Marjo Siltaoja

‘We are all responsible now’: Governmentality and responsibilized subjects in corporate social responsibility

The corporate social responsibility promise is a fascinating one: companies are able and willing to regulate themselves, and self-regulation is manifested in collaborative efforts that promote individual well-being. Yet, this macro-level promise has a silenced flip side in organizational contexts. We argue that corporate social responsibility has diffused the idea of employee responsibilization into organizational environments, so it entails a dual role for employees: employees become both the objects and the subjects of corporate social responsibility. The primary aim of this article is thus to develop a theoretical understanding that acknowledges the role of individual members of the organization in communicating and defining corporate social responsibility while taking into consideration the well-being perspective. We draw on critical management studies as a form of counter-conduct towards mainstream theorizing and seek an alternative to Freirean critical dialogue as a tool to promote empowerment alongside ethics in corporate social responsibility.

Legitimating institutional choices in the forest ownership: building acceptability for jointly owned forests

Recent demographic changes in the forest-owner structure are suspected to have led to the increasing number of owners with no specific objectives for their forests. In addition, the continuous fragmentation of the forest holdings has increased the threat of the passiveness related to forest management. To decrease the tendency towards passiveness, new policy tools and initiatives have been suggested. In the Finnish context, the idea of an investor-based jointly owned forest has been introduced as facilitating the effective utilization of the forest resource. However, collective ownership has faced prejudice and scepticism among private forest owners. In order to expand, the forest owners need to see the idea of jointly owned forests as a socially legitimate. Thus, by adopting Van Leeuwen’s framework for analyzing the legitimation of new social practices, we examine how Finnish forest owners legitimate their participation in jointly owned forests. The qualitative data of the study consist of 20 in-depth interviews with private forest owners who have joined a jointly owned forest. Our study contributes to the recent discussion on jointly owned forests. We show how a change in the type of ownership results in moral, authoritative and rational justifications over the decision while simultaneously renewing the identity of the forest owner. Accordingly, we suggest that forest ownership is not only driven by rational prospects, but the moral and emotional nature of ownership should be better taken into account at the policy level and in structural designs when discussing the promotion of new types of forest ownership.

Beyond Critique: Towards Transformative Practice in Critical Management Studies. Editors’ Introduction

Critical management studies (CMS) is a vibrant and increasingly substantial subfield of management studies. From geographically and theoretically diverse seedlings in the last years of the 20th century, CMS has blossomed into an international movement with large biannual international conferences, a Division at the Academy of Management, and a burgeoning scholarly literature. The growth of CMS – particularly in the Anglo-American world – has fostered an intensive debate on the historical background, current research agenda, and the future of CMS over the past decade (see, e.g. Adler, 2002, 2008; Adler, Forbes, & Willmott, 2007; Alvesson, 2008; Clegg, Kornberger, Carter, & Rhodes, 2006; Cunliffe, 2008; Fournier & Grey, 2000; Ibarra-Colado, 2008; Parker, 2006; Phillips, 2006; Spicer, Alvesson, & Karreman, 2009; Thompson, 2004; Voronov, 2008; Willmott, 2008). Despite its share of doctrinal disputes, by and large CMS scholars have been willing to encourage the participation of those from different disciplines and research interests under the same umbrella (see, e.g. Adler et al., 2007; Alvesson, 2008; Cooke, 2008). One product of the relative openness of the CMS community, however, is that there is no common agreement on what is meant by CMS. Neither is there something that could be called CMS-theory (Adler, 2008). As Alvesson (2008) points out, different groups perceive criticality differently. While there are a number of accounts that explore the meaning(s) of CMS (see, e.g. Adler et al., 2007; Alvesson, 2008; Alvesson, Bridgman, & Willmott, 2009; Alvesson & Willmott, 2003; Fournier & Grey, 2000), the CMS project as a whole remains theoretically fragmented with no clearly dominant approaches and perspectives. This epistemological, ontological, and teleological diversity in turn is reflected in highly divergent attitudes towards the possibility of engaged practice, as the varying interpretations by the different authors in this collection demonstrate.

