Thèses

La transition vers une économie circulaire : la mise en œuvre de pratiques et modèles d'entreprise circulaires

Integrating sustainability into entrepreneurship programs? The use of new teaching models in higher education institutions for sustainable entrepreneurship education

Social capital and community-based entrepreneurship in Africa

Analyse des avantages et défis liés à la mise en œuvre des ODD au sein des PME : étude comparative entre les pays développés et les pays en voie de développement

Apprentissage organisationnel de la RSE : Transfert, distribution et stockage des connaissances au sein des Communautés de Pratique

Le rôle du système d'imposition des sociétés dans la réalisation des objectifs de développement durable

• Les PSS, une typologie intégrative des propositions de valeur et des pratiques marketing pour freiner les pratiques d'obsolescence ? Comprendre les réactions des consommateurs face aux solutions potentielles.

• Chercheur Pauline Munten
• Promoteurs: Valérie Swaen, Joëlle Vanhamme
• Date de défense publique prévue : December 2021
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• Who among us has never replaced a printer because it was not reparable, bought a new phone because our current model broke down just after the guarantee expired, or switched to a new coffee machine that offers an exciting, trendy new option? Many durable products are being replaced and discarded more frequently, because of what we refer to as obsolescence. Obsolescence supports economic growth, by increasing sales and eliminating second-hand markets. Yet it also creates societal concerns (e.g., pollution, waste generation, overconsumption of natural resources, purchase on credit and indebtedness among consumers).
  The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC 2014/C 67/05; EESC, INT/779) and environmental campaigners (e.g., Terra Nova, 2012; La Fabrique Ecologique, 2016) formulated diverse recommendations to mitigate environmental and social consequences of obsolescence, namely, increasing product intrinsic durability, adopting longer warranties, facilitating repair, increasing product transparency, and shifting from product sales to service offerings. In the marketing literature, we have fragmented research on obsolescence and solutions against obsolescence (Cooper, 2004). Yet, a systematic research on the solutions against obsolescence and consumers’ reactions towards these solutions is lacking.
  In this PhD, we suggest that product service-system (Tukker and Tischner, 2006), borrowed from business management, engineering and design literature, is a relevant typology to look at obsolescence and to highlight potential solutions. Besides, we conduct research on a specific solution – displaying product reparability information. We aim to answer the following questions: How, why and under what conditions do product reparability information influence consumers’ reactions (their attitude and willingness to buy)?

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• • Organisational antecedents of voluntary employee green behaviour: An organisational justice perspective

  • Chercheur: Corentin Hericher
  • Promoteurs: Ina Aust, Valérie Swaen
  • Date de défense publique prévue : 2020
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  • This doctoral dissertation highlights the link between perceived natural environment-oriented corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organisational citizenship behaviour toward the environment (OCBE). Natural environment-oriented CSR refers to organisational practices that limit the impact the company has on the natural environment. OCBE encompasses discretionary behaviour that contributes in aggregate to the company’s environmental performance. I rely on three different theoretical perspectives to answer the same research question: to what extent does perceived natural environment-oriented CSR impact OCBE? The three theoretical perspectives are the deontic model of organisational justice theory, the social identity theory, and the job-demands and resources model.

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  • A study towards understanding the processes underlying Social Entrepreneurship

  • Chercheur: Paulami Mitra
  • Promoteur: Frank Janssen
  • Date de défense publique prévue : 2019
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  • This doctoral project aims at understanding how the process of social entrepreneurship (SE) is undertaken at the micro-level, meso-level and macro level once the venture has been created. The study attempts to respond to the call on extending, elaborating and creating a balance to understand social entrepreneurship as a “process” (Dacin et al, 2011; Haugh, 2007; Tracey et al, 2011).

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  • Corporate Social Responsibility implementation by non-profit sport organisations (2019)

