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1 Introduction

The chapter offers an alternative account of management, and seeks to apply it to the emerging debate on sustainability. If successful, the outcome can be seen as a reorientation of Business Education. Norwegian research and practice is located in an international context. Within Business Education, we should focus on introducing “Responsible Management” (Ennals 2014), with a focus on empowerment. This will involve both theory and practice, as our students expect us to “walk the talk”. Talk of “Corporate Social Responsibility” is cheap: active implementation often requires organisational change. As with motherhood and apple pie, it is very hard to oppose Corporate Social Responsibility, within a community of well-meaning people, and a growing literature (Idowu et al. 2009a,b, 2011, 2013, 2014; Louche et al. 2010). It is however necessary to challenge the foundations on which CSR is based.

Many accounts of CSR assume a consistent model of capitalism around the world. It is suggested that capitalism can be given a human face, as companies adopt programmes which go beyond the minimum legal requirements. This builds on traditions of optional corporate philanthropy. Without changing the underlying working of the company, cosmetic changes are made: lipstick is applied to the capitalist pig. However, it is still a pig. Adding a new veneer of public relations covering to the “organisational levée” is futile if the underlying structure is already fatally weakened, and in danger of breaking when a hurricane strikes. Such businesses are not sustainable without radical redesign and reconstruction.

With our chosen focus on Mutual Competence Building, we need to broaden our perspective on Business and Business Education. Competitive Advantage needs to be complemented by Collaborative Advantage (Johnsen and Ennals 2012a, b). We bring an external approach to discussions of Higher Education. The UK case provides an interesting alternative example: much is similar, but much is different. Recently the Governor of the Bank of England warned of the dangers of unsustainable inequality and an ethics-free banking sector. The option of continuing business as usual is not available. Piketty (2014) would suggest that Harvard and Oxford, with their vast capital reserves, are certainly part of the problem, and possibly part of the solution. Other universities need to consider their positions.

Harvard Business Review (April 2014) is now highlighting the importance of “Sustainability”. This means developing and presenting arguments which challenge what has been the basis of the US economy and society. The US is still in Denial, struggling to cope with the realities of Climate Change, and is in no position to preach to the rest of the world. As with “Shared Value” in HBR in 2011, the strategy is to give US branding to ideas which have been developed elsewhere, facilitating their local adoption, and evading the “Not Invented Here” label.

Perhaps in Norway we could find an equivalent “Look Back in Agder”, a theatrical presentation which captures a distinctive innovative spirit. Ibsen lived in Grimstad, one of the home towns for the University of Agder. We might derive inspiration from Ibsden’s “Enemy of the People” and “Pillars of Society”. George Bernard Shaw regarded Ibsen as more than just Norwegian: he captured the essence of European middle class morality.

There is an emerging Agder definition of what is to be meant by “Sustainability”. This has a backdrop of an account of environmental concerns, and the threats posed by recent decades of industrial capitalism. The creative approach at Agder is to regard the contributors, and their contributions, as constituting a collective exemplification of a “Sustainable Perspective”. Perhaps this underpins how the group came together. Perhaps they have been exchanging ideas and examples for some time. This may have resulted in a shared vocabulary (even in English translation), and a consistent set of arguments. On this optimistic assumption, we have the possibility of producing a book which goes far beyond the HBR discovery of new buzz-words for management. Through an intriguing set of chapters with examples in many disciplines, we may be able to reveal “Sustainability” as an integral and integrating theme.

Having done this, we may also be able to show a working example of a university which embodies these shared principles. We should recall that Wittgenstein was a great admirer of Ibsen, and in particular of “Brand”. He greatly valued his Norwegian cottage near Bergen (now the site of a Wittgenstein archive). We might want to present the University of Agder, in Wittgenstein’s terms, as an important “form of life”, with distinctive “language games” concerning “Sustainability”.

In this chapter we argue for a radical change in the relationship between Higher Education and Business Management. The conventional links are not intellectually and practically sustainable, in particular following the international financial crash of 2008, which had not been predicted, and which led to global recession. The relationship is based on adherence to untenable myths, denial of inconvenient truths, and the exclusion of insights from many disciplines. As a result, particularly within Liberal Capitalism, Business and Management Education have been preparing a new generation of managers based on a narrow and profoundly flawed prospectus, poorly prepared for the challenges of the real business world.

Business and Management have been classified as falling within the Social Sciences. In increasingly competitive environments for research funding, university researchers have been required to demonstrate “scientific” approaches. They have been expected to maintain detachment, and to focus on quantitative approaches, publishing in prescribed journals. This has meant downgrading alternative approaches. The implicit assumption has been that managers are detached observers, making objective decisions based on the exhaustive consideration of all relevant evidence. Given the emphasis on bottom line financial performance in business, Higher Education has been expected to equip new managers with the necessary analytical tools and techniques. Managers have been encouraged to see themselves as generalists, emphasising strategic rather than operational considerations. Increasingly operations, and associated responsibilities, have been outsourced to others.