Academic Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Birth of Acamanic Capitalism

Abstract nPurpose nThe purpose of the chapter is to elaborate the theory of academic capitalism by focusing on rarely examined forerunners of academic capitalism: namely, business schools. n n nDesign/methodology/approach nA research-based essay. n n nFindings nThe findings emphasize that there are different forms of academic capitalism. Our example from Dubai context shows how more extreme form of academic capitalism, which we label Acamanic Capitalism, developed as a result of free educational markets. n n nOriginality/value nThe chapter provides scholarly value through novel conceptualization. The phenomenon of acamanic capitalism should also be acknowledged in academia and in critical management education.

Sweet taste of prosocial status signaling: When eating organic foods makes you happy and hopeful

As the current research suggests that there are links between prosocial acts and status signaling (including sustainable consumer choices), we empirically study (with three experiments) whether food consumers go green to be seen. First, we examine how activating a motive for status influences prosocial organic food preferences. Then, we examine how the social visibility of the choice (private vs. public) affects these preferences. We found that when consumers desire for status was elicited, they preferred organic food products significantly over their nonorganic counterparts; making the choice situation visible created the same effect. Finally, we go beyond consumers evaluative and behavioral domains that have typically been addressed to investigate whether this (nonconscious) going green to be seen effect is also evident at the level of more physiologically-driven food responses. Indeed, status motives and reputational concerns created an improved senso-emotional experience of organic food. Specifically, when consumers were led to believe that they have to share their organic food taste experiences with others, an elevation could be detected not only in the pleasantness ratings but also in how joyful and hopeful they felt after eating a food sample. We claim that the reason for this is that a tendency to favor organic foods can be viewed as a costly signaling trait, leading to flaunting about ones prosocial tendencies. According to these findings, highlighting socially disapproved consumption motives, such as reputation management, may be an effective way to increase the relatively low sales of organic foods and thereby promote sustainable consumer behavior.

‘World-class’ fantasies: A neocolonial analysis of international branch campuses

In this article, we build on postcolonial studies and discourse analytical research exploring how the ‘world-class’ discourse as an ideology and a fantasy structures neocolonial relations in international branch campuses. We empirically examine how international branch campuses reproduce the fantasy of being so-called world-class operators and how the onsite faculty members identify with or resist this world-class fantasy through mimicry. Our research material originates from fieldwork conducted in business-school international branch campuses operating in the United Arab Emirates. Our findings show the ambivalent nature of mimicry towards the world-class fantasy to include both compliance and resistance. Our contributions are addressed to postcolonial management studies by discussing the ambivalent nature of mimicry in international branch campuses and the significance of grandiose constructions in organizations for neocolonial relations.

On the Discursive Reconstruction of a World-Class: Branding Practices of IBCs in the UAE

The spread of academic capitalism has resulted in global changes and tensions in the field of higher education. However, the changes it has resulted in the politics of representation of academic institutions has still remained poorly conceptualized. In this paper, we argue that academic capitalism is also a tool for neocolonialism. To support our argument, we examine business schools international branch campuses (IBCs) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and how these IBCs utilize world-class rhetoric in their self-branding efforts. Our discursively oriented, ethnographical study participates in the discussion concerning the consequences of internationalization of higher education through establishment of IBCs. More specifically, the study links this development to neocolonialism by discussing how the introduction of aspirational identities based on world-class rhetoric generated by IBCs operate as a vehicle of neocolonialism.

From Shame to Fame: A Model of the Destigmatization Process in Media Discourse

This paper examines the discursive processes through which a stigmatized practice is constructed a new destigmatized status with tenets and characteristics that correspond to the prevailing social ...

Stakeholder salience and proximate relations in small business context

Businesses are increasingly subject to conflicting demands made by their stakeholders. While stakeholder salience literature addresses the issue, the theory is underdeveloped, as it is not clear how it applies to businesses of various sizes. The aim of this conceptual paper is to revise the stakeholder salience perspective in the small business context. Its key contribution is to show how proximity moderates managerial considerations of the significance of stakeholders and their claims. However, proximity is also paradoxical, and the paper identifies situations in which too much or too little proximity can be detrimental for the small business.