Papers by Giuseppe Delmestri
Personal sustainability practices, 2021
Organization and management scholars are a relatively privileged group compared with colleagues f... more Organization and management scholars are a relatively privileged group compared with colleagues from many other disciplines. Yet this privilege is created upon-and perpetuates-an economic system that is unequal, unjust, and unsustainable, one that destroys the basis of our livelihood through climate destruction and biodiversity loss. We propose that reforming the 16 economy requires a revision in organizational and managerial knowledge: in response, we created Organization Scientists for Future (OS4Future). The prefiguring role model we offer in business schools is especially important, given our influence on future business leaders who will either maintain or change the economy. We present here the foundation, first actions and challenges of the OS4Future movement with the hope of attracting additional advocates and spurring imitation by other scholars.
Research handbook of sustainability agency, 2021
Public outcry over environmental issues has taken on stellar proportions in the past few years. W... more Public outcry over environmental issues has taken on stellar proportions in the past few years. We currently witness an intense struggle over meaning around climate change between eco- nomic, political and civil society actors and it is not clear which narrative will win (Augenstein & Palzkill, 2016). Conceptualizations range from populist views of climate denialism (Brulle, 2014) to neoliberal views of technological progress and faith in the efficiency of capital markets (Ekins, 2000), and from idealist views of mobilization and the potential for positive disruptive change of the climate movement (Buttel, 2003; Della Porta & Parks, 2013) to critical realist apocalyptic views (Bendell, 2018, 2020) which call for deep adaptation to the probable (if not inevitable) breakdown of industrial consumer societies. All these narratives are advanced by a variety of social movement organizations (SMOs). Social movements, in brief, “are one of the principal social forms through which collectivities give voice to their grievances and concerns about the rights, welfare, and well-being of themselves and others by engaging in various types of collective action” (Snow, Soule & Kriesi, 2004: 3).
In this chapter we focus on such civil society actors and their agency for sustainable organ- izing because their influence has been significantly amplified over recent years, and these organizations increasingly attract scholarly interest across academic disciplines. Indeed, next to the growing attention in management and organization studies (den Hond & de Bakker, 2007; Soule & King, 2015; Yaziji & Doh, 2013), environmental sociologists have suggested that social movements and activism may be “the most fundamental pillars” of environmental reform (Buttel, 2003: 306). The links between social movements and climate concerns, for instance, are regularly studied (Caniglia, Brulle & Szasz, 2015; McAdam, 2017), attributing an important role to SMOs in shaping and influencing debates around climate change. Our focus on SMOs spans a variety of initiatives of collective action to advance environmental concerns, even though in practice many movements nowadays focus specifically on the grand challenge around climate change. Examples include Fridays for Future, 350.org, transition towns, buen vivir and Extinction Rebellion. In this chapter, we provide a subjective review of the organizational literature on sustainability SMOs, building on a set of articles about sustainability social movements over the past decade. To contextualize this overview, we first offer a brief overview of the SMO field more generally, which has developed in organizational analysis since the late 1990s.
I processi di cambiamento organizzativo presentano tassi di fallimento elevati sia riguardo ai ri... more I processi di cambiamento organizzativo presentano tassi di fallimento elevati sia riguardo ai risultati pratici sia al benessere delle persone coinvolte. Sostengo qui che la causa principale sia la scissione presente nella letteratura e nella pratica tra progettazione e cambiamento organizzativo. Propongo un approccio socio-tecnicoistituzionale di progettazione organizzativa del cambiamento (approccio STI-POC), in cui il termine "progettazione" denota il carattere finalistico proiettato nel futuro, il temine "cambiamento" quello processuale, il termine "tecnico" l'ancoraggio in seppur astratte regole di progettazione che tengano conto in modo euristico dei concetti portanti la teoria organizzativa, il termine "socio" i bisogni, gli interessi e le reti di relazione esistenti nello specifico contesto d'azione, e il termine "istituzionale" i contesti e i flussi di significati variamente legittimanti che vincolano e creano opportunità all'azione organizzativa.
