Organization Strategy and Social Responsibility
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37886/Keywords:
systemic behavior, dialectical systems theory, social responsibility, strategy, strategic management, organizationAbstract
Research Question (RQ): Social responsibility is a necessary and natural value to persons with a rather long-term and holistic thinking, but an obstacle against profit to persons with a rather short-term and one-sided thinking. What orientation does a (business) organization select, depends of its business strategy. We will detect how enterprises can use systemic behavior in this process in order to attain more innovativeness, including the synergy of business processes, if they apply a socially responsible strategy.
Purpose: To discover what synergy of business processes make the organization or society obliged and able to apply a requisitely holistic, i.e. systemic and doable strategy in order to attain a success while considering everything essential. This need requires the organization to act systemically, i.e. with a requisite holism supported with social responsibility.
Method: We are using a comparative analysis of theoretical findings and developing a conceptual model. Mulej's Dialectical Systems Theory is a method with which the organization can more easily overcome one-sidedness and come closer to the requisite holism of working.
Results: The organization must find its way in terms of development without a quantitative growth that destroys preconditions for the humankind's existence by extracting the final rather than permanent natural resources. Obviously, the way out from the current global crisis requires the bureaucratic type of behavior to be replaced with cooperative and developing type of strategy that supports social responsibility and hence the systemic behavior.
Organization: In their practice, managers and organizations will have act requisitely holistically, and to replace the bureaucratic organization with a non-bureaucratic and flexible organization. Namely, only a flexible organization is capable of a long-term development and socially responsible behavior. For this aim, one must attain the capability of encouraging the invention-innovation-diffusion processes leading to innovation, if they are successful.
Society: The contemporary over-specialization is currently deepening rather than providing room to a requisite holism, interdependence and social responsibility. This generated the current global socio-economic crisis. The latter threats to increase into the third World War that has already been running for a century and a half under the label of the war on terrorism and causes nearly a hundred million people to leave their homes and/or into a very poor life; it has also killed millions. An interdisciplinary creative cooperation is capable of solving the crisis, if it applies social responsibility. The latter influences both the society and the planet Earth without neglecting the responsibility toward the owners and their right to have an economically efficient business of their organizations.
Originality: United Nations, International Standards Organization, European Union and several international associations of enterprises see the way out from the current crisis in social responsibility (of organizations) that is briefly described in ISO 26000 (ISO, 2010) as everyone's responsibility for their influence over humans and nature, i.e. society. The organizations realize it with their politics, strategies, tactics and operations, once they support the triangle 'social responsibility – interdependence – holism' as their values, culture, ethics, and norms of action in their practice.
Limitations / Future Research: This research is limited to its theoretical part. It includes only the above theories, principles and recommendations. A big share of our empirical investigation is visible in our publication from the recent four years (12 books, 3 thematic issues of journals on systems theory, 4 conference proceedings, six doctoral dissertation, 15 master theses, articles, etc.).
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