Dexter Dunphy

Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability

Since this classic book was first published in 2003, sustainability has increasingly become mainstream business for leading corporations, whilst the topic itself has also been a hotly debated political issue across the globe. The sustainability phase models originally discussed in the book have become more relevant with ever more examples of organizations at later stages in the development of corporate sustainability. Bringing together global issues of ecological sustainability, strategic human resource management, organizational change, corporate social responsibility, leadership and community renewal, this new edition of the book further develops its unified approach to corporate sustainability and its plan of action to bring about corporate change. It integrates new research and brings illustrative case studies up to date to reflect how new approaches affect change and leadership. For the first time, a new positive model of a future sustainable world is included -strengthened by references to the global financial crisis, burgeoning world population numbers and the rise of China. With new case studies including BPs Gulf oil spill and Tokyo Electric Companys nuclear reactor disaster, this new edition will again be core reading for students and researchers of sustainability and business, organizational change and corporate social responsibility.

The Strategic Management of Corporate Change

To investigate the controversy between universal and contingent approaches to corporate change, a study was undertaken of 13 service sector organizations. The study used the Dunphy/Stace contingency model of organizational change strategies, developing measures to place the organizations within the model. Results indicate that universal models of change management are inadequate to describe the diversity of approaches actually used by these organizations. In particular, the traditional Organizational Development model is unrepresentative of how change in many contemporary organizations is actually made. The traditional OD model prescribes incremental change combined with a participative management style but most organizations in the study made rapid transformative change using a directive leadership style. The OD model is also inadequate as a prescriptive model because very different change strategies, some dramatically different from OD, resulted in successful financial performance. Four case studies are presented to illustrate how each of the major contingencies in the model can operate to create effective organizational performance.

Teams: Panaceas or Prescriptions for Improved Performance?:

This paper addresses the contribution of teams to organizational performance. It distinguishes between three types of team attributes: technical expertise, self-management, and self-leadership, reviewing each attribute and assessing its relative contribution to three aspects of organizational performance: cost, value, and innovation. The paper also addresses the issue of the relatively neglected factor of the development costs of establishing and maintaining such groups and advocates a more rigorous approach to making a cost/benefit analysis before instituting teams. Finally, the paper advances a model of team development based on team attributes and performance objectives. Overall, therefore, this paper advances a classification of team attributes which is intended to facilitate team design and development, and which is potentially applicable to all teams in organizations.

Phases, Roles, and Myths in Self-Analytic Groups

This paper describes a comparative study of the development of two self-analytic groups meeting over a period of nine months. Methodologically, the study employs a computer system of content analysis which reads verbal text and categorizes words and phrases into a set of psycho-sociological variables specified by the investigator. This method is applied to brief reports written weekly by group members. Analysis of variance and factor analytic methods are applied to the output of the computer system to develop a model of change in the social structure and culture of the groups. This model demonstrates that the groups passed through similar phases which were strongly influenced by the emergence of nonrational role specialists and given an underlying common meaning by an integrating group mythology.

Action Research As An Approach To Integrating Sustainability Into MBA Programs : An Exploratory Study

This article reports on an exploratory project that employed an action research approach to integrating sustainability into core subjects in the MBA program at an Australian university. It documents the change methodology used, the theoretical basis for this choice, and the project outcomes. It then identifies some key enabling factors and barriers to successful integration of sustainability themes into the MBA. The article also draws on theories of organizational change to illustrate the strengths and limitations of the approach used in this study compared to other possible approaches. Key success factors included active faculty participation from the redesign process to evaluation and collaboration between multiple stakeholders.

Organizational learning as the creation of corporate competencies

There has been a dramatic increase in interest in the learning organization. However there is confusion, among writers on the subject, about what a learning organization is and about how organizational learning occurs. Critiques some of the best known contributions to the field and argues that they are reductionist and do not indicate how organizational learning relates to business performance and strategic realignment.

Enabling Change for Corporate Sustainability: An Integrated Perspective

This article explores the processes of change that enable corporations to move towards sustainable practices, focusing on the human resource and business strategies that support rather than diminish global ecology and human/social capabilities. We argue that this unified approach is necessary to bring about a change in the interpretation of corporate sustainability and to support the activities of change agents (managers, consultants, and community activists) in managing the massive corporate change needed to move corporations toward sustainable practices in a systematic way. We propose a schema in the form of an integrated phase model for understanding how corporations move from compliance modes to the attainment of strategic sustainability and beyond to the ‘ideal’ or sustaining corporation. We discuss the leadership of change and the roles and strategies that corporate change agents can employ to bring about both incremental and transformational change for sustainability.

Governance of environmental risk : New approaches to managing stakeholder involvement

Disputes concerning industrial legacies such as the disposal of toxic wastes illustrate changing pressures on corporations and governments. Business and governments are now confronted with managing the expectations of a society increasingly aware of the social and environmental impacts and risks associated with economic development and demanding more equitable distribution and democratic management of such risks. The closed managerialist decision-making of the powerful bureaucracies and corporations of the industrial era is informed by traditional management theory which cannot provide a framework for the adequate governance of these risks. Recent socio-political theories have conceptualised some key themes that must be addressed in a more fitting approach to governance. We identify more recent management and governance theory which addresses these themes and develop a process-based approach to governance of environmental disputes that allows for the evolving nature of stakeholder relations in a highly complex multiple stakeholder arena.

Corporate governance and sustainability : challenges for theory and practice

Part A: Introduction: Governance and Sustainability Challenges 1. New Forms of Governance: Changing Relationships between Corporates, Government and Community 2. Understanding Corporate Sustainability: Recognizing the Impact of Different Governance Systems Part B: Limitations of Existing Models of Corporate Governance 3. Why Corporate Governance Rankings do not Predict Future Value: Evidence from Toronto Stock Exchange Listings 2002-2005 4. Synthesizing Governance Themes from Political and Management Theory 5. Towards a Definition of Governance for Sustainability: Networks, Shared Values and New Knowledge 6. Financing Environmental Sustainability: A New Role for the Law Part C: Redesigning Governance for Sustainability 7. Sustainability in Paradigms and Practices at Board-Level in Anglo American Plc 8. Codes of Conducts as a Tool for Sustainable Governance in MNCs 9. The Case of Governance for Sustainability at IAG 10. The Civil Regulation of Corporations: Towards Stakeholder Democracy 11. The Materiality of Sustainability: Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility as Instruments of Strategic Change?

Corporate sustainability: challenge to managerial orthodoxies

This paper addresses the issue of corporate sustainability. It examines why achieving sustainability is becoming an increasingly vital issue for society and organisations, defines sustainability and then outlines a set of phases through which organisations can move to achieve increasing levels of sustainability. Case studies are presented of organisations at various phases indicating the benefits, for the organisation and its stakeholders, which can be made at each phase. Finally the paper argues that there is a marked contrast between the two competing philosophies of neo-conservatism (economic rationalism) and the emerging philosophy of sustainability. Management schools have been strongly influenced by economic rationalism, which underpins the traditional orthodoxies presented in such schools. Sustainability represents an urgent challenge for management schools to rethink these traditional orthodoxies and give sustainability a central place in the curriculum.