Purpose – Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is conceptualized as the construct describing the relationship between companies and society. Although scholars reached an agreement about the linkages between CSR in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and psychosocial issues – social identity, organizational culture and commitment – it is still a problematic issue how CSR should be defined and how companies could behave as socially responsible. The authors hypothesize that psychosocial processes impact the activation of CSR. Within a psychological perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore CSR definitions and CSR psychosocial dimensions. Design/methodology/approach – According to an emic perspective oriented at in-depth comprehension of phenomena, the authors adopted the grounded theory methodology to collect, analyze and discuss the data. In total, 14 entrepreneurs and 12 employees of Italian-Apulian SMEs were interviewed on three thematic areas: organizational culture; sense of community; and CSR. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Findings – Results showed that: CSR definitions were continuously mediated by participants’ organizational culture; and perspective taking, care taking and sustainable practices emerged as the salient CSR psychosocial components, correspondent to its cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions. Practical implications – The paper argues that CSR sychosocial components could be the strategic variables to develop and to manage CSR in organizations. Originality/value – CSR is re-conceptualized as a psychosocial multidimensional construct, explaining its dynamic activation in organizations. The authors suggest that the cognitive and affective dimensions are antecedent to the behavioral dimension. Thus, the authors are developing a CSR psychosocial scale to study the linkages among these dimensions and other variables through quantitative analysis method.

The article presents two studies that address issues concerning the evaluation of public participation. Study 1 aimed to validate two instruments for measuring the process (the Deliberative Process Perceived Quality Scale, composed of two factors: ‘‘dialogue’’ and ‘‘knowledge/understanding’’) and the outcome (Outcome Rating Scale) of a specific participatory procedure, i.e. the Open Space Technology (OST). Study 2 explored whether the participants’ evaluation of OST’s process and outcome predicted the future involvement of citizens in the same type of practices. Participants (N ¼ 471) were recruited during five OSTs held in Italy between January and October 2010. The results indicated that (a) ‘‘dialogue’’ and ‘‘knowledge/understanding’’ appeared as distinct mechanisms and (b) participants who experienced respectful and collaborative relationships, and who positively evaluated the results achieved, were more likely to repeat a similar experience in the future, irrespective of the associated cognitive gains. Implications for community development and empowerment processes are discussed.

This study is comparative and explanatory in nature, investigating whether different types of participation (formal political par- ticipation, legal activism, and civic engage- ment) are differentiated from one another by a set of psychosocial variables (organisa- tional commitment, perceived social sup- port, stress and coping mechanisms, and or- ganisational variables). We also investigate whether these variables can predict the long-term engagement of those involved in political and civic organisations, as research on collective action, community participa- tion, and volunteerism suggests. A survey was conducted on 517 members of a variety of political and volunteer organisations. The results showed a polarisation both between the political and civic forms of engagement and within the two political forms of partic- ipation considered. In addition, it was found that the factors predicting the long-term engagement of the individuals differed significantly among the three types of par- ticipation.

In this paper, the relationship between territorial sense of community (SoC), perceived ethnic heterogeneity within the community and ethnic prejudice was analyzed. Specifically, the moderating role of perceived ethnic heterogeneity within the community on the SoC–prejudice relationship was tested in a sample of residents (N = 603) of the Salento region, Italy. Results showed that the relationship between SoC and prejudice was moderated by perceived contextual heterogeneity. For blatant and subtle prejudice, when perceived ethnic heterogeneity was low, SoC was negatively associated with prejudice. In the case of modern prejudice, SoC was positively associated with prejudice when perceived ethnic heterogeneity was high. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Based on the Social Identity and Social Categorization Theory framework, this study investigated how identification with the physical component of a community (i.e., the place identity), the perception of a community (i.e., the ingroup) in terms of cohesion and entitativity, and the perception of one or more territorial communities as laying beyond a community’s boundaries (i.e., the outgroup) affect a psychological sense of community (PSOC). A survey was conducted with 477 residents (55.1& female; aged 16-80 years) in the Salento region, Italy. The results showed that the more individuals identified with the spatial community, the more they felt connected to their fellow residents and the more satisfied they were with their social relationships. More importantly, the findings highlighted the contribution of ingroup-outgroup relationships on shaping PSOC, which suggests that determinants of PSOC should include both the internal identification processes and the processes that lead communities to behave towards other communities.

Psychological sense of community (PSOC) has been a focus of extensive research investigation. However, despite the emphasis on the positive aspects of PSOC, scholars have paid relatively little attention on its negative aspects. The present work assumes PSOC to be a bipolar construct (Brodsky, 1996), introduces negative psychological sense of community (NPSOC) as a centrifugal force that drives individuals away from the community, and reports the development of the NPSOC scale. Community residents (N = 612) were sampled and surveyed to examine the statistical validity and the psychometric properties of the NPSOC scale. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) revealed that the second-order factor structure of NPSOC (consisting of four first-order factors) yielded the most satisfactory fit indices, with correlational analyses supporting the construct validity of NPSOC. To lay the foundation for future directions, the concept of NPSOC was further discussed in relation to its implications and to the construct of PSOC.

