Where do I send the individual assignement?

• You should upload individual assignement on Moodle by 11 Dec 2022

If you have questions you can write at fabiojames.petani@msb.tn

Remember: keep it short but doable (something you could suggest

practically doing, even better if in connection with your projet de fin
d’études, so a larger research with practical « sustainable » implications
 Today’s program: CSR in digital + apply orders of worth model
First half of today (9-12:30):
FEW MORE WORDS ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, ON RATINGS, ON CSR POLITICAL DIMENSIONS
Overview of how digital platforms change business models and CSR implications (until 10:30)

Presentation of the Sociology of Critical Capacity (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1999)

Looking at how organizational coordination procedes through justification and critique of people,
objects, situations by referring to ≠ views of the common good (until 12:30)

Second half of today (14-17):

• Individual quiz (20 minutes) (OPENS AT 14 – CLOSES AT 14:30!!!)
• Groupwork on applying the Boltanski & Thévenot model to a practical case (up until 16:30)
• Coached work on executive summary: participants identify a CSR problem in their
organization/industry, develop key priority points for sustainable solutions (wrap up + Q&A)
 Corporate governance definitions

▪ The system by which companies are Management

= control
monitored and controlled (ΟECD, 1999)
Systemic view

▪ The relationship of the company with its Business &

shareholders and society at large (Financial Society broader
Times) Relational view

Towards ethical
▪ Regulations for promoting corporate fairness, standards
transparency and responsibility Corporate
(Chairman World Bank) Regulations-based
view
Corporate governance as an accountability structure

• The method by which a firm is governed, directed,

administered, or controlled, and the goals it aims for. One of
these methods we saw yesterday is the Board of directors
• The relative roles, rights and accountability (to be held
accountable for = responsible) of groups like owners, boards of
directors, managers, employees, and other stakeholders.
 What is corporate governance (CG ) about?
▪ The system that societies use to direct and “control” the conduct of
corporations
– sets the rights & obligations of companies, owners (shareholders), and
company obligations against other stakeholders
– accountability to society and mechanisms to align the company with the
“public interest” at large
▪ Includes formal laws &regulations & codes, as well as informal customs and
processes
– all determine to what end a firm should be run

MSCI indicators of ESG
Morgan Stanley Capital
International (MSCI)
on
Environmental, Social
and Governance (ESG)
https://www.msci.com/our-
solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings
MSCI KLD 400 Social Index
“comprises companies with high
ESG ratings and excludes companies
involved in Alcohol, Gambling,
Tobacco, Military Weapons, Civilian
Firearms, Nuclear Power, Adult
Entertainment, and Genetically
Modified Organisms (GMO).
The Index aims to serve as a
benchmark for investors whose
objectives include owning
companies with very high ESG
ratings and excluding companies
involved in the production of
products and services with
high negative social and/or
environmental impact.”
Lyon et al., 2018
(see extra readings on Moodle)
 The UN Global Compact
The world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative

10 PRINCIPLES
HUMAN RIGHTS
1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights;
2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.
LABOUR
3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective
bargaining;
4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
5: the effective abolition of child labour; and
6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
ENVIRONMENT
7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies
ANTI-CORRUPTION
10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.
Why does CSR need transparency in its political activities?

A lot of corporations do CSR as a kind of Green or Blue washing

What does that mean? That they look to be supporting green

or human (UN-blue) sustainable practices, but in reality
it is just a surface reputation management game…
behind the scenes firms keep covertly pursuing the shaping of public
policy (through lobbying, funding of think tanks, political campaigns)
 How information and transaction costs change
in platform versus pipeline business models

What does it mean that information is the new oil?

How does this shift impact or changes Business Ethics & CSR
across complex, multinational (informational and legal) political and economic ecosystems?
 Digital platforms revolutionize Business Models and CSR

The internet economy has new dynamics and models

Digital platforms drive new markets/reshape old ones
with rule-changing business models → hard to explain via Porter

Information, data is the new oil

→firms struggle to strategically fit their resources to the

existing environment or viceversa, so they strategically prefer
to create new business environments all together (e.g. Blue
Ocen Strategy)
The strategic problem of value proposition and pricing

A good value proposition must respect 2 key rules:

1) Generate a maximum of added value (value perceived by clients – costs)
2) Transfer part of this value to clients and partners, but capture enough to be profitable
(→ appropriately reward the invested capital)

Lehmann-Ortega et al, 2016

 Remember what a Business model is…?

