Decoupling the implementation processes of Corporate Environmental Management in the Danish Hospitality Industry. How managers make sense of different sets of stakeholders’ interests to advance environmental management practices. An Explorative Analysis A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of LUISS Guido Carli University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Management XXIII Cycle PhD Candidate Dott. Riccardo Maiolini Advisor Prof. Luca Giustiniano Roma, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche ed Aziendali Anno Accademico 2010/2011 1 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the first place I would like to record my gratitude to Professor Luca Giustiniano for his supervision, advice, and guidance from the very early stage of this research. His constant encouragement, support, and suggestions made this work successful. I gratefully acknowledge Professor Richard Priem for his advice and supervision in the early part of my project, giving me great suggestions about stakeholder theory and how to target interesting issues on this topic. I would also like to acknowledge Professor Kai Hockerts for his supervision during my visit at the Copenhagen Business School. His involvement with his originality has triggered and nourished my intellectual maturity that I will benefit from, for a long time to come. He gave me a fundamental cue giving me the direction to study sensemaking theory. Kai, I am grateful in every possible way and hope to keep up our collaboration in the future. I would also like to acknowledge Professors Susse George, Mette Morsing, Gurli Jakobsen and Adriana Budeanu From CBS for their suggestions during my staying in Denmark. I am also indebted to the other members of the CBS Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, Elisabeth Crone Jensen and Robert Strand in particular, for their encouragement during my research. I would also like to thank all the professors and the colleagues of my PhD program for their help and collaboration during the three years of my research. Lastly, I would like to thank my family for their support. I am greatly indebted and I cannot express my full gratitude to them that patiently support me during my PhD. I dedicate this thesis to my mother and father, my first supporters. 3 4 ABSTRACT Organizations are progressively being pressured by stakeholders to acknowledge and achieve their interests. Conflicts can arise where multiple stakeholders have differing interests, especially if certain stakeholder groups are prioritized above others when decisions are made about the allocation of scarce resources. Consequentially, it is argued that not all stakeholders can be satisfied simultaneously. Responding to stakeholder concerns for environmental preservation is a relatively recent requirement for managers, who face a great deal of ambiguity in understanding the issues in general, the implications for their organizations, and the ways to respond to these issues. This study is concerned with the general area of organizational sensemaking, stakeholder theory and environmental management. More attention should be given to effective actions and processes that facilitate this kind of interactions as the sensemaking and sensegiving literature do but in regarding of stakeholders. The overall aim of the study is to investigate and evaluate the impact of stakeholders’ engagement in making sense of environmental issues through as a result of implementation of Corporate Environmental Management practices. The empirical analysis is based on a qualitative case study approach. To address the nature of the research problem a qualitative approach using in-depth-semi-structured interviews as the data collection method was deemed to be the most appropriate methodology for gaining an understanding how the processes of sense making influence stakeholders relations. Therefore the idea is to study, in the Danish Hospitality Industry how companies (hotels) implement their Corporate Environmental Management practices engaging with stakeholders in different sensemaking activities. Case study research is preferable in this context, since it allows the investigation to retain the holistic and important uniqueness of daily events (Yin, 1994). That is why the choice of the industry and of the cases is so important. The aim of the study is to understand the internal and external dynamics that facilitate the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management Practices so both practitioners and academics can use my results to orientate future directions of studies and works on this topic. 5 6 INDEX CAP I - INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 11 1.1 Research Question .......................................................................................................... 13 1.2 Research objectives ......................................................................................................... 15 1.3 Summary and outline of the research ........................................................................... 16 CAP II– A THEORETICAL ADVANCEMENT ON STAKHEOLDER THEORY .......... 17 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 17 2.2 Literature review............................................................................................................. 18 2.3 The evolution of the stakeholder model ........................................................................ 19 2.4 A Scandinavian approach to the stakeholder theory ................................................... 23 2.5 The relevance of the Nasi’s theoretical model in the implementation of stakeholders’ interests .................................................................................................................................. 28 2.6 Different typologies of stakeholders’ participation...................................................... 32 2.7 The relevance of the Nasi theoretical model in the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management ............................................................................................... 35 CAP III - SENSEMAKING THEORY TROUGH THE LOGICS OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ............................... 39 3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 39 3.2 Corporate Social Responsibility and sensemaking ...................................................... 40 3.3 Make sense of stakeholders interests ............................................................................. 42 3.4 Sensemaking .................................................................................................................... 44 3.5 Make sense through communication processes ............................................................ 47 3.6 Stakeholders dialogue ..................................................................................................... 49 3.7 Interpreting the three models ........................................................................................ 52 CAP IV – METHODOLOGY, RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA ANALYSIS .............. 55 4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 55 4.2 The case ............................................................................................................................ 56 4.3 The greening process of Copenhagen ............................................................................ 57 4.4 Corporate Environmental Management ....................................................................... 58 4.5 Corporate Environmental Management in the Hospitality Industry ........................ 59 4.6 Motivations to implement a Corporate Environmental Management practices ...... 61 4.6.1 Organizational theory perspective ............................................................................. 61 4.6.2 Tourism and Environmental Management perspective ............................................. 64 4.7 International Environmental Management practices in the Hospitality Industry ... 69 4.8 Data collection ................................................................................................................. 72 4.9 Data analysis .................................................................................................................... 75 4.10 Creating Narratives ...................................................................................................... 75 4.11 Narratives ...................................................................................................................... 77 4.11.1 Energy saving and production measures ................................................................. 77 4.11.2 Water Saving Measures ........................................................................................... 79 4.11.3 Green Purchasing ..................................................................................................... 80 4.11.4 Waste minimization practices .................................................................................. 81 4.11.5 Eco Design ............................................................................................................... 84 4.11.6 Green Supply Chain................................................................................................. 86 4.11.7 Green Marketing ...................................................................................................... 88 4.11.8 Ecological Risk ........................................................................................................ 90 4.11.9 Guest’s green attention ............................................................................................ 91 4.11.10 Food & Beverage ................................................................................................... 92 4.11.11 Green Jobs ............................................................................................................. 93 4.11.12 Traveling ................................................................................................................ 94 4.12 Stakeholders identification ........................................................................................... 95 4.13 Make sense of stakeholder interests and activities: focusing on issues .................... 99 7 CAP V - RESULTS ................................................................................................................. 101 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 101 5.2 Interpreting sensemaking through the stakeholders’ dialogue model ..................... 103 5.3 The stakeholders’ dialogue model in the Hospitality Industry and the formalization of Environmental Activities................................................................................................ 110 5.4 Enact and select: the reconstruction of environmental performance ...................... 114 5.5 The advancement of stakeholders’ roles in the development of sensemaking processes: the evolution of environmental commitment through the involvement of primary and secondary stakeholders. ............................................................................... 120 5.6 The evolution of sensemaking processes in the Danish Hotels ................................. 130 5.6.1 Individual sensemaking ........................................................................................... 130 5.6.2 Collective Sensemaking .......................................................................................... 133 5.6.3 Guided Sensemaking ............................................................................................... 137 CAP VI - CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS ............................................................... 141 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 141 6.2 Theoretical and research implications ........................................................................ 143 6.3 Implication for practitioners ........................................................................................ 144 6.4 Future research implications ....................................................................................... 146 6.5 Concluding remarks ..................................................................................................... 148 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 149 INTERNET SITES .................................................................................................................. 159 APPENDIX .............................................................................................................................. 161 Presentation Letter ............................................................................................................. 161 Interview Introduction and Informed Consent Review Letter....................................... 162 List of Questions .................................................................................................................. 164 Corporate Environmental Management............................................................................ 164 Environmental Management Systems .............................................................................. 164 CEM and Stakeholders ..................................................................................................... 165 Environmental Issues and the role of Stakeholders .......................................................... 165 8 TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1 Stakeholders participation and forms of coalitions ..................................... 32 Table 2 Organizational Theory Perspectives ............................................................. 63 Table 3 Tourism and Environmental Management Perspective.............................. 68 Table 4 Interviews ........................................................................................................ 73 Table 5 Stakeholders Identification theories.............................................................. 97 Table 6 Stakeholders categories .................................................................................. 98 Table 7 Narratives and the relationship with Stakeholders’ categories of interests .............................................................................................................................. 104 Table 8 Narratives and the relationship with issues through the identification of the most salient and repeated Stakeholder’s categories.................................. 108 Table 9 Team level of formalization in the hotels .................................................... 113 Table 10 Synthesis of EMS adopted by Hotels in Copenhagen .............................. 121 Table 11 Team Works ................................................................................................ 123 Table 12 Sensemaking characteristics ...................................................................... 128 Table 13 Sensemaking characteristics and Communication strategies ................. 128 Table 14 Stakeholders roles definition...................................................................... 129 Table 15 Sensemaking characteristics, Communication strategies and stakeholders roles ...................................................................................................................... 129 Table 16 Sensemaking aims ....................................................................................... 140 Figure 1 adapted from Freeman, 1995 ....................................................................... 22 Figure 2 adapted from Nasi, 1995 ............................................................................... 26 Figure 3 Implementation process of Corporate Environmental Management....... 36 Figure 4 Adapted from Weick, 2005 ........................................................................... 45 Figure 5 Adapted from the Basu & Palazzo model (2008) ....................................... 47 Figure 6 Adapted From Weick and Basu & Palazzo ................................................ 48 Figure 7 Stakeholder dialogue model by Pedersen (2006). ....................................... 51 Figure 8 Sensemaking Model Adapted ....................................................................... 53 Figure 9 adapted from Sroufe, 2003. .......................................................................................... 87 9 10 CAP I - INTRODUCTION In the last years, the focus on environmental management research has moved from understanding why firms engage in it, to study, which are the best ways to support decisions within organizations. Few researchers have focused their attention on the mutual understanding processes that need to take place between organizations and stakeholders (Frooman, 1999; Campbell, 2007; ). The relationship is needed to achieve legitimacy and to yield efficiency through the interaction between different subjects. Affisco et al. (1997) advocated the importance of investigating the views of stakeholders of their roles during the environmental strategy implementation process, and Walker (2000) concluded that the environmental aspects of major stakeholders are under-researched. Organizational environments are complex; they are composed of vast arrays of constituents (such as governments, activists, local communities, trade associations, investors, and customers) each of which possesses its own culture, interests, and conception of legitimate management practices (Hoffman, 2001). Most recent works were focused on how organizational activities can be designed and implemented to develop or maintain favorable resources with external groups (Crammer, Jonker, van der Heijden, 2004; Weick, Suctliffe, 2005; Maitlis, 2005, King, 2007). Organizations are increasingly more being pressured by stakeholders to acknowledge and manage their interests (Phillips 2003; Freeman 1984). Conflicts can arise where multiple stakeholders have differing interests, especially if certain stakeholder groups are prioritized above others when decisions are made about the allocation of scarce resources (Phillips 2003). Consequentially, it is argued that not all stakeholders can be satisfied simultaneously. One of the biggest constraints to understand this relation comes from the difficulty in making abstract operational concepts and the consequent confusion about the true nature of Environmental activism and CSR culture (Pedersen, 2006). New interests are about how external pressure flows must be managed and how they must be approached proactively by firms, within an organizational change (Delmas & Toffel, 2004, 2005, 2008; Henriques & Sadorsky, 1999). Jennings & Zandbergen (1995) were the first to apply the institutional theory to explain firms’ adoption of environmental management practices. According to them, coercive forces — primarily 11 in the form of regulations and regulatory enforcement — represent the main impetus of implementation of similar practices. Institutional pressure is caused by a set of social and cultural tools, specifically and strongly depending on the context in which they are implemented. In other words there are more basic institutional characteristics linked with the political and cultural environment that can influence especially the application and the modality of diffusion and propagation of pressure. Institutional theory is used as a starting point because it represents one of the most robust sociological perspectives within organizational theory (Perrow, 1979). The institutional perspective is however not exhaustive. The following aspect needs to be clarified: from a formal and reputational point of view, it is true that organizations use similar practices but, because of the complexity of organizations, of the alternative actions that organizations can develop and of the different starting environmental commitments, these practices vary in their implementation especially because they are customizable. Organizations that adopt similar environmental practices can differ widely in the actions and interpretations because they make sense of them differently. The reasons why companies adopt various environmental management practices depend both on firm-specific internal factors as well as on the institutional pressures that are exerted on them by the external environment. Delmas and Toffel (2003, 2005, 2008) studied how firms are receptive to institutional and non-institutional pressures in terms of the capacity to implement EMS standards trough market and nonmarket constituents. What they found is that firms adopt heterogeneous sets of environmental management practices because they interpret these pressures differently, comparing specific internal processes with company characteristics. Firms may be subject to the same level of institutional pressure but perceive it differently according to their organizational structure, strategic position, and financial and environmental performance or because of different interaction modalities with institutional constituents as stakeholders. This difference between “objective” and “perceived” pressure leads to different responses and different organizational changes. The adoption of environmental management practices by firms “varies therefore according to the process that transforms objective pressure into perceived pressure” (Delmas and Toffel, 2003, 2004, 2008). On the other hand, different interactions among firms and institutional constituents can produce different responses. Because firms can adopt various typologies of Corporate Environmental Management practices in response 12 to institutional pressure, it is fundamental to understand which mechanisms link problem-solving methods among organizations and stakeholders throughout collaborative interactions (Sharma & Vredenburg, 1998). Responding to stakeholders’ concerns for environmental preservation is a relatively recent requirement for managers, who face a great deal of ambiguity in understanding the issues in general, the implications for their organizations, and the ways to respond to these issues (Jennings & Zandhergen, 1995). Starting from these considerations, a new direction of studies is coming out “studying processes that guide organizational sensemaking as they pertain to relationship with stakeholders and the world at large” (Basu & Palazzo 2009). 1.1 Research Question According to Delmas & Toffel (2008) the relationships between organizational factors and institutional pressures are not yet well understood, especially because most of the researchers have focused on the distinction or the differences between internal and external elements that impact on the implementation or the legitimating of environmental interests. Hoffman (2001: 138) notes: “the form of the response from the organization is as much a reflection of the institutional pressures that emerge from outside the organization as it is the form of organizational structure and culture that exist inside the organization.” According to Hoffman there is a link between internal organization and external pressures that can be transformed into defined strategies or actions. Or, on the other side, the implementation of strategies can be influenced by a legitimating attitude to satisfy external interests. Organizations engage with their market and non-market constituents and try to merge interests about the legitimacy of their practices before they become institutionalized through social interaction (Delmas & Toffel, 2008) or selecting the most appropriate practices that merge diverse interests and different categories of constituents. Research Question: environmental issues How to do enact managers tangible exploit stakeholders interests? 13 The acceptance of particular practices is a process where organizations and their constituents compare their own interests to reduce divergences and influence adoption of different management practices. According to several scholars (D’Aunno et al. 2000, Delmas & Toffel, 2008) future research should aim to specify the roles of constituents more precisely, developing a “comparative analysis of stakeholders influences on firms looking at how organizations develop an understanding of sustainability and begin to act accordingly” (Sharma & Henriques, 2005:175). The Delmas and Toffel work (2008) is one of the most recent works on this topic. They describe that pressures from field constituents include customers, regulators, legislators, local communities, and environmental activist organizations. The engagement with stakeholders implies that the success or the failure of particular decisions and actions passes through the sharing process of interests and values. Within the same industry, firms are subjected to multiple levels of pressure that are perceived differently because of differences in the channels whereby those pressure catch up with the internal organization of firms (Delmas & Toffel, 2008). In other words, the perceptibility of pressure depends on how firms receive information from the gained established unit (Hoffman, 2001). Starting from an institutional perspective and collecting all the elements useful to understand organizational change and adaptability, it is without a doubt interesting to examine those elements that contribute or influence the firm adaptation to voluntary environmental programs, looking at the external and internal conflicting characteristics that influences sensemaking processes. Firms don’t adapt voluntarily to their relative organizational environment (Scirchich, Stubbart, 1985), but starting from an assumption that organization and environment are created together (enacted) through the social interaction processes of key organizational participants (Mason & Mitrof, 1981; Davis, 1982), every single effort toward change or adaptation must be considered as a combination of each organizational member inside a specific context, not only because it is perceived as such but also because it is made by all actors in regard to their interests and objectives. This is correct because institutional theory is not usually considered as a theory of organizational change, but usually as an explanation of the similarity (“isomorphism”) and stability of organizational arrangements in a given population or field of organizations (Greenwood & Hinnings, 1996). Hoffman (2001) argues that organizations differ in their receptivity to 14 institutional pressure by a diverse set of institutional elements and consequently react in different ways in their own organizational process. Otherwise, people make sense of things, sharing practical measures and instruments that could be implemented within their scope of influences (Cramer et al., 2004). 1.2 Research objectives This study is concerned with the general area of organizational sensemaking, stakeholder theory and environmental management. The overall aim of the study is to investigate and evaluate the impact of stakeholders’ engagement in making sense of environmental issues through as a result of implementation of Corporate Environmental Management practices. The main objectives of the research are: • Investigate companies/stakeholders interactions by interviewing managers and other employers that are in charge of environmental issues inside a specific group of companies and create narratives that help me to develop theoretical proposition. • Develop an inductively derived model of the impact of sensemaking processes on the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management in a specific industry (Hospitality industry) and search for those mechanism that explain how those pressure catch up with the internal organization of firms. • Develop theoretical findings that help the debate on stakeholder theory. • Understand how sensemaking theory can be applied in multiple relation models where companies interact with more than one stakeholder. 15 1.3 Summary and outline of the research This research is original in that it uses an explorative approach to investigate how managers exploit environmental issues to enact tangible stakeholders’ interests. Chapter One is dedicated to the introduction, research question and general information on the study. Chapter Two introduces stakeholder theory and proposes a theoretical advancement of the Freeman’s mode. The chapter outlines the structure and content of the literature review on stakeholder theory, and emphasizes the role of the literature review as an integral and dynamic element of the research process itself. Chapter Three discusses the literature review on sensemaking theory, considering the logics of environmental management, corporate social responsibility and stakeholders. The chapter highlights the most relevant extant works on sensemaking and stakeholders, comparing results and discussions. At the end of the chapter I develop a synthetic and interpretive definition of sensemaking that includes all the elements useful to understand and study stakeholder/companies relations. Chapter four outlines the methodology and research design, setting out how the sensemaking approach delineated in Chapter Three will be operationalized. It explains and justifies the methods and techniques to be used in collecting and analyzing data. The chapter concludes with a section dedicated to the identification of environmental issues that serves to construct sensemaking narratives and with the criteria used to the stakeholders’ identification. Chapter five discusses the findings from the interview data. Because the explorative nature of this work and because the data derived from a multiple cases model, in this chapter I use a cross-case synthesis technique (applied specifically to the analysis of multiple cases), in which I narrate and describe the most relevant elements that I have found in the narratives, mixing those information with theoretical elements and try go give explanations to the phenomenon that emerge. Chapter six summarizes the key findings and draws together the conclusions, theoretical and research implications of the study as well as its potential benefits for scholars and practitioners, and sets out some recommendations for future rese 16 CAP II– A THEORETICAL ADVANCEMENT ON STAKHEOLDER THEORY 2.1 Introduction The debate on stakeholder literature is based on the complex modalities that several scholars developed to understand best ways to manage stakeholders and their interests. According to Frooman (1999) the most relevant questions about stakeholder theory try to answer to three general questions, which regard their identification (who they are) their purposes (what do they want) and their means (how are they going to try to get it). On the other hand, according to Rowley (1997) “the main objectives in stakeholder research have been to identify who firm’s stakeholders are and to determine what types of influences they exert”. This is particularly important since scholars and managers started to consider the relationships with stakeholders as long-term value creation relationships (Morsing & Schultz, (2006), especially after the development of new ways to interact with stakeholders; from negative activities and communication (as for example what happens in particular industries like tobacco, alcohol, weapons where the dichotomy between stakeholders are very strong, especially in terms of economic interests) to a more critical model where both the parts, companies and stakeholders, work to construct a more sophisticated collaborative model (as for example in the case of child labor, union rights, etc.). For this reason, the principal scope of this chapter is try to interpret the theoretical evolution of stakeholder theory, starting from some limitation of the Freeman’s model and giving possible solutions through the identification of an alternative model of stakeholders management that can better explain the complexity of the relations between stakeholders and companies. Both the limitations and possible alternative solutions are taken from the literature, considering them as a positive evolution of the Freeman’s model without take alternative positions that can take my work out of the official debate on the topic. 17 2.2 Literature review As said before, stakeholder theory is born with the theoretical analysis made by Freeman in the 1984 where he defined stakeholders as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives”. Freeman presents the stakeholder model as a map in which a company is the central hub and the stakeholders are the spokes around the wheel (Frooman, 1999). From the Freeman perspective, the relationship among companies and their stakeholders is a dual activity, where the direction of activities depends from the degree of legitimacy as a means of responding to external interests (Luoma & Goodstein, 1999). From this hub and spoke perspective the conceptualization of relationships among companies and stakeholders are complex because, primarily, there is an unclear identification of roles and attributes that every single actor have, and secondly this circular identification of stakeholders is not useful to prioritize and qualify different individuals and their interests. Is for this reason that a big branch of research has been based on the study of prioritization of stakeholders’ interests because companies cannot decide easily which voices take into account before others. The identification of stakeholders and the prioritization of particular interests is not only a public relation exercise but it is based on the assumption that stakeholders must take part to the decision-making and the enactment processes through the development of a dialogue and a participative activity (Pedersen, 2006, 2009). This is why the Freeman model is not sufficient to separate the important stakeholders from the less important ones (Clarckson, 1995; Mitchel et al., 1997;) and to develop common criteria for selecting in and selecting out stakeholders or decide among conflicting stakeholders interests (Pedersen, 2009). From the Mitchel et al. perspective (1997), companies prioritize stakeholders’ claims according to their relative power, legitimacy and urgency. This model is sufficiently clear when we look at simple relationships; when the organizational environment becomes more complex, because the number of individuals increases or because the interests and the arguments becomes more complex, the Mitchel model is weak because companies don’t have enough capabilities and information to choose the most relevant or the most salient stakeholders just comparing their power, legitimacy and urgency. Without a dialogue, a passive analysis of stakeholders’ characteristics is not sufficient, 18 also because the tradeoff between stakeholders and the conflicts that derive from alternative groups of interest impact on the decision-making capabilities of the companies. What is called the Stakeholder Multiplicity (Neville & Menguc, 2006; Oliver, 1991) impact strongly on the decisional capabilities of the companies, when the combination of cooperative or conflicting stakeholders increase or decrease the companies attitudes to take decisions. According to Frooman (1999) the divergence between stakeholder and firm interests is an important element that serves to identify and classify their interests. In other words stakeholder management is based on the development of convergent interests shared among the parts. This activity is a double sense activity where both the parts are engaged in the development and the choice of alternatives. Is for this reason that the hub and spoke model is not appropriate and sufficient. 