How Material Practices and their Symbolic and Physical Meanings Form a Colonising Logic

This PhD thesis is the outcome of three-year doctoral study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder engagement in the water sector. This study contributes to new knowledge about water companies formed as hybrid organisations in the aftermath of the new public management (NPM) era worldwide. Today we see different hybrid organisations of water companies around the world that have either been fully privatised or quasi-privatised. Quasiprivatisation in Denmark means that water utilities are still perceived as natural monopolies, which has not made them into for-profit driven companies. Instead a simulated market and state regulation has been introduces with annual, national benchmarking to set a price cap as an upper limit for the consumer-price of water. Similar systems are seen in fully privatised water companies in the United Kingdom, the United States, and partially in South Africa. However, here the water companies are typically owned by private companies and not established as municipalityowned limited liabilities1 as in Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia. This PhD thesis proposes new models and principles and corporate social responsibility and stakeholder engagement of these water companies. The findings of the study suggest a new definition of a colonising logic of CSR competing and coexisting with the regulators’ colonising logic of NPM. Through the study and definition of these logics as colonising the water sector this PhD theisis provides an understand of new perspectives of how CSR is enacted through stakeholder engagement and how the logic of CSR frames the top managers’ claim: ”We are CSR!” (Interview B, March 2011) and the consequences of this logic. Both the logic of CSR and the logic of NPM is found to be based on the materials that the water companies are organised around, namely water. Water is perceived as a natural good that should ideally be free and plentiful for all citizens around the world. However, the competition between the two colonising logics stems from another material, namely the money or price that providing clean and pure water for all are allowed to cost the citizens. Through the dialectical interaction of these in terms of material practices between producing water and infrastructure to distribute it and collecting money as a payment for it and the regulation of this, this PhD thesis proposes a new definition of the role of materials and material practices underlying several institutional logics such as the institutional logic of capitalism, state, democracy, family, religion/science, profession, and corporation (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012; Friedland, 2013)

an Organic Model

Stakeholder management has for the last three decades been concerned either with strategic business management or business ethics, values and quality. Many models have been developed, but recently the literature asks for more dynamic models instead of the staticism that characterizes some models. This paper offers an ‘Organic Stakeholder Model’ based on decision making theory, risk assessment and adaption to a rapidly changing world combined with appropriate stakeholder theory for ethical purposes in decision making processes in businesses. The ‘Organic Stakeholder Model’ is based on empirical evidence from hybrid organizations as Publicly Owned Enterprises (POEs) mixed of private corporations and political administration. The model offers a new way of combining risk management with ethical decisionmaking processes by the inclusion of multiple stakeholders. Not only does the model apply to these kinds of hybrid organizations, but it is easily adopted and tested for other private business models too. The findings and the conceptualization of the model enhances business ethics in decision making by managing and balancing stakeholder concerns with the same concerns as the traditional risk management models does – for the sake of the wider social responsibilities of the businesses and its stakeholders

CSR in the aftermath of the financial crisis

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine the literature of CSR before and in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008. The aim of the research question is to map out the consequences upon CSR derived from the crisis and to derive new principles of future CSR models to come consistent with the consequences of the financial crisis, and to suggest new research as well as policy-­‐making possibilities to highlight the importance and necessary survival of CSR as an instrument for sustainable and financial progress. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a literature review of CSR prior to and after the financial crisis 2008 with an emphasis on academic papers published in peer-­‐reviewed journals. Findings – The findings of the paper reveal that post-­‐crisis CSR-­‐models do not articulate anything that has not been mentioned before; however they do strengthen former values of CSR, but still lacks an overall formula of how the financial sector can adopt CSR in the core of their businesses and transparently display their products and the risk adhering to them. The paper proposes a new Four-­‐‘E’-­‐Principle that may guide new CSR-­‐models to accomplish this deficit. See under ‘Originality’. Practical implications – The paper calls for a discussion on ways in which governments and businesses can enhance social responsibility though balancing the requirements of more engagement from businesses as well as public sector companies in CSR. The paper suggest some instrumental mechanisms of how governments can engage not only multinational companies but also smaller companies and other kinds of organizations acting on the market to make them engage more in CSR. 2 Originality/value – The paper proposes a new Four-­‐‘E’-­‐Principle to guide the development of new CSR-­‐models based upon the core of Schwartz and Carroll’s ‘Three-­‐domain CSR-­‐model’, which the Principle extends and revises to: Economy, L/Egal, Environment, and Ethics. This Principle disentangles the dialectic relationship between economic and social responsibility; takes financial products into a consideration; refines the definitions of good stakeholder engagement without the illusions of corporate ‘Potemkinity’1; and considers the benefit of replacing the semiotic meaning of the ‘C’ in CSR from ‘corporate’ to ‘capitalism’s social responsibility’ in order to extend the concept towards a broader range of market agents

