Question 3L Flashcards
What is an internal movement, and how does it differ from an external movement?
Internal movements operate within an organizational field, focusing on changing reporting practices and institutional logics to promote responsible investment. External movements, like NGOs, operate outside the field and exert pressure from the outside.
What challenges do internal movements face when trying to bring change?
Internal movements face embeddedness (difficulty disrupting established norms), co-optation (risk of being heard without driving change), capture (absorbed into prevailing norms), and value frame clashes (conflicting priorities among stakeholders).
What is institutional work, and how was it applied by VBDO?
Institutional work refers to purposeful actions aimed at shifting norms, values, and practices in a field. VBDO used institutional work to disrupt sustainability reporting norms and embed new accountability mechanisms, such as benchmarks.
What is organizing dissonance, and why is it significant for internal movements?
Organizing dissonance involves managing disagreements among actors with differing value frames to foster productive collaborations. It helps internal movements stabilize relationships, generate innovation, and advance institutional change without requiring full consensus.
What are the two key forms of institutional work used by VBDO, and how did they function?
The two forms are:
Rankings Work: Development and dissemination of benchmarks to foster sustainability competition among companies.
Work Censorship: Deliberate restraint from certain actions to build credibility and avoid backlash in the early stages of engagement.
How did the FED use institutional work censorship, and why?
The FED moderated his ambitions to appeal to mainstream investment institutions. By building credibility gradually, he sequenced institutional work to avoid alienating key stakeholders and ensure inclusion.
What was the Transparency Benchmark, and why was it significant?
The Transparency Benchmark ranked companies on sustainability transparency. It marked a shift from private to public evaluation, stimulating competitive differentiation and gaining government support, which reinforced CSR within the investment field.
What challenges arose from the FED’s pension fund benchmark proposal?
Pension funds resisted the benchmark, attempting to seize control of its criteria to suit their interests. This led to a crisis, with some funds leaving VBDO, though key members remained to preserve its mission.
How did the SED’s approach differ from the FED’s?
The SED adopted a confrontational approach, abandoning soft advocacy in favor of direct challenges to stakeholders, such as publicly confronting the pension fund industry and leveraging media to spark public outcry.
How did the SED use organized dissonance to advance VBDO’s goals?
The SED created structured spaces like platform meetings for stakeholders with differing perspectives to debate and collaborate on benchmarks. This fostered innovation while avoiding complete alignment or breakdowns.
What limits to organized dissonance were observed in the SED era?
Excessive dissonance risked destabilizing the organization. The SED’s proposal for a lobbying role exceeded acceptable limits, leading to resistance from members, particularly in the business sector.
What does it mean for VBDO to be a boundary organization?
As a boundary organization, VBDO served as a platform mediating between diverse stakeholders, managing clashing perspectives, and fostering collaboration to embed sustainability practices in the investment field.
How did rankings work contribute to VBDO’s impact on the Dutch investment field?
Rankings work stimulated sustainability competition among companies, improving reporting quality and embedding CSR practices in the field over time. It appealed to the field’s competitive culture while advancing accountability.
What role did the government play in VBDO’s benchmarks?
The government supported the Transparency Benchmark, integrating it into legislation. This formalization valorized the benchmark and reinforced CSR practices in the field.
How does the VBDO case study illustrate the concept of institutional change?
VBDO influenced institutional change by embedding accountability mechanisms through rankings work, leveraging organized dissonance to mediate diverse perspectives, and evolving into a boundary organization that enabled responsible investment.