2.3 The evolution of the stakeholder model Firms don’t adapt voluntarily to their relative environment but starting from an assumption that organization and environment are created together, enacted (Smirchich & Stubbart, 1985) through the social interaction processes of key organizational participants (Mason & Mitrof, 1981), every single effort toward change or adaptation must be considered a combination of each organizational member inside a specific context not only because it is perceived as such but also because it is made by all actors in regard to their interests and objectives. The fundamental aspect is to consider how particular interests are consistent with what happens in the real world (Carrol & Nasi, 1997). Recently the emphasis is moved from a focus on stakeholders being managed by companies to a focus on the interaction that companies have with their stakeholders, based on a relational and process-oriented view (Andriof et al. 2003). This implies an increased interest in understanding how managers can accomplish not the stakeholders themselves, but relationships with them and how to align different interests. As argued by Johnson-Cramer et al. (2003: 149) “The essence of stakeholder dialogue is the cocreation of shared understanding by company and stakeholder”. The organizational environment is a source of constant input and stimulus for the organizations, but 19 individuals and organizations have limited cognitive capabilities to deal wit all available stimuli (Simon, 1947). For this reason individuals and organizations enact events and facts through a selective perspective of the objective features of their surroundings (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). The enactment process is described as a process about labeling and categorizing the streaming of experience, to make the world more orderly (Weick, Sutcliffe, Obstfeld, 2005). The same findings are noticed in the procedural justice literature (Maitlis, 2005). According to this kind of literature people are more willing to accept explanations and decisions when they perceive the processes through which they were fairly involved (Pruitt, Peirce, McGillicuddy, Welton & Castrianno, 1993; Tyler, 2002). Organizations need codified languages and practices that serve to understand and justify collective actions among them and their stakeholders, both for positive and negative actions. The codes are created by organizations through the formalization of interests. The emphasis is moved from a focus on stakeholders being managed by companies to a focus on the interaction that companies have with their stakeholders based on a relational and process-oriented view (Andriof & Waddock 2002). This implies an increased interest in understanding how managers can manage not the stakeholders themselves, but relationships with stakeholders. Because relationships are among people and not among abstract concepts, for this reason individuals enact events and facts through a selective perspective of the objective features of their surroundings (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). The enactment is done sharing concrete interests and information through a dialogue among the parts. Starting from these considerations, the “classical” approach to the stakeholder theory is non sufficient to explain the integration and the connection among different subjects. The Freeman definition of stakeholders (“any group or individual who can affect or are affected by the achievement of the firm’s objective”) is not sufficient to understand how multiple subjects dialogue among each other because the definition and the theory are limited by the focus on the end of interests (Orts & Strudler, 2002). It is mostly clear how interests are selected (Delmas & Toffel, 2008; Oliver, 1991), identified and prioritized (Parent & Deephouse, 2007) or perceived (Henriques & Sadorsky, 1999). What is criticized is that virtually any one can affect or be affected by the achievement of organization’s objectives (Orts & Strudler, 2002) and so is not clear how specific subjects become determinant or relevant specifically. One solution is given 20 by considering the economic property of risk as a form of inclusion/exclusion of subjects that can be considered as relevant stakeholders for a specific organization (Orts & Strudler, 2002). The level of participation and the level of stakes must be measured with the economic risk that directly stakeholders’ actions have on the risk of the organizations. The survival is not only considered from the organizational point of view (Scott, 1947; Powell & DiMaggio, 1983; Oliver, 1991) but also from the stakeholders’ perspective. Especially for the primary stakeholders (Clarkson, 1995) the way to discuss about interests and consequent actions change from a conflicting model to a proactive and collaborative model. The balance of interests becomes an activity that takes more time because every one (managers and stakeholders) are interested in the balance of commitment and definition of relevant interest for every one. Starting from this perspective the relationships among organizations and stakeholders change strongly: “from a perspective where stakeholders in an organization are the individuals and groups who are depending on the firm in order to achieve their personal goals and on whom the firm is depending for its existence” (Nasi, 1995), to a “participated model where there is a multitude of subjects that have legitimated interests or stakes in what the firm is doing and how the objectives are reached” (Carrol & Nasi, 1997: 50). The introduction of economic risks that can affect alternative solutions serves to explain the congruence of different subjects’ interests and the congruence of the decisions in terms of economic solutions and goals objectives. In the Freeman model organizations are a distinctive subject that has to manage and interpret external pressures that derive from the stakeholders that want to realize their separated interests. From this perspective managers must convoy and select alternative sets of interests considering also the misalignment or reinforcement that derive from the agglomeration of groups of stakeholders. This is what Freeman called the “hub and spoke” relationships between the organization and its stakeholders (Freeman, 1984): a one-way direction model where organizations work to absorb external pressures. In most of the cases also internal stakeholders (as employers) are interpreted in this model as subjects that just want to take care of their interests through a negotiation with the management of the organizations. 21 Figure 1 adapted from Freeman, 1995 22 2.4 A Scandinavian approach to the stakeholder theory The “new” approach is based on the Nasi Works (Nasi, 1995; Carrol & Nasi, 1997) where they change the roles and the rules that govern stakeholders dialogue inside and outside the boundaries of the organizations. For the author, the organization is a “social and technical system where different stakeholders play a part” (Carrol & Nasi, 1997: 50). Persons make organizations and exercise different roles inside the organizations. They play a part that is the social representation of their behaviors. Organizations are the place where different subjects, engage each other to represent and discuss their behaviors. The engagement of different behaviors is a process that serves to share interests. Also managers take a part and have to share rules and values to play as the best they can. The rules are shared a priori trough the development of common labels that serve to establish expected goals and individual activities (Nasi, 1995). The goals are the consequence of a procedure that transforms inputs/demands into contributions/rewards considering alternative models that are recognized by the individuals engaged in the process. The choice of alternative models is achieved through the translation into concrete practices that are based on pre-existent or new experiences. From this perspective every subject that takes part in an organization has particular stakes that he wants to obtain. The organization becomes a place where multiple subjects are interdependent because they share interests, risks and contribution. The decisions are taken through a negotiation that is based on the research of a good combination of input and compensation (Nasi, 1995). Decisions are a result of balance among different groups of stakeholders that are able to distribute inputs and compensations among the other stakeholders. The decisions derive from the maximization of different goals and interests that are mediated through a central subject that serves as a nexus that filters demands, interests, goals and consequences trying to find the most appropriate combination. Usually the role of nexus appertains to the managers that identify and manage the different combinations of stakeholders’ interests. So the final assessment is mediated by the managerial perception of the best combination of interests and objectives. Managers must take care of stakeholder balance as a particular partnership among multiple subjects (Strand, 2008). The Nasi framework is an important perspective in my work because outlines significant elements that help me in the development of my research: 23 1. The Nasi framework is a participative model where there are not only passive actions but also proactive elements that help decision-making. The model is fundamentally collaborative where different parts work as groups of interests and try to polarize the attention around groups of issues. It is a dynamic collaborative model where the emphasis is concentrated on the constant changes and adaptation of interests to specific issues. The collaborative aspect of this model is explained in the continuous effort that all the parts make to bring together stakeholders and try to not miss groups of them. Talking about environmental sustainability concerns a high level of commitment among groups of stakeholders. The particular commitment in some cases is also an effect of what Selin and Beason (1991) call the legally mandate, when in some cases for organizations is required to involve in all phases of the planning process specific group of stakeholders. The requirement is not compulsory but is, from a cultural perspective, a strong emotion that influences the stakeholders’ behaviors. 2. Considering the organizations as a social and technical system where different subjects play a part gives me the possibility to focus the attention on a particular category of subjects that interact inside the organizations, the managers, and considering them the nexus and the most influent group that handle and distribute inputs and compensations. On the other side it can be possible, in future works, to pay attention to other categories of stakeholders and consider them as a nexus of specific categories of interests to change boundaries and organizational environment of specific firms. 3. Through the Nasis’ perspective is possible to capture potential complex interactions within the network of organization-stakeholder relationships and understand the composition of the networks looking at the categories of interests that they share. 4. Additionally, the complex interactions between stakeholders, defined by Oliver “stakeholder multiplicity” (Oliver, 1991) can be interpreted as models of alliance or competition that can favorite or retard the implementation of specific practices looking at the alternative combinations of inputs and compensations. 5. The Nasi perspective allows me to decoupling the implementation processes of corporate 24 environmental management considering different groups of stakeholders and how they interact with the others in terms of internal and external groups of inputs and compensations. The role of managers is crucial to convoy different interests to specific groups of stakeholders. They determine the development or the stoppage of particular activities that are the explicit representation of stakeholder interests. The managerial perception of stakeholder interests is a combination of formal and informal flows of interests and objectives that managers interpret from the stakeholder communication. 6. Last but don’t least, Nasi called his theory “a Scandinavian approach to stakeholder thinking”. Considering that my sample is composed by a group of Danish organizations, I found important cultural elements that make similar the Nasis’ framework to the Danish state of mind. This consideration gives me further elements to validate the relevance and the peculiarities of my study. According to Matten & Moon (2004) stakeholder identities and interests vary cross-nationally, as explained by institutional theory, there are rules and societal orientation that influence the way corporations are governed. Contextualization is requested not only for persons and organizations but also for theoretical templates that must be adapted to different places. Because organizations and organizational environments are complex systems, the generalization is becomes more complicated. It is possible to generalize if researchers find the most appropriate variables that explain the most differences and similarities. The Nasi perspective is the basis to understand the boundaries of the organizations, differently from the Freeman’s one because the possibility that Nasi gives to constitute sets of stakeholders and groups of interests to reorganize the boundaries of organizations. The Freemans’ model is based on a reciprocal interaction between a subject called firm and a series of others individuals, or group of them, called stakeholders that negotiate their sets of interests. An ideal representation of the Freemans’ model is given by a series of satellites that exchange information’s with the central subject that runs as a receiving and distributing subject. Differently, the Nasi model is based on groups of relations among subjects without the implication of a predefined set of internal and external boundaries. Because organizations are a social and technical representation of different interests, the boundaries of the organizations can be modeled considering how different subjects 25 interacts and how they build their relationships. The model is more open and more flexible, whit some elements that can move from inside to outside in respect of different patterns of interactions. The organization is more flexible and is composed of an internal coalition and an external coalition of pattern of interests. The interaction among these different patterns explains how organizations exchange information and construct their sets of interests. For Nasi “the internal coalition consists of those stakeholders who have a permanent ownership or employment relationship with the firm. And the external coalition consists of those stakeholders who do not fulfill the conditions to be a part of the internal coalition but are nevertheless, in an intermediate interaction with the internal coalition” (Nasi, 1995: p 106). Figure 2 adapted from Nasi, 1995 The most relevant difference between internal and external coalition is, in other words, the temporal relationship that involve subjects into the organizations. Internally there are those subjects that represent the subjects that are permanent related to a specific organization. The external coalition is done with those subjects that have relationships with the organizations but these relationships can change during the time or finish. In 26 addition there is a third category of stakeholder that is more similar to the Freeman model that is composed by the stakeholders that are outside the two typologies of coalition called the non-coalition stakeholders. These stakeholders are interested in particular organizations but don’t take part to the composition and distribution of pattern of interests. The relationship among these stakeholders and the organizations is less participative and based on a simple exchange of information. In regard to the external coalition and stakeholders that are completely external to the two typologies of coalitions, the status can change. There are particular conditions that imply that stakeholders start to take part of groups, entry in pattern of interests and start coalitions with other stakeholders. The Nasi model is an explanative evolution of the Freeman and the others theoretical contributions that give explanation to the complex relationship between companies and their stakeholders. In the words of Phillips (1999, 2000, 2003), companies have to decide upon who is and who is not a stakeholder of their activities. Such a decision is influenced by the importance of each stakeholder for the firm, which is a function of their power, legitimacy and urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997) or, a result of the resource dependence of the business on that stakeholder (Frooman, 1999). Another interpretation pushes to distinguish among primary, secondary and non-stakeholders. According to Clarkson (1995), primary stakeholders are those that significantly contribute to the survival of an organization, while secondary stakeholders make a more limited contribution to the firm. Stakeholders in this second group are to some extent influenced by the companies’ activities. Finally, there are the non-stakeholders who are neither influenced by the firm nor a factor in its survival. Summarizing the three contributes, the relationship between an organization and hits stakeholders is based on the capability to provide to the organizational survival (Clarckson, 1995) and to the capability to influence decisions (Mitchet el al., 1997; Frooman, 1999), through the participation to specific activities (Phillips, 1999). All of these contributions can be identified in the Nasi model, where the distinction between internal and external coalition defines the modalities to contribute, influence and participate in the decision-making activities. Through the application of the Nasi’s model, the nature of the relationship between companies and their stakeholders changes from the hold one-way interaction/communication model to a reciprocal relationship where all stakeholders are simultaneously engaged in the construction of their individual identities (Scott & Lane, 2000) and their interests. 27 2.5 The relevance of the Nasi’s theoretical model in the implementation of stakeholders’ interests The interconnection among pattern of interests and groups of stakeholders represents the organizational complexity of internal and external coalitions. The complexity of organizational environments impacts on the capability to understand different events or actions (Pater & van Lierop, 2006); the nature of the issues and the number of alternative behaviors influence the complexity of organizational environments (Jeurissen, 2004): Higher is the stakeholders’ faculty to share interests among different subjects and explain the differences among alternative behavioral options, the lower is the complexity of organizational environments. The level of complexity impacts on the willingness and ability to convoy different interests into common decisions (Strand, 2008). The two modalities of coalitions impact on the level of decision-making engagement. Regarding to the distance of the coalitions, the opportunity for the stakeholders to be engaged in the decision-making activities depends if they are part of the internal or external coalition. Internal coalition stakeholders are more close to the main activities of the companies and for this reason they have higher probability to take part of the decisions. Prop1a: From a relational perspective, the different coalition distances between the company and their stakeholder impact on the decision-making activities: the lower is the coalition distance between the company and a group of stakeholder (internal coalition), the higher is the possibility that the stakeholder can be engaged in the decision-making activities that concerns the scope of the coalition. Prop1b: Internal coalition stakeholders have greater opportunity to be engaged in the decision-making activities rather than external coalition stakeholders. What can influences the relationship between companies and stakeholders is not only the distance in terms of coalitions but also the complexity of issues and interests that they share. Talking about complexity in this case is not a negative effort. The presence of a complex argument or a complex organizational environment is an important 28 element that helps the implementation of a particular action because the level of complexity is synonym of presence of multiple stakeholders and multiple patterns of interests. The overlap of interests can be reached when different group highline and define a set of common-sense arguments. The research of common sense is obtained through the exchange of interests and information through a set of issues. So, the process that explains how organizations interpret particular patterns of interests is a double process that derives from the explanation and selection of them. From an internal perspective the enactment is based on the sense making activity that managers do to create a common sense of different patterns of interests. On the other side the external perspective is based on the modalities of interactions among groups of stakeholders that share patterns of interests. Decisions are taken through the alignment of internal and external patterns of interests. The misalignments between different interests in the internal coalition have greater opportunities to be handle than the misalignments in the external coalition. Prop2: The complexity of decision-making activities is moderated by the different typologies of coalitions: the lower is the distance in the coalition (internal vs. external coalition), the greater is the opportunity that complex activities will be handled. In the model that I propone to explain how external interests and pressures are implemented inside organizations, because the implementation of specific activities have impacts both on the internal and the external coalitions, the decision to do something is a sum, and in the same time a synthesis, of patterns of interests. The acceptance of particular practices is a process where organizations and their constituents compare their own interests to reduce divergences and influence adoption of different practices. According to several scholars (D’Aunno et al. 2000, Delmas & Toffel, 2008) future research should aim to specify the roles of constituents more precisely, developing a “comparative analysis of stakeholders influences on organizations, looking at how they begin to act accordingly” (Sharma & Henriques, 2005:175). The engagement with stakeholders implies that the success or the failure of particular decisions passes through the sharing process of interests and values and the mediation effect that particular subjects can have on the distribution and synthesis of alternatives patterns of interests. According to Scott & Lane (2000), stakeholders have 29 power when managers perceive them to have the ability to impose their will on the organization and also. Considering the Nasi model and the network perspective that derives from the usage of internal and external coalitions, the power of specific stakeholders to impose their will can be examined if the stakeholder is central and non marginal in terms of communication, issues shared and connections with other subjects in the coalition. For this reason the relational centrality must be considered as an element that can impact on the decision-making activities. Prop3a: the stakeholders’ relational centrality in the coalition impacts on the development and choice of alternative activities and interests: the greater is the centrality of a stakeholder in a coalition, the greater is the opportunity to mediate to alternative interests. Prop3b: The higher is the mediation activity, the greater is the opportunity that specific sets of interests can be achieved by the entire coalition in the decision-making activity. The interests’ sharing process demands a high level of multiparty negotiation (Maitlis, 205) that implies that organizations and stakeholders have both to reduce conflicts and to develop performance-related outcomes. This is true if every subject is committed to develop and maintain a solid and durable participation. The participation can be durable only if both every one is engaged to encourage empowerment in their organizations through the definition of who is involved and which is the most appropriate role for every one. For this reason the number of interactions and communication produce consequences on the typologies of relationships among different subjects. Prop4a: the duration of relationships depends from the frequency of communication and interactions. Internal coalition members have a higher number of communication activities than the external coalition members. Prop4b: the duration of relationships among internal coalition members is higher than the duration of relationships among external coalition members. 30 Prop4c: The higher is the duration of relationships, the higher are the decision-making activities shared between companies and their stakeholders. Within the same industry, firms are subjected to multiple levels of pressure that are perceived differently because of differences in the channels whereby those pressure catch up with the internal organization of firms. The pressures are also associated to different subjects and different interests that organizations perceived as part of the activities that must be implemented or translated into practices. The perceptibility of pressure depends on how firms receive information from the gained established unit (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001). Because firms doesn’t adapt voluntarily to their relative organizational environment (Smirchich, Stubbart, 1985), but starting from an assumption that organization and environment are created together (enacted) through the social interaction processes of key organizational participants (Mason & Mitrof, 1981; Davis, 1982), every single effort toward change or adaptation must be considered a combination of each organizational member inside a specific context, not only because it is perceived as such but also because it is made by all actors in regard to their interests and objectives. The combination of interests is not explained as a model of organizational change but usually as an explanation of the similarity (“isomorphism”) and stability of organizational arrangements in a given population or field of organizations (Greenwood & Hinnings, 1996). For this reason, the implementation of particular interests is a process that starts from an internal decision-making activity where, the subjects that take part to the internal coalition agglomerate their interests and try to find a common set of activities, that in a second moment communicate to the external coalition to achieve a high level of legitimacy (Di Maggio & Powell, 1983; Scott, 1995). 31 2.6 Different typologies of stakeholders’ participation A participative process depends on the level of engagement in the decision-making activities: Oxley Green & Hunton Clarke talk about stakeholder participation in terms of informing decisions and making decisions (2003). The level of stakeholders’ participation is achieved in the “company” context and it goes from a (1) high level of participation where companies take decision with stakeholders, to a (2) middle level of participation, where companies use stakeholders as consultative subjects to the (3) lowest level of participation, where companies just inform stakeholders of their activities. All the theories described in this article explain differently the level of stakeholders’ participation in the decision-making process starting from different point of views, but with a common goal that is the identification of efficient activities that facilitate the interaction between companies and their external environment. So, from a participative perspective considering a company and the network of its stakeholders as a community facilitates the identification of the relevant focused issues that are discussed among the parts in the decision-making processes. The participation level depends from the relationship between the parts and from the singular situation or problem that must be solved. From the relationship perspective, the two coalitions impact on the level of participation: from a non-coalition relationship to an external and after internal coalition. Table 1 Stakeholders participation and forms of coalitions Participation Coalition 32 Informative Consultative Non-coalition External coalition Stakeholders Stakeholders Decisional Internal coalition Stakeholders The second element that impact on the participation level is given by the analysis of every single situation and the typologies of problems that must be solved. From this point of view there is a customized analysis of every single issue or problem that requests an evaluation. Situations differ in terms of problems and issues that are shared and enacted by the companies with the participation of stakeholders. Participation is important itself because helps to develop common sense and shared languages, as written by Morsing and Schultz (2006) through the research of selfrepresentation. The complexity and the relevance of different situations determine distinctive levels of participation; with low levels of complexity is requested an informative model of participation, with medium level of complexity a consultative model of participation, with high level of complexity is requested a decisional model of participation: the higher is the level of complexity the higher is the level of participation requested. Prop5: The coalition distance impacts on the level of stakeholder participation in the decision-making activity: the lower is the coalition distance, the higher is the level of participation. So, once established the level of participation, through the analysis of the different typologies of coalition, the decision-making process is a consequence of the alternative modalities of the stakeholders’ participation. As explained by Oxley Green & HuntonClarke (2003) the different typologies of participation are selected according to the single situation or problem that must be solved. This implies that considering different sets of problems companies can predict the expected outcomes of the stakeholders’ participation processes, evaluating different levels of commitments regarding different typologies of problems and the relative level of complexity that every single problem needs. On the other hand more research is needed to find a common set of rules that can be explained, through a theoretical model, and that can be used in every situation with a general set of rules and outcomes. It is impossible that every company must carry out a set of specific outcomes for every single situation. If a general model is needed to understand stakeholders’ interaction with companies and their level of participation, on the other hand, the decision-making process is of course an activity that requests time 33 and resources that must be dedicated to every single issue and that in some cases are so specific that need a more strategic attention. The differences between a standard approach and a more structured one are differences that must be more explained in the development of the theoretical model. Future works must be deepen analyze the differences between the typologies of coalitions and how these coalitions impact on the decision making activities. Another aspect that needs more attention is the analysis of the differences between different typologies of companies and how this general model of stakeholder engagement can contrast looking at alternatives models of organizations. The most important elements that must be considered regard the industry (the stakeholders power and legitimacy and how these features impact on the relationship with companies), the companies’ outcomes (manufacturing versus services companies) and the relationship with particular typologies of stakeholders (especially customers and clients in terms of active and passive role in the development of the companies’ businesses). 34 2.7 The relevance of the Nasi theoretical model in the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management The explanation of the Nasi’s model gives me the opportunity to explain how organizations work to manage their requirements in regard of stakeholders and their pattern of interests. The interconnection among pattern of interests and groups of stakeholders represents the organizational complexity of internal and external coalitions. The organizational environments complexity impacts on the capability to understand different events or actions (Pater & van Lierop, 2006). The nature of the issues and the number of alternative behaviors influence the complexity of organizational environments (Jeurissen, 2004): Higher is the stakeholders’ faculty to share interests among different subjects and explain the differences among alternative behavioral options, the lower is the complexity of organizational environments. The level of complexity impacts on the willingness and ability to convoy different interests into common decisions (Strand, 2008). Talking about complexity in this case is not a negative effort. The presence of a complex argument or a complex organizational environment is an important element that helps the implementation of a particular action because the level of complexity is synonym of presence of multiple stakeholders and multiple patterns of interests. The overlap of interests can be reached when different group highline and define a set of common-sense arguments. The research of common sense is obtained with the exchange of interests and information through a set of issues. So, the process that explains how organizations interpret particular patterns of interests is a double process that derives from the explanation and selection of them. From an internal perspective the enactment is based on the sense making activity that managers do to create a common sense of different patterns of interests. On the other side the external perspective is based on the modalities of interactions among groups of stakeholders that share patterns of interests. Decisions are taken through the alignment of internal and external patterns of interests. This is the model that I propone to explain how corporate environmental management strategies are implemented inside organizations. Because the implementation of particular environmental activities have impacts both on the internal and the external 35 coalitions, the decision to do something is a sum, and in the same time a synthesis, of patterns of interests. Figure 3 Implementation process of Corporate Environmental Management The acceptance of particular practices is a process where organizations and their constituents compare their own interests to reduce divergences and influence adoption of different practices. According to several scholars (D’Aunno et al. 2000, Delmas & Toffel, 2008) future research should aim to specify the roles of constituents more precisely, developing a “comparative analysis of stakeholders influences on organizations, looking at how they begin to act accordingly” (Sharma & Henriques, 2005:175). The engagement with stakeholders implies that the success or the failure of particular decisions passes through the sharing process of interests and values. The interests’ sharing process demands a high level of multiparty negotiation (Maitlis, 205) that implies that organizations and stakeholders have both to reduce conflicts and to develop performance-related outcomes. This is true if every subject is committed to develop and maintain a solid and durable participation. The participation can be 36 durable only if both every one is engaged to encourage empowerment in their organizations through the definition of who is involved and which is the most appropriate role for every one. Within the same industry, firms are subjected to multiple levels of pressure that are perceived differently because of differences in the channels whereby those pressure catch up with the internal organization of firms. The pressures are also associated to different subjects and different interests that organizations perceived as part of the activities that must be implemented or translated into practices. The perceptibility of pressure depends on how firms receive information from the gained established unit (Hoffman, 2001). Because firms doesn’t adapt voluntarily to their relative organizational environment (Scirchich, Stubbart, 1985), but starting from an assumption that organization and environment are created together (enacted) through the social interaction processes of key organizational participants (Mason & Mitrof, 1981; Davis, 1982), every single effort toward change or adaptation must be considered a combination of each organizational member inside a specific context, not only because it is perceived as such but also because it is made by all actors in regard to their interests and objectives. The combination of interests is not explained as a model of organizational change but usually as an explanation of the similarity (“isomorphism”) and stability of organizational arrangements in a given population or field of organizations (Greenwood & Hinnings, 1996). The acceptance of interests is explained by people that make sense of things, sharing practical measures and instruments that are implemented within their scope of influences (Cramer et al., 2004). 