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How Much is Not Enough: Corporate Social Responsibility and Beyond in the Resources Sector

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New paper co-authored with Caroline Veldhuizen, Wasana Bandara, and Artemis Chang has been published in Resources Policy.

Highlights

  • CSR practices are comprised of stakeholder engagement and operational activities.
  • A holistic framework based upon extant literature enhances analysis of CSR practices.
  • Pursuit of social licence to operate has impacts at both surface and deeper levels.
  • The appearance of a lot of CSR activity is often ‘not enough’.
  • Reflection and learning are crucial to improve responses to diverse stakeholders.

To access the paper, please click here [LINK]

Abstract

The resources sector is increasingly being called upon to show greater commitment to resolving environmental and social problems prevalent in the regions where they operate. Appeals for greater responsibility, accountability and transparency are getting louder. Consequently, enterprises’ responses to these demands have been the subject of discussion and debate for decades. Theoretical and empirical knowledge regarding these issues has been generated by numerous case studies and evaluations of different approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Critiques of approaches adopted by companies to obtain social license to operate are also plentiful. However, the existing discourse is scattered. It lacks a coherent frame of reference for considering the ways that corporations respond to diverse stakeholder demands and the consequences for value creation. This paper addresses this gap by integrating key insights drawn from the extant literature to develop a novel conceptual framework. It provides a unique perspective on the ways that companies create social, environmental, and economic value for diverse groups of stakeholders, and how this may be improved. This theoretical contribution is accompanied by the creation of a sense-making device that facilitates reflection, learning and the development of strategy. The device can be used by organizations to enhance their capacity to respond to diverse stakeholder groups in ways that bestow real, enduring benefits.

 

Organizational robustness: A conceptual framework

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New paper co-authored with Yancong Xie and Mohammad Jabbari published in Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.

On organizational robustness: A conceptual framework

Understanding robustness and how organizations can configure and adapt is fundamental for their survival. In this paper, we build on the general system theory to conceptualize the underlying mechanisms of organizational robustness. We propose a framework that defines the fundamental notions and typologies of robustness— instrumental, structural, and cognitive robustness. We define mechanisms for these three categories of robustness as strategical mechanisms, functional mechanisms, and infrastructure mechanisms, and we explain how these mechanisms enable proactive, structured, or agile organizational responses to predictable and unpredictable crises.

To access the article [LINK]

Digital Transformation in the Resource and Energy Sectors

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New paper co-authored with Parisa Maroufkhani, Robert K.Perrons, and Mohammad Iranmanesh published in Resources Policy.

The forces of digital transformation have delivered significant benefits like sustainable development and economic growth in a range of early adopter industries such as retail and manufacturing but, despite these potential benefits, the resource and energy sectors have been relative latecomers to digitalization simply because they are frequently slower to absorb new technologies. Here we present the results of a systematic literature review identifying the ways in which digital technologies have been applied in the oil and gas, mining, and energy domains. We applied content and descriptive analysis to evaluate and discuss 151 academic articles selected from the Scopus database. Two particularly interesting trends emerge from the analysis. First, over 75% of the papers were about the energy sector excluding the oil & gas industry, and only a small minority were from the mining or oil & gas sectors. Second, the most frequently discussed objective of digital transformation was the reduction of operational expenses. By surveying the different ways in which these innovations have been used in these industries and identifying trends and patterns in how digital technologies have been applied, the findings of this review deepen our understanding of the current state of digital technologies within the resource and energy sectors and, in so doing, shine a useful amount of light on the contributions that digital transformation has made to businesses in these sectors. This paper also highlights for future scholars, practitioners, and policymakers the six research areas that they should focus on in the future to help the resource and energy sectors accelerate the digital transformation process and improve their ability to deliver value with these innovations.

To access the article, please click [LINK]

International Dialogue: Emerging Technology for Response and Recovery

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In a post-pandemic world, homeland security and border control agencies are being tasked with transforming how they respond and operate in a highly digitalized environment, while ensuring safety and prosperity of citizens and country.

Critical challenges that agencies face include the increasing volume of incidents and emergencies, overly complex trade and immigration processes, and evolving threats to borders and customs. Governments can leverage data, AI, intelligent automation, and other emerging technologies to address these complex challenges—while also freeing up critical human resources for high value missions.

To address these key issues, the IBM Center for The Business of Government hosted an international dialogue in September 2021 attended by CIOs and IT leaders with the Australia Department of Home Affairs, the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection. These three dynamic leaders engaged in an interactive dialogue, joined by nearly 50 attendees from across the globe.

I draw on this discussion to produce a report providing keen insights about leveraging technologies to improve operations and security across borders. Participants addressed supply chain assurance, opening borders amidst the global fight against COVID-19, and the role of data, AI, and other technologies to support border security. The wide-ranging discussion also touched on addressing the needs of the future, anticipating new threats, and developing response strategies. These strategies—which rest on hybrid, multi-cloud environments—include operational capabilities that can stand up “on demand” to address rapidly shifting threats.