Organization Studies, 2020
Category research has flourished over the last decade. While this body of work has prioritized th... more Category research has flourished over the last decade. While this body of work has prioritized the behavioral and economic consequences of stable classification systems, the papers in this special issue challenge this orientation by highlighting the importance of category dynamics for improving our understanding of markets and fields. We show how these papers support the emergence of category maintenance, the recategorization of mature categories, and the consolidation of new categories as understudied phenomena and as the next research challenges to pursue. After connecting the main findings of the papers in this special issue into a unified process model, we discuss various alternative pathways to further explore those challenges. We also point to how this theoretical endeavor runs on slippery slopes and might lead to cul-de-sacs such as terminological balkanization. We conclude by highlighting the need for developing a more comprehensive understanding of category dynamics.
Studi Organizzativi, 2019
This transcript of a video interview is divided in three parts: Introduction, La vita è bella and... more This transcript of a video interview is divided in three parts: Introduction, La vita è bella and La vita è folle. In the Introduction, Giuseppe Delmestri presents James (Jim) March with the 1st Italian Organization Science Award on behalf of the Italian organization studies scholars (who soon after will gather in ASSIOA) and talks of what connects him intellectually to Italy.
In “La vita è bella” Jim March talks about fundamental questions in organization and management theory, like the relationship between practical and theoretical knowledge, the importance of organization studies for psychology, sociology, political science and economics, the proper name for our field, future big and small ideas, the role our discipline could play in solving big issues such as poverty and climate change, and concludes with the importance of beauty in life – therefore the title.
In “La vita è folle”, Jim March talks more personally about his career and life: the serendipity and ‘foolishness’ in his career; his encounters with European scholars; about how “almost everything can be a rewarding experience” depending on our attitude; why academics should not be mentors or protégées and students should be independent; how working on manuscripts needs “endless rewriting” and what the right identity and motivation are to start an academic career.
Chancen und Grenzen der Nachhaltigkeitstransformation, 2019
Vegaphobie: Ein Hindernis auf dem Weg zur Nachhaltigkeit, der Beitrag von Regine Bendl, Giuseppe ... more Vegaphobie: Ein Hindernis auf dem Weg zur Nachhaltigkeit, der Beitrag von Regine Bendl, Giuseppe Delmestri und Petr Kudelka, thematisiert die gesellschaftliche Diskriminierung von Veganismus als ein wichtiges und unterschätztes Transformations- hindernis. Die Autorin und die Autoren betonen den Status des Veganismus als weltan- schauliche Lebensphilosophie, deren Relevanz weit über die eines gesellschaftlichen „Modethemas“ hinausgeht. Diese Philosophie, so argumentieren sie, ist massiver Stig- matisierung und Diskriminierung ausgesetzt. Hierzu werden internationale Studien vorgestellt, aber auch Alltagserfahrungen aus Österreich präsentiert. Gründe für die Diskriminierung von Veganismus werden ebenso dargestellt wie praktische Konsequen- zen. Dabei geht es um die rechtliche Anerkennung von Veganismus als Weltanschauung, die Beziehung der Thematik zum Diversity Management sowie um die potenzielle Vorreiterrolle von Universitäten, denen die Autorin und die Autoren eine wichtige Signalfunktion zusprechen. Es wird deutlich, dass schon aus ökologischen Gründen der Veganismus ein wichtiger Beitrag zur Nachhaltigkeitstransformation sein kann, der nicht behindert, sondern gefördert werden sollte. (von Fred Luks)
Kostova, Roth and Dacin called in 2008 for the advancement of a theoretical conception of the mul... more Kostova, Roth and Dacin called in 2008 for the advancement of a theoretical conception of the multinational corporation (MNC) that takes into account both power relationships among actors and the structure of its internal institutional field. While micro-political scholars of MNCs have started to answer the former part of the call regarding power, the second part has not been thoroughly addressed yet. Furthermore, the agentic aspects typical of power games and the structural aspects characterizing institutional fields have not been fully combined in a multilevel perspective of MNCs so far. Leaning on Bourdieu, we suggest an answer to the pending call. We theorize the MNC as a playing field of power emerging around the issue of finding a meta-rate of conversion of the actors' capitals constituted in national fields. We conceive such issue field in a dynamic state due to the constant entry and exit of new players (e.g. through mergers, acquisitions or divestitures) and, hence, there is a need to continuously test the validity of exchange rates. The role of the metainstitutional field level of the MNC as a global category is also discussed.