37 38 CAP III - SENSEMAKING THEORY TROUGH THE LOGICS OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 3.1 Introduction The relationship between business and the logics that are needed when we talk about sustainability and green attitudes (as environmental management) and more in general about corporate social responsibility has always been a much discussed topic. As explained by Bansal & Roth when talking about ecological and sustainable issues, it is necessary to develop a model that identifies distinct conceptual categories of ecological motivations and the corresponding antecedents and outcomes associated with each motivation (Bansal & Roth, 2000: 717). Starting from this assumption, environmental issues can be studied in terms of processes and results associated to the organizational responses to external stimuli that derive from ecological motivations. Is for this reason that I use the sensemaking approach to identify how green issues are interpreted and enacted in a specific context with hits rules, motivations and specific characteristics. By taking a sensemaking approach I try to increase the understanding of how Environmental strategies are influenced by the context specific sensemaking processes of an organization, investigating how people think, speak and tend to behave regarding Environmental management. Scholars that write about, environmental management, sustainable development, corporate social performance, corporate citizenship, social responsiveness, corporate governance, issue management, and stakeholder management can all be categorized as people that write and discuss about CSR (Garriga & Melé, 2004). Anyway, there is not only an excess of literature on the topic of corporate social responsibility, considering that the debate on this topic has been going on with almost no consensus emerging on the definition of CSR (Kakabadse, Kakabadse & Rozuel, 2007) and the relationship between Environmental Management and CSR. Otherwise there are several studies that want to merge environmental management as part of a more general framework as corporate social responsibility, considering some principal dynamics as elements that permit the association of model and theories within the two topics (Boiral, 2007, Pedersen, 2007, Margolis & Walsh, 2003). There are some environmental practices (as 39 for example the ISO registration) that companies need as a symbol (Boiral, 2007) that stimulate particular emotions (Georg & Fussel, 2000) to guide interpretations (McCabe & Dutton, 1993), that serve to create linkages among people in the organization around the issue at stake (Cramer et al., 2004: 216). Because the literature that link sensemaking theory and environmental management is scarce, I star the literature review on these two topics looking at the more general literature about sensemaking and CSR. 3.2 Corporate Social Responsibility and sensemaking The first critique that has been done to the classical literature on CSR is that CSR has been approached from a too rational perspective (Nijhof & Jeurissen, 2006). Instead of looking at CSR as an immobile structure, some authors interpret it in a Weickean sense as an evolutionary process where many different agents act and react upon each other (Weick, 1995; in Nijhof & Jeurissen, 2006). From a sensemaking perspective, organizations are seen as constituted by enacted models and social processes of sensemaking, in which meanings are assigned to things and events (Ericson, 2001). Organizations are constantly an object that evolves because it is the output of the daily interaction of the organizational members. Another important contribution on CSR and sensemaking literature has been done by Morsing and Schultz (2006). They studied the communication aspect of CSR from a sensemaking approach, developing a theoretical model that take in consideration different modalities of communication and interaction between companies and stakeholders. In this research, Morsing and Schultz expand the concept of interaction among organizational members including also external subjects as the stakeholders. The organizational environment becomes more sophisticated and more complex. There haven’t been conducted specific empiric studies of CSR or environmental management that started from a sensemaking approach, but I did find several interesting empirical studies that combined the sensemaking approach with other topics then CSR1. These studies can serve as a framework for my sensemaking research, in combination 1 The Journal “Business Ethics: A European Review” has published an issue (Vol 15 N. 4 2006) completely dedicated to the debate on sense making and CSR. In this volume there are several theoretical contributes that give important stimuli to the topic. 40 with the discussed theories of Weick (1995, 2001) and Basu & Palazzo (2008). Starting from this logic, an important study was conducted by Thomas, Clark & Gioia (1996). They investigated how top management teams in higher education systems make sense of issues that can affect strategic change. Their findings suggested that top management team members’ perceptions of identity are essential to the sensemaking process (Thomas, Clark & Gioia, 1996). Mills, Weatherbee and Colwell (2006) combined their sensemaking approach with ethno-statistics to investigate how Canadian business schools and universities make sense of comparative rankings. They concluded that accreditation and ranking have taken on new meanings as sensemaking devices for universities and business schools, because of the need to secure funding. Similar research could explain the importance of CSR reports and CSR rankings. In another study, Mills and Weatherbee (2006) examined organizational disasters from a sensemaking approach. They demonstrated the importance of organizational identity construction as a key determinant of inter-organizational sensemaking processes. Another example is the study of Maitlis and Lawrence (2007), who focused on sets of conditions that trigger sense giving and sets of conditions that enable sense giving of stakeholders as well as leaders. Starting from these studies and their perspective, that explain how sensemaking influence organizational behaviors, my study focuses the attention on the institutional and contextual elements that influence organizational sensemaking of environmental management (and more in general CSR practices) to get an alternative and richer understanding of how organizations deal with this phenomenon (Basu & Palazzo, 2008). Because environmental issues cannot be faced by the organizations alone, because they need help to construct interpretations of social stimuli (Sonenshein, 2007), and because they don’t have enough information to make accurate predictions about the environment (McCabe & Dutton, 1993), for this reason companies search for other subjects that share with them interests and stakes as elements that can facilitate the interpretation and the implementation of particular practices. For this reasons the most appropriate subjects that can facilitate the connection between issues, interests and focal business activities for the organizations are the stakeholders. Considering the multicultural contexts and the complexity of organizational environments, the role of 41 stakeholders is fundamental for the individuation of alternative solutions to specific requests as for the case of environmental issues (Pater & van Lierop, 2006). 3.3 Make sense of stakeholders interests Sensemaking is influenced by a variety of social factors, the effectiveness and “the success of sensemaking is about labeling and categorizing the streaming of experience, to make the world more orderly” (Weick, Sutcliffe, Obstfeld, 2005). Scholars want to understand how new practices, incompatible with current understanding of right and wrong, could gain acceptance (Leblebici et al, 1991). The acceptance depends from the context in which organizational embeddedness must be explained and acted through symbolic devices that serve to establish certain levels of attention and to establish a codified language. The acceptance implies the achievement of particular practices instead of others and the consequent realization. Individuals construct issues that allow them to comprehend and act in a collective way (Maitlis, 2005). Sensemaking serves to collectively adjust vocabulary and labels that explain patterns of interests (Cramer et al., 2004). The reciprocal exchanges among groups of actors in the sensemaking processes have effects on the selection of what can be done and what cannot be done. The sensemaking and the consequential decision-making processes are influenced by the interpretation and the comprehension that derives from a participative process (Dutton & Ashford, 1993). Sensemaking has been described as “a process by which individuals develop cognitive maps of their environment not directly from their external demands but from organizationally embedded cognitive and linguistic processes” (Basu & Palazzo, 2008). The development of cognitive maps is the result of the identification of concreteness relations between different actors. The concreteness derives from the sharing of experiences and the exchange of equivocal inputs (Weick et. al, 2005). The equivocal inputs are the results of the way organizations engage with stakeholders in order to search social legitimacy. The social legitimacy is a process that derives from the cocreation of acceptable norms and behaviors as a result of the dialogue with stakeholders. 42 The involvement of stakeholders implies that sensemaking processes must be formalized and shared as an explicit model to externalize and articulate interests (Matten & Moon, 2008). As Weick argued, “The basic idea of sensemaking is that reality is an ongoing accomplishment that emerges from efforts to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs” (1993: 635). Organizational sensemaking is a fundamentally social process: organization members interpret their environment in and through interactions with others, constructing accounts that allow them to comprehend the world and act collectively (Isabella, 1990; Sackman, 1991; Sandelands & Stablein, 1987; Starbuck & Milliken, 1988; Weick & Roberts, 1993; Maitlis, 2005). 43 3.4 Sensemaking Sensemaking was introduced to organizational studies by Karl Weick and in extra fields by other authors. Sensemaking is an interdisciplinary research program that brings together elements from philosophy, sociology and cognitive science as social psychology. The multiplicity of disciplines have in common the fact that sensemaking is a research field that is based on the study of how persons interact. The importance of the attention to individuals is fundamental because is an opportunity to study behaviors of singular individuals or group of them that respond to human needs and interests. Through sensemaking individuals or groups create a model of a system, based on diverse information sources, that they interpret and consequentially take action. In addition to make sense of information, the concept of sensemaking serves to create relations among different groups of information and make a selection of the most adequate. The adequacy of interests is a long and complicated process that is composed by a double tripartite model: the Weick’s model that looks at how sensemaking identifies the most acceptable activities and the Basu & Palazzo model that analyzes how sensemaking works taking into account the relationships among the key participants. Weick introduced a model that divides the sensemaking activity into three interlocked phases (Weick 1979b): enactment, selection and retention. 1. The first phase is enactment. In enactment, people actively build the information they attend to in two ways. First, they selectively range, isolate, and select information, paying attention to some messages and discounting others. They label, categorize, and connect together information about actors, events, and outcomes (Weick, 1970). Second, they interfere with the environment and create new features in order to help them make sense of it. When managers enact the environment, they “construct, rearrange, single out, and demolish many objective features of their surroundings. . . . they un-randomize variables, insert vestiges of orderliness, and literally create their own constraints” (Weick 1979b, p. 164). The result of this enactment is a smaller set of data that is still equivocal. The enactment process separate possible alternatives that the organization can take seriously, but what it actually does depends on what happens in the selection process. 44 2. In the selection process, people look at the information they have enacted and try to answer the question, “What is going on here?” (Weick, 1970). They fill up the new data with interpretations that have worked before in explaining similar or related situations in the past. The interpretation helps to fit how previous situation has been explained to the current situations and understand if it is possible to give a reasonable interpretation of the new facts. The best fit between old and new understanding give the right interpretation. Interpretation, in other words, is based on a set of cause-and-effect explanations of the environment. The explanations don’t have to be the most accurate or complete, but the most plausible (Choo, 2006). The plausibility is given by the combination of patterns of interests. 3. In the retention process, the products of successful sensemaking are maintained for future use. The retrospective interpretation of actions and events already explained reduces the future uncertainty about the same situations. The experiences are built through relationships between events and actions and in these forms, interpretations are remembered and made available for future cycles of enactment and selection (Choo, 2006). In the sensemaking view, the reason for the existence of an organization is to produce stable interpretations of equivocal data about organizational change (Weick, 1970). Anyway, some equivocal features stay behind and so the interpretations are always associated with new events in future sensemaking processes. In fact, organizations can continue to learn from outside only if they maintain a balance between flexibility and stability in their rendering of a meaningful context for organizational action (Choo, 2006). Figure 4 Adapted from Weick, 2005 45 The process of sensemaking works if persons interact in two ways: using symbols that can explain their interests or transforming and interpreting general arguments into concrete actions. Both the two modalities depend on the way they are communicated. As argument by Weick (2005), communication is a central component of sensemaking and organizing where people collectively find ourselves and the events that affect them exchanging representations of the circumstances that surround their context. 46 3.5 Make sense through communication processes Basu & Palazzo have introduced a model of sensemaking that consider the relationships between organizations and their relevant stakeholders, through the way they communicate each other their intentions, behaviors and attitudes. The model is divided in three essential processes: cognitive, linguistic and conative. 1. The cognitive process represents the modality that organizations use to think about their relationship with stakeholders and how they are engaged in specific activities that might have an impact on the key relationships. 2. The linguistic process is a process used to communicate and explain the reasons why organizations decide to engage in specific activities. The necessity of an explanation derives from the logical consequences that the engagement has on different groups of stakeholders. 3. The conative process represents the commitment and the behavioral posture of organizations that influence the perception of stakeholders regarding their relationship with them. Figure 5 Adapted from the Basu & Palazzo model (2008) 47 The combination of these two theoretical models of sensemaking can be synthesized in this sentence: sensemaking is a reciprocal communication between organizations and stakeholders that categorize patterns of interests through the explanation of similarities and differences that serve to build equivocal and stable commitments. Figure 6 Adapted From Weick and Basu & Palazzo 48 3.6 Stakeholders dialogue As exposed before, the relationship between an organization and their relative stakeholders is based on the capability that both of them talk the same language, making sense of their interests and activities through a social and linguistic process that works to develop a specific and costumed meaning dedicated to the people that are involved in the process (Cramer et al, 2004). The limitation of this activity is the customization of the process because is limited to the subjects involved and is not easy replicable in divers context. Every group that starts an interaction and a sensemaking process develops an internal categorization of interests. It is a result of transforming different cultures into a common language confronting differences and similarities. When there are multiple groups of interests and these groups are particularly distant one each other, the resistance to the dialogue and the potency of sensemaking may be weaker (Powell, 1991; Goodstein, 1994). The sensemaking activity is also a time consuming activity with high costs in terms of commitment and research of information. In order that organizations commit there self they need to achieve and find benefits of concrete actions within the context where they operate and translate the results into businessrelated issues (Cramer et al., 2004). In other words the research of benefits is the most crucial activity that facilitates the development of sensemaking if there are some elements that suggest the process: the (1) sense of direction (Cramer et al., 2004) serves to indicate the verse of the relation of interests and explains who is the sender and who is the receiver, also in cases of circular sense of interests; the (2) specification of subjects involvement that serves to reduce costs of information and costs of engagement with multiple subjects; the (3) selection of patterns of interests and consequentially of group of stakeholders to focus the attention and the linguistic processes to the groups that organizations consider important for specific interests; the (4) identification of outcomes and the (5) sense of contribution (Cramer et al., 2004). Considering these five elements the sensemaking process becomes a gradual activity that is customizable in regard of groups of subjects involved and different sets of contexts. Because the stakeholder relationships are difficult to operationalize in terms of time, translation of interests into practical experiences and the consequences that decisions have in terms of social and economical outcomes, the dialogue among organizations and stakeholders is an activity that must start at the beginning of the process, including the 49 most salient subjects (saliency is measured in terms of interests) and excluding those subjects that are not important, or the importance is not exclusive, from the dialoguing process. Pedersen proposed a theoretical model to explain the stakeholder dialogue through a series of phases and filters. The filters serve to make the stakeholder dialogue more operable, concentrating the focus on specific activities that operationalized more general concepts and patterns of interests. The limitation to this model is given by the fat that the more deep and specific is the filtering of stakeholders and patterns of interests, the higher is the possibility to miss initiatives that can be acceptable for the organizations. This is a limitation that must taken in consideration but, because limits of time, resources and the necessity to find economic and social outcomes to the decision, the focalization and specification of activities is an important activity that organizations must do in order to improve efficiency and efficacy. 1. The selection filter is an activity where all the participants start to develop a dialogue. The development of dialogue implies a first selection of relevant interlocutors that can access to the dialogue “arena”. Organizations cannot include every stakeholder in their process of communication. The number of stakeholders involved in the dialogue impact strongly on the quality and the level of the conversation. The analysis of the centrality and the distance fro the dialogues is an important element that influences the selection o stakeholders. Different topics imply in some cases also the presence of different groups of stakeholders as interlocutors with the organizations. 2. The interpretation filter is a second step of the general process of dialogue with stakeholders, where, organizations interpret the multiples information that they receive into limited groups of voices. The selection into groups is based on the alignment of patterns of interests. Because is not possible to come up with solutions that can satisfy every one, the transformation into groups of voices serves to limit the decision making activity into a limited number of alternative decisions. The interpretation filter, as argued by Pedersen, intentionally recognizes that some decisions can diverge from the interests of particular groups of stakeholders. This is part of the dialoguing activity as a result of it, in terms of outcomes and patterns of interests that are satisfied or not. 50 3. The response filter is the last part of the dialogue process that is referred to the activity that takes place outside the dialogue arena. Once the patterns of interests have been classified and once the alternative decisions have been established, organizations make a decision on which pattern of interests and which decision they want to take. The activity that is selected by organizations produces social and economic outcomes that can be observed by stakeholders. Therefore the response filter represents the divergence between organizations’ decision and the stakeholders’ interests that ensure from the dialogue between the two parts. This is well synthesized by Pedersen when he said: “giving voice to the stakeholders does not necessarily mean commitment to action” (Pedersen, 2006: 150). There are several explanations to the motives that can limit the alignment between stakeholder’s dialogue phase and the effective implementation process: the (1) additional difficulty to translate decisions into concrete actions, the (2) misalignment of technological, political and economic elements between the two parts, the (3) skepticism of who really have to implement the activities (some times decision are taken by the top management and they do not communicate previously their activities), the (4) lack of culture and competences that are necessarily to do something specific. Figure 7 Stakeholder dialogue model by Pedersen (2006). 51 3.7 Interpreting the three models Sensemaking is a complex and long activity that is composed by different phases and that involve multiple subjects in different moments. It views organizations as interpretation systems that scan, interpret learn and enact their environment (Daft & Weick, 1984). The principal scope is to create an environment that people can comprehend and manage, where every one searches for contexts within which small details fit together and make sense. (Weick, 1995: 133). Because sensemaking is a mechanism that operates at individual, organizational and extra-organizational level, is possible to define different levels of sensemaking and their relative set of details that must be interpreted. Sensemaking is a cumulative process of individual and collective construction of organizational reality, through a continuous interpretation and reinterpretation of the environment. For this reason scholars are still working on the definition and the theoretical analysis of how people make sense of their interests and activities. The three models presented are important works that, if combined together, are elements that give relevant bases to analyze particular contexts where organizations make sense daily of their activities and of their relationships with stakeholders. Considering Weick, Basu & Palazzo and Pedersen considerations, sensemaking can be defined as: A selective process, based on a reciprocal communication between organizations and a privileged group of stakeholders, that categorize patterns of interests through the explanation of similarities and differences into a limited number of alternative decisions, that serve to build equivocal and stable commitments that, once implemented, must be measured in terms of outcomes and related impacts on the stakeholders interests. 52 Figure 8 Sensemaking Model Adapted Enactment Selection Retention • Cognitive Process • Selection Filter • Linguistic Process • Interpretation Filter • Conative Process • Response Filter • Similarities and differences • Alternative decisions • Equivocal and stable commitment • Portfolio of alternative decisions • Response to stakeholder perceptions • Inpact on stakeholders interests Starting from this new definition I would like to emphasize and better understand the role of enactment. Weick argued that organizations construct the environment starting from a set of combination of inputs that determine how they interpret and comprehend it. From this perspective, managers act as a consequence of the decision that they take after the identification of a specific set of information, which is a result of the enactment and the sensemaking activity. This is partially true because if we consider that managers act after the identification of what they want or have to do, this is a static interpretation of enactment and sensemaking where there is no choice of alternatives once that sensemaking is started. The real process of sensemaking considers also the trade off between what really happens in terms of enactment (information and culture sharing processes) and what managers have in mind and wish to construct in the first place. If it is true that sensemaking is an activity where different subjects cooperate to understand each other their relative environment mutually reinforcing interpretations (Weick, 1995: 10), it is also true that the choice/actions depend from the behavioral and cultural background of the parts. Is for this reason that in the first part of the sensemaking process the enactment is based on the detection of similarities and difference among the parts that serve as a filter to different sets of decisions or alternative patterns of interests. In addition, as expressed before, sensemaking is an activity that doesn’t involve every subject that shows interests or stakes, but it is an activity that is experienced by privileged group of subjects. 53 54 CAP IV – METHODOLOGY, RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA ANALYSIS 4.1 Introduction The empirical analysis is based on a qualitative case study approach. The central notion is to use cases as the basis from which to develop theory inductively (Eisenhdardt & Graebner, 2007). Because the purpose of the research is to develop theory, not to test it, and so theoretical (not random or stratified) sampling is appropriate (Eisenhdardt & Graebner, 2007). This project aims to go beyond capturing the experience of a particular group or type of stakeholder to identify and understand the processes through which companies enact environmental issues through the direct and indirect involvement of stakeholders in sensemaking activity. This study focuses on discovering the nature of those interactions, understanding their impact on the companies, and on the practices that they implement as a result of sensemaking processes. Govers & Go (2003) suggested that as tourism, in common with most services industries, is an experiential product and for this reason suggests that they will relate their interpretations of that experience to other people through story telling, or narratives (Govers & Go, 2003), making sense of their own experience during the process. Cary (2004, p.62) suggested that “narrativity marks, organizes and clarifies experience”. The challenges for the researcher in capturing these narratives will be discussed further in the section below explaining the specific techniques that I used in the study. Using a qualitative approach enables me to take the industry and context specific elements into account, and respect the uniqueness of different Corporate Environmental Management. To address the nature of the research problem a qualitative approach using in-depth-semi-structured interviews as the data collection method was deemed to be the most appropriate methodology. Because the nature of the data (multiple cases with more than one interviewers in every organizations) the most appropriate technique to analyze case study evidences is suggested by Yin (2003) in the cross-case synthesis. This particular technique is applied to the analysis of multiple cases; every case is firstly examined as a single case by the researcher. After the identification of the single 55 cases, the technique is useful to synthetize data, capturing the most relevant aspects. The technique gives the opportunity to explain relevant elements through the illustration or citations from the interviews as for example with concrete and practical examples. 4.2 The case Therefore the idea is to study how Corporate Environmental Management is implemented in the Danish hospitality within a set of organizations with different characteristics as ownership, dimension, level of technology, typologies of clients, etc, in the same geographical context, the city of Copenhagen. Case study research is preferable in this context, since it allows the investigation to retain the holistic and important uniqueness of daily events (Yin, 1994). Because the study of Environmental Management in a general CSR context is a fairly new topic in hospitality management studies and relatively little research (from a holistic point of view) has been undertaken into this area (see, for instance, Bohdanowicz, 2007; Bohdanowicz, Simanic & Martinac, 2005; Holcomb, Upchurch, & Okumus, 2007), it might be informative to explore the implications of stakeholder involvement in the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management for the hospitality sector. That is why the choice of the industry and of the cases is so important. Moreover, the hotel industry is taking various initiatives, whether for the sake of the environment, for economic reasons, or to build a positive image. The demand for environmentally friendly products and the adoption of the EMS standard have become a powerful force in the marketplace. There has been increasing recognition of the need for tourism researchers to find research strategies that enable them to gain a better understanding of various phenomena within tourism, and of the benefits of adopting interpretivist approaches (Botterill, 2001; Goodson and Phillimore, 2004; Walle, 1997). The reasons why a hotel should obtain a certification need more attention and more studies. The aim of this project is to collaborate also with non-academic actors from the business and the NGO sectors to develop results that can be concretely applied into the industry. 56 4.3 The greening process of Copenhagen Ecologic, sustainable and environmental issues have deeply gained ground in Copenhagen in the last fifteen years. The City of Copenhagen has started a strong campaign to develop awareness and increase the green culture in all the most crucial fields as retail, consumers, politics and industry. Since 1990 it has been developed a campaign in the city to reduce CO2 emissions and try to transform the entire area of Copenhagen in the most green and sustainable city in the world. The long-term target is to become the world's first CO2 neutral capital by 2025. In order to reduce CO2 emissions further, the strategy is to lead more green energy into Copenhagen. The general commitment and behavior is high and try to involve the major of the citizens, firms and organizations that can be interested in this campaign. The same campaigns and similar goals are developed for water, waste and recycling, natural parks, mobility and impact on the climate change. The general level of environmental awareness has been increased in the last five years and particularly after the UN Climate Change Conference in 2009 (COP 15). The COP15 attracted 33,200 delegates spread in the area of the city of Copenhagen. This has been an important event that attracts attention and discussions about environmental issues, also for the services industry as tourism and hospitality. Before the COP15, in the City of Copenhagen has started a massive campaign of green information and development of Corporate Environmental Management strategies and Environmental Management Systems. Today, in 2010, after the COP15 more than 60% of hotels in the city of Copenhagen are certified and try to develop a Corporate Environmental Management strategy. The CEM, and in some cases the successive certification, has been a final decision that helps organizations to share common language and common communication about their commitment. Many hotels in Copenhagen meet climate-friendly requirements in the areas of water, washing and cleaning, waste, energy, food, smoking and indoor climate, administration, associated park and parking areas. In other words are many issues that have been implemented before and during the COP15 that goes beyond compliance and are more challenging than what is require by the general principle of Environmental Management Systems. The greening logics are mostly part of the decisions and practices in the city area. 57 4.4 Corporate Environmental Management Corporate Environmental Management (CEM) is an umbrella term that encompasses policies, tools, systems and strategies that can be put in place to enhance the environmental performance of a company. It is closely associated with the concept of eco-efficiency that argues that a company can simultaneously improve both its environmental performance and its economic competitiveness by adopting CEM practices (Visser et a., 2007). The role of Corporate Environmental Management in the last decades has started to be considered part of the win-win situation, where the relationships between organizations and stakeholders are not more based on conflicts but on a collaborative model. The Corporate Environmental Management is a whole of behaviors and cultural positions that must be translated into concrete actions. The development of Corporate Environmental Management depends on the capabilities of the management to understand which are the most appropriate instruments and tools that can help them to advance an efficient environmental strategy. The development of Corporate Environmental Management can be done following different ways, as for example: energy reduction, waste minimization, water consumption reduction, development of green supply chain, etc. Progressively therefore Corporate Environmental Management is becoming part of a company’s so-called social license to operate (Visser et a., 2007). Given the internal and external demands to improve the environmental performance of a company, those companies that achieve high standards of environmental performance will benefit in a number of ways as realize competitive advantages, improve reputation and legitimacy, get part to the development of new policies, reduce uncertainty. 58 4.5 Corporate Environmental Management in the Hospitality Industry Since the early 1990s, tourism organizations, mostly hotel facilities, have adopted different voluntary initiatives to show their commitment to sustainable development (Kirk, 1998). There is no clear guideline to limit which tourism, hospitality and ecotourism businesses self-declare them-selves as being sustainable, green or environmentally friendly. With the many definitions for sustainability and ecotourism, and disagreements around what is in and what is outside tourism, it is a not easy industry to regulate (Font, 2002). For some researchers (Ayuso, 2006; Saarinen, 2006; Bonilla Priego & Avilés Palacios, 2008) the hospitality industry does not grossly pollute the environment, nor does it consume vast amounts of non-renewable resources, but it does have a significant effect on global resources (Kirk, 1995). The industry also has a vested interest in protecting the environment, since it depends on attractive and safe surroundings as a part of the core product (Erdogan & Baris, 2007; Font et al., 2008). Otherwise, a company as a hotel can lose its competitive position in its domestic market as well as international markets by failing to pay attention to environmental issues. However, this may not be as evident in the hotel industry, as the issue of trade barriers is not currently so prominent in the industry (Chan, Wong, 2006). Additionally, the demand for environmentally friendly products and the adoption of the EMS standard have become a powerful force in the marketplace. Externally, the pressures from consumers may also influence hotels to adopt the standard, as more and more consumers are buying green products. There have been few studies on the motivation to adopt a CEM in the hotel industry (Saarinen, 2006; Bonilla Priego & Avilés Palacios, 2008). Although many hotels have developed their CEM, others are still standing at the crossroads of making a decision; others are not really considering an implementation in a short run. Probably as a result of the relatively recent adoption of voluntary environmental instruments by the tourism industry, there is very little reported research about it (Saarinen, 2006;). Most of the empirical work attempts to examine the type of practical action that hotels are taking towards environmental or sustainable management (Bramwell and Alletorp, 2001; Forsyth, 1995; Horobin and Long, 1996; Knowles et al., 1999, Middleton and Hawkins, 59 1993; Stabler and Goodall, 1997; Vernon et al., 2003). Some other studies also investigate the perceived main incentives and obstacles to the adoption of sustainable practices, but rather from a general perspective than to assess the effectiveness of specific tools (Bramwell and Alletorp, 2001; Forsyth, 1995; Stabler and Goodall, 1997; Vernon et al., 2003). Ayuso (2006) has done a qualitative exploration of perceptions and experiences of hotel managers that apply different environmental management instruments. The general understanding of the concept of sustainable tourism was examined, and the practical application of different voluntary environmental instruments was analyzed (Ayuso, 2006). The hospitality industry normally is not perceived as destroyer of the environment when compared with other manufacturing industries. This has a consequence: probably stakeholders are not so strong or efficient. Companies consider using a formal CEM or gaining certification because of the pressure from their customers (Clark, 1999), the requirement from their suppliers to conform to a formal EMS standard (Morrison et al. 2000), and the more systematic way for shareholders, government regulatory agencies, insurance companies, and financial institutions to assess their commitment to improving environmental performance (Donaldson, 1996). The reasons why a hotel should obtain a certification need more attention and more studies. It is important to understand how to prioritize environmental issues instead of other kind of problems. The main aim of implementing environmental management has been to address the issues of waste prevention, water consumption and energy savings, which have been the main concern for most hotels worldwide. 