View Thread

  • 1.  Sustainability as strategy or tactic

    Posted 02-24-2010 09:46
    Bruce, thanks for asking the question, and Gregory, thanks for the stunning response.  This question is probably on the minds of many Deans. And the entire field of Strategic Management should be thinking about it.  To me Sustainability IS Strategy, because
    1.  It deals with the very long term (intergenerational) prosperity of organizations and its stakeholders
    2.  It deals with interactions with social AND natural environments
    3.  It deals systemically transforming the entire organization, and not some sub part of it.
    4.  It also allows companies to establish competitive advantage on the basis of ecological efficiencies.
    All these four bolded elements are key defining features of strategic management.  

    Yet, the latest SMS Annual Meeting call for papers has virtually nothing about sustainability. Business Policy Division of AoM seems to also largely ignore sustainability. 

    Why are some Deans and many Strategy researchers reluctant to acknowledge its centrality to Strategic Management?   The answer probably lies in the sociology of knowledge creation - how researcher come to their fields and the intellectual commitments they make on the way.  

    More interesting to me is the questions of how sustainability can be made central to SM and Org Studies broadly. How can we continue to theorise sustainability as strategy.  The Natural Resource based view of the firm started that process.  We need many more such concerted efforts to develop sustainability as leadership, sustainable human resources, sustainability as risk management, sustainable finance, sustainability marketing and design, .  

    Just like ONE, there are now Green/Sustainability professional niches in Marketing, Operations, Accounting Finance and IT fields. Each has its own listserv, a critical mass of scholars, and mini conferences.  One of my fantasies is to bring them all together to further the cause of developing theory and best practices in sustainable enterprise.  


    With Best Regards,
    paul S.

    Paul Shrivastava, Ph. D.
    David O'Brien Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, and
    Director, David O'Brien Center for Sustainable Enterprise

    Mailing address:
    John Molson School of Business
    Concordia University
    1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd West, Suite MB 6-327
    Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8
    Ph. 514-848-2424 Ext 2367
    Fax. 514-848-4547



    From:    "Lorton, Gregory A CIV NAVFAC SW, FISD" <gregory.lorton@NAVY.MIL>
    Subject: Re: "sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy"

    Hi Bruce

    It seems that sustainability is integrated into many or most of the activities of a majority of organizations, and that its effects extend well into the future (decades out for most organizations), this would seem to meet the definition of strategy versus tactics.  Sustainability decisions should address long-term factors such as input material trends, costs of operations, product life cycle considerations, etc.
    As a practitioner focusing on greenhouse gases/climate change within the larger context of sustainability for my organization, the kinds of questions and issues that we are wrestling with right now are clearly strategic in nature, having profound impacts on how the Navy conducts its operations decades into the future.  Hey, our near-term planning horizon for GHG emissions in California is 2020 and affects many segments of the economy!  And we need to plan for it now!  (The long-term planning horizon is 2050.)  How can that be tactical??? :-)
    Hope this helps.

    Cheers
    Greg Lorton, P.E., D.B.A.
    Air Quality Program Manager
    Navy Region Southwest

    Subject: "sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy"

    I'm trying to make the case with my dean that sustainability should be taught in all strategy courses.  My Dean offers that sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy.  I'd appreciate any help, especially citations.  Thanks. 

    Bruce


    --
    Bruce Clemens PhD PE
    Management Department



  • 2.  Sustainability as strategy or tactic

    Posted 02-24-2010 10:52
    Elinor Ostrom's work seems to me to be a good entry to a different view of economic value creation and governance. It treats many strategy and org themes but has been largely ignored in these literatures, or am I mistaken. Any comments?

    Alfred A. Marcus
    Professor and Spencer Chair in Strategy and Technological Leadership
    University of Minnesota
    Carlson School of Management
    Strategic Management and Organization Department
    Minneapolis, MN. 55455 USA
    612 624 2812
    amarcus@umn.edu


    On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 8:46 AM, Paul Shrivastava <paul.shri@gmail.com> wrote:
    Bruce, thanks for asking the question, and Gregory, thanks for the stunning response.  This question is probably on the minds of many Deans. And the entire field of Strategic Management should be thinking about it.  To me Sustainability IS Strategy, because
    1.  It deals with the very long term (intergenerational) prosperity of organizations and its stakeholders
    2.  It deals with interactions with social AND natural environments
    3.  It deals systemically transforming the entire organization, and not some sub part of it.
    4.  It also allows companies to establish competitive advantage on the basis of ecological efficiencies.
    All these four bolded elements are key defining features of strategic management.  

