Key Concepts 3 Flashcards
Climate Change as a Critical Challenge
The conflict between economic growth and environmental protection is the primary issue corporations face, shifting the focus from “saving the planet” to transforming human consciousness
Corporate Responsibility (Wright & Nyberg, 2017) (FLN)
● Framing: Corporations frame climate change as compatible with business goals, often associating their image with positive environmental values while distancing themselves from harm.
● Localising: Translating global climate challenges into business-specific initiatives, assigning economic value to climate actions.
● Normalising: Embedding climate actions into daily operations while minimizing disruption to traditional business models
From Grand Challenge to Business as Usual (TFLSDPEF)
- Triggering Events: Climate-related crises and external critiques (from NGOs, media, etc.) push companies to respond to environmental concerns.
- Framing: Companies initially frame climate change as a business concern, focusing on risk management or opportunities. However, this framing is critiqued for distracting from core profitability goals.
- Localizing: Companies adapt climate initiatives into practical actions like:
○ Incorporation: Developing eco-friendly products or roles.
○ Commensuration: Turning actions into quantifiable metrics.
○ Proselytization: Promoting these actions internally and externally. - Splitting: Companies may engage in symbolic actions without meaningful implementation (e.g., greenwashing).
- Deterioration and Critique: Over time, financial pressures cause climate actions to be critiqued for their impact on profitability.
- Purification and Dilution: Companies scale back or reframe climate initiatives to focus on core business goals, abandoning or diluting environmental commitments.
- Embedding: Some companies delay the normalization of business-as-usual through temporary compromises but eventually revert due to market constraints.
- Fiduciary Duty: Managers are limited by their duty to prioritize shareholder value, restricting long-term integration of environmental concerns
Dissonance
The tension between corporate actions and external expectations about climate responsibility
Regulatory Risk
Potential consequences of carbon taxes or mandatory restrictions
Market Risk
The threat from competitors adopting green technologies
Reputational Risk
Public perception of environmental harm can damage brand image
Physical Risk
Climate-related disasters directly impact infrastructure
Corporate Environmentalism Critiques (Wright & Nyberg, 2017): Greenwashing
Presenting a false image of environmental responsibility to align with societal values, without genuine ecological efforts
Corporate Environmentalism Critiques (Wright & Nyberg, 2017): Capitalism’s Growth Imperative
Economic growth, driven by fossil fuels, is incompatible with radical decarbonization and climate change mitigation
Temporal Disconnect
Businesses have short-term profit objectives, while climate change requires long-term solutions
Complicity
Companies are often responsible for causing the issues they claim to address, making radical change difficult
Shareholder Value Synonymous with Egosystem
Prioritizing shareholder wealth over systemic environmental consequences, with externalities being disregarded
Externalities
Costs or benefits caused by an economic actor that do not directly affect the actor itself, often leading to environmental degradation
Polycentric Governance (Ostrom & Polanyi)
Multiple centers of decision-making working towards the common good, supporting sustainable resource use
Commons
Shared resources managed collectively for mutual benefit
Circular Economy Systems (Patala, Albareda, & Halme, 2022)
Systems where resources are reused, recycled, or remanufactured in a closed loop, involving collective action among businesses and stakeholders for sustainability
Systemic Collective Action
Cooperation between businesses and other stakeholders for sustainability through shared resource management
Closed-Loop Economic Systems
Resources are maintained and reused across multiple organizations, emphasizing collaboration to manage resources efficiently
Challenges in Circular Economy Systems (4)
● Lack of Perceived Value: Residual materials are often undervalued.
● Lack of Scale: Efficient systems require infrastructure to manage resources on a large scale.
● Lack of Resource Information: Limited sharing of leftover materials between companies.
● Lack of Governance Mechanisms: Public-sector involvement is needed to address environmental costs.
