organizational analyses 2500 Problem Solving Case Study and Proposal Report
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EnvironmentalAnalysis-SocialCapitalandtheBoundrylessOrganisation1.pptxThe Boundaryless Organisation – Analysing Social Impact
Organisational Analysis
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Aims
Understand the theoretical arguments for social sustainability
Understand the subjectivist nature of social sustainability
Introduce social capital theory as an approach for evaluating social sustainability
Understand the limitations of social capital theory
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PESTEL
Political
Economic
Social
Technology
Environment
Legal
Recap: PESTEL as a Strategy Development Framework
Organisations are looking outwards
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Internal and External Environments of Organisations
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Emergence of Stakeholder Analysis
Justification
If an organisation does not engage in stakeholder analysis in an authentic way:
Problems will be reflected in narratives emerging both within and outside the organisation
Whistle-blower
Social media attacks
News
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Definitions of Sustainability – Social Impact
The movement towards measuring social impact refutes the organisation-centric notion of ‘effectiveness’
‘…(the attack on life in order to obtain profit, authority exercised to obtain control over the other, the imposition of methods of development that have been shown to be socially and ecologically harmful) leaves us with forms of organisation that act against humans and life, producing through their irrationality the victims whose existence they refuse to acknowledge and silence’ (Dussel, 2006: 502).
Recall your lecture on critical theory
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Changing Definitions of Sustainability – The Move to Social Impact
Complexities of analysing social impact
Social challenges facing organisations are often time and place specific
The stakeholder approach does not agree that universal definitions of organisational effectiveness are desirable nor feasible
The stakeholder approach encourages a broader view of the components of sustainability
Authentic social impact considers not only strategic constituencies, but also those actors with less direct political influence (e.g. residents near a factory, environmentalists, citizen groups)
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Changing Definitions of Sustainability – The Move to Social Impact
“We define sustainability in terms of three distinct capacities.
First is that conflict resolution practices and decisions need to follow natural justice principles and be socially just in outcomes, especially for the most vulnerable parties.
Second, sustainability is also about the present and future safety, health and wellbeing of communities, ecosystems and landscapes.
Third, sustainability for industries is about being able to make profits, have secure access to required natural resources and be conflict-free with its neighbours and sponsoring government authorities”
(Brueckner and Ross 2010, p204).
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Social Accounting
Narratives about social sustainability?
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Stakeholder Approach
Social legitimacy is a major criteria for organisational effectiveness
“The stakeholder approach considers that an organisation is effective only if it takes into account the wider community that has an interest in the decisions of the organisation, even if this is at the cost of profits” (Robbins and Barnwell 2006).
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Stakeholder Theory and Organisational Effectiveness
“Organisations that attend to the demands of all stakeholders will outperform organisations that ignore some of their stakeholders” (Hatch and Cunliffe, 2013: 82).
Labour – work/life balance
Human rights – prevention of abuse e.g. Child labour
Ethical / Anti-corruption
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Social Capital
The concept of social capital has gone into everyday parlance:
The first systematic contemporary analysis of social capital was offered by Pierre Bourdieu, who defined the concept as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition” (Bourdieu 1985, p. 248; 1980).
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Possession of Social Capital
Economic capital is in people’s bank accounts, social capital is in the structure of their relationships
To possess social capital, an individual must be related to others, and it is those others, not himself, who contribute as sources of that individual’s advantage.
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Definitions of Social Capital
According to Robert Putnam, social capital refers to connections among individuals, social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them (pp. 19-20, “Bowling Alone”).
Social capital recognises the important property of social connections
Involvement of mutual obligations that sustain rules of conduct, fostering norms of reciprocity
This reinforces Bordieu’s (1985) definition of “institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition” (Bourdieu 1985, p. 248; 1980).
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Bonding Social Capital
Bonding social capital refers to networks formed from perceived, shared identity relations
The reason for assenting to membership is that others are considered to be ‘‘like’’ one’s self and so no further justification is required for a default assumption that cooperation and trust are appropriate (though individuals may always forfeit this default right, temporarily or permanently, if their behaviour is judged inappropriate).
The possible networks of bonding social capital in any given society are, of course multiple and diverse, influenced by the whole range of complex, politically-negotiated ideas about social identities and by individuals’ own interpretations of their paths within this forest of meanings.
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Bridging Social Capital
Bridging social capital refers to networks of association, where the differentiating principle of shared social identity, similar origins, or status positions in society plays no necessary role in determining membership.
Participants in the network are typically drawn from a relatively wide range of backgrounds.
The proximate reason for interaction is to engage together in a collective activity, where each member values and benefits from, which they cannot achieve alone, and which is not available through the bonded networks they have. This might be a leisure activity, such as singing or pursuing a sport, but it may equally be associated with earning one’s living as part of a small work-team or large enterprise in the public or private sector.
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Linking Social Capital
It is linking social capital that brings into the centre of social capital theory considerations of power, inequality, and the role of government and the state.
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Linking Social Capital
Linking social capital could also be extended to evaluate the quality of the relationships that business organisations propagate among their workforces and in the communities in which they establish themselves
Linking social capital allows us to interrogate critically the nature of any institutionalised pattern of social relationships within a society in the context of manifest imbalances of power: how the rich relate to the poor in any society
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The Balanced Scorecard Approach
An attempt to establish an integrated measure of organisational effectiveness
Ends
Means
Processes
Stakeholders
Views effectiveness as arising from the balance between the various demands upon the organisation and its capabilities
Recognises that organisations and environments are constantly changing
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The Balanced Scorecard Approach
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The Power of Concepts
How organisational effectiveness is defined shapes:
what gets measured and what doesn’t
organisational outcomes
the impacts of the organisation on the broader social environment.
Think and reflect before acting ‘effectively’
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The Balanced Scorecard Approach
Benefits:
Identifies what is important to organisations.
Identifies how the various measures are interrelated.
Development of measures may also be used as an organisational development exercise.
Limitations:
Becomes a potentially endless ‘grocery list’
What is added to the ‘list’ is assumed to be important and gets ‘managed’ while those not on the list gets ignored.
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Whose role is it to build social capital?
Social capital has evolved into something of a cure-all for the maladies affecting society at home and abroad
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Reviewing Social Capital
All of the preceding discussion couches sustainability in terms that resonate with the triple bottom line, CSR and stakeholder theory.
The business of business is the creation of sustainable value – economic, social and ecological
(Wheeler, Colbert and Freeman 2003)
But is this the same as sustainability – longevity?
Costanza and Patten (1995) suggested there are 3 important questions to answer about sustainability:
What persists?
For how long?
When do you decide?
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Sustainability: Further Considerations
Do organisations have a definite shelf life?
Implications for sustainability?
Is it possible for individual organisations to be sustainable in the long-term?
Has concern about sustainability arisen because of a recognition that it is becoming more problematic and difficult to guarantee at the organisational level?
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References
Putnam R.D. (2000) Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. In: Crothers L., Lockhart C. (eds) Culture and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Aldrich D.P. (2017) The Importance of Social Capital in Building Community Resilience. In: Yan W., Galloway W. (eds) Rethinking Resilience, Adaptation and Transformation in a Time of Change. Springer, Cham
Szreter, S. (2002). The state of social capital: bringing back in power, politics, and history. Theory and Society, 31(5), 573–621
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