To read the report, please click here.

Surfacing and Responding to Paradoxical Tensions in Megascale Projects

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New paper co-authored with Anna Wiewiora published in International Journal of Project Management.

Surfacing and Responding Paradoxes in Megascale Projects

Megaprojects can deliver significant social and economic benefits. However, megaprojects are challenging to manage. They involve multiple stakeholders across various sectors and deliver novel and complex solutions that often require decision makers to deal with persisting tensions to balance conflicting demands. Hence, it is critical to pay attention to paradoxical tensions – contradictory and interrelated elements of the project that persist over time. Employing a systematic literature review, we elicit and catalogue seven categories of paradoxical tensions in megaprojects and outline approaches to manage these tensions discussed in the existing literature. We then propose a future research agenda for studying paradoxical tensions in megaprojects.

To access the article, please click this [LINK]

Smart Governance in the Contemporary Era: Journal of Urban Affairs

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Naim Kapucu (University of Central Florida), Jiannan Wu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University), and I have co-edited a special issue of Journal of Urban Affairs on smart governance in the contemporary era.

In the 21st century, we have seen an increase in activity around making cities “smarter” and “intelligent” through the creative application of information systems. In an ideal world, a smarter (and intelligent) city should be able to leverage data in real time to increase its situational awareness, thereby enabling effective and efficient decision-making at the individual, organizational, and collective levels to advance its goals of resilience, sustainability, and livability. From a design, planning, policy, and implementation perspective, however, our theoretical and empirical knowledge on smart cities is limited. One reason for this is the simple fact that the term smart city is nebulous. Some use the term smart city to highlight advances in sustainability and greening of the city, while others use the term to portray infusion of information via technologies to better the lives of citizens that reside in these spaces. Even others consider the presence of a high level of citizen engagement in the design and governance of the space as a key attribute of smarter cities. It is our pleasure to put forth five papers as part of this special issue on smart governance across cities in the contemporary era. The papers provide guidelines for cities to consider for designing and managing smart communities.

To access the issue, please click [LINK]

Urban Heat Islands – Sustainable Cities and Society

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Kenan Degirmenci, Walter Fieuw, Richard T. Watson, Tan Yigitcanlar, and I have an article in Sustainable Cities and Society.

Policy and technology responses to increased temperatures in urban heat islands (UHIs) are discussed in a variety of research; however, their interaction is overlooked and understudied. This is an important oversight because policy and technology are often developed in isolation of each other and not in conjunction. Therefore, they have limited synergistic effects when aimed at solving global issues. To examine this aspect, we conducted a systematic literature review and synthesised 97 articles to create a conceptual structuring of the topic. We identified the following categories: (a) evidence base for policymaking including timescale analysis, effective policymaking instruments as well as decision support and scenario planning; (b) policy responses including landscape and urban form, green and blue area ratio, albedo enhancement policies, transport modal split as well as public health and participation; (c) passive technologies including green building envelopes and development of cool surfaces; and (d) active technologies including sustainable transport as well as energy consumption, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and waste heat. Based on the findings, we present a framework to guide future research in analysing UHI policy and technology responses more effectively in conjunction with each other.

To access the article, click [LINK]

Situation Awareness for Incident Response – Computers & Security

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New article in Computers and Security.

How can organizations develop situation awareness for incident response: A case study of management practice

Organized, sophisticated and persistent cyber-threat-actors pose a significant challenge to large, high-value organizations. They are capable of disrupting and destroying cyber infrastructures, denying organizations access to IT services, and stealing sensitive information including intellectual property, trade secrets and customer data. Past research points to Situation Awareness as critical to effective response. However, most research has focused on the technological perspective with comparatively less focus on the practice perspective. We therefore present an in-depth case study of a leading financial organization with a well-resourced and mature incident response capability that has evolved as a result of experiences with past attacks. Our contribution is a process model that explains how organizations can practice situation awareness of the cyber-threat landscape and the broad business context in incident response.

To access the article, please click [LINK].

Pathways to the Making of Prosperous Smart Cities

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New paper published with M. Hunter, B. Jacob, and T. Yigitcanlar in Journal of Urban Technology.

Pathways to the Making of Prosperous Smart Cities: An Exploratory Study on the Best Practice

In this paper, we examine the understudied issue of the pathways to smart cities. While the extant literature on smart cities offers several insights into what smart cities are, with a few notable exceptions, it has less to say about how they come to be. With this latter question in mind, we identify three pathways to smart cities: (1) a greenfield development pathway, (2) a neighborhood development pathway, and (3) a platform-oriented platform. Drawing on nine different case studies, we offer some insights into the way in which each of these pathways is, more or less, able to realize the desired smart-city objectives. While exploratory in nature, the study offers unique insights into the pathways to smart cities as well as areas for future research.

To access the paper, please click [here].