Guest Lecture: Erica Steckler

The social construction of organizational authenticity by stakeholders

Erica Steckler is Associate Professor of Management and Co-Director of the Donahue Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility in the Manning School of Business at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is a Fulbright Fellow-in-Residence (2022-2023) through CY Advanced Studies at CY Cergy-Paris Université and ESSEC Business School.

What is real? How is one to know? These are among the most ancient questions... – Berger & Luckmann (1966, p.1)

This research forges new empirical and theoretical ground for the exploration and understanding of organizational authenticity from the perspectives of an organization’s stakeholders. Grounded in a study of internal and external stakeholders’ interpretations of sustainability for a focal organization and considerations of this quality relative to their understanding of the true nature or essence of the organization, the culminating contribution of this research is the introduction and development of a model of organizational authenticity construction. Specifically, I identify and elaborate on five core dimensions – Do, Say, Who, How, and Why − that influence stakeholders’ understandings of the authenticity of an organization. This research is anchored in the ambiguous and multivocal context of sustainability in organizational life (e.g., Bansal & Hoffman, 2010; Hahn, Preuss, Pinkse & Figge, 2014; Jennings & Zandbergen, 1995; Votaw, 1972). As firms experience increased scrutiny of their roles in society (e.g., Margolis & Walsh, 2003; Waddock 2008) and uncertainty abounds about the veracity of claims used to characterize an organization with regard to social or environmental stewardship (e.g., Bansal & Clelland, 2004; Basu & Palazzo, 2008; Hengst, Jarzabkowski, Hoegl & Muethel, 2020), the terrain of sustainability provides a richly textured interpretive domain for exploring favorable and unfavorable constructions of authenticity for an organization.

Date: 29th November 2022 from 12:30 to 14:00

The hybrid guest lecture is organised in person at the Auditorium of MIR in Neuville-sur-Oise and remotely on Zoom.

To attend the remote guest lecture, please connect to Zoom: https://cyu-fr.zoom.us/j/95527063396

ID meeting: 955 2706 3396

The video will be online on the CY AS YouTube channel