60 4.6 Motivations to implement a Corporate Environmental Management practices There are several motivations that have been discovered by different authors about the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management through the adoption of specific systems or tools. Because research in organizations and the natural environment requires multidisciplinary analysis, the distinction can be structured into two main categories: the first category results from the organizational theory, especially from the institutional perspective; the second category gleans from a more specific literature about tourism management and environmental management that are welldesigned to find specific motivations that describe the specific reasons in the hospitality industry. 4.6.1 Organizational theory perspective From an institutional perspective, the attention must be focused on the analysis of pressures and changes that cause organizations to become more or less isomorphic (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) by adopting similar practices that allows legitimacy among organizations. Also considering the stakeholder theory framework, it is part of institutional perspective that links managerial and organizational decisions to the stakeholder interests and their influences (Darnal et al, 2009). From both these points of view the implementation of Corporate Environmental Strategies are introduced more by reason of social legitimacy and policy alignment than for a real concern of efficiency; in other words we are considering EMS and CEM as a rational myths that must be complained (Boiral, 2007). This is a strong statement if only considering the formal structure of this kind of activities and non-considering the behaviors of all the actors that are involved in the implementation process of this kind of practices. According to Brunsson (1989) this is a contradiction that arises from the differences between political and action-oriented spheres and in particular from between regulatory and efficiency requirements. This contradiction justifies the failure of some activities that are only apparently coherent and legitimate statements but that are completely divergent from real activities. To step over these kinds of contradictions and understand 61 how organizations concretely use and implements environmental practices, there is another point of view that explains the adoption of particular practices as a result of the diffusion of them by the fact that they become commonplace and diffused: some practices are exerted in particular industries because there is a gradual adjustment of strategies that converge to particular practices that are considered the most legitimating or the most efficient (Milstein, Hart & York, 2002). In other words the implementation and the diffusion of environmental practices is associated to the peculiarities and characteristics of single industries. This theory is explained by Fineman & Clarke (1996), when they talk about technical expertise, political aims, attitudes and ecological degradation/protection that portray each industry. Fineman (1996) says also that perceptions could be a key to determining how a firm defines its environmental strategy and action. The perceptions, the interests and the pressures are industry based and change among different contexts and cultures as Selznick (1957) pointed out: moral competence must be built into the social structure of the enterprises so it can changes and adjusts regarding to what is perceived as legitimate in different contexts. The industry characteristics correspond to what are called institutional templates that concern organizational forms (Oliver, 1991; Greenwood & Hinnings, 1996). Industry characteristics influence models and templates creating what neo-institutionalists called institutional expectations (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Scott, 1987, 1995). The institutional expectations need to be accomplished using the same or the similar models to guarantee the organizational survival. Looking at how scholars have adapted the institutional theory to environmental studies, Hoffman (1997) and Sharma (2000) demonstrate that companies within a common industry context tend to adopt similar strategies in response to the institutional forces they experience with. The focus can be oriented better to the concept of influencing company’s choices through the interpretation of possible options (Hoffman, 1997) and the relationships between different environmental issues as opportunities rather than threats (Sharma, 2000). According to Hoffman & Ocasio (2001), is possible to analyze how different subjects interact and communicate in the same industry highlighting their attention to a limited set of issues, situations and activities that are selectively focused by them concerning to specific arguments that are industry specific or issues specific. This intra-organizational activity is called the “industry level attention” (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001) and it is a 62 model that explains how organizations potentially resolve problems looking at the particular instruments and information available in a specific industry. From this perspective I can conclude that there are several industry characteristics that influence the development or implementation of specific tools or systems instead others because they have been legitimated or recognized as the best alternatives in the industry. This first analysis is functional to understand which are the most relevant motivations and consequentially the best systems that can be adopted (and consequentially examined in the research) in the Hospitality industry. Table 2 Organizational Theory Perspectives Motivations Description Autors Isomorphism Pressures that cause changes DiMaggio & Powell, 1983 Politics vs. Economy Differences between rules and efficiency Brunsson, 1989 Institutional Templates Set of rules that must be accomplished in specific contexts. Each industry have hits own institutional expectations Oliver, 1991; Greenwood & Hinnings, 1996 Industry adaptation Companies within a common industry context tend to adopt similar strategies in response to the institutional forces they experience with Hoffman, 1997; Sharma, 2000 Focus selective issues Organizations interact highlighting their attention to a limited set of issues that are industry specific Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001 Gradual legitimacy Gradual adjustment and convergence to the most legitimated or efficient models Milstein, Hart & York, 2002; Fineman & Clarke, 1996 Rationalization Complain rational myths to get social legitimacy Boiral, 2007 Interests alignment Organizational decisions must be aligned to stakeholders interests Darnal et al, 2009 63 4.6.2 Tourism and Environmental Management perspective As mentioned by Boiral (2007) there are several “ceremonial behaviors” that justify the adoption of specific practices because of specific organizational legitimating procedures inside industries. The dissemination and adoption of particular practices is an intra-organizational process that is explained by the recognition of stakeholder and organizational interests. This process takes time and the legitimacy is the outcome of a temporal activity that, during which interests are interpreted and participated by different actors. In this section I will review the current situation in environmental management of tourism and hospitality industry, by looking at the most important papers written in the last ten years on this topic. Since the early 1990s, tourism organizations started to talk about sustainability and environmental commitment into their industry. The principal activities were based on a self-regulation activity as for example codes of conducts and best practices that were compared to the Environmental Management Systems (EMSs), eco-labels and environmental indicators (Ayuso, 2006). The activity of the European Commission and international organizations (International Hotels Environmental Initiatives, IHEI) gave some general guidelines to develop a common sense to manage and discuss about Corporate Environmental Management in the hospitality industry. The most relevant problem in the development of a common language and a common set of instruments in the industry, derived from the adaptive disclosures to the most used international systems as EMAS and ISO that were suitable for large organizations (Font, 2002). Moreover, traditionally, this industry has a high level of independent ownership that fragment the possibility to convoy information and interests in general public activities (Tzschentke, Kirk & Linch, 2004). The consequence has been that hotels preferred to work with their own systems and today we have too many ecolabels, with different meanings and criteria that extend the general confusion about the misalignment of interests and messages (Font, 2002). On the other hand international labels’ associations try to entry local market through alliances and this kind of activities influences the communication processes and the development of specific interactions between organizations and stakeholders. According to the theory, organizations should design their corporate strategies taking into account the preferences of multiple stakeholders (Ayuso, 2006); the specific problem in the hospitality industry is that the general confusion about how to develop 64 and implement Corporate Environmental Management is diffused also among different group of stakeholders. This is the importance of collaboration and development of a common sense and shared interests to find the best solution looking at the peculiarities of the industry and the characteristics of all the subjects involved. Anyway is possible to obtain a list of elements that explains the reasons and motivations to implement environmental management practices. The most general reason is the facilitation of relationships among different subjects (organizations and stakeholders) that are interested in the development of sustainable activities and policies (Chan, 2006). The facilitation derives from the possibility to exploit environmental issues to develop consciousness and commitment in the dialogue activity (Pedersen, 2006). The beginning of a dialogue is the most effective way to search consensus. Another important element that favorites the motivations on Corporate Environmental Management is given by the analysis of four principal drivers that are affected (positively and negatively) by the outcomes and decision about environment activities. Those four categories have been described by Bansal & Howard (1997) as the four drivers that face with EMS adoption: Market, Social, Financial and Regulatory drivers. These four drivers have effects on both the internal and external dimensions of organizations because managers can take decisions that have effects on different subjects or elements of the organizations. From the combination of the four drivers come out a set of other specific motivation that facilitate the implementation or development of Corporate Environmental Management practices as: cost reduction and savings activities (Maxwell et al., 1997); the reduction and efficiency of inputs as materials or energy (Hanna et al., 2000); reduction or improvement of operational process (Maxwell et al., 1997; Darnall et al., 2000); improvement of internal motivation of employers (Hanna et al., 2000) and external motivation as communication, reputation and image (Morsing & Schults, 2006). This categorization has been dealt in studies that underline the perception of performance that derive from the experience with environmental registration or environmental activities in general (Bansal & Roth, 2000; Pedersen, 2007). Pedersen analyzed the perception of organizations that implemented an environmental management system in terms of positive gains and benefits that derive from this adoption. He discovered that for those that have been interviewed, organizational performance is influenced principally by tree elements: impact on the environment 65 (internally and externally to the organization), the improvement of corporate image and cost reduction from optimizing resources. Performance can be also influenced by the commitment of management, the preexistence of environmental culture in the organizations and from eventual previous experiences on implementation of other form of management systems. In addition Pedersen summarizes those categories talking about the benefits that derive from the alignment among rhetorical and practical issues. On the other hand, Bansal & Roth (2000) talk about the importance, in terms of performance, to develop new ecobusiness and stress the strategic decision on the implementation of environmental issues. Forms of ecobusiness can be: new market opportunities, change and adaptation in the subsidiaries, adjustment in the supply chain. Another important aspect is the analysis of opportunities in terms of competitive advantages that come from the opening to international markets that derive from the capability to reduce barriers that are today currently so prominent in the industry (Chan, 2006). One of the most relevant elements of the hospitality industry is given by the capability to attract guests coming from national and international markets. There are different elements that impact on the capability to attract guests. Certainly, the proximity of particular arguments as sustainability and Corporate Environmental Management is one of those and, probably, could be one of the most long-term initiatives that will influence the trends in the industry. Therefore, speaking of longterm initiatives is another important element that characterizes the choice to implement Corporate Environmental Management practices (Tzschentke, Kirk and Linch, 2004). The proactivity is an important aspect that must be considered in the development of Corporate Environmental Management because provides the elements to search future opportunities, decide on time and reduce the urgency of resolutions. The decisions are more weaken. The proactivity gives the opportunity to involve more subjects in the decision making process considering all the alternatives solutions and try to build a strong consensus and convoy the choices to the best solutions. Another element is the opportunity that the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management gives in terms of acquisition of information through the research of best practices and through the involvement of external subjects (stakeholders, consultants). Openness is always an important chance for the organizations to monitor their activities through formal and informal modalities of control. A gradual openness reduces the critical aspects of change and adaptation. Most 66 of the time, organizations need to change their current practices (Tzschentke, Kirk & Linch, 2004); the problem is that without a general scheme, or set of essential guidelines, the change can be critical and in some cases inefficient. The last but don’t least aspect that must been considered in the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management is related to the symbolic aspects, like communication and public relations among subject, that influence identities, interests and orientations that change in a cross-organizational dimension (Matten & Moon, 2008). The symbolism that is intrinsic in the development of particular practices helps organizations to articulate their interests and find clear opportunity to share interests. The exploitation of explicit interests is an opportunity to compare different models and behaviors that are adopted by different groups of interests. One of the most important aspects that must be considered is the possibility to link processes and outcomes so that misalignments among interests can be monitored during the progression of them and not only at the end. The formalization is useful to identify common aspects that can facilitate the sharing of information and the partition of common and divergent interests. 67 Table 3 Tourism and Environmental Management perspective Motivations Description Authors Decision Drivers Market, Social, Financial, Regulatory. Bansal & Howard, 1997 Reduction and Saving activities Attention to the costs and the production of inputs and outputs. Maxwell et al., 1997 Reduction and efficiency of inputs Materials, energy, waste. Hanna et al., 2000 Operational process Reduction of costs, improvement of the processes, change and reengineering. Maxwell et al., 1997; Darnall et al., 2000 Eco business Stress strategic decisions to develop new markets, new products and new services ecooriented. Bansal & Roth, 2000 Proactivity Openness and long-term decisionmaking. Tzschentke, Kirk and Linch, 2004 Facilitation of relationship Development of consciousness and commitment in the dialogue activity; search consensus. Chan, 2006; Motivation Internal (employers), external (communication, reputation, image). Morsing & Schults, 2006; Hanna et al, 2000. Perception of organizational performance Alignment among rhetorical and practical issues. Pedersen, 2006 Openness to international markets Reduce barriers in a specific industry looking outside their boundaries. Chan, 2006 Symbolism Influence identities, interest and orientations Matten & Moon, 2008 68 4.7 International Environmental Management practices in the Hospitality Industry The hospitality industry has started to respond to the needs of the environmental management in the early ninety’s. The International Hotels Environment Initiative (IHEI) started in the 1992, when a number of the principal international hotel chains recognized the importance to start to work together. IHEI started to communicate among hits partners distributing manuals for managers, a journal and other supports for hotel companies. IHEI has today evolved into the International Tourism Partnership (ITP), that is part of the International Business Leaders Forum. The aim of this program is to assist the industry from a geographical perspective (develop specific program in different countries and cultures), from an involvement perspective (assess and develop different interests of their customers, stakeholders and future generations) and from a practical perspective (provide hotels tools and case histories to develop solutions to “green” their structures and their operations). Another important international activity is the creation by the Organization for Standardization (ISO) of the environmental management standard ISO140002. ISO is an important standard because can be applied to many different industries and it is specific implemented into singular facilities. The standard concerns to a variety of levels in the business, from organizational level, to the product and service level. The focus of ISO 14000 is not the exact measurement of environmental performance; it serves to identify organizational needs and goals. The success depends on the commitment from all levels of the organization: employers, management and stakeholders. ISO is a complementary standard to national regulatory regimes and is not intended to replace or duplicate a country' regulatory regime (Quazi, 1999). The EU has developed a similar initiative in 1995: the EMAS (Eco Management & Audit Scheme). It is a voluntary scheme aiming to promote continuous evaluation and 2 According to Delmas, formally adopted in 1996 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO 14000 denotes a new approach to the improvement of environmental management practices. As of 2002, 49,462 firms in 121 countries had adopted ISO 14000, but the level of adoption still differed greatly across countries, with 47 percent of the worldwide ISO 14000-certified facilities located in Western Europe and 36 percent in the Far East. U.S. certified facilities accounted for only 5 percent of ISO 14000- certified facilities (ISO 2002). 69 improvements in the environmental performance of participating organizations. EMAS goes beyond EN ISO 14001 in a number of ways, requiring the undertaking of an initial environmental review, the active involvement of employees in the implementation of EMAS, and the publication of relevant information to the public and other interested parties. The Green Key is an international label developed exclusively for the hospitality industry. The Green Key has been created in 1994 in Denmark by HORESTA, a professional federation of hotels. In 2002 the label was adopted as the 5th international program of the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). For this historical reason this program counts an International Steering Committee (ISC) composed by two delegates of HORESTA and two delegates of the FEE (the political responsible for the program and an appointed member) plus the international coordinator. The development of a specific green and international culture is the opportunity that Green Key wants to use to enlarge its diffusion. As a FEE program, the Green Key has some common rules for an international coherence. Those rules of procedure have to be respected in every country; this is the responsibility of the national operators. In each country a national steering group is responsible for the Green Key campaign. Green Globe 21 is another environmental management standard, developed specifically for the travel and tourism industry, but it has not managed to reach the market. There are also a substantial number of ecolabels, codes of conduct, sustainability reporting schemes, awards, and benchmarking programs in the tourism industry. Font (2002, as cited in WTO & UNEP, 2008; 164) identified over 100 ecolabels of tourism, hospitality and ecotourism worldwide. Environmental management, certification and ecolabelling can be a useful basis for managing a businesses’ supply chain and developing strategic partnerships. From the previous literature (Kirk, 1998; Chan, 2008) it is observable that the first organizations that introduced ecological operation standards or environmental management systems were mainly hotels belonging to the big hotel chains3. On the other hand, when the environmental discussions started to be generalized, because the original EMAS and ISO systems are only feasible to larger companies, the tourism 3 This is due to the fact that, except the simplest rationalization measures, most activities require a significant starting investment the return on which is admittedly relatively fast but which cannot be afforded by the hotels that operate without safe and stable financial and managerial support. 70 industry has usually preferred to work with its own systems (Synergy, 2000) without a general scheme that can be replied in different contexts. However, there are increasingly frequent government initiatives aimed at subsidizing hotels in their efforts to introduce ecological standards into their operation. Even if ecological initiatives can be introduced in any hotel, it is certainly much easier with financial, organizational and consultative support that in autonomy. One of the main impediments to the development of common international initiatives is given also from the high differences among countries in term of ecological sustainability and the impact that this kind of limit has on the general commitment of international associations to work on a standardized model. 71 4.8 Data collection The qualitative study is based on semi-structured interviews with hotel managers and non-managerial staff. The sample is divided fundamentally into two groups of organizations: medium-sized and large-sized hotels. I didn’t consider small hotels because the difficulty in this kind of organizations to find different levels of management and a formal distribution of roles and mansions. The sample was constructed from interviews inside seven different hotels (3 large and 4 medium) in the area of Copenhagen. In each hotel I interviewed the General Manager (in one case the Vice General Manager) and the Technical or EHS (Environment Health and Safety) Manager. Moreover I had some interviews, when it was possible, to other members of the organizations as a National Responsible Business Coordinator, the CEO of a Danish Chain, Cleaning Responsible and Restaurant Responsible. I gained access to each organization through a contact or an interview with the General Manager. The second interviews have been done using formal snowball and opportunistic sampling method (Maitlis, 2005). The snowball sampling technique serves to identify other interviewers, as for example people suggested by the General Manager or by other interviewers that can have relevant information or because are in charge of this kind of activities. In total I conducted 18 formal interviews4 and in some cases, the most significant, I achieved other interviews to understand deeply some specific aspects that was not much clear in the first round of interviews. All of the 18 subjects have been contacted at least two times. The first interviews have been conducted for the most of them by face-to-face approach. In two cases the interviews has been done by telephone. The second round of interviews has been conducted by telephone. In some cases I also used email to communicate whit the interviewers before and after the formal interviews to get in contact and to establish together what to talk about. I used a standard letter to contact all the interviewers in which I explained the scope of the interviews giving them also some general information about Corporate Environmental Management, 4 Much consideration has been given to the question of sample size and number of interviews. In a quantitative study, the aim is normally to test a hypothesis on a sample, which is large enough to permit use of appropriate statistical techniques, and can be considered representative of the population to which it is intended to generalize the results. In a qualitative study where there is no intention to generalize results to a particular population, data collection and analysis generally continue until the same themes and issues recur continually, when data saturation is said to have been reached (Gibbs, 2002; Strauss and Corbin, 1998), or the researcher feels confident that their description fits the phenomenon and “resonates with our sense of lived life” (van Manen, 1990, p.27). 72 sensemaking and stakeholder theory. On average, after the first email and presentation letter, I needed other 3 emails to fix an appointment and prepare the interviews principally for two reasons: Some of them want to receive more information on the project, how I will use the data, the anonymity condition of the interviews; others have to ask formal authorization to the head quarter or to the CEO. Table 4 Interviews Hotel Dimension EMS Years Interviews Interview A Mid Green Key CO2 Neutral Program 5 General Manager CEO (Chain) Face to face Face to face B Mid Green Key CO2 Neutral Program 5 General Manager EHS Manager (Chain) Face to face Face to face C Mid Green Key 3 Face to face Face to face D Big Nordic Swan 3 General Manager EHS Manager (Chain) General Manager EHS Manager (Country Manager) E Big Nordic Swan 10 General Manager Technical Manager Cleaner Manager Telephone Face to face Face to face F Mid Green Key 2 Vice General Manager Technical Manager Chef Bar Manager Telephone Face to face Telephone Face to face Face to face Face to face G Big Green Key CO2 Neutral Building 2 Technical Manager Face to face H Mid Green Key 2 Hotel Manager Telephone I Green Key Association Marketing and Communication Manager Face to face In addition to the formal interviews, I achieved a fair number of informal interviews especially with people that are not officially involved in the environmental issues inside the hotels, as for example the concierges, marketing and customer relation accounts. I didn’t record and officially consider these interviews because not part of the formal meeting scheduled but aligned to the general purpose of the research. These data are 73 also interesting because gave me a general overview of how particular argument, as for the case of environmental issues, are considered into the organizations trough different levels. I considered in the case study protocol interviews only with subjects that are in charge of mid and high level of managerial roles because I was interested in the mechanisms that link and enact managerial sensemaking processes and stakeholders’ analysis of their roles. The relationships between organizations and stakeholders are most of them based on interactions between managers and responsible. Using managers as units of analysis, the perspective on stakeholders change in an interesting manner. According to Carrol and Nasi (1997), organizations are functional instruments that allow the participation of multiple subjects with different interests. The classical framework (as the Mitchel et. al one) must be extended looking also at the relations among different interests’ groups: there are not general organizational interests but single group of stakeholders that try to achieve their own goals and results. Organizational interests must be considered as a result of managing stakeholder balance among different group of interests. Starting from this framework I can consider as a group of interesting stakeholders also the employees, who, in regard to the managers, are considered one of the primary stakeholder for the organizations (Carrol, 1993). From this perspective the relations and the number of groups increase especially in the internal side (named by Nasi internal coalition) of the organizations. Strong relations and interesting interactions can be observed among managers and owners, head quarter and in the case of hotels also with clients. Clients must be considered as internal to the coalition of interests because they can carry out an active role in the development of sustainable activities inside the hotels. In order to understand the stakeholders’ roles in the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management practices, and to ensure that all stakeholders were identified (Parent & Deephouse, 2007), I asked to the managers themselves to categorize their stakeholders, giving motivations of their choices and, only at the end asking them why didn’t insert some of them into their list (I prepared a list, inspired by a literature review on stakeholder theory, that I didn’t show during the interviews, with the most relevant stakeholders that are taken in consideration in the most cited articles). 74 4.9 Data analysis Starting from the Maitlis work (2005), data analysis comprised three main stages: 1. The creation of narratives that serves to describe how sensemaking process is associated to the principal issues that arise from the interviews; 2. Identification of stakeholders, their activities, pattern of interests and how these activities are related to issues; the issues serve to allow managers to take decisions on how to make sense concretely to Corporate Environmental Management; 3. Analysis of internal and external coalitions with stakeholders’ interests, managerial perception of interests and issues that serve to agglomerate patterns of interests and groups of stakeholders. In the third phase of the data analysis I will elaborate a set of propositions that can help the future debate on the topic. 4.10 Creating Narratives First, I developed narratives that described the sensemaking processes associated with a set of issues that arose in all three organizations during the study. The first data analysis stage began with listing every organizational issue5 that arose in the seven hotels as an issue that is relevant in the argumentation of CEM. The objective of Corporate Environmental Management is to increase the overall effectiveness by which organizational resources committed to environmental restoration are used. The criteria to identify an issue are that an issue must be arisen in all the organizations. The issue must be included in the data of every single interview. Every respondent must consider an issue as significant. After the identification of the narratives I started to build up a more general and abstract model based on three categories useful to capture the key characteristics of the organizational sensemaking processes. The abstraction gives a theoretical model to interpret sensemaking of Corporate Environmental Management into three different perspectives. From a stakeholder management perspective (Pater & van Lierop, 2006) the identification and selection of issues is the starting point of the organization of 5 I defined an organizational issue as a topic of discussion that involved a question or concern connected in some way to the organization as a whole, rather than to a small subset of its members (Maitlis). 75 sensemaking. Because the ambiguity of emerging problems as in the case of environmental management, the companies need to select the issues that they intend to address. So, in the case of environmental management a sustainable vision needs to be developed with a set of core competences that serve as a filter to the selection of issues. Stakeholders do the same process. In fact, both companies and stakeholders use their competences and their knowledge as a foundation for issue selection. For this reason the interaction between the parts is fundamental not only in the sensemaking processes but also in the starting point of issues selection. Starting from the Clarcke & Chen model (2007), I developed a theoretical categorization of the sensemaking of Corporate Environmental Management. Sensemaking of Corporate Environmental Management is based on the effective integration and adequacy of (1) Regulatory (Social dimension), (2) Technical (Environmental dimension) and (3) Managerial (Economic dimension) categories. The issues must be considered in one of the three general categories. This general categorization helped me to grow and list the specific environmental issues. 76 4.11 Narratives (1) Energy saving and production measures; (2) Water saving measures; (3) Green purchasing; (4) Waste minimization practices; (5) Green Marketing; (6) Eco-design; (7) Green Supply Chain; (8) Eco-risks control; (9) Guests attention; (10) Food & Beverage; (11) Green Jobs; (12) Traveling. 