Browsing by Author "Perez-de-Toledo, Eloisa"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    A psychoanalytical approach to management research: the psychoanalytical problem, its resolution, and derivate research method
    (2022) Bocatto, Evandro; Perez-de-Toledo, Eloisa
    Karl Popper has locked the reasoning of many researchers on a particular kind of rational thinking, that is, hypotheses stating and testing. For this reason, social sciences started to privilege a specific theory of personality. It is accurate to state that the common-sense knowledge, and resultant human "irrational" action, can be explained and even confronted by testing its assumptions. Nevertheless, Popper's categorization is not the only one possible. It neglects the irrationality of unconscious' intentions, a competing drive that directs human actions. In this paper, we discuss that, in accordance, management research and practice have strict relations with theories of personality that neglect the unconscious. For that reason, it assumes that humans are self-interested organisms like guinea pigs, neglecting this complementary supposition: the unconscious's intentions, structure, and dynamics that also drive human behavior, thinking, feeling, perceiving, and learning. The crucial integration of objective knowledge with the unconscious dynamic supposes the addition of the psychoanalytical problem to Popperian's psychological problem. Thus, the derivate capacity to explain human and social action understood as intention, plan, and act must consider conscious and unconscious intentions. The psychoanalytical approach to management research also provides ingenious methods like the awareness-enhancing interviews we present.
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    Deviant scrutiny methodology: applications in the war against inequality
    (2020) Bocatto, Evandro; Perez-de-Toledo, Eloisa
    We argue that research methodologies in management sciences often neglect the negative impact businesses may have on societies. To mitigate this problem, we suggest a deliberate integration of adjacent effects in the data collection of any topics under study. We call this approach to data sampling and collection, deviant scrutiny methodology. Deviant scrutiny can be defined as research methodology that emphasizes an integrative data collection that actively incorporates a variety of externalities into the dataset. The methodology shares three characteristics with Thomas Kuhn’s view: 1. an identified conception, metaphysics and values, viz., the approach includes externalities (i.e., sense of purpose); 2. an historical consideration focusing on emerging topics, or social facts, that affects society and organizations (i.e., sense of context); and, 3. the compulsory, by protocol, integration of evidences that challenge taken for granted assumptions and theories, and confronts the biases affecting scientific communities-of-practice (i.e., sense of awareness).
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    Finding hard evidences for the soft rhetoric of the stakeholder theory
    (2018) Bocatto, Evandro; Perez-de-Toledo, Eloisa
    The hard-science type of rhetoric present in the dominant model in management is put under scrutiny. As a result, the shareholders' profit maximization ideal is understood as just a competing socially constructed rhetoric. We are motivated by: 1. why is it taken for granted that the dominant model of business activity is scientific? and, 2. How the competing stakeholder approach would look like? We present mathematical equations that capture other constructs (e.g. women and employee participation, CSR, CER) and propose a stakeholder index (GOV-Icompr). Results indicate that companies that include other stakeholders have superior market value (measured by Tobin 's q).
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    Knowledge acquisition and meaning‑making in the participatory budgeting of local governments
    (2020) Bocatto, Evandro; Perez-de-Toledo, Eloisa
    The participatory budgeting of Brazilian municipalities is one of the most publicized examples of democracy‑in‑action that fosters citizenship knowledge acquisition in local government. This research adds two new perspectives to the participatory process. The first one demonstrates how knowledge is acquired and shared, and which are the new contextual conditions for this acquisition to happen, which we call, the knowledge acquisition process. At second, we explain the meaning‑making process as a subjective way to acquire knowledge about oneself, the others, and the democratic systems. Citizens, public servants, policy‑makers, and politicians acquire new meanings for the role they play in local government and become reengaged on democracy through the ontological change from representative to participatory and deliberative democracy. In this qualitative research, our methodological bricolage relies on the triangulation of methods (i.e. documentation review and observations of behaviors and procedures; in‑depth‑interviews; and, focus groups) and sources (i.e. comparison of cases, and stakeholders). The bricolage deconstructs these social actions on their constituents, vis‑a‑vis hidden intentions; instruments; and, implementation. Among the several Brazilian cases, this longitudinal study (i.e. 12 years) concentrates on five of them. Our findings suggest that the participation in the process allows for a change on individuals’ understanding of democracy, enhances citizenship knowledge acquisition, reframes the meaning of citizenship, and improves the quality of relationships among the stakeholders involved. In the participatory budgeting, citizens learn, what critical theory calls “to emancipate”. They act as if they were members of an ideal kingdom of ends in which they were both subjects and sovereigns at the same time, which guarantees citizenship engagement, learning and development.
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    The human resources management of a democratic action: intentionality, elements and functioning
    (2018) Bocatto, Evandro; Perez-de-Toledo, Eloisa
    In reaction to the issue of citizens’ distrust, apathy and disengagement from representative democracy, we investigate democratic actions in which participation, deliberation, and political engagement take place: the participatory budgeting (PB) of municipalities. By integrating two epistemologies, historical-hermeneutic and empirical-analytical, we interpret the intentions to commit, and analyze the enabling conditions of its implementation, viz., PB’s human resources management. Content analysis methodology converts pieces of narratives into units of meaning, we provide evidences of the reasons why this reality is socially created, and capture its functioning. Findings from five cities show that the PB starts with the local government’s intention to respond to historical demands of civil society regarding direct participation in government. As a mean to this goal, we explain the human resources practices of attracting, developing, and retaining participants. We provide a practical benchmark for local authorities’ policy development, and for the literature of participatory management in municipalities.
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    The impact of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards on the value of cash holdings: evidence from Canadian firms
    (2018) Perez-de-Toledo, Eloisa; Bocatto, Evandro
    Investments in environmental and social initiatives by companies have increased considerably in recent years, as a response to an increasingly complex and demanding socioeconomic environment. However, a question that still needs to be answered is whether these investments provide a positive return or contribute to value creation. This paper aims to contribute at filling this gap by investigating the relationship between Corporate Social Performance (CSP) as measured by investments in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices and firm value by comparing the market value of an extra dollar of cash for firms with high and low ESG ratings. Our results show that an extra dollar of cash is valued at a premium of $0.13 (or 13%) for high CSP firms as compared to low CSP firms. We find evidence to support the stakeholders theory and the resource based view by showing that managers who invest in ESG practices that receive the support of key stakeholders are acquiring unique resources and creating a sustainable competitive advantage, which positively affects value. We also show evidence that financial slack has value in the presence of future investment opportunities and when the cost and availability of capital is uncertain.
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    Valuation of ESG factors: the moderating effect of cash holdings
    (2019) Perez-de-Toledo, Eloisa; Bocatto, Evandro
    In this paper, we examine the value effects of investments in ESG practices by focusing on the valuation of a specific asset class, namely cash holdings. The main idea is that shareholders would value one dollar of cash at a premium when this dollar is invested in companies that follow a more stringent ESG strategy than in companies that do not. We argue that ESG initiatives can be value-enhancing investments if they enable companies to acquire resources that are valuable, unique, and inimitable (Barney 1991), and if they receive the support of key stakeholders (Freeman 1984). Therefore, by internalizing these resources companies create a sustainable competitive advantage that ultimately increases firm value.