Management Science Lancaster University Management School | the place to be Fashion's gender equality problem 20Wake up and smell the sustainability 4Planning a better future for refugees 8 FIFTY FOUR DEGREES Exploring our research and expertise across fields ranging from the fashion industry to refugee logistics, Artificial Intelligence to plastic waste
2 | Discover more of Lancaster University Management School’s world-leading research at lancaster.ac.uk/fiftyfour 4 Planning for a better future Dr Nonhlanhla Dube looks at how humanitarian organisations can better prepare their emergency response efforts for refugees. Fashion's gender inequality problem The fashion industry relies on women for its success. But Ophelia Chidgey shows how it fails them within its structures. 8 12 Are supermarkets the new-age plastic waste processors? Dr Savita Verma and Professor Linda Hendry discuss what retailers can do to address plastic packaging waste. Support in a Time of Crisis Dr Ruilin Zhu looks at how official government social media accounts play in role in providing valuable emotional support. 16 Wake up and smell the sustainability The work of Professor Linda Hendry finds out why Brazilian coffee companies take up sustainable business certifications. 20 24 The moral maze: Making sense of ethics Professor Darren Dalcher demonstrates the importance of ethics when it comes to managerial and organisational decisions, and how moral codes help to ensure what we might deem acceptable actions. 28 Opening up new horizons Professors James Faulconbridge and Martin Spring look at the challenges and misconceptions facing professional services firms as they look to adopt Artificial Intelligence into their processes, and how it might help them expand to new horizons. In this issue... 32 Managing The Skies Konstantinos Zografos explains how his OR-MASTER project seeks an optimised approach to assigning flight departure and arrival slots – to the benefit of airlines, airports, and the travelling public. 36 Don’t Cut Out the Middle Man Kostas Selviaridis and Martin Spring describe their work with the UK National Health Service on improving access to innovative technologies.
Professor Stephen Eldridge and Professor Guglielmo Lulli Department of Management Science lancaster.ac.uk/lums/managementscience Welcome to the Department of Management Science at Lancaster University Management School. I am excited to introduce you to our department, showcase the impressive work of our colleagues, and delve into what makes management science such a unique and appealing field. We are a highly intensive research department with activities spanning multiple disciplines: information systems; operations management; operational research; and project management. Our researchers are also actively involved in relevant cross-disciplinary work that involves members of staff from all four disciplines. Our ambition as a department and as a School is to produce high-quality, high- impact, world-class research. This is work that can be applied directly to our teaching to ensure our students benefit from up-to-date theories and practice. Indeed, Management Science stands as a beacon of excellence. The department ranks in the top 100 in the latest QS World Rankings for Operational Research. Within the following pages, we present a sample of our activities, which demonstrates our contribution and dedication to shaping a better world. As well as informing our teaching, our research aims to influence policies and good business practices, making a tangible impact on society and a contribution to the prosperity of industries and businesses. In the first article in this edition, Dr Nonhlanhla Dube presents her research on humanitarian crises around the world and how humanitarian organisations can better prepare their emergency response efforts. With a continuously growing number of displaced people around the globe, these organisations need to plan further into the future. In many instances, our research is explicitly aligned with the UN Sustainability Goals. Our PhD researcher Ophelia Chidgey investigated gender inequality in the fashion industry, which underscores the need for fashion brands to promote and prioritise gender equality within their supply chains. Professor Linda Hendry analyses different aspects of sustainable supply chains. In her first article, she emphasises the importance for retailers to engage more with consumers to reduce single-use plastic and effectively recycle packaging. In a second stream of her research, she investigates the real drivers and motivations that lead companies in emerging economies to adopt sustainable certifications. The department is also active on themes like ethics and Artificial Intelligence. Professor Darren Dalcher explains the importance of ethics when it comes to managerial and organisational decisions, and how moral codes help to ensure what we might deem acceptable actions. Professor Martin Spring is looking at the challenges and misconceptions facing professional services firms as they look to adopt AI into their processes, and how it might help them expand to new horizons. Professor Spring's work alongside Professor Kostas Selviaridis demonstrates how we can have a realworld impact with our research. They have investigated how the English National Health Service can better implement innovation through closer working with small businesses. Likewise, Professor Konstantinos Zografos's work on the OR-MASTER project brings practical insights and potential solutions for major issues affecting the air transport industry. A significant stream of our research focuses on the utilisation of technology and social media platforms. As an exemplar, Dr Ruilin Zhu presents his work looking at how official government social media accounts play a role in providing valuable emotional support – and how they sometimes only add to the problem. Our high-calibre research informs our educational practice, thus providing a well-rounded learning experience to our students. This strong link is further cemented by the many client-based projects we offer to our students. Developed in collaboration with organisations and companies, clientbased projects offer invaluable experiences for our students, providing them with real-world exposure to the future profession and preparing them for the challenges of professional practice. I hope you enjoy discovering our work; and if you would like to discover more, please do not hesitate to contact us. Welcome FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 3
4 | Planning for a better future With more than 100 million people across the globe displaced by conflict, disease, climate change and natural disasters, humanitarian organisations are coming under increased pressure to help. Dr Nonhlanhla Dube looks at how they can better prepare their emergency response efforts, and why they need to plan further into the future.
