Growing Business Challenges (Asynchronous Session)
Technological Progress?: Technology and Inclusivity Concerns among Employees Across the Globe View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cristen Dalessandro
In the contemporary workplace, inclusivity is an ongoing effort. However, the increasing reliance on technology in the workplace—especially since 2020—has left further questions regarding whether the utilization of technology itself might hurt, or help, inclusion efforts. Thus, using an original dataset with employees across six continents (N = 9,289), we conducted multinomial logistic regression analysis to explore employee opinions regarding whether they believe technology will help their organization be more inclusive. We considered how gender, sexual identity, and “minority” status might matter for employee perceptions, as these groups have been historically marginalized in the workplace. Relative to those who agreed with the statement, we found that employees identifying as transgender (RRR 2.19; 95%CI 1.18-4.04), or as a “minority,” broadly defined (RRR 1.28; 95%CI 1.07-1.52) were significantly more likely to disagree regarding the propensity of technology to help with inclusion along with employees surveyed in Australia (RRR 1.67; 95%CI 1.20-2.32), Europe (RRR 1.80; 95%CI 1.44-2.22), and North America (RRR 1.48; 95%CI 1.18-1.86). While the sample is one of convenience (and subject to errors associated with convenience sampling), these results suggest that employees in Western countries—along with those identifying as transgender or as a minority—are more skeptical of the claim that technology can positively impact inclusion. While technology can potentially advance inclusion efforts, it likely falls short of offering a comprehensive solution to inclusion issues in organizations.
Epigenetic Memetics in Organizational Culture, Learning, and Memory: Expanding on the Darwinian Perspective View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brad Kleindl, William Kleindl
Memetic theory offers a compelling framework for understanding social and organizational change in response to a dynamic environment. This paper introduces epigenetic biological entity response mechanisms as a form of organizational memetic response to environmental stressors. Darwinian evolution accounts for heredity through generational advantages from slight genetic (DNA) variation to overcome stresses within environmental conditions. In the early Twentieth Century, the concept of epigenetics arose to address the complex relationship between genotype and phenotype. In dynamic environments, epigenetics can explain intra-generational phenotypic switching resulting from how existing DNA is read and expressed, rather than changes to the DNA sequence itself. Epigenetic responses have a number of advantages for species survival over Darwinian evolution alone. Here we expand on the existing Darwinian perspective of memetic theory by introducing epigenetic mechanisms as a form of organizational memetic response to environmental stressors. Organizations have robust learning mechanisms that inform responses to environmental conditions through organizational culture and associated memories and knowledge structures. When tapping memory, organizations rely upon individuals, directories, and subcultures. If organizations follow a Darwinian evolution process, this memory would rely on fixed institutional (genetic) responses. Which, with a miss-match to the environment, can result in extinction (institutional failure). An epigenetic response model allows for a more robust and rapid response to environmental stressors by purposefully tapping into existing organizational memory structures to provide entity responses. As with biological entities, organizations can also revert to previous processes by “sunsetting” epigenetic responses when the environmental stressors diminish.
Featured Examining How Hospitals Introduce Artificial Intelligence to Achieve Healthcare Transformation: An Institutional Logic Perspective View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chen Hao Huang
Artificial intelligence (AI), which is reshaping the resource landscape by detecting patterns and structuring new rules within the medical industry, has been recognized as the latest disruptive innovation wave in the healthcare industry. However, that has also caused a contradiction, which is between the quantificationism logic and medical professionalism logic. To combine co-existing logics within a healthcare organization, this study adopts a hybrid perspective as a theoretical lens to explore the balancing mechanisms. Specifically, we conducted our research through an in-depth case study of Taiwanese healthcare organization's intelligent healthcare enactment practices. This research delivers a practical-oriented hybrid balancing model with multi-dimension mechanisms to tackle dual institutional logics, including valuable data standard establishment, securable information interface design, and dynamic intelligent service development. This study extends our understanding of intelligent hospital development by examining the balance between AI techniques and professional medical service.
Leadership, Organizations, and Biomemetics: Implementing Sustainability and Equity through Indigenous Spirituality and its Connection with Nature View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Antonio Jimenez Luque
Recently, organization and leadership studies have started to apply a biomimetics perspective. This paper reviews some of these studies and proposes to transcend Western canons of academia focusing on the knowledge and spirituality of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities around the world have been implementing biomimetic approaches for thousands of years from which we can learn to deepen the investigation of biomimetics. Finally, the review concludes by proposing a holistic approach of spiritual leadership that connects people and nature to create more sustainable and equitable organizations.
The Normative Framework of Business Ethics in Peru: Progress and Challenges View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mario Marcello Pasco-Dalla-Porta, Levy Del Aguila Marchena
In developing countries, the field of business ethics has acquired increasing salience in the last two decades, not only for keeping pace with the ethical practices applied in North America and Europe, but also for addressing the recurring problems of corruption and corporate wrongdoing that affects most industries. Accordingly, many firms have revised their strategic approach so as to include an ethical stand, and have developed internal instruments (such as policies, codes, and statements of principles) to regulate their relationships with internal and external stakeholders. The purpose of this research is to examine the development of the ethical normative framework in the top companies in Peru. The research methodology includes the structured observation of the websites of 365 firms randomly selected out of the top 10,000, and the in-depth examination (through interviews and documentary analysis) of eleven cases of leading companies in several key industries. The analysis revealed that only a minority of firms have updated the corporate mission and vision with an ethical perspective, and have actually developed codes of ethics or conduct, though an important number of them have devised related policies. The study also examines the main ethical principles addressed in these instruments, and explores relevant differences across industries. This research conveys valuable implications for scholars, considering the lack of studies on ethical practices in the country, and it may also be useful for managers, as it elucidates the different challenges that involves the development and implementation of these frameworks.
