1,720,981 research outputs found
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS CONTEXTS: PARADOXES, RHETORICS AND IDENTITIES
Get PDFIt has been argued that business organizations can play a relevant role in addressing contemporary ecological, social and economical challenges and contributing to global sustainable development. However, many authors affirm that current attempts to implement sustainability in organizations are often biased toward business and financial goals. In the introductory part of the dissertation I thus discuss the possible tenets of a critical approach to investigate sustainability in business organizations, which consists basically in a rejection of common assumptions associated with sustainability and CSR, such as the ‘win-win’ and the ‘business case’ arguments, in favor of an exploration of the tensions arising from their implementation.
I operationalized these principles in three empiric contributions that constitute the core of this dissertation.
Chapter I is a multiple-case study of companies strongly committed to environmental sustainability. As a consequence, they try to orient most of their processes, levels and everyday operations towards environmental goals. The HRM system of these companies plays a major role in this regard and we found that many different green HRM practices are devoted to sustain a greater environmental sustainability in their operations. At the same time however, because of the multiple goals that characterize both corporate sustainability and HRM systems, a series of tensions emerged that affect the green HRM systems of these organizations. Following the guidance of paradox theory, these tensions have been conceptualized as eight paradoxes.
The essential finding of this study is that paradoxes characterize all the companies studied and were pervasive in their green HRM systems. Besides the specific contribution to the HRM literature, this study supports the idea that sustainability is a paradoxical accomplishment in organizations, that conveys tensions and contradictions at many different levels. In their everyday work managers need thus to take into account tensions, trying to deal with them instead of uncritically downplaying conflicts in favor of a positive, win-win conception of corporate sustainability. While conducting this research project it also emerged the key role of the CSR manager as champion of sustainability in organizations.
In Chapter II therefore, I investigated the emergent managerial figure of the CSR manager. I indeed conducted a study of the occupational group of CSR managers in Italy focused on how the members of this occupation conceive their role in relation to the change that sustainability is supposed to bring inside organizations. As theoretical lens I applied the concept of occupational rhetorics, which correspond to idealized images the members of an occupation use to represent their work in a favorable manner in front of themselves and their colleagues.
On the basis of a multi-method research process which included in-depth interviews, observations at public events and meetings and focus group interviews, I identified five broad rhetoric repertoires (the motor of change, the business oriented, the idealist, the fatalist and the bookkeeper of CSR) that highlight the diversity and ambiguity that surround the work of these practitioners in organizations. Overall however, the large prevalence of business argumentations in their talk due to the exigency to get legitimacy for their role, lead to the conclusion that these managers are more likely to foster continuity instead of change in current business practices.
Whereas Chapter II focuses at the group level and tries to account for the shared representations of the role within the occupational group of CSR managers, Chapter III further zooms-in at the individual level and investigates the identity work operated by the same managers. The topic of identity was already incorporated in the original research project, including in the interview track questions aimed at encouraging identity talk in the interviewees. Accordingly, a part of the empiric documentation of the previous study was selected and analyzed in light of the literature on identity work and paradox theory.
The identity work performed by CSR managers has been conceptualized in this chapter in three tensions: the ‘goal tension’ (between a prevalent business-orientation or a values-orientation), the ‘space tension’ (between a conception of the self as an ‘organizational insider’ versus an ‘outsider’) and the time tension (between a self ‘focused on the short-term’ versus ‘on the long-term’). It was found that CSR managers react in a varied way to these tensions, in some cases embracing one pole of the tensions, in some others expressing a paradoxical identity work. In particular, the metaphors our interviewees used to talk about themselves were found to be powerful expressions of this varied identity positioning.
The dissertation moves from the assumption that CSR and sustainability represent complex and contradictory accomplishments in organizations. It thus adopts theoretical frameworks that allow to track the contradictory nature of sustainability in business contexts. The first contribution of this dissertation is the conceptualization of a series of tensions and contradictions that characterize corporate sustainability at various levels. In this sense, the dissertation represents a theory building effort that moves from difficulties and conflicts experienced in concrete organizational settings, to develop theoretical insights in a relatively ‘young’ field of investigation such as corporate sustainability.
The dissertation also investigates possible ways through which managerial actors react and cope with tensions. On this, the interpretative guidance provided by paradox theory in Chapter I and III results particularly useful, because it distinguishes between different types of coping strategies that are more or less suitable to deal with paradoxical tensions in organizations. In Chapter II it is instead discussed how CSR managers recur to multiple meanings to legitimize their own role, strategically leveraging the ambiguity that surrounds sustainability in business contexts. In the case of CSR managers, it was found that this ambiguity results mainly in an apology of the status quo and in a conception of CSR and sustainability consistent with a vision of ‘business as usual’.
In sum, the dissertation adds to an existing body of literature that highlights the limits of current approaches to CSR and sustainability in organizations, which appear too much instrumental, rationalistic and business-oriented. It shows indeed that many tensions characterize specific aspects of sustainability in business contexts, namely green HRM policies and practices, CSR managers’ occupational rhetorics and their identity work. As a consequence, in the dissertation it is argued for the emergence of more balanced, alternative and challenging views of sustainability, which should be embraced also at the managerial level in order to be effectively implemented in organizations.
