Does corporate social responsibility cushion unethical brand behavior? Insights from chocolate confectionery

Food and agribusiness companies face increasing scrutiny of their corporate social responsibilities (CSRs) due to the impacts of their business activities on the environment and in society. In particular, the procurement practices of some companies in the commercial food industry have been linked to unsustainable farming, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity. This study investigates the extent to which a positive CSR reputation influences consumers' evaluations of a company and its new products following brand misconduct involving unethical procurement of palm oil. The results of an experiment revealed that a positive CSR reputation prior to the misconduct enhanced consumers' evaluations of the company and their support for its new products, thereby facilitating its recovery. These findings extend understanding of the potential insurance afforded by a positive CSR reputation and its halo effect in situations of brand misconduct in the food industry, in this case where a brand has failed to meet consumers' expectations of its obligations to avoid commercial activities that threaten the natural environment.     

Nationale und europäische Anforderungen an Umweltbeiträge in der Verkehrsplanung

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Writing On: Robert Creeley's The Death of Venus

This is a piece which explores how the reading of a poem, in being mediated both by the reading of other poems and by a certain experience of reading as such, involves the constitution of a layered, non-unified, field of readings. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Assessing the Impact of Alternative Voting Technologies on Multi-Party Elections: Design Features,Heuristic Processing and Voter Choice

This paper analyzes the influence of alternative voting technologies on electoral outcomes in multi-party systems. Using data from a field experiment conducted during the 2005 legislative election in Argentina, we examine the role of information effects associated with alternative voting devices on the support for the competing parties. We find that differences in the type of information displayed and how it was presented across devices favored some parties to the detriment of others. The impact of voting technologies was found to be larger than in two-party systems, and could lead to changes in election results. We conclude that authorities in countries moving to adopt new voting systems should carefully take the potential partisan advantages induced by different technologies into account when evaluating their implementation.     

Beyond the Workhouse: Regulating Vagrancy in Goa, India

Although homelessness is extensive in India, there has been little research on the rural dimension. This study examines the social and legal regulation of homelessness in India, focusing on the rural areas and providing a case-study of Goa. The term 'vagrancy' is used in the title of the paper in order to reflect the nature of legislation which criminalizes the vagrant individual perhaps more than other forms of homelessness. Historically, British Raj legislation on Criminal Tribes and vagrancy is contrasted with the Portuguese religious charitable perspective adopted in Goa. This is complemented by a contemporary case-study of the regulation of homelessness in the state of Goa. Goa is described as the place where the 'new India' and the 'old India' meet, with affluent tourists (both Indian and Western) encountering the 'old India' of poverty and homelessness among the migrant workers who service the tourist industry. Particular reference is made to the case of the Lamani??defined as a gypsy group??who are often constructed as the main cause of social ills within the state. This historical and socio-legal analysis is complemented by reference to fieldwork conducted in Goa.