B3 Non-refereed article in a conference publication
Stakeholder dialogue for accountability – a critical assessment of misleading functions
Authors: Laasonen Salla, Siltaoja Marjo, Malin Virpi
Conference name: Nordic academy of management conference
Publication year: 2013
Journal: NFF Conference proceedings
Abstract
Stakeholder dialogue for accountability – a critical assessment of misleading
functions
Dialogue as a concept has been brought to organizational
discourse as a promising means advancing corporate
responsibility (CR) and global governance. As the
concept has become popularized, dialogue has become
a taken-for-granted part of organizational terminology
without necessarily conveying clear meanings. In this
conceptual paper, we argue that the ‘positive popularization’
of dialogue has led to instrumental and normatively
constructed models and methods that in fact are contradictory
to the original idea of dialogue. We problematize
the prevalent adoption of the concept of stakeholder
dialogue by drawing on two distinctly different theoretical
foundations on dialogue; critical pedagogy of Paolo
Freire and deliberative democracy of Jürgen Habermas.
We argue that the concept of dialogue embraces two
different set of functions that have become blurred in
current stakeholder dialogue models. Those two functions
are a learning function and a decision-making
function of dialogue, and we argue that explicit differentiation
of these functions is essential especially in terms
of accountability. Two conclusions are drawn: First, we
call for a more explicit differentiation between the two
different functions of dialogue within the current CR
discourse. Second, we argue that the current furthering
of decision-making based dialogue in connection
with global governance and accountability mechanisms
should be treated with substantive scepticism particularly
in the developing country context. We therefore
bring forth situational attributes that warrant consideration
if and when promoting a certain type of dialogue in
a given context.
Stakeholder dialogue for accountability – a critical assessment of misleading
functions
Dialogue as a concept has been brought to organizational
discourse as a promising means advancing corporate
responsibility (CR) and global governance. As the
concept has become popularized, dialogue has become
a taken-for-granted part of organizational terminology
without necessarily conveying clear meanings. In this
conceptual paper, we argue that the ‘positive popularization’
of dialogue has led to instrumental and normatively
constructed models and methods that in fact are contradictory
to the original idea of dialogue. We problematize
the prevalent adoption of the concept of stakeholder
dialogue by drawing on two distinctly different theoretical
foundations on dialogue; critical pedagogy of Paolo
Freire and deliberative democracy of Jürgen Habermas.
We argue that the concept of dialogue embraces two
different set of functions that have become blurred in
current stakeholder dialogue models. Those two functions
are a learning function and a decision-making
function of dialogue, and we argue that explicit differentiation
of these functions is essential especially in terms
of accountability. Two conclusions are drawn: First, we
call for a more explicit differentiation between the two
different functions of dialogue within the current CR
discourse. Second, we argue that the current furthering
of decision-making based dialogue in connection
with global governance and accountability mechanisms
should be treated with substantive scepticism particularly
in the developing country context. We therefore
bring forth situational attributes that warrant consideration
if and when promoting a certain type of dialogue in
a given context.
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