Place has often been conceived of in rather unproblematic, commonsensical terms: simply as the setting where social or economic activity occurs. Yet as feminist geographer Linda McDowell noted in her study of the City of London, ‘where things take place’ matters.1 Place matters in a material sense, giving something that is otherwise ideational a substantive form, but it also matters in terms of being ‘of importance’ to our perception and understanding; place matters insofar as it is of material significance and of significant meaning. Thinking about what place signifies in this way emphasizes that setting is far from a neutral backdrop against which social action occurs; on the contrary, it plays an active role in shaping the nature and lived experience of that action just as the ways in which we make sense of and interact with place impacts upon the setting itself.

Adopting multiple stakeholder orientation as measurement for CSR and using the data of publicly listed Chinese firms from 2011-16, we examine how firms allocate attention to the five key stakeholders’ interests under potential resource constraints across different ownership types. Main results suggest that privately owned firms are more likely to prioritize the societal-orientation, compared to state-owned and foreign-invested firms; foreign-invested firms are more likely to attend to investor-orientation, consumer-orientation and environment-orientation, compared to the other two types. Weak difference is detected in employee-orientations across the three types of firms, which may be due to a general attention to employee benefits. In the context of potential conflicting interests, results suggest that different types of ownership lead the firm to make different choices in trading off different stakeholder interests, with foreign-invested firms trading off between internal stakeholder interests and external stakeholder interests, privately owned firms trading off investor and employee interests for customer interests, and all firms trading off customer interests with environment interests.

The chapter acknowledges a broad consensus following the recession of 2008 that ethically challenging practices have permeated the world of today’s businesses. Not only are the developing and emerging economies suffering from unethical corporate practices, they are also plagued by poor leadership. They also note that, in many cases, business leaders and entrepreneurs fail to understand their discretionary responsibilities to care for the ecosystem on which lives and businesses depend in enjoying the fruits of the free market and taking advantage of weak governance mechanisms and poor leadership, especially in the developing and emerging economies. The authors argue that the tenets of sustainability, which emphasizes the purpose of business as economic advancement coupled with concerns for socio-environmental well-being, offers some direction towards filling the ethical gap in management education to ensure sustainable development in the emerging economies. The chapter therefore examines how sustainability education can be more deliberately advanced in business and management education institutions in the emerging and developing countries.

Little is known about how subsidiaries of MNCs implement political CSR across Africa. The purpose of this paper is to determine how corporations respond to the many ‘pressures’ to align competing socioeconomic demands through political CSR and how that affects local communities in global supply chains. Based on field work in an emerging economy, we focus on a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest multinational palm oil producers and its HR Management. Contrary to what extant literature presents as pressures on MNCs to fulfil demands that are neither related to their raison d’être nor competence, we found that socioeconomic demands in low-income countries are rather the local communities’ natural response to shocks emanating from the presence of the subsidiary in their community. The ensuing dramatic changes in the socio-cultural, political and economic institutions underpinning their way of life are articulated as ‘5Ds’: dispossession of land; displacement of people; destruction of the environment; desperation; and de-democratization through disenfranchisement. Our micro-level analysis reveals HR managers’ dilemma. They are mostly torn between responding to community’s grievances and the profit-maximization intents of the firm. They make attempts to liaise and create dialogue but ultimately loyalty to the subsidiary is privileged over social demands.

The chapter shows that one way of tackling the problem of weak regulatory systems that allow corporations to ignore environmental sustainability in their business activities is to make corporate investments in environmental sustainability in developing countries economically attractive to the corporations. And in the process enable them to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in these developing countries, while reaping economic rewards for doing so. ‘Green capitalism’ as a concept merges economic capitalism with green objectives and when appropriately utilised, can be an effective tool for achieving the SDGs in developing countries. This chapter analyses the application of green capitalism in developing countries and how it merges the profit-focus of capitalism with environmental sustainability. Utilising the ‘environment contestation approach’, the chapter examines how ‘green capitalism’ reconciles the notions of free-market enterprise and the sustainable development desired by developing countries. It discusses the regulatory steps needed to prevent potential ‘greenwashing’ by corporations while incentivising increased investments in SDGs-related projects within these jurisdictions. Using available statistics, the chapter examines the success of ‘green bonds’ issuance for environmental projects as a reflection of the increasing reliance on green capitalist tools for achieving the SDGs in developing countries.

Organisations and managers are increasingly being held accountable for CSR in their spheres of operation. While a few organisations already have structures to deal with competing demands from stakeholders with regards to corporate social responsibilities, some are caught flatfooted. This paper takes a look at the theoretical underpinning of CSR and CRS education in the literature. It also focuses on exploring the following questions. How do leaders or managers acquire the sensibilities of being in tune with the social responsibilities of an organisation? How do managers acquire the necessary knowledge and sense to handle corporate social responsibilities expectations? How are MBA institutions handling this critical task of preparing mangers as decisionmakers in charge of CSR for the future? Can a model emerge from current CSR education practices? These issues are addressed in this chapter.