Heidi Herlin

We Are the Champions: Organizational Learning and Change for Responsible Management Education

As the number of institutions adopting the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative grows, there is an overhanging risk that many of them will merely add “responsibility” as a topic to the existing curriculum. The authors contend that a serious reading of PRME should instead entail thinking in terms of a gradual transformation of management education. Such a serious reading poses a number of organizational learning (and unlearning) challenges. By relying on their own experiences at two PRME signatory business schools in France and Finland, they describe how faculty champions may face these challenges in implementing PRME, and specifically how they may overcome strategic, structural, and cultural barriers. The authors particularly emphasize political challenges at every level and the role of champions inducing reflexivity in overcoming some of the barriers. They argue that although faculty champions are not the most powerful actors within the business school, they are still well positioned to inspire and instill the needed transformation of management education. They conclude that faculty champions need to creatively “make do” within the constraints imposed by their organizational context.

Better Safe Than Sorry Nonprofit Organizational Legitimacy and Cross-Sector Partnerships

This article aims to clarify the potential impact of cross-sector partnerships on nonprofit organizational legitimacy and to provide nonprofit organizations (NPOs) with strategic direction on how to approach cross-sector partnerships to avoid running into a legitimacy crisis. Five theoretical propositions are developed based on existing theory on cross-sector partnerships, organizational legitimacy, and identity and are matched with empirical data consisting of 257 survey responses and seven in-depth interviews in a single case study of a Finnish social welfare organization. Results suggest that engagement with companies may threaten NPO legitimacy by challenging core values and identity traits. Due to power asymmetries in favor of the company, the legitimacy risk is particularly serious for integrative partnerships compared with philanthropic and transactional partnerships. This condition is paradoxical, because integrative partnerships are praised for their greater societal impact and ability to generate joint innovations. Safer options include short-term, project-based partnerships managed and controlled by the NPO, except for brand licensing, which is a high-risk option. Regarding partner selection NPOs should select companies with similar values.

Unfruitful cooperative purchasing: A case of humanitarian purchasing power

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of cooperative purchasing on buyers’ purchasing power. Purchasing in the humanitarian sector has traditionally been characterized by a low level of coordination due to inter-agency competition for funding, diverging mandates and other organizational differences. Relationships with commercial suppliers have also remained arms-length and often dormant due to high levels of uncertainty and strict public procurement rules and regulations. However, recent pushes for increased efficiency and effectiveness are driving humanitarian agencies toward cooperative purchasing – a purchasing strategy that is claimed to be highly beneficial for members of the purchasing consortium not least for its ability to increase buyers’ purchasing power. In reality, the effectiveness of the strategy in increasing purchasing power is unclear. Design/methodology/approach – The authors study a single case of several humanitarian organizations aiming to increase their lev...

Avoiding the pitfalls of cooperative purchasing through control and coordination: insights from a humanitarian context

In this paper, barriers to the success of cooperative purchasing are discussed from an inter-organisational coordination perspective and a framework for successful cooperative purchasing is introduced. Potential benefits such as economies of scale, better transparency and more efficient information exchange have generated high interest for cooperative purchasing as a supply chain strategy. However, literature notes several instances of such cooperation not having the expected outcomes. We aimed to further the understanding of the coordination barriers to the success of cooperative purchasing. By studying an exemplary situation of an unsuccessful cooperative purchasing, the attractiveness and inherent complexity of a cooperative purchasing process is highlighted. This study draws on and adds to the existing literature on cooperative purchasing by discussing coordination related barriers to cooperative purchasing and provides managerial insights into what to consider when engaging in the cooperative purchasing strategy to avoid the pitfalls.