Eco‐psychological profiling: an oil company example

Ketola, Tarja

doi:10.1002/csr.63

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The different organisational defences can be positioned into this matrix (Ketola, 2004) in the way the following figure shows (Figure 1). …”

Section: Research Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Corporate Psychological Defences: An Oil Spill Case

Ketola¹

2006

J Bus Ethics

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Organisational psychological defences protect the self-esteem and moral integrity of the organisational personality even at the expense of sacrificing the morality of actions. This paper analyses the spectrum of defences used by an oil refinery and its parent company during an oil spill incident. A hypothetical model of defences built on Swajkowski’s four responses to accusations of organisational misconduct – refusals, excuses, justifications and concessions – is tested through this case. On the basis of empirical findings it is obvious that defences delay, impede and interrupt the mitigation and recovery actions of incidents. It is not possible to break the defence behaviour of individuals because it is a built-in psychological mechanism in all humans serving a valuable purpose of dosing the pain of injury. However, it is possible to separate individual and organisational behaviour so that automatic organisational procedures mitigate, recover and, ultimately, prevent incidents. The organisational psychological task of crisis management is to mitigate the organisation’s ego defences, recover from its emotional turmoil and prevent further traumas by making its ego stronger and more flexible. The argument of this paper is that in practice organisational defences act as bumpers against becoming too conscious of the gap between the corporate rhetoric and reality, as subconscious breaks against too fast change demands, and as batteries in their preconscious effort to prepare for the change. Organisational refusals act as bumpers, excuses as breaks and justifications as batteries, while concessions imply that a change towards a more responsible corporation is taking place. Copyright Springer 2006crisis management, defence behaviour, oil spill, organisational concessions, organisational psychological defences, organisational excuses, organisational justifications, organisational refusals,

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“…The different organisational defences can be positioned into this matrix (Ketola, 2004) in the way the following figure shows (Figure 1). …”

Section: Research Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hypothetical model of defences: organisational psychological defences within four responses to accusations of organisational misconduct(Ketola, 2004).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate Psychological Defences: An Oil Spill Case

Ketola¹

2006

J Bus Ethics

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“…One of the earliest typologies was developed by Swajkowski (1992), as an amalgamation of the work of Austin (1961), Scott and Lyman (1968) and Sch€ onbach (1990). Swajkowski's unified typology focused and provided a foundation for the accounting for contested issues literature (Brennan and Merkl-Davies, 2014;Merkl-Davies and Brennan, 2007;Ketola, 2004Ketola, , 2006Ketola, , 2008. Swajkowski (1992) examined how companies accounted for organizational misconduct and provided a typology examining whether the company took responsibility for the misconduct and/or if the company took responsibility for the harm caused by the misconduct.…”

Section: Legitimacy Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reporting controversial issues in controversial industries

Marshall,

Rehme,

O'Dochartaigh

et al. 2023

AAAJ

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PurposeThis article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, the authors use a new conceptualization of controversial industries, focused on harm and solutions, to investigate the reports of 28 companies in seven controversial industries: Agricultural Chemicals, Alcohol, Armaments, Coal, Gambling, Oil and Tobacco.Design/methodology/approachThe authors thematically analyzed company reports to determine if companies in controversial industries discuss their controversial issues in their reporting, if and how they communicate the harm caused by their products or services, and what solutions they provide.FindingsFrom this study data the authors introduce a new legitimacy reporting method in the controversial industries literature: the solutions companies offer for the harm caused by their products and services. The authors find three solution reporting methods: no solution, misleading solution and less-harmful solution. The authors also develop a new typology of reporting strategies used by companies in controversial industries based on how they report their key controversial issue and the harm caused by their products or services, and the solutions they offer. The authors identify seven reporting strategies: Ignore, Deny, Decoy, Dazzle, Distort, Deflect and Adapt.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research can test the typology and identify strategies used by companies in different institutional or regulatory settings, across different controversial industries or in larger populations.Practical implicationsInvestors, consumers, managers, activists and other stakeholders of controversial companies can use this typology to identify the strategies that companies use to report controversial issues. They can assess if reports admit to the controversial issue and the harm caused by a company's products and services and if they provide solutions to that harm.Originality/valueThis paper develops a new typology of reporting strategies by companies in controversial industries and adds to the theory and discourse on social and environmental reporting (SER) as well as the literature on controversial industries.

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“…Every corporation has an organizational personality of its own (Ketola, 2004(Ketola, , 2006aKets de Vries, 2001). Some parts of this organizational personality are conscious, others unconscious.…”

Section: Cultural Unconscious Of Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taming the shadow: corporate responsibility in a Jungian context

Ketola

2007

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

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Rampant shadows undermine true corporate responsibility (CR) when companies try to keep up appearances by fair means or foul. This paper studies the thoughts, words and deeds of CR actors in their Jungian context. The aim is to help CR actors to understand different CR behaviour and to gain new insights into developing CR values, discourses and practices.This research builds on earlier psychological articles published in this journal, and digs deeper into the psychological resources of the human mind to show what vast potentials lie there to solve CR issues. Jungian theories open up the individual, organizational and societal personality and give opportunities to expand it horizontally and vertically. The Jungian prospective quality of the psyche is illustrated by three levels of unconscious -personal, cultural and collective, which can help the development of CR values, discourses and actions of individuals, organizations, societies and humankind.

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Eco‐psychological profiling: an oil company example

Cited by 8 publications

References 35 publications

Corporate Psychological Defences: An Oil Spill Case

Corporate Psychological Defences: An Oil Spill Case

Reporting controversial issues in controversial industries

Taming the shadow: corporate responsibility in a Jungian context

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