In preparing new participants in the market economy, it has been assumed that markets had underpinning rationality, and that automatic corrections could take place when markets appeared to fail. The financial crash of 2008 exposed the falsity of this view. The preparation of managers has been irresponsible and unsustainable. By maintaining the illusion of distance and detachment, individuals have assumed and encouraged a lack of personal responsibility. They have sought employment in companies protected by limited liability. Skilled and experienced managers are expected to know how to externalise risk, outsourcing many functions to others who would bear responsibility. As we reconceptualise the nature of management, we can identify new challenges for Higher Education, drawing on broader intellectual foundations. Each Higher Education institution faces the challenge of reconfiguring work and work organisation, to meet new demands.

2 Description

2.1 Varieties of Capitalism

This unitary approach to capitalism, based on Liberal Capitalism in the USA and UK, is now multiply flawed, and should not be perpetuated in Business Education. We can now identify several varieties of capitalism, such as in the European Union or in Scandinavia, where the working of market forces is also underpinned and constrained by distinctive cultural and legislative features. This results in departures from the liberal free market capitalism of the USA and the UK. In emerging markets, such as India, China and Africa, we must expect to encounter further differences.

The European Social Model and the Scandinavian Model exemplify alternative models for economic and social arrangements. When they refer to “Social Responsibility” they give central consideration to employment relationships. Rather than giving full autonomy to managers, they specify partnership relations in the workplace. Such discussions are alien to CSR in the USA, and often in the UK. In consequence, we find discussion of “Corporate Responsibility”. CSR is redefined to omit employees, and to avoid discussing recognition of trade unions. Attractive projects with community partners (such as computers or footballs for schools), or eye-catching environmental initiatives, are seen as safer. They can also usefully distract attention from problematic aspects of the mainstream business.

In European Employment and Social Policy (Bruun and Bercusson 2001), employers have been assigned defined responsibilities to the workforce, and an obligation to work with the Social Partners (trade unions and employers’ organisations). It is through engagement in the process of Social Dialogue, at all levels, that working conditions are improved. There can be a role for legislation and regulation if negotiations do not achieve consensus. Reliance is not placed on voluntarism alone.

The Scandinavian Model goes further, with a tradition in each country of seeking consensus and conducting tripartite discussions. There is respect for work and skill, and a commitment to social equity (Ekman et al. 2010), meaning that the differences in incomes between rich and poor are less pronounced than in liberal capitalist countries. More equal economic relationships tend to produce benefits in terms of public health, education and community relations (Wilkinson and Pickett 2010). It is recognised that the key to productivity and innovation can be seen in approaches to work organisation, and the ways in which people work together (Ennals and Gustavsen 1999). In other words, many features of what might normally be termed CSR are embedded in legislation and custom. We can talk of “socially responsible innovation” (Ekman et al. 2010). Norway is a further distinctive case within Scandinavia: the Norwegian Model has a strong tradition, and underpins mutual competence building development, which provides the basis for sustainability.

Despite increasing globalisation, we should not overlook the varieties of capitalism (Johnsen and Ennals 2012a, b). Companies need to take account of attitudes and legal requirements in each country where they operate. This impacts on “Responsible Management”.

2.2 Responsible Management

Increasingly we see “Responsible Management” being introduced as a required element in all business courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. However, it can be a mistake to read too much into “Responsible Management”, when the culture of management is arguably designed around irresponsibility (Ennals 2014). Companies have developed elaborate schemes of outsourcing, in a legal environment of limited liability. This cannot easily be overcome through gestures. Rather than simply criticising misleading facades, where responsibility is at best skin deep, we need to highlight practical initiatives based on empowerment, not as an optional extra, but as integral to corporate strategy.

These initiatives may involve government as well as companies: both public and private sectors, in mixed economies. In the UK, this can be contrasted with the tendency to privatise many of what have previously been government functions, so that they are now conducted in the private sector, often by contractors who derive economies and profit from reducing pay and pensions for employees. This includes many welfare functions, hidden behind a shield of commercial confidentiality.

Such transitions are often facilitated by arrangements such as the UK Private Finance Initiative, which enables private sector finances to be used for new projects, underpinned behind the scenes by public funds. This enables publicly stated limits on public spending to be circumvented, while greatly increased costs have to be met by ordinary citizens. It would be easy to conclude that governments seek to evade responsibility and accountability, when invoking commercial confidentiality for corporate partners. Government is not necessarily socially responsible.

A further long term consequence is a feeling of impotence by government civil servants, who have come to regard policy as driven by market forces, which they cannot hope to influence (Ennals 1986, 2014). They have often lost sight of the fact that the markets were themselves created by government policy decisions, and could be open to further change.

Recently Business School students have protested against the continuation of courses based on a model of business and economics which was in 2008 shown to be broken, as the financial crisis and depression demonstrated that international financial markets are not self-correcting. They have argued the case for new courses which take account of the realities of the knowledge economy and knowledge society. Academics have continued to resist such pressures. They may find that students vote with their feet, or choose to study through Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This may further individualise the process of study, in contrast with mutual competence building development.

