توسعه پایدار اتحادیه : مسئولیت به اشتراک گذاشته شده در یک مدل کسب و کار فرا سازمانی

This paper proposes design principles for the ‘sustainability syndicate’: shared responsibility among diverse stakeholders for sustainability; an agenda for unifying economic and ethical rationales; and plural governance based primarily on markets, contracts and collaborative relationships. The paper suggests a research agenda directed at issues that constrain sustainability syndicates. Syndication's contributions to sustainability build upon its trans-organizational structures for shared responsibility. Syndication works as an insurance cooperative that reduces the financial burden of risk. In addition, members could rent skill sets from other stakeholders, reduce barriers to entry into bigger projects, and improve efficiencies. As underlying sustainability are both economic and ethical rationales for shared responsibility, sustainability syndicates induct diverse non-commercial stakeholders into inclusive settings. A unifying agenda in these settings, as it grapples with externalities and constructs welfare-enhancing solutions, enhances sustainability brand differentiation. Plural self-governance, as it corrects for failures of individual self-governance modes, enables market making and market access, reduces transaction costs in contracting, and enables members to build the trust and commitment necessary for collaborations. Sustainability syndicates obviate the need for command-and-control interventions. Although institutional, performance and instrumental constraints still remain, syndicate business models offer potentially game-changing strategies in sustainability marketing.

Sustainability strategies demand shared responsibility for two strong reasons. One is ethical, as outcomes unfold in the commons and affect several stakeholders. The other is economic, as efforts are risky and involve substantial financial commitments. The purpose of this paper is to justify and contribute a trans-organizational model that links these two reasons. It proposes that syndication, a business model for shared economic responsibility, accomplishes this purpose when designed using additional principles. Further, the paper identifies current constraints, and proposes a research agenda to develop sustainability syndication. Unlike generic strategies of product differentiation and cost leadership, sustainability strategies cannot be adequately supported by closed business models. Theory informs us that strategies are intimately linked to business models. Contingency theories advance the notion that the firm's optimal strategy is contingent on its structure. Zott and Amit (2008) review contingencies, and highlight how administrative structures determine flexibility in strategic options. They explain the construct of a business model as: “… a structural template of how a focal firm transacts with customers, partners, and vendors: that is, how it chooses to connect with factor and product markets. It refers to the overall gestalt of these possibly interlinked boundary-spanning transactions (p. 3).” This notion affords the rationale for enquiry into a contingent trans-organizational model for sustainability strategy's success. The present paper contends that syndication, an inherently trans-organizational business model to share responsibility, contributes to this endeavor. For scholars the paper addresses the questions: What are known theoretical foundations for the sustainability syndicate model? Do research issues remain outstanding? For practitioners it addresses: What design principles are salient? What constraints inhibit implementation? The extant theory and practice of syndication advances partial answers to these questions. Syndication is a formal trans-organizational business model to share responsibilities among smaller participants in risky environments. Its main contributions to practice have hitherto been in multiple stakeholder structures for risk reduction, standards setting, and business development. This paper proposes expanding the scope of syndication so that diverse stakeholders may better address their mutual sustainability externalities: denial of rights to resources, underinvestment in public goods, barriers to entry, the slow pace of innovation, high sustainability risks and uncertainties, or distributed capabilities and information. The main contribution of the paper for practitioners is a set of design principles to evolve the Sustainability Syndicate. Drawing upon recent theoretical literature, it also contributes a scholarly research agenda for sustainability syndication. The clothing industry provides examples of trans-organizational business models that facilitate sustainability strategies. A complex global chain shapes the industry (Eurosif, 2012). Smaller enterprises account for over 80% of the market (Defra, 2011). Water pollution in textile hubs in Asia begets significant health, agriculture, livestock and drinking water losses (Govindrajulu, 2003). State pollution control boards (PCBs) monitor non-compliance with discharge standards and take disciplinary action, through disconnection of water and electricity supply or, in extreme cases, through recourse to court orders. Different PCBs for hubs located in China, India and SE Asia apply differing standards for treated water quality. Courts in southern India have found dyers to be liable in a major local textile hub, and ordered shut downs of all common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) not meeting stringent zero liquid discharge standards. As a result, hubs with less stringent standards, such as those based on biological oxygen demand, enjoy a cost advantage. Dyeing processes migrate to these hubs and create hot spots of pollution. Sustainability challenges for stakeholders here are community water security, discharge from hub units, economies of scale in treatment facilities, uneven standards across hubs, and uncertain costs of cleaner dyeing technology. A superior strategy is where textile brands and community organizations jointly participate in developing solutions for targeted standards that evolve over a planned trajectory. This strategy requires a contingent trans-organizational business model with shared responsibilities on resource use, innovation and certification. Syndication, which is such a model, would allow more flexible agreements and lesser recourse to PCB or court enforcement. For instance, under the Delhi CETP Act 2000, dyers and textile manufacturers in an industrial estate must entrust CETP management to a society of users. This model involves multiple stakeholders in sharing responsibility for reduction of discharge and for clean technology innovation. Material pooling of ecologically intelligent fabrics illustrates syndication. Braungart (2002) describes how several innovative textile mills form a “polyester coalition” with a trans-organizational business model. A strategy contingent on this model is to pool purchasing power among manufacturers to favor sustainable materials that are recycled or reused. The coalition involves customers for innovation in materials. This is a well-designed syndication business model in that it allocates responsibility on materials and operations among diverse stakeholders, delivers profitability with lowered ecological footprints, and mixes markets, contracts and collaborative relationships for self-governance. The rest of the paper advances principles for the design of such trans-organizational models. We begin in the next section with the key design motive: shared responsibility for sustainability. The following section describes syndication as a trans-organizational business model for shared responsibility; outlines key ideas of syndicate theory; and describes previously examined economic rationales for syndication. The next two sections advance additional design principles when ethical rationales for shared responsibility are added to the economy: a value based agenda that unifies the two, and plural self-governance that binds together diverse sustainability interests. The penultimate section weighs constraints that have limited the formation of sustainability syndicates, and advocates directions for conceptual development. A final section concludes with the benefits of syndication.

