Key Drivers In The Age Of Responsibility, Walmart As An Example Of A Company Worthy Of Emulation, And Glocality

Write on three of the following questions, for which you will write a long answer response.

1. What are the key drivers in the Age of Responsibility, according to Wayne Visser? In other words, what is causing companies to take sustainability more seriously, and what are some of the reasons or evidence for this shift in the market? What are some of the consequences for companies that ignore sustainability as a driver?

2. Human bias is a serious impediment to forming beliefs that map on to reality. Corporations create impacts on the environment and community, and we sometimes ignore such impacts for the sake of gain, and allow negative externalities to accumulate into a mixed bag of unintended consequences. The way we talk about environmental and social problems has been a challenge to business, but how can we convince others (customers) that sustainability is a desirable end? Refer to the best/latest science or behavioural economics in describing a plan for nudging consumers toward sustainability.

3. Why does Visser view Walmart as an example of a company worthy of emulation? What are some of the problems about how sustainable companies have introduced sustainable products and services into the marketplace, and what does Walmart’s best practices have to teach us about sustainability? Furthermore, why would Walmart pursue sustainability, if its primary objective is profit?

4. What does it mean to be responsive in the Age of Responsibility? Provide examples, and explain the trade-off between responsiveness and scalability.

5. What is glocality, and how would you apply the concept to any product or service of your own choosing? What is the benefit to business of glocality?

6. Explain the difference between ‘cradle to grave’ and ‘cradle to cradle’ design, and describe a process by which a service or product could become circular. In other words, how can we look at waste differently, or create products that don’t produce negative externalities? Can you provide examples of companies that have successfully transitioned to a cradle to cradle process?

7. Yvon Chouinard doesn’t think it is appropriate to describe a company as sustainable.He thinks we need to spend more time in nature, simplify our lives and be responsible. Explain how these ideas fit together with his beliefs about running a responsible company.

Age of Responsibility and its Key Drivers

According to Visser (2010) responsibility is the ability to respond to issues that affect us through the choices that we make by counterbalancing rights. Organizations move through ages and stages before they achieve the age of responsibility. Visser (2014) suggests that the age of responsibility is based on principles of creativity, responsiveness, glocality, scalability, and circularity. This has been described by Visser as CSR 2.0 which inspiration, commitment, and capability of people in the organization who understand the role that they play in leading change and developing the new capabilities of CSR 2.0.  This means that for organizations to achieve the age of responsibility, they must be willing to change through adopting any change models that improve the organization. This means that organizations can rely on the following agents of change; CSR professionals, facilitators, catalysts and activists who play a different role in organization change. These drivers motivate change in business organizations by acting as motivators in an organizational context.

There are different drivers that are pushing companies to take sustainability more seriously. Visser (2014) suggests that one reason why this is happening is the role of sustainability in business strategy and competitiveness. In the modern world, sustainability is expected to transform the modern organization due to socially responsible investment and environment social corporate governance approaches that have come up to change the nature of the business environment. This is because investors and stakeholders have been keen on sustainability issues. Companies have no option but to adopt these approaches since they are required by law to present such information, thus they can no longer hide. This means that only those organizations that are doing well in environmental degradation management get better reception.

In the modern world, companies operate in a global fishbowl that forces them to be sustainable in their approaches. This is because companies can no longer hide this information since they will be exposed by human rights groups like NGOs that use advanced information and social media to expose them. Countries that are exposed to risk losing their market share since investors and stakeholders are keen on working with environmentally sustainable businesses (Ranganathan, 2014). Therefore, the age of responsibility requires organizations to develop ways of ensuring they meet the social and environmental requirements defined by the industry that they operate in.

Visser views Walmart as a company worth emulating due to its latest initiative for supporting organic cotton farming. As the business environment changes and organization succumb to sustainable management approaches. Walmart has taken the organic approach that seeks to support farmers who are engaged in cotton farming. This is based on the scalability principle of the age of responsibility (Plambeck & Denend, 2008). This principle is defined as the ability of a system to handle growing amounts of work or needs to accommodate growth. Thus Walmart is seeking to assist organic farmers to achieve scalability by increasing its total output to offer the potential for economic growth within the sector. This means that Wal-Mart has recognized that it takes roughly three years for any sustainable approach to be fully accepted in the business environment. This implies the switch to certified organic cotton farming will not be realized without supporting farmers due to farming challenges like increased costs of farming which make it difficult for them to realize profits.  This means that by purchasing more than 12 million pounds of transitional coffee, then the company is assisting 1000 farmers to achieve sustainable farmers.