2.3 Convergence of Traditions

A new synthesis is required. The old models of business and business education are broken. The Workplace Innovation movement, active in 30 European countries and supported by the European Commission, derives energy and value from the active engagement of the workforce, who are empowered to use their creativity. New patterns of dialogue and collaborative working are deriving benefits from diversity, and drawing on the experience and tacit knowledge of workers. We can see strong Norwegian values at the core of the movement, which crosses borders.

The branch of the international Quality movement which is concerned with Empowerment has similar foundations of worker knowledge and experience, including in Norway. At its best in Hoshin Kanri (Hutchins 2008), members of the workforce and management share common objectives, which are developed both in bottom up processes of continuous improvement and top down implementation of strategy, mediated by well-developed dialogue. Again, Norwegian Working Life Research has emphasised dialogue (Gustavsen 1992).

We are obliged to question prevailing models of management, as encouraged in Business Schools, where business is reduced to dispassionate quantitative analysis, and little emphasis is given to expert domain knowledge. It is common for managers to operate in areas where they lack experience and expertise, yet they are regarded as “responsible”. In both Workplace Innovation and Quality as Empowerment we recognise the vital importance of Skill and Tacit Knowledge (Göranzon et al. 2006), and we note the apparent obsolescence of management practices. Denial is all too common: it is more comfortable to assume that all will be well, and to avoid asking difficult questions, which are likely to lead to major financial costs. However, business decision making is weakened and distorted if there are topics which cannot be discussed.

If managers are to be truly responsible, they will need to learn from the tradition of Action Research (Karlsen and Larrea 2014). Action Researchers recognise that they are engaged: they cannot claim detachment. Once engaged in action, they can make sense of research and briefings, and learn from differences in previous cases. They need to move beyond merely analytical thinking, and deploy analogical thinking, if they are to find their way in unfamiliar territory. Management and Action Research have much in common, with a central role for interventions.

2.4 Quality as Empowerment

There has been surprisingly limited understanding of several traditions in the international Quality movement. The American accounts of the Japanese Quality movement (Deming 1982) tend to emphasise Compliance, and the importance of quantitative measurement. This serves to strengthen the hand of management, and builds on Taylorist scientific management. Little was said about the workforce as partners, and less about trade unions.

By contrast, the Japanese account from Ishikawa (1980), who was concerned with Empowerment, was based on foundations of worker knowledge and experience. At its best in Hoshin Kanri (Hutchins 2008), members of the workforce and management share common objectives, which are developed both in bottom up processes of continuous improvement, and top down implementation of strategy, mediated by well-developed dialogue. The Japanese model of Quality Circles was extraordinarily influential in Japanese industry, but enjoyed less success under different brands of capitalism.

Since 1994 Quality Circles approaches have been applied in Education around the world, starting in India, with the foundation of Students’ Quality Circles. Circles of students are empowered to work together to solve practical problems related to their work and learning (Chapagain 2013). The Circles are voluntary and self-managing, and create a flow of bottom up improvements (Ennals and Hutchins 2012). Students empowered by such experience are well prepared for work in small businesses, and for teamwork in larger organisations. Their learning involves new relationships with teachers and other students.

2.5 Workplace Innovation

It has often been assumed that “innovation” is largely a matter of effective development and deployment of new technology. Broader discussions have concerned product innovation and process innovation. Increasingly attention is being given to workplace innovation, where the workforce is regarded as the key resource. Can the foundations be laid for effective innovation systems, by developing new ways of working and learning? What are the implications for Business Education?

The Workplace Innovation movement (Fricke and Totterdill 2004; Dhondt and Totterdill 2013), active in 30 European countries and supported by the European Commission, derives energy and value from the active engagement of the workforce, who are empowered to use their creativity. New patterns of dialogue and collaborative working are deriving benefits from diversity, and drawing on the experience and tacit knowledge of workers. There have been preparatory projects for over 20 years, resulting in well-established international networks, involving trade unions and employers as well as academic researchers. There is no “one best way”, but there is a growing network of successful cases, from which much can be learned. Learning does not come from detached observation, but from active engagement in interventions, drawing on previous research and contributing to future policy discussions.

2.6 Skill and Tacit Knowledge

We are obliged to question prevailing models of management, as encouraged in Business Schools, where business is reduced to dispassionate quantitative analysis, and no emphasis is given to domain knowledge. Expert knowledge is typically held by workers with the relevant experience. However, only a proportion of that knowledge can be made explicit, and manipulated with computers. Much more remains tacit. We ignore it at our peril. This realisation has grown in the Swedish nuclear power industry (Berglund 2011, 2014). It is vital for workers to be able to communicate and share knowledge at times of crisis, which means that such arrangements need to be in place in advance. Older workers have accumulated expert knowledge which can be cast aside when they retire.

It is common for managers to be required to operate in areas where they lack experience and expertise, yet they are regarded as “responsible”. In both Workplace Innovation and Quality as Empowerment we recognise the vital importance of skill and tacit knowledge (Göranzon et al. 2006). We have explored approaches to accessing tacit knowledge through dialogue. We note the apparent obsolescence of many current management practices. We recognise the importance of analogical thinking to complement analytical thinking. It is incoherent to talk of business decisions being made on the basis of considering “all of the evidence”. In practice, decisions are made based on partial information. Access to that information is uneven.

