Search results

Chance models – mechanisms that explain empirical regularities through unsystematic variance – have a long tradition in the sciences but have been historically marginalized in management scholarship, relative to an agentic worldview about the role of managers and organizations. An exception is the work of James G. March and his coauthors, who proposed a variety of chance models that explain important management phenomena, including the careers of top executives, managerial risk taking, and organizational anarchy, learning, and adaptation. This paper serves as a tribute to the beauty of these “little ideas” and demonstrates how they can be recombined to generate novel implications. In particular, we focus on the example of an inverted V-shaped performance association centering around the year when executives were featured in a prominent listing, Barron’s annual list of Top 30 chief executive officers. Our recombination of several chance models developed by March and his coauthors provides a novel explanation for why many of the executives’ exceptional performances did not persist. In contrast to the common accounts of complacency, hubris, and statistical regression, the results show that declines from high performance may result from the way luck interacts with these executives’ slow adaptation, incompetence, and self-reinforced risk taking. We conclude by elaborating on the normative implications of chance models, which address many current management and societal challenges. We further encourage the continued development of chance models to help explain performance differences, shifting from accounts that favor heroic stories of corporate leaders toward accounts that favor their changing fortunes.

The chapter describes the phenomenon of company–community agreements in the mining sector, situates them relative to two veins of responsible investment activity, and assesses whether they might serve as a proxy for the “community relations” expectations of responsible investors.

Based on an evaluation of two recent company–community agreements and surveying of executives from mining firms that have signed agreements with Indigenous communities, it was found that: (1) though imperfect as a proxy for many of the “community relations” expectations of responsible investors, company–community agreements offer benefits and make provisions that exceed current expectations, especially with respect to the recognition of the right of Indigenous communities to offer their free, prior, and informed consent to mine developments; and (2) mining executives recognize the utility of agreement-making with communities, and are comfortable with such efforts being interpreted as recognition of the right of Indigenous communities to consent to development.

The chapter serves to introduce responsible investors to the emergence of company–community agreements in the global mining sector, and calls upon them to advocate for their further use in order to reduce the riskiness of their investments, address social justice concerns, and assist communities to visualize and realize their goals.

For the first time, the growing phenomenon of company–community agreements in the mining sector is situated within responsible investment scholarship. Additionally, drawing on both logic and evidence, the chapter challenges the responsible investment community to rethink its approach to screening and engaging the mining sector in order to advance the interests of Indigenous communities.