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Contribution Details
| Type | Conference Presentation |
| Scope | Discipline-based scholarship |
| Title | "Making sense of decoupling through narration: The case of fighting corruption in global business." |
| Organization Unit | |
| Authors |
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| Presentation Type | paper |
| Item Subtype | Original Work |
| Refereed | Yes |
| Status | Published electronically before print/final form (Epub ahead of print) |
| Language |
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| Event Title | Society for Business Ethics (SBE) Annual Meeting |
| Event Type | conference |
| Event Location | Vancouver (Canada) |
| Event Start Date | August 7 - 2015 |
| Event End Date | August 9 - 2015 |
| Abstract Text | Previous organizational research on decoupling has suggested a trade-off between compliance and goal achievement. In this debate, compliance refers to remedying decoupling of policies and practices, while goal achievement is about remedying decoupling of means and ends. A deeper analysis of different types of decoupling is particularly relevant in the context of globalization: multinational companies (MNCs) operate in complex institutional environments and balance different expectations with regard to socio-environmental governance. Extant research on the trade-off between compliance and goal achievement has neglected the spatiotemporal process of sensemaking by which the meaning of compliance and achievement is negotiated in the heterogeneous settings of global business. Taking a qualitative analytical approach we examine the evolution of anti-corruption policies at Siemens and theorize on how different anti-corruption narratives develop over time at different locations and how they are linked to each other. We explore the co-existence of alternative narratives—‘compliance despite non-achievement’ vs. ‘noncompliance as means for achievement’—and their relationship that is moderated by a ‘collective action’ narrative. Actors perceive this coexistence as not static but instead make sense of the future through a ‘progress as achievement’ narrative. Our interview data shows that through narration, actors develop a shared understanding of what it means to be compliant and through narration, means and ends are reciprocally typified. Our study contributes to decoupling research by examining the ideational underpinnings of the compliance-achievement gap. |
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