Daniel Arenas

The Value of Unregulated Business-NGO Interaction A Deliberative Perspective

Political theories in general and deliberative democracy in particular have become quite popular in business ethics over the past few years. However, the model of deliberative democracy as generally referred to in business ethics is only appropriate for conceptualizing interaction between business and society which occurs within a context which is more or less institutionalized. The model cannot account for “unregulated” interaction between business and civil society. The authors argue that scholars need to resort to the so called “critical strand” of deliberative democracy if we want to conceptualize interaction that happens without the involvement of decision-making institutions as political action in a deliberative sense. Adopting this approach allows us to identify cases in which unregulated interaction between business and civil society is preferable over institutionalization.

Religious organisations as investors: a Christian perspective on shareholder engagement

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the discussion about religious organisations’ (ROs) potential to practise their faith by means of their investments, rather than keeping both issues separate. The authors adopted a qualitative exploratory approach using seven cases of social shareholder engagement (SSE) by Christian organisations. It focused on creating knowledge from best practices. Within the three Christian organisations studied, the authors identified three significant features that relate to their religious nature and affect their SSE: having a structured belief system, a grassroots network and a long-term perspective. These features can be instrumental in impacting company behaviour and society at large. The authors chose three ROs for their relevance and comparative features, but this limited sample size makes it hard to generalise the research findings. This paper invites ROs to review their potential for actively owning their shares to be consistent with their faith and create change in business and society at large. Besides, ROs, with their unwavering belief system, extensive grassroots networks and long-term approach, are a force in the shareholder engagement field to be reckoned with by business. The paper presents multi cases of ROs active in using their investments to create change in companies and society at large.

Acciona: a process of transformation towards sustainability

Purpose – This teaching case seeks to explain the main aspects of Accionas sustainability strategy and the process of transformation of the company after the new CEO took office in 2004. It also aims to present some possible difficulties of maintaining such strategies in the new economic and political environment. The purpose of the case is to show how three aspects play a relevant role in a companys transformation towards sustainability: cultural change; collaboration with external stakeholders; and the innovations introduced.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a case study that narrates the process of six years of transformation towards sustainability of a company. The case was constructed through the analysis of company documents and several interviews with key actors in the company as well as external stakeholders.Findings – The paper shows how cultural change, collaboration with external stakeholders and innovation form a vital combination in the transformation process towards sustaina...

The Challenge of Future Generations for Business Ethics

This article reviews the problematic surrounding the concept of future generations, which is intertwined with questions concerning intergenerational justice, weak sustainability, non-existence, non-identity, and motivation. It also claims that business ethics should deal with intergenerational issues but cannot ignore the philosophical challenges involved. Based on the distinction between future generations and overlapping generations, we suggest focusing on the latter to avoid the difficulties of the former, and to facilitate the connection with organizational concerns. The distinction between overlapping and future generations relies on the notions of thick and thin morality, and is illustrated through a parallelism with the ethics of memory and the idea of indirect reciprocity. Finally, we inquire how obligations toward overlapping generations can be included in the framework of stakeholder theory.

Setting the Context: The Role Information Technology in a Business Ethics Course Based on Face-to-Face Dialogue

Based on the experience of a course taught by the authors, this paper seeks to show that an adequate use of IT in the teaching of a Business Ethics (BE) course depends on clarifying the assumptions about ethics and the place of the course within a programme. For this purpose it explains how IT can be used to strengthen a view of BE based on dialogue and mutual learning and it encourages the combination between virtual and face-to-face teaching. Finally, the paper examines the relationship between the use of IT, individual learning processes and communities of practice.

Embedding Social Innovation: Shaping Societal Norms and Behaviors Throughout the Innovation Process

New products and services that tackle grand societal challenges often require changes in societal norms, values, and expectations. This research investigates the question of how innovating actors shape these informal institutions throughout the innovation process by drawing on the literature on social innovation and institutional theory. In a comparison of four case studies, we observe that all innovating actors under study engage in a diverse set of practices to challenge and shape societal norms and expectations as well as user habits and routines throughout the innovation process. These activities can be clustered into unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral change processes, depending on the number of actors involved. Our findings highlight how different types of direct and indirect interactions between innovating actors and users along the innovation process shape the understanding of social innovation, and stress the central role of physical experiences and positive emotions among (future) users. Thereby, we provide for a more nuanced view of how companies that aim to bring technologies with different characteristics of innovativeness to the market shape the informal institutional environment throughout the different phases of the innovation process.

From Raindrops to a Common Stream: Using the Social-Ecological Systems Framework for Research on Sustainable Water Management

Sustainable water management is a growing concern worldwide. Nonetheless, despite the existence of water-related reviews in the business literature, the contribution of organization and management studies to sustainability challenges remains unclear. As systemic approaches are necessary to tackle sustainability challenges, we use Elinor Ostrom’s social-ecological systems framework to assess whether and how the current management literature on water contributes to our understanding of sustainable water management. Our review shows that management research is still far from making a significant contribution to this field, because of limited knowledge accumulation and theoretical development, and the lack of integration of environmental factors within social science research generally. The social-ecological systems framework helps us identify future research opportunities that would feed more effectively into a multidisciplinary effort toward sustainable water management.