Corporate Culture and Environmental Practice
Making Change at a High-Technology Manufacturer
Jennifer Howard-Grenville author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd
Published:30th Jun '09
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This innovative book explores from an insider's perspective a company's environmental decisions and actions. Based on close observation at a major semiconductor manufacturer, Jennifer Howard-Grenville details how the company's culture - revealed through its internal practices, decisions, and norms - guided action on environmental issues.
While demonstrating gaps between the mainstream work of the company and the demands placed by environmental considerations, the author's analysis demonstrates how differences were negotiated over time, offering important insights into the processes of change that can advance environmental issues within a company. Her unique viewpoint offers an important addition to current research, which often explains companies' environmental actions solely as responses to external pressures.
Scholars of organizational culture and those at the intersection of business and environmental issues will find this study of great value. The challenges and opportunities surrounding the 'greening' of corporations will also interest members of companies at all levels, as well as consultants and members of non-governmental organizations. The book is written to be accessible and engaging to managers interested in making changes around environmental issues and offers a realistic assessment of the challenges and prospects for such change.
'Jennifer Howard-Grenville has put together a timely and sparkling narrative of environmental advocacy within a highly successful, well managed and technically sophisticated organization. Corporate Culture and Environmental Practice is rich in ethnographic detail and wonderfully telling of the struggles structurally marginalized environmental specialists take part in when trying to balance immediate cost, schedule and production targets with long-term social and environmental risks. A blend of Mary Douglas, Karl Weick and Charles Perrow, this is a must read for students of organizations as well as the rest of us who worry about the fate of the planet.' -- John Van Maanen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US
'Jennifer Howard-Grenville has hit the nail on the head - technology is not the cause of our environmental problems; culture is. In Corporate Culture and Environmental Practice, she deftly shows us that the norms and practices that guide the way we think about our relationship with the natural environment are the critical point at which to understand the development of the technologies that facilitate that interface. Written from first-hand experiences, this book is a thoughtful and revealing glimpse into the culture of a company that only an accomplished organizational scholar can provide.' -- Andrew J. Hoffman, University of Michigan, US
'Corporate Culture and Environmental Practice is an outstanding study that looks inside a firm to understand conditions under which it adopted superior environmental practices. It makes a persuasive case for not modeling firms as unitary actors. This careful and well-written study will be useful to both environmental policy scholars and practitioners.' -- Aseem Prakash, University of Washington, US
'This book breaks new ground in understanding the generally difficult process of selling peripheral, in this case, environmental or sustainability initiatives to the mainstream culture of a firm. To those who seek to be change agents, it offers powerful ideas toward success for such intentions. But this book is not only for those on the "outside" of the mainstream; it offers lessons for anyone seeking change, even at the top.' -- John R. Ehrenfeld, former Director, MIT Technology, Business, and Environment Program, US
ISBN: 9781848445710
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
176 pages