4.11.1 Energy saving and production measures According to de Bruijn (in Visser, Matten, Pohl & Tolhurst, 2007) Energy management is the monitoring, control and optimization of the use of energy. Energy is one of the major concerns of the environmental performance of companies. The use of energy is inextricably linked to climate change through the emissions of carbon dioxide. In order to reduce the effects of climate change those emissions (and by implication the use of fossil fuels) will have to be cut substantially. The goal of energy management is to minimize the use of energy and to use renewable sources of energy, such as solar, wind and biomass, as much as possible. Energy management involves using different technologies and equipment but is also about creating a system of tasks, responsibilities and procedures through which the focus on energy is ensured throughout the organization. Through such a system a company can work on the continuous improvement of its energy efficiency. Hotels are large consumers of energy not only in building construction but also as establishments with complex installations, because offer guests high levels of multi-facetted comfort and exclusive services, treatment and facilities. Many of the services provided to hotel guests are highly resource intensive in concern with energy, water or raw materials. A significant amount of the energy used is wasted for image and high standard levels of quality and entertainment in the rooms and in the other spaces of the hotels. In the last years there are some new technological installations that offer competitive systems for energy saving. From an energy perspective, there are substantial differences in energy use between different types of hotels depending on hotel size, class/category, number of rooms, customer profile (business/vacation), location (rural/urban), climate zone in addition to the types of services/activities and amenities offered to guests (Sloan, Legrand & Chen, 2009). A hotel can be seen as the architectural combination of three distinct zones, all serving distinctly different purposes: the guest room area (bedrooms, 77 bathrooms/showers, toilets) individual spaces, often with extensive glazing, asynchronous utilization and varying energy loads; the public area (reception hall, lobby, bars, restaurants, meeting rooms, swimming pool, gym, sauna etc.) spaces with a high rate of heat exchange with the outdoor environment (thermal losses) and high internal loads (occupants, appliances, equipment, lighting). The service area (kitchens, offices, store rooms, laundry, staff facilities, machine rooms and other technical areas) – energy intensive requiring advanced air handling (ventilation, cooling, heating). There is a general erroneous belief in the hospitality industry that substantial reductions in energy use can only be achieved by installing advanced, high-maintenance and expensive technologies. This may be true in some particular contexts and in the case of new organizations but, in the majority of cases major energy savings can be achieved by adopting a common sense approach, requiring neither advanced expertise nor excessive investments through very small and simple activities. The first activity that every organization develops when starts an energy management program is the establishment of how much energy is being used and in which way through an energy audit system. The main energy consuming systems in hotels are: space heating, air conditioning and ventilation, hot water production and lighting. All of these typologies are strictly related to the dimension of the hotel and the category. About energy savings, every consuming system and every single zone of the hotel must be, looked separately, with different requirements. One of the important requirements that impact on the distribution of energy inside different eras of the hotel is the comfort and the quality of it. Because comfort is more important, for example, in the guest room than in the service, the development of Energy Management is a strategic issue that is strictly related to the category of the hotels, both in terms of status and both in terms of structure and technological investments. Because of the high diversity in the hotel sector, it is not easy to do benchmarking. There are several types of hotels where the energy use is comparable, but depending on the environmental influences, the government rulings and the attractiveness for tourists, the energy savings can easily pay back the investments or not. The installations as they are designed and installed, are not always used in an optimal way. Adjusting settings and better maintenance already can save energy. There are several possible measures to save energy for each of these applications, but the quantitative saving potential depends on external factors (hours of sunshine, occupancy, subsidies, etc.). 78 4.11.2 Water Saving Measures A third of the world’s population must contend with severe water shortage and many western countries are struggling against depleting aquifers and increasing water needs for which modern lifestyles are partly to blame. The hospitality industry, and tourism in general, presents a number of challenges for the management of water supplies. The geographical distribution of hotels impacts strongly on the consumption and use of water for two reasons: the annual distribution of water (summer/winter or raining/dry seasons) and the annual distribution of tourists (Sloan, Legrand & Chen, 2009). The two distributions of inputs and outputs in some cases don’t match with consequential problems on the supply of water. Water conservation is perhaps not the first issue that crosses a hospitality manager’s mind when making out the management agenda. Issues such as revenue management, marketing and personnel are prioritized. However, from the perspective of the guest, the use of water is an integral part of his or her experience. Water restrictions would result in unhappy guest stays and so maintaining adequate water comfort must be central to all water management strategies. Purchasing water and the disposal of dirty water are becoming increasingly expensive activities. Any water use reduction program must have the full support of the staff. Water consumption in hotels takes place in guest-rooms (guest showers, sinks and toilets), kitchen operations, laundry and public areas as swimming pool, gardens or other external areas with flowers trees and plants. As with energy, the approach toward decreasing water consumption is to regularly train staff on how they can contribute with simple measures toward decreased water consumption hygiene and cleanliness. The attention of all staff needs to be focused on water consumption, repairing small leaks that produce immediate gains, hundreds of liters of water can be lost each week in a toilet cistem that is not functioning properly. In addition to staff awareness and correct training, water metering is another activity that some hotels are implementing to monitor how much water is being used on every single floor or clustered area of the hotels. 79 4.11.3 Green Purchasing Green Purchasing, called also Green Procurement is the “affirmative selection and acquisition of products and services that most effectively minimize negative environmental impacts over their life cycle of manufacturing, transportation, use and recycling or disposal” (UE, 2004; Wiens, 2008; Office of Research Facilities 2010). Green purchasing is about integrating environmental considerations into purchasing decisions. Because the complexity of the purchasing, is not easy to establish general rules on it, but is possible to retrieve a list of categories that are included in the Green Purchasing: Suppliers, IT, Buildings and maintenance, Transportation, Food, Energy, Manufacturing and Waste Management. One of the most important aspects of green purchasing is the administration of common products in an organization that are associated with repetitive contracts for common material. In the last years, the mediation of contracts considers not only the economic aspects but also green issues. The economic evaluation has to consider also technical aspects related to the environmental sustainability of the products and the direct and indirect effects of them. The negotiating process becomes one of the most important aspects of the purchasing, especially when an organization plans the general milestones for the acquiring process, it must consider also green milestones. Green milestones need specific information. This type of information is fundamental for the sensemaking processes. The acquiring processes today must consider issues as energy efficiency and waste prevention. The logics that now are implemented in the green purchasing are not only based on costs reduction, rather because the consideration of green issues is more important in some cases the costs can also increase. Recycling is part of the implementation of green purchasing; this means that an efficient chain can also reduce costs or prices. Analyzing the green purchasing I can say that the technical evaluation is becoming more strategically than the economic evaluation. This is true also for the investments in new technologies and the development of new products based on hi-tech common green materials. 80 4.11.4 Waste minimization practices The hospitality industry can become an important actor in the minimization of waste that is currently hauled off and disposed of at landfill sites. The industry can be active in the creation of recycling centers and pro- grams, using environmentally friendly cleaning supplies and techniques and sourcing locally produced goods and services that reduce transportation expenses. As in other businesses, the top priority in the hotel industry is maintaining high guest satisfaction (Sloan, Legrand & Chen, 2009). Thus, there is great concern that any environmental improvements or conservation methods implemented will not negatively affect customer comfort and satisfaction. Most people are familiar with the traditional definition of waste management, which basically concentrates on the removal of rubbish from a private dwelling or business premises. In the hospitality industry, the scope of this definition continues to evolve as operators begin to embrace the three “R‘s” of Reuse, Recycling and Reduce (Visser, Matten, Pohl & Tolhurst, 2007). Every kilo of waste equates to inefficiently used resources; in addition, the disposal of waste has to be paid for usually directly by the hospitality operation in the form of a tipping fee. In some cases, the establishment has to pay a haulage fee to have the waste transferred to a municipal landfill site, a transfer station or a recycling center. Although there are costs involved in recycling processes, every cardboard box or plastic bottle recycled saves the amount of energy that would have otherwise been used to make it from virgin material. Waste disposal is not an efficient or clean business. Even though standards are improving, waste management facilities are still significant polluters. Aside from the problem of illegal dumping, badly managed landfill sites are a source of pollution; non-biodegradable rubbish for future generations; releases the greenhouse gas methane into our atmosphere and damage the landscape. Incinerated rubbish can contribute to air pollution if incorrectly handled, likewise recycling and composting vegetable material can also pollute if badly run. Within the hospitality industry, from a waste issue’s perspective, food and beverage operations account for a substantial amount of waste. 81 This waste can be defined as: Pre and post-consumer food waste, packaging and operating supplies. Pre-consumer waste is defined as being all the trimmings, spoiled food and other products from kitchens that end up in the garbage before the finished menu item makes it to the consumer. Post-consumer waste, naturally, is any rubbish left once the customer has consumed the meal. Packaging waste, especially in the form of plastic that cannot biodegrade naturally, as anything used to hold food coming into the kitchen and going out. Operating supplies encompass every other piece of material used that becomes wasted in a foodservice operation, such as cooking oil and light bulbs (Sloan, Legrand & Chen, 2009). Waste is classified as biodegradable (vegetal and animal matter) and non-biodegradable (inorganic matter: plastics, glass, metal). In addition, hotels produce so called biological wastes (human sewage) and ashes if an incinerator is used in the establishment. Hazardous wastes that are normally associated with heavy industry and also with manufacturing industries are also present in hotels and restaurants. They include the solvents used in paint and floor finishes, the chemicals used in some cleaning products and batteries that contain heavy metals such as mercury. Every effort must be made to either avoid using such products or, if they are indispensable, they should be dispose of correctly. About waste reduction tactics, the management should work with suppliers to procure products that promote waste prevention. Some suppliers may be able to change products and packaging to reduce the waste the hotel manages. For example, ask food service vendors if they can deliver items in reusable shipping containers. Consider buying or leasing used or remanufactured furniture, fixtures and equipment. Typical remanufacturing operations performed by suppliers are replacement of worn parts, refinishing of metal or wooden surfaces, repairing of scratches, dents and holes, and reupholstering of cushions. Extending the life of furniture, fixtures and equipment through remanufacturing reduces the rate at which they are discarded. Purchasing in bulk, using recycled products and buying from suppliers that have a proper environmental policy in place, are all measures that help to reduce the amount of waste generated. Moreover, buying products with a longer lifetime will also lead to decreased waste (Visser, Matten, Pohl & Tolhurst, 2007). 82 Creating less waste or eliminating waste before it is created means creating less pollution and saving natural resources. This can be done by working together with suppliers and encouraging them to reduce their packaging, reuse packaging or change to reusable packaging where possible. Purchasing some items in bulk may be another option for reduction, cleaning materials, for example, can be purchased in concentrated form and mixed in the hotel. Many hotels now supply guests with liquid soaps and shampoos in refillable ceramic containers in the bathrooms. Outsourcing can sometimes help hotels to reduce waste and cut costs. Services such as dry cleaning that requires an important capital expenditure and that if badly managed produce hazardous waste should be considered carefully. Alternatives, such as using a local company could be more cost effective and result in less pollution. 83 4.11.5 Eco Design The hospitality industry constitutes one of the most energy and resource intensive branches of the tourist industry. Energy efficiency in facilities designed for hospitality is frequently low and the resulting environmental impacts typically greater than those caused by other types of buildings of a similar size. The negative effects on the environment during the construction phase are caused by the excessive consumption of non-renewable resources e.g. water, electricity and fuel, as well as by emissions into the air, groundwater and soil. Many hospitality travelers demand more from hospitality facilities (Sloan, Legrand and Chen, 2009). They expect a high level of comfort and service in accommodation and food and beverage operations, they also desire experiences that cater to their needs and wants. In addition, the modern guest wishes to feel that his or her actions are environmentally responsible, they wish for an earthconsciousness experience that will ensure their hospitality stay caters both to them and the world in which they live. The concepts of service and ecology once appeared to be polar opposites in the hospitality industry. The traditional idea shared by both the consumer and the property was that, in introducing more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives, the property would sacrifice ambience, comfort and the guest’s enjoyable experience. Thanks to technological advancements and greater environmental knowledge, this is no longer so. In the majority of cases, major energy saving can be achieved by adopting a common sense approach requiring neither advanced expertise nor excessive investments. This is particularly true when the concepts of energy efficiency and resource conservation are accounted for already when planning and designing a hotel facility (Sloan, Legrand and Chen, 2009). In recent years, this process has become known as eco-design, green design or sustainable design. This is a new way to concept and thinks for sustainable tourism. The eco design produce effects also on the development of environmental strategies into new hotels, as I founded in one specific hotel based on new technologies and in a new and eco designed building. In the case of a new building the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management starts earlier: it starts in the construction project through the choice of particular materials and in the capability to invest in non-energy retailed resources or recycled materials. This is particularly interesting if considering that in all western nations, the construction industry is the main consumer of non-renewable resources (Sloan, Legrand and Chen, 2009). Finally, the environmental impact of 84 construction is also felt in terms of pollution. This is not in the extraction but in the processing of materials for construction. And again, not surprisingly, the construction industry has the biggest effect of all sectors because of the quantity of materials used in construction (Sloan, Legrand and Chen, 2009). In the past, there was a simple general equation between the amount of pollution and the amount of energy in a process. On the whole the more energy required, and the more processes, the more waste and the more pollution was generated. Talking about eco design and sustainability, the goal is to find architectural solutions that guarantee the wellbeing and coexistence of society, the environment and profitability (Sloan, Legrand and Chen, 2009). Not only does sustainable architectural design attempt to reduce negative effects on humans and on the environment but it also attempts to create greater resource efficiency than found in conventionally constructed buildings. Efficiency means that these buildings save costs in terms of energy, and water, while providing at least the same ambient quality (James & Yang, 2004). Sustainable architecture can be divided into three main parts. The first being sustainable planning. This means that before construction the planners and architects must consider all environmental and social impacts. Social impacts can be health, safety, comfort, productivity or quality of life. The second is considering waste reduction. Building new structures is a high waste production activity. There are two ways to reduce waste, a direct and an indirect way: The direct way is based on the ability to reduce building materials discards. The indirect way is to use recycled materials during the building processes. The third part concerns the relation between building and the principles of eco and sustainable urbanism. In other words the eco efficiency depends also from the interaction of buildings with the surroundings environment (Benninger, 2001). 85 4.11.6 Green Supply Chain The analysis of how organizations try to manage their supply chain and try to transform it into a green one is an efficient way to understand the concept of a firm’s environmental fitness (Sroufe, 2003). The development of a green supply chain is an important starting point into my work because give me many information to understand how managers interact with an important part of their stakeholder (the supplier’s network) and how they make sense of their different interests. Sensemaking approach is useful in the analysis of the supply chain because through this framework I can concretely understand how managers make decisions involving supply chain management or not. The basis for this model is a collection of information from Hahn et al. (1990), Rajagopal and Bernard (1993) and Peterson (1996). The efficiency of corporate and environmental goals in the supply chain can be measured using performance measures for issues such as quality improvement, cost reduction and waste reduction (Peterson 1996). Environmental decision-support systems (Frysinger 2001) or environmental management systems (EMSs) are elements in the process of evaluating and assessing supply-base data. The management of a supply chain works as a collector of information and data useful to better lead with external market place and competition but also from existing suppliers and any new suppliers being considered, resulting in a supplier assessment program (Peterson 1996). This evaluation typically will involve the measurement of efficiency, quality, cost reduction and on-time delivery and will include specific measurements regarding the environmental practices of the supplier, such as ISO certification (e.g. within the ISO 14000 series), involvement in pollution-prevention and waste-reduction program, hazardous waste management, and the meeting of environmental performance measures. These kinds of information are fundamental to make the supplier-selection decision. If a supplier does not perform well on the assessment but is still included in the supply base, the option to implement a supplier development program can be used. 86 Figure 9 adapted from Sroufe, 2003. G-$3-$%#&!H!*+,($-+.&+#%/!I=E&)#(,&4 G-.3&#(#(-+! J%$>&#!K/%)&! L&9!"033/(&$! "&/&)#(-+ *M(4#(+'! "033/(&$4 @+:-$.%#(-+N!G-$3-$%#&!H!*+,($-+.&+#%/N! G-//&)#(-+! ! "&/&)#(-+ *,%/0%#(-+ +$,,-"&%'.//&//0&12' +$,,-"&%'3&4&-5,0&126' x! @.3%)#!O44&44.&+#! x! @.3$-,&.&+#! x! I$'%+(7&!#-!@.3/&.&+#! x! G-+4&+404! x! @.3/&.&+#! @+:-$.%#(-+ 748-$82"51' +$/28"1'950,&2"2"4&' :5/2$%& !"#$%&'()*)'B$%.&9-$>!:-$!4&/&)#(+'!%+8!8&,&/-3(+'!%+!&+,($-+.&+#%/!4033/(&$! This framework reflects the sensemaking phases (Enactment, Selection and Retention) on how managers use information to interact with suppliers. From different point of view is possible to agglomerate data developed from different studies and try to overlap the information to explain different constructs. The management of the Supply Chain is today one of the most crucial aspects where is possible to judge the level and the quality of a Corporate Environmental Management strategy. Because Supply Chain Management is the integration of key business processes across the supply chain for the purpose of creating value for customers and stakeholders (Lambert, 2008), a good implementation of a green supply chain depends by the level of awareness and the commitment of all the subjects that take part of it. On the other hand, the efficacy depends on the managerial ability to convoy and administrate different interests. 87 4.11.7 Green Marketing According to the American Marketing Association, green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. Thus green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, as well as modifying advertising. Yet defining green marketing is not a simple task. Indeed the terminology used in this area has varied, it includes: Green Marketing, Environmental Marketing and Ecological Marketing. While green marketing came into prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was first discussed much earlier. The American Marketing Association (AMA) held the first workshop on "Ecological Marketing" in 1975. The proceedings of this workshop resulted in one of the first books on green marketing entitled "Ecological Marketing" (Henion and Kinnear 1976). The AMA workshop attempted to bring together academics, practitioners, and public policy makers to examine marketing's impact on the natural environment. At this workshop ecological marketing was defined as: The study of the positive and negative aspects of marketing activities on pollution, energy depletion and non-energy resource depletion. (Henion and Kinnear 1976). This definition has three key components, (1) it is a subset of the overall marketing activity; (2) it examines both the positive and negative activities; and (3) a narrow range of environmental issues are examined. While this definition is a useful starting point, to be comprehensive green marketing needs to be more broadly defined and the problem is that there is not an universally accepted definition on it. According to Polonsky the definition is: “Green or Environmental Marketing consists of all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment”. (Polonsky 1994b). This definition contains some important elements that derive from marketing studies and theories (Stanton and Futrell, 1987) when Polonsky talks about human needs. On the other hand, the integration in the definition of the impact on the natural environment enlarges the concept of human needs, including in it the concept of alternative and complementary elements that is important to consider in the research of satisfaction to these needs. 88 Thus green marketing should look at minimizing environmental harm, not necessarily eliminating it. The strength of Green Marketing is that the information that must be developed are, in a certain way, controlled and verified through the new CEM instruments available by the organizations. The level of the transparency is higher and as a consequence the marketing strategies are more clear and reliable. This new approach represents a great opportunity for all those organizations that try to develop and implement CEM to communicate and demonstrate their efforts. The green marketing is different from simple communication because it is an instrument that at the end can measure and control the effects of the organizational green behaviors looking at the sales and at the number of goods or services sold. Because the term green is a sort of umbrella that goes beyond his simple and original meaning, also the original concept of organization must be a little revisited, including in the functions interested the concept and the instrument that help to understand how to use green issues. The green marketing can be a good tool to connect corporate programs and feedback from customers and clients. The development of a common and unique terminology is an important aspect that helps the organizations to make sense of their activities. 89 4.11.8 Ecological Risk Ecological risk (eco-risk) is a specific model of risk management used to prioritize and monitor environmental practices that can control the probability and impact of unfortunate events that can produce environmental damages. Risk control serves to establish (1) if a risk exists to the environment and (2) the level of the risk. Methods, definitions and goals vary in regard to the level of engagement and commitment of the stakeholders. The risks are targeted after the identification of opportunities and threats that derives from specific practices. Eco-risk is an important instrument that concretely helps the sensemaking process because gives the opportunity to calculate the probability, the vulnerability and alternative consequences of decision-making. One of the most crucial principles of risk management is that decisions about how to manage and monitor specific activities derive from the best available information. The effectiveness results from the ability to achieve the most useful and the latest information available. The usage of eco-risk management implies that organizations try to develop connections to facilitate the exchange of information. Eco-risk is divided in three main branches: health, ecological and population assessments. To each of this branches correspond a series of interests that can be combined with opportunities and threats that are linked to the outcomes. 90 4.11.9 Guest’s green attention The role of the guests is fundamental to understand the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management in the Hospitality Industry. The possibility to involve the guests in some aspects of environmental management is one of the principal motivations that I considered in the choice of the industry. As said before, there are several motivations that justify the fact that there are some specific industry characteristics that give different results in terms of adaptation to environmental practices. The consideration of the clients is one of these because clients can be actively involved in specific green activities as the sense of community, the development of common sense and responsible consumerism. Organizations and hotel in particular are entered in a very important business paradigm: modify the behaviors about consumption. Sustainable consumption needs a strong engagement of consumers and clients: they are not only passive consumers but they can provide to the sustainability of the hotels with their activity. Activism is fundamental to develop sustainable practices. From a managerial perspective, activism can be developed only if organizations start to inform and change perceptions in their clients about their possible environmental and sustainable behaviors. Communication is the crucial tool that helps the development of new way to perceive environmental issues. Sensemaking is therefore the principal way to influence the construction of social reality. 91 4.11.10 Food & Beverage Food & beverage are important arguments that imply many aspects that must be considered when talk about green activities and sustainability. The importance of this specific argument is given by the complexity of different areas and activities that must be considered internally and externally to the organizations. From an internal perspective, the preparation, conservation, transportation, refrigeration and sanitation of food and beverage. All these activities can be changed or modified considering new processes that can reduce energy consumption, waste minimization, and new forms of logistics network. From a human perspective must be considered the necessity to train and improve information flows with the employees (in terms of technical knowledge and cultural attitudes) rethinking to the organizational mission and demonstrate the concreteness of organizational values. From an external perspective the elements that must be considered in the adoption of a sustainable food & beverages policy are the choice of biological or local food, the storage and the transportation. These elements are important in the development or maintenance of relationships with specific groups of stakeholders as suppliers, government and NGOs. Another element that is part of the external perspective of the food & beverage issue is the organization and management of specific communication campaigns customized for groups of stakeholders, as for example customers and media, and realize marketing advantages through a benchmark with competitors. 92 4.11.11 Green Jobs Talking about green jobs implies the necessity to align job positions to the requirement of organizations that act sustainable. The alignment of job positions is based on the change of routines, culture, behavior and technical knowledge. The development of green jobs means, first of all, the increase of employers’ behaviors and the research of internal best practices and pest performer. The development of a green culture is the core activity that helps organizations to facilitate the empowerment and the general will to participate to the development of green practices. The commitment of the employers depends also on the managerial capability to create and diffuse the right principles and culture in the organization and transmit the concreteness of new green values. Training activities are strategic elements that serve to control and orientate the attitudes of the employers. It gives also the possibility to transform general and vague arguments into practices and concrete actions that give the opportunities to talk and discuss about relevant problems. 93 4.11.12 Traveling The concept of traveling is an important element that is not primary related to the hotels and other accommodations but it is part of the concept of tourism in general. In other words, when we consider the hospitality industry we need to think also at the travel industry that is an important element that characterizes the development of the hospitality industry. Without services for travel tourism loses a great part of its business. Mostly, the concept of tourism is linked with the idea of foreigners (in and out foreigners) that need to move. So, considering direct and indirect effects of tourism industry (hospitality and traveling services together) from a global point of view, the pollution that derives from the transportations must be considered as an indirect effect in the development of tourism and hospitality industry. From an international perspective, there are several considerations that can be achieved to limit this kind of pollution as a general element of discussion. Inside the hospitality industry there has been some cases of companies (hotels chains) that have tried to handle this argument, considering alternative way of pollution compensation. This is the case of the Co-2 Neutral Hotels program in Denmark. The idea of this program is to create and sell carbon quota that balance the emissions of Co-2 in terms of energy production, transportation and general pollution. Buying a number of carbon quota every single hotel can balance not only the Co-2 that derives from the energy necessity of the company, but can also work to compensate the emissions produced by clients to travel from a country to another and produce global compensating effects. 