How?
Who?
VALUE
What?
ARCHITECTURE
VALUE • Value chain
PROPOSITION • Network value
• Clients
• Products/Services
• Prices BM specifies the origin of profit.
Focus on Profitability /
Rentabilité Économique
A business model analyses =
How much? Ratio résultat operationnel sur
the cycles of investment and
VALUE capitaux engagés
exploitation, defines the CAPTURE ROCE
source of profitability • Turnover/revenue model Return On Capital Employed
• Cost structure
describing how the firm • Capital employed
captures revenues to
BM = description for a firm of the mechanisms allowing it (through a value
transform them into profits proposition made to clients on one side and accounting for the value architecture
on the other) to capture value and turn it into profit (profit equation)

Lehmann-Ortega et al, 2016

Traditional economic model & production strategy
FIRM
SUPPLY
ECONOMIES OF SCALE
OF THE OFFER… WITH THE GROWTH
OF PRODUCED (OFFERED)
QUANTITIES, PRODUCTIVITY GROWS
AS AVERAGE COSTS DROP
AND MARGINS GET FATTER…
MARKET
OFFER DEMAND
Productivity =
Ratio between input per produced output unit
Why does it grow with increased produced volumes?
Because of an economic law known as
The Learning Curve = basically the more I produce
and less expensively I will learn to produce single unit
A disruptive (platform?)strategy

• Sometimes strategies allow to increase the perceived value

• of the offer, reducing costs so potentially prices also…

• Example, JC Decaux in 1964 introduced the idea

• of « mobilier urbain ». He offered free abribus and
• maintenance, in exchange for exclusivity contracts
• for many years. Public transport firms had
• no initial investments or maintenance costs…

• Any idea how Decaux made money?

 Network effects of platforms in practice

How are these two groups related?

eBay Sellers eBay Buyers
Airlines/Hotels Travelers
Xbox Developers Xbox Gamers
Visa Merchants Visa CardHolders
Doctors Patients
YouTube Videographers YouTube Viewers
AirBnb Rooms AirBnb Renters
Electric Car Charge Stations Electric Car Drivers
Mechanical Turk Laborers Mechanical Turk Jobs
Linkedin Employers Linkedin Employees
Android Developers Android Users

Each group attracts more of the other

Network effects of platforms visual example 1
 Which business model, view of strategy
and implications for corporate responsibilities?
Value creation outside the firm… (Who produces Fb content?)
Van Alstyne, 2017

IMPLICATIONS FOR STRATEGY

Managers no longer need to exploit
every opportunity: they can pursue the best, helping
ecosystem partners to benefit from the others, with partners
sharing jointly created value

Platforms do not cut up the pie

they grow the pie,
multiply new ones to feed
their ecosystems
 Business models can overlap

Van Alstyne, 2017

Platforms scale more than pipes

Platform business models beat product business models

every time. That is why traditional pipeline manufacturers
(e.g. Nike) are trying to get a platform model «running »
 New business models???

• Google is often cited as example of a new publicity

• model of the New Economy, but is it innovation? Freepress
(journaux gratuits) has had a similar model for over 30 years

• Another example is the razors-and-blades pricing strategy:

Gillette and today all the high-priced toner cartridges (les
cartouches d’encre très chères) business model captif:
accepter de perdre sur l’équipement pour diffuser et vendre
des consommables

Lehmann-Ortega et al, 2016

Approaching the world of Platforms

Gawer, 2017
How product markets got swept by platforms

Strong competitors had all the classic strategic advantages that should have protected them:
Strong product differentiation, trusted brands, leading operating systems, excellent logistics,
protective regulation, massive scale, huge R&D budgets (e.g. in 20 years Nokia alone spent circa 40 billion $ in R&D) Parker &VanAlstyne, 2015
Firms looked stable, profitable and entrenched (→ occupying well protected positions)
 6 years later….

