Hervé Corvellec

A relational theory of risk

This paper outlines a relational theory of risk. According to this theory, risk emerges from situated cognition that establishes a relationship of risk between a risk object and an object at risk, so that the risk object is considered, under certain contingent circumstances and in some causal way, to threaten the valued object at risk. This relational theory of risk is a theory about the interpretative nature of risk that answers the key theoretical and practical questions of why and how something is considered a risk. The relational theory of risk allows for the interpretation of risk situations as culturally informed, and thereby suggests new ways to approach risk communication, risk governance, and risk management by taking into account bounded rationalities of thought and action.

The Impossibility of Corporate Ethics: For a Levinasian Approach to Managerial Ethics

The moral philosophy of Levinas offers a stark prospectus of impossibility for corporate ethics. It differs from most traditional ethical theories in that, for Levinas, the ethical develops in a personal meeting of one with the Other, rather than residing in some internal deliberation of the moral subject. Levinasian ethics emphasises an infinite personal responsibility arising for each of us in the face of the Other and in the presence of the Third. It stresses the imperious demand we experience to be open to, prepared for and impassioned with that which we may not know, or recognise, about ourselves or about the Other. Such a demand transcends our intellectual and/or rational potential; it involves us in a carnal and somatic bodily experience of otherness. If we are to speak of Levinasian ethics in a business context, it cannot be a matter of corporate ethics but only a matter of individual managerial ethics. What such an ethics would be like is yet to be outlined. This paper proposes a series of questions and suggestions that will explicate some key terms of a practice organised around a Levinasian vocabulary of otherness, responsibility, proximity, diachrony and justice.

Stories of Achievements - Narrative Features of Organizational Performance

Stories of achievements is a study concerning uses of the notion of organizational performance. It shows the variety of meanings given the notion in dictionaries, management literature, sports, and performance indicators; it also explores how such meanings are constructed and how they are attached to this notion in new contexts, such as in the activity reports of public libraries. Examining uses of the performance notion in these various contexts reveals its intricate relationships to such notions as competition, comparison, commensurability, hierarchy and justice, as well as efficacy, managerialism, and measurement. A pattern seems inherent in these relationships, the notion of performance being founded on a tension between the image of a process and that of a result. This can be seen in performing arts, for example, where the term denotes either a spectacle or its outcome; in management literature, where performance refers sometimes to an action/activity and sometimes to a result; and again in sports, where connoisseurs and score-focused spectators differ radically in their approach to the game. Investigating the uses of the notion of performance in various contexts also suggests that performance is a matter of telling, recounting, and communicating an organizations acions or the results of these. The major claim of the study is that the performance of an organization is neither the organizations activity nor its results, but rather is a story or a series of stories about these. A performance is a narrative production: it is a process involving the textualization of an organization. Individual organizational events acquire meaning through narration and the organization begins to be made sense of in this way, its members being provided both a language and an identity. Performances are stories of achievements. The present study identifies, describes and discusses the narrative features of such stories. (Less)

The practice of risk governance: lessons from the field

In contradistinction to generic and formal risk governance models such as the IRGC framework, this paper advocates the relevance of a contextual and practice-based approach to organizational risk governance. Three cases illustrate the socially situated dynamics of risk governance practice: public transportation management, river management, and railway planning. Risk governance is shown to derive from how actors, in their daily activities, mediate multi-level and regulatory institutional constraints, and solve actual problems through routines, trust, mutual understanding and not least, shared commitment to the societal role of infrastructure. Our findings underscore that risk governance takes place in contexts that are historically, spatially and institutionally situated. We therefore suggest that one needs to pay attention to the characteristics of this contextuality to understand the social dynamics of governance.