2.7 Action and Inaction

If managers are to be truly responsible, they will need to learn from the tradition of Action Research. Action Researchers recognise that they are engaged: they cannot claim detachment (Giddens 1984). Managers are part of the problems which they seek to solve. Like medical surgeons, they intervene, take action, and their actions have consequences (Toulmin 2001).

Once engaged in action, managers and researchers can make sense of research and briefings, and learn from differences in previous cases. They need to move beyond merely analytical thinking, and deploy analogical thinking (Göranzon et al. 2006), if they are to find their way in unfamiliar territory. This requires a very different approach to social science research, and to business and management education. Management and Action Research must now be considered together, with management redefined in terms of intervention, and the orchestration of reflection. This will have implications for universities, and for career paths.

The Norwegian Enterprise Development and Working Life (EDWOR) PhD programme brought these previously separate traditions together. Researchers from enterprise development projects across the country, and from overseas (e.g. Turkey and USA) came together quarterly for intensive teaching weeks with international academics, operating as a “flying circus”, located in different bases. This was advanced higher education without institutional walls, in which students learned from engagement in individual and group interventions. Seven years after the first PhD completions, the collaborative culture continues, spanning rival research groups.

2.8 The Knowledge Business

These discussions come together when we consider practical cases in which we are directly involved. Many active researchers in CSR are based in universities. They are part of the “knowledge business”. In universities, and in particular in Business Schools, we may have lost sight of the radically changed business context in which we operate. There are real challenges for Responsible Management. In the UK, my former university, Kingston, is legally designated a Higher Education Corporation. In 1992 the government undertook a form of privatisation in which government regarded themselves as no longer responsible for maintaining the financial viability of universities. Universities became subject to market forces, complicated by changing regulations and targets set by government, and competing for scarce government research funding. There was a time lag before the implications of this regime change became evident. Government withdrew funding for most university teaching, and replaced the shortfall by requiring new much higher tuition fees to be paid by students.

For the most prestigious universities, this has been an opportunity to seek to charge still higher fees, and to assert traditional academic excellence. For the weakest universities and colleges, there has been the option of competing on price, under-cutting higher profile rivals. For those squeezed in the middle, there has been the temptation to engage in cosmetic changes, asserting “Quality” while offering “Mediocrity”. Standing back, we see a more complex picture. UK universities now depend on an influx of overseas students, who can choose where they study. National borders are less important. There are almost as many Chinese as UK postgraduate students. Parents and students are asking whether, with the new tuition fees, the courses are good value. Would it be better to seek employment, and find ways of learning in the workplace? Previous rhetorical concern for widening participation has quietened.

A further complication is the growth of a new pattern of course delivery, the Massively Open Online Course (MOOC), first pioneered in the USA. In principle MOOCs offer low cost or no-cost assess to leading edge courses taught by outstanding international academics. How can lower prestige universities and colleges hope to compete? Should they simply offer tutorial support? What are the wider implications? How can this situation be managed responsibly? Universities and colleges must be prepared to re-invent themselves and their courses, to take account of new realities. This presents challenges in terms of CSR, on a number of grounds. The offer to prospective students needs to be honest, and good value for money. The university needs to address the needs of employers as well as students, when offering work-based and work-related courses. Course content and pedagogical methods need to be sustainable.

If we revisit the arguments outlined earlier in this chapter, we may find the basis for new, responsible, approaches to higher education in the current competitive context. In the past, students went to university to gain access to information and knowledge. Now we could argue that there is a danger of being overwhelmed by information, including many contradictions. The same problem faces managers. Students need to learn how to filter and select. It is also apparent that professionals require more than explicit knowledge. If possible, universities should provide the opportunity to learn from experience, and to draw on the tacit knowledge of others.

To be one of a large audience for a MOOC may be less satisfactory than being part of a group who can learn and discuss together, taking personal ownership of a mass broadcast set of material. New pedagogical approaches may become popular. We could imagine an important role being played by Students’ Quality Circles (Ennals and Hutchins 2012; Chapagain 2013), within and across conventional institutions. As they develop confidence in sharing ideas, and developing proposals for improvements, and make competent use of electronic resources, they may become a driving force in higher education, setting the agenda for academics to follow. Such Circles and Networks may drive educational change, Innovation in the Knowledge Workplace.

This scenario of change poses challenges to traditional hierarchies and institutional structures. Some universities and colleges may become financially non-viable. They may have to form new relationships with students and alliances with other institutions. Little of this is evident in marketing communications between universities and prospective students. We see more focus on cosmetic adjustments, with appeals to aspiration to academic status. University senior managers are saying little about empowering knowledge workers, whether academics or students. Such talk would take them into a new and unknown world, with unfamiliar power relationships.

