Corporate Social Responsibility as Oxymoron

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orporate Social Responsibility as Oxymor niversalization and Exploitation in Boei By: Prakhar Bhargava

Transcript of Corporate Social Responsibility as Oxymoron

Corporate Social Responsibility as Oxymoron

Universalization and Exploitation in Boeing

By: Prakhar Bhargava

Presentation Flow

• Introduction• Lean & Mean at Boeing• The Illusions of the Participatory

Workplace• High Performance: Making Believers out

of Workers• Getting the Joint at Boeing• Code of Ethics for Everyone (?) at Boeing• Conclusion

Oxymoron Meaning

• Figure of Speech• Places Opposite Meaning side by

side for Descriptive Purpose• Ex. Slightly Pregnant

Case Study Focus

• Workers’ Experience of and Resistance to–Layoffs–Outsourcing–Benefits Reduction– Implementation of New

Management Model

Corporate Conduct

• March 2005:– CEO Harry Stonecipher resigned after office

affair

• February 2005:– Onex purchased Boeing’s Wichita Manufacturing

Facility.– Laying off 10,500 Workers

• May 2004:– Implmentation of Lean Production Practices in its

operations for the new 7E7 Jumbo Jet.– Nos. of Workers Reduced from 5000 to 1000

Corporate Conduct• 2003: – CEO Phil Condit resigned – He made questionable deals with

Pentagon– Pentagon Purchased 767 Tankers

• 2001 – 2003:– Boeing laid 11,000 Workers in Wichita

• 2001 – 2002:–Mass Layoff of more than 30,000 workers

across all of its facilities

Corporate Conduct

• March 2001:–Relocation of its Corporate Headquarters–For CEO Phill Condit• Strategic Decision to Maximize Shareholder Value

–For Workers• It was a Desertion of Community

Key Point

• In an Enterprise, every one is a Stakeholder but why are stakes profoundly unequal?

• Corporate Interest across all categories of Stakeholders should be Universalized.

Universalization

• Common and Dominant Strategy of Capitalistic Ideology

• In Universaliztion,–Values and Interests are specific to

certain places and time.–They are projected as the values

and interests of all humanity.

Universalizing Strategies

1) The discourse of management in the era of HPWO justifies mass layoffs and pressures on workers toward efficiency and new standards of productivity.

2) Boeing’s own belabored public and internal discourse about corporate and employee conduct.

Why Analysis of these Strategies?

• It exposes,–How corporate can “Universalize”

an ethical position in order to quell • Labour unrest• Co-opt various stakeholding groups• Union leadership • Maintain favorable public image in

times of economic troubles and scandals

Some Background

• Pacific Aero Products [1916]• World War I• Boeing Airplane Company[1917]• Seattle Plant • Vertol Aircraft - Philadelphia

Unrest within Organization

• United Auto workers• Pride in Excellence Campaign• Post World War II• Recession of 1980• Aero-Space Syndrome• International Association of

Machinists [IAM]• “48 day Strike” [1989]

Lean And Mean At Boeing

• Quality through Training Program

• IAM/Boeing Health and Safety Institute

• President – Ronald Reagan • Mass Layoffs• Lean and Mean

Illusions of “Participatory Workkplace”

• Participatory Management Model• Symbolic Idea Sharing • “Quasi-Management Position”• Rhetoric of “Lean and Mean”- was

basically MEAN at Boeing.

Manipulating I AM

Making Believers out of Workers

• Cushman Believed in continuously improving an organization’s performance.

• They believed corporations need to say close to customer and competitors to determine the need of change.

• Managers cant force to form quality circles but use peer pressure and rewards to encourage workers.

• Feldstein suggests executives use lean initiatives to downsize rather than converting workers into believers.

• Lean Enterprise Institute suggests training documents for managers to implement optimum continuous flow.

• Lockheed Martin redesigned workflow into high performance work system which was built on ability and skills of frontline workers.

• American society for Training & Development hailed corporate cultures that engaged workers in new strategies.

• The job of program is to improve worker understanding about their jobs.

Making Believers out of Workers

Getting the joint at Boeing

• Lean Manufacturing resulted to strikes in 1989 & 1995.

• Boeing introduced HPWO & lean management along with joint union-management participation in worker training.

• “When the going gets tough, Boeing gets touchy-feely”. The workers identified these programs as Trojan horses.

• David clay put light on how the jointness resulted in creation of pseudo-union-management position which led to union contract terms being hazy.

• In 1999 & 2002 union made concessions & contract included increased participation in joint programs as Boeing laid off 30,000 workers.

• The Lean manufacturing models & HPWO showed effects of speedup, longer shifts & mandatory overtime on the human body(mainly workers).

• Thomas requested unionized workers to refuse co operation with lean manufacturing unless the corporation put the concern of people first.

• Chong, Emmett & Sikula commented that continuous improvement and quality programs do not empower workers.

• HPWO need not increase the performance of the system & rather it be used as a cover for exploitation as in the case of Boeing.

Getting the joint at Boeing

A CODE OF ETHICS FOR EVERYONE (?) AT BOEING

• Boeing’s 2004 Ethical Business Conduct Guide- lines, available on the company website:

First page: photo collage of workers at job

Next page: “Our Values”

• Quality, Information sharing and Teamwork are buzzwords of HPWO.

• The corporation itself is not positioned as reciprocally accountable to the workers

• The universalization strategy is apparent in the “Boeing Code of Conduct,” the first major section in the Ethical Business Conduct Guidelines.

• No distinction in categories in Code Of Conduct such as for “employees”.

• Union activist Keith Thomas refused to sign the document and faced consequences.

• Thomas stated that the code had no moral and it was “developed by business to assist the company with the exploitation of workers on a global scale”.

A CODE OF ETHICS FOR EVERYONE (?) AT BOEING

Contradictions in Code Of Conduct

• Workers called as corporate citizens weren’t given right to speech

• Company who opposed apartheid, sold planes to apartheid regime in South Africa.

• Company laid workers off immediately following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

• Major ethical breach: company engages in practices that harm and even kill workers.

• Chong et al. (2001) argue that “the effects of continuous improvement, down- sizing, and reengineering; part-time workers, less- ened loyalty and commitment, early retirement, and virtual work all weaken an ethical treatment of workers”

Contradictions in Code Of Conduct

Conclusions

• Workers’ at Boeing Understand CSR: Inform an Deepen CSR Research

• Workers’ fundamental Interest: World without Profit driven Corporate life.

• Externally Oriented CSR : Manipulation of Corporation’s Public Image than actually doing good for others.

• CSR: should also focus on internal practices directed towards employees other than external activities of corporation.