The Transition to a Low Carbon Economy: The Dynamics of Environmental Stakeholder Networks

The transition to a low carbon economy demands new strategies for maintaining competitiveness and benefiting from ‘green growth’. A network of stakeholders offers opportunities for, as well as constraints to, organisational growth and successful low carbon strategies. This multiple-case study explores the relational dynamics between the case organisations and a range of stakeholders. We find that stakeholders with institutional power bases are seen as the most influential. Top management is also a critical stakeholder in providing stewardship for the organisation’s low carbon initiatives. The study highlights the growing influence of customers upon the success of business strategies aimed at exploiting low carbon opportunities. Intra- and inter-organisational strategy-making practices are emergent arenas for stakeholder management in the context of the low carbon economy

Don’t throw rocks from the side-lines: A sociomaterial exploration of organizational blogs as boundary objects

Purpose Social media such as blogs are being widely used in organizations in order to undertake internal communication and share knowledge, rendering them important boundary objects. A root metaphor of the boundary object domain is the notion of relatively static and inert objects spanning similarly static boundaries. A strong sociomaterial perspective allows the immisciblity of object and boundary to be challenged, since a key tenet of this perspective is the ongoing and mutually-constituted performance of the material and social. Design/methodology/approach The aim of our research is to draw upon sociomateriality to explore the operation of social media platforms as intra-organizational boundary objects. Given the novel perspective of this study and its social constructivist ontology, we adopt an exploratory, interpretivist research design. This is operationalized as a case study of the use of an organizational blog by a major UK government department over an extended period. A novel aspect of the study is our use of data released under a Freedom of Information request. Findings We present three exemplar instances of how the blog and organizational boundaries were performed in the situated practice of the case study organization. We draw on literature on boundary objects, blogs and sociomateriality in order to provide a theoretical explication of the mutually-constituted performance of the blog and organizational boundaries. We also invoke the notion of ‘extended chains of intra-action’ to theorise changes in the wider organization. Originality/value Adoption of a sociomaterial lens provides a highly novel perspective of boundary objects and organizational boundaries. The study highlights the indeterminate and dynamic nature of boundary objects and boundaries, with both being in an intra-active state of becoming, challenging conventional conceptions. The study demonstrates that specific material-discursive practices arising from the situated practice of the blog at the respective boundaries were performative, reconfiguring the blog and boundaries and being generative of further changes in the organization

Signaling strategic commitment for organizational transition: how to manage potential M&As through voluntary disclosures

To ‘transit or not’ often depends upon winning over investor opinion to large strategic initiatives. M&A is one such major realignment of an organization and yet once a bid for a company has been announced there is a period of uncertainty when the bid may not be completed. This depends on share price movements determined more by investor perceptions than fundamental values. This paper investigates whether these perceptions may be influenced by ‘voluntary’ corporate communications and so link managerial practices to strategic outcomes. Drawing upon two very large M&A data sets (USA and UK) (57,000 deals; 30,000 communications) we argue managerial practice (signaling strategic commitment) shapes market response and demonstrate communication characteristics, and the use of high-reputation intermediaries, play an important role in determining share price reaction

Engaging With Environmental Stakeholders: Routes To Building Environmental Capabilities In The Context Of The Low Carbon Economy

The transition to a low carbon economy demands new strategies to enable organizations to take advantage of the potential for “green” growth. An organization's environmental stakeholders can provide opportunities for growth and support the success of its low carbon strategies, as well as potentially acting as a constraint on new initiatives. Building environmental capabilities through engagement with environmental stakeholders is conceptualized as an important aspect for the success of organizational low carbon strategies. We examine capability building across a range of sectors affected by the sustainability agenda, including construction, rail, water, and health care. We identify a number of emergent environmental stakeholders and explore their engagement with the development of environmental capabilities in the context of the transition toward a low carbon economy. Our conceptual framework offers a categorization of environmental stakeholders based on their position in relation to a focal organization and the potential for the development of environmental capabilities.N/

Voluntary disclosures as a form of impression management to reduce evaluative uncertainty during M&A

This study develops and tests a set of hypotheses on how to manage investors’ evaluative uncertainty during M&A through a specific form of impression management, namely, interim news events. We suggest that voluntary disclosures are key in influencing investors’ reactions during M&A. Empirical support for our theoretical arguments is shown in a sample of 36,376 deals and 163,023 associated interim news events carried out by NYSE and NSDQ listed organizations over 10 years. Our research contributes to literature on voluntary disclosures, impression management, and managing M&A

The Use of Scenarios in Developing Strategy: An Analysis of Conversation and Video Data

Surveys of managers report that strategy tools such as scenarios are widely used in practice. However, such surveys of practice typically focus on reporting which tools are used, rather than exploring how they are actually used. This paper examines the use of scenarios as a tool to support strategy development. We highlight a number of roles (technical, analytical and social) that scenarios play in strategy exercises, and offer insights into the use of scenarios in practice, illustrating that they are used throughout the strategy development process rather than simply at the start. Our approach to data analysis, based on analyses of both audio and visual material from a strategy workshop, sheds light on enhanced approaches to coding both conversation and video data within strategy research