Diane Swanson - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Diane Swanson
The Academy of Management Review, 1995
... Principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Institutional principle: legitimacy (Orig... more ... Principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Institutional principle: legitimacy (Origin: Davis, 1973) Organizational principle: public responsibility (Origin: Preston & Post, 1975) Individual principle: managerial discretion (Origin: Carroll, 1979; Wood, 1990) ...
Journal of Academic Ethics, 2004
Given the groundswell of corporate misconduct, the need for better business ethics education seem... more Given the groundswell of corporate misconduct, the need for better business ethics education seems obvious. Yet many business schools continue to sidestep this responsibility, a policy tacitly approved by their accrediting agency, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Some schools have even gone so far as to cut ethics courses in the wake of corporate scandals. In
Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 2000
In this manuscript I take an interdisciplinary, systems approach to the regulation of risky opera... more In this manuscript I take an interdisciplinary, systems approach to the regulation of risky operations that can harm ecological environments. I develop safety procedures aimed at minimizing the risks of operational failures and industrial accidents. The procedures are designed for practicing managers and regulatory agents to use in partnership across four interactive levels of analysis: individual (managers and regulatory agents), organizational (risky operations), industrial (groups of risky organizations) and societal (ecological environments). Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Cover image © olly Fotolia.com ‘A highly innovative, easily absorbed, practically useful approach... more Cover image © olly Fotolia.com ‘A highly innovative, easily absorbed, practically useful approach to CSR leadership. Swanson has written one of those rare books that speaks directly to experienced corporate practitioners, seasoned academic theorists, and business school students. The book is peppered with tantalizing, creative pairings: “executive myopia” versus “normative receptivity”, “value neglect’ versus “value attunement”, and “discovery leadership versus amoral leadership”. Swanson’s goal is to persuade corporate leaders that CSR practices can enhance economic operations and improve community relations simultaneously. Her message to CSR scholars is to expand, enrich, and operationalize academic understanding of business-and-community relations. No other CSR book displays the practical appeal and theoretical sophistication of this one.’ — William C. Frederick, Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA
This chapter explores some theory-building attributes common to scientific inquiry on the one han... more This chapter explores some theory-building attributes common to scientific inquiry on the one hand and corporate social responsibility research on the other. The point is to delineate how some aspects of contemporary scientific inquiry and the values that support it resemble the theoretical pragmatism embodied in the model of CSR discovery leadership in Chap. 5. The more these affinities are recognized, the more CSR leadership can be understood as a professional calling that breaks ranks with the separation consciousness promoted by standard economics. Swanson asserts that the legitimacy of this calling can be bolstered by recognizing that a discovery orientation is necessary both for scientific inquiry and CSR leadership. Moreover, both endeavors are defined by similar values, holistic systems thinking, and pragmatic reasoning and puzzle solving that can serve social betterment. The arc of cross-disciplinary business and society research, covered in Chap. 2, reflects these affinities.
Embedding CSR into Corporate Culture, 2014
Embedding CSR into Corporate Culture, 2014
In the 1999 film The Matrix, Morpheus says to Neo: “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can ... more In the 1999 film The Matrix, Morpheus says to Neo: “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” And so it is with socially responsible corporate leadership. The choice, first and foremost, is whether or not to pursue it. This is an important step for executive managers whose decisions greatly impact society. Indeed, this impact is all the more significant, given that ordinary citizens do not vote for corporate executives. If they did, they might demand better results than the massive social harms inflicted by Enron-like scandals in conjunction with record high levels of executive pay. It is no wonder that American satisfaction with the size and influence of major corporations remains near the all-time low of 30% (Gallup Poll, 2012),1 following decades of low public approval and confidence ratings (Frederick, 2006). Arguably, the corporation as one of society’s major institutions should garner more public support than that. After all, many transnational corporations have revenues greater than the gross domestic products of small nation-states. Ideally, such power should stem from the public’s trust that these corporations will serve the greater good. However, there are reasons why corporations operate without necessarily enjoying high levels of public confidence, although there are countervailing developments as well.
Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society
Journal of Business Ethics, 1992
Embedding CSR into Corporate Culture
This chapter demonstrates the importance of socially responsible executive leadership by modeling... more This chapter demonstrates the importance of socially responsible executive leadership by modeling the absence of it. It builds on the new model of corporate social performance (CSP) in Chapter 3 to illustrate the downfalls of amoral executive decision making. More specifically, this chapter illustrates the organizational dynamics that are inevitable when the executive manager ignores, suppresses, or denies the role of values in decision making, a mind-set dubbed “normative myopia.”1 This mind-set inevitably leads to socially neglectful organizations that cannot respond to the value-based expectations of the company’s stakeholders. As will be seen, the executive’s influence on corporate culture drives this outcome.
Journal of Individual Employment Rights, 2001
In this article we address organizational pain as the buildup of sadness, frustration, bitterness... more In this article we address organizational pain as the buildup of sadness, frustration, bitterness, and anger among employees who perceive that they have been treated unfairly in the workplace. We submit that such emotionally charged reactions can lead to legal and ethical toxicity or organizational pain that stems from employers' breaches of legal and ethical standards, respectively. Although both forms of toxicity are detrimental to organizational life, we submit that employers' failure to meet workers' expectations of ethical treatment is especially problematic. We elaborate on this thesis by describing some causes, consequences, and costs of ethical toxicity and recommending some methods of prevention and remedy. We conclude by commenting on a role for public policy. Management scholars have long recognized that life in organizations can cause undue emotional stress and tension for employees [1, 2]. Given this state of affairs, Mintzberg proposed that managers should be prepared to act as disturbance handlers [3], a function Frost and Robinson observed foreshadowed the role of toxic waste handler, or the employee who voluntarily shoulders the sadness, frustration, bitterness, and anger endemic to organizational life [4]. Although few scholars dispute the importance of this role of waste handler, the whole idea of organizational pain is still more of a metaphor than valid research construct. The 25
Journal of Individual Employment Rights, 2001
I recently had the pleasure of working with Diane Swanson on the article that she and Robert Paul... more I recently had the pleasure of working with Diane Swanson on the article that she and Robert Paul published in Volume 10, Number 1 of JIER: "Violations of Ethical Expectations: The Toxicity of Organizational Pain and Some Remedies." In the course of one of our many conversations, Diane mentioned her current displeasure with the stand on teaching ethics that had been taken by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the activities she had undertaken to encourage the AACSB to change. This sounded like a wonderful subject for a contemporary issues discussion in JIER. I encouraged her to put together a paper that would permit our readership to understand the dimensions of the issues that surround the teaching of ethics within American business schools and the problems confronted by professors who want to give the topic of ethics greater emphasis. This is the result. Charles J. Coleman, Editor Campaign AACSB is a large-scale, collective effort to upgrade and strengthen ethics accreditation standards in U.S. business schools. Hundreds of business school professors, plus numerous business managers, several former business school deans, and many business school students are waging the campaign. They have taken aim at the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which grants accreditation status to the nation's business schools. The campaigners charge that AACSB's weak ethics standards unwittingly contribute
Human Relations, 1996
This manuscript examines neoclassical economic theory's egoistic, hedonistic, and autonomous ... more This manuscript examines neoclassical economic theory's egoistic, hedonistic, and autonomous kind of individualism and argues that this theoretical perspective on self can be congruent with executive power and control behavior. Using ideal-types of models, it proposes how this kind of executive behavior can arise from ego-insecurity to stifle the potential for shared meaning and social integration in organizations.
Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance, 2018
Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society, 2001
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016
This panel study of 863 firms offers a theoretical exploration of the proposed curvilinear relati... more This panel study of 863 firms offers a theoretical exploration of the proposed curvilinear relationship between firms’ (in)consistency in environmental, social, and governance practices and corporate risk. We hypothesize a U-shaped relationship between corporate risk and corporate social inconsistency (CSI), defined as the internal variability of a firm's performance with respect to different environmental, social, and governance practices at one point in time. Low and moderate levels of CSI are found to be inversely related with corporate risk up to a point because of the latent benefits of CSI (more prudent allocation of resources, greater management efficiency). Beyond that point, though, CSI incurs net costs because of increasing pressure from stakeholder groups, leading to an increase of risk at high levels of CSI. Furthermore, the risk-enhancing characteristics of CSI can largely be avoided by pairing CSI with high investments in R&D.