The design principles for a sustainability syndicate, developed in this paper, were motivated by the recognition that sustainability strategies are inherently trans-organizational and therefore contingent on trans-organizational business models. The pivotal principle is one of shared responsibility. An established business model for shared business responsibility is syndication. Rules of syndication cover structure of membership, setting of common goals and objectives, and sharing of joint rewards between stakeholders. The additional challenges that sustainability brings to syndication stem from unifying ethical and economic responsibilities among diverse stakeholders. The paper's main contributions to practice are the set of principles for sustainability syndicate design: shared responsibility, a unifying agenda, and plural governance. The paper advances several research questions to help overcome constraints stakeholders face in building sustainability syndicates. Benefits of membership make well-designed sustainability syndicates very attractive. Shared responsibility among diverse stakeholders enables members to expand the scope of sustainability solutions. Syndication works as an insurance cooperative for members, and reduces the financial burden of risk. In addition, members could rent skill sets from other stakeholders, reduce barriers to entry into bigger projects, and improve efficiencies. Syndication with shared responsibility also helps avoid free riding, and monetizes otherwise prohibitive investments in public goods. A unifying agenda enables members to grapple with externalities, harmonize their goals, and construct comprehensive welfare-enhancing solutions. Plural governance has several advantages: it corrects for failures of individual governance modes, enables market making and market access, reduces transaction costs in contracting, enables members to build the trust and commitment necessary for collaborations, and obviates command-and-control interventions. The capability of individual organizations to devise and execute sustainability strategies for the common good without syndication is severely constrained. As pressures mount for sustainable growth, governments are apt to assign property rights where commons are involved to well-structured syndicates, rather than to individual stakeholders. Membership in a sustainability syndicate could be indispensable in the imminent future.