Search results
1 – 10 of 17Stuart Cooper, Carole Parkes and John Blewitt
Neo-institutional theory suggests that organisations change occurs when institutional contradictions, caused by exogenous and endogenous dynamics, increase over time to the point…
Abstract
Purpose
Neo-institutional theory suggests that organisations change occurs when institutional contradictions, caused by exogenous and endogenous dynamics, increase over time to the point where change can no longer be resisted. Human praxis will result, but only when sufficiently powerful interests are motivated to act. This paper aims to examine the role that the accreditation of business schools can play in increasing institutional contradictions and hence fostering organisational change towards stakeholder engagement and engagement with social responsibility and sustainability issues. Numerous accreditations are promulgated within the higher education and business school contexts and a number of these relate to, or have aspects that relate to, ethics, social responsibility and sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first analyses the take up of accreditations across UK business schools and then uses a case study to illustrate and explore stakeholder engagement and changes related to ethics, social responsibility and sustainability linked to accreditation processes.
Findings
Accreditations are found to be an increasingly common interest for UK business schools. Further, a number of these accreditations have evolved to incorporate issues related to ethics, social responsibility and sustainability that may cause institutional contradictions and may, therefore, have the potential to foster organisational change. Accreditation alone, however, is not sufficient and the authors find that sufficiently powerful interests need to be motivated to act and enable human praxis to affect change.
Research limitations/implications
This paper draws on previous research that considers the role of accreditation in fostering change that has also been carried out in healthcare organisations, public and professional bodies. Its findings stem from an individual case study and as such further research is required to explore whether these findings can be extended and apply more generally in business schools and universities in different contexts.
Practical implications
This paper concludes by recommending that the newly established UK & Ireland Chapter of PRME encourages and supports signatory schools to further embed ethics, social responsibility and sustainability into all aspects of university life in the UK. This also provides an opportunity to engage with the accrediting bodies in order to further support the inclusion of stakeholder engagement and issues related to this agenda in their processes.
Originality/value
This paper contributes by introducing accreditation as an institutional pressure that may lead indirectly to organisational change and supports this with new evidence from an illustrative case study. Further, it draws on the role of institutional contradictions and human praxis that engender organisational change.
Details
Keywords
Nisar Ahmad and Aqsa Bibi
This study carries out a systematic literature review (SLR) on responsible management education (RME). A total of 174 publications listed on the Scopus database addressing RME…
Abstract
Purpose
This study carries out a systematic literature review (SLR) on responsible management education (RME). A total of 174 publications listed on the Scopus database addressing RME, published between 2007 and 2022 (inclusive), have been analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
The articles included in the study were searched based on relevant key terms in the title, abstract and author keywords associated with each publication. The analysis led to the identification of the most relevant sources, authors and publications that can be used to circumscribe RME. Selected studies were analyzed using the Bibliometrix R-tool.
Findings
This study shows how three interrelated levels of analysis—namely, conceptual, intellectual and social—allow researchers to further organize the data to produce rich content for the RME. The contribution of this study is twofold: first, our values-based approach helps overcome the axiological ambiguity of the principles for RME (PRME), which invoke the importance of incorporating “the values of global social responsibility” (Principle 2) but fail to define and operationalize these values. Second, the authors provide a rationale and guidance for implementing values-based RME in business schools.
Originality/value
This study offers a unique SLR on RME. It gives a clear picture of this field by talking about what has been done and what the future might hold for RME.
Details
Keywords
Describes a new breed of HR strategies that encourage employee involvement and commitment as part of high‐performance working (HPW).
Abstract
Purpose
Describes a new breed of HR strategies that encourage employee involvement and commitment as part of high‐performance working (HPW).
Design/methodology/approach
Focuses on managing employee attitudes and skills through careful attention to leadership, reward and job‐design policies. Highlights the differences between people's formal employment contracts and their less formal “psychological contracts”, and emphasizes the importance of the latter. Provides a case study of UK recruitment consultancy Angel Services Group Ltd, which allows staff who meet their daily targets to go home an hour early.
Findings
Urges companies to have processes in place to understand the needs of individual employees. This can be done through leadership policies that require all supervisors and managers not only to manage their staff but also to know them as people.
Practical implications
Emphasizes that organizations need to see HPW initiatives as part of the normal way of managing people, and not as “flavour of the month”.
Originality/value
Outlines a wide range of initiatives that could help organizations to gain their employees' commitment.