In the conclusions, a reflexive account of the research path accomplished is given
A paradox view on green human resource management : insights from the Italian context
No full textParadox – understood as a set of contradictory and incompatible poles all supported by apparently sound arguments – is considered to be a key element in modern organizations. As a result, paradox scholars argue that successful managers are those able to accept the tensions arising from the paradox and able to pursue all its constitutive poles simultaneously instead of choosing only one of them. Paradox theory has been recently applied to corporate sustainability, and it is a theoretical approach that has been endorsed by influential authors also in the human resource management (HRM) field. In this context, this paper takes the still unexplored opportunity to apply paradox theory to green HRM. In particular, it explores the HRM-related paradoxes perceived by organizations developing environmental sustainability via HRM. Adopting a comparative multiple case study approach, semi-structured interviews and document analysis were conducted in six Italian companies explicitly pursuing an environmental strategy. The findings encompass the main characteristics of the green HRM systems of the organizations analyzed, and a list is provided of eight HRM-related paradoxes perceived by those organizations. For each paradox, we present and discuss its contrasting poles and the components of the HRM system that it affects. The implications of the findings for both green HRM research and practice are presented and discussed
Cambiamento organizzativo e identità multiple: una visione paradossale
No full textSpesso il cambiamento è stato presentato come antitetico alla stabilità nelle organizzazioni e necessario per la loro sopravvivenza. In realtà il cambiamento organizzativo è un fenomeno complesso attraversato da una serie di tensioni tra diversi elementi più o meno in continuità con il passato dell’organizzazione. Attraverso il caso studio di un’azienda italiana operante nel settore bancario e la lente analitica dell’identità nelle organizzazioni, in questo articolo viene avanzata una visione paradossale del cambiamento organizzativo, sottolineandone le sfide e i possibili benefici, le implicazioni teoriche e pratiche. Dalla ricerca empirica, basata sull’analisi di documenti aziendali, 61 interviste e osservazioni, emerge che molteplici identità caratterizzano l’azienda studiata a livello individuale e organizzativo. Se molteplici tratti identitari possono apparire come causa di frammentazione e conflitti, identità plurime possono anche rappresentare una risorsa nell’affrontare il cambiamento. Riproducendo e rinnovando le diverse rappresentazioni che le animano, anche quelle incoerenti tra di loro, le organizzazioni possono infatti contare su una varietà di risorse e prospettive nel relazionarsi con vari stakeholder in diversi contesti, nel tentativo di realizzare un cambiamento più bilanciato e sostenibile per tutti gli attori coinvolti.Change has often been presented as antithetical to stability and necessary for the survival of organizations. Organizational change is actually a complex phenomenon characterized by several tensions between different elements which are more or less in continuity with the past of the organization. Trough the case study of an Italian company operating in the financial services industry and the level of analysis of identity in organizations, in this article a paradoxical conception of organizational change is put forward, while highlighting its possible advantages and challenges, theoretical and practical implications. On the basis of the analysis of company documents, 61 interviews and observational data, we found that multiple identities characterized the studied company both at the individual and organizational level. Although multiple identity traits may be perceived as a cause of fragmentation and conflicts, varied identities may also represent a resource during organizational change processes. By reproducing and renewing the different representations that co-exist within them, despite some inconsistencies, organizations could indeed rely on a variety of resources and perspectives when dealing with various stakeholders, thus realizing a more balanced and sustainable change for all the actors involved
Activists in a Suite : Paradoxes and Metaphors in Sustainability Managersâ Identity Work
No full textBoth sustainability and identity are said to be paradoxical issues in organizations. In this study we look at the paradoxes of corporate sustainability at the individual level by studying the identity work of those managers who hold sustainability-dedicated roles in organizations. Analysing 26 interviews with sustainability managers, we identify three main tensions affecting their identity construction process: the business versus values oriented, the organizational insider versus outsider and the short-term versus long-term focused identity work tensions. When dealing with these tensions, some interviewees express a paradoxical perspective in attempting to accept and maintain the two poles of each of them simultaneously. It emerges in particular that metaphorical reasoning can be used by sustainability managers in varied ways to cope with the tensions of identity work. We read these findings in light of the existing literature on the relation between paradoxes and identity work, highlighting and discussing their implications for both research and practice
I CSR manager si raccontano: vissuti personali, retoriche ed aspirazioni a confronto
No full textThe role of CSR manager is gaining increasing relevance in business organizations so
that, in a recent contribution in management studies, they have been defined as ‘protagonists of a
cause’. Nevertheless, few empiric studies have analysed the role of the CSR manager adopting the
perspective of those managers who are actively involved in promoting CSR policies and practices
within companies. In this research we adopt an “internal point of view” to study the evolution of the
role of CSR manager. Thanks to twenty-six semi-structured interviews with CSR Managers, and
four focus group interviews with managers holding CSR-related roles, which involved further
nineteen participants, we explored the personal values, motivations and aspirations of those engaged
in this managerial occupation, both in national and multinational companies. Analysing the
interview transcripts, we identified six recurrent images that CSR managers use to describe their
work. By that process, this research reconstructs the career paths characterizing the role, the current
work experience of CSR managers, as well as the possible future developments of this managerial
occupation. In conclusion, we fully developed the practical implications of our findings, which are
presented and discussed in the paper
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Dinamiche organizzative e tensioni emergenti negli ecosistemi per l’innovazione: spunti dal caso del consorzio Intellimech
Get PDFPartendo dal caso del consorzio Intellimech, questo articolo analizza le dinamiche organizzative che portano alla creazione di un ecosistema per l’innovazione e identifica le tensioni principali che ne caratterizzano il funzionamento. Tali tensioni suggeriscono alcuni aspetti chiave da considerare nella progettazione e gestione di queste forme organizzative emergenti
- …