I No Tav in Val di Susa, i No Ponte in Sicilia, i No Discarica a Chiaiano (Napoli), i No Dal Molin a Vicenza sono solo alcuni dei movimenti, sempre più presenti nelle cronache locali e nazionali, con cui si confrontano politici e comuni cittadini. Sono gruppi di facinorosi violenti o oscurantisti ed egoisti pronti a tutto per difendere il loro pezzo di terra a scapito del bene comune? Sono davvero contro il «progresso»? Questo volume propone una lettura nuova dei movimenti di protesta Nimby (acronimo dell’espressione inglese Not in my backyard, «Non nel mio giardino», con cui si indicano le opposizioni locali a opere sgradite) e ne mette in luce gli aspetti sia positivi sia negativi. Una imparziale e onesta analisi di un fenomeno socialmente pregnante, non liquidabile con un semplicistico giudizio pro o contro.

The study explored the roles of commitment, emotional stress, and interpersonal relationships in sustaining individuals' engagement in collective action. Two collective action cases, differing in duration, issue, and territorial rootedness, were analyzed. The processes underlying sustained engagement were probed in 32 semistructured interviews conducted with antiglobalization activists (N = 13) and opponents to a high-speed railroad (N = 19). Our findings showed that collective action can be stressful, but that there are proximal and distal factors that can counterbalance the disruption and sustain engagement. The proximal factors are embedded in the circumstances of involvement, and these factors concern interpersonal relationships, organizational mechanisms, and the psychological interface between the individuals and the concrete collective action environment. The distal factors are related partly to the individual and partly to the broader community from which the individual absorbs general values and norms.

The chapter explores the issue of power in participatory community research, with the aim of (a) highlighting the rewards and the risks entailed in participatory community research; (b) identifying and discussing devices through which inequality, exclusion and power asymmetry are created and preserved in the research process; and (c) making suggestions and recommendations about the ways in which participation processes can be managed. After a brief introduction about the importance and benefits of participation in community research, the dynamics of power relationships is addressed and the risks and problems associated with the adoption of a participatory approach highlighted. Specifically, issues concerning inclusion, manipulation, reproduction of social inequalities, quality of participation, and influence are discussed, with examples from projects that have utilised community research. The issues and the examples presented emphasise the centrality of relationships and demonstrate the need for improving the reflexivity of all researchers involved in the research process.

The study was aimed at identifying the impact of a pool of variables on the willingness of the participants in five consultative arenas (Open Space Technology) to become involved in future experiences of civic engagement. The study also intended to verify whether such willingness varied among subgroups of participants. In total, 194 participants (49.5% men, 50.5% women; mean age=37.04) were recruited during five OSTs held in Italy between May and November 2008 and asked to fill in a questionnaire composed of the following measures: perceived costs and benefits,emotions, sense of community, trust in institutions and need for cognitive closure. Findings suggested that the setting-related variables—namely the perception of costs and benefits and the arousal of positive feelings—were more influential than the community-related variables, such as sense of community and trust in institutions. Indications and suggestions for the design, implementation and evaluation of participatory settings were discussed.

Quattro saggi sulla fiducia in prospettiva interdisciplinare.

Many studies indicate that participation and sense of community (SoC) are associated factors enhancing community development. However, research has almost completely ignored the magnitude of the association between the two and the stability of this relationship across contexts, populations and different forms of community participation. A meta-analysis was conducted to assess the following: (a) the strength and stability of the SoC-participation relationship; (b) variations in this relationship associated with different forms of participation (i.e., civic and political); and (c) the influence of population characteristics on the SoC-participation relationship. The results showed that the SoC-participation relationship is significant, positive and moderately strong for forms of participation in the adult population and specific cultural contexts. Implications for theory and applications are discussed.

Embedded in the strand of research on the community determinants of sense of community (SoC), the study was designed to verify whether: (1) the size of the urban context was inversely related to residents’ SoC; (2) the size of the urban centers affected some of the correlates of SoC, namely the perception of social support, the residential environmental satisfaction, the residential social climate satisfaction, and the perceived reliability of local services in the areas of health, transport, administration, education, and security. The sample comprised 1254 individuals residing in a variety of towns/cities of different sizes in Southern and Northern Europe. Analyses revealed that the larger the town/city, the lower the SoC expressed by the inhabitants. They also showed that the residential environmental and social climate satisfaction, as well as perceived social support, were associated with an increase in SoC, but that there were variations in the patterns of associations according to towns/cities’ size. © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht