A small-N cross-sectional study of British unions' environmental attitudes and activism - and the prospect of a green-led renewal

Unions understand the environmental agenda as a technocentric one but also believe it can function as a vehicle for renewal. It is developing slowly, with unions behaving cautiously—resources are scarce. Although popular with members, there is limited evidence that it is effective as a recruitment tool and whilst employers are willing to work in partnership with unions on it, this may confer only phony insider status. Overall, the agenda has limited appeal to the types of employees and employers unions must recruit in order to grow. Identifying a clear environmental premium for members may help

Gendering the careers of young professionals: some early findings from a longitudinal study. in Organizing/theorizing: developments in organization theory and practice

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales

Academic Arrhythmia: Disruption, Dissonance and Conflict in the Early-Career Rhythms of CMS Academics

Starting a career on the margins of the neoliberal business school is becoming increasingly challenging. We contribute to the understanding of the problems involved and to potential solutions by developing a theoretically-informed approach to the rhythms of academic life and drawing on interviews with 32 Critical Management Studies (CMS) early-career academics (ECAs) in 14 countries. Bringing together Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis (and his concepts of polyrhythmia, eurhythmia and arrhythmia), Zerubavel’s sociology of time, and identity construction literature, we examine the rhythm-identity implications of the recent HE changes. We show how the dynamics between the broader pressures, institutional strategies, and our interviewees’ attempts to reassert themselves are creating a vicious circle of arrhythmia – a debilitating condition characterized by rhythmic disruption, dissonance and conflict. Within the circle, identity insecurity and regulation, CMS ECAs’ identity work, and arrhythmia are mutually co-constructive, so that it is hard for individuals to break out. We consider the possibilities and limitations of individual coping strategies and, drawing out lessons for business schools, advocate for more collective and structural solutions. In so doing, we contribute to the reimagining of business schools as more eurhythmically polyrhythmic places where ECAs of all intellectual orientations have the time to learn and develop

Linking Employee Stakeholders to Environmental Performance: The Role of Proactive Environmental Strategies and Shared Vision

Drawing on the natural-resource-based view (NRBV), we propose that employee stakeholder integration is linked to environmental performance through firms’ proactive environmental strategies, and that this link is contingent on shared vision. We tested our model with a cross-country and multi-industry sample. In support of our theory, results revealed that firms’ proactive environmental strategies translated employee stakeholder integration into environmental performance. This relationship was pronounced for high levels of shared vision. Our findings demonstrate that shared vision represents a key condition for advancing the corporate greening agenda through proactive environmental strategies. We discuss implications for the CSR and the environmental management literatures, with a particular focus on the NRBV and stakeholder integration debates

Home and away : learning in and learning from organisational networks in Europe

This report is a comparative analysis of the various learning networks established within the Innoflex Project. The report recaps on the central argument underpinning Innoflex, namely that traditional ways of organising workplaces and traditional styles of management cannot achieve the commitment, agility and adaptability required in the 21st Century. The competitiveness of European firms and public sector organisations requires forms of organising whereby people can learn and be creative; to do this people need work to be organised in ways that foster learning and innovation. Such a view is consonant with earlier research arguing for ‘high-road’ strategies for competitiveness and sustainability that, above all, entail stakeholder convergence, in the particular case of Innoflex between competitiveness and the quality of working life. The case is developed by arguing not just for an emphasis on forms of work organisation that foster learning in organisations, but also those that foster learning between organisations, in particular through learning networks