While there has been increased attention to emotions and institutions, the role of denial and rep... more While there has been increased attention to emotions and institutions, the role of denial and repression of emotions has been overlooked. We argue that not only the expression and the feeling of emotions, but also their control through denial contribute to stabilize institutional orders. The role denial plays is that of avoiding the emergence of disruptive emotions that might motivate a challenge to the status quo. Reflecting on the example of the livestock industry, we propose a theoretical model that identifies seeds for change in denied emotional contradictions in an integration of the cultural-relational and issue-based conceptions of organizational fields.
Using a case study of the Italian spirit grappa, we examine status recategorization—the vertical ... more Using a case study of the Italian spirit grappa, we examine status recategorization—the vertical extension and reclassification of an entire market category. Grappa was historically a low-status product, but in the 1970s one regional distiller took steps that led to a radical break from its traditional image, so that in just over a decade high-quality grappa became an exemplar of cultured Italian lifestyle and held a market position in the same class as cognac and whisky. We use this context to articulate ''theorization by allusion,'' which occurs through three mechanisms: category detachment—distancing a social object from its existing category; category emulation—presenting that object so that it hints at the practices of a high-status category; and category sublimation—shifting from local, field-specific references to broader, societal-level frames. This novel theorization is particularly appropriate for explaining change from low to high status because it avoids resistance to and contesta-tion of such change (by customers, media, and other sources) as a result of status imperatives, which may be especially strong in mature fields. Unlike prior studies that have examined the status of organizations within a category, ours foregrounds shifts in the status and social meaning of a market category itself.
Through a comparative historical study of community pharmacy in the UK, Italy, Sweden and the USA... more Through a comparative historical study of community pharmacy in the UK, Italy, Sweden and the USA, the authors examine what happens to institutional arrangements designed to resolve ongoing conflicts between institutional logics over extended periods of time. It is found that institutional arrangements can reflect the heterogeneity of multiple logics without resulting in hybridization or dominance. Because logics remain active, similar conflicts can reappear multiple times. It is found that the durability of the configurations of competing logics reflects the characteristics of the polities in which fields are embed- ded. The dominance of any societal institutional order leads to more stable field-level arrangements. The authors suggest that the metaphor of institutional knots and the re- lated image of institutional knotting are useful to capture aspects of this dynamic and to foreground the discursive and material work that allows multiple logics to coexist in local arrangements with variable durability.
Status orders are critically important – yet shifts in the status and social meaning of a market ... more Status orders are critically important – yet shifts in the status and social meaning of a market category and of the organizations associated with it have been little investigated. In particular, there is limited understanding of how a deeply institutionalized low status category might extend its reach to high status positions. Instead, most studies have examined the status of organizations within a category. Status recategorization - i.e. the vertical extension and reclassification of an entire category, involving the displacement of deeply institutionalized cognitive understandings and their associated socio-cultural practices, has been neglected. Applying qualitative methods to a case study of grappa in Italy, we theorize how status recategorization might occur in mature contexts where the exigencies of status imperatives are pressingly felt. Our primary contribution is identification of a form of theorization – theorization by allusion – that involves the mechanisms of category detachment, emulation, and sublimation, and which is particularly appropriate for change involving status because of its singular avoidance of contestation and resistance.