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Refugees are among the groups of people affected by displacement. There are more than 35 million refugees worldwide among 108 million displaced people. Approximately a fifth of them – seven million – live in refugee camps. From Turkey to Zimbabwe, Jordan to Colombia, humanitarian organisations are responsible for the care of people displaced by conflict, natural disaster, and persecution. Victims of the wars in Ukraine and Syria, of revolution and civil conflicts, find themselves seeking a haven away from home. Some of the people and the events which caused them to trek sometimes thousands of miles from home are well known – such as earthquakes in Haiti and Iran, flooding in Pakistan, and the Indian Ocean tsunami. The media gravitate towards these events, thrusting them into the public consciousness and provoking global fundraising. But these events and the resultant responses account for only around three per cent of humanitarian response efforts. In my work, I look at the ‘forgotten crises’ – complex emergencies such as conflicts, political crises and disasters that are at the intersection of climate change and economic instability. These account for the bulk of the humanitarian effort, but they receive little attention. That lack of the spotlight affects funding and leaves them with fewer resources. Given the upward trend in displacement and, subsequently, increasing refugee numbers, organisations must innovate and adapt to best serve the needs of those in their camps. My work looks at how that can be done. HURDLES TO CLEAR My interest started with looking at how you can make humanitarian operations more efficient. Over time, I have come to realise there are political, social, and legal underpinnings to be considered. For instance, in Myanmar it can be difficult getting your goods to the Rohingya people, because the government has an interest in excluding them. This is a political obstacle. In terms of legal difficulties, regulations can affect timely delivery of assistance and even prevent operations from taking off. Often, this is because they tend to have a blanket approach, and rarely are exceptions made. Humanitarian organisations spend a great deal of time dealing with embargos imposed on conflict-afflicted countries which can include export and financial assistance bans. Even if such sanctions explicitly make exceptions for humanitarian purposes, they may not go far enough. Socially, if we are in a place where there is a negative sentiment to refugees, it is hard for aid organisations to get support. In some places, it is to the point that they struggle to recruit staff, because people do not want to be affiliated with an organisation helping marginalised groups. MORE THAN SAVING LIVES A second area of my work considers that most refugees end up stuck in the same place for a long time. But humanitarian assistance is meant to keep you alive. As such, they have one-year cycles. If you are there for 30 years, you live the same year 30 times. It is like being stuck in a time capsule. For example, in my home country of Zimbabwe there are more than 15,000 refugees and asylum seekers – the vast majority from the Democratic Republic 6 |
of Congo, with others from Mozambique, Burundi, Rwanda, other African and even European nations. I recently visited a refugee camp where most of the people have lived for 15 to 25 years. One of the things I found shocking relates to nutrition. People receive 50 US Cents a day for food. If they have been in the camp for 20 years, then for 20 years they’ve had to learn how to live on $0.50 a day. The model for keeping people alive does not make sense in such refugee situations. Ideally, the services should reflect their changing needs as they grow or age – not just in terms of nutritional needs but also progressing from getting an education to raising a family. They must be more than alive. They must live. They must move on. The question becomes how you facilitate that. That means pushing the boundaries of humanitarian assistance to have more forward-looking models that account for these realities. CONSIDER THE BIGGER PICTURE More broadly, even if humanitarian organisations, by definition, deal with temporary crises, they must be strategic in decision-making to ensure they maximise value and achieve the best outcomes for populations in distress. A systems perspective is crucial: how do different parts influence each other; what are the long-term effects? That is a weakness of the current humanitarian system. Humanitarian organisations must consider how their actions in responding to a crisis can impact long-term programming. For example, is the organisation or the crisis situation likely to be there for a long time? If so, from a shelter perspective for instance, it makes no sense to use tents; a decent lasting structure works out cheaper. But there are also other considerations to be made. For example, displacement can be temporary. If a permanent structure is built in the wrong place, it will evolve into a white elephant. If things return to normal and populations dissipate, you have a structure in the middle of nowhere because nobody ever intended to stay. If we had a different mindset in accepting that most of these crises will be long-term, and that the impact for the people who live through this is going to be over a lifetime, then that changes how we think. One of the biggest issues we see in this field relates to the donors who determine what is important and, therefore, what gets funded. They do not always have the long-term view; they do not think about the effects of a decision made today across the system and for a long time to come. Over the last year, we have seen the diversion of funds from humanitarian agencies to the Ukraine conflict – this was evident even in the refugee camp in Zimbabwe. Different stakeholders in the humanitarian space need to work together more to better understand the impact of their decisions and actions over the lifetime of displaced people. They must plan further into the future, consider events beyond their immediate geographical scope, and involve those affected. Only then can the millions of displaced people worldwide have a brighter future. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 7 Dr Nonhlanhla Dube is a Lecturer in Operations Management in the Department of Management Science. Her research focuses on the humanitarian and public sectors, including an exploration of the implications of insecurity for operations strategy, supply chain management, and logistics in the humanitarian sector. n.dube@lancaster.ac.uk Image by Nonhlanhla Dube
