Copenhagen Business School

About: Copenhagen Business School is a education organization based out in Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, Denmark. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Corporate governance & Entrepreneurship. The organization has 2194 authors who have published 9649 publications receiving 341898 citations.

Seeing like an International Organisation

Abstract: International organisations (IOs) often serve as the ‘engine room’ of ideas for structural reforms at the national level, but how do IOs construct cognitive authority over the forms, processes and prescriptions for institutional change in their member states? Exploring the analytic institutions created by IOs provides insights into how they make their member states ‘legible’ and how greater legibility enables them to construct cognitive authority in specific policy areas, which, in turn, enhances their capacity to influence changes in national frameworks for economic and social governance. Studying the indirect influence that IOs can exert over the design of national policies has, until recently, often been neglected in accounts of the contemporary roles that IOs play and the evolution of global economic governance. By ‘seeing like an IO’, we can increase our understanding of the cognitive and organisational environment that guides an IO's actions and informs its policy advice to states, which enables a m...

The body consumed: Reflexivity and cosmetic surgery

Abstract: We live in a time with increasing focus on the body and its perfection. The marketing environment is replete with products and services catering to the health, well-being, and beauty of bodies and, it is implied, of our souls. One of the more drastic and consequently also much debated and, at times, tabooed type of service and consumption within this field is cosmetic surgery. This article is based on interviews with 15 women who have had cosmetic operations. It examines what motivated their decision to have surgery; some of their thoughts and feelings before, during and after the process; and the ways in which the operation has influenced their life and self-identity subsequently. The material is analysed within a theoretical framework resting mainly on Anthony Giddens' work on self-identity in late modernity. This implies that cosmetic surgery is understood to be part of the individual's reflexive construction of self-identity, and leads to a focus on issues such as self-determination, self-esteem, and the relationship between body and identity. Finally, some relations between self-identity and the marketing institution are discussed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Governing Knowledge Processes: Theoretical Foundations and Research Opportunities

Abstract: An under-researched issue in work within the “knowledge movement” is the relation between organizational issues and knowledge processes (i.e., sharing and creating knowledge). We argue that managers can shape formal organization structure and organization forms and can influence the more informal organizational practices in order to foster knowledge sharing and creation. Theoretically, we unfold this argument by relying on key ideas of organizational economics and organizational behaviour studies. We put forward a number of refutable propositions derived from this reasoning. Acknowledgments We are grateful to Anna Grandori for numerous excellent comments on an earlier draft. The standard disclaimer applies.

Exit From the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers

Abstract: In today's fashion system, dominated by business models predicated on continual consumption and globalized production systems that have major environmental and social impacts, the consumption of ‘sustainable fashion’ takes on an almost paradoxical quality. This paper explores this paradox by focusing on a previously under-researched group of consumers – ‘sustainable fashion consumption pioneers’ who actively engage and shape their own discourse around the notion of sustainable fashion consumption. These pioneers actively create and communicate strategies for sustainable fashion behaviour that can overcome the nebulous and somewhat paradoxical reality that sustainable development in the fashion industry presents. Specifically, we use passive netnography and semi-structured interviews to illuminate the role of motivational and contextual factors that help shape these consumers' definitions of sustainable fashion including such key behaviours as purchasing fewer garments of higher quality, exiting the retail market, purchasing only second-hand fashion goods and sewing or upgrading their own clothing. Central to much of these behaviours is the notion that personal style, rather than fashion, can bridge the potential disconnect between sustainability and fashion while also facilitating a sense of well-being not found in traditional fashion consumption. As such, our research suggests that for these consumers sustainability is as much about reducing measurable environmental or social impacts as it is about incorporating broader concepts through which to achieve goals beyond the pro-environmental or ethical.