Organizational Responses to Value Pluralism: Implications for Theory and Practice

Lunch seminar in presence

Ricardo Flores
University of Victoria, Canada

Abstract:
Scholars have shown a sustained interest in understanding organizational responses to institutional multiplicity for some time. The shared premise is that many organizations are simultaneously embedded in multiple institutional contexts, which impose disparate (often conflicting) demands. The shared concern is to understand how they manage these externally imposed tensions. This literature, however, ignores values and the derivative situation wherein multiple values co-exist within the same entity (i.e., value pluralism). Values are integral to organizational life, and managers and scholars have long recognized their many positive functions. What is less well recognized are a) the tensions between values, b) their role in creating and perpetuating intra-organizational conflict, and c) the profound challenges involved in building and sustaining pluralistic moral orders (e.g., value polarization) that reap the potential benefits of while avoiding the foreseeable costs of value pluralism. The paper behind this seminar explores this phenomenon, including its benefits and costs, and develops a typology that identifies four archetypal adaptations. Potential contributions to multiple research streams and implications for practice are discussed.

Ricardo Flores is an Associate Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada, and the upcoming Chair of the MED division of the Academy of Management. His primary research interest concerns how organizations respond to and proactively shape their institutional environments. His research is typically focused at the organizational level and uses institutional theory as a primary lens. Dr. Flores believes that organizations are a critical part of our world because they are powerful tools that allow individuals to coordinate action and combine resources for various purposes. Organizations also matter because most people spend much of their lives within them, shaping their livelihoods, identities, careers, and ideals. Professor Flores is an engaged scholar within multiple professional associations and a committed journal reviewer. He teaches strategic management, international strategy, leadership, and intercultural competence courses. He is also a committed member of civil society, volunteering and contributing to multiple institutions linked to social development and immigrant support.