Robert Cox, Stakeholder Theory, Management Theory - Essay Example

Robert Cox was a political science at York in Toronto, Canada from 1977 to 1992. He was the former director general and then chief of the International Labor Organization's Program and Planning Division in Geneva, Switzerland. According to Robert Cox: " Theory is always for someone and for some purpose". In this paper I have discussed about the statement given by Cox and tried to identify the actual scenario behind this statement and also tried to strengthen my position regarding this statement. The very first art of this paper contains a little literature review. In the next part, to give a supportive argument I discussed some popular theories critically and finally I made a conclusion on the basis of my overall discussion. Theory is a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena. In other words, it is the general or abstract principles of a body of fact. The Goals of theory's are: Explanation. Understanding. Prediction. Social change. The characteristics that theory contains are: Theory is an abstraction. Theory is a construction. In the statement, the word "someone" used by Cox doesn't mean a single person such as he/she. The word "someone" is used here to indicate the whole in one entity such as a nation, segment, and industry etc. To justify that the statement given by Cox is absolute a little example is sufficient, as God made this world with a purpose, also for his creature. The purpose is that he wants to test his creature (human) until the Day of Judgment and to fulfill this purpose he create this earth and other creatures for human. To strengths the supportive argument for the statement of Cox, some theories are discussed below: Stakeholder Theory The stakeholder theory is a theory of organizational management and business ethics that addresses morals and values in managing an organization.1 It was originally detailed by R. Edward Freeman in the book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, and identifies and models the groups which are stakeholders of a corporation, and both describes and recommends methods by which management can give due regard to the interests of those groups. In the traditional view of the firm, the shareholder view (the only one recognized in business law in most countries), the shareholders or stockholders are the owners of the company, and the firm has a binding fiduciary duty to put their needs first, to increase value for them. In older input-output models of the corporation, the firm converts the inputs of investors, employees, and suppliers into usable (salable) outputs which customers buy, thereby returning some capital benefit to the firm. By this model, firms only address the needs and wishes of those four parties: investors, employees, suppliers, and customers. However, stakeholder theory argues that there are other parties involved, including governmental bodies, political groups, trade associations, trade unions, communities, associated corporations, prospective employees, prospective customers, and the public at large. Sometimes even competitors are counted as stakeholders. The stakeholder view of strategy is an instrumental theory of the corporation, integrating both the resource-based view as well as the market-based view, and adding a socio-political level. This view of the firm is used to define the specific stakeholders of a corporation (the normative theory (Donaldson) of stakeholder identification) as well as examine the conditions under which these parties should be treated as stakeholders (the descriptive theory of stakeholder salience).nDonaldson and Preston argue that the normative base of the theory, including the "identification of moral or philosophical guidelines for the operation and management of the corporation", is the core of the theory.2 Mitchell, et al derive a typology of stakeholders based on the attributes of power (the extent a party has means to impose its will in a relationship), legitimacy (socially accepted and expected structures or behaviors), and urgency (time sensitivity or criticality of the stakeholder's claims).3 By examining the combination of these attributes in a binary manner, 8 types of stakeholders are derived along with their implications for the organization. Friedman and Miles explore the implications of contentious relationships between stakeholders and organizations by introducing compatible/incompatible interests and necessary/contingent connections as additional attributes with which to examine the configuration of these relationships.4 Assumption: From the discussion that given above, it is clear the stakeholder theory comes for specific group (Stake holders). And the major purpose of this theory to make sure that the stakeholders should taken care of by the organization. Management Theory (Theory X and theory Y) Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s that have been used in human resource management, organizational behavior, and organizational development. They describe two very different attitudes toward workforce motivation. McGregor felt that companies followed either one or the other approach. Theory X In this theory, management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can. They inherently dislike work. Because of this, workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed. A hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each level. According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can. The Theory X manager tends to believe that everything must end in blaming someone. He or she thinks all prospective employees are only out for themselves. Usually these managers feel the sole purpose of the employee's interest in the job is money. They will blame the person first in most situations, without questioning whether it may be the system, policy, or lack of training that deserves the blame. A Theory X manager believes that his or her employees do not really want to work, that they would rather avoid responsibility and that it is the manager's job to structure the work and energize the employee. One major flaw of this management style is it is much more likely to cause Diseconomies of Scale in large businesses. Theory Y In this theory management assumes employees may be ambitious, self-motivated, and exercise self-control. