Thursday 20.5, 12.00-13.00
Remote seminar, contact [email protected] for more information
Elizabeth Miller, Olli Sahimaa and Minna Halme, Aalto University
Linking organizations with systems: A cross-scale method for understanding (textile) firms in the context of their collective global sustainability impacts
From factory emissions accelerating climate change to society-wide pandemic lockdowns, it is becoming increasingly clear that activities on the organizational and socio-ecological system levels impact one another profoundly. Consequently, there has been a call for organization studies to focus on grand challenges, complex and critical problems that are difficult to understand yet possible to solve (Eisenhardt, Graebner and Sonenshein, 2016). This can mean taking a cross-scale approach linking organizations and socio-ecological systems (Bansal, Grewatsch and Sharma, 2021). However, we lack methods to understand these complex, messy, systemic problems that exceed the boundaries of individual firms or groups of them. In this study, which is currently in progress, we seek to develop a qualitative system mapping approach for organization studies to understand the system level that crosses multiple scales, has a wide array of factors, and has impacts spread out in space and time. We showcase this method for global textile systems, which are particularly useful for this demonstration as they are highly globalized and vertically disintegrated, with a wide array of actors involved.
From our extensive mapping of textile systems based on a line-by-line analysis of the 55 most relevant articles on the topic of sustainability in the textile and garment industries’ supply chains , we have preliminary findings linking the enterprise, industry, and socio-ecological system levels. Our findings focus on the dynamics facilitating the low prices and speed of the modern mass market garment industry, and well as the ecological and social impacts of cheap, fast fashion. We seek to contribute to the grand challenges discussion and the nascent research on bringing a systems perspective to organizational action (Whiteman, Walker and Perego, 2013; Bansal, Grewatsch and Sharma, 2021). In this seminar, we would like to discuss the approach and potential contributions to organization and management literature as well as to sustainability systems literature.
References
Bansal, P., Grewatsch, S. and Sharma, G. (2021) ‘How COVID-19 Informs Business Sustainability Research: It’s Time for a Systems Perspective’, Journal of Management Studies, 58(2), pp. 602–606. doi: 10.1111/joms.12669.
Eisenhardt, K., Graebner, M. and Sonenshein, S. (2016) ‘Grand Challenges and Inductive Methods: Rigor Without Rigor Mortis’, Academy of Management Journal, 59(4), pp. 1113–1123.
Whiteman, G., Walker, B. and Perego, P. (2013) ‘Planetary Boundaries: Ecological Foundations for Corporate Sustainability’, Journal of Management Studies, 50(2), pp. 307–336. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01073.x.
Thursday 25.3, 12.00-13.00
Remote seminar, contact [email protected] for more information
Tulin Dzenghiz and Samuli Patala, Aalto University
The role of cross-sector partnerships to break away from the vicious cycles of place-based dynamics in innovation ecosystems
The purpose of this article is to advance theory development by conceptualising how place (detachment) attachment of actors’ leads to (vicious) virtuous innovation ecosystems and how cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) carry the potential to break away from the vicious cycles of place-ecosystem dynamics. To do so, we synthesise existing knowledge on innovation ecosystems, spaces, places, and CSPs, define the main constructs (health of innovation ecosystems, place attachment-detachment, CSPs as herding spaces) and introduce the relationships between these seemingly disparate constructs in a conceptual model that brings them together. Our conceptual model demonstrates the recursive relationships between place (detachment) attachment and (un)healthy innovation ecosystems, which we characterise as vicious and virtuous cycles. We emphasise the role of CSPs to break away from the vicious dynamics of place-innovation ecosystem dynamics and explain the conditions in which CSPs carry such potential. We also generate propositions in alignment with our conceptual model and provide new paths for future research by raising new questions about the platial dynamics of innovation ecosystems and the role of CSPs in these dynamics. We support our conceptual model with two illustrative cases that exemplify vicious and virtuous place-innovation ecosystem dynamics.
