Lankauskienė, Rita

At the beginning of the twenty-first century sometrend of widely discussed phenomena of corporate social responsibility (CSR) had already drifted across the gender issues, taking into account several facets of CSR. The diverse points for discussionsconcerned with gender and CSR might be addressed to the former debate on philanthropy and CSR. The scope of this study is recent debate on gender and CSR in terms of so called 'big wins' for business and society. Systematic review of scientific literature and actualevidence issued by respective research institutions was applied with the aim to organize and generalize range of gender and CSR related issues. [...]

Volunteering does not have deep traditions in Lithuania, and the idea of voluntary work takes root in Lithuanian community with specific challenges. Referring to the Information and support center of non-governmental organizations, voluntary organizations in Lithuania suffer from problems related to human resource management. Nevertheless, the volunteers’ organizational commitment is not in an area of academicians in Lithuania yet. The article is aimed to define reasoned methods of strengthening volunteers’ organizational commitment and personal initiative, while participating in a voluntary activity in non-profit organizations. A survey was chosen as a method of data gathering for the research. Four voluntary organizations (with 188 volunteers) registered in Vilnius and providing support for groups of social risk were selected for the research. Results indicate that high volunteers’ satisfaction is increased by the comprehension of social usefulness of the accomplished work. Mostly valued external reward is the recognition, which is realized in a form of commendation. Here, unexpected upshot was founded: volunteers would like to be evaluated as dedicated people able to accomplish commitments they take on, and as valuable personalities, while recognition and positive evaluation of their work results concerns only a fifth of them. Also, it was indicated that the volunteers’ feeling of commitment to the organization is mostly sustained by organization leaders’ trust in volunteers and by properly formulated and clearly defined assignments. Speaking of organizational commitment type it was identified that volunteers are mostly characterized by normative commitment, less – affective commitment and the least – continuance commitment.

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has evolved over time and now it is concerned to a wide range of organisations given the market character of the environment with its emphasis on globalisation and competition. At the same time, in an increasingly networked and globalised world, classical quality challenges evolve in a new context, with strong focus on socially responsible and sustainable stakeholder value. Plenty of CSR issues in terms of applications and relevant practices lately refer to a wide range of tactical level tools and approaches that can benefit greatly from quality framework. In this context, many educational institutions are trying to adopt a more business-like orientation to accomplish the changes. Despite the evolving debate concerning CSR and sustainability in higher education institutions and its direct link to quality assurance and quality enhancement, practical guidelines for CSR encouragement in universities through proactive involvement of primary higher education quality stakeholders remain unclear. The purpose of this book and, in parallel, the proposed course on Quality Management in Master’s degree programs is to develop understanding of CSR integrated quality philosophies, quality management methods and tools, which are synthesised and applied in contemporary organisations to ensure high quality of socially responsible performance and excellence in products and services, particularly focusing on higher education institutions, i.e. universities. The book provides additional practices with insights of modern views on quality as holistic management, responsibility and integrity tailored to classical approaches. It specifically addresses the CSR focused proactive engagement of primary higher education quality stakeholders (i.e. Master’s degree students) in the process of managing quality and performance excellence particularly at universities through participatory active learning methods: problem-based learning, discussion-based teaching, brainstorming, panel discussions, exploratory practical tasks based on critical analysis. Each topic is developed with continuous learning tasks, addressed to acquire demanded competencies for managing quality and performance excellence and develop skills for finding innovative CSR-based quality management solutions for particular quality programme development. In line with issuing a challenge for primary higher education stakeholders by proactive engagement in creative study programme quality improvement process, it gives an opportunity of examining responsibility for quality in higher education on their own both from theoretical and practical backgrounds.

At the beginning of twenty-first century some trend of widely discussed phenomena of corporate social responsibility (CSR) had already drifted across the gender issues, taking into account several discourses of CSR: philanthropy, accountability and stakeholder relations. The diverse points for discussions concerned with gender and CSR might be addressed to the former debate on philanthropy and CSR. The scope of this study is recent debate on gender and CSR in terms of so called ‘big wins’ for business and society. Systematic review of scientific literature and actual evidence issued by respective research institutions was applied with the aim to organize and generalize range of gender and CSR related issues. Research results show that lately CSR paradigm had been taken into particular trend of debate on gender issues, most often examined in relation with corporate philanthropy. However, philanthropic view normally emphasizes much deeper understanding of CSR than that found in latter research.

This article aims to explain the newly developed model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) values integrated Balanced Scorecard (BS) for local governments, which may serve as an advanced effective strategic management tool, fostering local community values-focused change. Research design is based under qualitative methodology, aiming to elucidate basic confusing concepts, explain strategic approach towards CSR by incorporating it into one of strategic management tools and empowering for actual changes through local governments. It is argued in the article, that CSR no longer simply affects relationships between businesses and society. It has become a way of rethinking the role of all organizations, and even local governments in society, which takes governance and sustainability as its core values and can change the focus of CSR public policies under community needs through adopting CSR integrated BS. Local governments are recognized as closest intermediaries between community needs and central government. Broader discussions and arguments under developed model's practical applicability issues in any organization are provided.