Higher Education, 2015
The coming of ‘‘brand society’’ and the onset of mediatization spur universitiesto strategize the... more The coming of ‘‘brand society’’ and the onset of mediatization spur universitiesto strategize their visual identity and pay particular attention to their icon. Resulting frombranding initiatives, university icons are visual self-representations and material-cum-symbolic forms of organizational identity. In this work we ask: What identity narratives areconveyed through the organizational iconography of universities? How do narrativescombine in this iconography? Drawing upon content analysis of Internet front-page iconsof 826 universities from 22 countries, we identify four identity narratives: guild-like classicnarrative, professional scientific narrative, localized narrative, and organizational narrative. Second, we show that such visual self-representations of university identity appear as products of broad historical themes. Last, we consider the relations between the four visualized identity narratives, showing evidence for iconographic sedimentation between the compatible guild-like classical, professional, and local-national narratives, along with iconographic abrasion of the logic of managed organization on the former. We discuss such findings in relation to the historical studies of the institution of the university
International Studies of Management & Organization, 2015
his study investigates how universities brand themselves and in what ways visual self-representat... more his study investigates how universities brand themselves and in what ways visual self-representation varies cross-nationally. We trace differ-ences in the icons (emblems and logos) used in the Internet self-representationof 821 universities and higher education institutions in 20 countries in 5continents. Emerging from content analyses of the icons were three main visual types (guilded, national, and organizational), arranged in five subtypes (classic, science, technology, local,abstract,and just-text). Generally, the visual expression of abstract or text-based organizational type is the least visually loaded, such lightness matching modern principles of corporate branding; the other types are rich in references to the national or guilded professional field of universities.We find that while the abstract organizational type of visual expression hasbecome dominant in Western countries, including France, Germany, and theUnited States, heterogeneity prevails in other nations such as Australia, Italy, orSouth Africa. We develop possible explanations of the observed distributionof types across countries and discuss the implication of our findings for world society institutionalism and the institutional logics approach
International Encyclopedia of Organization Studies, 2008
Institutional theory, a building block of today’s organization studies, drawing from sociology, s... more Institutional theory, a building block of today’s organization studies, drawing from sociology, social psychology, political science, and economics, offers explanations for social order, social action and cultural persistence. It does it with regard both to the stability of social systems at various levels (i.e. organization, field, society, world), and to the effects of institutional processes in situations of change or of conflicting legal, cultural or normative jurisdictions. Institutional theory highlights the role of rules, norms, and typifications (cultural beliefs and scripts) in constraining and empowering social action and giving meaning to social life. Earlier contributions emphasized the stabilizing role of institutions through the constitution of structures, organizational forms, fields and social actors’ identities. More recent contributions draw attention to the concurrent role of institutions in situations of change, where interests, agency and power play their own role in reaching stability or domination.
Journal of Strategy and Management, 2012
Glocalization, the blending of global and local cultural elements, has largely been interpreted a... more Glocalization, the blending of global and local cultural elements, has largely been interpreted as an in-between process, compromising between homogenous global standards and heterogeneous local traditions. Investigating strategic change in an MNE from 2005 to 2011, we found that glocalization can also unfold as a beyond process leading to divergent outcomes, outside the poles of an imagined local-global continuum. We studied the cognitive, political and institutional mechanisms that accounted for the process of blending strategies and structures before and during the late-2000 financial crisis and outlined a theory of institutional-bound strategic change within MNEs. We found sensegiving from the centre to be proactive during economic expansion and reactive during economic downturn. Following change initiation, sensegiving and sensemaking coalesced into a political iterative process of organizational identity work at subsidiary and HQ levels. We also found cognitive mechanisms were 'taken over' by political and institutional mechanisms: internally and externally demanded rationalization and the political prisms generated by multiple corporate governance traditions overshadowed the purely cognitive mechanism of sensemaking. Paradoxically, local societal-specific patterns of organization and strategy were preserved due to the actions of powerful central HQ-actors.
ABSTRACT Mannheim, Universität, Thesis (doctoral), 2001.
International Studies of Management & Organization, 1997
Giuseppe Delmestri is a researcher at the Istituto di Economia Aziendale Università Bocconi, Vial... more Giuseppe Delmestri is a researcher at the Istituto di Economia Aziendale Università Bocconi, Viale Isonzo 23, 20135 Milano, Italy. This study is based on his doctoral research project at the Universität Mannheim, Lehrstuhl für ABWL und Organization. The author wishes to thank ...
Academy of …, 2008
Although ideas regarding the ownership of pharmacy diffused throughout the globe carried by emigr... more Although ideas regarding the ownership of pharmacy diffused throughout the globe carried by emigrants, texts (laws, books, magazines) and armies, and although issues related to the practice of pharmacy were the same in all countries--preserving the pureness of medicines, controlling the production and diffusion of poisons to the public, defining and controlling charlatans, regulating the conflict of interests between prescribing and selling/dispensing remedies, and assuring pharmaceutical services also in rural areas--, such ideas precipitated in highly specific organizational forms and institutional arrangements in the four countries we investigated. We question therefore the view that innovations remain invariant as they spread from country to country. The institutional puzzle of the ownership of pharmacy has been resolved locally in view of the configuration of the field of forces that presided over the translation of the traveling innovation. Moreover, we identified ownership in pharmacy as an institutional hotspot, i.e. as an issue very sensitive to slight changes in the field of forces, so that institutional heterogeneity characterized not only the spatial crossnational but also the historical intra-national dimension.