FASHION’S GENDER INEQUALITY PROBLEM 8 |
Fashion has a problem with women. They dominate the industry’s customer base, but workers suffer from deeply engrained gender inequality issues throughout the garment manufacturing process. PhD researcher Ophelia Chidgey explains how a sector which relies on women for its success fails them within its own walls. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 9
An industry dependent upon female consumers and workers, fashion perpetuates women’s discrimination and suffering. The fashion industry has a global revenue of approximately $2.5 trillion; and around 60 million people work in garment factories. Between 70-80% of these factory workers are women, with millions more employed elsewhere within the industry. Women are also fashion’s biggest consumers, spending roughly 226% more than men on its products. Despite the essential role women play in the fashion industry, there is gender inequality in all corners. FROM TOP TO BOTTOM Women suffer gender inequality throughout fashion’s supply chains, from top leadership roles to those sewing our clothes. Despite making up the majority of consumers and 78% of fashion school students, women constitute less than 50% of designers and 14% of executives at top brands. Only 4.8% of CEOs of clothing companies listed in Fortune 500 are female, this increases to a meagre 12.5% when looking at Fortune 1000, and 26% of board members. The lack of female leadership in the boardroom is mirrored within garment factories. The women making our clothes bear the brunt of fashion’s gender inequality. Women within garment factories predominantly hold low-skilled, lowpaid jobs, whereas their managers and supervisors are overwhelmingly male. In conjunction with challenges of progressing into leadership roles, the gender pay gap amongst garment workers means women earn approximately 18% less than their male counterparts. Gender inequality manifests in a variety of ways within these garment factories. For example, the gender imbalance between workers and managers creates an imbalance of power. This can include female garment workers being subjected to sexual violence, harassment and even murder at the hands of their male management. Women are unequally affected by poor health and safety within factories, as some of the chemicals still used in garment production are known to negatively impact reproductive health and cause fertility issues. Alongside this, pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to abuse and discrimination. Some women face routine pregnancy testing, or in extreme cases are forced to consume contraceptives to prevent pregnancy. Often, women who do become pregnant are dismissed from their job, not provided with time off, and receive inadequate or no maternity benefits. In some cases, pregnant women have been moved to more physically demanding jobs within the factories as a punishment, which has caused serious health problems and miscarriages. Long hours and forced overtime often put women in situations that are less safe. They are finishing late at night and have to travel or walk home in the dark. These issues are exacerbated by the lack of female leadership or representation in many labour unions within the garment industry, creating an additional barrier for women to overcome when it comes to gender inequality. PART OF THE PROBLEM Clothing consumption has increased 400% over the last two decades. The rapid growth of the garment industry, and the development of ‘fast fashion’, has greatly exacerbated abuses and issues. Previously, brands would release four seasons of clothing, but now there can be as many as 52 new lines a year. This has put exceptional pressure on suppliers to produce large volumes of garments at the lowest prices possible. 10 |
Harmful buyer practices are putting downward pressure on suppliers, and this in turn is being passed on to the female workers, as well as driving subcontracting. When lead times and payments are decreased, abuses such as sexual and physical abuse mentioned above increase for women within factories. Furthermore, auditing teams that lack gender diversity are found to be less effective than more diverse teams, which have been found to identify gendered issues more effectively. This further highlights why gender needs to be prioritised further within all corners of the fashion industry. THE BUSINESS CASE Gender equality has been increasingly prioritised and included on the global agenda. From the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal Number Five, ‘Gender Equality’, to The World Bank, International Labour Organisation, and many more, major world organisations recognise the need to act. Fashion brands must adapt to these circumstances and prioritise gender equality within their supply chains. There are widespread benefits involved for companies who take this step, financially as well as socially and ethically. Greater gender diversity within a company makes them more likely to outperform their competitors by up to 22%. Promoting gender equality within their supply chains can help firms perform better by reducing worker turnover and creating higher worker satisfaction, which contributes to greater efficiency and productivity. From the boardroom to the factory floor, the fashion industry cannot escape its gender equality issues. They affect millions of women working around the world. A lack of women in leadership no doubt has a profound effect on addressing many of these issues. Additionally, the large female consumer base has the power to positively impact gender equality within fashion, by shifting away from fast fashion and brands that lack transparency, and by making more conscious and sustainable purchases. A focus from firms and NGOs on gender diversity, sensitive policies and disaggregated data will continue to help identify and mitigate gender inequality within the industry. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 11 Ophelia Chidgey is a third-year Management Science PhD researcher and a member of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business. Her research focuses on gender equality and socially sustainable supply chain management within the garment industry. o.chidgey1@lancaster.ac.uk
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FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 13 ARE SUPERMARKETS THE NEW-AGE PLASTIC WASTE PROCESSORS? If supermarkets and retailers are to do their bit to address issues around plastic packaging, they need to find initiatives that work for the whole supply chain – from producers to consumers. Dr Savita Verma and Professor Linda Hendry look at how they might do it.