As with the Titanic, we may expect little change of course before the encounter with the iceberg. When the ship goes down, it will be a rapid process. It will become apparent that we were not “all in it together”. In the meantime, we are encouraged to enjoy the illusion of stability and comfort. To complement those who are privileged to be in the knowledge business, we can find millions who are in need of basic empowerment, if they are to engage in the global economy and knowledge society.

In an unequal world, large parts of developing countries lack access to a reliable fixed infrastructure of power supplies. This denies them the benefits of several generations of technology, and serves to perpetuate the gap between rich and poor. On the other hand, it may offer an opportunity to follow a different technology trajectory, leapfrogging intermediate stages. Such a development can be revolutionary. A recent example of leapfrogging has been the jump from no telephony to mobile telephony, without transiting through copper cables everywhere. It has been revolutionary in the sense that it has brought a great deal of change to people’s lives in a short time.

The case with solar technology is different. It does not at present represent an alternative to centralised power generation and electricity transmission lines. Low cost technology is now available to use solar energy to power many electrical devices, and to enable other devices to be powered or recharged (Cameron 2014). A new community-based infrastructure can be developed on a local basis, bottom-up, and sustainably. This requires painstaking experimental interventions, followed by sustainable infrastructure operations. Similar arguments apply to water management technologies, agricultural infrastructure etc. This is the practical side of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and successor initiatives.

Successful implementation can depend on changing management decision-making processes, which tend to have emphasised capital investment in technology, rather than ongoing issues of maintenance and support. It is much easier to stage a media event, with photographs typically full of posed smiles, than to enable an ongoing process. Numerous overseas development projects, for example introducing water pumps, have come to a halt because of a minor fault, an absence of local technical knowledge, and a lack of funding for maintenance. Often there has been a lack of local ownership of the change processes, and limited communication between donor and recipient groups.

If the result of an initiative is to be genuine empowerment, rather a cosmetic application of lipstick, then we need to recall the history of socio-technical systems thinking, and the focus on participation. We need to recognise that apparently the same processes can be conducted in very different ways according to cultural context. Research on applying mobile health information systems (Li 2011) showed that in the USA state of the art technology would be used, and reliance on human workers would be limited, while in China it was decided to secure active participation from the local community. They make use of text messaging facilities on early mobile phones, which are widely available. It was also recognised in China that participation in design and decision making are important, together with accommodating to the views of leaders. China is now active in developing infrastructure in East Africa. New networks and partnerships are forming, with increasing local participation.

2.9 Reason and Sustainability

Stephen Toulmin argued (Toulmin 2001) that the roots of this problem date back many centuries. As a historian of ideas, with a background in Physics and the Philosophy of Science, he identified prevailing myths and illusions, explaining the views of key thinkers in terms of their own circumstances and pressures.

In the seventeenth century, after 30 years of war in Europe, the idea of peace and predictability was extremely attractive. Astronomy and physics offered the security of stable systems, and a new perception of stability in the heavens provided a model for potential stability between and within nation states. Academic disciplines developed, matured, and built institutional structures, mirroring political systems. Unfortunately for those wanting a peaceful academic life, this view was based on the myth of stability. Science could offer partial models, but not complete security and predictability. There had long been research on chaos, and this could not safely be neglected.

Toulmin pointed to a second phase of myths in the twentieth century, introduced by economists. Economists aspired to the status of astronomy and physics, with sound underpinning from mathematics. Concepts such as equilibrium were developed to accompany complex market models. Despite the continued relevance of concerns for chaos, it was politically and professionally preferable to act as if economics presented a truthful and accurate picture of the world. Whereas economists assumed that business deals were made on a basis of full information, to which all participants had equal access, this was clearly false. Toulmin died before the financial crash of 2008, but it would have come as no surprise to him at all. The whole global economic house of cards was based on illusions: it could not be sustained. It was simply a matter of when the collapse would take place. Building an alternative would take time, and would involve new building materials. Toulmin had pointed out, with gentle elegance, that the emperor had no clothes. A new tailor would be required.

Managers and other professionals had protected their personal positions by claiming protection from science, as if science was a body of incontrovertible fact, which could be evaluated in objective terms. However, as Tony Giddens argued (Giddens 1984), this protection was an illusion. By virtue of their working roles, managers are engaged in organisations. They are part of the structures which at the same time they seek to analyse from a safe distance. They are part of the problem, and may not be part of the solution. Toulmin drew on experience working with Action Research in Sweden and Norway (Göranzon 1995; Toulmin and Gustavsen 1996). In a number of Scandinavian traditions we find a focus on intervention and reflection. Often this has seemed like a rearguard resistance movement, while positivist social science research and management continues to prevail. Toulmin’s work provides the basis for an alternative.

After over 50 years of publishing influential books on the philosophy of science and the history of ideas, Toulmin was laying the foundations for a fresh approach to management. He had the reputation and prestige which enabled him to roam across the disciplines and around the world, and the compendious knowledge of the literature which enabled him to write about thinkers as if he had known each of them personally. This is best seen in his “Imaginary Confessions” (in Göranzon 1995). Intervention was at the centre of Toulmin’s attention. It was not something for which one should apologise. Quite the reverse. To manage, or to conduct research in social science, is to intervene. Our actions, words and writings bring about change. He recommended the clinical model of intervention, as seen in the practice of surgeons. There are cycles of Plan, Do, Check, and Act. The actions of the surgeon cause change, for good or ill. The same applies to managers.

