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1 – 4 of 4Gerard Farias, Nancy E. Landrum, Christine Farias and Isabella Krysa
Since the Brundtland report’s call for sustainability, planetary conditions have deteriorated. This paper suggests that corporate hypocrisy is a major barrier toward the adoption…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the Brundtland report’s call for sustainability, planetary conditions have deteriorated. This paper suggests that corporate hypocrisy is a major barrier toward the adoption of sustainability and offers a typology of business behavior that can move closer toward the adoption of true and strong sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
This article uses a normative lens to build upon prior literature and anecdotal evidence from the field to present a typology of business archetypes that represent a variety of responses toward sustainability.
Findings
The authors propose five typologies of business behavior that represent responses toward sustainability: business-as-usual, hypocritical pretender, hypocritical co-opter, responsible enterprise and purposeful enterprise. The first three typologies represent existing hypocritical approaches using weak sustainability. The last two typologies decrease corporate hypocrisy; improve alignment of talk, decisions and action; and help an organization adopt true and strong sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
This is a normative paper that critiques existing literature and practices in corporate sustainability and proposes new directions. It necessitates further research in the form of case studies and empirical cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. It implies assessing firm impact in non-traditional ways and will call for the development of new measures and indicators of firm performance from a social and environmental perspective.
Practical implications
The typology can provide practitioners and researchers with one possible solution to eliminate or decrease corporate hypocrisy in relation to sustainability, reporting and communications.
Social implications
Planetary conditions have worsened, and business activity continues to contribute to deteriorating conditions. This research attempts to help businesses move away from hypocritical and destructive practices and to adopt true and strong sustainability practices for a flourishing planet. Furthermore, the authors articulate policy and practice recommendations in this context.
Originality/value
After decades of failure to make progress in achieving planetary sustainability, this research offers a model for practitioners and researchers to use in defining the actions necessary to achieve the elusive concept of sustainability.
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Keywords
Mariana I. Paludi, Isabella Krysa and Marke Kivijärvi
This paper explores working mothers’ coping strategies concerning paid and unpaid work in Chile and Argentina during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper aimed to understand the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores working mothers’ coping strategies concerning paid and unpaid work in Chile and Argentina during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper aimed to understand the influence of cultural norms on motherhood and neoliberal workplace practices on mothers’ sensemaking processes and coping strategies. This study focuses on mothers living in Chile and Argentina where governments established mandatory lockdowns between March and September 2020. Drawing on the notion of neoliberal motherhood, women’s demands were analyzed when paid work and mothering duties collide in time and space.
Design/methodology/approach
Open-ended interviews were conducted with 17 women in Chile and Argentina. All interviewees had at least 1 child below the age of 6 and were working from home during the lockdown.
Findings
Neoliberal workplace demands, and disadvantageous government policies greatly heightened the dual burdens of working mothers. Women were expected to fulfill the discourses of the neoliberal worker and the good mother, while also adopting additional strategies in the wake of the lockdown. The data highlights mothers’ strategies to cope with care and work duties by adjusting to new routines involving their partners, relatives and the wider community.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of the results is limited by the small sample of 17 interviewees, all from middle to middle-upper class. The changing scenario due to Covid-19 makes the collected data not sufficient to grasp the impact of the pandemic, as during the interviews (December 2020 and January 2021) the process was still ongoing.
Practical implications
Organizations should assess their role in the management of paid and unpaid work for both genders, as the neoliberal discourse views the worker as masculine, full-time, always available and productive, ignoring women’s additional care duties outside of the workplace.
Originality/value
The Covid-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to reflect on care work and gender, collective versus individual responses to care and work demands and the idea of organizing.
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