Social License and Environmental Protection: Why Businesses Go Beyond Compliance

This article examines the concept of the corporate "social license," which governs the extent to which a corporation is constrained to meet societal expectations and avoid activities that societies (or influential elements within them) deem unacceptable, whether or not those expectations are embodied in law. It examines the social license empirically, as it relates to one social problem–environmental protection–and as it relates to one particular industry: pulp and paper manufacturing. It shows try the social license is important, the circumstances in which it may encourage companies to go "beyond compliance" with regulation, how its terms are monitored and enforced, and how it interacts with what we term the regulatory and economic licenses. Overall, this research demonstrates that corporate environmental behavior cannot be explained purely in terms of instrumental threats and moral obligations to comply with the law, and that the increasing incidence of "beyond compliance" corporate behavior can be better explained in terms of the interplay between social pressures and economic constraints.     

Explaining Corporate Environmental Performance: How Does Regulation Matter?

How and to what extent does regulation matter in shaping corporate behavior? How important is it compared to other incentives and mechanisms of social control, and how does it interact with those mechanisms? How might we explain variation in corporate responses to law and other external pressures? This article addresses these questions through an study of environmental performance in 14 pulp and paper manufacturing mills in Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia, and the states of Washington and Georgia in the United States. Over the last three decades, we find tightening regulatory requirements and intensifying political pressures have brought about large improvements and considerable convergence in environmental performance by pulp manufacturers, most of which have gone “beyond compliance” in several ways. But regulation does not account for remaining differences in environmental performance across facilities. Rather, “social license” pressures (particularly from local communities and environmental activists) and corporate environmental management style prod some firms toward better performance compliance than others. At the same time, economic pressures impose limits on “beyond performance” investments. In producing large gains in environmental performance, however, regulation still matters greatly, but less as a system of hierarchically imposed, uniformly enforced rules than as a coordinative mechanism, routinely interacting with market pressures, local and national environmental activists, and the culture of corporate management in generating environmental improvement while narrowing the spread between corporate leaders and laggards.     

Characterizing the Source of Fugitive Middle Distillate Fuels—A Case Study Involving Railroad Diesel Fuel,Mandan, North Dakota

Middle distillate fuels are used in civilian and military jet engines, on-road (truck and bus) and off-road diesel (diesel-electric locomotives, heavy equipment, and farm machinery) engines, marine diesel engines, nonaviation gas turbines, and domestic and commercial furnaces. As such, these fuels are common environmental contaminants that may arise from multiple sources. The considerable liability associated with these fugitive fuels requires that their source(s) be defensibly determined. In this paper we describe the “chemical fingerprinting” features of middle distillate fuels that can be used in assessments of their source(s) in the environment. A case study in which railroad (off-road) diesel fuel #2 could be distinguished from nonrailroad fuels (e.g., on-road diesel fuel #2, fuel oil #2, and/or fuel oil #1) in Mandan, North Dakota, is presented.     

Peer Victimization,Antisocial Cognition,and Delinquency in Early Adolescent Schoolchildren: A Test of the Person–Situation Interface

ABSTRACT

Interactive and mediating effects have the ability to elucidate variable relationships. The goal of the current study was to explore how these two effects potentially clarify the victimization–offending relationship. Examining three waves of longitudinal data, it was predicted that Wave 1 victimization would enhance Wave 2 cognitive impulsivity, Wave 2 victimization would interact with Wave 2 cognitive impulsivity, and Wave 2 cognitive impulsivity and the victimization x cognitive impulsivity interaction would both fuel a rise in Wave 3 delinquency. All predicted relationships were observed when evaluated in a group of 960 early adolescents (457 boys, 503 girls) from the Illinois Study of Bullying and Sexual Violence (ISBSV). When cognitive insensitivity replaced cognitive impulsivity as the mediator, the mediating and moderating effects were no longer significant. These results suggest that victimization stimulates reckless thinking, which, when aided by subsequent victimization, encourages future delinquency.     

Implementation of a Blind Quality Control Program in a Forensic Laboratory

A blind quality control (QC) program was successfully developed and implemented in the Toxicology, Seized Drugs, Firearms, Latent Prints (Processing and Comparison), Forensic Biology, and Multimedia (Digital and Audio/Video) sections at the Houston Forensic Science Center (HFSC). The program was put into practice based on recommendations set forth in the 2009 National Academy of Sciences report and is conducted in addition to accreditation required annual proficiency tests. The blind QC program allows HFSC to test its entire quality management system and provides a real-time assessment of the laboratory’s proficiency. To ensure the blind QC cases mimicked real casework, the workflow for each forensic discipline and their evidence submission processes were assessed prior to implementation. Samples are created and submitted by the HFSC Quality Division to whom the expected answer is known. Results from 2015 to 2018 show that of the 973 blind samples submitted, 901 were completed, and only 51 were discovered by analysts as being blind QC cases. Implementation data suggests that this type of program can be employed at other forensic laboratories.     

I’m Not Voting for Her: Polling Discrepancies and Female Candidates

Although there is a large literature on the predictive accuracy of pre-election polls, there is virtually no systematic research examining the role that a candidate’s gender plays in polling accuracy. This is a surprising omission given the precipitous growth of female candidates in recent years. Looking at Senate and Gubernatorial candidates from 1989 to 2008 (more than 200 elections in over 40 states), we analyze the accuracy of pre-election polls for almost the complete universe of female candidates and a matched sample of white male cases. We demonstrate that pre-election polls consistently underestimate support for female candidates when compared to white male candidates. Furthermore, our results indicate that this phenomenon—which we dub the Richards Effect, after Ann Richards of Texas—is more common in states which exhibit traits associated with culturally conservative views of gender issues.     

Differentiating fragmented human and nonhuman long bone using osteon circularity

Distinguishing between human and nonhuman bone is important in forensic anthropology and archeology when remains are fragmentary and DNA cannot be obtained. Histological examination of bone is affordable and practical in such situations. This study suggests using osteon circularity to distinguish human bone fragments and hypothesizes that osteons will more closely resemble a perfect circle in nonhumans than in humans. Standard histological methods were used, and circularity was determined using an image analysis program, where circularity was controlled for by Haversian canal measurements. Homogeneity was first tested for multiple variables within human and nonhuman samples. No significant differences were found between human sexes (p = 0.657) or among nonhuman species (p = 0.553). Significant differences were found among intraskeletal elements of both humans (p = 0.016) and nonhumans (p = 0.013) and between pooled samples of humans and nonhumans (p < 0.001). Results of this study indicate that osteon circularity can be used to distinguish between fragmented human and nonhuman long bone.