The need to rigorously reduce single-use plastic and the urgency to effectively recycle plastic packaging is well recognised by industry and consumers alike. And if you ask an average person the following questions: Who is responsible for placing a staggering amount of plastic on the market? Who is responsible for educating consumers around plastic waste and its disposal? You might hear ‘retailers’ or ‘supermarkets’ in response. To put things into perspective, it is important to understand the scale of plastic production and consumption in the UK, and how it is perceived by consumers. According to the SUEZ report, an estimated 215 billion items of flexible plastic packaging – such as confectionery wrappers, pet and baby food pouches, bread bags and crisp packets – are placed on the market each year. Flexible plastic packaging remained non-recyclable for a long time due to the lack of infrastructure to collect and recycle it. As per the SUEZ report, only 10-17% of UK local authorities collect some form of film or flexible packaging. Consequently, the vast majority ends up in residual waste streams, and is sent for incineration or ends up in landfills. There is an increasing amount of evidence that 2017’s David Attenborough-narrated BBC documentary series Blue Planet II drove a sharp surge in the awareness of average consumers around the impact of single-use plastic on the natural environment. According to reports, retailers noticed a huge shift in consumer behaviour. However, there are other studies that show the documentary may not have discouraged consumers from choosing plastic. Indeed, there are many factors that influence an individual’s behaviour to behave in a pro-environmental way – understanding alone cannot drive action Even so, in the light of Blue Planet II, UK grocers were seen to step up to the challenge of tackling plastic waste crisis, placing plastic high on their sustainability agenda. In recent years there has been an increased effort to provide sustainable packaging options in line with their commitment to UK plastic pact. During interviews for Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives (PPiPL) with food industry representatives across the supply chain, including packaging manufacturers, technologists, food processors, wholesalers, product suppliers, policy advisors, and compliance consultants, we found stakeholders recognise the need for collaboration to develop a system wherein retailers, consumers and waste management companies work in tandem. It was striking that Blue Planet was often mentioned by industry participants as the driving factor for organisations to make plastic packaging a priority in their sustainability strategy. The most promising sustainable packaging initiatives to reduce single-use plastic packaging as major retailers and brands trial new initiatives are reuse options, 14 |
including refill on the go, refill at home, return on the go and return from home. RETAILERS AS WASTE PROCESSORS In the absence of kerbside collection systems for certain packaging, such as flexible packaging, some retailers have promoted alternative return schemes for customers in their stores, although on a relatively small scale. More retailers are introducing reuse and refill systems and packaging return outlets. In our interviews, the procurement manager of a leading food retailer said: “I don’t think we [consumers] do a good enough job [recycling], which is why I think... the Tescos of this world then have to step in and say, ‘okay, we’re going to help you. We’re going to make this easy for you. We will put a collection point in our stores every time you shop with us, please bring your soft plastics back with you and we will take it off your hands and we will do something positive with it’.” Recently, WRAP announced the nationwide in-store collection of flexible packaging will be made more prominent and consistent. The UK Government also expects to set higher recycling targets for producers, as well as for initiatives that go beyond recycling and support the circular economy, such as promoting re-use and refill. The imminent packaging tax is already having a cascading effect on different packaging materials, making retailers proactive. Since there is an increasing shortage of plastic for packaging with recycled content, and the prices of those materials are skyrocketing, retailers have taken charge. For example, some have already started investing in recycling plants to help them recycle soft plastics like crisp packets and chocolate wrappers, which cannot be currently recycled in the UK due to a lack of infrastructure. Additionally, this may help retailers produce packaging to meet their own demands and avoid competing to source the materials. In that sense, plastic waste has become a valuable commodity, and it leads us to conclude that retailers are on the path to becoming the new-age plastic waste processors. NEXT STEPS... Retailers have come a long way, but there is more progress to be made. To engage more consumers and help them adapt to the ongoing changes, retailers not only need to provide easy solutions, but solutions that sustain long-term behaviour change. In the grander scheme of things, it may require retailers to follow a network approach to develop a nationwide system that offers consumers the flexibility to buy in different packaging formats and return packaging to convenient locations, both in-store and online, across multiple retailers irrespective of where they buy from. Retailers will benefit from collaborating to make such an operation commercially viable. Most importantly, retailers have an edge in trying to create a mass behaviour shift as they are capable of offering convenience to consumers by making facilities and processes more accessible. Further, it is important for retailers to develop interventions keeping consumer convenience in mind to avoid unintended consequences that may do more harm than good. For example, consumers driving more miles to find a store that sells in refillable packaging or accepts their used flexible packaging to be recycled. So, if a consumer today might say retailers are responsible for reducing, collecting and recovering plastic packaging, our evidence shows they are making strides in doing just that. Dr Savita Verma was a Research Associate in the Department of Management Science working on the Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives project. She is now a Lecturer at the University of Hull. Her research focuses on how individuals perceive sustainability and how attitudes affect their motivation and behaviours, such as green and pro-environmental behaviour. savita.verma@lancaster.ac.uk Professor Linda Hendry is Head of the Department of Management Science, and a Professor of Operations Management. Her main ongoing research interest is in Sustainable Supply Chain Management. l.hendry@lancaster.ac.uk FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 15