If this view is accepted, there needs to be a profound reconfiguration of academic activity in Higher Education. A sustainable view of business and organisations makes use of insights from many different disciplines, which may not be accommodated within current Business Schools. This suggests a requirement for new relationships within Higher Education, and between Higher Education and Business. Learning in Higher Education should not just be a matter of books and lectures constrained by traditional disciplines. “Learning from Encounters” and “Learning from Differences” require engagement in action, rather than detachment.

3 Discussion

In this chapter we refer to example cases in UK, Spain and Sweden, which are presented with the intention of complementing Norwegian cases which are developed in other chapters. In each case, we consider the central role of interventions, which cut across conventional functional and discipline-based approaches.

3.1 UK: Work and Health

The first case is from the UK. The WORKAGE project, led from Nottingham Trent University and Workplace Innovation Ltd, is funded by the European Commission, and draws on experience from other countries, including Norway. As issues associated with the health of older workers are under consideration around the world (Ennals and Salomon 2011), this project tests a radical alternative hypothesis. A concerted intervention in two pilot organisations, with a focus on workplace innovation, is intended to be generally beneficial, with detailed analysis of the outcomes for older workers. The field has long been confused and difficult, with rival perspectives relying on different collections of evidence, to be analysed according to separate criteria. If all the detached analyses are laid end to end, they will never reach a conclusion. However, an appropriate intervention may provoke productive responses.

It is not credible to present a model of management as the detached analysis of all available information, given that in practice decisions are made with only partial information. It makes more sense to start with Management as Action Research, involving interventions and reflection. This approach is in line with Toulmin’s “Return to Reason” (2001). His approach was then to illustrate his argument using vignettes, offering culturally situated insights.

In the UK, the established orthodoxy, which underpins the “Research Excellence Framework”, is to regard Business and Management as falling within the Social Sciences, where scientific detachment is required, with largely positivist research methods. The consequence is that business does not take academic research seriously, preferring to rely on consultants. One defensive rationale for this approach has been to argue that Action Research is confused and incoherent. Somehow it has been assumed that conventional approaches to management are responsible, sustainable and acceptable. Such assumptions are no longer tenable.

In Norway, Action Research has a higher profile, and greater acceptability. Research organisations such as AFI, IRIS and SINTEF deliver contracts based on Action Research methodologies, and national enterprise development programmes such as Enterprise Development 2000 and Value Creation 2010 have emphasised Action Research. Implicitly this has involved a redefinition of management in the context of innovation.

The WORKAGE project casts light on a fresh approach to Management, “Management as Intervention”. Rather than working from a positivist paradigm of detached social science, here the key is engagement in action. There are interventions in two pilot organisations: Stoke City Council and Southern Healthcare Trust, in Northern Ireland.

The WORKAGE project is organised in three stages, which would ideally form part of an ongoing Plan—Do—Check—Act (PDCA) cycle:

  • collection of scientific data and literature on work and age

  • intervention (which could be seen as Action Research working with Management)

  • policies, conclusions or organisational changes, consolidating learning

Intervention is the critical distinctive stage. It needs to pick up key words and concepts from science, so that traces of influence and continuity can be identified. It needs to engage participants in collaborative collective action, so that they go beyond their previous individual concerns. Responsible Management is intended to catalyse this fusion, embodying a shared agenda. For the third stage to be effective, we need to go beyond the single firm, which is to be located in a form of “development coalition” (Ennals and Gustavsen 1999; Gustavsen et al. 2001; Levin 2001; Ennals 2014). This involves relations with other companies and organisations in a wider dialogue, so that experiences can be shared and lessons learned.

From the context of action, we can in turn make practical sense of the background of scientific research. Words and theories are given meaning from experience. This can link work from several scientific traditions, where communication has often been obstructed by conflicting assumptions and vocabulary. In the context of the WORKAGE project, there need to be identifiable strands on work, health and learning running through all three stages, so that links can be recognised and followed. We must expect the sets of scientific findings to be varied, disparate and incomplete. They are like ingredients for a cake recipe. They are not effective by themselves, but depend on interactions with other materials, and changes due to external pressures. Typically science has been based on observation, rather than experience. Scientists can be “shaken”, but they are rarely “stirred”. By contrast, innovation involves stirring.

Work is about change, taking ingredients, forming a new mixture, and enabling a transformation to a new product. Work is thus important in itself. One problem has been that, in conventional social science, “scientific detachment” has often been valued over “active engagement” in work. A change of outcome for work and health in older workers involves responsible managers recognising their own need to intervene. On this basis, to manage is to intervene. Scientists have been producing the raw material to inform decisions and interventions. It is bizarre that managers are often not given the confidence to support their interventions. Perhaps most radically, we need to articulate a fresh approach to learning which takes account of this model. Learning does not derive from following a single linear path, but from encounters with differences, and the need to make sense of these encounters. We can imagine a clean and consistent line of development, but the real world of action and management is messy.

Learning involves the capacity to reflect on experience, both from inside and, to some extent, as it may appear to others. It needs to include the capacity to reflect on apparent failure. We can also take a fresh look at defining health, both in medical and social terms. Our medical accounts depend on scientific observations, which may be quantified. As we act in contexts of work and society, our separate individual medical conditions can sometimes drop out of consideration. It may be more effective to work at an organisational level. It is thus unhelpful that, for example in the UK, Medical General Practitioners tend to have little knowledge of occupational health, and very limited contact with workplaces. They focus on diagnoses regarding their individual patients, and may have no dialogue with management about the workforce. UK government departments and European Commission Directorate-General tend to prefer to remain within their comfort zones. Cross-disciplinary discussion is limited.

It has been difficult to establish and maintain dialogue between strategic management and the various specialists concerned with workplace health. They start with different models of evidence and explanation, and with little common vocabulary. Rival detached experts fail to engage. The way forward seems to involve interventions to which each must respond in their own way, as they encounter discontinuities. It is easy to identify gaps and discontinuities between stages and traditions, so that important issues are not addressed. More importantly, we can often suggest a way through, with the integrative role of action and intervention, and a central role for learning from differences.

On this basis, WORKAGE has much to offer both Responsible Management and the Philosophy of Knowledge. Planned interventions in two or three organisations can have wider impacts. Over a 3-year project, there will be links to several disciplines, and to political events at national and EU levels. Effective management involves making people an offer they cannot refuse, in a language they can understand. Those who make the offers, as part of interventions, need to speak the languages of those they are seeking to engage. This means participating in the relevant “forms of life”, and playing their “language games”. Several normally separate disciplines are brought together in the WORKAGE project. Communication within the project will be vital. The link is through action, not simply written words. Utterances are to be seen as actions (speech acts). We need to monitor the requirements of interlocutors. Reports are targeted communications. Interventions have a vital language component. Issues of knowledge arise at each stage. Language and knowledge are used differently in science, interventions and organisational policy development. When we consider health, our understanding of individual health provides the analogy which we use when discussing organisational health. We can envisage consultants and “spin doctors” intervening in organisations. The surgeon provides a model for interventionist social science.

WORKAGE offers a chance to escape the tyrannies of scientific positivism and academic scientific management, which have created the current silos, and failed to address human dimensions. Language defences need to be constructed, so that research communities can see evidence that their particular contributions have been recognised, without necessarily achieving dominance. Where the literature has become narrow and specialist, additional language hooks need to be found. There needs to be an actionable dimension, possibly via intermediary discourse. If the output is to be a model or toolkit, it needs to be applied in practice. The project proposal included references on age and health, which will be amplified in the Literature Review and summary. The Survey will then focus on the workplace context. The Intervention has been outlined in very general terms: so far it has been more “buzz” than specifically addressing age or health. That may be fine, but it is then hard to envisage toolkits, promised as project outputs, other than “beehives” and specialist protective clothing. It also poses challenges to those trying to quantify resulting changes, seen as due to the Intervention.

Much will depend on the leadership in the pilot organisations, who will respond to the “buzz” in practical ways. They will doubtless talk about age and health as they see them in practical terms. In their efforts to bring about change, facilitated by the intervention team, they will need to learn from the different experiences of other interventions. It may be that the European Workplace Innovation Network approach based on the “Fifth Element” emerges as part of the draft tool kit. However, it assumes the other four elements, details of which will need to be described for each case. If it is the work of the partner employers that is central, rather than rolling out a pre-existing cartoon based presentation, then we need detailed analyses of the organisations in terms of age and health, interpreted by managers. We need to understand the ways in which these issues are tackled in each organisation, enabling the organisations to take ownership.

If the interventions are to be largely Workplace Innovation Ltd shows with local on-site hosts, then, however impressive the team may be, nothing substantive and sustainable may take place as a result. It would be what Gustavsen (1996) has described as “expert-led consultancy”, rather than “concept-driven development”. It may be rash to assume that age and health do not require specific mention in the intervention, yet to assert that measurable benefits in terms of age and health will result, and will be recognised by workplace actors and European Commission project officers. We need some indicative examples. The survey seems to have planned appropriate questions, linking to research by Ilmarinen and Cooper. However, it is not clear how the resulting data will be used, in the intervention and policy work. Ideally the project will be integrated, rather than just a set of separate work packages. This will be necessary if real workplace change is to result. To date the project seems to take no account of particular age distributions or health profiles. It may be that the patterns in the pilot organisations are very different.

There is passing mention of the ‘medical model’ of age, but little is made of the ‘resource model’, with a focus on the experience, skill and tacit knowledge of the older worker, which need to be handled appropriately in the innovative workplace. Instead, the approach seems to be simply to disregard age. That may have been the intention of the proposer, but it is possible that the European Commission have different expectations. This is a practical personal example of learning from differences, starting from the experience of seeking to bring about change.