…only 1 of the 7 was making a profit, while a newcomer…

Apple, which in 2007 had only 4% market share in desktop operating systems,
and 0% in mobile phones, in 2013 had 92% of profits

Parker &VanAlstyne, 2015

Platforms vs product business models

In 2009 Blackberry had nearly 50% market share

in US operatying systems… Now? 2,1%

• The product business model is broken

Van Alstyne & Parker, 2017

Platforms as a major economic shift

Platform’s critical asset

is the community and the
resources of its members
NEW RULES OF STRATEGY
1) From controlling to orchestrating
resources
2) From optimizing internal
processes to facilitating
external interactions
3) From increasing customer
value to maximizing
ecosystem value

Van Alstyne et al, 2016: 24

 Platform businesses and demand-side
vs supply-side economies of scale of pipelines
Platforms connect producers and consumers in high-value exchanges that
create network effects
Chief assets: information and interactions,
which together are the source of value and of competitive advantage

Examples of old platforms:

-Newspapers (connect/link subscribers and advertisers)
-Malls (link consumers and merchants)

What changed?
Real estate
owned: Ø Cars owned: Ø

IT has reduced the need to own physical infrastructure

and assets (reduced transaction costs)

Van Alstyne, Parker & Choudary, 2016

 The end of pipelines?
• No, pipelines are not dead). Industrial economy was (and remains) a supply-side economy of scale… What is that?

→ HIGHER SALES VOLUME THAN COMPETITORS

→ LOWER AVERAGE COST OF DOING BUSINESS (ABILITY TO REDUCE PRICES > INCREASE VOLUME…→ MONOPOLIES, e.g. GE)

ECONOMY OF SCALE
• PRODUCTION BECOMES MORE EFFICIENT AS THE VOLUME OF PRODUCED GOODS GROWS

• In supply-side economies, firms achieve market power by controlling resources and increase efficiency by
avoiding competition from Porter’s 5 forces (benefiting from higher competition typically between numerous
suppliers whose price wars draw down production costs)
 Economies of scale

In any market with network effects, the focus of attention

must shift from inside to outside the firm
Why? You can’t scale network effects inside as easily as outside
Parker & Van Alstyne, 2017
Platforms as a major economic shift
Platform’s critical asset
is the community and the
resources of its members

NEW RULES OF STRATEGY

1) From controlling to
orchestrating resources
2) From optimizing internal
processes to facilitating
external interactions
3) From increasing customer
value to maximizing
ecosystem value

Van Alstyne et al, 2016: 24

Structure of organization is changing…

…strategy must become

more open to external
community assets

Where are Porter’s 5 forces

and barriers to entry finished?
Van Alstyne et al, 2016: 24
World’s most valuable companies by market capitalization
Platform firms are changing the value system, strategy (and geopolitics) of business
because they work with different resources, business models, value chains

https://companiesmarketcap.com/
 What changes… Marketing

Businesses shift from outbound messaging to inbound servicing

Source: Rob Cain, CIO Coca Cola Company
 What changes… Human Resources

Firms are accessing “cloud labor” at the team and individual

level… they can outsource even middle management
 What changes… Finance

Aswath Damodaran: NYU Finance professor,

Corporate Valuation author, Herb Simon Prize.
Mkt cap of platforms compared to giants

How many
cars did
Uber own? Ø

How much
Real Estate did
Airbnb own? Ø

How much
content did
Fb produce? Ø
What changes… Digital Business Ethics & CSR
Boltanski & Thévenot (1999): A model larger than CSR
Exercise: give an example of how you arrange your home/bedroom, why it suits you

Embarassed….? There is a good reason…

 Behaviors and judgment criteria (evaluation regimes)
EXAMPLE: your bedroom has a broken/unstable chair

Bedroom use: you use your own familiar space

Behavior: you use the chair only for clothes
Evaluation regime: personal and local convenience

Bedroom use: you lend the room to friends

Behavior: you remove your clothes but warn that the
chair can’t be used in its conventional function
Evaluation regime: conventional utility

Bedroom use: you rent it to unknown people (e.g. AirBnB)

Behavior: you remove the chair to avoid injury risk and exposure to public critique
Evaluation regime: collective and legitimate conventions (qualification/justification)

From private to public arrangement → expectations and responsibilities change the 1st situation requires no justification, the 3rd does
Thévenot, 2001: 69-75
 What is the ‘reason’ of the embarrassement?
JUSTIFICATION
It is ‘unpolite’ (unconventional) to ask people we know little to justify habits and behaviors that belong to their private
sphere (e.g. home/bedroom use)

Why does it have to do with CSR, BE and organizational coordination?

