Organization Theory
summarymidterm 2
,Organization Theory Rick Verhagen
Chapter 13 – Managing social responsibility ethically
Risk Society: A risk society is one in which the life-threatening disasters that we might be subject to
cannot be controlled within a specific territory: Chernobyl or global warming are good examples.
Corporate Social Responsibility: can be defined as the explicit attempt by an organization to signal
that it exceeds minimum legal obligations to stakeholders that are specified through regulation and
corporate governance, often by extending the notion of stakeholders to be more inclusive.
CSR is seen to be a voluntary commitment on the part of an organization to sustainable economic
development that will improve the quality of life of its employees, their families, local communities,
and society at large.
the why question can be used to differentiate ethical concerns from instrumental concerns.
Ethically, at one extreme, organizations should be seen to be caring for a variety of stakeholders and
the externalities that their operations create, because to do so serves ethical interests in the greater
good. At the other extreme, from resource dependency and institutional perspectives, organizations
also need legitimation to operate, and concern for other stakeholders is an efficient means to
acquire legitimation. The second question, the how question, differentiates between techno-centric
approaches, in which sustainability is seen as a technical problem, and power-sensitive approaches,
in which the pressure of stakeholder interest makes sustainability a political issue
There are three different levels of analysis implicit in any discussion of CSR:
- At the institutional level there are assumptions about the legitimation of organizational
actions in so far as they accord with institutionalized norms and values. At this level, general
societal expectations and the framing and implementation of these in practice by
government determine the legitimacy of a particular organization in its actions.
- At the organizational level organizations must take responsibility for what they do and do
not do because they can be held legally accountable for their actions and non-actions.
- At the individual level the principle of managerial discretion presumes the morality and
ethics of individual managers in their relationships with stakeholders.
,Organization Theory Rick Verhagen
Stakeholder management:
Stakeholder (standard definition): is any person with an interest in the activity of an organization
Stakeholder (less encompassing definition): those whom the organization affects with their
activities, such as owners, investors, employees, the trade unions that organize the employees,
customers, consumer associations, regulators, suppliers, and citizens living in sufficient proximity to
an organization’s material presence to be affected by it.
Stakeholder theory: as a way of managing organizations, develops frameworks within which
relevant stakeholders can be identified and defined. Often these stakeholders are defined more
restrictedly than their identification in broad terms would suggest. The more restricted approach
limits stakeholders to those who are relevant. Relevance is defined in terms of actual investments in
the organization that makes them susceptible to risk from the organization’s activities.
the question of who the relevant stakeholders should be becomes one of time periods: if businesses
are alert only to interests in the short term they will probably pay most heed to those stakeholders
whose impact is most immediate on their day-to-day operations
Höllerer (2010) has thoroughly examined CSR discourse in Austrian corporate annual reports since
the early 1990s.
- First focus of CSR is on the sustainability of profits, people, and planet often referred to as
the triple bottom line.
- Second focus is on good corporate governance and enhanced transparency
- Third, situates stakeholder management as a key task of managing divergent interests.
- Fourth, corporate values such as philanthropy and the support of societal groups in need
that do not have power or voice in corporate decision-making, are often deployed to
demonstrate corporate responsibility for less privileged members of society.
the stakeholder approach is always an implicit theory of power relations in which some interests will
be given a more legitimate status than others. At its best, it will be quite explicit about these
rankings, using some calculus of powerfulness, legitimacy, and urgency in attending to stakeholder
interests. Some stakeholders will be consistently more on the outside and others will be consistently
more privileged.
Corporate greening:
Corporate Greening: is a process that involves trying to adopt green principles and practices in as
many facets of the business as it is possible to do so.
the new corporate environmentalism seeks not only to comply with whatever governmental or
industry regulations may be in place, but also to develop more proactive sustainability approaches.
This places sustainability, or as it is sometimes referred to, corporate greening, at the core of a firm’s
strategic CSR agenda.
Corporate greening involves the espousal of ‘green’ values, which are becoming increasingly
institutionalized with the realization that sustainable production is equivalent to more efficient
production. Inputs that are not wasted and processes that do not provide outputs which have to be
scrapped are both ecologically and economically rational. Waste is irrational and inefficient.
, Stuvia - Koop en Verkoop de Beste Samenvattingen
Organization Theory Rick Verhagen
Jermier and his colleagues (2006) suggest that several factors characterize a successful green
learning organization that has become more socially responsible:
- Lifelong learning: ensuring that the organization really is a learning organization, constantly
trying to find not only new ways of doing the same things better (single-loop learning) but
also new things to do in innovative ways (double-loop learning).