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Levels of affective disorders rose during the Covid-19 pandemic. The unparalleled situation, combined with a lack of access to regular therapy and mental healthcare facilities, left many people struggling. Dr Ruilin Zhu looks at how official government social media accounts played in role in providing valuable emotional support – and how they sometimes only added to the problem. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 17 Support in a Time of Crisis
The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated issues with mental healthcare the world over. The spread of the virus led to a huge increase in cases of affective disorders among both members of the public and those working on the Covid frontline. Usually, these symptoms can be relieved through clinical treatment. However, such direct intervention became impractical, even impossible, during Covid. At an individual level, symptoms such as confusion and emotional isolation can translate to anxiety, depression or panic. This, in turn, can lead to people not following directives, such as isolation or vaccination, and affect the pandemic response at a community level. At a time when the number of adults reporting affective disorder symptoms increased threefold, this raises the need for alternative approaches to emotional support – the provision of care, concern, empathy, love and trust – to help both the mental health resilience of the public and the effectiveness of Covid-19 crisis management. Social media might seem an unlikely medium with which to provide emotional support. It is traditionally considered to have an adverse effect on mental health, potentially leading to social isolation, anxiety and depression. However, online emotional support can have a buffering effect on mental health – it provides a safe space where recipients feel heard and can express their feelings. It offers an alternative solution to address mental health disorder issues – especially important when professional treatment and medical resources are not widely available. This is particularly pertinent in times of stress and sadness. During events such as Covid, this is also true on a collective level. Apart from providing information, we found that the public relies on social media – especially official government accounts – for emotional support. Our research looked at how government social media accounts in China attempted to provide emotional support for the population. We collected data from the early stages of the pandemic until, at that time, it was under control in China, and then into the start of the second wave in June 2020. This was the first crisis to be addressed by the Chinese government at least partially by social media instead of through more traditional means. The government tended to post information first on social media instead of on websites, TV or radio. People were refreshing their social media accounts to find out what was happening. We analysed 61,297 posts from 17 Weibo accounts officially operated by Information Offices of 17 provincial administrative units. Each account 18 |
posted updates about daily cases, as well as guidance and instructions. They would tell the public when places were put in lockdown, let people know what was happening and why. It went from the overarching scale of the province to local events, asking people to follow guidance or reminding them of restrictions and providing reassurance. We looked at both perceived and received emotional support in these posts. The former emphasises the availability of support from the government accounts, and the latter how it is received by the public. Emotional support is established if members of the public perceive it in the post content and become actively involved in providing feedback. The more emotional support that is received, the higher the public engagement. THE RIGHT KIND OF SUPPORT The translation of emotional support is not automatic. It is affected by the frequency of posts and the stage of the pandemic in which they are produced. Oversupply can lead to an ‘infodemic’, adding to the spread of fear and anxiety. To measure the received support, we looked at message interaction. On social media, when an individual receives support, they are more likely to engage with posts, in the form of likes, shares or comments. We found that as the pandemic developed, the number of posts increased accordingly then decreased only slightly, remaining higher than prepandemic levels before jumping again with the start of the new wave. The outbreak prompted governments to move towards emotional support provision, and this weakened as the pandemic was gradually brought under control. The need for support was especially true at the beginning of the pandemic, when everything was unknown or uncertain. This was a time of strict lockdowns. People were locked down wherever they were when they were announced, with no notice or time to prepare. You could be stuck at work, away from families, with near-complete strangers. People have had to sleep in their offices and work there as well – there was no going home. The public need information and guidance from the government so they can feel more safe or secure, and because the lockdowns were swift and decisive, the emotional support was more important. The government tried to make sure that the public understand the policy, while minimising any unnecessary panic. The relationship between perceived and received support is positive from the stage where domestic cases dropped and initially during the success in containing the virus in Wuhan and Hubei. Then followed a negative relationship, suggesting that the increase in quantity of perceived support alone does not lead to an increase in public activity. We find a significant negative relationship between emotional support frequency and public activity. In particular, our study found that daily posts had a significant negative impact on the public’s received support. This aligns with concerns over information overload which were widely apparent on social media throughout the pandemic. Likewise, the abuse of emotional