Re-positioning the Workplace as a key enabler for Socio-ecological Transformation: Through Ecologizing Values and Place-based Approaches

Abstract

The current thesis explores how organizations’ sustainability strategies align with ecologizing verses economizing values, and the extent of place-rootedness evident in their corporate responsibility strategies (CSR). The thesis analyses these strategies through a lens of critical theory and decoloniality, and forwards a critique of the dominant sustainability values, often shaped by neoliberalist and developmentalist logics. This is done through undertaking a comparative analysis of a multiple-cases – three MNCs and one social enterprise based in India, through document analysis and semi-structured leadership interviews. The study draws upon Waddock’s ecologizing values and Shrivastava & Kennelly’s Place based Enterprise (PBE) framework. Findings indicate that despite that all four organizations have a Triple-Bottom Line approach, their value-orientations and place rootedness vary significantly, depending upon their scale of operations and geographic presence. An Indian conglomerate (MNC) exhibits commitment to local interventions yet, with strong economizing values – showing a tendency to instrumentalize locality. In contrast, a social enterprise demonstrates strong ecologizing values and place rootedness – evident in its advocacy for producer sovereignty, leadership sensitivity, and meaningful partnerships. The two Global North-headquartered MNCs, both show elements of a distanced form of instrumentalized locality with strong economizing values. It was seen that none of the organizations could be placed neatly within the PBE typology, except for the social enterprise – showing evidence for the need to move beyond equating TBL approach with strong sustainability orientations. The study draws upon varying streams of scholarship that continue to remain fragmented, namely – corporate sustainability, critical management studies, organizational change, transformation theories, values-practice, place-based approaches, and decoloniality. In doing so, the study calls for a greater convergence of the scholarship to move towards socio-ecological transformation.