- Developing critical thinking skills: helping organization members gain confidence in critical
reflection on existing ways of doing things and encouraging them to voice their opinions as
to how things might be done better, developing future-oriented scenarios that are more
sustainable.
- Building citizenship capabilities: encouraging employees to think not just as employees in
terms of the firm benefit but as concerned citizens desirous of reducing the overall
ecological footprint of not only the organizations they work for and with, but also the impact
that they make in their daily lives.
- Fostering environmental literacy: encouraging people to learn about specific environmental
problems and solutions, their causes, consequences, and connectedness.
- Nurturing ecological wisdom: sharing an eco-centred understanding of the web of life and
the centrality of responsible, ethical, and sustainable behaviour to a good life.
Three things need to come together to build green learning in organizations: the creation of a public
sphere; the development of communicative rationality; and discursive design.
Newton and Harte’s perspective organizational eco-change will only come about through stronger
state regulation that obliges organizations to be more socially responsible. Regulation may be an
answer but its efficacy cannot be assumed in contexts where the politics of regulation are highly
contested and in which there is not democratic support across the political spectrum.
Greenwashing:
Cynics might say that it becomes a matter of shareholder value for business to appear to be
concerned about CSR issues. A common critique, therefore, is that CSR is often no more than a tool
of corporate ‘greenwash’ a rhetorical device employed by corporations to legitimize the corporate
form and accommodate the social consciences of its consumers.
it will seek to outdo whatever is constituted as regulatory best practice, seeking to make itself
greener than it is obliged to be. Just as easily, however, and with far more frequency one suspects,
organizations promote themselves in the best possible light while not being consistent in their
ecological commitments a process called greenwashing.
If little or no effort is otherwise being made towards reducing energy usage and if the reduced costs
are not passed on to customers, you might be forgiven for thinking that the green campaign was
more about cutting costs and increasing profits than saving the environment. Such tokenistic
environmentally conscientious acts that serve mostly to increase profits are known as greenwashing.
3
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Dit document is auteursrechtelijk beschermd, het verspreiden van dit document is strafbaar.
summarymidterm 2
,Organization Theory Rick Verhagen
Chapter 13 – Managing social responsibility ethically
Risk Society: A risk society is one in which the life-threatening disasters that we might be subject to
cannot be controlled within a specific territory: Chernobyl or global warming are good examples.
Corporate Social Responsibility: can be defined as the explicit attempt by an organization to signal
that it exceeds minimum legal obligations to stakeholders that are specified through regulation and
corporate governance, often by extending the notion of stakeholders to be more inclusive.
CSR is seen to be a voluntary commitment on the part of an organization to sustainable economic
development that will improve the quality of life of its employees, their families, local communities,
and society at large.
the why question can be used to differentiate ethical concerns from instrumental concerns.
Ethically, at one extreme, organizations should be seen to be caring for a variety of stakeholders and
the externalities that their operations create, because to do so serves ethical interests in the greater
good. At the other extreme, from resource dependency and institutional perspectives, organizations
also need legitimation to operate, and concern for other stakeholders is an efficient means to
acquire legitimation. The second question, the how question, differentiates between techno-centric
approaches, in which sustainability is seen as a technical problem, and power-sensitive approaches,
in which the pressure of stakeholder interest makes sustainability a political issue
There are three different levels of analysis implicit in any discussion of CSR:
- At the institutional level there are assumptions about the legitimation of organizational
actions in so far as they accord with institutionalized norms and values. At this level, general
societal expectations and the framing and implementation of these in practice by
government determine the legitimacy of a particular organization in its actions.
- At the organizational level organizations must take responsibility for what they do and do
not do because they can be held legally accountable for their actions and non-actions.
- At the individual level the principle of managerial discretion presumes the morality and
ethics of individual managers in their relationships with stakeholders.
,Organization Theory Rick Verhagen
Stakeholder management:
Stakeholder (standard definition): is any person with an interest in the activity of an organization
Stakeholder (less encompassing definition): those whom the organization affects with their
activities, such as owners, investors, employees, the trade unions that organize the employees,
customers, consumer associations, regulators, suppliers, and citizens living in sufficient proximity to
an organization’s material presence to be affected by it.
