather than the legal and ethical responsibilities, will continue to dominate CSR conceptualization and practice in Africa (Visser, 2007). Corporate social responsibility in South America is not as much covered subject as other underdeveloped countries (Haslam, 2007), the focus has been mainly concentrated on Argentina (e.g. Newell and Muro, 2006), Brazil (e.g. Vivarta and Canela, 2006) and Mexico (e.g. Weyzig, 2006), although Nicaragua (Prieto-Carron, 2006a) and Venezuela (Peindado-Vara, 2006) also feature. De Oliveira in 2006 has noted that the Corporate social responsibility agenda in South America has been heavily influenced by socio-economic and political conditions, which have invariably led to problems like, unemployment, in- equality, and crime. Schmidheiny has in 2006 stated that Corporate social responsibility has ushered a positive effect in South America. The trend towards increasing CSR in the region has been generally upward. For example, Correa et al. has reported in his article in 2004 that by 2004 there were thousand South American companies which were member of organization called EMPRESA (the hemisphe re-wide CSR network), another three hundred companies were members of the â€Å"World Business Council† for Sustainable Development, also another fourteen hundred had obtained ISO 14001 certification, and one hundred eighteen had signed UN Global Compact. 2.5 Motivations Until now we have classified the CSR literature on a regional level. To further see the difference between the CSR in developing countries and developed countries we would now isolate motivations for CSR in developing countries, with the help of this we would be able to see why the CSR in developing countries is so unique. Some of the motivations for CSR that I have isolated with the help of literature review are: 2.5.1 Cultural Tradition The term CSR has been widely used in western countries and hence there is a widespread believe that CSR is a Western thing but on the contrary there is evidence that CSR in developing countries has been around for centuries and its man pillar has been deep-rooted indigenous cultural traditions of philanthropy and business ethics. An excellent example was given by, Visser and Macintosh in 1998 they have quoted that â€Å"the ethical condemnation of usurious business practices in developing countries that practice Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity dates back thousands of years†. Another example was given by Frynas (2006) ‘business practices based on moral principles were advocated by the Indian statesman and philosopher Kautilya in the 4th century BC. If we take South American context, Sanborn (2002), quoted in Logsdon et al. (2006) that ‘varied traditions of community self-help and solidarity stretch back to the regions pre-Hispanic cultures, and include t he mutual aid societies, trade unions and professional associations that emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Logsdon et al.s (2006) stated that â€Å"One myth is that CSR in Mexico is new, another is that US firms brought CSR to Mexico, and a third is that CSR as practised by Mexican firms simply reflects the CSR patterns and activities of US firms†. Even if we take CSR for more modern times I have found that it was heavily influenced by local culture, Vivess (2006) had conducted survey of over 1,300 enterprises in South America, his findings were that the regions religious beliefs are one of the major motivations for CSR. Also Nelson (2004) founded that Buddhist traditions in Asia are aligned with CSR. Also for Asia, Chapple and Moon (2005) had reached a same conclusion, that â€Å"CSR does vary considerably among Asian countries but that this variation is not explained by [levels of] development but by factors in the respective national business systems†, t his was consistent with Birch and Moons (2004) finding in his paper for the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Asia. If we take African the findings are same, Amaeshi et al. (2006) found that CSR in Nigeria is heavily influenced by local socio-cultural influences like communalism, ethnic religious beliefs, and charitable traditions. 2.5.2 Political Upheaval CSR in developing countries are heavily influenced by the social and political reforms, which drives business behavior towards integrating social and ethical issues. De Oliveira (2006) has argued that â€Å"the political and associated social and economic changes in Latin America since the 1980s, including democratization, liberalization, and privatization, have shifted the role of business towards taking greater responsibility for social and environmental issues†. A recent example can be the case of South Africa, the political changes towards democracy and end of decades of apartheid have been a significant driver for CSR, through the practice of improved corporate governance (Roussouw et al., 2002), collective business action for social upliftment (Fourie and Eloff, 2005) has led to black economic empowerment (Fig, 2005), and business ethics (Malan, 2005). Visser (2005a) lists more than a dozen examples of socio-economic, environmental, and labor-related legislative reform i n South Africa between 1994 and 2004 that have a direct bearing on CSR. Another excellent example can be given of many central and eastern European countries which have been recently inducted into European Union, these countries have now shifted towards CSR .(Baskin, 2006). 2.5.3 Social and Economic Conditions It is often said that the CSR in developing countries is directly shaped by the social conditions and economic environment present in the country in which firms operate and the development priorities this creates. Amaeshi et al. (2006), had argued that â€Å"CSR in Nigeria is specifically aimed at addressing the socio-economic development challenges of the country, including poverty alleviation, health-care provision, infrastructure development, and education. This, they argue, stands in stark contrast to many Western CSR priorities such as consumer protection, fair trade, green marketing, climate change concerns, or socially responsible investments.† Schmidheiny (2006) had questioned the appropriateness of foreign CSR approaches, citing examples from South America, where the most important issues like poverty, illiteracy, crime and tax avoidance are not included in the CSR conceptions in developed countries, but if we consider locally developed CSR approaches, then they are m ost likely to respond to the many local social and environmental problems, such as deforestation, unemployment, income inequality, and crime (De Oliveira, 2006). 