Excellent comment Marshall and others. Having said that, it strikes me
that distinguishing the division in a non-overlapping way from other
divisions is precisely what we DON'T want to do. Haven't we been
fighting for decades to bring ethics and social issues into the
mainstream conversation about management, rather than a 'side issue'?
It's absolutely true that some terrific research on strategy and
governance goes on BPS - all the more reason to highlight that we do
work on specific aspects of governance in THIS division as well.
Incidentally this is also true for the whole stakeholder concept - much
work in BPS is increasingly focused on stakeholder management, so it is
not even credible to suggest that our division is the only one where
stakeholder considerations are investigated. (Incidentally, doesn't
that also indicate that the stakeholder 'battle' has been won? Do we
even need that word formally in the title at all?)
Also agree with Mark's prior comment that any signal that what we do is
somehow LESS managerial than it used to be is also undesirable.
Integrating all these thoughts, how about:
Ethics, Governance, and Management
This retains "management" and also keeps "governance" but signals that
we're interested in some particular parts of the governance puzzle.
Cheers,
Jared D. Harris
Assistant Professor
Darden School of Business
University of Virginia
100 Darden Boulevard
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Office: 182 Faculty Office Building
Phone: 434-243-5022
Fax: 434-243-7678
Email:
harrisj@darden.virginia.edu
Web:
http://faculty.darden.virginia.edu/harrisj
-----Original Message-----
From: Social Issues in Management Listserv
[mailto:
SIM@AOMLISTS.pace.edu] On Behalf Of Marshall Schminke
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 9:30 PM
To:
SIM@AOMLISTS.pace.edu
Subject: Re: [SIM] proposed name list
Hi all,
I recognize we can't process 1400+ unique ideas for a new division name
(one from each member), so let me apologize in advance. But here's a
thought: A very considerable number of strategy (BPS) folks also think
of themselves primarily as governance scholars. So although we
undoubtedly have many members engaged in that issue, I wonder whether
it's sufficiently unique to who we are and what we do to earn a spot in
the division name. An earlier comment sought to retain the word
management in the division name as well. Would something on the order
of "Ethics and Stakeholder Management" get us closer?
--Marshall Schminke
-----Original Message-----
From: Social Issues in Management Listserv
[mailto:
SIM@AOMLISTS.pace.edu] On Behalf Of D. Vidaver-Cohen
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 6:16 PM
To:
SIM@AOMLISTS.pace.edu
Subject: Re: [SIM] proposed name list
Good idea Mark -- in that spirit I forward comments I sent earlier to
Tom et al. >> deb vidaver-cohen
---------------------------------------------
Interesting ideas. "Back in the day" there would have been many members
of this division who would have cringed at the addition of the word
"ethics" so I'm glad to see the climate is changing.
Personally, however, I don't particularly like either the new name or
the new domain statement (they both seem rather clumsy) and suggest that
you open the floor to proposals so we'd have some other alternatives to
consider.
Also, I'd hope that any vote taken on such an important matter would
include the entire membership -- not just the same 50 or so people who
always show up at the annual business meetings ("Votes will then be
taken at the Business Meeting separately on that new name and/or on that
new domain statement").
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.
kind regards,
Deborah Vidaver-Cohen, PhD
Associate Professor
Management and International Business
Florida International University
Miami, FL 33199
________________________________________
From: Social Issues in Management Listserv
[mailto:
SIM@AOMLISTS.pace.edu] On Behalf Of Sharfman, Mark P.
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 5:33 PM
To:
SIM@AOMLISTS.pace.edu
Subject: [SIM] proposed name list
I just posted the following comment on the blog for discussion of the
proposed name and domain statement changes. I think however, a broader
discussion is needed so I am sending it to the list.
While I understand the desire of the committee to make the division name
more descriptive of what we do, I believe that the deletion of the word
"management" from any part of the title of the division's name
diminishes the work we do. While management of the various elements of
the domains of the name are listed in the domain statement, the proposed
name seems to imply that we have only an academic interest in the topics
as opposed to both academic research and practice in the domains. I
would encourage the committee to add the word "Management" to the new
name and if not I would encourage SIMians to vote against the name
change.
I also realize that the addition of "management" at the end of the name
makes for a long name, but I strongly believe that it is a necessary
change.
Regards
Mark
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mark P. Sharfman, Ph.D.