Toward Integrative Corporate Citizenship, 2008
During the last decade, organizations (especially large corporations) have been facing ever-incre... more During the last decade, organizations (especially large corporations) have been facing ever-increasing stakeholder pressure demanding ‘good corporate citizenship’ from business. This pressure means that, among other things, nonmarket strategies are increasingly important for effective executive decision making (Baron, 2006). Nonmarket strategies can be observed and measured in a wide variety of ways. However, as is evident from Part I, corporate social performance (CSP) can be regarded as a central outcome of business nonmarket strategies. For the purpose of the empirical analysis presented in this chapter, CSP is defined as ‘a business organization’s configuration of principles of social responsibility, processes of social responsiveness, and policies, programs, and observable outcomes as they relate to the firm’s societal relationships’ (Wood, 1991a, p. 693). This is the definition that Swanson elaborated upon in her remodeling of CSP in Chapters 1 and 2 (where she conveyed these concepts as a means-end continuum).
Toward Integrative Corporate Citizenship, 2008
As indicated in the Introduction to Part I, the business and society field at large and corporate... more As indicated in the Introduction to Part I, the business and society field at large and corporate social performance topics in particular have been shaped by two dominant orientations, referred to here as economic-focused and duty-aligned perspectives. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the two perspectives, demonstrate their lack of integration, and identify the problems posed for integrative theory development. To preview, their lack of integration means that restraining unethical behavior by social control that is normatively undefined is emphasized to the detriment of a more forward-looking, affirmative view of business’s role in society. Practically speaking, this fuels the misperception among practicing managers that economics and ethics do not mix, as indicated by the familiar refrain that ‘business ethics is an oxymoron’ (Swanson, 2002; 2008). One goal of integration is to point managers to a holistic approach that counteracts this myth.
The Academy of Management Review, 1995
... Principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Institutional principle: legitimacy (Orig... more ... Principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Institutional principle: legitimacy (Origin: Davis, 1973) Organizational principle: public responsibility (Origin: Preston & Post, 1975) Individual principle: managerial discretion (Origin: Carroll, 1979; Wood, 1990) ...
Journal of Academic Ethics, 2004
Given the groundswell of corporate misconduct, the need for better business ethics education seem... more Given the groundswell of corporate misconduct, the need for better business ethics education seems obvious. Yet many business schools continue to sidestep this responsibility, a policy tacitly approved by their accrediting agency, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Some schools have even gone so far as to cut ethics courses in the wake of corporate scandals. In
Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 2000
In this manuscript I take an interdisciplinary, systems approach to the regulation of risky opera... more In this manuscript I take an interdisciplinary, systems approach to the regulation of risky operations that can harm ecological environments. I develop safety procedures aimed at minimizing the risks of operational failures and industrial accidents. The procedures are designed for practicing managers and regulatory agents to use in partnership across four interactive levels of analysis: individual (managers and regulatory agents), organizational (risky operations), industrial (groups of risky organizations) and societal (ecological environments). Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Cover image © olly Fotolia.com ‘A highly innovative, easily absorbed, practically useful approach... more Cover image © olly Fotolia.com ‘A highly innovative, easily absorbed, practically useful approach to CSR leadership. Swanson has written one of those rare books that speaks directly to experienced corporate practitioners, seasoned academic theorists, and business school students. The book is peppered with tantalizing, creative pairings: “executive myopia” versus “normative receptivity”, “value neglect’ versus “value attunement”, and “discovery leadership versus amoral leadership”. Swanson’s goal is to persuade corporate leaders that CSR practices can enhance economic operations and improve community relations simultaneously. Her message to CSR scholars is to expand, enrich, and operationalize academic understanding of business-and-community relations. No other CSR book displays the practical appeal and theoretical sophistication of this one.’ — William C. Frederick, Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA
This chapter explores some theory-building attributes common to scientific inquiry on the one han... more This chapter explores some theory-building attributes common to scientific inquiry on the one hand and corporate social responsibility research on the other. The point is to delineate how some aspects of contemporary scientific inquiry and the values that support it resemble the theoretical pragmatism embodied in the model of CSR discovery leadership in Chap. 5. The more these affinities are recognized, the more CSR leadership can be understood as a professional calling that breaks ranks with the separation consciousness promoted by standard economics. Swanson asserts that the legitimacy of this calling can be bolstered by recognizing that a discovery orientation is necessary both for scientific inquiry and CSR leadership. Moreover, both endeavors are defined by similar values, holistic systems thinking, and pragmatic reasoning and puzzle solving that can serve social betterment. The arc of cross-disciplinary business and society research, covered in Chap. 2, reflects these affinities.