    Yet, the latest SMS Annual Meeting call for papers has virtually nothing about sustainability. Business Policy Division of AoM seems to also largely ignore sustainability. 

    Why are some Deans and many Strategy researchers reluctant to acknowledge its centrality to Strategic Management?   The answer probably lies in the sociology of knowledge creation - how researcher come to their fields and the intellectual commitments they make on the way.  

    More interesting to me is the questions of how sustainability can be made central to SM and Org Studies broadly. How can we continue to theorise sustainability as strategy.  The Natural Resource based view of the firm started that process.  We need many more such concerted efforts to develop sustainability as leadership, sustainable human resources, sustainability as risk management, sustainable finance, sustainability marketing and design, .  

    Just like ONE, there are now Green/Sustainability professional niches in Marketing, Operations, Accounting Finance and IT fields. Each has its own listserv, a critical mass of scholars, and mini conferences.  One of my fantasies is to bring them all together to further the cause of developing theory and best practices in sustainable enterprise.  


    With Best Regards,
    paul S.

    Paul Shrivastava, Ph. D.
    David O'Brien Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, and
    Director, David O'Brien Center for Sustainable Enterprise

    Mailing address:
    John Molson School of Business
    Concordia University
    1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd West, Suite MB 6-327
    Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8
    Ph. 514-848-2424 Ext 2367
    Fax. 514-848-4547



    From:    "Lorton, Gregory A CIV NAVFAC SW, FISD" <gregory.lorton@NAVY.MIL>
    Subject: Re: "sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy"

    Hi Bruce

    It seems that sustainability is integrated into many or most of the activities of a majority of organizations, and that its effects extend well into the future (decades out for most organizations), this would seem to meet the definition of strategy versus tactics.  Sustainability decisions should address long-term factors such as input material trends, costs of operations, product life cycle considerations, etc.
    As a practitioner focusing on greenhouse gases/climate change within the larger context of sustainability for my organization, the kinds of questions and issues that we are wrestling with right now are clearly strategic in nature, having profound impacts on how the Navy conducts its operations decades into the future.  Hey, our near-term planning horizon for GHG emissions in California is 2020 and affects many segments of the economy!  And we need to plan for it now!  (The long-term planning horizon is 2050.)  How can that be tactical??? :-)
    Hope this helps.

    Cheers
    Greg Lorton, P.E., D.B.A.
    Air Quality Program Manager
    Navy Region Southwest

    Subject: "sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy"

    I'm trying to make the case with my dean that sustainability should be taught in all strategy courses.  My Dean offers that sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy.  I'd appreciate any help, especially citations.  Thanks. 

    Bruce


    --
    Bruce Clemens PhD PE
    Management Department




    --



  • 3.  Sustainability as strategy or tactic

    Posted 02-24-2010 13:35

    Alfie,

    I agree Ostrom's work on common pool resources and governance regimes (esp. the commons regime) has much to offer strategy and org studies. My humble contributions in this regard are below. I also agree her work has been sadly neglected in our field.

     

    John

     

    Selsky and P.A. Memon, "Managing Fresh Water Resources in Canterbury, New Zealand: The 'Modernization' of Environmental Governance?," Academy of Management national meetings, ONE Division, Chicago, August 2009.

     

    P.A. Memon and Selsky, "Stakeholders and the Management of Freshwater Resources in New Zealand: A Critical Commons Perspective," in Sanjay Sharma and Mark Starik (Eds.), Stakeholders, the Environment and Society. London: Edward Elgar. 2004. pp23-61.

     

    P.A. Memon and Selsky, "Institutional Design for the Management of an Urban Port in New Zealand," Society and Natural Resources, 11(6), 1998, pp587-602.

     

    Selsky and Scott Creahan, "The Exploitation of Common Property Natural Resources: A Social Ecology Perspective," Industrial and Environmental Crisis Quarterly [now Organization & Environment], 9(3), 1996, pp346-375.

     

    Selsky and P.A. Memon, "Managing Complex Common Property Resource Systems: Implications of Recent Institutional Reforms in New Zealand," Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy, Supplement 1, 1995, pp259-290.