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. A Theory Y manager believes that, given the right conditions, most people will want to do well at work. They believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation. Many people interpret Theory Y as a positive set of beliefs about workers. A close reading of The Human Side of Enterprise reveals that McGregor simply argues for managers to be open to a more positive view of workers and the possibilities that this creates. Assumption: From the discussion that given above, it is clear that the theory X and theory Y are especially for Management of the organization with the purpose of controlling and motivation its human resource. The theory used either X or Y, it depends up to the situation of organizations internal environment, even sometime management uses the combination of both theories. Theory of Action For Arendt, action is one of the fundamental categories of the human condition and constitutes the highest realization of the vita activa. Arendt analyzes the vita activa via three categories which correspond to the three fundamental activities of our being-in-the-world: labor, work, and action. Labor is the activity which is tied to the human condition of life, work the activity which is tied to the condition of worldliness, and action the activity tied to the condition of plurality. For Arendt each activity is autonomous, in the sense of having its own distinctive principles and of being judged by different criteria. Labor is judged by its ability to sustain human life, to cater to our biological needs of consumption and reproduction, work is judged by its ability to build and maintain a world fit for human use, and action is judged by its ability to disclose the identity of the agent, to affirm the reality of the world, and to actualize our capacity for freedom. Although Arendt considers the three activities of labor, work and action equally necessary to a complete human life, in the sense that each contributes in its distinctive way to the realization of our human capacities, it is clear from her writings that she takes action to be the differentia specifica of human beings, that which distinguishes them from both the life of animals (who are similar to us insofar as they need to labor to sustain and reproduce themselves) and the life of the gods (with whom we share, intermittently, the activity of contemplation). In this respect the categories of labor and work, while significant in themselves, must be seen as counterpoints to the category of action, helping to differentiate and highlight the place of action within the order of the vita activa. The two central features of action are freedom and plurality. By freedom Arendt does not mean the ability to choose among a set of possible alternatives (the freedom of choice so dear to the liberal tradition) or the faculty of liberum arbitrium which, according to Christian doctrine, was given to us by God. Rather, by freedom Arendt means the capacity to begin, to start something new, to do the unexpected, with which all human beings are endowed by virtue of being born. Action as the realization of freedom is therefore rooted in natality, in the fact that each birth represents a new beginning and the introduction of novelty in the world. To be sure, Arendt recognizes that all activities are in some way related to the phenomenon of natality, since both labor and work are necessary to create and preserve a world into which new human beings are constantly born. However, of the three activities, action is the one most closely connected with natality, because by acting individuals re-enact the miracle of beginning inherent in their birth. For Arendt, the beginning that each of us represents by virtue of being born is actualized every time we act, that is, every time we begin something new. Arendt also stresses the fact that since action as beginning is rooted in natality, since it is the actualization of freedom, it carries with it the capacity to perform miracles, that is, to introduce what is totally unexpected. The birth of every individual is thus the promise of a new beginning: to act means to be able to disclose one's self and to do the unanticipated; and it is entirely in keeping with this conception that most of the concrete examples of action in the modern age that Arendt discusses are cases of revolutions and popular uprisings. Arednt claims that revolutions are the only political events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of beginning, since they represent the attempt to found a new political space, a space where freedom can appear as a worldly reality. The favorite example for Arendt is the American Revolution, because there the act of foundation took the form of a constitution of liberty. Her other examples are the revolutionary clubs of the French Revolution, the Paris Commune of 1871, the creation of Soviets during the Russian Revolution, the French Resistance to Hitler in the Second World War, and the Hungarian revolt of 1956. In all these cases individual men and women had the courage to interrupt their routine activities, to step forward from their private lives in order to create a public space where freedom could appear, and to act in such a way that the memory of their deeds could become a source of inspiration for the future. In doing so, according to Arendt, they rediscovered the truth known to the ancient Greeks that action is the supreme blessing of human life, that which bestows significance to the lives of individuals. In the book On