Why Walmart Is Viewed as an Example of a Company Worthy of Emulation

The problem with introducing sustainable products in the market is determining the best price that can compete with other non-sustainable products (Gunther, 2006). For people to switch to sustainable products, they must realize the direct benefits like reduced costs which are difficult to achieve. This is the reason why most sustainable initiatives fail in organizations. This means that Walmart best practice is being used to support the transition of farmers to sustainable coffee farming even though the company will not be benefiting in any way. The approach being used by Walmart is both geographic scalability and generational scalability. From Mathaisel (2015), geographic scalability seeks to maintain performance usefulness of the organic cotton thus leading to increased production and acceptance in the market. On the other hand, generational scalability seeks to scale up the organic cotton farming project by buying the new generation cotton to ensure that vendors who buy from Walmart spread the usefulness of the organic cotton.

The Walmart scalability approach indicates that the age of responsibility is characterized by iconic leadership that entails sacrifices to achieve the desired needs. Thus Walmart has seen a sustainable opportunity to invest in and assist the community in achieving the age of responsibility (Walmart, 2018). This is part of the greening project that the company is engaged in that seeks to achieve the best results for the environment. According to Visser, the age of responsibility is a new age of sustainability where organizations seek to achieve the best sustainable business processes that are not for business profit but rather seek to create a better environment for all.    

Glocality is a business process emphasizing the integration of regional societies and cultures are integrated through information technologies that bypass and subvert the traditional power hierarchies that exist in the society. This is thus the reverse of globalization which entails decentralization rather than centralization. This is thus the capacity to manage and incorporate both traditional and global dimensions as a way of improving the management of ecosystems. The role of glocalization is to assist businesses to develop business processes or products based on the varying needs and habits of consumers. As organizations go global, they are met with the challenge that the practices that work in one demographic segment may not always work in another segment which makes it difficult for the organization to achieve its business strategy. Therefore, glocalization addresses such needs as a way of ensuring that the business is able to meet the local needs of the global clients that it serves.

Several companies have adopted the glocal strategy as a way of meeting the changing needs of the business environment. One way that this strategy can be applied is through designing marketing campaigns that reflect the local community being targeted. For example, a country can have different community groups like the marginalized communities which may not take campaigns the same way as the other groups (Sarroub, 2009). This means that such a strategy needs to be designed in a local way, to accommodate local tastes. Preferences, cultures and even ways of socialization.  Crawford, Humphries & Geddy (2015) add that this can entail tailoring the marketing campaign or show in their local language to increase the chances of them understanding the role of the marketing campaign. This is seen in radio stations that have been adopted in different local languages to increase listenership. If it is a product, the differences in packaging can be used based on the specifications of a particular region or country. This increases the ability of the product to be locally accepted thus increasing proceeds.

Roudometof (2016) states that this approach is relevant when firms face high pressures from local interests due to differences in global and local needs. This means that the strategy allows businesses to adapt products based on local needs which increases acceptance and trust in the selected regions. By localizing the product or service, the organization connects with the local consumers in an emotional level that leverages the firm from a foreign global business to the one that reflects the locality. Further, communities may benefit large through this approach since tailoring the products or services on local needs requires local input which creates job opportunities for the concerned community.

References

Crawford., S. A., Humphries, M., & Geddy, M. M. (2015). McDonald's: A Case Study in Glocalization. Journal of Global Business Issues, 9(1), 11-18.

Gunther, M. (2006). Wal-Mart's Sales of Organic Clothing Having an Impact. Retrieved from Organic Consumer Association: https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/wal-marts-sales-organic-clothing-having-impact#close

Mathaisel, D. F. (2015). Is Scalability Necessary for Economic Sustainability?. European Journal of Sustainable Development, 4(2), 275-282.

Plambeck, E. L., & Denend, L. (2008). The Greening of Wal-Mart . Stanford Social Innovation Review, 5(3), (11-20)

Ranganathan, J. (2014, May 15). Three reasons investors are beginning to take sustainability seriously. The Guardian.

Roudometof, V. (2016). Glocalization: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge.

Sarroub, L. K. (2009). Glocalism in literacy and marriage in transnational lives. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 6(1), 63-80.

Visser, W. (2010). The Age of Responsibility. Social Science Research Network. Retrieved from https://www.waynevisser.com/papers/the-age-of-responsibility-2

Visser, W. (2014). The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business. Journal of Business Systems, Governance and Ethics, 10(5), 7-22.

Walmart. (2018). Wal-Mart's Support For Farmers Adopting Sustainable Practices Yields Earth Month Transitional Cotton T-shirts. Retrieved from Walmart: https://corporate.walmart.com/_news_/news-archive/2008/04/07/wal-marts-support-for-farmers-adopting-sustainable-practices-yields-earth-month-transitional-cotton-t-shirts