support provision may strengthen anxiety and other affective disorders, potentially even stifling the positive influence of emotional support provided by government. During the first stage, everything was unknown, so the public desperately wanted information. Later, things calmed down, and the public can become more sensitive to information overload. Then, they feel that they are not gaining emotional support but rather being made to feel anxious because there can be so much misleading information out there. Secondly, for some individuals, this type of emotional support did not come automatically – there needs to be guidance through, for instance, the wording of the posts, the way the post is being shared, or even the timing of the post. There are a lot of things associated with both informational and emotional support. A NEED FOR STRATEGY These findings show that government agencies attempting to enhance public health through emotional support need to match their interventions with the development of the pandemic. The next step is for us to investigate more in-depth how this emotional support can be better measured and realised through a better strategy. At the time of writing, China is racing to contain renewed outbreaks. That gives us another window to examine what is happening, and should aid us in finding the strategy that works best, allowing social media to fulfil its potential of providing valuable emotional support. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 19 Dr Ruilin Zhu is a Lecturer in Information Systems in the Department of Management Science. His is also Director of the MSc Management programme. Dr Zhu is one of the authors of the paper Understanding the impact of emotional support on mental health resilience of the community in the social media in Covid-19 pandemic, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders. ruilin.zhu@lancaster.ac.uk
20 | It is easy to assume that businesses in developing countries only pursue sustainability agendas because of pressures from customers in developed economies. But Professor Linda Hendry’s work with coffee producers in Brazil reveals there is much more to it than that – and we would know this if only we gave the businesses themselves a voice. Wake up and smell the sustainability
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The argument over the importance of sustainability is already won. Minority voices may continue to shout into their echo chambers, but there is acceptance across government, business, and society at large that this is a crucial sphere. Yet there is also a tendency to believe that sustainability is championed only in developed economies. Often, we see it that businesses in the western world are the ones pushing the agenda, bringing – if not dragging or forcing – companies in the rest of the world to follow suit. During my work with Brazilian coffee farmers, it has become apparent this is not the case. Our study looked at Brazilian coffee global suppliers, all located in the Cerrado Mineiro region. The Brazilian market supplies around 32% of the world’s coffee, the largest producer globally. Around 4,500 of these suppliers are in Cerrado Mineiro, supplying companies such as Nespresso and Illy. Each of the 20 companies we studied and spoke to are export-oriented and have adopted one or more sustainability-related certification. Buyers usually require this certification to improve trust and strengthen relationships, and it is easy to make assumptions as to the motives for suppliers pursuing this agenda. It has become increasingly important to me to give a voice to the Global South when it comes to sustainability. There are many companies in that part of the world who are supplying global supply chains, and whose behaviours have the potential to impact other companies. We impose our own thoughts and structures upon them, without listening to and learning about their beliefs and practices. From our perspective in the west, we might look at what happens with these coffee companies – and similar organisations across the many industries that operate as worldwide suppliers from the Global South – and think the only reason they are changing their practices is because we are forcing them to, to match our own beliefs. How wrong that would be. What we have found is that the western perspective of thinking ‘oh, they are all hard done by. Somebody is making them do it’ does not apply. Actually, what the people out there are saying is ‘we have some dignity here. We are not just being pushed; we want to do this. We are professionals. We are professionals who care about these things. We are not just doing them because someone is making us.’ FEEL THE PRESSURES As sustainability legislation in developed countries has grown stricter – and consumer attitudes have hardened – certification adoption has increased in value. For emerging economy suppliers, these pressures add to buyer requests to participate in certification schemes. Rather than this coercive pressure being the main driver in certification adoption – as has been widely assumed previously – we found that a desire for professionalism (what we refer to as normative pressure) and benchmarking against companies in the same field (mimetic pressures) are crucial motivators. Normative pressures are related here to suppliers’ relationships with other suppliers through cooperatives. Most participants achieved and maintained certifications supported by these cooperatives. Managers highlighted the existence of ‘group certification’ organised through associations or cooperatives, which led to crucial information and experience sharing. Beyond this collaboration and cooperation, the companies invested in research and innovation to respond to sustainability challenges, enabled through partnerships with research centres and universities. Mimetic pressures link to suppliers’ goals to improve process management. Owners would see how processes worked at other producers and wanted to improve in similar ways. There was benchmarking among members of the same field. The aim was to produce sustainably and to continually improve. 22 |