→ Professional, work, business activities unfold in public contexts and spaces
In organizations, behaviors require a valid justification.

• Conduct is made accountable to other people and complies with certain conventions
Actors are responsible for evaluating what is best to do and why,
a key to organizational coordination (beyond critical situations)
• People are expected to have the pragmatic critical capacity of telling good from bad
Employees and employers often argue the legitimacy of their actions
on the base of universally accepted/valid argumentations (conventions).

In international settings, uncertainty does not only relate to different laws,

but also to different business practice conventions and material conditions
The social (also ethical) issue of power and legitimacy
Organization and management theory (influenced by Bourdieu’s
critical sociology) has often explained organizational behavior as
isomorphic = imitating or reproducing the behavior of institutional
legitimate leaders

Pierre Bourdieu used concepts like fields, capital and habitus to explain
critically how power works (e.g. La distinction, 1979) by
discriminating/separating tastes (attributions of worth) of/on people and
objects, like works of art, music, food, clothes, furniture…

→ analysis of the social conditions under which

inter- and intraorganizational power relations are produced, reproduced and contested
(Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008)
 The institutional explication of legitimacy 1

Organizations conform to legitimacy-driven norms that define their

institutional fitness within a certain field
→often firms are separated (or decoupled) from their specific production
function (e.g. they seem to behave irrationally, imitating the behaviour of
the most legitimate field actors instead of what would make their internal
operations more effective/efficient)

Depending on how much contexts are institutionalized, firms tend to

homogeneity, forced/encouraged by many direct and indirect external
pressures to adopt certain ‘rationalized organizational forms’ that may have
little to do (even conflict) with how their activities could be most efficiently
managed
 The institutional explication of legitimacy 2

Isomorphism is a constraining process forcing firms of a certain population

to resemble others facing the same set of field conditions

Isomorphism can be produced by coercive (→political influence),

mimetic (standard responses to uncertainty)
or normative mechanisms (→ professionalization)

Organizations do not fight only for resources or customers, but also for political power and legitimacy;
not only for economic, but also for social fitness (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983)

Bifocal nature of power:

1) define norms and standards
2) impose models that go unquestioned (March & Simon, 1958)
 The gap of institutionalist explanations

When macro structures explain too much of organizations, they tend to

picture individuals as incapable of acting. and transforming the structural
constraints that strongly influence their values and beliefs.
This is also true in ethical behaviour (where people imagine themselves as
prisoners of a market logic). See bought vs earned ratings… ‘This is how the
world works’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xZx1lf2tvs

Agency of individual actors within highly institutionalized environments, with

strongly homogenizing and structuring elements, leaves no space for
resistance and transformation of a taken-for-granted institutional status quo.
Actors seem cultural dopes, controlled by powerful structures
 From a critical sociology to a sociology of critique
Boltanski & Thévenot (1991/1987, 1999, 2006) showed how individual actors are not dopes
or puppets, but we all have a critical capacity, we are morally skilled and manage several
justification/critique strategies or grammars to overcome disputes/coordination crises

→ Many public situations (business, organizational coordination)

can be analyzed by their need to justify action with many ideas, objects (KPIs, data…)
→ Public critique has to respect certain conventions

THE PROBLEM IS THAT SOMETIMES WE ARE UNCERTAIN ABOUT WHAT ARE

THE MOST PERTINENT EVALUATION CRITERIA TO USE TO WIN AN ARGUMENT,
IN CONVINCING OTHER PEOPLE THAT OUR JUDGMENT, CRITIQUE, BEHAVIOR
ARE RIGHT (BECAUSE THEY NEED TO SHOW THAT THEY SERVE THE COMMON
GOOD, AND NOT JUST OUR PARTICULAR INTEREST OR PREFERENCE)
The critical capacity we all have as a competence for judging
situations and coordinating
Boltanski & Thévenot (1991/1987, 1999, 2006) showed how individual actors are not dopes or
puppets, but have a critical capacity → actors are morally skilled in managing several
justification&critique strategies or grammars

→ Many public situations (business, organizational coordination) can be analyzed by their need
to justify action
→ Public critique has to respect certain conventions
E.g. You can criticize my course, but probably you would
not sound credible (→ justified, legitimate) if you said

«Fabio’s course is bad because he isn’t funny enough…»

What other critiques would be more acceptable/justified?

