Project Responsible Organisation
2
Lecture 1, 01-02-2023
World gets better in several aspects
- Minder kindersterfte
- Minder slavernij
World gets worse in several aspects
- Corona
- Oorlog
- Uitstoot
Climate change as “crisis multiplier”
Business organization and its role in sustainability
- Impacts to various aspects in society, social, environmental (some help, some generate
pollution), technological and political.
Responsible organizations
- Responsible organizing as multiple creation for stakeholders
- Not focus on single objective like profit maximization or shareholder value creation
- Social & environmental conscience
Stakeholder theory
“Stakeholder Theory is a view of capitalism that stresses the interconnected relationships between a
business and its customers, suppliers, employees, investors, communities and others who have a
stake in the organization. The theory argues that a firm should create value for all stakeholders, not
just shareholders.”
- Stakeholder influenced by organization, but stakeholder also has an impact on organization
- Stakeholder = any group/individual who can affect or is affected by organization
How to take this into account? Integrated reporting
- Look at different values that are created/destroyed by organization
- How organization interact with external stakeholders
,The system lens
- A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that
achieves something. System always has a purpose.
- System approach
o Trying to see the greater whole.
o Interrelations
o Feedback: closed chains of causal connections
o Non-linearities, delays
Basic building blocks
Stock = accumulation point
Stock company bijv. datastorage
Positive and negative feedback loops
- Positive feedback loop
o Initial increase in A leads to further increase in A
o Initial decrease in A leads to further decrease in A
More chickens, more eggs
- Negative feedback loop
o An initial increase in A leads to a further decrease of A
o An initial decrease in A leads to a further increase of A
, Small increase in sugar level in body, body creates insulin, sugar level
decreases
Example stocks (units between brackets)
- Inventory (products)
- Production capacity (euro)
- Workforce (full-time equivalents)
- Reputation (net promoter score)
- Products in use
- Employment
- Air quality
- Environmental
Lecture 2, 15-2-2023, Basics of System Dynamics
System and System Thinking
How do parts of organization work together, how to they interact? How can this lead to responsible
organization?
System & System thinking
A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves
something. (TIS p 12)
System Thinking: a perspective, a language, and a set of tools
- Holistic & integrative vs analytic & dissective
- Causality, unintended consequence, non-linearlity, self organization, emergence, etc
- Example of tools: Causal Loop Diagram, Stock and Flow diagram, behavior-over-time graphs,
System Dynamics modelling, etc.