Details
Keywords
Carole Parkes, Judy Scully, Michael West and Jeremy Dawson
This paper sets out to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, particularly with regard to the processes of implementation and the role of managers engaged in such high…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper sets out to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, particularly with regard to the processes of implementation and the role of managers engaged in such high commitment strategies and work practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is part of a research project investigating the extent to which employee involvement predicts job performance (as well as job satisfaction, wellbeing and organisational commitment) in the NHS, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The main focus of this paper is to present evidence from four of the 20 case studies to show the barriers to implementing employee involvement as well as highlighting the techniques and practices that have proven to be most successful.
Findings
Employee involvement is used successfully by management and has enabled frontline staff to contribute their knowledge to their work. Research limitations/implications – The ethical issues of confidentiality and anonymity permeated the research process throughout.
Practical implications
The link between “high commitment” strategies and organisational performance is of great interest to academics and practitioners alike. One of these “high commitment” strategies, namely employee involvement, has been an important HR strategy for the NHS in the UK.
Originality/value
Other organisations can learn from the findings by implementing the successful parts.
Details
Keywords
Carole Parkes, Judy Scully and Susan Anson
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the conceptual lens of corporate social responsibility (CSR), business and civil society can be used to explore “less popular…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the conceptual lens of corporate social responsibility (CSR), business and civil society can be used to explore “less popular causes” (in this case, a community‐based public sector empirical study of initiatives with offenders) and, in particular, respond to the question used by Walzer “In which society can lives be best led?”
Design/methodology/approach
This is a formative and summative evaluation study of a National Offender Management “community payback” offender scheme based in the UK using a mixed method, predominantly qualitative approach that integrates theory and practice.
Findings
The paper finds that citizenship actions of front‐line public sector employees, working in partnership with other agencies in the community, embody the essence of Walzer's notion of CSR and civil society by going beyond the call of duty to provide additional training and moral support for the community offenders.
Originality/value
The paper contributes towards an understanding of how CSR and civil society debates can inform wider aspects of public policy and business through its application to areas of society that are perceived to be “challenging” and “undeserving”.
Details
Keywords
Denise Baden and Carole Parkes
The complex challenges of sustainable development and the need to embed these issues effectively into the education of future business leaders has never been more urgent. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The complex challenges of sustainable development and the need to embed these issues effectively into the education of future business leaders has never been more urgent. The purpose of this paper is to discuss different approaches taken by two UK signatories to the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME).
Design/methodology/approach
The two approaches examined are: MSc Entrepreneurship students opting for placements with social enterprises; and MBA students undertaking workshops using “live” case studies. A content analysis of the experiences of students from their written reflective narratives is presented. This is supplemented by reflections of the facilitators and tutors.
Findings
The analysis reveals that the opportunity to work with social entrepreneurs and/or “responsible” business professionals provides the business students with inspirational role models and positive social learning opportunities.
Research limitations/implications
This paper suggests that experiential learning is an effective way of integrating ethics, responsibility and sustainability into the curriculum but the research draws on the experience of two schools. Further research is important to explore these findings in other contexts.
Practical implications
The authors argue that direct exposure to a business culture (and/or behaviour) that is predicated upon ethical/social responsibility and sustainability is an effective means to embed these values in the curriculum.
Originality/value
This paper contributes by drawing on social psychological research related to behaviour change to examine how experiential learning on traditional Business Masters programmes can provide students with the knowledge, motivation and skills to contribute positively to society, in a way that more traditional pedagogies cannot.
Details
Keywords
Carole Parkes and John Blewitt
The collapse of world economic systems brought the interconnectedness between business and global events sharply into focus. As Starkey points out: “leading business schools need…
Abstract
Purpose
The collapse of world economic systems brought the interconnectedness between business and global events sharply into focus. As Starkey points out: “leading business schools need to overcome their fascination with a particular form of finance and economics […] to broaden their intellectual horizons […] (and to) look at the lessons of history and other disciplines”. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence from three years of research on the Aston MBA suggesting that an emphasis on developing capabilities within a far broader, connected and reflexive business curriculum is what business students and practitioners now recognise as an essential way forward for responsible management education.
Design/methodology/approach
This research paper examines the reflective accounts of 300 MBA students undertaking a transdisciplinary Business Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability core module.
Findings
As Klein argues, transdisciplinarity is simultaneously an attitude and a form of action. The student reflections provide powerful discourses of individual learning and report a range of outcomes from finding “the vocabulary or the confidence” to raise issues to acting as “change agents” in the workplace.
Originality/value
As responsibility and sustainability requires learners, researchers and educators to engage with real world complexity, uncertainty and risk, conventional disciplinary study, especially within business, often proves inadequate and partial. This paper demonstrates that creative and exploratory frames need to be developed to facilitate the development of more connected knowledge – informed by multiple stakeholders, able to contribute heterogeneous skills, perspectives and expertise.
Details
Keywords