Responsabilité sociétale et développement durable

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...

System dynamics methodology and knowledge management can be integrated to enable managers to design and implement better policies for achieving sustainable organizational states. A system dynamics approach was used at a large manufacturing firm to address a critical sustainability issue. A decision maker and system dynamics consultant were interviewed to discover how the decision maker's understanding of the sustainability issue changed as a consequence of the consulting engagement. Our research reports that the engagement led to better understanding of sustainability issues and to improved stewardship of corporate assets and the environment. We propose the use of a knowledge management tool to further learning and offer six points to consider in future efforts aimed at assessing learning developed in a system dynamics consulting engagement with sustainability as a core issue.

• Content Type Journal Article
• Pages 50-60
• DOI 10.2753/IMO0020-8825400303
• Authors
  • James P. Thompson, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Health Services & Systems Research, 8 College Road, Singapore 169857
  • Steven Cavaleri, Vance Academic Center, Central Connecticut State University, 1615 Stanley Street, New Britain, CT 06050

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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