 What is The Hotel du Lac in Tunis?

The Brutalist style

Italian architect
Raffele Contigiani
Is it a « good » building
?

How may we go about criticizing

built from 1970 to it and advocating its demolition
or instead justifying its
1973 for the Tunisian
government of Habib
Bourgouiba
costly maintenance? ?
 From a plural uncertainty to economies of worth
How can actors coordinate (put order)
in the presence of incompatible (mutually exclusive)
criteria for assigning worth?

Every value and test proposes to be universally valid, or to transcend particular situations to provide a reliable
guidance towards the common good, how do actors overcome uncertainty on what value counts the most?

Different worlds propose to qualify objects, people and conducts via multiple rationalizations
of what is worthy and whose pertinent value can overcome a dispute through an ‘objective’ test

→ A TEST is an objective means for assessing worth.

A tool for resolving disputes (within a given world)
Subjective widespread views create a testable objectivity,
where conventions evaluation people and objects
From a critical sociology to a sociology of critique
(Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991)
‘Common Inspired Domestic Fame Civic Market Industrial Green
worlds’

Mode of Innovation Trustworthiness Reputation Collective Profitability Efficiency Environmental

evaluation welfare friendliness

Test Feeling Trust Popularity Equity Competitiveness Competence Sustainability

Form of Emotional Oral exemplary Semiotic Official Monetary Measurable Ecological

relevant proof involvement anecdote

Qualified Emotionally Etiquette, good Brand Law, rights Wealth Method Healthy
objects invested manners, gifts. environment
body

Qualified actors Creative Superiors and Media Citizens Competitors, Professional Environmentalist
beings inferiors shareholders experts

Time formation Visionary Customary path Trend Perennial Short-term Long-term Future generations
moment
Examining another realistic conflict of values
5 MINUTES THEORETICAL EXPLANATION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy0G4nmWAAE

Video illustration of a practical situation

https://vimeo.com/380379656/3cd558a6d7
Real case scenario: Ethical controversy on a promotion/payrise

You show professional competence

and achieve demonstrable economic results

When the time to promote you/or increase your salary comes… your
competitor, who has no formal education qualification, does not prove
particularly productive, but is the son of a famous and influential local
entrepreneur (on which the firm counts for survival)….

→ he get’s the promotion

WHAT HAPPENED???
CAN YOU REALLY SAY IT IS ORGANIZATIONALLY WRONG?

WHAT MAY HAVE MOTIVATED THE DIRECTOR OF THE FIRM

TO HIRE THE SON OF THE LOCAL ENTREPRENEUR?
 Situations in which the legitimate value is uncertain
When Mike Jackson died…

…in the publishing house where I worked the following dilemma came up:

Sales force Market recommendation Editorial industrial recommendation

Publish an instant book/biography: Either take 1 month to write and 1 more
Assign a contract to an author to write to produce a proper bio or renounce
a bio in 1 week / print & distribute it to publish a low quality bio that no one
within a 1 month would have bought or many could criticize

What is the right (business) thing to do?

 Uncertainty: What (convention) counts most in evaluating
people/objects?
When people are not satisfied with how things are going, often in business, they reach a critical point
in which they need
to articulate, or formulate explicitly what is « not OK ».
There are precise social rules (conventions) about how to criticize

? CRITICISM IS NOT FREE FROM CRITIQUE / CRITICISM MUST BE JUSTIFIABLE ?

E.g. You could criticize my course, but probably you would
not sound credible (→ justified, legitimate, right) if you said
«Fabio’s course is bad because he isn’t funny enough…»

Which other critiques would be more acceptable/justified

To make this less personal, we can also consider the possible legitimate critiques to an object like a
building (e.g. The Hotel du Lac)
 The world of inspiration
MODE OF EVALUATION INNOVATION, ORIGINALITY, CREATIVENESS,
NONCONFORMITY, GRACE

Test Feeling, passion, enthusiasm

Form of relevant information Emotional involvement

(proof)
Qualified objects Emotionally invested body, the sublime,
original works of art

Qualified actors Creative beings, artists

Time formation Visionary moment

Space formation Presence

A course is not good because it is not original, or the lecturer teaching style isn’t innovative or engaging
→ lack of passion, not an inspiring lecturer…
//
The Hotel du Lac is not inspiring, it is not a visionary or emotionally engaging building, it’s brutally ugly
 The domestic world
MODE OF EVALUATION TRUSTWORTHINESS, ESTEEM,
REPUTATION
Test Trust

