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Publication date: 7 December 2020

Tobias Hahn

Business sustainability urges firms to simultaneously address economic, ecological, and social concerns. It innately combines different potentially competing organizational…

Abstract

Business sustainability urges firms to simultaneously address economic, ecological, and social concerns. It innately combines different potentially competing organizational elements. Therefore, sustainability represents a suitable context for the study and practice of hybridity. Based on an understanding of hybridity as a continuum, in this chapter, the author distinguish between four different forms of hybridity for business sustainability, depending on the degree of integration and autonomy of sustainability initiatives in business organizations. With ceremonial hybridity, businesses only leave the impression to pursue business and sustainability goals but focus their practices on conventional business priorities. Contingent hybridity denotes an approach where ecological and social concerns are only pursued to the extent that they align with business goals. With peripheral hybridity, firms pursue sustainability initiatives in their own right but do not integrate them with core business activities. Full hybridity puts both business as well as sustainability at the core of the organization without emphasizing one over the other. These different forms of hybridity in business sustainability are illustrated with examples from various business organizations. By characterizing different degrees of hybridity in business sustainability, the argument and the examples highlight how organizational hybridity and business sustainability can fruitfully inform one another. The author develop research opportunities for using business sustainability as a context for studying different degrees as well as the dynamics of hybrid organizing and for using different degrees of hybridity for achieving a better understanding of different pathways toward substantive business contributions to sustainable development.

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Organizational Hybridity: Perspectives, Processes, Promises
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-355-5

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Book part
Publication date: 12 October 2015

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Inquiry-Based Learning for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (Stem) Programs: A Conceptual and Practical Resource for Educators
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-850-2

Book part
Publication date: 1 October 2008

Karen L. Tonso

Who can make claims “to know?” This chapter argues that there are distinct sets of understandings in social science versus STEM fields, and that STEM education research can…

Abstract

Who can make claims “to know?” This chapter argues that there are distinct sets of understandings in social science versus STEM fields, and that STEM education research can benefit from interdisciplinarity, instead of being disciplinary (principally the purview of STEM insiders). The concept “gender” proves illustrative. Among many social science scholars, gender is understood as a complex social construction: contingent, contextual, contested ways that masculinities and femininities are embodied, enacted, and differentiated in everyday social life – as compared to simple, dichotomous male–female comparisons. Comparing social science and STEM conceptualizations of gender leads to three conclusions. First, empirical research with more forward-looking conceptualizations demonstrate that outdated underpinnings in STEM research overlook important issues, such as seeking solutions within individuals (especially students) instead of in the educational community or STEM culture. Second, since the frontier of social science keeps moving, and STEM insiders’ appreciations will necessarily lag new understandings, STEM-insider research might unfortunately be outdated from inception. Thirdly, the chapter concludes that collaborations between/among STEM and social science scholars have greater potential for research with explanatory power, research able to contribute better understandings of and solutions for dilemmas of STEM education.

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Integrating the Sciences and Society: Challenges, Practices, and Potentials
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-299-9

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