The external expectations of organizational accountability force organizational leaders to find solutions and answers in organizational (and information) governance to assuage the feelings of doubt and unease about the behaviour of the organization and its employees that continuously seem to be expressed in the organizational environment. Organizational leaders have to align the interests of their share– and stakeholders in finding a balance between performance and accountability, individual and collective ethical approaches, and business ethics based on compliance, based on integrity, or both. They have to integrate accountability in organizational governance based on a strategy that defines boundaries for rules and routines. They need to define authority structures and find ways to control the behaviour of their employees, without being very restrictive and coercive. They have to implement accountability structures in organizational interactions that are extremely complex, nonlinear, and dynamic, in which (mostly informal) relational networks of employees traverse formal structures. Formal processes, rules, and regulations, used for control and compliance, cannot handle such environments, continuously in ‘social flux’, unpredictable, unstable, and (largely) unmanageable. It is a challenging task that asks exceptional management skills from organizational leaders. The external expectations of accountability cannot be neglected, even if it is not always clear what is exactly meant with that concept. Why is this (very old) concept still of importance for modern organizations?In this book, organizational governance, information governance, and accountability are the core subjects, just like the relationship between them. A framework is presented of twelve manifestations of organizational accountability the every organization had to deal with. An approach is introduced for strategically govern organizational accountability with three components: behaviour, accountability, and external assessments. The core propositions in this book are that without paying strategic attention to the behaviour of employees and managers and to information governance and management, it will be extremely difficult for organizational leaders to find a balance between the two objectives of organizational governance: performance and accountability.
When corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a sensemaking process is assessed from a corporate governance perspective, this implies that stakeholders do not only influence companies by promoting and enforcing regulations and other corporate guidelines. They also influence companies by promoting regulation on influence pathways, by demanding that companies develop formal mechanisms that allow companies and stakeholders to discuss and in some cases agree on changes to principles and policies. This perspective suggests that regulation is an outcome of power relations and is, as such, a reflection of certain mental models. As such, mental models reveal the political bias in corporate governance perspectives. For this reason, CSR research needs to be clear about the underlying assumptions about corporate governance, and corporate governance research needs to disclose which mental models of CSR influence the outcomes. Taking a governance perspective on the development of mental models of CSR helps to understand the interaction between CSR and processes of sensemaking at the institutional, organizational and individual levels.
Due to societal developments, like the introduction of the ‘civil society’, policy stimulating longer living at home and the separation of housing and care, the housing situation of older citizens is a relevant and pressing issue for housing-, governance- and care organizations. The current situation of living with care already benefits from technological advancement. The wide application of technology especially in care homes brings the emergence of a new source of information that becomes invaluable in order to understand how the smart urban environment affects the health of older people. The goal of this proposal is to develop an approach for designing smart neighborhoods, in order to assist and engage older adults living there. This approach will be applied to a neighborhood in Aalst-Waalre which will be developed into a living lab. The research will involve: (1) Insight into social-spatial factors underlying a smart neighborhood; (2) Identifying governance and organizational context; (3) Identifying needs and preferences of the (future) inhabitant; (4) Matching needs & preferences to potential socio-techno-spatial solutions. A mixed methods approach fusing quantitative and qualitative methods towards understanding the impacts of smart environment will be investigated. After 12 months, employing several concepts of urban computing, such as pattern recognition and predictive modelling , using the focus groups from the different organizations as well as primary end-users, and exploring how physiological data can be embedded in data-driven strategies for the enhancement of active ageing in this neighborhood will result in design solutions and strategies for a more care-friendly neighborhood.
The denim industry faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been especially criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. Reducing resource use of water, chemicals and energy and changing denim production practices calls for collaboration between various stakeholders, including competing denim brands. There is great benefit in combining denim brands’ resources and knowledge so that commonly defined standards and benchmarks are developed and realized on a scale that matters. Collaboration however, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to fail. This project brings leading denim brands together to collectively take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production, particularly by establishing measurements, benchmarks and standards for resource use (e.g. chemicals, water, energy) and creating best practices for effective collaboration. The central research question of our project is: How do denim brands effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability in denim production? To answer this question, we will use a mixed-method, action research approach. The project’s research setting is the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA), which has a strong denim cluster and is home to many international denim brands and start-ups.
Dit onderzoek richt zich op de relatie tussen ‘collaborative foresight’, ‘anticipatory governance’ en stakeholderprocessen. Dit binnen de context van Sociaal Ecologische Systemen (SES) en met name Nationaal Park Alde Feanen, dat zich wil (door)ontwikkelen tot een zgn. 'Nationaal Park Nieuwe Stijl' in lijn met het recente nationale beleidsprogramma 'Nationale Parken 2024-2030'. Het overkoepelende doel van deze PD is: te identificeren hoe gezamenlijke foresight-praktijken effectief moeten worden ingericht en opgevolgd, zodat hiermee de governance van natuurtoeristische bestemmingen, zoals het Nationaal Park Alde Feanen, wordt versterkt. Hierbij rekening houdend met complexe multi-stakeholder processen waarin dit plaatsvindt. Deze PD sluit aan bij een aantal grote transitie vraagstukken waar landelijke gebieden in Nederland mee te maken hebben rondom natuur, water, landbouw, energie, wonen en het evenwichtig gebruik van schaars beschikbare ruimte. De opgaven vragen om een integrale en gezamenlijke aanpak naar de toekomst. Het Leisure, Tourism en Hospitality (LTH) domein kan hierin een sleutelrol spelen als overkoepelende drager voor ruimtelijke transities, zo ook binnen het ‘Nationaal Park Alde Feanen Nieuwe Stijl’. Door middel van een kwalitatieve onderzoeksaanpak zal deze PD de voorwaarden, belemmeringen en kansen identificeren om toekomstvisies om te zetten in collectieve actie richting de toekomst van het Nationaal Park. Ook wil deze PD een prototype ontwerp ontwikkelen voor een zgn. 'Anticipatory Futures Stakeholder Lab'. Een soort ‘infrastructuur’ gericht op continue en gezamenlijke anticiperende activiteiten, om opvolging en invulling te geven aan de trajecten naar de toekomst. De onderzoeksuitkomsten kunnen actoren in het LTH-domein ondersteunen in deze transitieprocessen, specifiek in het (omliggende) Alde Feanen gebied. Het sluit aan bij hun ambities om als voorbeeld te dienen voor andere Nederlandse nationale parken. Theoretisch wil het onderzoek bijdragen aan innovatie van bestaande foresight methoden en aan het huidige academische discours over hoe ‘Foresight’ en ‘Anticipation’ samenhangen met 'Good Governance' van sociaal-ecologische systemen.
