Positive design for creating organizational excellence: bringing together multiple approaches

Citation

Sardana, G.D. and Thatchenkery, T. (2011), "Positive design for creating organizational excellence: bringing together multiple approaches", Society and Business Review, Vol. 6 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sbr.2011.29606baa.001

Positive design for creating organizational excellence: bringing together multiple approaches

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Society and Business Review, Volume 6, Issue 2

Business and society has emerged as an important area of research in organizational science and management under names such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Hatch and Mirvis, 2010; Marcus et al., 2010), triple bottom line (Lazlo and Cooperrider, 2010), and sustainability (Thatchenkery et al., 2010). A Google search for the exact term “business and society” yielded 722,000 instances (February 15, 2011) while the number of articles on CSR stood at an impressive 77,000 on Google Scholar (February 15, 2011). Even in hard economic times, resources committed to sustain CSR have not decreased (Strugatch, 2011). Not only that, sustainability has become a key outcome measure of CSR in many instances (Thatchenkery et al., 2010). The CSR movement has always been supported by environmentalists, social progressives, socially conscious investment professionals. For example, business for social responsibility, a global CSR advocacy organization, polled their members in late 2010 and found that only one-third expected cuts in their CSR budget (Strugatch, 2011). Another study cited in the same paper found that 43 percent of corporate responsibility officers believed their budgets did not face significant reduction, as compared with 31 percent who did.

Despite the focus on creating the civic society, some of the business and society literature may be idealistic. Dentchev (2009) evaluated the descriptive accuracy and normative validity of the often used terms in this regard such as corporate social responsiveness, corporate social performance, corporate citizenship, business ethics, sustainable development, and corporate sustainability. Though the study found that many of the goals are realistic and achievable, three elements in the field – its criticism of corporate conduct, normative notions of its concepts, and its underdeveloped instrumental ideas imply an idealistic orientation (Dentchev, 2009).

This special issue of the Society and Business Review provides a balanced mix of articles on various aspects of business and society mentioned above. It features thoroughly revised versions of selected cases presented at the International Conference on Business Cases on December 2-3, 2010. The dominant theme across all cases in this issue is the nexus between business and society. The society is the common ground and therefore business growth at least in moderate ways should contribute to the welfare of the society. The articles featured underscore societal issues and how they influence the scope of business activities. For example, in areas such as disasters and calamities they bring out the need for a closer cooperation between the government and businesses. The six cases included represent a range of business issues and a clinical analysis of how they may have impacted society in either positive or negative manner.

The focus of the first article is on the management aspects of dealing with natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and complex humanitarian emergencies encompassing famine, civil conflict and terrorist attacks that produce widespread human sufferings (Hurricane Katrina and September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the USA). Synergistic protection (SP) which tries to galvanize the entire population prior to emergencies is a new concept. Gerald Curry in the first case of this issue discusses societal preparedness in the face of the natural disasters. One solution is for communities to be properly prepared. The department of homeland security in the USA is leading the way in providing portable credible solutions that can be used on a global scale. The author refers to SP as a new concept that has not been tested or proven, but focuses its philosophy on citizen preparation with the goal of saving lives and reducing property loss. SP attempts to galvanize the entire population prior to emergencies by entering the population’s skills, talents, resources, and specialized equipment that may be required in times of crisis into a database that is maintained by the local cities.

Story telling is a powerful way of disseminating information and enhancing organizational learning (Boje, 1991). We can learn a lot about an organization by listening to the stories told by its members. One of the advantages of story telling is that it provides rich narratives of the subtle dynamics of organizational processes and leaves the reader with a solid insight that he/she may not get through a traditional case analysis. Recent research in story telling has begun to cover family business as well. Family business and entrepreneurship are closely connected. By examining entrepreneurial behavior using narratives/story-telling approaches, we can also learn about the nexus between entrepreneurship and family business. In a family owned business, the cultural knowledge or “how we do things here” can be as critical as the operational knowledge of maintaining business integrity and the sense of stability, continuity, and character these businesses often epitomize (Chua et al., 1999; Dyer, 1988; Welch and Welch, 2009). With this research background, the second case study by Surjit Kar and Munmun Samantarai is very insightful. It captures the travails of the Bothra business family. It is a qualitative analysis using the storytelling method mentioned above and very well explains real life situations of family business houses such as the Bothra in Rourkela (India). It is the story of entrepreneur Laxmichand Bothra who set up a small cloth retailing business in Rourkela in 1952 at a time when Rourkela Steel Plant, one of India’s largest at that time, was being established. Challenging conventional family rules and beliefs, they started wholesale of handloom products and grew the business significantly. The case shows how with proper leadership, a medium sized business organization can overcome the turbulent organizational dynamics.