Rivalrous Goods
Physical resources (e.g., oil, food) that are depleted with use
Non-Rivalrous Goods
Digital resources or data that can be used by multiple people without depletion
Cosmolocalism
A combination of digital commons (open knowledge) and local production, emphasizing sustainability and local empowerment
Monopolization of Non-Rivalrous Goods
Companies like Google and Amazon dominate digital infrastructures, leading to “tech feudalism.”
6 Mechanisms of Algorithmic Control (6 Rs)
● Recommending: Algorithms direct workers’ actions.
● Restricting: Algorithms limit access to information or behaviors.
● Recording: Continuous surveillance of worker behavior.
● Rating: Performance data used to evaluate workers.
● Replacing: Underperforming workers are replaced based on algorithmic evaluations.
● Rewarding: Workers receive rewards for meeting algorithmic standards
Network Effects in Digital Goods (3)
● One-Sided Network Effects: Growth within a single user group increases the platform’s value.
● Two-Sided Network Effects: Platforms like Airbnb benefit from interactions between consumers and providers.
● Complementary Network Effects: Mutual benefits between related industries (e.g., iPhone and app developers).
Algoactivism
Workers resisting algorithmic control through tactics like platform organizing, legal mobilization, and discursive framing focusing on fairness, accountability, and transparency
Algorithmic Curation
The process by which algorithms filter and recommend tasks or content (e.g., Netflix recommending shows), influencing what workers or users are exposed to
Algorithmic Brokerage
Algorithms mediating relationships between workers, clients, and customers (e.g., Uber matching drivers to customers), often with limited transparency
Algorithmic Articulation
The process by which workers interpret algorithmic outputs and make them actionable (e.g., customer service agents using algorithmic prompts)
Recursive Relationship Between Morality and Decision-Making
The idea that morality influences decision-making, and decision-making reshapes moral norms, complicated by the introduction of AI into these processes
Pragmatist Ontology of Judgment
A decision-making process involving imagination, empathy, and moral reflection, where values are inseparable from choices
Principled Ontology of Reckoning
The data-driven, rule-based process used by algorithms, which treats data as isolated from moral concerns and is more rigid compared to human judgment
Ontological Assimilation
The process by which morality is reshaped to fit within algorithmic frameworks, making moral decisions more rigid and universalized when algorithms dominate decision-making
Dignum’s Responsible AI Framework
● Ethics in Design: Incorporating ethical concerns into the design process of AI systems.
● Ethics by Design: Ensuring that the ethical use of AI is embedded in its application.
● Ethics for Designers: Focusing on educating designers about ethical implications
Structure-Induced Dynamics in Polycentric Governance
Formal governance mechanisms that create shared visions and prompt organizations to align with broader system-wide goals for collective action
Actor-Induced Dynamics in Polycentric Governance
Dynamics where collective agency practices (e.g., resource-sharing initiatives) drive organizations to adjust their roles and governance approaches, creating new governance structures.
Cooperation Under Anarchy
The challenge of addressing climate change without a singular global governing body, making coordinated responses difficult for corporations
Proselytization in Corporate Climate Action
The promotion of corporate climate initiatives to internal and external stakeholders in order to legitimize efforts and gain support, even if they are not actually really focused on this.
Commensuration in Corporate Climate Responses
The process by which companies turn environmental efforts into quantifiable business metrics, such as carbon pricing and energy savings
Purification of Climate Commitments
Stripping back climate commitments to refocus on core business goals such as profit, often in response to financial pressure
Theoretical Stagnation
The idea that academic research may be stuck in outdated paradigms, despite the availability of new data and societal changes, raising questions about the real progress being made in various fields
Purpose of Theory
A critique of theory for theory’s sake, questioning whether academic research is developed to address real-world problems or simply to generate more publications, without meaningful application
Shift to Problem-Driven Research/Practical Theory
A call for organizational theory to transition from theory-driven to problem-driven research, with a focus on addressing pressing societal issues
Technological Growth Without Theoretical Advance
Relates to the challenges posed by emerging technologies (e.g., AI) and the lack of theoretical adaptation