Stakeholder theory: as a way of managing organizations, develops frameworks within which
relevant stakeholders can be identified and defined. Often these stakeholders are defined more
restrictedly than their identification in broad terms would suggest. The more restricted approach
limits stakeholders to those who are relevant. Relevance is defined in terms of actual investments in
the organization that makes them susceptible to risk from the organization’s activities.
the question of who the relevant stakeholders should be becomes one of time periods: if businesses
are alert only to interests in the short term they will probably pay most heed to those stakeholders
whose impact is most immediate on their day-to-day operations
Höllerer (2010) has thoroughly examined CSR discourse in Austrian corporate annual reports since
the early 1990s.
- First focus of CSR is on the sustainability of profits, people, and planet often referred to as
the triple bottom line.
- Second focus is on good corporate governance and enhanced transparency
- Third, situates stakeholder management as a key task of managing divergent interests.
- Fourth, corporate values such as philanthropy and the support of societal groups in need
that do not have power or voice in corporate decision-making, are often deployed to
demonstrate corporate responsibility for less privileged members of society.
the stakeholder approach is always an implicit theory of power relations in which some interests will
be given a more legitimate status than others. At its best, it will be quite explicit about these
rankings, using some calculus of powerfulness, legitimacy, and urgency in attending to stakeholder
interests. Some stakeholders will be consistently more on the outside and others will be consistently
more privileged.
Corporate greening:
Corporate Greening: is a process that involves trying to adopt green principles and practices in as
many facets of the business as it is possible to do so.
the new corporate environmentalism seeks not only to comply with whatever governmental or
industry regulations may be in place, but also to develop more proactive sustainability approaches.
This places sustainability, or as it is sometimes referred to, corporate greening, at the core of a firm’s
strategic CSR agenda.
Corporate greening involves the espousal of ‘green’ values, which are becoming increasingly
institutionalized with the realization that sustainable production is equivalent to more efficient
production. Inputs that are not wasted and processes that do not provide outputs which have to be
scrapped are both ecologically and economically rational. Waste is irrational and inefficient.
, Stuvia - Koop en Verkoop de Beste Samenvattingen
Organization Theory Rick Verhagen
Jermier and his colleagues (2006) suggest that several factors characterize a successful green
learning organization that has become more socially responsible:
- Lifelong learning: ensuring that the organization really is a learning organization, constantly
trying to find not only new ways of doing the same things better (single-loop learning) but
also new things to do in innovative ways (double-loop learning).
- Developing critical thinking skills: helping organization members gain confidence in critical
reflection on existing ways of doing things and encouraging them to voice their opinions as
to how things might be done better, developing future-oriented scenarios that are more
sustainable.
- Building citizenship capabilities: encouraging employees to think not just as employees in
terms of the firm benefit but as concerned citizens desirous of reducing the overall
ecological footprint of not only the organizations they work for and with, but also the impact
that they make in their daily lives.
- Fostering environmental literacy: encouraging people to learn about specific environmental
problems and solutions, their causes, consequences, and connectedness.
- Nurturing ecological wisdom: sharing an eco-centred understanding of the web of life and
the centrality of responsible, ethical, and sustainable behaviour to a good life.
Three things need to come together to build green learning in organizations: the creation of a public
sphere; the development of communicative rationality; and discursive design.
Newton and Harte’s perspective organizational eco-change will only come about through stronger
state regulation that obliges organizations to be more socially responsible. Regulation may be an
answer but its efficacy cannot be assumed in contexts where the politics of regulation are highly
contested and in which there is not democratic support across the political spectrum.
Greenwashing:
Cynics might say that it becomes a matter of shareholder value for business to appear to be
concerned about CSR issues. A common critique, therefore, is that CSR is often no more than a tool
of corporate ‘greenwash’ a rhetorical device employed by corporations to legitimize the corporate
form and accommodate the social consciences of its consumers.
it will seek to outdo whatever is constituted as regulatory best practice, seeking to make itself
greener than it is obliged to be. Just as easily, however, and with far more frequency one suspects,
organizations promote themselves in the best possible light while not being consistent in their
ecological commitments a process called greenwashing.
If little or no effort is otherwise being made towards reducing energy usage and if the reduced costs
are not passed on to customers, you might be forgiven for thinking that the green campaign was
more about cutting costs and increasing profits than saving the environment. Such tokenistic
environmentally conscientious acts that serve mostly to increase profits are known as greenwashing.
3
Gedownload door: karanpurewal |
Dit document is auteursrechtelijk beschermd, het verspreiden van dit document is strafbaar.