94 4.12 Stakeholders identification The first part of the second stage has been organized to identify the key stakeholders in the process of making sense of Corporate Environmental Management practices — actors who affected or were affected by one of the seven studied organizations (Freeman, 1995) — and investigating their involvement to organizational sensemaking in each issue. The process that allows me to identify the key stakeholder is based on the analysis of the interviews and the ways in which interviewers (managers) talked about their stakeholders, “underlying circumstances and the rhythm of those interactions over time” (Maitlis, 2005: 28). For a more detailed analysis I based my identification process on the literature on stakeholder theory, searching for some elements that helps me in the identification of prior stakeholders comparing how scholars identify the most relevant characteristics that suggest a specific categorization of them. Starting from a literature review, I based the identification of the most relevant stakeholders on three branch of research: (1) general research on stakeholder theory, (2) research on environmental-green stakeholders and (3) industry specific stakeholder research (tourism and hospitality). Starting from general stakeholder theory, the identification of the most relevant stakeholders can be done looking at the classification of potential interests and conflicts that anime the relationship among the parts (Frooman, 1999), or if a stakeholder has a legitimate interest in aspects of the organization’s objective (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). I based the identification of interests and conflicts trough the analysis of the principal issues that concerns Corporate Environmental Management (creation of narratives) and asking to the interviewers which are the stakeholders that take part of decision-making activities or are informed about every single issue, trough direct and indirect strategies of involvement (Rowley, 1997). In addition, considering the involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making processes is an important element to understand the notion of stakeholder legitimacy, that is sensitive to the dynamic nature of stakeholders’ relations (Philips, 2003). In other words, the nature of the relations among companies and their stakeholders depends from the level of obligation that companies feel as important or not. The involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making processes depends also from the moral and social needs that force companies or not to involve their stakeholders. The level of obligation is not 95 unidirectional but has a reciprocal nature (Rowley, 1997) and is not based on the power of stakeholders (Mitchel et al., 1997), but also on the nature and the maturity of the relations. As explained by Pater & van Lierop (2006), the higher a particular stakeholder scores on particular criteria and issues, the more salient this stakeholder is to the firm, and I would like to append the higher is the level of relationship with the company. Another important element that characterizes the identification of the most salient stakeholders, as explained in the first chapter of my thesis is based on the identification of internal, external and non-coalition stakeholders (Nasi, 1995). The interdependency of a company and its stakeholder depends from the level of interests shared - in terms of inputs and compensation – as explained by Ahlstedt & Jahnukainen (1971). From a green-stakeholder perspective, the identification of the most relevant stakeholders is based on the analysis of the relationship between particular practices that can influence the decision-making processes of the companies and the level of ecological dependence that these practices have on specific industries (Sharma & Henriques, 2004). This idea is an evolution of resource interdependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978) with the inclusion of a inter-organizational and industry perspective. In other terms, the identification of practices and issues that can affect the relationships between companies and stakeholders depends on the level of attention that every single issue or practice has in specific industries. According to this analysis, the variety of economical, social and technical elements that characterizes every industry impacts strongly on the development of relationships between stakeholders and companies. Another contribution to this kind of literature has been done by Danrall, Seol & Sarkis (2009), through the study of the use of ecological audit tools as instruments that assurance the communication and transparency of environmental practices to the stakeholders. Also in this case the use of different audit tools and practices depends from the commitment to environmental issues from internal and external pressures. Starting from this consideration, the last branch of research that looks at the identification of the most relevant stakeholders is an industry specific analysis that looks at how companies can manage stakeholders considering the peculiarities (in terms of economic, social and technical reasons) in the hospitality industry. For this reason Sautter & Leisen (1999) talk about the necessity to identify a priori a strategic orientation of interests that are specific for tourism. They talk about tourism planners as 96 a series of issues and interests that try to convoy different sets of relationships that can justify specific decision in the hospitality and tourist industry. ”The identification of key issues for the industry is a set of tools that promote and guide the collaboration among the key players in the planning process” (Sautter & Leisen, 1999: 325). Therefore, the stakeholder participation depends on the complexity of environmental issues; because environmental issues are typically complex, the stakeholder participation is related to the complexity and the interests that depend from environmental decisions (Reed, 2008). Table 5 Stakeholders Identification theories Branch of theory Attributes Autors General stakeholder Theory Input and compensation of interests Ahlstedt & Jahnukainen, 1971 Legitimate interest in aspects of the organization’s objective Donaldson & Preston, 1995 Internal, external and non-coalition stakeholders Direct and indirect strategies of involvement Nasi, 1995 Stakeholders’ Power Classification of potential interests and conflicts Stakeholder legitimacy Scoring Issues Mitchel et al., 1997 Frooman ,1999 Ecological dependence of environmental practices to industry characteristics Sharma & Henriques, 2004 Environmental audit tools as predictors of transparency Danrall, Seol & Sarkis, 2009 Strategic orientation interests and identification of industry’s key issues Sautter & Leisen, 1999 Environmental issues complexity Reed, 2008 Green Stakeholders Industry related stakeholders Rowley, 1997 Philips, 2003 Pater & van Lierop, 2006 At the end of the analysis I developed a list of stakeholders that cover all the possible issues identified in the first stage asking to the respondents to identify interests and arguments that can justify the specific relationship between the organizations and the stakeholders. The result is a list of Stakeholders that directly and indirectly have taken part in the sensemaking activities of environmental issues developed in the first part of the data analysis named narratives. The identification of the stakeholders has been done after the transcription of the interviews, matching the presence of a specific stakeholder 97 in all the interviews. The presence of a stakeholder in all the interviews is an element that characterizes the identification. From a methodological point of view, during the interviews I never suggested to the interviewees a specific category of stakeholders. The interviewees explained me why they considered every single category of stakeholder important in the making sense of environmental issues, explaining which interest tie the company with the stakeholders in the understanding of environmental issues. The processes that serve to make sense of environmental issues are fundamental to the decision-making activities that prioritize the development of specific practices in term of implementation of Corporate Environmental Management. Table 6 Stakeholders categories Stakeholders Interests and specific relationships Owners, Shareholders Profit, Performance, Reputation, Truthful Reporting Government Taxation, Legislation, Low unemployment, Truthful Reporting, Environmental Policies, Sustainability Policies, International Benchmarking Unions - NGOs Working conditions, Minimum wage, Legal requirements, compliance, International Reputation Clients Value, Quality, Customer Care, Ethical products, Environmental strategies’ fulfillment Suppliers Providers of products and services used in the end product for the Customer, efficiency in the supply chain Community Jobs, Involvement, Environmental Protection, Shares, Communication Non managerial Staff Job security, Compensation, Respect, Communication, Other Hotels and competitors Best practices, Compliance, supply chain efficiency Media Reputation, Compliance, Environmental Policies 98 4.13 Make sense of stakeholder interests and activities: focusing on issues Considering that companies “do not simply respond to each stakeholder individually but they respond to multiple stakeholders simultaneously, as a result of the interaction between multiple influences from the entire stakeholder set” (Rowley, 1997: 890), the classical definition of stakes given by Freeman (1984) is not sufficient because we have to change the focus of attention, from the achievement of firm’s objectives to the approach of issues that emerge from the interactions among companies and their relative network of stakeholders (Roloff, 2008). For this reason the alternative definition of stakeholders given by Roloff is an important element to consider issues focused activities. For Julia Roloff “ in the context of multistakeholder networks a stakeholder is any group of individual who can affect or is affected by the approach to the issue addressed by the network” (2008:238). This definition is important in the development of my analysis because I can use it to explain the importance of environmental issues and why companies try to make sense of them through the interaction with stakeholders. From the Roloff perspective, first of all, the composition of stakeholder’s network is industry based; it depends from peculiarities and sets of interests that change with the characteristics of different industries where the networks develop. Within a set of rules and interests, both companies and stakeholders play a role as participants. Secondly, because multiple-stakeholders networks are issuedriven and because the complexity of the issues depends from the complexity of the industries (Reed, 2008), the focus of the interactions between a company and its stakeholders is not a set of company’s objectives but a set of issues that are relevant for all the participants. The relevance is an expression that derives from the peculiarities of the industry and from the characteristics of the participants. From the issue-focused perspective the research of solutions depends from the capability to collaborate and research conventional solutions that can achieve solutions that are legitimate and participate through all the subjects in the issue-referred network. 99 100 CAP V - RESULTS 5.1 Introduction Sensemaking is influenced by a variety of social factors, the effectiveness and “the success of sensemaking is about labeling and categorizing the streaming of experience, to make the world more orderly” (Weick, Sutcliffe, Obstfeld, 2005). According to Georg and Fussel (2000), the processes of greening as an organization must be studied in an interpretative, pragmatic and descriptive way. Scholars want to understand how new practices, incompatible with current understanding of right and wrong, could gain acceptance (Leblebici et al, 1991). The implementation process is complicated and differs in every organization because the way it becomes embedded depends on the organizational context. Corporate Environmental Management must be explained and acted through symbolic devices to establish certain levels of attention and to set up a codified language to talk about environmental issues. The code and the common language serve to achieve or develop legitimacy (Oliver, 1991). As argued by Weick (1993: 636), sensemaking provides “the clear questions and clear answers”. The acceptance depends from the context in which organizational embeddedness must be explained and acted through symbolic devices that serve to establish certain levels of attention and to establish a codified language. Because differences between situations, context and subjects have consequences on results, the meaning that different actors give to the sensemaking process vary depending on the situational company context and the personal intentions of the change agents (Cramer et al., 2006). All sensemaking processes start from the own interpretations about specific issues of who is involved in the processes that need to be contextualized gradually. Sensemaking serves just to collectively adjust vocabulary and labels about issues that must be interpreted and shared by the members of an organization and their stakeholder (Cramer et al., 2006). The reciprocal exchanges between actors in the sensemaking processes have effects on the enacting and selecting different ways to implement specific issues. As what explained by Dutton & Ashford (1993), the formality of influence is the key concept that must be stressed. The formalization of specific issues is crucial to understand timing, process and success of the relationship between managers and 101 stakeholders. Issues must be managed and shared from the beginning when they arrive to the attention of managers. The sensemaking and the consequential decision-making processes are influenced by the interpretation and the comprehension that derives from a participative process (Dutton & Ashford, 1993). The formalization is used to translate abstract concepts into practice when all the actors try to exceed difficulties in making them operational (Pedersen, 2006). Sensemaking has been described as “a process by which individuals develop cognitive maps of their environment not directly from their external demands but from organizationally embedded cognitive and linguistic processes” (Basu & Palazzo, 2008). The development of cognitive maps is the result of the identification of concreteness relations between different actors. The concreteness derives from the sharing of experiences and the exchange of equivocal inputs (Weick et. al, 2005). The equivocal inputs are the results of the way organizations engage with stakeholders in order to cocreate acceptable norms or behavior through the dialogue and the share of interests. The “stakeholder dialogue” is defined by Pedersen (2006: 140) as the “involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making processes that concern social and environmental issues”. The involvement of stakeholders implies that sensemaking processes must be formalized and shared as an explicit model to externalize and articulate interests (Matten & Moon, 2008). The externalization and articulation of interests into an engagement among multiple subjects is a consequence of the formal combination of practical interpretation of the issues. 102 5.2 Interpreting sensemaking through the stakeholders’ dialogue model The stakeholder dialogue, as described by Pedersen (2006), is divided into three different phases: the selection, the interpretation and the response. Managers start to make sense to determined practices assembling together different issues that represent a formalization of stakeholders’ interests and scopes. The formalization of interests into a group of issues is what Pedersen call the selection filter that helps managers to limit the dialogue with the stakeholders that are relevant for the specific scope, because organizations don’t have the capability and the time to include all the stakeholders simultaneously in their activities. The formalization of interests is an animated process where both managers and stakeholders share flows of information. In this phase all of them make sense of different interests and do not give sense back. It is a reciprocal phase of sensemaking. Sense giving arrives in a following moment. The exchange of information is concretely done through the engagement of discussions about the diverse issues that represent the aspects that must be taken in consideration when they talk about environmental issues. 103 Table 7 Narratives and the relationship with Stakeholders’ categories of interests Stakeholders categories Regulatory Technical Managerial Owners, Shareholders Reputation, truthful reporting Investments Profit, performance National-Local Government Legislation, policies, international benchmarking Adjustment/complianc e Taxation, unemployment Unions - NGOs Working conditions, minimum wage, compliance, reputation Working conditions, compliance, Security Reputation Clients Environmental strategy fulfillment, ethical products Quality, products, services Customer care, value, quality, products, services Suppliers Legal requirements, compliance, Efficiency, quality, audit Costs Community Involvement, communication, security Environmental protection Communication, Jobs, Non managerial Staff Communication, Job security Compensation, communication Other Hotels and competitors, Chain partner National-international compliance Supply chain efficiency Benchmark, marketing, reputation Media Policies, compliance Monitoring, benchmark Relations This activity of merging issues and different groups of interests remains active over an extended period. During this period the engagement and the animation of sensemaking activities of both managers and stakeholders vary in terms of quality and quantity. Prop6: Selection is a combination of stakeholder and managerial perspectives. From the stakeholder perspective the sensemaking activities are explained as the capability to advance interests and communicate the priority of intervention. From the managerial perspective the sensemaking activities are explained as the capability to convoy stakeholders’ interests into determined issues, formalizing the motivations and the alternative solutions that convoy interests’ resolving problems. 104 The number of discussions and the animation of the debate determine the significance of every single issue and consequentially the interests that have been convoyed into the specific issue. At this point starts the second phase of the stakeholder dialogue model, the interpretation, where Pedersen (2006) talks about the transformation of multiple stakeholders’ interests into a limited number of decisions. This is an important element that needs attention because not all the stakeholders can be satisfied simultaneously and because not all the stakeholders are equally important (Parent & Deephouse, 2007). Also when organizations try to maintain multiple and simultaneous relationships with stakeholders they always take a decision on which group is more relevant than others (Neville & Menguc, 2006). Otherwise if the selection is not done on the groups of stakeholders it is done on the number of interests that are satisfied or on the quality of the satisfaction. The interpretation is made combining different issues and the groups of interests that they include. The richness of interests determines the positive interpretation of specific issues as one of the alternative elements that must be considered to resolve specific problems. The relevance of determined issues derives from the linkages among group of stakeholders identified through the selection of interests that they share. In this phase the activity of stakeholders is important because they can compete or cooperate to increase, influence or moderate the prioritization of determined groups of interests. This activity has a consequence on the interpretation that managers give to the issues. That is why managers must work on the sensemaking processes to understand and filter stakeholders’ actions to align their interests to the goals and the objectives of the organizations. Because stakeholders are not independent of each other, managers do not make sense to each stakeholder individually but to the interaction of multiple stakeholders (Neville & Menguc, 2006) through the interpretation of patterns of interests and how they convoy into specific issues. The sensemaking processes that imply the selection and interpretation of specific issues help managers to reduce the stakeholder multiplicity (Oliver, 1991) increasing cooperation, tempering conflicts and defining expectations. Handling the stakeholder multiplicity serves also to increase openness and transparency in the selection of the issues that direct the alignment of stakeholders’ interests to the organizational objectives. 105 Openness and transparency are consequences of a continuous exchange of information between the parts; communications in this phase is the most relevant activity that determines the successful interpretation of issues and interests. The share of information is just a part of the selection process, where consultation and dialogue are other two aspects that must be considered. The environment is a source of constant input and stimulus for the organizations, but individuals and organizations have limited cognitive capabilities to deal with all available stimuli (Simon, 1947). For this reason individuals and organizations enact events and facts through a selective perspective of the objective features of their surroundings (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). People are more willing to accept explanations and decisions when they perceive the processes through which they were reached as fair (Pruitt, Peirce, McGillicuddy, Welton & Castrianno, 1993; Tyler, 2002). The level of acceptance derives from precedent experiences that help subjects to make sense of their activities, explain what they want to do and take decisions on it. Multiple subjects build their experiences analyzing in the past decisions the outcomes of decisions in terms of interests reached. This is a double sense activity where all the parts communicate there past decisions and share which interests they attempted and which interests they want to achieve in the future. Resuming, the level of experience on determined issues impact on the capability to make sense of patterns of interests, through the perception and explanation of consequences. The similarity of patterns of interests determines the interpretation of new issues that are combined with hold experiences. Prop7: Interpretation depends on precedent experienced decisions. Experience is a consequence of precedent sensemaking processes that guide the formalization and development of similar groups of interests: the higher is the presence of precedent experienced decisions, the higher it the interpretation of specific issues in the sensemaking activity. According to Pater & van Lierop (2006) and Weick (1995), action become object of attention after it has occurred, but it is alto possible that individuals construct their sensemaking activities referring to imagining future opportunities. This is what these authors call the future-oriented sensemaking (Pater & van Lierop, 2006) based on the 106 relationship between past experiences and future alternative opportunities. In this case, the integration between experience and new elements (as for example new issues or other elements) contributes in complex environments to the richness of sensemaking activities, developing important guidelines that facilitate the advance of what Pater & van Lierop call future opportunities. Prop7a: The level of experience impacts on the capability to construct future opportunities and make sense of them. The greater is the experience, the higher is the richness of elements that facilitates sensemaking processes. Making sense of actions and issues is a necessity that derives from the lack of experience and meaning. Where is not possible to understand new facts looking at past experiences, sensemaking becomes an explorative process. Sensemaking is a process that ends only when is not more necessary to make sense of issues or events. The process can be considered concluded when the participants don’t need more explanations. On the other hand, sensemaking is a cyclical process that can restart considering feedbacks and alternative choices that can start when changes are consequences of feedbacks. The necessity to start a new sensemaking process depends from how same or different is the outcome from the initial process. Sensemaking is an evolutionary and dynamic process (Warglien, 2002) that depends from the level of experience and the capability to identify, classify and routinize potential antecedents and consequences (Weick & Obstfeld, 2005). The last phase that Pedersen has developed when he talks about stakeholders dialogue is the response phase (Pedersen, 2006). In this phase managers start to consider different alternative initiatives and how they impact on the stakeholders. As said before, not all the stakeholders can be satisfied and because is still difficult to translate decision into actions, the response phase depends on the managerial capability to merge the most relevant and salient interests within different issues. In this last phase starts the implementation of activities that try to convoy and resolve problems that derives from the issues. At this point managers can take decision on which issues are the most preferable that can be implemented to satisfy the greater number of stakeholders’ interests. During the 107 response phase, organizations communicate to their stakeholders new combinations of issues and interests as an ongoing process that depends by the general agreement that the parts reach together. The process doesn’t stop as far as the interpretation and the evaluation of alternative choices are shared among all the parts. Table 8 Narratives and the relationship with issues through the identification of the most salient and repeated Stakeholder’s categories Issues Regulatory Technical Managerial Saving Measures Owners, Suppliers, Community Suppliers, Clients, Staff Owners, Chain Partner Green Purchasing Government, NGOs Suppliers, Clients, Staff Clients, Owners, Shareholders Waste Minimization Practices Government, Community Community, NGOs, Local government Suppliers, Staff, Chain partner, Competitors Green Marketing - Staff, Owners Clients Eco-Design Community, Government, NGOs, Owners, Staff Shareholders Green Value Chain Government, Suppliers, Chain Partner, Competitors, Staff Suppliers, Staff, Community Suppliers, Chain Partner, Competitors, NGOs Eco-Risk Government, Unions Owners, NGOs, Community Shareholders, Chain partner, Competitors Guests Consideration Community Staff, Owners Clients, Competitors Food & Beverage Government, Suppliers, Chain partners Suppliers, Staff Owners, Chain Partner Green Jobs Government, Unions, Owners, Clients, Suppliers, Chain Partners Staff, Unions, Government, Chain Partners Owners, Staff, Chain Partners, Suppliers The sharing processes serve to turn abstract and general concept into plausible and comprehensive ones (Weick & Obstfeld, 2005). The plausibility is an important element that impact on the response. Looking at the works of Ravasi and Schultz (2006), I would like to underline that plausibility is a social construct that is not a sum of different interests but is the result of complementary aspects of the same phenomenon. 108 The response phase is based on the communications of accurate representations about which are the consequences and the outcomes of specific sets of decisions. The response phase is also based on the combination of retrospective and future oriented elements that balance the misalignment between what is known and what is new. Prop8: Response is an ongoing process of plausibility research that finishes when there is an agreement about consequences and outcomes, through the identification of patterns of interests. The agreement on interests depends from plausible combination of alternatives or cumulative issues that represent the evaluation of alternative patterns of interests. The combination is a result of retrospective and future-oriented analysis. The higher is the alignment between issues and patterns of interests, the higher is the possibility to obtain plausible outcomes. The higher is the plausibility, the higher is the possibility to make sense of issues. 109 5.3 The stakeholders’ dialogue model in the Hospitality Industry and the formalization of Environmental Activities As Weick argued, “The basic idea of sensemaking is that reality is an ongoing accomplishment that emerges from efforts to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs” (1993: 635). Starting from this assumption I analyzed in the different hotels the instruments, the activities and the arguments that managers used to exploit stakeholders’ interests in making sense of Corporate Environmental Management. Organizational sensemaking is fundamentally a social process: organization members interpret their environment in and through interactions with others, constructing accounts that allow them to comprehend the world and act collectively (Isabella, 1990; Sackman, 1991; Sandelands & Stablein, 1987; Starbuck & Milliken, 1988; Weick & Roberts, 1993; Maitlis, 2005). People make sense of things, sharing practical measures and instruments that could be implemented within their scope of influences (Cramer et al., 2004). The labeling and categorizing processes serve as discursive constructions of reality that interpret or explain (Antaki, 1994) events and facts in the social environment through the production or activation of “accounts” (Antaki, 1994; Gioia & Thomas, 1996). Accounts serve as templates to share and facilitate coordinated collective actions through different members (Maitlis, 2005). To develop accounts the managers use environmental issues. The formalization of issues depends on the ways, which different organizations handle with them. Every hotel decided (in diverse temporal moments) to build up internally to their structures different roles and functions (more or less formalized) that started to analyze two kinds of problems: internal and external relationships among hotels activities and environmental impact of them. The formalization of environmental activities has been introduced in most of the cases announcing the effective effort that hotels, autonomously (D,G,H) or as part of a general project developed in the chain (A,B,C,E,F), wanted to analyze their environmental impact and start a series of actions to improve their attitudes. The formalization also has been expressed with a formal communication and the adoption of the ecolabel called the “Nordic Swan” and an Environmental Management System the “Green Key”. The internal decision of the adoption and the communication, which arrived from the head quarter of the chain, didn’t impact on the managerial freedom to adapt and develop 110 differently their environmental attitudes. This is reliable in the case of Green Key, where the different practices adopted by the hotels are completely customizable to the exigencies of every single company. The Green Swan focus is on the sustainability of manufacturing and consumption and it has implications on relationships among the company and particular groups of stakeholders as the suppliers that are the most involved. From a methodological point of view the differences between the two typologies of practices doesn’t impact on the general evaluation and theoretical analysis that I have done. The hospitality industry is not a manufacturing industry, it is based on services and this implies that the ecolabel and the EMS are both focused on activities that are not the central services of the industry and don’t impact on the core business. For both of the practices there are general criteria that are customized by country and organizational levels of environmental awareness. Organizations with different technologies, different geographical positions and different dimensions can adapt their behaviors and their attitudes. ”The baseline goals are generic and focused on the idea that every organization has to demonstrate it will to improve continuously the commitment and the behaviors” (cit.I). In addition, there are two other environmental practices that the analyzed hotels developed autonomously: the CO2 Neutral-Hotels and the CO2 Neutral Building Programs. These two are new environmental practices that are part of more general Corporate Environmental Management activities that are specific for the hospitality industry and are born in Denmark. The CO2 Neutral-Hotels program is “not an option for the hotel to be self-supplied with energy, it will of course depend on an energy supplier, who most likely will not be able to deliver carbon neutral energy. Even if the hotel is reducing its energy consumption, there will still be CO2-emissions from energy consumption that can not be eliminated” (CO2 Neutral-Hotels declaration). A similar definition can be developed for the CO2 Neutral Building that is a formal communication that is applied to new buildings where it is certified that during the construction there has been adopted particular activities that tried to reduce pollution, waste of materials and the implementation of new technologies that reduce energy consumption. All of these activities as explained by Pedersen (2006) serve to facilitate the relationship with internal and external constituents because organizations find 111 difficulties to understand the real nature of their values. In the specific case of this work, the stakeholders and organizations dialogue is the crucial element that facilitates the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management. The implementation needs to be discussed and participated with stakeholders in order to achieve the greater level of acceptance and legitimacy (Scott, 1995). The formalization of environmental activities is the firs step that organizations have done in order to develop the dialogue with stakeholders. Formalization enables and facilitates common understanding. The common understanding is a fundamental social process that allows the interactions between different subjects and permits them to act collectively (Isabella, 1990; Sackman, 1991; Weick e Roberts, 1993). The common understanding is a consequence of clarification activities based on the development of internal behaviors and expectations about how to develop environmental activities. When companies start to analyze what they have to do, they must understand also what others do and what are the expectations of other subjects in terms of outcomes and patterns of interests. The analysis of outcomes and interests is possible only when companies decide how to move and how to act. Through the specification of which practices are interested to implement, they are able to communicate a planned list of actions. Without a first decision about which model companies want to use, the dialogue with stakeholders remains inefficient. Prop9: the adoption of Environmental Management Systems indicates the formalization of organizational commitment to explicit environmental activities. The formalization of environmental practices is the first step that organizations face with to determine which group of stakeholders is complementary or conflicting, in terms of patterns of interests, with their decisions. Venkatraman (1980) talks about fitas-matching as a theoretical match between two variables defined by Neville & Menguc (2006) congruence and agreement. When companies decide a specific set of environmental management practices, the level of congruency and agreement among alternative practices outcomes and the stakeholders’ expectation determine if the internal and external patterns of interests are complimentary or conflicting. Only after the formalization of what really companies want to do is it possible to work on activities that tries to fit two or more parties. Formalization obliges companies to identify 112 schemes that serve to interpret environmental considerations with pattern of interests. The alignment of interests into patterns impact on the plausibility and the comprehension of the interests. Organizations that use formalized instruments have more chance to make sense of their activities and identify the best pattern of interests. Prop9a: Organizations with a formalized commitment are facilitated in the sensemaking activities: The higher is the formalization commitment, the higher is the level of comprehension in the sensemaking of pattern of interests. Once the organizational commitments were formalized, the hotels started to organize themselves internally. The dimension and the fact that hotels are part of chains (national or international chain) influenced the internal organization. From a dimensional perspective, the complexity of medium and large organizations permitted the assignment of formal roles to specific teams that where in charge of environmental activities. On the other side, the fact that hotels where part of national and international chains implied the necessity that managers have to inform and partially satisfy the head quarter about their choices on environmental activities. The relationships among internal groups and head quarters in most of the case are based on a sharing activity of information and best practices. The environmental audit is always conducted internally. The internal organization allows companies to communicate their efforts scanning who where the most appropriate subjects that can be involved in the implementation of their activities. Table 9 Team level of formalization in the hotels Hotel Dimension Team Formality Chain A Mid Dedicated Formal Danish B Mid Work Gorup Informal Danish C Mid Work Gorup Informal Danish D Big Dedicated Formal International E Big Work Gorup Formal International F Mid Dedicated Formal International G Big Work Gorup Formal International H Mid Work Gorup Informal Danish 113 The communication of environmental efforts is based on the specification of activities that are considered critical by the management. The identification of critical elements is the first subjective element that characterizes the implementation of CEM, because it depends on the internal beliefs, values and norms that constitute the shared perceptions about the organizations. But this activity cannot be considered only as an internal activity of scanning elements that influence CEM or not. 5.4 Enact and select: the reconstruction of environmental performance The different groups born in the hotels, started formally to work on the identification of potential green projects that will be implemented afterwards. The principal scope of the groups was to identify transversal problems in the organizations. The composition of the groups where done with the intention to convoy different experiences into the discussion. All the hotels organized meetings to discuss particular topics from different point of view. “In every meeting there is always some one that is in charge for the most relevant functions as the kitchen, cleaning staff, room services etc (Cit. F)” The identification process was conducted looking at the match between problems and solutions. Every team in the hotels worked on the research of elements that can produce data on environmental performance. The success of this activity depends by the managerial ability to aggregate figures with different competences and capabilities. The principal scope of this preliminary activity is the construction and reconstruction of a common sense of what does it mean environmental activities in different places and roles in the hotels. The first step of sensemaking activity depends by the managerial capability to transform common perceptions about particular activities into a set of data that allow companies to determine the relevance of different issues. The analysis of environmental performance helps to reduce asymmetry, direct a common scope, built a more stable commitment and calculate potential benefits and realistic errors. ”First of all I am in charge to organize different groups that work on the development of common definitions about what is green, what environmental performance means environmental performance, why it is 114 important for our organization. They give me general criteria and I try to transform their information into statistics and numbers. I find this preliminary work very important because we need to develop a common sense about what is green. This is a very unclear argument and we need more precise elements to discuss on it. Because of the complexity of the argument I think that the best way to start to do something is discuss with the greatest number of persons about this topic, not only in our company but also with external subjects that give us different points of view.” (cit.F). According to Sonenshein (2007), individuals make up stories to give meaning to a set of unfolding events in the environment, based on what they understand and which are the elements that they can use to reframe and rationalize their understands. From a sensemaking perspective, the attention to environmental performance is an activity that stimulates the research of measurements that