Embedding CSR into Corporate Culture, 2014
Embedding CSR into Corporate Culture, 2014
In the 1999 film The Matrix, Morpheus says to Neo: “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can ... more In the 1999 film The Matrix, Morpheus says to Neo: “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” And so it is with socially responsible corporate leadership. The choice, first and foremost, is whether or not to pursue it. This is an important step for executive managers whose decisions greatly impact society. Indeed, this impact is all the more significant, given that ordinary citizens do not vote for corporate executives. If they did, they might demand better results than the massive social harms inflicted by Enron-like scandals in conjunction with record high levels of executive pay. It is no wonder that American satisfaction with the size and influence of major corporations remains near the all-time low of 30% (Gallup Poll, 2012),1 following decades of low public approval and confidence ratings (Frederick, 2006). Arguably, the corporation as one of society’s major institutions should garner more public support than that. After all, many transnational corporations have revenues greater than the gross domestic products of small nation-states. Ideally, such power should stem from the public’s trust that these corporations will serve the greater good. However, there are reasons why corporations operate without necessarily enjoying high levels of public confidence, although there are countervailing developments as well.
Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society
Journal of Business Ethics, 1992
Embedding CSR into Corporate Culture
This chapter demonstrates the importance of socially responsible executive leadership by modeling... more This chapter demonstrates the importance of socially responsible executive leadership by modeling the absence of it. It builds on the new model of corporate social performance (CSP) in Chapter 3 to illustrate the downfalls of amoral executive decision making. More specifically, this chapter illustrates the organizational dynamics that are inevitable when the executive manager ignores, suppresses, or denies the role of values in decision making, a mind-set dubbed “normative myopia.”1 This mind-set inevitably leads to socially neglectful organizations that cannot respond to the value-based expectations of the company’s stakeholders. As will be seen, the executive’s influence on corporate culture drives this outcome.
Journal of Individual Employment Rights, 2001
In this article we address organizational pain as the buildup of sadness, frustration, bitterness... more In this article we address organizational pain as the buildup of sadness, frustration, bitterness, and anger among employees who perceive that they have been treated unfairly in the workplace. We submit that such emotionally charged reactions can lead to legal and ethical toxicity or organizational pain that stems from employers' breaches of legal and ethical standards, respectively. Although both forms of toxicity are detrimental to organizational life, we submit that employers' failure to meet workers' expectations of ethical treatment is especially problematic. We elaborate on this thesis by describing some causes, consequences, and costs of ethical toxicity and recommending some methods of prevention and remedy. We conclude by commenting on a role for public policy. Management scholars have long recognized that life in organizations can cause undue emotional stress and tension for employees [1, 2]. Given this state of affairs, Mintzberg proposed that managers should be prepared to act as disturbance handlers [3], a function Frost and Robinson observed foreshadowed the role of toxic waste handler, or the employee who voluntarily shoulders the sadness, frustration, bitterness, and anger endemic to organizational life [4]. Although few scholars dispute the importance of this role of waste handler, the whole idea of organizational pain is still more of a metaphor than valid research construct. The 25
Journal of Individual Employment Rights, 2001
I recently had the pleasure of working with Diane Swanson on the article that she and Robert Paul... more I recently had the pleasure of working with Diane Swanson on the article that she and Robert Paul published in Volume 10, Number 1 of JIER: "Violations of Ethical Expectations: The Toxicity of Organizational Pain and Some Remedies." In the course of one of our many conversations, Diane mentioned her current displeasure with the stand on teaching ethics that had been taken by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the activities she had undertaken to encourage the AACSB to change. This sounded like a wonderful subject for a contemporary issues discussion in JIER. I encouraged her to put together a paper that would permit our readership