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This paper aims to explore invitational discourse as a modality underpinning socially responsible enterprises seeking to become spiritually alert. This is carried out by focussing on a rich symbolic environment within which organizations operate.

This conceptual paper explores a fifteenth-century icon from the Russian Orthodox tradition to demonstrate how organizations might move from silo-based communication strategies to create open environments where information is shared. A case study of the global organization in crisis, the dairy cooperative Fonterra, is used as a case study.

Where organizations become invitational and go beyond blame to develop the two fundamental ethical qualities of forgiveness and generosity, they become more socially responsible.

The study takes a well-known artefact within one tradition and appropriates for a discussion about contemporary organizations as they seek to become more holistic and spiritually alert.

Modern conflicts are increasingly battles over images and ideas, as protagonists seek to shape audiences’ views by managing the information available through the media. The stake are high: influencing public opinion in a desired direction can have tangible pay‐offs in economic and military terms and even – in the case of the Israel‐Palestine war – in territory. Against this background, the media war can be even more important than the shooting war. While each side in the Israel‐Palestine conflict alleges media bias in favour of the other, a theoretical perspective, the hostile media effect, illuminates seeming contradictions highlighted by these competing claims. While the Israelis are better resourced for public relations purposes than the Palestinians, a vigorous domestic critique of Israeli PR efforts illustrates the limits of PR and emphasises the fluid, “wicked” nature of problems that often face communication managers.

This chapter draws on the school improvement research of EducAid, a small NGO with schools in Sierra Leone. We review the challenge of school improvement in the context of a low-income country still emerging from the aftermath of civil war, historically low expenditure on education as a per cent of GDP, low levels of trust between people and the government and lack of a reliable evidence base on which to plan school improvement. As predictable consequences of these challenges, the Ministry of Education recognises weaknesses in teacher recruitment and training, resulting in low student attainments. In a critique of adaptations of Hood's (1998) social cohesion/social regulation matrix we argue that it may not provide a coherent framework for understanding the process of school improvement in a low-income country such as Sierra Leone. Specifically, high social cohesion, when focussed on educational improvement, is likely to be necessary for school improvement, but the concept of social regulation is more complex. Although the structure is hierarchical, both at national and local levels, implying high social regulation, lines of accountability seldom work effectively, resulting in low social regulation. The picture is further complicated by evidence that socioeconomic status may be less influential in predicting students' attainments in low-income countries than in those with high and middle incomes. We argue that a professional learning network for head teachers is a necessary starting point for head teachers to stimulate debate on change strategies within their own schools.

This study aims to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of dairy farmers about climate change in dairy farms in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.

The study was conducted following a cross-sectional research design (Bryman, 2012). The study was conducted mainly on dairy farms located on the south-eastern part of the Eastern Cape province in five districts out of the province’s six districts (Figure 1). These districts include Amathole, Chris Hani, OR Tambo and Cacadu; these regions were not included in a recent surveying study (Galloway et al., 2018).

In all, 71.7% of dairy farm workers heard about climate change from the television, and 60.4% of participants reported that they gathered information from radio. Eighty-two out of 106 (77.4%) correctly indicated that climate change is a significant long-term change in expected weather patterns over time, and almost 10% of the study participants had no clue about climate change. Approximately 63% of the respondents incorrectly referred to climate change as a mere hotness or coldness of the day, whereas the remainder of participants correctly refuted that definition of climate change. Most of the study participants correctly mentioned that climate change has an influence on dairy production (92.5%), it limits the dairy cows’ productivity (69.8%) and that dry matter intake of dairy cows is reduced under higher temperatures (75.5%).

The use of questionnaire to gather data limits the study, as respondents relied on recall information. Also, the sample size and study area limits use of the study as an inference for the excluded parts of the Eastern Cape Province. Also, it focused only on dairy farm workers and did not request information from beef farmers.

This study imply that farmers without adequate knowledge of the impact of climate change keep complaining of a poor yield/ animal productivity and changing pattern of livestock diseases. Hence, a study such as the present one helps to bridge that gap and provide relevant governing authority the needed evidence for policy changes and intervention.

Farmers will begin to get help from the government regarding climate change.

This a first study in South Africa seeking to document the knowledge of dairy farm workers about climate change and its impacts on productivity.