Schmitz CL, Matyók T, James C, Sloan LM. The relationship between social work and environmental sustainability: Implications for interdisciplinary practice The Brundtland Commission, formally the World Commission on Environment and Development, established by the United Nations in 1983, links peace, security, development and the environment claiming that war, poverty and structural violence result in the oppression and degradation of the human community as well as the physical environment. Likewise, human rights and social and environmental justice are intertwined, and social work, as a profession that collaborates across disciplines and within communities, is uniquely situated to provide leadership in the field of environmental studies. Its strong focus on human rights, social justice and community building creates a sound base from which to engage in the collaborative, creative, interactional processes required for environmental practice. This article seeks to discern a model for environmental social work within the context of interdisciplinary practice with peace and conflict workers and through the integration of inclusive models of economic development.

No abstract

Viral influence of consumer reviews can change the strategic intent of co‐branding relationships between minority entrepreneurial startups and established corporations. When social justice positioning is involved, the intent is often to support minority businesses. We acknowledge this strategy as social justice branding. However, such alliances can trigger vitriolic responses. This backlash is an expression of free speech, and social media provides an obscure facilitative environment. The challenges of social justice branding are complex. We examine consumer online reviews of The Honey Pot and Target Corporation partnership, to understand the implications of social justice branding in practice. Using Leximancer analysis, we find that social justice branding elicits multiple emotions that empower action. Some consumers accepted the collaboration while others resisted. Analyzing the basis of the resistance revealed some consumers expressed racist and shameful behaviors displaying disagreement. Backlash reflected willful ignorance releasing pent up prejudices and disseminating viral‐like negative information as weapons of retaliation against brands and marginalized communities. We contribute a conceptual model integrating theoretical frames of social justice, social marketing, brand activism and free speech elucidating the impact of consumer response to social justice branding. The findings and model add a lens to further explore race in the marketplace.

Purpose This paper aims to examine a longitudinal study of mentoring functions and their effect on salesperson attitudes and intentions. Design/methodology/approach The research is based on a multi-year study of salespeople beginning when the salesperson entered the industry being examined. Findings The level of interaction between the mentor and protégé was found to be the only antecedent examined that related to the perceived quality of mentoring functions. Age, education and length of employment for both parties; the degree of age and education difference; and the length of the mentoring relationship were not significant. Successful mentoring appeared to be based heavily on a mentor’s willingness and ability to interact frequently with the protégé. Originality/value This study adds to the literature on mentoring, looking at mentoring in a sales context. Research examining mentoring in a sales setting is much more limited than in many other professions, so the findings represent a valuable addition to the sales mentoring literature. Its influence on sales socialization may be very important.

The research seeks to critique, redefine and recast the sustainability agenda through the re-examination of the links between spatial design, the environment and interdisciplinarity. It repositions the role of architecture at the centre of the debate through the reframing of these agendas, in offering a new interpretation of architecture and by problematising its capacity to respond to urgent environmental concerns such as climate change and resource depletion. The proposition for a new potential for environmental engagement through the conceptual formulation 'interspatiality' attempts to connect existing contemporary architectural and sustainability discourses and respond to emerging spatial territories such as the 'spatial turn'. The reconceptualisation of space and spatial production is explored as a key to the rethinking of blocked and restrictive architectural approaches and hitherto neglected spatio-environmental identifications. Interspatiality-the spatialisation of the environment, identifies the potential for an overarching understanding of space, spatial innovation and the environment within the city and elaborates interdisciplinary dimensions. It proposes a new spatial methodology of environmental character and signals a model for 'integral sustainability'; a more unifying, collective, inclusive and reconciliatory approach looking to a productive, creative and 'complete architecture'-one scripted to suit the emerging urban global reality. The work develops 'interspatial thinking' as a conceptual framework for assimilating new spatial identifications, theoretical approaches, design strategies and methodologies, that can resonate with both contemporary and future directions in architectural practice, research and pedagogy, collaborative, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary modes of practice including global and local policy-makers, and private and public industries.