Scholars from various disciplines have studied humor since antiquity. Yet, over the centuries, these researchers have also struggled to conceptualize a viable, well-accepted notion of humor. Beyond pleasure and amusement, people use humor for a variety of social functions. On the one hand, humor can cause others to like the humorous source more, attract regard, ease conversations, promote expression and the exchange of ideas, introduce new topics of discussion, or smooth interactions. On the other hand, in aggressive forms, humor can halt verbal interactions, modify the usual rules of conversation, communicate critiques, or contribute to the creation of subversive environments. Not All Claps and Cheers: Humor in Business and Society Relationships is an original research anthology that considers different angles from which to address the use of humor by individuals, groups and business actors in their interactions within, around, and across organizations-that is, at the interfaces of business and society. Accordingly, the research anthology is organized in four sections-"Humor, Business and Society," "From Society to Business: Humor's Use and Roles in Activist Movements," "From Business to Society: Humor's Use and Roles in Marketing, Corporate Communications, and Public Relations," and "Society within Business: Humor's Use and Roles in the Workplace and in Organizations." This ground-breaking research anthology draws on material from marketing, communications, human resources and stakeholder theory to throw light on this poorly understood facet of human business behavior.

The way organizations manage their value chain has changed dramatically over the past decade. Today, organizations take account of economic issues, but they also adopt a broader perspective of their purpose including social and environmental issues. Yet despite its global spread, sustainable value chain management remains an uncertain and poorly defined ambition, with few absolutes. The social and environmental issues that organizations should address easily can be interpreted as including virtually everything. Current literature on the topic seeks to understand the effects and management of initiatives dealing with diversity, human rights, safety, philanthropy, community, and environment. However, the penetration of social and environmental considerations into value chain management is described as 'desire lacking reality' thereby making the idea a patchy success. The objective of this research anthology is to investigate different angles of sustainable value chain management. The book's 27 chapters fill holes and explore new fields; the chapters are organised in five sections: Sustainable value chains - context, drivers, and barriers; Sustainable value chains - managing activities; Sustainable value chains - managing networks and collaboration; Sustainable value chains - integrative perspectives; and Sustainable value chains - specific sectorial and industry perspectives.

Corporate social responsibility has grown into a global phenomenon that encompasses businesses, consumers, governments, and civil society, and many organizations have adopted its discourse. Yet corporate social responsibility remains an uncertain and poorly defined ambition, with few absolutes. First, the issues that organizations must address can easily be interpreted to include virtually everyone and everything. Second, with their unique, often particular characteristics, different stakeholder groups tend to focus only on specific issues that they believe are the most appropriate and relevant in organizations' corporate social responsibility programs. Thus, beliefs about what constitutes a socially responsible and sustainable organization depend on the perspective of the stakeholder. Third, in any organization, the beliefs of organizational members about their organization's social responsibilities vary according to their function and department, as well as their own managerial fields of knowledge. A Stakeholder Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility provides a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge theories and research that can lead to a more multifaceted understanding of corporate social responsibility in its various forms, the pressures and conflicts that result from these different understandings, and some potential solutions for reconciling them.

Engaging with Stakeholders: A Relational Perspective on Responsible Business contends that meaningful and constructive stakeholder engagement efforts should be rooted in a deep relational process of shared understanding, expectations, and viewpoints, through honest, continued dialogue between stakeholders and company management. This anthology follows and reaffirms this view, which also establishes the increasing need to explore the subtleties of how companies can respectfully engage their stakeholders in ways that reflect the corporate strategy and contribute to the ongoing development of business activities and creation of value, for themselves and stakeholders, from social, environmental, and economic perspectives. Stakeholder engagement practices, however, remain highly complex and difficult to manage; their ability to generate value in an inclusive way requires critical consideration. Sound stakeholder engagement efforts also constitute a keystone for responsible business activities. Drawing on a wide range of literature and studies, this book addresses key dimensions of stakeholder engagement, through a responsible business lens, and thereby contributes to identifying the opportunities, challenges, and key organizational implications associated with their unfolding. The four main topics covered are: * Delineating the nature and multiple raisons d'etre of stakeholder engagement * Dialogical and communicational foundations of stakeholder engagement * Engaging with diverse stakeholders throughout the value chain * Reaping organizational returns and relational rewards of stakeholder engagement efforts

Business Strategies for Sustainability brings together important research contributions that demonstrate different approaches to business strategies for sustainability. Many corporate initiatives toward what firms perceive to be sustainability are simply efficiency drives or competitive moves - falling far short of actual strategies for ecological sustainability. To suggest true ecological sustainability strategies, this new research anthology adopts an interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary, approach to discern what business strategies might look like if they were underpinned by environmental and ecological science. The 23 chapters in this anthology reflect five main topic sections: (a) delineating sustainability challenges and visions; (b) contradiction, integration and transformation of business and sustainability logics; (c) innovating and developing strategic capabilities for sustainability; (d) assessing and valuing sustainability; and (e) toward multi-level engagement and collaboration.

Although literature on corporate social responsibility is vast, research into the use and effectiveness of various communications through digital platforms about such corporate responsibility is scarce. This gap is surprising; communicating about corporate social responsibility initiatives is vital to organizations that increasingly highlight their corporate social responsibility initiatives to position their corporate brands for both consumers and other stakeholders. Yet these organizations still sometimes rely on traditional methods to communicate, or even decide against communicating at all, because they fear triggering stakeholders' skepticism or cynicism. A systematic, interdisciplinary examination of corporate social responsibility communication through digital platforms therefore is necessary, to establish an essential definition and up-to-date picture of the field. This research anthology addresses the above objectives. Drawing on marketing, management, and communication disciplines, among others, this anthology examines how organizations construct, implement, and use digital platforms to communicate about their corporate social responsibility and thereby achieve their organizational goals. The 21 chapters in this anthology reflect six main topic sections: Challenges and opportunities for communicating corporate social responsibility through digital platforms. Moving toward symmetry and interactivity in digital corporate social responsibility communication. Fostering stakeholder engagement in and through digital corporate social responsibility communication. Leveraging effective digital corporate social responsibility communication. Digital activism and corporate social responsibility. Digital methodologies and corporate social responsibility.

The way organizations manage entrepreneurship has changed dramatically over the past decade. Today, organizations take account of economic issues, but they also adopt a broader perspective of their purpose including social and environmental issues (i.e. sustainability). Yet, despite its global spread, sustainable entrepreneurship remains an uncertain and poorly defined ambition with few absolutes. This book reaffirms the important need to improve comprehension and explore the subtleties of how individuals, groups, and organizations can discover, create, and seize opportunities for blended value generation, by designing and operating sustainable ventures. It examines, in an interdisciplinary fashion and across sectoral and geographical boundaries, how entrepreneurial activities can be developed to be generally consistent with sustainable development goals, as well as by whom, for what reasons, and with what implications. The Editors comprehensively review key dimensions of the sustainable entrepreneurship phenomenon to establish an essential definition and up-to-date picture of the field. The 19 chapters cover 4 main topics: Understanding the intentions and motivations for sustainable entrepreneurship Fostering and enacting sustainability through entrepreneurial action Leading and inspiring sustainable entrepreneurial action Finding the contextually grounded implications of and challenges to sustainable entrepreneurship and blended value generation This book is an important resource for entrepreneurs and policy makers as well as students in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainability.