CORPORATE ECOLOGICAL RESPONSIVENESS, ENVIRONMENTAL AMBIDEXTERITY AND IT-ENABLED ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY

An increased focus on creating a sustainable society has thrust environmental sustainability issues to societal and governmental forefront. Organizations can seize this opportunity to use environmental sustainability initiatives to set themselves apart from competitors. Achieving sustainability requires organizations to incorporate sustainability as part of their corporate strategy. A review of extant Information Systems (IS) literature on environmental sustainability revealed that the strategic role of Information Technology (IT) in enabling environmental sustainability strategy is one perspective that has not been explored in depth. Our paper addresses this gap in research. In this research paper, we propose that firms that use IT strategically to enable their environmental sustainability strategies and are able to demonstrate environmental ambidexterity are set to achieve competitive advantage, legitimacy, and reputation from their corporate ecological responsiveness initiatives. We present preliminary results from interviews that were part of our in-depth case study approach

Sustainable supply chain management towards disruption and organizational ambidexterity:A data driven analysis

Balancing sustainability and disruption of supply chains requires organizational ambidexterity. Sustainable supply chains prioritize efficiency and economies of scale and may not have sufficient redundancy to withstand disruptive events. There is a developing body of literature that attempts to reconcile these two aspects. This study gives a data-driven literature review of sustainable supply chain management trends toward ambidexterity and disruption. The critical review reveals temporal trends and geographic distribution of literature. A hybrid of data-driven analysis approach based on content and bibliometric analyses, fuzzy Delphi method, entropy weight method, and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory is used on 273 keywords and 22 indicators obtained based on the experts’ evaluation. The most important indicators are identified as supply chain agility, supply chain coordination, supply chain finance, supply chain flexibility, supply chain resilience, and sustainability. The regions show different tendencies compared with others. Asia and Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa are the regions needs improvement, while Europe and North America show distinct apprehensions on supply chain network design. The main contribution of this review is the identification of the knowledge frontier, which then leads to a discussion of prospects for future studies and practical industry implementation

Corporate Venture Capital on Sustainability-oriented Innovation: A Norwegian perspective

This master’s thesis investigates Norwegian Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) in terms of attaining sustainability and promoting innovation. The work's significance is maintained by the fact that, according to the literature, CVC plays a key role in assuring sustainability for both corporates and startups, and such research has not been undertaken in Norway. To investigate Norwegian CVC, we employed the ambidexterity analytical framework, as well as CVC and SOI models. We established a database to investigate the state of collaboration between corporations and startups around the country. To undertake case studies for the purpose to explore the practical aspect of the partnership more thoroughly, we conducted interviews with three active Norwegian CVCs and their startups. This is because, despite the fact that there are strategic objectives of partnership with startups in each of the three CVCs that we analyzed, they are not measured and evaluated. As a result, determining the efficacy of CVC from a non-financial standpoint is challenging. In terms of financial contribution, CVC's input pales in comparison to the head company's overall performance. Furthermore, there is no clear approach for dealing with startups. Based on this, we provide recommendations. To begin, there is an urgent need for the development of a measurement mechanism for evaluating the performance of CVC. Second, it is vital to develop a transparent and understandable strategy for interacting with startups. Taking these guidelines into consideration, firms will be able to maximize the benefits of such collaborations with startups, since companies are now losing most of their non-financial advantages. It will be able to contribute not only to their personal growth, but also to the development of the industry

Corporate Venture Capital on Sustainability-oriented Innovation: A Norwegian perspective

This master’s thesis investigates Norwegian Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) in terms of attaining sustainability and promoting innovation. The work's significance is maintained by the fact that, according to the literature, CVC plays a key role in assuring sustainability for both corporates and startups, and such research has not been undertaken in Norway. To investigate Norwegian CVC, we employed the ambidexterity analytical framework, as well as CVC and SOI models. We established a database to investigate the state of collaboration between corporations and startups around the country. To undertake case studies for the purpose to explore the practical aspect of the partnership more thoroughly, we conducted interviews with three active Norwegian CVCs and their startups. This is because, despite the fact that there are strategic objectives of partnership with startups in each of the three CVCs that we analyzed, they are not measured and evaluated. As a result, determining the efficacy of CVC from a non-financial standpoint is challenging. In terms of financial contribution, CVC's input pales in comparison to the head company's overall performance. Furthermore, there is no clear approach for dealing with startups. Based on this, we provide recommendations. To begin, there is an urgent need for the development of a measurement mechanism for evaluating the performance of CVC. Second, it is vital to develop a transparent and understandable strategy for interacting with startups. Taking these guidelines into consideration, firms will be able to maximize the benefits of such collaborations with startups, since companies are now losing most of their non-financial advantages. It will be able to contribute not only to their personal growth, but also to the development of the industry.