2.5.4 Poor Governance CSR can be seen as a form of private or self governance or a response to poor governance (Levy and Kaplan, Chapter 19). A particular important aspect of the CSR for developing countries is the fact it is often seen as a way to plug the gaps left by weak, corrupt, or under-resourced governments that fail to adequately provide various social services. Furthermore, â€Å"as many developing country government initiatives to improve living conditions falter, proponents of [CSR and bottom of the pyramid] strategies argue that companies can assume this role†. Such proponents of CSR, Blowfield and Frynas (2005) observe, â€Å"an alternative to government† which is â€Å"frequently advocated as a means of filling gaps in governance that have arisen with the acceleration of liberal economic globalization†. A survey was conducted by â€Å"World Business Council for Sustainable Development† (WBCSD 2000) in their report they illustrated that, when asked how CSR should be defined, peoples in Ghana stressed ‘building local capacity and ‘filling in when government falls short. Moon (2002a) in his paper has argued that, this phenomenon is part of a broader political shift towards ‘new governance or â€Å"alternate governance† approaches, here the local governments are trying to share responsibilities and to develop more effective modes of operation, the reason may be result of overload or of a view that they do not have a monopoly of solutions for society. This is often in the form of social partnerships with non-profit and for-profit organizations. Moon et al. (2005) has cited this phenomenon as an example of companies acting in a ‘civic republicanism mode. In addition to being encouraged to step in where once only governments acted, through the mechanism of either privatization or welfare reform, Matten and Crane (2005) also suggest that companies enter the arena of citizenship where government has not as yet administ ered citizenship rights, for example, improving working conditions in sweatshops, ensuring for employees a living wage, and financing the schooling of child laborers in the absence of legislation requiring this. However, this approach is not without its share of criticism ,Hamann et al. (2005) had argued that CSR is not adequate response to these governance gaps and that more proactive steps involving local government towards accountability and inclusiveness is necessary. Blowfield and Frynas (2005) had questioned the very logic: â€Å"Is CSR a stepping-stone on the path to better national regulation in developing countries? Or is it part of a longer term project for overcoming the weaknesses of territorially prescribed judicial and welfare mechanisms that is, addressing the limitations of the nation-state in regulating a global economy?† There are also serious questions about the dependencies this governance gap approach to CSR creates, especially where communities become re liant for their social services on companies whose primary accountability is to their shareholders. Hence, multinationals may cut expenditure, or disinvest from a region if the economics dictates that they will be more profitable elsewhere. There is also the issue of perceived complicity between governments and companies, as Shell all too painfully experienced in Nigeria (Ite, 2004). 2.5.5 Crisis Response Crises associated with developing countries have in the past affected CSR responses. These crises can come in the form of economic, social, environmental, health-related, or industrial accident. An excellent example was quoted by Newell (2005) that â€Å"the economic crisis in Argentina in 2001-2 marked a significant turning point in CSR, prompting debates about the role of business in poverty alleviation†. Another example can be of climate change (Hoffman, 2005) and HIV/AIDS (Dunfee, 2006) these crises have bought CSR in developing countries into lime-light. Catastrophic events with immediate impact are often more likely to elicit CSR responses, especially of the philanthropic kind. The companys quick response to the Asian tsunami is an excellent case (Fernando, 2007). However, companies can also have negative affect like industrial accidents. Examples include Union Carbides response to the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India (Shrivastava, 1995) and Shells response to the hanging o f human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria in 1995 (Wheeler et al., 2002). 2.5.6 Market Access Not all the intention of the companies in developing the CSR is for good, some companies may also see these unfulfilled human needs as an untapped market. This can be corroborated from the fact that there lies burgeoning literature on ‘bottom of the pyramid strategies, which refer to business models that focus on turning the four billion poor people in the world into consumers (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002; London and Hart, 2004; Rangan et al., 2007). CSR may be working towards enabling companies in developing countries which are trying to access markets in the developed world. An example in this support can be given from, Baskin (2006), he had identified that â€Å"competitive advantage in international markets as one of the key drivers for CSR in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia†, also Arayas (2006) survey of CSR reporting among the top two hundred and fifty companies in South America found that â€Å"businesses with an international sales orientation were almost fiv e times more likely to report than companies that sell products regionally or locally†. This is has become increasingly relevant as more and more companies from developing countries are moving towards globalization and in their effort they need to comply with international stock market listing requirements, including various forms CSR code compliance (Visser, 2005a). The above argument was also stated by Chapple and Moons (2005) study of 7 countries in Asia, which found a strong relationship between international exposure, either in terms of international sales or foreign ownership, and CSR reporting. CSR is also sometimes used as a partnership approach to creating or developing new markets. Another example in support towards this, is the case of , AED and Mark collaboration with Exxon Mobil that has created a viable market for insecticide-treated mosquito nets in Africa, while improving pregnant womens access to these nets, through the delivery of targeted subsidies (Diara et al., 2004). Similalry, ABB used a partnership approach to CSR to deliver a rural electrification project in Tanzania (Egels, 2005). 