This PhD thesis belongs to three main knowledge domains: operations management, environmental management, and decision making. Having the automotive industry as the key sector, the investigation was undertaken aiming at deepening the understanding of environmental decision making processes in the operations function. The central research question for this thesis is ?Why and how do manufacturing companies take environmental decisions? This PhD research project used a case study research strategy supplemented by secondary data analysis and the testing and evaluation of a proposed systems thinking model for environmental decision making. Interviews and focus groups were the main methods for data collection. The findings of the thesis show that companies that want to be in the environmental leadership will need to take environmental decisions beyond manufacturing processes. Because the benefits (including financial gain) of non-manufacturing activities are not clear yet the decisions related to product design, supply chain and facilities are fully embedded with complexity, subjectivism, and intrinsic risk. Nevertheless, this is the challenge environmental leaders will face - they may enter in a paradoxical state of their decisions – where although the risk of going greener is high, the risk of not doing it is even higher.

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Purpose: Nonprofit-Business collaboration (NBC) is widely regarded as a value creation mechanism for society and business. Research, however, has typically overlooked NBC from the perspective of nonprofit organizations (NPOs). The focus of this thesis concerns the means (a guiding framework) to help NPOs engage in NBC. Through being strategically proactive rather than reactive to what businesses might offer, it is argued that NPOs can increase the scale of their cross-sector collaborations and thus enhance their sustainability. This is a timely issue given the fact that NPOs are typically struggling to maintain their viability in the current economic climate. Theory and methodology: The research has been carried out in two phases. The first concerns the conceptualization of a theoretical framework, being underpinned by stakeholder theory, cross-sector collaboration and the nonprofit literature. In the second phase, the framework has been assessed using primary and secondary qualitative data obtained from 26 ‘active in collaboration’ NPOs. In doing so, three data collection techniques have been utilized, namely: semi-structured interviews (n=38), website content analysis of the 26 NPOs, and document reviews. Key contributions: The thesis contributes to the understanding of the NBC phenomenon by developing and initially validating a framework that captures the complexity of considering NBC as a strategy from the viewpoint of NPOs. The framework integrates the factors that are critical in the development of NBC strategy and the interaction between them. Overall, the evidence obtained indicates that the framework is relevant to NPOs, and corroborates the argument that being proactive and strategic are important ways for NPOs to yield successful collaborations with the business sectors.

International business activities and foreign direct investment in particular involve an element of risk and uncertainty, sometimes to a great extent. Despite this almost axiomatic statement, less academic research has been conducted on this subject, compared to the considerations of return and cost. While the globalisation era introduces an integration of world economy, ever more diverse types of risks are looming on the horizon in relation to cross-border investment, ranging from political unrest to creeping appropriation, from natural disaster to terrorism, and from technological failure to industrial espionage, all of which tend to deter the free movement of capital and value-adding resources around the world. This thesis provides by far the most extensive review of the research on risk and uncertainty across the macro management fields of studies. Particular attention has been paid to construct clarity and how construct clarity can serve to categorise a vast body of knowledge and address previous inconsistent conclusions. To further the inquiry, this thesis focuses on one of the conceptualisations of risk that is most relevant to the context of foreign investment decision making. New insights are generated by proposing a microfoundational framework based on a key construct – risk propensity – as a necessary complement to the current research on risk in foreign direct investment. Conventional understanding of the capabilities paradigm is reformulated in this light. In order to test the efficacy of “risk propensity” and the static assumption of risk preference embedded in the conventional theories, this thesis draws upon quasi-experiment methods and models managerial heterogeneity based on stated preference data. In addition to individual level choice modelling, firm level analysis of location choice is conducted, yielding new insights into the role of experience in firms’ decision making. China provides the empirical setting for both analyses. It is found that a theoretical understanding of risk helps explain the varying effect of context and experience on risk-taking. Generalisations of this statement may be made to strategic decision making, organisational learning and behavioural strategy research.

