Publication year: 2010
Source: Technological Forecasting and Social Change, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 9 October 2010

Malcolm, Eames , Jonas, Egmose

A key strength of backcasting is arguably the emphasis it places upon envisaging longer-term distant futures, allowing participants and users to think beyond incremental changes in their current lived experience and to embrace the more radical and disruptive socio-technical changes which may be necessary to deliver sustainability. In so doing, however, backcasting may run the risk of obscuring significant differences in current lived experience, negating alternative problem framings and normatively derived views of what constitutes sustainability. This paper reports an innovative UK attempt to develop an inclusive ‘bottom-up’ community foresight process for urban sustainability research. Unlike most backcasting studies, the...

Premature failure or abandonment of water and sanitation development interventions is a common phenomenon that has severely limited progress in developing regions. In searching for the causes, researchers have implicated decision-making and planning processes that neglect one or more key areas of sustainability (represented here by social, environmental, human health, economic, and technical criteria). This case study in the rural Philippines analyzes the relationship between the project planning processes of aid organizations and long-term project sustainability, and develops a locally appropriate framework by which to incorporate holistic consideration of sustainability into decision processes. Applying the "sustainability framework," the sustainability of project impacts was found to be most significantly affected by the extent to which the implementing agency allowed project identification and planning to be performed by the community, the attributes (such as experience, integrity, and commitment) of human players involved in the project, and the nature of the relationships between these individuals.

• Content Type Journal Article
• Pages 78-98
• DOI 10.2753/IMO0020-8825400305
• Authors
  • Rebecca Barnes, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia
  • Nicholas Ashbolt, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales

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  • Journal International Studies of Management and Organization
  • Print ISSN 0020-8825
  • Journal Volume Volume 40
  • Journal Issue Volume 40, Number 3 / Fall 2010

A multiplicity of firms and enterprises accept the challenge of sustainability and integrate these requirements in their daily activities without the introduction of cultural change. However, sustainable development demands cultural change, and stakeholder dialogue can enforce it. Yet the dialogue orientation of companies and their ability to initiate organizational change depends on corporate culture types. Therefore, the question arises as to whether different corporate culture types cause special levels of dialogue orientation and stakeholder participation. This article addresses this question based on an empirical qualitative analysis of companies. We demonstrate that different culture types can initiate an appropriate cultural change. However, to anchor sustainability permanently within a business, stakeholder dialogue is not enough. Structural and cultural factors such as cooperative leadership and group work are necessary to pass and implement the attained information, knowledge, and learning effects into the organization as well.

• Content Type Journal Article
• Pages 61-77
• DOI 10.2753/IMO0020-8825400304
• Authors
  • Marlen Arnold, TUM Business School, Technische Universität München, 85350 Freising, Germany

•  
  • Journal International Studies of Management and Organization
  • Print ISSN 0020-8825
  • Journal Volume Volume 40
  • Journal Issue Volume 40, Number 3 / Fall 2010

In this article, we extend social capital theory by explicating two aspects of social capital neglected so far, cognitive fit and affective fit, and we combine social capital theory with the knowledge-based view of the firm and thereby demonstrate the interrelatedness and combined importance of the two concepts. Our proposed model show that social capital and knowledge relatedness, together referred to as "relational fit," facilitate knowledge transfer and creation, which in turn positively influence organizational performance. We empirically tested our model by analyzing the influence of relational fit on German corporate venture capital units (CVCs) and their portfolio companies. Our results show that relational fit facilitates knowledge transfer and creation, which in turn positively influences organizational performance (but CVC/corporate performance only to a limited extent). We suggest that a good relational fit has a positive impact on sustainability in and of organizations.

• Content Type Journal Article
• Pages 23-49
• DOI 10.2753/IMO0020-8825400302
• Authors
  • Christiana Weber, University Siegen, Hölderlinstr. 3, 57068 Siegen, Germany
  • Barbara Weber, Kirchgasse 22, 8001 Zurich

•  
  • Journal International Studies of Management and Organization
  • Print ISSN 0020-8825
  • Journal Volume Volume 40
  • Journal Issue Volume 40, Number 3 / Fall 2010