Tensions and Outlooks Flashcards
(26 cards)
What are strategic approaches?
businesses pursue corporate sustainability to make profit
What are stakeholder approaches
business pursue corporate sustainability to create stakeholder value & maintain legitimacy
What are political approaches?
businesses pursue corporate sustainability to help fill governance gaps
What are ecological approaches?
businesses pursue corporate sustainability to reduce their ecological impact
What is short term vs long term tension questions?
What is our time perspective when we speak of sustainability? Do firms prioritise the interest of current generations or future generation?
e.g. deforestation to create land area space in the short term but in the long term it has major environmental effects
What is a tension of people/planet?
e.g. Shien double profits in UK after sales leap 40% to 1.5bn. ‘Fashion retailer shein finds child labour in its supply chain’.
Should firm focus primarily on financial profit or other elements of the triple bottom line?
What are marginal v core tensions?
How core to strategy are sustainability issues for business in achieving their aims of purpose? Some companies may make more substaintial sustainability efforts to improve their image e.g. Ofsted Achieve Top spot 2024 in Global 100 for sustainable energy.
What are the tensions of stakeholders vs stakeholders?
other stakeholders can have competing interests too. Which interests should the firm prioritise?
e.g. Airbnb means less property on rental market, conflict between hosts and landlords
What are the tensions of shareholder vs stakeholder?
Stakeholder capitalism, (Freeman business responsibility is to make profit and look at interests of all stakeholders) vs shareholder capitalism (freedman - full filling shareholder interests first) - do firms exist or shareholders value maximisation or for a broader set of stakeholders?
What are home vs host tension?
e.g. Ferrers to stop sourcing palm oil from slime darby after forced labour finding - How do businesses balance the expectation of the country of the headquarters and the local markets where they operate
What are political vs apolitical tensions?
are firms merely market actors or do they play political roles in society?
Can schemes fill governance gaps e.g. the use of FSC.
What are global vs local tension?
is sustainability assessed at the global or local level? What are the impacts of climate change globally as well as local people, their local land/livelihood.
What is tension management?
4 approaches to deal with tension in corporate sustainability.
What is a win-win tension management?
tensions are managed by seeing different elements (economic, social and environmental demands) as interrelated.
Managed by focusing on a win win logic, improvement in one are should also improve another area or at least not diminish it. This perspective avoids the tension by focusing on alignment and optimisation e.g. business case for sustainability
What is a trade- off tension management?
sees managing tensions as a choice between two or more options, where one option is prioritised over the others. Tensions is eliminated by forcing a choice.
However it will likely resurface. Firms often prioritise financial performance over societal goals - e.g. business convert climate change into mundane and comfortable concerns of ‘business as usual’ as economic interest are prioritised.
What is intergrative tension management?
tensions are addressed by balancing competing elements of corporate sustainability by brining them together equitably.
The integrative perspective operates without favouring one element over another. it is not necessarily important to attain wins - e.g. defintion of corporate sustainability and the notion of triple bottom line.
What is paradox tension management?
contains contradictory yet interrelated elements that persist over time. From the paradox perspective, the tensions are embraced, not either or but both and decisions.
Stakeholder pose environmental and social sustainability demands on business operating in global value chain - these demands might oppose financial profits.
e.g. company A requires its manufactures in mid or low-income countries to improve wages and working conditions, while making their products more price - competitive, requiring ever decreasing unit prices.
What is a paradox case example of peter?
Peter is the sustainable procurement manager - for a car company. He needs to recommend a battery supplier to his boss to produce EV
What are the pros and cons of the Fast Pace EV battery?
Pro’s:
- makes EV affordable for mass market due to cheap price - higher impact on environmental sustainability.
- would sustain jobs for workers in DRC
Con’s:
- non transparent mining conditional-negative impacts for social sustainability.
- could bear the danger of backfiring and damage supercars reputation
- could be the danger of reputation risks for e mobility more broadly.
What are pro’s and con’s of full energy EV battery?
Pro’s:
- ensures social justice through responsible mining
- could be used as a unique selling point to build a trustworthy reputation
Con’s:
- would be too expensive, less affordable and lead to a lower impact on environmental sustainability
- because of this EVs wouldn’t be affordable in the mass market
What are the tensions peter face which constitute as a paradox?
- Contradictory - environmental sustainability vs social justice.
- Interrelated - it is impossible to fulfil one target without worsening the other
- Persistent - the procurement decision affect company’s long term success
What are some solutions for Peter?
- opt for more sustainable batter because tackling climate crisis is more urgent.
- buy the more expensive battery because complying with human rights is a legal duty.
- anticipate negative outcomes of both purchasing decisions and both prepared for these outcomes
- communicate values internally, critically discuss prevalent assumption in different departments.
- confront stakeholders with tensions and discuss possible solutions in stakeholder roundtables.
- improving working conditions in the DRC through a strategic relationships with one supplier
What is social and environmental accounting?
how is nature and social welfare measured and accounted for? What tensons occur between traditional and alternative measures or progress indicators?
What is marketing and communication?
What tensions occur between ‘talk vs action’? (decoupling, green marketing vs greenwashing)