Professor of Strategic Management
Division of Management
Price College of Business
307 W. Brooks - Rm. 206A
University of Oklahoma
Norman, OK 73019-0450 USA
+405.325.5689 (voice)
+405.325.7688 (fax)
Msharfman@ou.edu
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/S/Mark.P.Sharfman-1/
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Donaldson [mailto:
donaldst@wharton.upenn.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 4:24 PM
To: Harris, Jared
Subject: Proposed Changes in Division Name and Domain Statement for SIM
Letter to the SIM Division Membership Proposing Changes in Division Name
and Domain Statement:
I am writing to you on behalf of the SIM Division's Governance
Committee to request your comments on two proposals that are important
for the future of our Division. The point of these proposals is not to
suggest changes to the Division itself, but rather to offer potential
improvements to the Academy's formal descriptions of the Division
(specifically, the name and domain statement) to better reflect what the
Division already is.
As the Division passes 1,400 members, we arguably face
significant challenges. We have a diverse international membership of
social scientists and philosophers. Our interests in research and
teaching span areas of management that have become increasingly
critical, both in organizational life and in broader societal settings.
Yet neither the name of our Division nor the Division's domain statement
reflects that important work as well as it might.
To those of us who have spent years enjoying our annual
meetings, the name "Social Issues in Management" has a special and
familiar character. To us, it stands for a commitment to understanding
the relationship between business and society, high-quality scholarship,
a positive and supportive research environment, and terrific colleagues.
But the Division name "Social Issues in Management" may not fully convey
the content of our work, nor does it employ the modern language of our
scholarship. It certainly does not specifically identify the important
areas of research that we address today. It does not clearly tell our
colleagues around the world that we are the central home to research in
such areas as ethics, the governance of organizations, and the impacts
of corporate behavior on stakeholders and of stakeholders on
corporations. If one searches the names of the 24 divisions in the
Academy of Management to see where that work is done, one would be hard
put to find it. We
believe
Thus, the Governance Committee is offering two proposals for
your consideration. We ask for your comments, which we will review with
care to decide whether to go forward with the proposals and whether to
go forward with them in their current or in modified forms.
One proposal is to change our name from the Social Issues in
Management Division to the Ethics, Governance, and Stakeholders
Division. In our extensive discussions, we found that these three terms,
common in scholarship in our field, seemed together to cover the
division's diversity and richness.
The second proposal is to replace our current domain statement,
which depicts our field as a group of six overlapping "environments."
The term "environment" has no meaningful content here. The statement
essentially says that SIM is all about topics that fit under the general
labels: social, ethical, public policy, ecological, stakeholder, and
international. A list of typical research topics is then given under
each "environment," but the lists overlap the environments, e.g.,
"stakeholder management" is under the "social" rather than under the
"stakeholder" environment. The "international environment" includes
"international dimensions of topics" in the other environments, which
hardly constitutes a distinct category. It is hard to find any common
logic across the environments. We present our field as just a big bucket
with a lot of topics to study, and little recognition of the systematic
ways in which such areas are investigated.
In contrast, the proposed domain statement is far more focused
and organized. It notes that "the common logic of EGS scholarship is our
shared interest in understanding responsible behavior." In each
category, ethics, governance, and stakeholders, the statement identifies
both descriptive and prescriptive approaches. Unlike the old statement,
the new statement explicitly recognizes the aim of understanding and
designing the means of ameliorating social problems, a major interest of
many in the Division.
Our current name, SIM, is not linked to our domain statement.
Our proposed name, EGS, is directly linked. Indeed, the domain
statement is presented with three paragraphs that elaborate the parts of
the proposed name. Both domain statements, current and proposed, follow.
Current domain statement of the Social Issues in Management Division:
Specific Domain: Encompasses the exploration and analysis of various
environments' and stakeholders' influence upon the organization and the
organization's effect upon these groups. Specifically, the domain
includes: the Social Environment (which includes topics such as
corporate social responsibility, corporate and business citizenship,
corporate philanthropy, stakeholder management, and corporate social
performance); the Ethical Environment (which includes topics such as
corporate codes of ethics, corporate crime, individual ethical behavior,
the influence of the organization on ethical conduct, ethical
implications of technology, and the assessment of personal values and
corporate culture); the Public Policy Environment (which includes topics
such as political action committees, the legal and regulatory areas, and
the influence of business on political processes); the Ecological
Environment (which includes topics such as environmental management and
various ecological issu
es); the
Proposed domain statement of the Ethics, Governance, and Stakeholders
Division:
The Ethics, Governance, and Stakeholders Division uses prescriptive and
descriptive approaches to investigate individual and organizational
ethics, the governance of organizations, and organizations'
relationships with multiple stakeholders. The common logic of EGS
scholarship is our shared interest in understanding responsible behavior
by organizations and the people and groups working in them. The Division
pursues knowledge inclusively, working at multiple levels of analysis
and relying on multiple theories and methods.
