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New paper on Visionary Procrastination

NEW PAPER PUBLISHED: The paper "Decoupling from Moral Responsibility for CSR: Employees’ Visionary Procrastination at a SME" is written by Misums PhD Tina Sendlhofer and published in Journal of Business Ethics.

Find and download the paper here (open accsess).

Hi Dr Tina Sendlhofer, what are your main findings in this paper?

This article reveals that it was the employees who drive CSR, in spite of what extant literature suggests. The employees in the focal firm voluntarily joined forces based on their shared perception of moral responsibility for CSR and they developed strict targets to be achieved by 2030. It was surprising to find that despite their strong ethical and moral perspective when enacting CSR, they disengaged from their moral responsibility for CSR in various contexts.

What is particularly interesting?

This study coins a novel context of disengagement: Visionary procrastination. Visionary procrastination is suggested to be a particularly relevant context of disengagement when individuals perceive moral responsibility for CSR. The term ‘visionary’ relates to the fact that the moral responsibility for CSR is framed as behaving in extraordinarily ethical manner. This takes the form of activities that are so good that they could eventually contribute to grandiose outcomes (e.g. saving the planet and future generations). The term ‘procrastination’ is associated with the futuristic orientation of such heroic CSR endeavours. More specifically, employees create a situation in which they allow themselves to behave unethically in the present and transfer the perceived moral responsibility for CSR to the distant future. 

Who do you think would be interested in your findings?

I believe that leaders and employees at small and medium-sized enterprises could be interested in the study. It illustrates how SME peculiarities can be catalyzers for CSR, but also what potential barriers the organizations might face. I argue that visionary procrastination can be even of interest for larger organisations, since this context of disengagement is theorized to be applicable to CSR endeavors in more general.   

What is next?

Since this is a relatively new research area, I will continue with researching SMEs and employees. I will shift my focus to the Swedish second-hand textiles market and study their challenges in organizing circular textile flows.