Arguing for a license to operate: the case of the Swedish wind power industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the way organizational actors argue to obtain a license to operate for new ventures.Design/methodology/approach – The design, which addresses the issue at the industry level, consists of a case study of the ways in which power developers argue for the development of wind energy in Sweden.Findings – The study shows that wind power developers proffer a necessity‐ability‐acceptability line of argument that relies not only on the convincing character of claims grounded in premises, but also on the persuasive character of values, knowledge and opinion likely to win the adherence of the audience.Research limitations/implications – From a theoretical perspective, this is an illustration of the relevance of bridging the divide between argumentation theories in tune with formal or informal logic and those oriented toward rhetoric and the social practice of communication.Practical implications – More practically, the paper suggests that in order to obtain a license ...

From “less landfilling” to “wasting less”: Societal narratives, socio‐materiality, and organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that organizational change depends on societal narratives – narratives about the character, history, or envisioned future of societies.Design/methodology/approach – A case study of a Swedish municipal waste management company serves as an illustration.Findings – Swedish waste governance is powered by two main narratives: “less landfilling” and “wasting less”. Less landfilling has been the dominant narrative for several decades, but wasting less is gaining momentum, and a new narrative order is establishing itself. This new narrative order significantly redefines the socio‐material status of waste and imposes major changes on waste management organizations.Research limitations/implications – Based on the case of waste governance in Sweden, the authors conclude that organizations should be aware that societal narrative affects the legitimacy and nature of their operations; therefore, they must integrate a watch for narrative change in their strategic reflection...

The European Waste Hierarchy: from the sociomateriality of waste to a politics of consumption

Municipal solid waste is a central concern for environmental policy, and the sociomateriality of waste—the ways in which waste is socially defined and dealt with—is an important issue for sustainability. We show how applying the European Unions waste policy through the European Waste Hierarchy (EWH) affects the sociomateriality of waste. The EWH ranks the desirability of different waste-management approaches according to their environmental impact. We investigate how the EWH has been acknowledged and interpreted in five different organizational contexts with relevance for Swedish waste management: EU environmental policy, the Swedish EPA, two municipal waste-management companies, and the trade organization Swedish Waste Management which represents the interests of municipal bodies involved with waste. In addition to preventing the production of waste, the EWH aims to disassemble, circulate, and reintroduce as much material as possible into production processes. We show how these aims shape paradoxical relationships between economy and society on the one hand, and environment and nature on the other, and open the way for a discussion of a politics of consumption through material management.

Managing the politics of value propositions

This article contributes to the ongoing discussion, revived by the service-dominant logic thesis, on value propositions in service organizations. Against a backdrop of understanding value as a pluralistic social construct that takes place across different institutionalized practices of valuation or regimes of value, we argue that value propositions transcend the immediate localness of both value in exchange and value in use. Correspondingly, we claim that service practitioners may draw advantages from engaging with a politics of value that addresses multiple regimes of value, whether commensurable or not. A case study of waste management services in Sweden serves as an illustration of such a politics that combines practical, economic, political, and environmental aspects of value propositions.

Organizational risk as it derives from what managers value: A practice-based approach to risk assessment.

Two observations serve as starting points for this paper. First, conventional risk assessment techniques provide sophisticated ways to identify and estimate hazards, but eschew the fact that there is no risk unless something of value is considered to be at stake. Second, what managers consider as being of value follows from how they organize their managerial practice. Based on a case study of a Swedish public transportation administration, a claim is presented that organizational risk conceptions derive primarily, although not exclusively, from what managers consider being of value both in and for their organizational practice. In particular, it is suggested to begin the risk assessment process with a critical appraisal of what managers hold as being of value and why.

Talks on Tracks –Debating Urban Infrastructure Projects

This paper retraces and analyzes the debate around a major infrastructure project in central Stockholm, the construction of a third railroad track over the islet of Riddarholm. Using the analytical framework of the New Rhetoric (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1958), it shows that the debate is not only a matter of diverging views about the necessity or the impact of the project but, as well, a matter of epistemology. Whereas both sides tend to refer to similar values and make use of matching rhetorical devices, they differ quite radically as to which knowledge they regard as valid and as to how they have organized their approach to the debate. Demonstration faces argumentation, the New Rhetoric suggests, as its contribution to our understanding of the genesis of urban projects.