an Organic Stakeholder Model

Purpose: For the last three decades, Stakeholder management has been concerned either with strategic business management or business ethics, values and quality. Many models have been developed, but recently the literature asks for more dynamic models that can explain the complexities of the interaction between a corporation and its stakeholders. Methodology/approach: This paper offers a theoretical ‘Organic Stakeholder Model’ based on decision making theory, risk assessment and adaption to a rapidly changing world combined with appropriate stakeholder theory for ethical purposes in decision making processes in businesses. Findings: The concept of the ‘Organic Stakeholder Model’ is derived from observational studies of publicly owned enterprises from 2004 - 2011. The paper encourages researchers to test the validity of the model in any kind of business model. Practical implications (if applicable): The Model is based on case studies, but the limited scope of the length of the paper did not leave room to show the empirical evidence, but only the theoretical study. Originality / value of a paper: The model offers a new way of combining risk management with ethical decision-making processes by the inclusion of multiple stakeholders. The conceptualization of the model enhances business ethics in decision making by managing and balancing stakeholder concerns with the same concerns as the traditional risk management models does – for the sake of the wider social responsibilities of the businesses and its stakeholders

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Water Sector: How Material Practices and their Symbolic and Physical Meanings Form a Colonising Logic

This PhD thesis is the outcome of three-year doctoral study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder engagement in the water sector. This study contributes to new knowledge about water companies formed as hybrid organisations in the aftermath of the new public management (NPM) era worldwide. Today we see different hybrid organisations of water companies around the world that have either been fully privatised or quasi-privatised. Quasiprivatisation in Denmark means that water utilities are still perceived as natural monopolies, which has not made them into for-profit driven companies. Instead a simulated market and state regulation has been introduces with annual, national benchmarking to set a price cap as an upper limit for the consumer-price of water. Similar systems are seen in fully privatised water companies in the United Kingdom, the United States, and partially in South Africa. However, here the water companies are typically owned by private companies and not established as municipalityowned limited liabilities1 as in Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia. This PhD thesis proposes new models and principles and corporate social responsibility and stakeholder engagement of these water companies. The findings of the study suggest a new definition of a colonising logic of CSR competing and coexisting with the regulators’ colonising logic of NPM. Through the study and definition of these logics as colonising the water sector this PhD theisis provides an understand of new perspectives of how CSR is enacted through stakeholder engagement and how the logic of CSR frames the top managers’ claim: ”We are CSR!” (Interview B, March 2011) and the consequences of this logic. Both the logic of CSR and the logic of NPM is found to be based on the materials that the water companies are organised around, namely water. Water is perceived as a natural good that should ideally be free and plentiful for all citizens around the world. However, the competition between the two colonising logics stems from another material, namely the money or price that providing clean and pure water for all are allowed to cost the citizens. Through the dialectical interaction of these in terms of material practices between producing water and infrastructure to distribute it and collecting money as a payment for it and the regulation of this, this PhD thesis proposes a new definition of the role of materials and material practices underlying several institutional logics such as the institutional logic of capitalism, state, democracy, family, religion/science, profession, and corporation (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012; Friedland, 2013)