Gestión sostenible de los recursos humanos y el desempeño organizacional: un marco teórico integrador para futuras investigaciones

[ENG] This paper identifies and analyses six relevant approaches for the analysis of Sustainable Human Resource Management and Organizational Performance: Resource-Based View, Dynamic Capabilities View, Knowledge-Based View, Behavioral Theory, Human Relations Theory, and Cooperative Systems and Ambidextrous Organizations. They are complementarity approaches. They can all be applied to the analysis of a specific resource or capability for sustainable human resource management (HRM) and, consequently, organisational performance. However, the contributions made by the Resource-Based View and the new approach of Ambidextrous Organizations seem to be the most comprehensive approaches for studying sustainable HRM from an internal perspective of firms that allows the long-term development of their organizational and society performance. [SPA] Este documento identifica y analiza seis enfoques relevantes para el análisis de la gestión sostenible de los recursos humanos y el desempeño organizacional: visión basada en recursos y capacidades, visión de capacidades dinámicas, visión basada en el conocimiento, teoría del comportamiento, teoría de las relaciones humanas y sistemas cooperativos y organizaciones ambidiestras. Son enfoques complementarios. Todos pueden aplicarse al análisis de un recurso o capacidad específicos para la gestión sostenible de los recursos humanos y, en consecuencia, el desempeño organizacional. Sin embargo, los aportes de la visión basada en recursos y capacidades y el nuevo enfoque de Organizaciones Ambidiestras parecen ser los enfoques más integrales para estudiar la gestión sostenible desde una perspectiva interna de las empresas que permite el desarrollo a largo plazo de su desempeño organizacional y social.The authors are grateful for the support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Funder Identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004837). Project PID2019-107546GA-I00 –AEI/FEDER, UE

Green IS Assimilation: A Theoretical Framework and Research Agenda

The current paper presents a theoretical framework on the assimilation of Green IS in organizations. The assimilation of Green IS comprises three stages, namely, Green IS initiation, adoption, and routinization. The different stages of assimilation are proposed to be affected by different groups of factors. Based on institutional theory, organizational information processing theory and organization theory, environmental uncertainty, organizational slack, and institutional pressure are employed to explain Green IS assimilation, and the importance of each of these factors will vary in different stages of assimilation. Institutional factors and environmental uncertainty will affect the initiation of adoption of Green IS, while organizational resources will affect the adoption and rountinization of Green IS. Organizational resources will moderate the relationship between environmental uncertainty and Green IS adoption. The proposed framework is planned to be tested in the future empirical study. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications of the proposed conceptual model are presented

Demystifying paradox in modern IT organizations: A transformation toward ambidexterity

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

The adaptability of companies in the automotive sector to the ban on internal combustion vehicles in Europe from 2035