The Division's domain covers three broad categories.
Ethics: Individual and organizational ethics, covering both descriptive
approaches and prescriptive assessments of ethical aspects of behavior,
including the evaluation of system-level outcomes, such as
sustainability. Descriptive work can focus on such influences on
behavior as: individual characteristics, group and organizational
influences, interactions between the firm and its environment, and other
extra-organizational influences. Prescriptive work includes the
articulation of ethical theories of management, including the
development and application of theories of rights and justice; the study
of norms, values, and moral principles; and the evaluation of the
performance of organizational relationships, such as fiduciary
relationships.
Governance: Organizational and systemic governance, including both
relationships of responsibility and evaluations of responsibility. This
category includes such areas as governance within organizations;
peak-level corporate governance, including relationships among
executives, directors, and shareholders; and social/environmental
governance, including organizations' relationships with their political
and regulatory partners and society at large, and the strategic
processes of issues and public affairs management and corporate
political activity.
Stakeholders: Prescriptive stakeholder approaches consider both the
focal organization's responsibilities to its stakeholders and the
stakeholders' responsibilities to the focal organization. Instrumental
stakeholder approaches investigate the impact of stakeholder management
on firm goals. Descriptive stakeholder approaches illuminate
organizations' ongoing interactions with multiple stakeholders.
Finally, EGS scholars join prescriptive, instrumental, and descriptive
stakeholder approaches with the study of ethics and governance in order
to understand and design means of ameliorating social problems.
We have established a comment period of three weeks, from May 14
through June 7. You may comment in either or both of two ways:
1. Go to
www.simdivision.blogspot.com and post your comments. There
you will find a copy of this letter along with comments from other
members of our division. You may visit and revisit the blog in order
to make additional comments and see those of others.
2. Write a direct email to one or more of the members of the SIM
Governance Committee. The names and email addresses are:
Duane Windsor;
odw@rice.edu
Linda Trevino;
LTrevino@psu.edu
Thomas Donaldson;
donaldst@wharton.upenn.edu
Barry M. Mitnick;
mitnick@imap.pitt.edu
Ann Buchholtz;
abuchholtz@terry.uga.edu
Rosa Chun;
Rosa.Chun@mbs.ac.uk
Andy Crane;
ACrane@schulich.yorku.ca
Heather Elms;
elms@american.edu
Jamie Hendry;
jhendry@bucknell.edu
Percey Heugens;
pheugens@rsm.nl
Lori Ryan;
Lori.Ryan@sdsu.edu
Paul Dunn;
pdunn@brocku.ca
Jeff Thompson;
jeff_thompson@byu.edu
The Governance Committee will then review all comments carefully and
consider whether those comments indicate that revisions should be made
to the proposed name and/or domain statement, and, indeed, whether or
not the proposed name and/or domain statement (in their current or in
revised forms) should go forward to the membership for a vote. If the
Governance Committee decides to move forward with a vote on a new name
and/or domain statement, the name and/or domain statement will be
submitted to the membership at least 30 days before the August 11, 2008,
Business Meeting at the Academy of Management. Votes will then be taken
at the Business Meeting separately on that new name and/or on that new
domain statement. A change in Division name requires an amendment to the
SIM Constitution; this procedure will meet the Constitution's membership
notice and voting requirements. If a new name is approved, it will go to
the Academy for consideration by the leadership of the Academy's
division
In closing, I cannot emphasize more that these proposals would in no way
change what we do in our Division; their purpose is to communicate more
clearly what we already do, potentially helping to overcome what many
among us believe have been impediments to the understanding of our work
by our colleagues. I appreciate your consideration of this potentially
pivotal change to our Division's public image. Our goal is to enable
all interested parties to see our venerable Division for what it truly
is.
Thomas Donaldson
SIM Chair, 2007-2008
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