This thesis describes the results of an exploratory cross-cultural study of the constructs of power held by first-line supervisors in industrial factories in Auckland, New Zealand. A model was developed and tested which identified some of the antecedents of supervisory power constructs as being personality (measured by cognitive style and tolerance of ambiguity) and social values. Personality and social values were held to affect perception of work goals, bases of power, strategies of power, perceptions of job effectiveness, and job satisfaction. The findings of the study were that Polynesian supervisors were more associated with field dependence, intolerance of ambiguity, and a pattern of power-construing which emphasised a referent-coercive power base and both surveillance for conformity and aggrandisement power strategies. Polynesian supervisors also reported themselves as being higher in socio-emotional effectiveness and in satisfaction with position. European supervisors were more associated with field dependence, tolerance of ambiguity, and a pattern of power-construing which laid less emphasis on a referent-coercive power base and surveillance and aggrandisement power strategies. European supervisors also reported themselves as being lower in socio-emotional effectiveness and in satisfaction with position. It was suggested that the inter-relationships which were identified between culture, personality, social values and power constituted an internally consistent conformity pattern of power-construing (associated with Polynesian supervisors), and a self assertion pattern of power-construing (associated with European supervisors).

This study presents the findings of an in-depth qualitative study of corporate responses to stakeholder pressures in the context of Canada’s oil sands. The study applies institutional theory and particularly, theory of organisational fields, strategic responses, institutional pressures and institutional work to examine interactions between stakeholders and oil companies. I argue that existing organisational theory often neglects to consider the tactics and mechanisms through which key stakeholder groups attempt to change, maintain or disrupt prevailing institutions. Furthermore, I argue that existing work in this area has failed to fully consider the potential significance of communities as powerful stakeholders. The study finds that the logics of protest used by social movement stakeholders to exert pressures differ from the logics and associated tactics currently suggested in the existing literature. More specifically, the findings indicate that the core logic used to pressure oil companies and the collective industry, are based on ‘bearing witness’. Another contribution that this study makes is to understand corporate responses to stakeholder pressures (specifically the public, non-government organisations, communities and through establishing an inter-organisational collaboration) at an individual and field level. This reveals that corporations and their field level organisations respond relationally (attempting to build new relationships with stakeholder groups, or their own competitors) use existing social networks, mimic these relations through mass marketing communication channels and embed themselves more within local communities. The responses used also aim to shape the external environment to make it more supportive in the future.

Adopting a deconstructionist research approach, this research problematizes prevailing logocentric decision theory and offers a critical enquiry into knowledge constituting the conditions of possibility for ‘nondecision’ at the Atherstone-on-Stour fire of 2nd November 2007 at which four firefighters were tragically killed. The research therefore, makes a philosophical and conceptual contribution, presenting the concept of nondecision as a radically alternative heuristic toward explaining institutional recursive behaviours and practice. Within this research, traditional research notions of the ‘situational specificity’ of an event are abandoned in favour of an exploration of the epistemological context governing conditions for knowledge, discourse and text. Consequently, a deconstructive genealogy research methodology is developed, wherein conventional linear-rationalist research approaches to data collection and analysis are problematized and abandoned for an integrated, iterative approach to the epistemological deconstruction of genealogically sourced archival text. In terms of methodology and praxis, deconstructive genealogy therefore provides opportunities for radical enquiry into institutional knowledge and understanding constituting behaviour and practice in relation to a research case. Case analysis involves the deconstruction of texts concerning institutional fire and rescue (FRS) decision making rules and subsequently involves the genealogical sourcing of influential and contributory narrative themes explicitly cited or immanent within the text, most notably concerning health and safety of firefighters, FRS ‘culture’, and firefighter ethos and identity. Consequently, this study offers a radical enquiry into the FRS institution. Specifically, it rejects and problematizes the tendency within the literature to pursue conventional research approaches which typically reinforce managerialist discourse and performative foundationalist notions of heroism and duty. Ultimately, nondecision, it is suggested, creates space for challenging our thinking, not only concerning the conditions of possibility for life - or death - of firefighters at fires, but future behaviour and practice, with implications for the ethics of ‘decision’ and the ethical governance of institutions and organizations.

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