The third paper focuses on the housing foreclosure crisis that has had a tremendous ripple effect in global economy since 2008 though the foreclosures were primarily confined to the USA. Because of the interdependence of financial leveraging the effect of the financial meltdown has been severe all over the world. Most of the research on foreclosure has focused on the “bad behavior” of financial institutions which led to the US Government having to bait out some of the largest of them. The general political argument has been that the blame for the crisis lies with the financial institutions. However, equally important is to understand the irrational decision making of home owners in applying for and receiving mortgages for which they did not qualify as shown in the third paper. For example, Machiko (2011) in “Understanding the housing bust: disentangling credit crunch and severe recession”, used a model to measure the distributional consequence of two factors:

1. 1.

   fade-out of alternative mortgages; and

2. 2.

   declines in labor earnings.

He found that the declining labor income was the main driving force behind the cross-sectional feature of housing burst.

Krisha Coppedge’s case study examines feeling of loss of a 35-year-old homeowner who experienced mortgage foreclosure. The homeowner’s thinking process and decision-making methodologies are analyzed from a holistic perspective. The resulting theory contributes new insights in the areas of responsibility, decision making, and appreciative intelligence regarding homeowner’s interest in education for understanding the causes which led to the foreclosure and to be aware of future prevention strategies. This study hopes to enlighten other homeowners and potential buyers who may learn from these identifiable past experiences through appreciative intelligence (Thatchenkery and Metzker, 2006).

Innovation is the key for success and when an innovation is made from waste materials it has provided double advantage. The usage of process design standards with quality standards to meet TQM will make the product innovation an ideal one. Waste materials and the by-products generated by industrial production are a significant problem in all urban areas. Narasimham’s case study documents the innovativeness and ingenuity of manufacturing of building-bricks, using fly-ash waste, stone-dust generated from crushing and polishing of hard rocks, solid rock waste or glass waste. Naldehra Building Centre in Faridabad, a city near New Delhi has conceptualized and ascertained hydraulic vibratory pressing mechanism instead of mechanical pressing in the brick molding and manufacturing process to generate the premier quality bricks in variable dimensions and shapes. The case study focuses on “hydraulic vibro-press” machine fabrication process, and how leadership has been contemplating with the improvisation and introducing greater degree of automations to address non-availability of skilled/un-skilled workforce in the brick manufacturing industry.

John Walsh discusses a new market opportunity in a tradition bound society. Buddhist funerals in Thailand are associated with a range of ritualistic requirements and the provision of services from religious and social institutions. Yet, as Thai middleclass culture becomes increasingly urbanized and westernized there is an increasing demand for new kinds of funeral services and for integrated service providers. Currently, the Thai funeral industry occupies a space between a traditional, non-market-oriented approach and the emerging globalised market approach. Suriya Coffins is a company seeking to establish a network of producers of goods and Services. The company is struggling with the process that turns tradition to market opportunity. The case study explicates the nuances of growth while protecting traditional values.

The next paper deals with the fast food industry in India. The fast food industry in India is broadly divided into two segments, regional fast food chains and the multinational such as the Pizza Hut, McDonalds and KFC. The significant increase in the two-career families and single-parent households has made “time” a scarce resource in the dinner table. India’s huge middle-class, estimated to be about 15 percent of its 1.08 billion people is probably the biggest market for fast food along with China’s. While the average citizen in the USA spends only 10 percent of his income on food and beverages, for a poor country such as India, most people spend all that they earn to buy food and somehow get by. However, the rising middle class has created two India: the poor India that still lives in its villages with 85 percent of the population and the rapidly rising middle India of roughly 200 million people with enough money to fully embrace the consumption-oriented culture directly imported from the West. Ritu Anand’s case study analyses some issues arising out of the rapidly growing fast food industry. She explores the determinants (demographics and psychographics) impacting consumers food choice towards fast food in India. Food choice variables have been explored using literature reviews and focus group interviews of young consumers in the age group of 20-30. While the entrepreneurs and business interests behind the fast food industry would like to claim that theirs is the fastest growing industry in India, food business is witnessing a turning point from fast food to organic food at the global level. With the renewed focus on sustainability and “green consumerism”, the educated middle class in India may turn toward more healthy and organically grown food. The present study thus has a direct relevance to consumers, public institutions, and fast food industry.

We hope that the above case studies have provided new insights on the intricate dynamics behind business and society. The featured cases show that the growth of a business organization cannot be at the cost of society or causing distress to the members of the society. We also hope that the articles will encourage academics and practitioners alike to appreciate the importance of the case method in conveying the message.

As special issue editors to this volume, we thank Emerald Publishers and its editor Professor Yvon Pesqueux for inviting us to put together this volume. We appreciate Emerald’s interest in the case pedagogy and promoting its development.

G.D. Sardana, Tojo ThatchenkeryGuest Editors