are compared to patterns of interests and their relative groups of stakeholders. The analysis of environmental performance is an opportunity to objectively discuss of alternative solutions that can be applied in the organizations. Working on the analysis of environmental performance helps to develop a gradual confidence about a common definition of the situation (Maitlis & Sonenhsein, 2010). The confidence is a consequence of the adoption of general criteria in specific contexts (Georg & Fussel, 2000). This is what happened in several meetings where the teams faced different arguments trying to concentrate on how to improve or reduce environmental performance in the different functions, considering alternatives limitations and opportunities. The objective elements given by the analysis of environmental performance facilitated the development of a common set of meanings as a consequence of good performing activities. Inside the same organizations was possible to find diverse functions, or diverse individuals, that approach differently the same issue because the diversity of the needs, the In other words, the measurement of environmental activities and the identification of their impacts allows managers to identify the contexts were they can be applied and, as a consequence, the specific patterns of interests and groups of stakeholders that are involved in these activities. The identification of contexts serves to identify which coalition (Nasi, 1995) is interested in a particular activity. The individuation of the 115 coalition helps to develop elements that facilitate the data that serve to calculate specific sets of environmental performance. Environmental performance is not a general criterion that can be applied generally; the relevance of the performance depends from particular elements of every single context and can also vary among different organizations because there are different coalitions with different expectations. Another important aspect is that environmental performance depends from the expectation of the subjects that are involved in every activity. On the other hand, the identification of what can determine different level of performance serves to formalize economic elements that are present in the patterns of interests. It is another important step of the formalization process and it depends on the capability that companies must demonstrate to develop plausible activities. Prop10: formalization depends on the company’s capabilities to identify elements of performance that can facilitate the sensemaking activities. The evidence interpretation/selection of of performance issues. The determines the interpretation/selection depends from the explanation of regulatory, technical and managerial performances. When companies select particular issues they also create an internal consensus of what are the elements that determine the urgency of the issues. Because particular issues are the transposition of patterns of interests, therefore it is possible to observe also the urgency of interests. From a performance perspective, the urgency, the experiences and the expectations. For this reason the cumulative analysis of different activities helped to define a common set of rules about every single issue through the benchmark of diverse levels of performance. Without a common strategy, different functions and different individuals developed their own specific meaning of the issues and a specific version of performance. The sensemaking activity derived, firstly, from the comparison among different meanings and activities; the more virtuous activities became the best practices that must be followed. In this phase one of the most relevant limitations was the definition of a common meaning of environmental performance as an unequivocal expression of particular issues. Without a general committee every individual arrive to different conclusion about what is environmental performance. Therefore, the research of a common set of definitions and elements that characterized the meanings of 116 environmental performance helped the companies to develop a common sensemaking activity named by Pater & van Lierop (2006) the collective-sensemaking, as a result of a deconstructive activity where every single individual is engaged to give plausible definitions and explanations of single issues. Both the definition and explanation of the activities are issue-related and issue-specific. In other words, the definition of a particular activity depends from the characteristics of the issue and from the combination of expectations, patterns of interests and outcomes: is for this reason that similar activities can be managed differently depending from the issues and the functions associated. And is for this reason that the benchmark of different levels of performance is an important element that helps the sensemaking activity of specific issues and the development of a common sense on it. Prop11: high/low levels of environmental performance impact on the sensemaking activity of environmental issues: the greater is the opportunity to manage environmental performance, the greater is the possibility to collectively make sense of a specific environmental issue. As described by McCabe & Dutton (1993), when objective performance is poor and when the organizational environment is complex, the relationship between decision maker’s perception of uncertainty and perception of effectiveness is negative, because the inability to create a common sense and a common meaning to specific issues. This is especially strong when decision makers don’t observe externally to their boundaries do not considering other individuals that can help them to take decisions. From an organizational perspective, individuals make sense of the world they live and of their activities through the perception of how well their unit of organization are performing (McCabe & Dutton, 1993). This perspective has been normally assumed looking at internal capabilities and internal interactions among individuals in the organization. Through the lens of the Nasi stakeholders’ model, the same analysis can be applied in another way, considering the differences between the internal and external coalitions of stakeholders. Expanding the concept of unit of organizations as described by McCabe & Dutton, as a unit where individual have common experiences, use specific knowledge and have a specific level of performance, with the stakeholders’ network perspective 117 developed by Pater & van Lierop (2006), different individuals (single subjects or different groups of stakeholders) make sense of their activities exchanging information about the differences, in terms of performance, on specific issues. Because reality is not a collection of objective facts that people perceive passively (Weick, 1995) but the exchange of information and the collectivization (Cramer et al., 2006) of patterns of interests are fundamental elements that can facilitate the understanding of specific issues and the possible sensemaking process of them. In the case of Corporate Environmental Management implementation there are non sector-specific elements that facilitate or determine the implementation modalities, but it depends from the cultural characters and the patterns of interests of the subjects that determines it. The combination of different values determines the understanding of specific issues that are shared among the parts. The distance among values depends from the typology of coalition that determines the stakeholders’ relationships. Considering the Nasi model, based on the distinction between internal and external coalition, and the fact that there are internal and external patterns of interests, the distance among values is a reflection of the distance among patterns of interests. “The internal coalition consists of those stakeholders who have a permanent ownership or employment relationship with the firm. And the external coalition consists of those stakeholders who do not fulfill the conditions to be a part of the internal coalition but are nevertheless, in an intermediate interaction with the internal coalition” (Nasi, 1995: p 106). From a values-definition perspective, the distance among values and the distance among patterns of interests depend from the structure of the relationships between the subjects. Prop12: The strength and the duration of the relationships among subjects impact on the distance among their interests, considering the development of experiences and the construction of common future-oriented sensemaking activities. Prop12a: The longer is the duration of the relationship, the higher is the possibility that they share common patterns of interests. The longer is the duration of the relationship, the lower is the distance 118 among values. The lower is the distance among values, the easier is the sensemaking activity. Considering the duration of the relationships and the patterns of interests - elements that depend by the duration and the frequency of numbers of relations - subjects that take part of the internal coalition have more opportunities to develop and maintain relationships. Therefore, the differences between internal and external coalition impact on the propensity to develop specific relationships that can impact on the sensemaking activities and on the consequential implementation of specific activities. Prop13: internal coalition relationships develop higher chances to share patterns of interests than external coalition relationships; because of the nature of the relationships among different subjects. 119 5.5 The advancement of stakeholders’ roles in the development of sensemaking processes: the evolution of environmental commitment through the involvement of primary and secondary stakeholders. One of the most important elements that must be considered when talking about environmental issues is the fact that it is an ongoing argument that depends from the evolution of social, economical and cultural trends. The general awareness on environmental issues depends form the development of information and communication among the most interested parts. On the other side, global involvement of communities, people and governments is a long process that will never stop, because the frequent changes in the issues and in the general level of awareness. From a managerial perspective the organization of sensemaking serves to identify equivocal inputs that serve to enact and give back to the world interpretations and situations to make the world more orderly (Weick & Obstfeld, 2005). It is for this reason that several companies interpret the sensemaking process as an ongoing activity that needs time to mature both in terms of internal adaptation and capability to enact and interpret situations and external capability to convoy and take advantages form the interactions with external subjects as in the case of stakeholders. Instead of focusing on a generic responsiveness toward society, stakeholders take part through their direct and indirect involvement in the sensemaking process as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984: 46). According to the Freeman definition, stakeholders have a significant role in the detection and scanning of social legitimacy, greater social acceptance and prestige (Garriga & Melé, 2004) because their role of intermediary between general interests and companies’ best interests. It is important to underline that the alignment between interests is not impossible to find considering the fact that stakeholders have relevant interests in the companies, considering the classification done by Clarkson (1995) on the difference between primary and secondary stakeholders. Several studies have long underlined the role of primary stakeholders (as employees, customers and stockholders), as who have a direct stake in the firm’s activities and operations. Nevertheless, secondary 120 stakeholders (as public institutions, media, or non-governmental organizations) are increasingly raising research attention in the name of their ability to pressure companies to gain trust and reputation. In the cases that I have analyzed, the sensemaking processes of environmental issues, that serve as an instrument to implement Corporate Environmental Management, is composed by activities that request time (years) because the necessity to built specific relations and understand the best way to communicate and share experiences. When talking about Corporate Environmental Management in the Danish hotels, sensemaking started as a consequence of an internal decision (top management decision) to exploit environmental issues. As explained in the earlier paragraphs, the formalization of environmental awareness has been conducted by the companies through the decision to adopt particular instruments (as for example the EMSs) useful to communicate their will to “behave green”. Table 10 Synthesis of EMS adopted by Hotels in Copenhagen Hotel Dimension EMS Years of adoption A Mid Green Key CO2 Neutral Program 5 B Mid Green Key CO2 Neutral Program 5 C Mid Green Key 3 D Big Nordic Swan 3 E Big Nordic Swan 10 F Mid Green Key 2 G Big Green Key CO2 Neutral Building 2 H Mid Green Key 2 121 I interpreted (according to the results of the interviews) the decision to formally start programs to manage environmental issues as signals of openness and intention to change attitudes and behaviors. “The Green Key worked as a sparkle in our hotel; before the adoption of the Green Key, every one was not really careful to environmental issues, because we considered the topic vague and not really important. The official involvement of our company in sustainability has been accepted by the most part of the employers and they start to take care of it and take part to internal discussions and meetings” (Cit G). The first decisions about environmental management derive directly from the top management and the property of the hotels. All the decisions to “behave green” are topdown obligation, an effect of cultural attitudes and managerial evaluations of the top managers and the properties. The decision derives directly from the CEO (in the cases of Danish chains) and from the global head quarters, in the case of international chains. So, because the constrain to formalize environmental attitudes, all of the companies started to exploit internally which can be the best actions to develop environmental activities and implement Corporate Environmental Management. Every single hotel received particular communications and instructions 6 about the new attitudes and general criteria about environmental indicators of performance and green objectives that they have to obtain7. After the communication of new green attitudes all the hotels started to organize a list of activities to enact Corporate Environmental Management decisions into concepts and experience that can help the single organization to develop activities and tools useful to reach out the objectives established. According to Weick there are several questions that every organization try to answer when their members try to make sense of equivocal inputs and enact this sense back into the world to make that world more orderly (Weick & Obstfeld, 2005: 410): what should we do? What does it 6 The instructions differ also considering which kind of EMS the hotels adopted: for example, the usage of Green Key standard is supported by local offices in Denmark where the staff work with the hotels in the training and organization of all the activities that are necessary to communicate and inform hotels’ employers. Different is for the Green Swan because they have a group of controllers that are in charge of the quality o products. 7 The accuracy of KPIs and objectives depend from the formalization of the different EMSs. In the case of Green Key is available a list of KPIs that serve to plan a list of activities; in the case of CO2 neutral program and Green Swan, because the nature of the two tools (one is an ecolabel and the other is a new private initiative) there are different attitudes and behaviors that are more generic. 122 means for us? How can it be plausible for us? Which are the consequences of our activities? I used the Weick’s list of questions to exploit how the hotels start to consider the new issues internally looking at the composition of different teams that started to work on environmental issues. All the hotels started to work on the issues organizing internally groups and teams of workers that have the competences and the interests to talk about environmental issues. The organization of the internal teams has been done considering two different approaches to the topic: some hotels created (1) new dedicated internal positions and roles that are in charge of environmental management or more in general of sustainability and CSR that I catalogued as dedicated groups; other hotels decided to organize (2) groups of personnel that are in charge of different activities and that collaborate into working groups. The working groups are temporary organized and the meetings are scheduled depending from particular needs. All the meetings, both in the working and dedicated groups have been organized considering the cataloguing that I have used to build the environmental narratives for the data analysis. Table 11 Team Works Hotel Dimension Team A Mid Dedicated B Mid Work Group C Mid Work Group D Big Dedicated E Big Work Group F Mid Dedicated G Big Work Group H Mid Work Group From a stakeholder perspective, the composition of the teams, according to the Nasi’s theoretical model, is constituted, in this preliminary phase, principally by the distinction of internal coalition stakeholders - principally composed by middle managers, employers (non-managerial staff) and in some cases suppliers - and external coalition, 123 composed by those stakeholders that take part indirectly to the sensemaking activity (for example NGOs, Government, local communities and in a second moment guests), through the specification of specific stakes. From the Clarkson perspective, the relevance of stakes implies different levels of stakeholder engagement in the decisionmaking activities. From a sensemaking perspective, the stakeholder engagement is different because it is based on the capability that both companies and stakeholders have to collectively share information and transform abstract arguments into specific and concrete actions or interests. The relevance of sensemaking activity derives from the fact that stakeholders are not seemed as groups or individuals who threaten the organization, but considering the differences between primary and secondary stakeholders, in terms of engagement and stakes shared, companies identify those stakeholders who have relevant information and knowledge to understand particular issues. So, when a particular sensemaking activity starts, this implies that a company and a specific set of stakeholders share meanings of the issues, find solutions and define responsibilities; in other words they collaborate to find a common sense, integrating diverse and conflicting views (Pater & van Lierop, 2006). Both the dedicated and the working groups organized their meeting (with a temporal and programmed deadlines) to discuss and understand how different issues were managed in their organizations. Principally the meetings were structured in three phases: (1) issue discussion and comprehension, (2) issue interpretation and (3) issue development. In the first phase, the teams started to discuss about the nature of every single issue, searching for common comprehensive and plausible definitions: teams members describe the issues and search contexts to apply them into their companies (Georg & Fussel, 2000). From a communication perspective every single member of the team is responsible to communicate to the others members all the information about a specific issue from his own perspective, explaining why the issue is important in his activity, how it is managed, which are the potential benefits and the critical elements that characterize it. In this phase the direction of sensemaking is a self-reflection direction (Pater & van Lierop, 2006), based on a one-way communication (Morsing & Schultz, 2006), because every one wants to get information as much clear as possible without 124 elements that can influence the comprehension of the issues. The principal scope of this first phase is to catch the higher number of information available. “When we started to talk about water consumption was fundamental to involve in the discussion all the persons that are in charge of activities that imply the use of water. For this reason I organized specific meetings with the persons in charge of cleaning, food & beverage (kitchen, restaurant, bar & breakfast), gardening, Gym and wellness. (Cit C)”. “Green Key is more an action pack with a list of ideas that can be improved by every single organization (Cit I).” “I need NGOs and other similar subjects (as ORESTA or Green Key) because I don’t have enough time to research information about new products or innovative green practices. They accomplish an important role of networking, especially exchanging good ideas from other hotels or developing new industry based projects (Cit F).” In the second phase the teams worked on the operationalization of the issues trying to understand the logic and how to organize their activities to obtain results about every single issue. The interpretation of the issues is connected with the concept of efficiency and costs savings. Through the analysis of costs companies can compare alternative solutions considering the outcomes and where they impact. Costs reduction and costs efficiency determine the relationships among subjects, because it can be altered the relevance and the power of coalitions. Costs reduction implies the modification of behaviors and in some case the radical change of commercial and managerial relationships (for example when a company decide to change a supplier). “Is essential to define needs, value and benefits about how we use water in our work. During the meetings every one explains to the others why water is important for his work, how does he use water, which can be the most critical aspects and how to improve them (Cit D).” 125 “Consider sustainability as a whole: if I limit the number of delivering in the kitchen every 2-3 days, as agreed with my suppliers, can you imagine how many benefits can I produce to the local community in terms of pollution, traffic and energy reduction? (Cit F).” During the third phase, the subjects that participate in the sensemaking activities share understandings, common sense and consensus (Weick et al., 2005) as an outcome of the synthesis of individual representations of the issues, through the collection of expectations, motivations and other social stimuli (Sonenshein, 2007). The development of a issue’s common sense depends from the team capabilities to (1) link issues and activities of the business, (2) construct social consensus towards the issue and (3) synthetize similar opinions and criticisms (Pater & van Lierop, 2006). One of the most important elements that characterize a common development of the issues is based on the capability to convoy different opinions and positions, sharing interests and stakes. “One of the most critical aspects of implementing eco-labeled cleaning products was the persuasion of the workers: if green detergents don’t pollute, this means that cleaning activity is harder and takes more time, because the absence of chemical elements in the products makes the activity less rapid and more hard. This has been a critical moment for our company because we had to work strongly on the motivation and the personal behaviors of every single member of the cleaning staff. We used three communicative strategies to adjust their attitudes: firstly we used a technical strategy explaining that the absence of chemical elements in the products was important for their health; secondly we push on a social element making similarities with what happens out of work, especially at home and explaining the positive effects for the community. Last strategy was an economic based communication: our company policy is based on a continual research of efficiency and if we can reduce costs being more efficient probably the company have enough money to pay more or hire temporal workers (Cit E)”. As explained by Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstfeld (2005:414), sensemaking depends from the level of reciprocal exchanges between actors (enactment) and their environments. 126 For this reason sensemaking starts as an individual activity, where every one creates hits own meaning from a set of stimuli in the environment, and becomes collective when social influences take the place of single meanings and positions. This process is empathized when groups of actors intentionally try to influence other’s interpretation of an issue (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991). This is particularly true when the influence derives from the interaction with stakeholders. For this reason Pater & van Lierop (2006) talk about three different levels of sensemaking: they distinguish (1) individual (2) collective and (3) guided sensemaking, looking at the organizational contexts and at the processes that are activated when companies and their stakeholders try to make sense of particular issues. The most important difference in the three models is the multi-direction of opinions and assumptions: in the individual level, every one tries to make sense of issues starting from his assumptions and comparing them with external information. There is not a reciprocal construction of meanings: people make sense without give sense to the issues. In the collective sensemaking during the enactment process both organizations and stakeholders take part and contribute to the definition and identification of issues. Sensemaking comes with sensegiving and companies start to build common sense to the issues collaborating with their stakeholders. In the Guided sensemaking both companies and their stakeholders are engaged in make sense and give sense to the issues; an important distinction with the collective sensemaking is that both sensemaking and sensegiving activities are done not only between organizations and their stakeholders but also between various groups of stakeholders. Because stakeholders are not independent of each other, and because organizations are influenced directly or indirectly through the alliances between stakeholders (Benjamin et al. 2006), consequentially sensemaking is guided by the development of stakeholders coalitions and how they pressure on the organizations making and giving sense to specific issues. 127 Table 12 Sensemaking characteristics Sensemaking Involvement Direction of sensemaking Individual Self-reflection Collective Multiple contributions Guided Coalition contribution From a communication perspective, the modalities of involvement determine different way of dialogue between companies and their stakeholders. As explained by Morsing & Schultz (2006), there are three different modalities to communicate with stakeholders about CSR: (1) unidirectional communication - one-way communication - (2) asymmetric communication - two-way dialogue communication - and (3) symmetric communication – two-way negotiating communication. Because the essence of sensemaking is the co-creation of shared understanding done by companies and stakeholders, increasing the complexity of relationships is needed to develop more sophisticated communication processes. Table 13 Sensemaking characteristics and Communication strategies Sensemaking Involvement Direction of sensemaking Communication strategy Individual Self-reflection One-way information Collective Collective contribution Two-way asymmetric information Guided Coalition contribution Two-way symmetric information Table elaborated on the previous works of Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstfeld, 2005, Maitlis, 2005 & Pater & van Lierop, 2006. As discussed by Morsing (2006), without the loyal support of organizational members, the stakeholder corporation is an empty shell. Sensemaking is an activity that needs a strong company-stakeholder relationship to move from an individual to a guided model. For this reason the roles that stakeholders can play are fundamental in the development of high level of sensemaking involvement. 128 Table 14 Stakeholders roles definition Stakeholder Role Definition of activity To provide balanced and objective information to assist organizations in understanding and the problem, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions. To obtain feedback for decision-makers on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions. Inform Consult Involve To work directly with the organizations throughout the process to ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered in decision-making processes. Collaborate To partner with the organizations in each aspect of the decision including the development of alternatives and the identification of the preferred solution. Empower To place final decision-making in the hands of the organizations. Table elaborated from previous work of: Trevino, 1986; Carrol, 1991; As explained for the communication strategies, the relationship between different stakeholders’ roles and sensemaking involvement depends from the capability that organizations and stakeholders have to develop from a individual to a collective and then guided involvement of sensemaking activities. The development of sensemaking involvement depends from the stakeholders’ attitude to increase their relationships with companies and change their role from an informative subject to a collaborating and strategic decision maker. Table 15 Sensemaking characteristics, Communication strategies and stakeholders roles Stakeholder Role Sensemaking Involvement Direction of sensemaking Communication strategy Inform Individual Self-reflection One-way information Collective Collective contribution Guided Coalition contribution Consult Involve Collaborate Empower Two-way asymmetric information Two-way symmetric information 129 5.6 The evolution of sensemaking processes in the Danish Hotels Because reality is not a collection of objective facts that people perceive passively but is a result of people that engage in multiple activities that need questions and answers (Weick, 1995) sensemaking is a process that is not static but temporally evolves. The evolution includes also the relations among subjects and their way to communicate and interact. For this reason, if there is an evolution that regards the communication strategy there is necessary a change in the sensemaking involvement as a consequence of changes in the role of stakeholders. This is what exactly happened in the companies that I have studied in Copenhagen. Once the decision to behave green was introduced, the hotels, as discussed before, started to make sense of their activities and try to understand where was necessary to intervene. During the different sensemaking processes that started, in a first moment the hotels took decisions individually (in-to-out perspective) based on their knowledge/information. 5.6.1 Individual sensemaking The individual sensemaking involvement was based on a one-way communication to the internal and external stakeholders with the principal scope of (1) communication of new behaviors, (2) proposition of a new strategy and (3) research of collaboration and suggestions. Although the general purposes were collaborative, in a first moment the level of collaboration between companies and their stakeholders was very low, especially because the novelty of the issues and the uncertainty inside the industry about how to transform and implement general arguments into practices. “We started 10 years ago using the Swan and communicating to our stakeholders that the adoption of it is an essential requirement to interact with us. In ten years we changed all the suppliers that didn’t want to get certified or doesn’t have products that are compliance with our behaviors. So, if you want to be one of our suppliers you have to show us your accreditation to the Green Swan. […] I know that it is a strong sentence but you need to be strong if you want that others consider you, especially when you start to do something new. Most of the person involved in this kind of activities need time to comprehend, but I am sure, because it has happened in our hotel, that after an initial 130 phase of uncertainty where you need to manage and conduct them, after this they start to be collaborative and propose solutions and new ways to work (Cit E)”. As explained during the narratives creation phase, sensemaking of Corporate Environmental Management is based on the effective integration and adequacy of (1) Regulatory (Social dimension), (2) Technical (Environmental dimension) and (3) Managerial (Economic dimension) categories of issues (Clarcke & Chen, 2007). In the individual sensemaking involvement phase, stakeholders largely make pressures on the companies about the regulatory dimension of CEM, informing the companies about new policies (especially non-compulsory ones) and new trends. The communication of regulatory information doesn’t need particular typologies of engagement or collaboration between the parts. Is for this reason that, companies alone, without the involvement of external subjects, can manage the comprehension of this kind of issues. This explains why compliance decisions (for example adopt a particular standard or similar activities) is a top management decisions that not imply the involvement of employers and just partially involve external coalition stakeholders (communities, NGOs and government) when companies communicate their decision or ask information on alternative solutions. “I know where to go in terms of mission and vision but I need the collaboration of NGOs and similar because principally I don’t have time to study or elaborate information on the products or other green activities. I trust in some organizations and I try to follow their suggestions (Cit. B)”. This is an example of informative stakeholders’ role where they are engaged in the research of information that companies receive neutrally without be involved in the discussion of it. In this case companies make sense of stakeholders communication according to their interests. The level and the quality of information is filtered by the level of interests and stakes that can be founded in the information that are given to the companies by the stakeholders. One of the most critical aspects of individual sensemaking stakeholder role is that in case of contrasting information companies cannot find easily the best solution. Without involving stakeholders into the decisions 131 there are high probabilities that companies cannot find the best solution and need more time or more information to find the best solution because the tradeoff between companies and stakeholder interests is high. Prop13: Individual sensemaking serves to highline interests tradeoff among the parts, through the making sense of regulatory issues 132 5.6.2 Collective Sensemaking The evolution from an individual to a collective sensemaking involvement phase is explained by the advancement of complexity in the making sense of environmental issues, where internal knowledge is not sufficient to understand some activities as for example the introduction of new technologies, the presence of critical decisions about specific issues (water or energy efficiency). In these cases, companies need to go into more information, especially from a technical point of view (Clarcke & Chen, 2007). “We started to collaborate with our stakeholder to resolve a big issue: water consumption. Firstly we have implemented a new water-cool system that take advantage of the canal that is near our hotel. The implementation of this system has been long and interesting because we needed to involve in our meetings many subjects (public and private) that where interested in the consequences that derive from our choices. Why we decided to use this system? Considering the difference between the needs of drinkable water and the needs of non-drinkable water we understood that for some activities we could reduce the use of drinkable water and exploit the canal without compromise it. Salty water can be used in a water-cool system especially in our country where the temperature are quite low and the water is always cold. Of course we had to demonstrate our intentions and we decided to make an open call and receive suggestions about the best way to do this activity. We worked a lot with the Danish Water Forum that was our strategic partner and help us to agglomerate information, suggest other subjects to involve in the decision and select with us the best solution. It has been difficult because we are the first hotels that tried to implement this kind of technology. In a second moment we decided to extend the concept of water savings and now we are working on the implementation of a new system that help us to use the canal water to irrigate our gardens, flowers and plants. The idea is to transform the canal water and use it. It is not difficult but also in this case we need to be careful and find the best solution. I think that we will resolve it during the next year, because now 133 we have more competences, we have developed a lot of contacts and we know where to ask for solutions (Cit. F)”. “Solar Energy, it is a big challenge, especially if considering that here in Copenhagen we can also buy another typology of green energy: the wind energy. This is not my business and I asked to the Green Key consultants some information on it (Cit. C)” When companies start to work directly with stakeholders is because they need external knowledge and they don’t have the time, resources or capabilities to develop it internally and for this reason they ask outside. I worked with our suppliers to develop an efficient waste reduction strategy that was useful for both: it is better to eliminate waste before it is created. Some of our suppliers have innovative solutions and I worked with them to find how to use their solutions also with the other suppliers trying to adapt their technology also to other materials or furnishings (Cit. D)”. “EMSs are important to enter in particular networks. They can open doors to getting in dialogue with big companies. My hotel alone is too small to compete with other realities. Getting part of a network gives me the opportunity to reduce the costs of information acquisition (Cit A.)”