  • Auteur: Géraldine Zeimers
  • Promoteur(s): Thierry Zintz (UCLouvain) & Annick Willem (UGent) 
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  • Sport is believed to create positive economic, cultural, health and social values, while at the same time facing ongoing ethical, social and environmental crises. Through CSR programs, sport organisations may stimulate sport’s positive social side and counter and/or prevent sport’s negative side. CSR is broadly described as “actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the [direct] interests of the firm [organisation] and that which is required by law” (McWilliams & Siegel, 2001: 117). In a CSR perspective, sport organisations have, next to their economic (or their core missions) and legal duties, ethical and discretionary responsibilities towards society and are considered as potential change agents.
    The scholarly debate about CSR within the sport management field focuses almost exclusively on for-profit sport organisations or “highly profitable not for profit sport organisations” while paying little attention to traditional nonprofit sport organisations (i.e. less profitable). Yet, these organisations are increasingly addressing such issues under the scope of CSR or related notion. 
    Given this context, the purpose of this dissertation is to provide insights into the implementation of CSR programs by nonprofit sport organisations. This dissertation provides important insights on three main elements of CSR implementation, namely organisational determinants, collaborations and organisational learning.  
    The focus of this study is on sport federations – those sport governing bodies responsible for the organisation of specific sporting codes and the representatives of their sport. As the study also considers how sport federations build on their sport-federated network, internal and external stakeholders have also been incorporated (e.g., sport clubs, state and national bodies, public authorities, nonprofit partners). 
    Building on organisational theories, this research examines CSR implementation from a three-fold perspective: 1) determinants of CSR implementation from a resource-based perspective 2) non-profit collaboration to implement CSR practices from an institutional theory and resource dependence perspective 3) the organisational learning process occurring the implementation process. It does so by building on a mixed-method approach, combining classical qualitative research approaches and innovative qualitative comparative research (namely, qualitative comparative analysis, QCA). Data collection comprised survey, interviews, observations and organisational document analysis.

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  • Essays on the self-interested determinants of prosocial behaviours: The case of charitable giving (2018)

  • Auteur: Etienne Denis
  • Promoteur(s): Claude Pecheux, Per Joakim Agrell 
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  • Although charitable giving is not a recent issue, economic and humanitarian upheavals have led to a renewed interest for the topic in recent years. Beyond the institutional changes to which charities have been exposed, a shift in donors has also forced organisations to reconsider their fundraising methods. The limited efforts to integrate both altruistic and egoistic motives of generosity and the static perspective adopted when trying to model charitable giving have been recently pointed in the literature as key priorities for future research in the field.

  • To address these issues, the present doctoral dissertation offers a contextualised, dynamic and integrative understanding of the decision-making process of donations. Combining four essays, this research explores how the motivations of generosity evolve over time and empirically investigates the interactions between self- and other-oriented determinants of charitable donations. This doctoral research contributes to several debates on the respective influence of personal and more altruistic determinants of generosity, on the public dimension of the behaviour as well as on the role of personal feelings on the decision to donate.

  • La formation professionnelle continue face au défi de la justice dans les organisations : le cas des entreprises et universités vietnamiennes (2017)

  • Auteur: Thi Thu Thao Lê
  • Promoteur(s): Matthieu de Nanteuil 
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  • Face au problème universel de l’inégalité d’accès des salariés actifs à la FPC, nous nous interrogeons sur les logiques d’action des acteurs. Les enjeux de justice en la matière se trouvent non seulement sur une proportion importante d’inégalité d’accès, mais la liberté d’action, la question du choix et les relations au travail constituent autant de questions qui touchent aux sphères de justice. Dans cette thèse, nous avons examiné les principes de justification qui ont légitimé l’engagement des acteurs dans cette pratique. Nous nous sommes intéressés également aux mécanismes institutionnels, socioéconomiques et culturels susceptibles d’influencer ces justifications. En partant d’une approche constructiviste et centrée sur les acteurs, nous avons étudié le sens de la justice en matière de FPC des salariés vietnamiens des secteurs manufacturier et universitaire. Les résultats de notre recherche montrent que l’inégalité d’accès en soi, ne constitue pas forcément un problème de justice en matière de FPC. Cette inégalité dissimule la pluralité des critères de justice des personnes concernées

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  • The Development of the Paralympic Movement: Towards an Institutional Explanation (2016)

  • Auteur: Simon GÉRARD
  • Promoteur: Thierry Zintz
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  • This research focuses on management-related issues of participation in sport for athletes with an impairment. Drawing on the institutional theory, this study is guided by a straightforward research question: how to understand institutional change among the Paralympic Sports over time? Grounded on an extensive multi-step exploratory phase, this work has developed two longitudinal case-studies that examine the role of 1) shifting institutional logic and 2) institutional entrepreneurship during institutional change processes. This study is based on document analysis – i.e. archival records – and follows the Process Tracing method’s guidelines. Embargo was successfully lifted on recent and sensitive documents. Key findings emphasize institutional mechanisms that have constrained, and still prevent, the development of the Paralympic Movement. This research also enriches the institutional theory by providing new insights with regard to the paradox of embedded agency.

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  • The role of CSR in identities dynamics during a period of organizational change (2013)

  • Auteur: Kenneth De Roeck
  • Promoteur: Valérie Swaen
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  • The main objective of this PhD research is to study the influence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) dimensions on the dynamics of identity in times of organizational change. We would like to investigate if the promotion of CSR attributes can enhance employees’ organizational identification and therefore their acceptance and support to the organizational change. Indeed, it seems that highly identified employees develop more proactive behaviors and attitudes in order to support organization’s objectives.

