ABSTRACT. Tobacco companies have started to position themselves as good corporate citizens. The effort towards CSR engagement in the tobacco industry is not only heavily criticized by anti-tobacco NGOs. Some opponents such as the the World Health Organization have even categorically questioned the possibility of social responsibility in the tobacco industry. The paper will demonstrate that the deep distrust towards tobacco companies is linked to the lethal character of their products and the dubious behavior of their representatives in recent decades. As a result, tobacco companies are not in the CSR business in the strict sense. Key aspects of mainstream CSR theory and practice such as corporate philanthropy, stakeholder collaboration, CSR reporting and self-regulation, are demonstrated to be ineffective or even counterproductive in the tobacco industry. Building upon the terminology used in the leadership literature, the paper proposes to differentiate between transactional and transformational CSR arguing that tobacco companies can only operate on a transactional level. As a consequence, corporate responsibility in the tobacco industry is based upon a much thinner approach to CSR and has to be conceptualized with a focus on transactional integrity across the tobacco supply chain.

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Waste management is a social, economic, and environmental problem facing all African countries. If the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development is to be achieved, sustainable waste management approaches must be an environmental and public health imperative deserving political priority. Current reasons for the poor management of waste in Africa, include, amongst others, weak organizational structures; lack of appropriate skills; inadequate budgets; weak legislation; lack of enforcement; low public awareness; corruption, conflict; political instability; and lack of political will. At the heart of the problem, is a failure in governance. However, through these gaps, many social and technological innovations have emerged. Innovations that recognize the opportunity that waste provides as a secondary resource. Diverting waste away from dumpsites and landfills towards reuse, recycling and recovery can improve the livelihoods of thousands of informal waste reclaimers, while also creating new jobs and business opportunities for the continent. Reintroducing secondary resources such as polymer, fiber, metals and nutrients back into local value chains has the potential to strengthen manufacturing economies and reduce the economic burden on product imports. Bringing waste under control in Africa and unlocking the opportunities that "waste" provides as "resource" will require immediate intervention by government, business and civil society.

The US government proposes to impose tariffs on up to $50 billion of Chinese imports leading to significant concerns over the Trade War between the US and China. The article evaluates and examines the market responses of companies in both countries, depending on their direct and indirect exposures to US-China trade. Moreover, this paper fills the gap in literature about deglobalization in Energy and Resources Sectors in Africa. This paper proves the idea that US companies that are more dependent on exports and imports from China have lower stock and bond returns, and, at the same time, higher default risks in the short time aspect. The article found Trade War effects in energy and resources companies in Africa in the last years: on ownership rank, on credit country rank, on default risks and on their profitability. The paper also demonstrates that companies’ indirect exposure to US-China trade through domestic input-output links affects their responses to news on the subject matter. These findings suggest that the state of US-China trade of energy and resources is much more complex than the simplistic view of global trade that was in the beginning of Trade War with China. As a result of the Trade War, the real changes in stock prices of China companies (-0.07%) in energy and resource sectors is less than the same changes in US companies in Africa (-0.32%) in 2019. Also, the probability of default of Chinese companies (average default probability changed in -0.08%) in energy and resource sectors changed less than the same rank of US companies in Africa (average default probability changed by -0.84%).

This research investigates the influence of three theoretically valid independent variables -horizontal and vertical individualism-collectivism, ethical idealism and trust propensity -on employees' attitudes toward ethically questionable negotiation tactics in Peru. A total of 233 usable responses were collected from participants employed in various industries in the capital area, Lima. The results empirically corroborated a classification of three groups of negotiation tactics, namely pretending, deceiving and lying tactics, which seem to range in their scale of severity from being more to less socially acceptable. Peruvian employees who scored high on vertical individualism tended to score high on the endorsement of pretending, deceiving and lying tactics; those who scored high on horizontal collectivism tended to score low on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics; those who scored high on vertical collectivism tended to score high on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics.

Purpose This purpose of this paper is to examine cultural orientations and intention of Ghanaian women to engage in entrepreneurship while assessing the role of perceived support system. The aim is to contribute to the literature in the sub-Saharan African context where women entrepreneurs are generally under-researched, despite their increasing significant roles in socio-economic development in the continent even in the face of huge cultural barriers. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a hierarchical regression analysis and Hay’s PROCESS moderation technique to analyze survey data from 190 female students from Ghana, Africa. Findings The results indicate that uncertainty avoidance and power distance cultural orientations have significant positive and negative effects, respectively, on women’s participation in formal entrepreneurship. However, collectivism and masculine cultural orientations do not have any effect on their intention to engage in formal entrepreneurial activity. The study further shows that perceived support system has a buffering effect on the destructive consequences of power distance culture on formal entrepreneurship intentions. On the contrary, perceived support does not moderate the relationship between uncertainty avoidance, collectivism and masculine cultural and formal entrepreneurial intention. Practical implications Given the fact that most African governments are making efforts to accelerate the growth and development of their economies via entrepreneurship and economic empowerment, this study’s findings encourage stakeholders to implement measures to leverage on the positive dimensions of cultures to facilitate the development of formal entrepreneurship among Ghanaian women while mitigating the negative consequences of cultural practices. The findings further highlight the need to evaluate the current level of support given to women in Ghana. The study suggests that provision of sufficient level of support can make women more willing to challenge the status quo in power distance cultures and take personal initiatives, thereby leading to more formal entrepreneurial actions. Originality/value This study is a significant addition to women entrepreneurship literature because the role of culture in females’ intention to participate in entrepreneurship is generally an under-researched area. Besides, our examination of national cultural variation at the individual level on formal entrepreneurship intention in a heterogeneous setting is novel. The study also highlights the buffering roles of perceived support on the destructive consequences of power distance cultural orientation on formal entrepreneurial development among women.

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Although a lack of critical perspective in environmental management has been acknowledged, the frequency of this perspective has not been measured. This was noted in the editorial of Business Strategy and the Environment (BSE) 1998, where Richard Welford called for more critical theory in environmental management. BSE can be seen as a forerunner in the fi eld. Therefore, it could be expected that the most critical and refl ective research contributing to sustainable development in companies could be published in the journal. In order to analyse the extent to which critical perspective is present in environmental management, we reviewed the last six years of BSE. We found that the studies undertaken generally follow the positivist paradigm, which almost exclusively echoes marginal adjustments. Papers with a critical perspective are in the minority. Using Jürgen Habermas' work on communicative action and discourse, we conclude that there is a distortion in this scientifi c discourse.