. Another interesting element that explains the dynamics of collective sensemaking is reached in the analysis of guests and how the hotels make sense of the environmental issues considering how they can treat them. When hotels implement Corporate Environmental Management practices through the enactment of environmental issues, some of them can be explained and analyzed looking from two different point of view: the company point of view and the client point of view. The most important differences between these two points of views are in the obligatoriness of behaviors. Internally to the hotels, once some practices are established, the employers have to respect procedures and be compliance; on the other hand, form the guest perspective, there are non-compulsory activities, but hotels managers try to develop a two-way communication try to convince guests to act in a green way and ask them for solutions, preferences and suggestions. All the hotels examined have adopted questionnaires and 134 short interviews to their clients trying to achieve the best way to involve them or find alternative solutions that can reduce their commitment. “ Clients are still not enough sensible to this kind of arguments; so we have to do by our self and try to minimize what clients have to do. For example: we changed all the TV in the room with the new led one to reduce Energy consumption; seven years ago we introduced the magnetic key in all the rooms: when you leave the room and you take the key with you, all the lights in the room are switched off (Cit. D)”. “We try to reduce clients possible choices in terms of being green or not. Where we can be proactive and replace ourselves we try to do it. For example we changed all the soaps in the room from the hold bar of soap (consider not only the soap but also the paper and the plastic that you need for each of them), to the modern soap dispenser that are refilled by our staff and cannot be wasted too much (Cit B)”. “During one meeting we found an interesting solution for what concerns the usage of towels. All the towels are normally available in the bathroom; also the extra towels are there and you can use all of them. Looking at this abundance of towels you don’t think to the possibility to do not leave the towel that you have just used once on the floor. We decided to change the disposition of the towels in our rooms. Now in the bathroom are available two towels per person (big and small) and the extra towels are in the wardrobe. The service is guaranteed but with a more efficient logic. Trust me, I don’t really know why but we doubled the number of guests that reuse the towels, especially the small ones (Cit A.)” 135 What is relevant to underline is that companies need help non-in the implementation of specific tasks or activities but they need information to understand the best solution that must be implemented. Companies work directly with stakeholders to ensure that public aspirations are consistently understood and considered in decision-making processes. So the collective contribution that derives from the involvement of stakeholder serves to match stakeholders’ interests and companies’ decisions (Trevino, 1986; Carrol, 1991). One important aspect that impact on the match of interests and decision is given by the evolution of technology and the availability of alternative solutions that can cover specific interests or not. Prop14: Collective sensemaking involvement serves to obtain feedbacks and information about the exploitation of stakeholders’ aspirations, through the making sense of social and technical issues. 136 5.6.3 Guided Sensemaking The maturity of relationships and the enlargement of complex stakes (based on the enlargement of organizational environment, stakeholder network and pattern of interests) necessitate change in the sensemaking involvement and, as a consequence, change in the stakeholders’ role. Is for this reason that sensemaking involvement evolves from a collective to a guided model where the direction of sensemaking passes from collective to coalition contributions. When stakeholders are involved as collaborative and empowerment subjects, the principal scope of the relationship between a company and their stakeholders are focused on the development of alternatives and plausible solutions. When talking about guided sensemaking it means that companies develop strategic partnership with their stakeholder to diffuse and stimulate determined activities or strategies. Guided sensemaking is based on an asymmetric real-time communication where the subjects construct together a sensemaking context, through the sharing and distribution of contexts, initiatives, goals, information exchanges and team interaction, decision processes and communication strategies (Gioia & Thomas, 1996). The evolution of sensemaking is explained in the sense that, during the firs two phases sensemaking works with a high or low level of communication between companies and stakeholders focused on the identification of a set of common attributes necessary to interpret and understand the different issues; when companies and stakeholders are allied sensemaking is not the activity that explains the coalition but it is the output of the coalition. The identification of the issues and the discussion themes is planned in advance (Maitlis, 2005). In the guided sensemaking both stakeholders and companies search for a resolution: sensemaking is not yet a way to know each other but it becomes a context and conceptual arena where the rules and the identity of the players are known. Without discrepancy (Orligowski & Gash, 1994) and surprises (Louis, 1980) resolution is plausible. “After ten years we have now a lot of expertise on sustainability and environmental issues, but, because the general policy is to constantly try to improve our behaviors and our activities we enlarged our influence externally, building new relations and finding new solutions to reduce ours and yours emissions. The new idea of sustainability is to consider 137 not only the activities that are strictly related to the usage of our rooms and services but also what we call complementary activities: your staying in our hotel means that you are in holyday or you are here for business, so you need to use other services as for example transportation. For this reason we have developed several agreements with other companies or some of our stakeholders to start a green and sustainable policy of transportation. We have for example agreements whit car rental companies that rent only green cars (hybrids and electric cars), we have special discounted tickets for the public transportation (Cit. E)”. “I developed the idea of CO2 Neutral Hotels program starting from the assumption that alone you can achieve a certain level of satisfaction; if you work in team or groups the satisfaction is higher. So I started to collect also other subjects that can be involved in this activity, because part of the hospitality industry. Through the CO2 Neutral Hotels program you can buy a full optional service that comprehends the hotel and the travel services (train, airplane, car etc.). The idea of the CO2 certificate is today the best solution to this problem (Cit. A)” Guided sensemaking is based on the exploitation of managerial issues (Clarcke & Chen, 2007). Companies search for economic results also when talk about sustainability and environment: sensemaking comes as a cost (Pater & van Lierop, 2006) and stakeholders must be able to adopt a role in this process that is expression of economic interests (both in terms of opportunities and costs). “We are working to develop strategic alliances between hotels, travel agencies, governments and other subjects that can be interested in sustainability policies. We started with the Internet site Wonderful Copenhagen: there is a section named “green” where are available all the information about environmental initiatives in the city. For our industry is important the section named how to be a green tourist with all the information about hotels, travel services and other activities that serve to increment green behaviors in the hospitality industry (Cit. I).” 138 “Ecolabelling is a way of showing that sustainability is taken seriously. But it is also a jungle of symbols. Through the Green Swan, we built a network of suppliers and other strategic partners that help us to develop our green commitment. If you use an Ecolabel you must prioritize some issues instead of others, as for example waste efficiency or reduction. If you want to be one of our suppliers you have to manage the waste that derives from the usage of your products. The same is for water, energy and eco-design: some issues can be managed only with the collaboration of a high number of experts (Cit. E)”. “We have a particular Internet site: there is a section dedicated to explain our sustainability program with graphs, numbers and tables. It is also possible to comment on it through a dedicated forum where guest can leave their comments. The forum is not only important for the reputation of our hotel but especially for the research of new suggestions (Cit. C).” In the guided sensemaking the main scope is to establish coalitions with stakeholders in order to construct common interests, from the fragmented form of previous sensemaking to a more general shared arena (Maitlis, 2005): the decentralization of sustainable activities is one important element that characterizes this phase. The integration of external coalition stakeholders implies the exploitation of environmental issues into a more general framework. 139 Prop15: Guided sensemaking involvement serves as an instrument to search of resolutions of general shared frameworks that include all the environmental issues, through the making sense of social, technical and managerial categories of issues. Table 16 Sensemaking aims Stakeholder Role Sensemaking Involvement Inform Individual Consult Involve Collaborate Empower 140 Collective Guided Aim of the sensemaking activity Highline interests tradeoff Obtain Feedback and explicit aspirations Search of Resolution CAP VI - CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS 6.1 Introduction Given the explorative nature of my, work I would like to end my thesis with a discussion about findings, limitations and future implications of this research. The principal aim of my thesis was to examine the sensemaking theory and the role of stakeholders in the interpretation of environmental issues, suggesting that different ways to engage with them serves as a framework through which companies interpret their experience for themselves and for others (the stakeholders). I showed that there is a great degree of interplay and connection between stakeholders involvement, communication and the role that they have in the development of sensemaking activities that help companies to enact green issues. This study demonstrates that all these are elements of a dynamic process, where the temporal evolution of the relationships is a fundamental element that characterizes and determines the sensemaking activity. The sensemaking model, derived from this research might be a useful tool for both academics and practitioners. At the theoretical and conceptual level, it will allow researchers to study the processes that underpin the relation between companies and stakeholders, understanding the differences that affect collaborative and noncollaborative relationships among the parts. This research, and the model derived from it, will contribute to future researchers and practitioners’ ability to understand the logic underlying the reasons why companies are engaged in particular activities instead of others, looking at differences in the industries that have repercussions on the stakeholders’ engagement. Finally, the analysis and discussion of the findings in this study demonstrate the value of an interpretive approach and the usefulness of investigating lived experience to understand the processes of green issues sensemaking processes. The study has not only captured the companies experience (through the identification of managerial experiences) but, has been able to uncover the complex processes which explains how stakeholders take part of sensemaking activities, considering different attitudes and behaviors, in terms of passive and active roles. 141 This work contributes to the understanding of sensemaking processes by providing an explanation of the impact of stakeholders’ involvement in the enactment of green issues. The findings demonstrate that there is a complex and dynamic inter-relationship between companies and their stakeholders: the involvement cannot be measured only in terms of active participation, indeed, also in informal or passive communications, stakeholders have a marginal role that must be taken into consideration. As noted in the literature review, there have been debates regarding how stakeholders must be considered in terms of pressures, relevance and identification of interests. From a stakeholder theory perspective, the introduction of Nasi’s model [REFERENCE] helped me understand the complexity of dynamics that explain the composition of internal and external coalitions. The differences between the coalitions are important to articulate sensemaking in regards to different typologies of interests and the outcomes that derive from the interpretation process. My work has thus contributed in terms of knowledge enlargement in the topic in several ways: • It has increased the literature on sensemaking giving a new definition of it, as a synthetic exposition of the most relevant works on the topic. • It has provided a model which explains the interaction between the companies and stakeholders in the development of Corporate Environmental Management practices, underlying the importance of sensemaking activity as a fundamental process that ignite new forms of behaviors. • It has provided a more specific means of sustainability in the Hospitality Industry through the literature review on the topic and giving concrete examples within the data analysis. • Finally, it has shown the utility of the sensemaking approach for investigating and understanding stakeholders interests and experiences. 142 6.2 Theoretical and research implications In theoretical and research terms, the model derived from this study, provides a means whereby researchers can investigate, how different sets of stakeholders’ interests can be managed by companies through the identification of the principal issues that make sense of them. The relevance of the model is given by the possibility to read it from the opposite side: the identification of issues serves to make explicit stakeholders and companies’ interests and to facilitate their relations. The model can be also applied to gain a deeper insight into how companies attract stakeholders and what benefits derive from their experience. It can also be used to uncover the potential of new relations or new pattern of interests. Another important element that comes out from my work is that sensemaking is a continuously improving activity; because organizational environment change, sensemaking serves also to monitor and control evolution that, if too rapid, can turn into a menace for the organizations. One of the most important aspects that I would like to underline is that my work can be important for managers and companies to anticipate or calculate the alternative sets of outcomes that can derive from the interaction with their stakeholders. What really manager need is not a set of alternative decisions to the conflicts that can arise with stakeholders, because every single situation needs specific set of decisions and alternative solutions that must be calibrated after the development of a strategy; in fact the decision of a specific strategy implies also determined behaviors with stakeholders. Different is the analysis of possible and alternative scenarios, where companies can manage and understand how the relationships with and among stakeholders have consequences on the management of the organizations. 143 6.3 Implication for practitioners Stakeholder theory argues that companies should make decisions so as to take in consideration the interests of all stakeholders. I argued that the combination of patterns of interests that are shared between a company and its stakeholders is determined by the capability to make sense of interests and interpret the most relevant issues. So the consideration of particular stakeholders is a consequence of enacting organizational environment, involving the subjects that respond to the companies’ argumentations. From a practical point of view, my work might important because it gives some relevant information on the mechanisms that explain how companies should maximize the outcomes that derives from the interaction with stakeholders: the relevance of legitimation is not the only significant aspect that characterizes sensemaking of stakeholders interests. From the interaction, in fact, derives also a list of practical suggestions and repercussions that are implemented in the companies’ practices. The implications of my work can be relevant for companies and their managers, but also from stakeholders and policy makers. For policy makers, the model developed in this study can be used as a tool to understand the mechanism that reduce or increment the relations between companies and stakeholders and permit them to develop more efficient collaborative plans. Given the usual practical and financial constraints experienced by destination policy makers and practitioners, the approach taken in this study could be adapted for use with focus groups of different kinds stakeholders and companies to open a debate on new ways to enact environmental issues and find common findings that can be achieved in the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management practices. The model can also be used to develop scenarios relating to potential or planned new environmental strategies. Policy makers can use these understandings to engage with stakeholders and companies in developing innovative environmental management and marketing strategies. From a practical level, this research demonstrates the importance and effect of regulatory, technical and managerial dimensions of sensemaking activities and can be adapted to be used as a general template useful for the implementation of Corporate Environmental Management also in other companies and industries. In summary then, in addition to the theoretical implications and contribution set out above, this research is 144 of practical benefit to policy makers and practitioners in a number of ways. In particular, the study can be used: • At an organizational level, to understand the current mechanisms that permits the enactment of environmental issues and explores and assesses possibilities for future destination improvements and developments of sensemaking. • At a strategic level, to support the development of stakeholders engagement in green strategies and initiatives and to balance the economic impact of alternative patterns of interests in the development of Corporate Environmental Management strategies. • To provide training, which promotes understanding among companies and stakeholders, using formal and informal team groups for these activities. 145 6.4 Future research implications From this work it clearly emerges that sensemaking is not a symbolic procedure, but a relevant activity that serves to concretely enact issues and help companies in their daily occupations. Once declared the intention to act green, companies start to involve their stakeholders in different activities. Future studies might explore these kind of processes trying to understand if they are evolutionary processes or if there are other elements that characterize different typologies of sensemaking (issues differences or organizational characteristics). Another important element that must be underlined is the differences between singular and multi engagement sensemaking processes, where managers, once decided to implement green practices start to decentralize gradually sustainable activities, firstly integrating them into the line of the organization and in a second moment developing outside the company’s boundaries their activities, handling the explicit communication of Corporate Environmental Management implementation. So, the level of explicit corporate policies is another relevant element that impact on the relations between companies and stakeholders. Also for this topic, a suggestion for future studies is to try to understand the link between sensemaking and tacit and explicit forms of stakeholders’ engagement. In addition, sensemaking is influenced by the identity of the subjects involved in the process and from facts and circumstances that are antecedent to the start of sensemaking. For this reason, the history and the quality of relations between stakeholders and companies impact extraordinarily on the development of common sensemaking process. Managers decide who must be involved considering also precedent elements that can anticipate the outcomes of future relations. From this point of view considering perceptions as something that change during time, it should be interesting to study the temporal evolution of perceptions and how it impacts on the stakeholders’ engagement. Considering the evolution of relationship perception is important in both negative and positive relationships: companies change their attitudes in terms of explicit and implicit communication of their green activities, instead of different stakeholders’ perception. So, the identification of internal and external elements, that influence the perception of 146 groups of stakeholders, is an antecedent element that is relevant, in the development or not of sensemaking processes, on the enactment of environmental issues and finally on prioritizing some practices instead of others. In this study I illustrate the factors that demonstrate how companies take advantage from their stakeholders in the development of green strategies through a combination of unidirectional and bilateral communicational activities, subjective experiences and formalized patterns of interests. First of all, further research could be carried out to gain deeper understanding of the ways in which previous experience is carried forward into the sensemaking process. Such further studies should serve to deepen understanding of that process as experienced in different companies and/or industry contexts to understand how organizational characteristics can impact on sensemaking involvement. 147 6.5 Concluding remarks This study has investigated how managers exploit environmental issues to enact tangible stakeholders’ interests. It has demonstrated the utility of sensemaking approach that facilitates the engagement of stakeholders into decision-making activities. Organizations engage with their market and non-market constituents and try to merge interests about the legitimacy of their practices before they become institutionalized through social interaction (Delmas & Toffel, 2008) or selecting the most appropriate practices that merge diverse interests and different categories of constituents. The acceptance of interests is explained by people that make sense of things, sharing practical measures and instruments that are implemented within their scope of influences (Cramer et al., 2004). Finally, it has suggested a number of theoretical, research and practical implications arising from the findings. This would not have been as interesting without the support of both university colleagues and supervisors. Practitioner colleagues were equally generous in facilitating access and actively supporting the data collection process. 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September 13. 158 INTERNET SITES Best Practices Database http://www.bestpractices.org/ Center for hospitality Research http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/ chr/ CO2 Neutral Hotels Program http://co2neutral-hotels.com/uk-index.htm/ Danish Ministry of the Environment http://www.mst.dk/English/ Det Norske Veritas http://www.dnv.com/ Ecolodgical http://www.yourhomeplanet.com/ecolodgical /index_ems.php/ EMAS Case Studies http://ec.europa.eu/environment/emas/casest udies/terceiramar_en.htm/ European Commission Environment http://ec.europa.eu/environment/index_en.ht m/ European Environment Agency http://www.eea.europa.eu/ European Union – Sustainable Week http://www.eusew.eu/ Go Beyond Green http://www.terracurve.com/2010/03/29/hospi tality-industry-to-show-off-its-sustainabletrends/ Green A blog about Energy and Environment http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/ Green Facts http://www.greenfacts.org/en/index.htm/ Green Key http://www.kmvk.nl/greenkey/ International Organization for Standardization http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html/ International Tourism Partnership http://www.tourismpartnership.org/ Meeting Copenhagen http://www.meetincopenhagen.com/ Sustainable Business http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/ Travel Daily News Online Website http://www.traveldailynews.com/ Visit Copenhagen http://www.meetincopenhagen.com/ 159 160 APPENDIX Presentation Letter Subject: CBS Research on top Environmental Hotels in Copenhagen: the Case Dear [Business Owner Name]: I am a PhD Student, specializing in Environmental Management at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome in collaboration with Copenhagen Business School – Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility. I would like to interview you about your business as part of a project of my PhD thesis. The purpose of this study is to understand the forms of multi-stakeholders governance and the legitimacy and effectiveness of different global Environmental Management Standards. My goal is to use sensemaking and sensegiving approach to the concrete actions that managers use to interact with their primary and secondary stakeholders when they have to communicate and develop Environmental Strategies. Specifically, I would like to interview you about your environmental strategies to get a detailed look at your direct way to communicate and get in contact with different kind of stakeholders, inside and outside the boundaries of your organization – with a focus on how do you concretely use them to exploit your Environmental Management Systems and how it has perceived (internally and externally of your company) This interview should take about 1 hour. I will call you in approximately two - three days to follow-up on this email and, if you are willing to participate in my study, set up a time when we can meet for the interview. Thanks very much for your time, Sincerely, Riccardo Maiolini 161 Interview Introduction and Informed Consent Review Letter As I’ve mentioned, I am a PhD Student, specializing in Environmental Management, with LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome and Copenhagen Business School – Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility. Thanks for agreeing to participate in our case study of sensemaking of Environmental Management Systems. The purpose of this interview is to get a detailed look at your direct environmental management approach. I am interviewing you as part of my PhD Thesis project. The purpose of this study is to use sensemaking and sensegiving approach to the concrete actions that managers use to interact with their primary and secondary stakeholders when they have to communicate and develop Environmental Strategies. This interview should take about 1 hour. Your participation in the study is completely voluntary. However, you are in no way obligated to participate in it. You will not be penalized in any way if you decline to participate in it. You may ask questions about the study both before committing to participate in it and at any time throughout the study. If you do choose to participate in the study, I would like to tape record our interview with you so we have something to refer to, to check facts. You may refuse to have the interview taped and still participate in the study. If you grant me permission to use the tape recorder, you may request that the tape recorder be turned off at any time. We will destroy the tapes no later than six months after the interview. We will destroy the interview guide notes and data no later than three years after the interview. You may also refuse to answer any question at any time and you may choose to end the interview or withdraw from the study at any time. The information we will be asking you to share WILL be published in a research report. However, in no way will your name or other identifying factors be linked to individual economic data for publication purposes. Instead, this information along with other direct concurrent will be used to illustrate general estimates on levels of investment, income, and profitability. If there is something you prefer not to have publicly disclosed, please be sure to let me know. You will also be asked to review and approve any written materials before they are published. You will also be given a signed and dated copy of 162 this consent form. You may contact me, with any questions, concerns or complaints. I can be contacted via: email at rmaiolini@luiss.it, phone (+39 3492219793). Do you understand these conditions? If so, please tell me what your role in this project is and the rights you have as a participant in this study. If not, please let me know what I haven’t explained sufficiently. [Clarify anything that the interviewee was unclear about.] I addition to agreeing to participate in this interview, I hereby give _____ / do not give ______ my permission to record this interview. I also hereby give _____ / do not give _____ my permission to Mr. Riccardo Maiolini to include information about my organization in reports, and use the name of our organization in forthcoming publications. 163 List of Questions Corporate Environmental Management CEM info historical dissertation CEM Origins CEM tools (EMSs or others) Can you explain the relationship between your activity and CEM? How are you involved in the development and implementation of CEM? Who else is involved in CEM in your organization? There can be different interpretation about Corporate Environmental Strategies? How did the Corporate Environmental Strategy change your involvement over the time? How are decisions made to change? What information would help you in making such decisions in the future? Environmental Management Systems Can you explain me how does your EMS work? What is your role of the EMS in your organization? Who is getting part in the decision process of EMS? Who does decide which EMS was the best one to be adopted? Why do you think your company chooses this particular one? Which are the benefits that derived from the usage of the EMS? What are the limits of EMS? Can you explain how do you are involved in the EMS activities and practices? Who else is part of EMS? How do you interact with them? Which is the most critical part of the EMS? How do you consider - every category of stakeholders - instead of EMS? Why do you think they are interests in CEM? 164 CEM and Stakeholders To who is direct CEM? If the interviewer doesn’t talk about stakeholders ask which are the stakeholders interested in the development of CEM? Who are your stakeholders? How do you consider - every category of stakeholders - instead of CEM? Why do you think they are interests in CEM? Which kind of relationships do you have with them? Do you have some interests that can be in conflict with them? Are some stakeholders against each other? What organizations or individuals in the stakeholders’ community do you collaborate with? How? How do you communicate with Stakeholders about CEM & EMS? Why do you share information with them? Can you give me examples of problems that you share or you use to confront with stakeholders? Do they give you feed back on it? Do you have expectations on their feedback? Can you estimate the value of this collaboration? There are some stakeholders that you do not consider seriously? Why? Give me some example. Which are the most collaborative stakeholders? Why? Give me some example. Who are the most efficient stakeholders? Why? Give me some example. Who are the most inefficient stakeholders? Why? Give me some example. Environmental Issues and the role of Stakeholders How do stakeholders take part to the identification and management of environmental issues in your organization? Give some example of identification and management activities that involve them. How do you consider - every category of stakeholders - instead of Environmental Issues? 165 Why do you think they are interests in environmental issues? How do you communicate with Stakeholders about environmental issues? Why do you share information with them? Can you give me examples of problems that you share or you use to confront with stakeholders? Do they give you feed back on it? Do you have expectations on their feedback? Can you estimate the value of this collaboration? There are some stakeholders that you do not consider seriously? Why? Give me some example. Which are the most collaborative stakeholders? Why? Give me some example. Who are the most efficient stakeholders? Why? Give me some example. Who are the most inefficient stakeholders? Why? Give me some example. Environmental Issues, making sense of Which are the most discussed arguments in regard of CEM? How do you manage the single issue? How do you prioritize green issues? Can you explain how do you organize internally the development or management of environmental issues? Can you give me examples of activities that have been developed to manage environmental issues? Which are the regulatory/social implications of the issues? Which are the technical implications of the issues? Which are the managerial/economical implications of the issues? How do you interpret external information about environmental issues? Did you know about – single specific issue – before the implementation of CEM? Regarding - specific issue – who is the expert? There are internal subjects into your organization that have some kind of knowledge or skills about – single issue - ? 166 Did you receive suggestion fro outside? Who gave you the suggestions? Are the suggestions that you received useful to interpret the issue? There has been equivocal information or suggestions? How long was the process of interpretation? How many subjects collaborate in the interpretation of the issues? There were conflicts among them? Which are the relationships among stakeholders’ interests and environmental issues in terms of regulatory, technical and managerial categories of interests Explain how do you interact with other subjects in terms of creating and receiving contribution about issues. How do you communicate with other members of the teams and stakeholders about specific problems or questions on environmental issues? Can you explain the direction of the communication? Do you feel involved in terms of communication with your stakeholders? How do you think they receive your communication? Do you think they feel involved? How they communicate their behavior and efforts? How do you consider the role of stakeholders in regards to the environmental issues in terms of: Information Consultation Involvement Collaboration Empowerment Which is the principal scope of involving stakeholder in the evaluation and definition of environmental activities? Which is the principal scope of involving stakeholder in the definition of environmental issues? Which is the principal scope of involving stakeholder in the implementation of environmental practices? 167