     

    .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

    Dr. John W. Selsky

    Associate Professor, Management

    University of South Florida Polytechnic

    3433 Winter Lake Road

    Lakeland, FL 33803  USA

    +1-863-667-7718

    +1-863-667-7751 fax

    jselsky@poly.usf.edu

    Associate Fellow, Institute for Science, Innovation & Society

    University of Oxford    http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/insis/

    .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

     

    From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion [mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Alfred Marcus
    Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 10:52 AM
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Sustainability as strategy or tactic

     

    Elinor Ostrom's work seems to me to be a good entry to a different view of economic value creation and governance. It treats many strategy and org themes but has been largely ignored in these literatures, or am I mistaken. Any comments?

    Alfred A. Marcus
    Professor and Spencer Chair in Strategy and Technological Leadership
    University of Minnesota
    Carlson School of Management
    Strategic Management and Organization Department
    Minneapolis, MN. 55455 USA
    612 624 2812
    amarcus@umn.edu

    On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 8:46 AM, Paul Shrivastava <paul.shri@gmail.com> wrote:

    Bruce, thanks for asking the question, and Gregory, thanks for the stunning response.  This question is probably on the minds of many Deans. And the entire field of Strategic Management should be thinking about it.  To me Sustainability IS Strategy, because

    1.  It deals with the very long term (intergenerational) prosperity of organizations and its stakeholders

    2.  It deals with interactions with social AND natural environments

    3.  It deals systemically transforming the entire organization, and not some sub part of it.

    4.  It also allows companies to establish competitive advantage on the basis of ecological efficiencies.

    All these four bolded elements are key defining features of strategic management.  

     

    Yet, the latest SMS Annual Meeting call for papers has virtually nothing about sustainability. Business Policy Division of AoM seems to also largely ignore sustainability. 

     

    Why are some Deans and many Strategy researchers reluctant to acknowledge its centrality to Strategic Management?   The answer probably lies in the sociology of knowledge creation - how researcher come to their fields and the intellectual commitments they make on the way.  

     

    More interesting to me is the questions of how sustainability can be made central to SM and Org Studies broadly. How can we continue to theorise sustainability as strategy.  The Natural Resource based view of the firm started that process.  We need many more such concerted efforts to develop sustainability as leadership, sustainable human resources, sustainability as risk management, sustainable finance, sustainability marketing and design, .  

     

    Just like ONE, there are now Green/Sustainability professional niches in Marketing, Operations, Accounting Finance and IT fields. Each has its own listserv, a critical mass of scholars, and mini conferences.  One of my fantasies is to bring them all together to further the cause of developing theory and best practices in sustainable enterprise.  

     

     

    With Best Regards,

    paul S.

     

    Paul Shrivastava, Ph. D.

    David O'Brien Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, and

    Director, David O'Brien Center for Sustainable Enterprise

     

    Mailing address:

    John Molson School of Business

    Concordia University

    1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd West, Suite MB 6-327

    Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8

    Ph. 514-848-2424 Ext 2367

    Fax. 514-848-4547

     



    From:    "Lorton, Gregory A CIV NAVFAC SW, FISD" <gregory.lorton@NAVY.MIL>
    Subject: Re: "sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy"

    Hi Bruce

    It seems that sustainability is integrated into many or most of the activities of a majority of organizations, and that its effects extend well into the future (decades out for most organizations), this would seem to meet the definition of strategy versus tactics.  Sustainability decisions should address long-term factors such as input material trends, costs of operations, product life cycle considerations, etc.
    As a practitioner focusing on greenhouse gases/climate change within the larger context of sustainability for my organization, the kinds of questions and issues that we are wrestling with right now are clearly strategic in nature, having profound impacts on how the Navy conducts its operations decades into the future.  Hey, our near-term planning horizon for GHG emissions in California is 2020 and affects many segments of the economy!  And we need to plan for it now!  (The long-term planning horizon is 2050.)  How can that be tactical??? :-)
    Hope this helps.

    Cheers
    Greg Lorton, P.E., D.B.A.
    Air Quality Program Manager
    Navy Region Southwest

    Subject: "sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy"

    I'm trying to make the case with my dean that sustainability should be taught in all strategy courses.  My Dean offers that sustainability is more a tactic than a strategy.  I'd appreciate any help, especially citations.  Thanks. 

    Bruce


    --
    Bruce Clemens PhD PE
    Management Department

     




    --