Ida E. Berger

Social Alliances: Company/Nonprofit Collaboration

Companies are increasingly seeing corporate social responsibility as a key to long-term success and are collaborating with nonprofit organizations in various ways to establish themselves as good corporate citizens. This article delves into a promising form of company/nonprofit collaboration called social alliances, which are long-term, collaborative efforts between companies and nonprofits that are designed to achieve strategic objectives for both organizations. The characteristics, factors, and circumstances that enable or impede social alliances are examined through an investigation of 11 social alliances involving 26 organizations. Though social alliances may be fraught with problems, they can be designed, structured, nurtured, and maintained in a manner that will enable them both to contribute to solving pressing social problems and to fulfilling important strategic objectives for companies and nonprofits.

The Demographics of Recycling and the Structure of Environmental Behavior

The influence of socioeconomic and demographic variables on environmentally responsible behaviors is examined. Analysis of data compiled by Statistics Canada from 43,000 households indicates that socioeconomic and demographic variables play an important role as antecedents to such behaviors. The results show that size of residential area, type of dwelling, education, and income are significant determinants of whether recycling facilities are available and used. Furthermore, having convenient access to a recycling program mediates the relationship between socioeconomic factors and recycling practice. Analyses also show that environmental behaviors are structured around specific environmental issues such as water, energy, or waste disposal and suggest that recycling may operate as a first step toward the adoption of other behaviors. The implications of these results for activists and policy makers are highlighted.

Identity, identification, and relationship through social alliances

The authors studied social alliances, a type of corporate societal marketing initiative. Their research finds that social alliances are an important means whereby employees identify more closely with their organizations while gaining a greater sense of being whole, integrated persons. Furthermore, this integration allows both organizations and their members to align their commercial identities with their moral and social identities. As organizational members struggled to resolve conflicts within their own identities, they were aided by social alliances, which in turn led them to identify more with their organizations. Unlike previous research, the findings suggest that the kind of connections referred to by the informants went well beyond the cold, rational associations described in previous research to emotional attachments that appear to be critical to organizational identification. The results also suggest that participation in social alliances may result in multiple forms of identification: intra- and interorganiza-tion identification.

Subjective product knowledge as a moderator of the relationship between attitudes and purchase intentions for a durable product

Abstract The influence of subjective product knowledge on the relationship between attitudes and purchase intentions for a durable good is examined. The study reports that this indicator of attitude strength is an important direct influencer of behavioral intentions and an important moderator of the relationship between attitudes and behavioral intentions. The results suggest that attitudes that are strong because they are perceived to be based on more knowledge share a different relationship with subsequent choice behavior than attitudes that are weak.

Corporate Philanthropy in the Canadian Context: From Damage Control to Improving Society

Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted with decision makers in corporations representing natural resources, finance, retail, technology, food and beverage, and communications to explore the diverse approaches to philanthropy in corporate Canada. The authors focused on gaining insight into the organizational differences among companies that are have integrated corporate philanthropy into their cultures, those where philanthropy is marginal to their main business and those that see philanthropy as a beneficial relationship. They learned that companies that have integrated philanthropy into their operations are quite distinct in both attitudes and behavior from the others. Although companies can change the role of philanthropy within their organization, truly integrating philanthropy into the business of the corporation is not something that can develop and evolve over time; if that vision is not present in the corporate culture from the beginning, it is not likely to develop.

Understanding adolescent sport participation through online social media

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the potential role and use of online social media to influence sport participation in youth aged 12 to 17 years by responding to two specific research questions: what is the nature of the online “marketplace” among youth?; and what is the nature of adolescent sport behavior as revealed through activities on online social media?Design/methodology/approach – The paper outlines and then implements the research methodology of netnography to achieve its purpose. Netnography involves a researcher joining an online forum, e‐tribe or other open‐source social media to observe and record the discussions for analysis.Findings – The overarching finding is that online discourse related to sport participation among youth is very limited. When discussion does take place, five themes emerge: benefits, advice‐seeking, finding common interests, learning new sports, and challenges.Research limitations/implications – This research provides impetus for future work in the cont...