This dissertation explores a topic of great actuality, with an almost daily presence in the press and on people’s minds. Although the adaptability of companies to change is a diverse research area, the study focuses on an intensely affected domain, the Automotive Sector, for being an area that raised my particular interest. The realisation that there is a rapid change occurring in the world’s mobility and transportation, allied to the fact that companies in the automotive and mobility sector need to reshape to fit the market needs promptly, is what attracted me to investigate this theme. This paper aims to identify the factors that condition the adaptability of companies in the automotive sector to the new paradigm that will emerge in 2035. For this reason, the study’s objective is to analyse the relationship between organisational citizenship behaviour, intrinsic motivation, creative behaviour, problem-focused voice behaviour and affective commitment constructs and demographic variables such as age, level of education and job tenure. This study assessed the reactions, adaptations, and innovations adopted by companies in the automotive sector. The study is based on an organisational questionnaire answered by 64 workers in Portuguese companies in the automotive sector through a Microsoft Forms link. This study is organised in two parts: in the first, I present the theoretical framework, I characterise innovation and adaptability, the relationship between these two factors and the analysis of the case in the Automotive Sector; In the second part, I present the empirical study collected from the questionnaire above mentioned.A presente dissertação explora um tema de grande atualidade, com presença quase diária na imprensa e nas preocupações dos cidadãos. Embora a questão da adaptabilidade das empresas à mudança, respeite a uma diversidade de áreas de investigação, centrei o meu estudo num domínio intensamente afetado – o Setor Automóvel –, por ser uma área que me suscita particular interesse. A perceção de que, a nível mundial, há uma mudança rápida a ocorrer na mobilidade e transporte, aliada ao facto de as empresas do setor automóvel e de mobilidade precisarem de se adaptar prontamente às necessidades do mercado, determinaram o meu interesse na investigação do tema. Este trabalho visa identificar os fatores que condicionam a adaptabilidade das empresas do sector automóvel ao novo paradigma, que surgirá em 2035. O objetivo do estudo é a análise da relação entre comportamento de cidadania organizacional, motivação intrínseca, comportamento criativo, comportamento de voz focado no problema e construções de compromisso afetivo e variáveis demográficas tais como idade, nível de educação e permanência no emprego. Resultou deste estudo a avaliação da reação, adaptações e inovações adotadas pelas empresas do setor automóvel. O estudo baseia-se num questionário organizacional, respondido por 64 trabalhadores de empresas portuguesas do setor automóvel, através de Microsoft Forms. Este estudo organiza-se em duas partes: na primeira, apresento o quadro teórico, caracterizo a inovação e a adaptabilidade, a relação entre estes dois fatores e a análise do caso no Setor Automóvel; na segunda parte, apresento o estudo empírico recolhido no questionário acima referido

Integrating green into business strategies and operations - compatibility analysis and syncretistic perspective

The embracing of environmental responsibility by for-profit organisations is a latent concern for contemporary social scientists and management scholars. The Organisation for Economic and Co-operative Development recently published alarming predictions about the impact of human (and especially business) activities on the environment. Both management theorists and business practitioners failed to create the premise for, and inform the direction to, environmental sustainable development – although their interest in raising this challenge has significantly grown throughout the last decade. A number of Environmental corporate Social Responsibility (ESR) theorists are calling for a paradigm in which ethical or moral concerns are reintegrated in the practice of management. A more holistic and integrative perspective on corporate environmental and economic sustainability, it is argued, would generate improvements in the practice of ESR. Such a perspective is currently lacking; partly owing to the allegiance of theorists to atomistic and ‘outmoded’ ways of thinking. This thesis articulates a framework for ESR which prescribes the integration of environmental concerns in the day-to-day culture, processes and activities of a firm. Existing research suggests that the construct of a holistic and comprehensive view of ESR integration requires considerations both of business imperatives and of individuals’ cognitions. A compatibility framework is discussed, through which the operational and normative drivers for ESR integration are integrated. Four scenarios of compatibility are proposed: trade-off, ambidexterity, synergy and symbiosis. The theoretical discussion extends to the consideration of ESR integration as a managerial challenge whereby individual agents of management endeavour to balance objective rationale with subjective morale/ethics in the quest for a considerate environmental response. To examine this challenge, the present study suggests a new direction for theory based on the concept of syncretism – a perspective which received little attention outside the fields of culture and religion. The syncretistic framework is the main contribution of this thesis; it advocates the reconciliation of economic imperatives and environmental concerns via the reintegration of corporate objective (or systemic) and subjective (or constructionist) contingencies. To develop/refine the theoretical propositions, the thesis provides empirical evidence from thirty-seven interviews with business consultants and managers in a UK Brewery. The managers were interviewed more than once. The findings indicate that systemic pressures are often put forward as constraints to ESR integration; whether this translates into shareholders disapproval, economic instability, market volatility, etc. They tend to impinge on the normative engagement of business practitioners and provoke an incapacity or reluctance to change, understand, learn and lead towards syncretistic reconciliation. The analysis portrays the UK Brewery as an environmentally proactive, multi-level responsive company. Drawing upon the syncretistic framework, the firm’s proactive approach is argued to be impeded by a number of systemic factors. The syncretistic and compatibility frameworks, it is alleged, provide substance to the creation of a holistic theory of ESR integration for understanding the specific, and broader, causal mechanisms that are at play. KEY WORDS: corporate environmental responsibility, syncretism, sustainability, strategy management, business performance