to understand the dimensions of the issues that surround the teaching of ethics within American business schools and the problems confronted by professors who want to give the topic of ethics greater emphasis. This is the result. Charles J. Coleman, Editor Campaign AACSB is a large-scale, collective effort to upgrade and strengthen ethics accreditation standards in U.S. business schools. Hundreds of business school professors, plus numerous business managers, several former business school deans, and many business school students are waging the campaign. They have taken aim at the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which grants accreditation status to the nation's business schools. The campaigners charge that AACSB's weak ethics standards unwittingly contribute
Human Relations, 1996
This manuscript examines neoclassical economic theory's egoistic, hedonistic, and autonomous ... more This manuscript examines neoclassical economic theory's egoistic, hedonistic, and autonomous kind of individualism and argues that this theoretical perspective on self can be congruent with executive power and control behavior. Using ideal-types of models, it proposes how this kind of executive behavior can arise from ego-insecurity to stifle the potential for shared meaning and social integration in organizations.
Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance, 2018
Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society, 2001
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016
This panel study of 863 firms offers a theoretical exploration of the proposed curvilinear relati... more This panel study of 863 firms offers a theoretical exploration of the proposed curvilinear relationship between firms’ (in)consistency in environmental, social, and governance practices and corporate risk. We hypothesize a U-shaped relationship between corporate risk and corporate social inconsistency (CSI), defined as the internal variability of a firm's performance with respect to different environmental, social, and governance practices at one point in time. Low and moderate levels of CSI are found to be inversely related with corporate risk up to a point because of the latent benefits of CSI (more prudent allocation of resources, greater management efficiency). Beyond that point, though, CSI incurs net costs because of increasing pressure from stakeholder groups, leading to an increase of risk at high levels of CSI. Furthermore, the risk-enhancing characteristics of CSI can largely be avoided by pairing CSI with high investments in R&D.
Toward Integrative Corporate Citizenship, 2008
During the last decade, organizations (especially large corporations) have been facing ever-incre... more During the last decade, organizations (especially large corporations) have been facing ever-increasing stakeholder pressure demanding ‘good corporate citizenship’ from business. This pressure means that, among other things, nonmarket strategies are increasingly important for effective executive decision making (Baron, 2006). Nonmarket strategies can be observed and measured in a wide variety of ways. However, as is evident from Part I, corporate social performance (CSP) can be regarded as a central outcome of business nonmarket strategies. For the purpose of the empirical analysis presented in this chapter, CSP is defined as ‘a business organization’s configuration of principles of social responsibility, processes of social responsiveness, and policies, programs, and observable outcomes as they relate to the firm’s societal relationships’ (Wood, 1991a, p. 693). This is the definition that Swanson elaborated upon in her remodeling of CSP in Chapters 1 and 2 (where she conveyed these concepts as a means-end continuum).
Toward Integrative Corporate Citizenship, 2008
As indicated in the Introduction to Part I, the business and society field at large and corporate... more As indicated in the Introduction to Part I, the business and society field at large and corporate social performance topics in particular have been shaped by two dominant orientations, referred to here as economic-focused and duty-aligned perspectives. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the two perspectives, demonstrate their lack of integration, and identify the problems posed for integrative theory development. To preview, their lack of integration means that restraining unethical behavior by social control that is normatively undefined is emphasized to the detriment of a more forward-looking, affirmative view of business’s role in society. Practically speaking, this fuels the misperception among practicing managers that economics and ethics do not mix, as indicated by the familiar refrain that ‘business ethics is an oxymoron’ (Swanson, 2002; 2008). One goal of integration is to point managers to a holistic approach that counteracts this myth.