Dear AIB Colleagues:
***********************************
We invite you to submit a Short Paper on
Designing culturally sustainable organizations
to a Sub-Theme of the
28th EGOS COLLOQUIUM
July 5-7, 2012, Helsinki, Finland
***********************************
Deadline for Short Paper (≤ 3,000 words) submission: January 16, 2012
Convenors:
Sonja Sackmann, University Bw Munich, Germany, [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Maggi Phillips, Pepperdine University, USA, [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Ann Feyerherm, Pepperdine University, USA, [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Call for Papers:
Leaders of organizations in the 21st Century face the unprecedented challenge of designing organizations that serve a broad range of stakeholders and are sustainable within their market, financial, physical, and social realms. This requires strategically positioning the organization within the unique intersection of “environmental stewardship, corporate citizenship, product/service excellence, and financial strength.”1 Crafting an organization to attain and maintain a strategic stance delicately balanced within this nexus of sustainability demands attention to the complexity of the organization’s internal and external environments, as well as a deep understanding of the multifaceted cultural context.
In this sub-theme, we seek to develop an integrated understanding of
organization design, sustainability, and culture by:
- exploring the implications of the organization’s context and the cultural mindsets of its members for designing high quality, effective, and sustainable work environments;
- considering cultural factors facilitating and/or impeding sustainable organization design; and,
- examining the impact of sustainable design upon the multiple extant cultures.
To this end, we invite conceptual, empirical (quantitative and qualitative), and case research illuminating the intersection of the three concepts, as well as research founded in the interaction of any two.
We encourage consideration of general questions, e.g.,
- What does it mean to be a “culturally sustainable” organization?
- What is the influence of the multiple cultural contexts and mindsets (e.g., national, regional, industry, professional, organizational, functional, hierarchical, ethnic, gender) of the organization, its members, and its external stakeholders on organization design and sustainability?
- Can organizations be designed to be sustainable?
- Can cultures that effectively promote organizational sustainability be “designed”?
We invite attention to specific issues derived from these themes, i.e.,
- What design elements, attributes, and/or processes help to attain & maintain sustainability?
• What aspects of diagnosis need to precede design to assure sustainability?
• How do extant cultural contexts/mindsets shape diagnosis and design?
- What are the key cultural characteristics of a “sustainable” organization?
• Do certain cultural characteristics and competencies foster sustainability?
• Which cultural attributes must be embedded to assure sustainability?
- Are notions of sustainability culturally-relative?
• Are some cultural contexts (e.g., organization, industry, region, nation) more amenable to sustainable enterprise development?
• If so, what cultural assumptions of those contexts foster amenability?
• Are these assumptions shared across these contexts and are they replicable in or transferable to other contexts?
- Can values of sustainability be purposefully embedded within an organization culture? If so, how?
• If the embedding process is instead evolutionary, what factors impact its development?
• What is the residual effect of design and the design process upon the extant cultures?
- What are the key leadership attributes and competencies required to effectively guide an organization that is, or aspires to be, “sustainable”?
• How does cultural knowledge and cross-cultural competence contribute to effective leadership of sustainable enterprises?
Some guiding literature
- Haugh HM & Talwar A (2010) How do corporations embed sustainability across the organization? AoM Learning & Education 9(3): 384-396.
- Mohrman SA & Worley CG (eds) (2010) Special Issue: Organizing for Sustainability. Organizational Dynamics 39(4): 289-356.
- Pfeffer J (2010) Building sustainable organizations: The human factor. AoM Perspectives 24(1): 34-45.
- Sackmann SA et al (2009) Sustainable change: Long-term efforts toward developing a learning organization. J Applied Behavioral Science 45(4): 521-549.
- Sackmann SA & Phillips ME (2004) Contextual influences on culture research: Shifting assumptions for new workplace realities. Int’l J Cross Cultural Management 4(3): 371-392.
***********************************
1Michael Crooke (former CEO, Patagonia, Inc.), Mission Statement, SEER Certificate Program, Graziadio School, Pepperdine University, USA.
Submission schedule for the conference is:
- January 16, 2012: Deadline for short papers of ≤3000 words; please submit to EGOS website (http://www.egosnet.org)
- March 1, 2012: Notification of acceptance of papers
- May 15, 2012: Full papers to be uploaded to the EGOS website
- July 5-7, 2012: EGOS Colloquium, Aalto University & Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
Abstracts and papers will be available on the EGOS website.
Formal sub-theme announcement at http://www.egos2012.net/2011/06/sub-theme-29-designing-culturally-sustainable-organizations/
Any inquiries should be directed to:
Prof. Dr. Sonja Sackmann
Institute for Developing Viable Organizations
Department of Economics, Management and Organization Sciences
University Bw Munich
Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 36
D-85577 Neubiberg, Germany
tel: +49 (89) 6004 2697
email: [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]