Compared with coercive pressures, these two factors were more central in influencing supplier certification adoption and improvement towards sustainability. These companies are adopting certifications because it is the right thing to, not because someone has made them do it. They also gain from it in many areas. ADDED BENEFITS Managers recognise the certifications as giving them competitive advantages – both in terms of sales and their internal organisation. They recognise the need to be sustainable if they are to carry on being successful, and if they want to be competitive in international markets. When suppliers obtain certification, we found they developed new competences across the business. This went beyond what we typically talk about with social, economic, and environmental sustainability to dig into other things, like cultural and institutional sustainability. Sustainability certification has the potential to improve a company’s reputation, build trust with other companies, increase employee wellbeing, reduce costs and environmental impacts, increase productivity, and enhance resilience by preparing them for a crisis. But for these competencies to develop, they must be a part of a wider company strategy and become ingrained in the overall culture. You must have systems and processes in place in your organisation that enable you to do these other things. Without that, you might use less water today, treat your workers better today, but then forget about it tomorrow because you do not have that institutional sustainability. Competences developed during the certification processes included: better financial management – leading to reduced costs; better management of environmental resources; better human resources management – leading to greater worker retention and motivation; an improvement in the sustainability culture across the organisation – positively affecting buyer trust levels; strengthening sustainability strategies; and improving management of processes, negotiations, organisational learning and inter-organisational relationships. We found evidence of a virtuous circle of sustainability learning. If you have good initiatives, if you have drivers that make you do things, then you get outcomes. If those outcomes are positive, that reinforces the drivers. You have a reason for doing something, you achieve something, and then that makes you want to do it more. A CHAIN REACTION As we can see, certifications result in new knowledge and skills. This can enable sustainability improvements across the supply chain – with the direct impact felt by those companies who work with the certified firms directly. This can help emerging economy suppliers to be better prepared to respond to international market demands around sustainability. Environmental damage can be reduced, labour and social conditions improved, information shared across the supply chain, and trust built further among partners. This is the type of effect that may be assumed if people think of certification as being driven solely by pressures from these partner firms in different countries. But, as we show, this is not the case. We have given a voice to the producers themselves and found their motives are much more than just responding to coercive pressures. These are people who, A. do not often have a voice, but B. are often impacted directly by sustainability issues. Often, they must deal with the consequences, so it is important to understand the perspective of these emerging economy suppliers and not just assume that western attitudes can be applied without a second thought. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 23 Professor Linda Hendry is Head of the Department of Management Science, and a Professor of Operations Management, with a main research focus on Sustainable Supply Chains Management. The article Developing global supplier competences for supply chain sustainability: The effects of institutional pressures on certification adoption, by Assistant Professor Michele Oliveira Pereira, of the Institute of Human and Social Sciences, Universidade Federal de Viçosa; Associate Professor Minelle Silva, of Excelia Business School, La Rochelle; and Professor Linda Hendry, is published in Business Strategy and the Environment. l.hendry@lancaster.ac.uk
24 | The moral maze: Making sense of ethics
FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 25 How can you know if an individual or a group will do the ‘right thing’? Professor Darren Dalcher explains the importance of ethics when it comes to managerial and organisational decisions, and how moral codes help to ensure what we might deem acceptable actions.
In an increasingly uncertain, turbulent and contested world, ethics plays a crucial role in enabling professionals to conduct their affairs, make decisions and interact with others. Indeed, ethics is essential to free enterprise, democracy and the functioning of a fair society. Yet despite the good intentions, the establishment of ethical thinking and reflection within responsible management practice seems a long way off. A 2018 survey by the Institute of Business Ethics in eight European countries reveals that 78% of employees say their organisation always or frequently acts with honesty. The values range between 69% in Germany to 88% in Ireland. Employees seem more likely to speak up about misconduct, with 54% responding positively in the survey overall, ranging from 67% in the UK to 49% in Portugal. However, one in three employees have been aware of misconduct at work, with 46% recognising that people have been treated unethically, 35% misrepresenting hours worked, and 30% reporting safety violations. Pressure on workers is also intensifying: 16% of respondents felt some form of pressure to compromise their organisation’s ethical standard, with the figure rising in every country. Conversely, just under a quarter of participants (23%) feel incentivised to act ethically. SO, WHAT IS ETHICS? The Cambridge English Dictionary defines ethics as a system of accepted beliefs that control behaviour, often predicated on morals. Ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos, which means a way of living, and typically encompasses the customs of a particular group. Moral systems and principles can be viewed as the surrounding climate of ideas which dictate how we view the world and guide our actions and the harms that they may cause to others. Ethics can therefore help in making moral and professional judgements about how we ought to live and guide and manage our actions. Many books and commentators position ethics as the choice between right and wrong, often relating it to fairness or to some kind of acceptable standards for human behaviour and conduct. Indeed, it would be reassuring to be able to reduce ethical conflict and professional decisions to rights and wrongs. However, this is an overly simplistic representation offering the wrong starting point. Right versus wrong situations imply a relatively straightforward resolution, a choice between black and white. Ethics becomes more arduous when we encounter grey areas, where managers must choose between right and right as conflicting perspectives and different shades of grey come into play. Ethical challenges also arise in situations where the right course of action is somewhat obvious, but constraints related to business competitiveness, institutional pressures, political concerns, internal priorities, conflicts of interests and even personal gains and promotions may be applied. Many organisations respond to the challenges by establishing codes of ethics and training programmes to guide employees. However, an ever-growing succession of corporate scandals indicates a need for further reflection and professionalism. Undoubtedly, cynics may point to such initiatives as insurance policies against corporate liability, intensifying the pressure on individuals to respond to perceived challenges and ethical inaction. 26 |
PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY Ethics is an important source of guidance for decision making. Indeed, ethics as a set of values is expressed and given meaning through commitments, responsibilities and obligations. The values come into play when the boundaries between correct and incorrect behaviour are not clear, especially when multiple viewpoints and perspectives co-exist. Many of the challenges are intensified in the project arena. Projects aim to solve problems or improve on the status-quo. Yet their very emergence and their rushed implementation schedule open the potential for doing harm as well as good. Given that the responsibility for deploying projects and overseeing their outcomes resides with project managers and project sponsors, their ability to act independently and make decisions, and their professional responsibility, are crucial to understanding the role and impact of morality and ethics in this area. The Oxford Dictionary defines responsible as either “liable to be called to account” or “morally accountable for one’s actions” thus encompassing two rather different interpretations. Nonetheless, the increasing focus on the certification of project managers and the development of a chartered status standard for the profession in the UK carry significant implications in terms of assumed responsibility. Employing a professional represents the transfer of risk and decision-making obligations to a better-qualified agency. It carries within it the implicit assumptions of: • trust in their professional ability; • security in the knowledge that a qualified expert is employed; and, • the comfort and peace of mind that comes from this knowledge. Employing a professional expert is akin to buying additional insurance (through a risk transfer). In return for the trust exhibited by the client, the professional project manager takes responsibility for the deployment of the agreed function, capability, or quality for the process and the product itself. This aspect of responsibility is subject to professionalism, morality, and ethics. While responsibility entails owning up to acts, effects, and consequences, one can identify distinctly different types of responsibility: Causal Responsibility: associated with bringing something about either directly or indirectly (e.g. by ordering someone else). Legal Responsibility: associated with fulfilling the requirements for accountability under the law. Moral Responsibility: associated with having a moral obligation or fulfilling the criteria for deserving blame or praise for a morally significant act, or omission, and the resulting consequences. Role Responsibility: associated with performing duties that are attached to professional, or societal (or even biological) roles. Failure to fulfil such duties can expose the role-holder to moral, legal, or constitutional censure. Moral responsibility implies being answerable for one’s actions and decisions and typically assumes some degree of causal responsibility. Therefore, a professional can also be held morally responsible for failing to act (i.e. resetting the focus and scope of responsibility from harming to not aiding). Guilds, associations, and professional bodies often look after the role responsibility aspect, thereby helping to enforce a more professional practice. Professional codes allow us to appreciate the standard, evaluate what could be expected from a member of the profession, and provide an implicit definition, at the very least, of acceptable professional behaviour. IMPOSING MORAL CODES? Invoking codes of ethics is not a new endeavour. Ancient societies have practiced various ways of introducing such principles. One example is provided by Hammurabi, King of Babylon, who recognised the perils of design and project management over 3,775 years ago and enacted a building code that clarified the ‘responsibilities’ of designers: If a builder has built a house for a man and his work is not strong, and if the house he has built falls and kills the householder, that builder shall be slain – Code of Hammurabi, 1755 BC. Modern societies are unlikely to introduce similar censure in the foreseeable future. They do, however, encourage members to consider the ethical and enduring implications of their decisions and actions. Moral codes give individuals and communities the courage to act ethically. The role of ethical thinking is to safeguard practitioners, the profession and the stakeholders. Clients, users, stakeholders, employees, and colleagues rely on the professionalism, responsibility, and ethics of professionals. Who better to remind us of the need for professionalism than Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, who whilst awaiting blast-off atop the space shuttle Columbia, commented that it was a humbling experience knowing that his fate depended on a vehicle built by the lowest bidder! Humbling food for thought for managers, and another indication of the true complexity of responsibility, ethics and professionalism in projects. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 27 Darren Dalcher is Professor in Strategic Project Management in the Department of Management Science. His research explores the role that ethics, morality and responsibility play in professional decisions. Ideas contained within this article are expanded upon in the chapter Morality and Spirituality: Essential to Responsible Project Management from the De Gruyter Handbook of Responsible Project Management. d.dalcher@lancaster.ac.uk
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