Revolution Arendt devotes much attention to the rediscovery of this truth by those who participated in the American Revolution. In her view the Founding Fathers, although they might have pretended that they longed for private life and engaged in politics only out of a sense of duty, made clear in their letters and recollections that they had discovered unexpected delights in action and had acquired a taste for public freedom and for earning distinction among their peers. Plurality, to which we may now turn, is the other central feature of action. For if to act means to take the initiative, to introduce the novum and the unexpected into the world, it also means that it is not something that can be done in isolation from others, that is, independently of the presence of a plurality of actors who from their different perspectives can judge the quality of what is being enacted. In this respect action needs plurality in the same way that performance artists need an audience; without the presence and acknowledgment of others, action would cease to be a meaningful activity. Action, to the extent that it requires appearing in public, making oneself known through words and deeds, and eliciting the consent of others, can only exist in a context defined by plurality. Arendt establishes the connection between action and plurality by means of an anthropological argument. In her view just as life is the condition that corresponds to the activity of labor and worldliness the condition that corresponds to the activity of work, so plurality is the condition that corresponds to action. Arendt defines plurality as the fact that men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world and says that it is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live. Plurality thus refers both to equality and distinction, to the fact that all human beings belong to the same species and are sufficiently alike to understand one another, but yet no two of them are ever interchangeable, since each of them is an individual endowed with a unique biography and perspective on the world. It is by virtue of plurality that each of us is capable of acting and relating to others in ways that are unique and distinctive, and in so doing of contributing to a network of actions and relationships that is infinitely complex and unpredictable. This network of actions is what makes up the realm of human affairs, that space where individuals relate directly without the intermediary of things or matter - that is, through language. Let us examine briefly this connection between action and language. In The Human Condition Arendt stresses repeatedly that action is primarily symbolic in character and that the web of human relationships is sustained by communicative interaction. We may formulate it as follows. Action entails speech: by means of language we are able to articulate the meaning of our actions and to coordinate the actions of a plurality of agents. Conversely, speech entails action, not only in the sense that speech itself is a form of action, or that most acts are performed in the manner of speech, but in the sense that action is often the means whereby we check the sincerity of the speaker. Thus, just as action without speech runs the risk of being meaningless and would be impossible to coordinate with the actions of others, so speech without action would lack one of the means by which we may confirm the veracity of the speaker. As we shall see, this link between action and speech is central to Arendt's characterization of power, that potential which springs up between people when they act in concert and which is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal, where words are not used to veil intentions but to disclose realities, and deeds are not used to violate and destroy but to establish relations and create new realities. The theory of Action by Arendt's is a matter of the everyday. The utilization of action by Arendt has used vastly all over the world directly or indirectly no matter it uses by one's either consciously or not but its true that its accepted by all and also it takes place in daily life as a fact its not a matter for rare occasion. Assumption: The theory "action" was developed in political aspect but it has used in the organization too, as the theory consist of the fact called human action. After overall discussion, it is clears that each and every action, creation, invention has a specific purpose. And the purpose must serve a specific entity. A theory is also created by person with a specific aim to serve a nation or a country or a industry or a specific segment. Based on these facts Robert Cox said, "Theory is always for someone and for some purpose". From the example given above it also indicate that the statement given by Cox was not only based on human thoughts or action but it is a divine fact; as the creation of the world also justify the rightness of the statement. References: 1. Phillips, R., Robert; Edward Freeman (2003). Stakeholder Theory and Organizational Ethics. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. ISBN 1576752682. 2. Donaldson, Thomas; Preston, Lee E. (1995). "The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications". Academy of Management Review. http://www.jstor.org/pss/258887. 3. Mitchell, R. K.; Agle, B. R.; Wood, D. J. (1997). "Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of Who and What Really Counts". Academy of Management Review 22 (4): 853-886. http://www.jstor.org/stable/259247. 4. Friedman, Andrew L.; Miles, Samantha (2002). "Developing Stakeholder Theory". Journal of Management Studies. 5. Information about Theory X and Theory Y available at: "http://www.nwlink.com/donclark/hrd/history/xy.html" 6. Arendt, Hannah; 1959, The Human Condition. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. 7. Arendt, Hannah, and Hermann Broch. Briefwechsel. 1996, Ed. Paul Michael Luetzeler. Frankfurt: Juedischer Verlag. Read More