Vroom’s participation model as a foundation of organisation audit: A new approach to CSR

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of a personalistic, participative approach to management in socially responsible business organisations. We believe that dialogue is a principle vehicle in CSR communication and this is a missing link to sustainable management. In order to fully explain the link between participation and socially responsible business behaviour, we recall the philosophical work of Karol Wojtyła on the nature of participation. We additionally discuss the connection between two phenomena: Organisational isomorphism and “tacit knowledge”. We focus our analysis on participative dialogue with employees. For a better understanding of participation, we present the Vroom model. It helps to build a diagnostic tool, which is the main contribution of this chapter. While this tool is designed to improve “human” management in organisational settings, we conclude the chapter by explaining why participative management and co-operative values are so difficult to implement. Finally, we explain how the diagnostic tool could help to fill the missing link noted.