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  • Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication campaigns towards the consumer: Analysis of their effects during a CSR crisis (2013)

  • Auteur: Catherine Janssen
  • Promoteurs: Valérie Swaen and Joëlle Vanhamme
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  • In the last few years, numerous companies have faced crises involving their socially responsible activities (such as Ikea, The Body Shop, Nike…). Our research seeks to examine whether promoting the company as socially responsible is likely to backfire and/or protect the company in the case of a corporate crisis involving CSR matters, which the exiting literature does not currently allow to clearly establish. Furthermore, our research aims at carefully examining the consumers’ psychological processes that could potentially explain such effects and also seeks to uncover the boundary conditions of those effects of CSR communication.

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  • The use of management control systems in a sustainability context (2011)

  • Auteur: Marc Journeault
  • Promoteur: Yves De Rongé
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  • The aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of management control system to support sustainability development within organization. More specifically, it looks to the capacity of eco-control systems to support environmental strategy in order to increase environmental performance. Also, this thesis has as objective to shed a light on how ecocontrol systems may assist organization to create organizational capabilities providing competitive advantage that lead to financial performance improvement as well as environmental performance improvement.

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  • Toward the stakeholder company: Essays on the role of organizational culture, interaction, and change in the pursuit of corporate social responsibility (2010)

  • Auteur:  François Maon
  • Promoteurs: Valérie Swaen and Adam Lindgreen (Hull Business School)
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  • Beyond the traditional objectives of supplying services and goods, companies encounter more than ever before pressures to address and respond to the societal concerns arising from their activities. As a result, environmental excellence and the well-being of people within and outside the organization increasingly represent issues that companies try – to a variable extent – to integrate into the core of their culture, strategy and practices. Such a move towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) isn’t an easy task as organizational embedment of CSR principles entails members of the organization internalizing CSR-related values at all levels and the companies to dialogue and interact with their key stakeholders and the world at large. In accordance with this idea, the three main objectives of this doctoral research project are:
• • To identify relevant processes and key steps for the integration of CSR principles within the culture, strategy and the daily operations of companies;
  • To highlight and evaluate the evolutionary nature of the impact of CSR commitments and their communication on the attitude of various stakeholders groups;
  •  To analyze and emphasize the influence and potential roles of these various stakeholder groups throughout the development of the CSR integration processes by companies.

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  • From “nuts and bolts” to CSR. Standardization and democracy. Sociology of ISO 26000 setting process (2009)

  • Auteur: Coline Ruwet

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  • This research addresses the question of the democratization of global decision making, focusing on non-state regulations at the international level that have increased over the past thirty years. The setting of multi-stakeholder processes is becoming a prerequisite for non-state actors developing normative instruments in the public policy realm. Is this evolution synonymous of a democratization of these forms of regulation?

  • This question is addressed through the case study of ISO 26000 developing process. The aim given to this future standard is to provide common guidance to all types of organizations on concept, definitions and method of evaluation linked to their social responsibility. The idea of producing an ISO standard on social responsibility was very controversial and generated a few years of intense debates. Hence new procedural rules were put in place to deal with criticisms fearing the intervention of a non-democratically elected body in the field of public policy. For the first time in ISO’s history, freedom was given to the experts in charge of developing ISO 26000 to change some of its setting process rules. The aim was to improve the inclusivity and the transparency of the procedure. This evolution can be interpreted as an attempt to democratize the International Organization for Standardization (the so-called ISO).

  • The aim of our empirical analysis is to make an evaluation of this attempt to democratize ISO procedure. Qualitative data - observations, interviews, collection of documents - have been gathered following the process of developing the content of ISO 26000 from 2006 to 2008 in Belgium and internationally. Our evaluation focuses on the potential benefits provided by a democratization of the procedure from an intrinsic point of view – equality of access and influence - and from an instrumental point of view - adhesion to the process and its fruits but also substantial contributions. However, we show that it is impossible to achieve all these objectives.

  • Stakeholder involvement in CSR certifications (2009)

  • Auteur: Manal El Abboubi

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  • Stakeholder involvement is a managerial challenge for organisations engaged in CSR certifications. Following a qualitative and an abductive approach, this research offers answers to the following questions:
    
    1- Who are stakeholders to consider in a CSR certification process?
    2- How are they positioned in this process?
    3- What are internal and / or external factors that can explain the involvement process?
    4- How does stakeholder management allows interests convergence in the CSR certification process?
    
    This research brings together the answers to these questions through three empirical studies in two Belgian companies involved in CSR certification.
    
    The Auteur use an interesting dialogue between two theoretical corpus and offers an analytical framework for all those involved in the management of certifications such as scholars, CSR managers, consultants, researchers, students and NGOs.