Title: Sustainable economic organisation: simply a matter of reconceptualisation or a need for a new ethics?

Authors: Karl Johan Bonnedahl, Jessica Eriksson

Addresses: Umea School of Business, S-90187 Umea, Sweden. ' Umea School of Business, S-90187 Umea, Sweden

Abstract: Today|s increasing environmental problems are closely related to how we organise economic activities. This paper departs from the assumption that in order to reach sustainable economic organisation, we must address the dominating Market Discourse (MD), guiding mainstream organising. To understand whether reconceptualisations are sufficient or if changes in underlying ethics are needed, we compare the MD with strong and weak sustainability discourses. The analysis suggests that there is a need for changes in underlying assumptions as well as reconceptualisation of economic organisation that coheres with these assumptions. We also discuss how the related concepts of allocative, governance and throughput efficiency permeates MD, and, as principles for organisation, contribute to the inertia in working towards sustainable economic organisation.

Keywords: market discourse; efficiency; economic organisation; sustainability discourses; ethics; sustainable development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISD.2007.016060

International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2007 Vol.2 No.1, pp.97 - 115

Published online: 03 Dec 2007 *

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