3.2 Spain: Working with Policy Makers

Working with policy makers is the focus of research at Orkestra, Deusto University, involving Miren Larrea and James Karlsen. Using an Action Research Methodology, they are working with local policy makers in the Basque Country, including many who are new to mainstream politics. Experience from WORKAGE is potentially relevant to recent discussions on Policy Making, because of fresh insights which it provides on ‘learning from differences’. At the core of the 3-year WORKAGE project is a set of interventions in pilot organisations. Active engagement in those interventions provides a context in which to make sense of the rich literatures which have been reviewed, in this case around the health of older workers. It then provides the starting point for policy developments building on experience of the interventions.

As with our partners in local government in the Basque Country, many of the UK colleagues in the WORKAGE pilot organisations lack familiarity with the scientific literature, and are new to the business of policy development and implementations. In each case, the starting point for those engaged in change processes in their own organisations is to describe one’s own case against the background of other cases. This may also include encounters with relevant literatures, through the light they can cast on cases. This is an iterative process. Typically there have been limited connections between different strands of literature, which can be hard to link to actionable knowledge. We are accustomed to gaps between theory, practice, and policy implementation. Here the link is made by active interventions, which become the focus of attention.

We should see managers as making interventions, making sense of complexity by reference to the literatures, and comparing their experience with that of others. We can regard management as a form of Action Research and we can see one of the tasks of the manager as being the orchestration of reflection. Apart from the implications for the health of older workers (in which I declare a personal interest!), we are offering an important new model for applied research, using learning from differences and actionable knowledge. This is now defined as knowledge which takes shape in the context of action. This can also be a way of mainstreaming issues of Responsible Management which are typically regarded as an optional extra. This is an especially attractive approach in the EU, where Social Partnership, Social Dialogue, Social Benchmarking and Social Capital are well understood, at least formally.

3.3 Sweden: Power Generation

At Vattenfall in Sweden, there is a long history of research on dialogue in the workplace, resulting in several PhDs. For the power generation company Vattenfall, owned by the Swedish government, Responsible Management is central to strategy. Responsibility has more practical significance than in other industry sectors. Nuclear technologies can pose risks to health and life. Management tends to be conservative, while keeping abreast of the state of the art. There are new challenges for training.

In the nuclear power generation division, activities have safety as a central concern, and the company has had to deal with the consequences of disasters elsewhere, in terms of attitudes to nuclear power. Germany and Switzerland decided to close all nuclear power plants following the Fukushima disaster. Other countries have delayed their decisions regarding the appropriate mix of power sources. There have been long delays in the UK. There have been major job losses at Vattenfall, and important changes in company culture.

The company has been concerned with older workers. The present generation of power stations is old, with their original workforce reaching retiring age as the plants reach the end of their planned operational period. These older workers embody knowledge and understanding which have been accumulated through long experience. The transition between generations, both of technology and workers, are difficult. Although technological advances have increased the extent of automation, there is still a foundation of reliance on the judgement and skill of the experienced workforce. There is a plan to introduce Students’ Quality Circles into safety education and training for control centre and maintenance staff. Habits of dialogue and collaboration need to precede emergency situations.

4 Conclusion

4.1 Sustainability as Mutual Competence Building

Sustainability is not an optional extra, but is integral to management. Envisaging management in terms of mutual competence building development involves new patterns of decision making, new approaches to the working of the organisation. Rather than management being detached and quantitatively driven, it is hands-on, and inevitably brings about change. Our international cases focus around the health of older workers in public and private sector organisations, processes of policy making in local government, and complex challenges in an international power generation company. It becomes apparent that people, their knowledge, and their capacity to innovate, are central in each case. Their creativity needs to be engaged, and they need to be able to respond to management interventions, with subsequent dialogue.

This research experience suggests that empowerment is not a simple and instant process. Empowerment of individuals is with respect to a given system, which needs to be understood through engagement, and cannot simply be determined from a distance. Responsible management involves creating an environment where others can be empowered, and the organisation can be sustained. This presents challenges to the current generation of managers.

The borders of our world are shifting. As we explore developments in a solar energy company in Kenya, we can envisage implications for partners in Tanzania and Mozambique, as well as in Asia. Freed from reliance on fixed infrastructure at every stage, we can consider hybrid approaches, crossing borders of countries and technologies. Within current organisations and countries, we may need to seek cultural change, so that we can align objectives, benefit from improvements designed at local community level, develop co-ordination strategies, and engage in constructive dialogue. These are the principles of Hoshin Kanri (Hutchins 2008).

Corporate Social Responsibility should not be seen as an optional extra set of activities, designed to attract favourable public attention. Like lipstick, it can be quickly applied, and later removed, as if it had never been there. It is instead a matter of Responsible Management being a reflexive characteristic of an approach to management which is always seeking to improve, and with a perspective which goes beyond managers themselves. Responsible Management requires engagement in action, which offers the opportunity for learning from differences. Impressions from past research and experience are given fresh meaning in action, which in turn provokes responses from others, through a process of Mutual Competence Building.