Why do people and organizations do what they do?
Newton's First Law of Motion states that objects
continue to move in a state of constant velocity unless acted upon by an
external force. If there
is a change in motion, therefore, there must be a force acting upon the object,
and it is up to the physicist to find this force. Similarly, an actor acts for a reason and it
is up to the social scientist to find the
motivation for the actor’s moves.
In this blog entry I shall use two models to try and
explain a company’s decision to have wind turbines; the rational actor model
and the bounded rationality model.
The case is as follows; a big brewer decides to have
wind turbines placed on in one of the company’s production sites. The
motivation to do this is published in the company’s website:
Rational actor model
In the rational actor model,
actions are intentional, they can to a certain extent be explained from the
beliefs and desires of the actor. The action is optimal, given the actor’s
beliefs about the world. These beliefs are supported (as well as possible) by
evidence, which results from an optimal investment in information gathering.
(Elster, Explaining social behaviour, 2007)
Why have wind turbines?
The company that decides to have
wind turbines believes this is the best way to reduce its CO2
emission and at the same time improve its competitiveness. The first is supported
by the evidence given; the placement of four wind turbines results in more CO2
emission reduction than the other options shown. The memo does not give any
evidence how the wind turbines are improving the company’s competitiveness,
this information may be considered confidential. (In their sustainability
report the cost of wind energy is said to be close to the grid price,
suggesting that it is a little above the grid price)
Why have wind turbines in their production site?
The memo gives good reasons for
this choice; it is less expensive, it is more secure and it is approved of by
the authorities.
Why have four wind turbines instead of three or
five?
It is possible that four is the maximum
for the size of the site, but if three had been the technical maximum, would
the company have preferred the biogas plant? The memo only compares the
potential CO2 reduction, not the investment required.
Why not purchase renewable energy instead of
building wind turbines?
The same company’s brewery in ‘s
Hertogenbosch decided to purchase green energy (8% of the total energy consumption)
. The Zoeterwoude brewery could have done the same, but that option is not mentioned
in the memo. Why is that? It is hard to believe that this option was not
considered.
All the evidence presented
supports the decision made. However, it all started with the will become a ‘greener’
company (like just about every other company in the Western world) and look for
opportunities to achieve that goal. Once you desire to become ‘greener’, CO2 reduction is in the air.
Bounded reality at the organizational level
There are plenty of arguments for more
sustainability (I will not go further into that) but you will see them only
when you are willing to consider them. How does that happen? What is it that
makes companies turn ‘green’? The bounded rationality model, applied at an organizational
level (see Jones, 2003), can be used to explain this. This bounded rationality
model focuses on six aspects, (which will
be added in italics).
Organizations develop (more or
less) standard reactions to certain types of stimuli (organizational memory). In many companies the first reactions to
any idea will be questions such as; ‘will it generate a profit?’ and ‘Will it increase
our sales’ or ‘What will be the return on investment?’ Sustainable ideas are no
exception to this rule. They stand a much better chance if they are not only beneficial
to the planet or the people but also to the company. Renewable energy must have a trade off in terms
of cost down or image up. Renewable energy from wind turbines on the brewery
site may have both. Purchasing renewable energy may be a lot easier to arrange,
but it is much less visible to the general public. The image effect will be
nil.
In hard times for the company the
management focus will be on survival. Sustainability will not be very high on the
agenda (agenda setting). When all
processes are under control and the company is making a decent profit, such plans
stand a much better chance.
Once the idea of a sustainable
plant has been embraced, different ideas for improvement may have been
generated (parallel processing),offering
a choice of options.
Once the wind turbine plan has
been approved and launched this will require available resources in manpower
and money, so that other ideas such as the biogas plant may have to wait till a
later date (serial processing).
A project such as the wind
turbines is not accepted solely on logical grounds. It can trigger positive and
negative sensations (emotional contagion).
Having a project like this may give the people involved a feeling of great achievement.
Employees of the brewery may feel
a sense of pride of their company striving for a better future (identification), which may have a
positive effect on their attitude.
Exercise; build an Environmental Management System
Last week we simulated the development
of an Environmental Management System in class. We were divided into small
groups representing different departments in a company. We were asked to
develop a vision of environmental
excellence and to make lists of both information
that we needed from other departments and useful information that we could supply
to other departments. I was in the production department.
It was not so difficult to agree
on the vision of environmental excellence in a production department. Less
waste and less energy consumption are core business for production. It was far
more difficult to define de boundaries of our responsibility. In our opinion
(based on the basic information we had) the company should diversify its
business, but who is to decide on that? Is
it Production?
I work for a manufacturing company
and similar discussions occur between the various departments. The result so far;
other departments may advise but production is to decide.
One thing was clear from this exercise;
the first step in starting an EMS is the definition on each party’s responsibilities.
Crying out in a wilderness of noise
I wonder if mentioning a brewery
will increase the number of people reading my blog.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten