Fred Erling Wenstøp

Greenhill & Waterfront

CSR and beyond: A Nordic perspective p. 305-329

Social Responsibility Journal 9(1) p. 137-147 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/17471111311307868

Purpose This study investigates perceptions of the relative importance of different stakeholders (owners, employees, customers, NGOs and governmental authorities) as agents motivating managers to engage in CSR. The purpose was to determine which stakeholders are viewed as key motivators and which the respondents think ought to be key stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach This is an empirical study. Three stakeholder groups – Corporate leaders, MSc business students and NGOs – were consulted through a paper survey (N=264). Findings The findings reveal that the three stakeholder groups roughly agree that owners are the main motivators for managers to pursue CSR, followed by customers, governments, employees and NGOs, in that order. We then turned from perceptions of how things are to opinions about how things ought to be, asking who should be the main motivator. In this case, customers moved up to first place, followed by employees, owners, government and NGOs. Age, but not gender, was a significant variable. The older the respondents, the smaller the discrepancy between perceptions of what is and opinions about what ought to be. Research limitations/implications This study was conducted in Norway and generalization is therefore limited. By replicating the study in other countries cultural differences can be investigated. Practical and social implications The findings are applicable for evaluating different avenues for understanding and influencing managerial and stakeholder CSR behaviour. Originality/value Several studies have concluded that stakeholders are of key importance in the CSR setting. However, few studies so far have compared the perceived relative “power” held by stakeholders. This type of knowledge can provide a key to understanding the development of CSR

Magma forskning og viten 16(2) p. 32-38

Advanced Topics in Applied Operations Management p. 61-76 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5772/34661

Interfaces (Paris) 41(4) p. 396-399

International Transactions in Operational Research 17(4) p. 413-426 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-3995.2009.00730.x

Omega. The International Journal of Management Science 37(6) p. 1109-1120 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2008.10.001

The paper addresses the question of how Operations Research ought to handle decision problems that involve value conflicts. First, we note that early OR was essentially value free with a mechanistic systems perspective, although some voiced concern that an analyst should not detach herself from the consequences of her work. Then we propose a value conflict scale, which we use to assess the conflict levels in a small sample of OR applications. We then turn to value identification. In practise, organizational value statements include many kinds of values, and we discuss how values can be sorted out according to ethical categories, which helps in identifying consequentialistic decision criteria. The next question is how values can be enacted in a decision process. We review findings in neuroscience, which indicate that intra-personal decision-making takes place in a field of tension between deliberation and affect, the implication being that low level conflicts leave decision-makers too coldly rational and therefore want infusion of emotion, while emotions in high-level conflicts need to be tempered. Emotions can be tempered through two strategies: focus on consequences rather than virtues and rules, and discourse ethics, which are the subjects of the two last parts. We conclude by proposing five ethical rules for OR analysis of value conflicts. An analyst should: Not regard herself as being detached from the decision that are made; be conscious that good decision-making requires temperate emotions that balance affect and deliberation; promote focus on consequences; promote the view that stakeholders have intrinsic value, they should not be treated instrumentally; encourage fair processes to identify stakeholder values.

Universitetsforlaget

Springer

Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 13(4) p. 191-198

Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 13(4) p. 161-172

Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 13(4) p. 161-172

This paper discusses the paradigm of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), and relates it to other disciplines. It concludes that MCDA needs a larger, not smaller, emphasis on values and subjectivity to increase rationality in decision-making. The paper bases the argument on a conciliation of ethics, philosophy, neuro-psychology and management paradigms. It observes that the MCDA ?mindset? relates to consequentialism, as opposed to virtue ethics and rule based ethics. Virtues and rules play an important role in practical decision-making, however. Findings in neuro-psychology show that reliable decision-making requires emotions. Elicitation of emotions is therefore required in MCDA value trade-off processes. This leads to a concept of emotional rationality, which defines rationality as a four-dimensional concept that includes well-founded values and breaks radically with common notions of rationality. Virtues do not easily lend themselves to value trade-off, but questions of virtue usually creates strong social emotions, as opposed to the feebler global emotions that may arise in connection conventional trade-off of end values. The conclusion is that MCDA should not be shy of subjectivity and emotion, but instead put more emphasis on it to ncrease rationality. A part of this challenge is how to deal with questions of virtue in decisionmaking.

Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 13(4) p. 191-198

This rejoinder discusses philosophical viewpoints on MCDA, especially concerning the role of emotion. Central issues are: Should MCDA put more emphasis on subjectivity? What is the relation between the decision-maker?s mindset and emotions? Can one make the analysis more rational by internalizing emotions associated with virtues through extending the traditional set of decision-criteria? How can belief and values be separated? Finally, what is a suitable definition of rationality?

Grunnbok i strategi p. 339-370

Grunnbok i Strategi

Health Policy 57 p. 57-72

Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 10 p. 53-64

Multi Criteria Evaluation in Land Use Management

Human Systems Management 15(3)

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 25(03) p. 201-2011 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1006/jeem.1993.1043

The ranking of hydropower projects under the Norwegian Master Plan for Water Resources is used to derive implicit government preferences for a number of environmental attributes described by ordinal scores for each project. We apply ordinal logistic regression to the ranks using the scores of the attributes as explanatory variables. As expected, we find that higher negative scores are generally associated with greater implicit willingness to pay to avoid the environmental damage tied to the attribute, caused by hydropower development. We derive total (ordinary economic and implicit environmental) costs for each project and find that environmental costs per capacity unit generally are lower than economic costs for projects ranked for early exploitation and higher for projects ranked for later development. Our derived implicit long-run marginal cost curve for Norwegian hydropower development is generally upward sloping, but not uniformly so.