دانلود رایگان مقاله ایجاد سیستم بین نسلی برای پایداری سازمانی

Most leadership decisions involve an inherent trade-off between the allocation of current and future gains and burdens. Take, for example, an executive who may need to choose between employing a sustainable, expensive source of energy that will conserve resources for future generations but have a negative effect on current profits; and saving money by using a nonrenewable resource that could later pollute the environment and negatively affect future social actors. Or, as another example, consider a manager who is about to leave a company. He contemplates investing significant time to mentor a new generation of employees, but because he will obtain no direct benefits, he might choose instead to spend time on activities that offer him immediate gains, but leave employees unprepared to effectively contribute to the company. In both of these examples, as in many everyday organizational decisions, there is a trade-off between benefiting or burdening oneself or one’s group in the present, and benefiting or burdening future social actors. These decisions can have long-lasting repercussions on the strategic focus of an organization and ultimately its viability in the marketplace. Intergenerational decisions–—decisions made today that affect future others–— are, therefore, central to determining the longevity and sustainability of organizations.

Create ethical infrastructures

The context in which intergenerational decisions are taken, such as the ethical infrastructure of the organization, which is composed of both formal (e.g., surveillance systems, mission statements) and informal (e.g., ethical climates, unwritten rules) elements, can influence intergenerational systems. For example, organizations can have formal elements, such as codes of conduct, that emphasize how the impact to future generations should be considered in all decisions and actions taken by organizational members. Reward systems can be aligned with this objective so as to honor those decision makers who strive to advance cycles of positive intergenerational reciprocity and discipline those who instead burden future generations. With regard to the informal structure, a strong organizational identity can propel individuals to identify with both past and current organizational members;the higherthe level of intergenerational identification, the more likely decision makers are to take the perspective of and act on behalf of the next generation (Table 1).