Form of relevant proof Oral, exemplary, Personally warranted

Qualified objects Etiquette, heritage, patrimony

Qualified actors Authorities

Time formation Customary path

Space formation Local, proximal anchoring

The course is not good because we do not trust the lecturer, it is not what we are used to
or familiar with, like a well reputed Tunisian lecturer, whom everyone knows personally
and whose reputation is established with local firms, institutions etc…)
//
The Hotel du Lac does not fit with the local urban landscape of Lyon’s patrimony we are accustomed to,
it is a building designed from an alien architect who disrespects our local heritage and traditions
 The fame world
MODE OF EVALUATION FAME, RENOWN

Test Popularity, audience, recognition from

fans
Form of relevant proof Semiotic

Qualified objects Signs, Brands, media

Qualified actors Celebrities

Time formation Trend, Vogue

Space formation Communication network

The course is not good because the lecturer is not famous (does not come from a famous University), nowhere in the local or international
media can we find a trace of academic celebrity that reassures us as to the value/worth of his knowledge, research or teaching skills
//
The Hotel du Lac was not designed by an archistar, it did not the mediatic attention and fame like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao
 The civic world
MODE OF EVALUATION COLLECTIVE WELFARE

Test Equity, solidarity

Form of relevant proof Official

Qualified objects Law, rules

and regulation

Qualified actors Citizens

Time formation Perennial

Space formation Detachment

This course is not good because it does not promote an appreciation of our public institutions and existing regulations, it fails to promote equity
and an ideal of common good favouring public welfare over private enterprise (e.g. deregulated digital platforms that harm licensed labor…
taxi?)
//
The Hotel du Lac does not embody well enough the institutional detachment that an art museum should convey as part of its perennial, stable
and official celebration of our solid cultural civic values
 The market world
MODE OF EVALUATION PROFITABILITY, PRICE/COST

Test Competitiveness

Form of relevant proof Monetary

Qualified objects Freely circulating good, service and capital

(Wealth)

Qualified actors Customers, shareholders, competitors

Time formation Short-term

Space formation Globalization

This course is not good because it does not lead to a profitable business placement (e.g. a paid internship??) or does not
provide critical information that allow us to be more competitive on the job market of very well paid jobs
//
The Hotel du Lac is not good because it does not attract enough turists/visitors, investors and competitive exhibitions that
people are prepared to pay a premium price for (in relation to alternative museum offers in Tunis and elsewhere)
 The industrial world
MODE OF EVALUATION TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY

Test Competence

Form of relevant proof Measurable, statistics

Qualified objects Method, plan, infrastructure

Qualified actors Professional experts, engineer

Time formation Long-term planned future

Space formation Cartesian space

This course is not good because it is not planned with a rigorous method, because the lecturer is incompetent and
does not possess the relevant knowledge to turn students into functional experts
//
The Hotel du Lac is not good because its spaces do not serve well the functions they were designed for, because it
was ill planned and built with such inefficiency as to require far more short term maintenance than anticipated as
its technical equipment were not engineered with reliable methods
 Green
MODE OF EVALUATION TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY

Test Environmental friendliness

Form of relevant proof Sustainability

Qualified objects Ecological

Qualified actors Healthy environment

Time formation Environmentalist

Space formation Future generations

This course is not good because we print papers to read instead of reading pdf files, because the lecturer is drinking from
plastic bottles and does not communicate sustainable ideas and skills to save the planet
//
The Hotel du Lac is not good because its spaces are costing a lot to maintain, because it could be replaced by a park, letting
nature regain a city space so long occupied without any purpose and to great pollution over time
SHORT VERSION FOR A DYNAMIC WORKSHOP

Morality Inspired Domestic Fame Civic Market Industrial Green

Buzz word Innovation Trust Reputation Representative Profitability Efficiency Sustainability

responsibility
 The organizational value of compromise

The sociology of critical capacity allows for more values to coexist together in
imperfect, fragile equilibria that avoid tests and overcome controversies with
temporary makeshift hybrid arrangements or thirdways mixing logics together…

like when we hear talking of a « competitive public service »

MARKET CIVIC

SOMETIMES ACTORS DO NOT AGREE ON THE RELEVANT WORLD THAT SHOULD TEST THE
SITUATION, BUT THEY CHOOSE TO SUSPEND CRITIQUE THROUGH A MORE OR LESS
ENDURING OR FRAGILE COMPROMISE…
From debate to practice
What is the ‘right thing to do’?