2.5.7International Standardization There is a widespread belief that the Western countries has imposed CSR approaches on the global South, but on the contrary there is ample evidence present to suggest that CSR codes and standards are a key driver for CSR in developing countries. For example Baskins (2006) survey of CSR practices in emerging markets has indicated towards growing acceptance rate of ISO 14001 and the â€Å"Global Reporting Initiatives Sustainability Reporting Guidelines†. These codes are now used as a CSR response in sectors that are prevalent in developing countries, such as horticulture (Dolan and Opondo, 2005), cocoa (Schrage and Ewing, 2005), and textiles (Kaufman et al., 2004), as well as some social issues in developing countries, like child labor (Kolk and Van Tulder, 2002) or women in the workplace (Prieto-Carron, 2004). In general it is seen that CSR is driven by standardization imposed by MNCs in striving to achieve global consistency among its subsidiaries and operations in developing countries. For example, Chapple and Moon (2005) found that â€Å"multinational companies are more likely to adopt CSR than those operating solely in their home country, but that the profile of their CSR tend to reflect the profile of the country of operation rather than the country of origin†. 2.5.8 Investment Incentives Multinational companies investments in developing countries are generally linked to the social conditions prevalent in those countries (Gabriel, 1972). Now a day these investments are being screened for CSR performance. In response to this socially responsible investment (SRI) is becoming a major factor CSR in developing countries. Baskin (2006) had noted â€Å"that approximately 8% of emerging market companies on the Dow Jones World Index is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, compared with around 13% of high-income companies†. In other developing countries, like South Africa, the SRI trend is well researched (AICC, 2002). The SRI movement in the 1980s had led to the anti-apartheid disinvestment phenomenon, also since 1992, South Africa has introduced twenty SRI funds which track companies social, ethical, and environmental performance (Visser, 2005a). According to research by the â€Å"African Institute of Corporate Citizenship â€Å"(AICC) (2002), the size of the South African SRI market in 2001 was already 1.55% of the total investment market. In an another major development, in May 2004, the Johannesburg Securities Exchange had launched its own tradable SRI Index, the first of its kind in an emerging market (Sonnenberg et al., 2004). A similar index was also introduced in Brazil. Closely linked to the literature on SRI in developing countries is the debate about the business case for CSR. Very few instrumental studies have been done, a survey done in Thailand by Connelly and Limpaphayom (2004) had showed that environmental reporting had not negatively impacted on short-term profitability and has in fact generated a positive relationship with firm valuation. More generally, a report by Sustainability (2002) uses case studies to illustrate various business benefits associated with addressing sustainability in developing countries. Furthermore, Goyal (2006) contends that CSR may serve as a signaling device for developing countries seeking to assess foreign direct investment proposals by unknown foreign firms. 2.5.9 Stakeholders In general the governmental has not got strong control or prohibitive laws over the social, ethical, and environmental performance of companies in developing countries, hence in its absence activism by stake- holder groups has become major source of CSR. Lund-Thomsen (2004) had described describes this as â€Å"an outcome of micro-level struggles between companies and communities over the distribution of social and environmental hazards which are created when global political and economic forces interact with local contexts around the world†. In research it was found that there are mainly four kinds of groups namely development agencies (Jenkins, 2005), trade unions (Kaufman et al., 2004), international NGOs (Christian Aid, 2005), and business associations (WBCSD, 2000) has emerged as the most impotant activists for CSR. These four groups had also provided a support for local NGOs. Another goup has also emerged in recent times namely media, it has also emerged as a key support er for promoting CSR in developing countries (Vivarta and Canela, 2006). Activism by these groups in developing countries has taken various forms, which was classified by Newell (2001) â€Å"as civil regulation, litigation against companies, and international legal instruments†. Of these, civil regulation is perhaps the most common and effective. Bendell (2000) describes this as the theory that ‘businesses are being regulated by civil society, through the dual effect of negative impacts from conflict and benefits from collaboration [which] provides new means for people to hold companies accountable, thereby democratising the economy directly. There are numerous examples of civil regulation in action in the developing world of which South Africa is a rather striking case in point (Visser, 2005a). This has manifested itself mainly through community groups challenging companies over whether they are upholding the constitutional rights of citizens. Various land mark cases b etween 1994 and 2004 suggest that, although civil society still tends to lack capacity and resources in South Africa, this has been an effective strategy. Stakeholder activism has also taken a constructive approach towards encouraging CSR, through groups like the National Business Initiative and partnerships between business and NGOs. Stakeholder activism can also be a source of criticism of CSR, arguing that it is an inadequate response to the social and environmental challenges of developing countries. The Christian Aid (2005) report Behind the Mask: The Real Face of Corporate Social Responsibility epitomizes this critical approach, and may be a driver for an enlarged conception and practice of CSR in developing countries. 2.5.10 Supply Chain Management Another