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Papers by Giuseppe Delmestri
In this chapter we focus on such civil society actors and their agency for sustainable organ- izing because their influence has been significantly amplified over recent years, and these organizations increasingly attract scholarly interest across academic disciplines. Indeed, next to the growing attention in management and organization studies (den Hond & de Bakker, 2007; Soule & King, 2015; Yaziji & Doh, 2013), environmental sociologists have suggested that social movements and activism may be “the most fundamental pillars” of environmental reform (Buttel, 2003: 306). The links between social movements and climate concerns, for instance, are regularly studied (Caniglia, Brulle & Szasz, 2015; McAdam, 2017), attributing an important role to SMOs in shaping and influencing debates around climate change. Our focus on SMOs spans a variety of initiatives of collective action to advance environmental concerns, even though in practice many movements nowadays focus specifically on the grand challenge around climate change. Examples include Fridays for Future, 350.org, transition towns, buen vivir and Extinction Rebellion. In this chapter, we provide a subjective review of the organizational literature on sustainability SMOs, building on a set of articles about sustainability social movements over the past decade. To contextualize this overview, we first offer a brief overview of the SMO field more generally, which has developed in organizational analysis since the late 1990s.
In “La vita è bella” Jim March talks about fundamental questions in organization and management theory, like the relationship between practical and theoretical knowledge, the importance of organization studies for psychology, sociology, political science and economics, the proper name for our field, future big and small ideas, the role our discipline could play in solving big issues such as poverty and climate change, and concludes with the importance of beauty in life – therefore the title.
In “La vita è folle”, Jim March talks more personally about his career and life: the serendipity and ‘foolishness’ in his career; his encounters with European scholars; about how “almost everything can be a rewarding experience” depending on our attitude; why academics should not be mentors or protégées and students should be independent; how working on manuscripts needs “endless rewriting” and what the right identity and motivation are to start an academic career.
In this chapter we focus on such civil society actors and their agency for sustainable organ- izing because their influence has been significantly amplified over recent years, and these organizations increasingly attract scholarly interest across academic disciplines. Indeed, next to the growing attention in management and organization studies (den Hond & de Bakker, 2007; Soule & King, 2015; Yaziji & Doh, 2013), environmental sociologists have suggested that social movements and activism may be “the most fundamental pillars” of environmental reform (Buttel, 2003: 306). The links between social movements and climate concerns, for instance, are regularly studied (Caniglia, Brulle & Szasz, 2015; McAdam, 2017), attributing an important role to SMOs in shaping and influencing debates around climate change. Our focus on SMOs spans a variety of initiatives of collective action to advance environmental concerns, even though in practice many movements nowadays focus specifically on the grand challenge around climate change. Examples include Fridays for Future, 350.org, transition towns, buen vivir and Extinction Rebellion. In this chapter, we provide a subjective review of the organizational literature on sustainability SMOs, building on a set of articles about sustainability social movements over the past decade. To contextualize this overview, we first offer a brief overview of the SMO field more generally, which has developed in organizational analysis since the late 1990s.
In “La vita è bella” Jim March talks about fundamental questions in organization and management theory, like the relationship between practical and theoretical knowledge, the importance of organization studies for psychology, sociology, political science and economics, the proper name for our field, future big and small ideas, the role our discipline could play in solving big issues such as poverty and climate change, and concludes with the importance of beauty in life – therefore the title.
In “La vita è folle”, Jim March talks more personally about his career and life: the serendipity and ‘foolishness’ in his career; his encounters with European scholars; about how “almost everything can be a rewarding experience” depending on our attitude; why academics should not be mentors or protégées and students should be independent; how working on manuscripts needs “endless rewriting” and what the right identity and motivation are to start an academic career.