This is the ‘right No, this is the ‘right

thing to do’ thing to do’

Follow up action Follow up action

Compromise
Compromise in practice
From a critical sociology to a sociology of critique

Boltanski & Thévenot (1991/1987, 1999, 2006) showed how individual actors are not dopes or
puppets, but have a critical capacity, are morally skilled and manage several
justification&critique strategies or grammars

→ Many public situations (business, organizational coordination) can be analyzed by their need
to justify action
→ Public critique has to respect certain conventions
E.g. You can criticize my course, but probably you would
not sound credible (→ justified, legitimate) if you said
«Fabio’s course is bad because he isn’t funny enough…»

What critiques would be more acceptable/justified?

 The management of legitimacy
Action coordination and Legitimacy is also about ethical uncertainty

What is the ‘right thing to do’?

Assessing ‘the right thing to do’ obeys a ‘logic of appropriateness’

What would a person in my position do?

 EXERCISE: FORM 6 GROUPS
• I WANT YOU TO DEVISE A CAMPAIGN TO LAUNCH A NEW CAR
ACCORDING TO THE DIFFERENT 6 ORDERS OF WORTH OR JUSTIFICATIONS THAT
WE JUST PRESENTED, SO MAKING ARGUMENTS THAT JUSTIFY THE CAR’S WORTH
FOR THE COMMON GOOD (BASED ON THE COMPETING CRITERIA EXAMINED)
• YOU HAVE 30/45 MINUTES, I CAN COACH AND PASS THROUGH TO SEE IF YOU
NEED HELP, THEN YOU NEED TO PRESENT TO THE CLASS.
 FINAL INDIVIDUAL TASK by end of November
Based on the knowledge you have of your job/ profession, industry/sector/market ecosystem (and on CSR),
write a 1-page bullet proof EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TITLED « BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE »
The purpose is that you try to creatively but also responsibly and professionally design lead a project in which:

1) You refer to current CSR policies/practices and try to add/develop a culture of sustainability through concrete
actions
2) You recognize the ethical complexity of a problem, accounting for the stakes of business actors and society
3) You identify a group of people you can constitute within or outside your company to assign practical tasks
they would be potentially able, and motivated, to carry out
4) You sketch a governance of this project that would allow for everyone to contribute equally and appropriate
the initiative (try to lead by inspiration over CSR, not domination or imposition)
5) Following from 4, you jot down how you would make sure to get feedback on the project members and plan
somekind of calendar you could realistically see implemented with actions, and outcomes to be shared
collectively and ways to assess whether the project was successful (design some kind of objective or tangible
deliverable you dream for your leading sustainable innovation to achieve)

SEND BY EMAIL TO: fabiojames.petani@msb.tn

FEEL FREE TO: CARRY OUT SOME MINIMAL RESEARCH on
www.theconversation.com / Google Scholar and/or other CSR Think Tanks and Institutes (see Syllabus)
 Counterintuitive common scenarios of danger and
irresponsibility… Beware of stupidity!
Italian economic historian Carlo Maria Cipolla (1922-2000)
in a famous essay (1976), discusses 5 laws of stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid

individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any
other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group
of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid
individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times
and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid
people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person

→ COROLLARY: Stupid people are more dangerous than opportunists, because, unless specifically and
responsibly aware of this risk/threat (see laws 1 and 4), you don’t see them coming!
A typology of behaviour for a responsible and strategic
accounting for stupidity hazards
Contribute to society who takes Successful firms, who are sustainable
? advantage of them (but extreme
altruists and pacifists may willingly,
rather than helplessly, accept a place
and show responsible leadership
Contribute to society and
in this category for moral, ethical or leverage their contributions
religious reasons into reciprocal benefits

CSR’s BLIND SPOT?

CSR COVERS WELL THIS
HALF OF THE QUADRANT…

Pursue their own self-interest

even when doing so poses a
net detriment to societal welfare

Irresponsible profit-maximizing firms

Stupid people’s efforts are
counterproductive to both
their and others' interests