Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
neutrality and objectivity of decision-making for sustaining the profits of the cor-
poration. This rationality is required in his position. Other actors expect to put into
reality this kind of rationality for dealing with the ideas of the workers. This is at
least what he has to assume in his position and he takes-for-granted. Thus, because
of both the environmental manager's own background as well as social require-
ments on him, the field structure is reproduced. Any other agent of ecological
modernisation in Mr. Kunz's position would have been disposed to a similar ra-
tionality.
For the workers, whose ideas were declined, the situation is structured as fol-
lows: The 'Programme' promised to give importance to their ideas. However, this
importance is not granted by the experts. To re-construct their self-confidence, for
them, it makes sense to argue for the opposite decision. Yet, if such a change of
the decision does not happen - which is unlikely because the experts would have
to reveal themselves as providing flawed arguments - the worker may still try to
put the idea, if practically possible, into practice. This, however, is again unlikely
because of the structure of the organisation in question. Workers do not have
much incentive to identify with the owners. They do not have a clear stake in the
profitability or greening of the corporation; the means of production are owned by
others who are also responsible for environmental management. Hence, after hav-
ing offered their ideas, why should they contribute to unwanted environmental
improvements? Thus, for the organisation the idea of the worker is lost.
Overall, then, we find that knowing 'rightly' implies a hierarchy: Mr. Kunz, as
techno-scientific and techno-economic expert - along the rationality of ecological
modernisation, has superior knowledge relative to workers. This hierarchy became
most explicit in his dismissal of the workers' solar panel idea together with the
deficit model.
18.4.2 Lost Meanings? Ideas and Suggestions
While analysing the field and the doxic stance of the environmental manager the
focus on the structure of the contested content disappeared. However, the struc-
tural difference of how the environmental manager constructed the workers' ideas
and the needed suggestions reveals an important dimension of the 'Programme'.
During research it seemed that Kunz used the notions of ideas and suggestions
interchangeably. However, they have quite different relations to the other elements
of the situation. The poster of the 'Programme' asked for ideas while linking the
'Programme' obviously to the suggestion scheme. Those workers who had ideas,
which they deemed to fit into what was asked for, accessed the suggestion scheme
as a mechanism. This was possible by both material as well as digital forms.
Within this mechanism ideas cannot exist - merely suggestions. What does this
imply?
A suggestion needs to be clearly categorisable within the organisational divi-
sion of labour, such that the officer of the suggestion scheme can direct the sug-
gestions to experts. For the environmental manager the suggestions should be ori-
ented towards the criteria which he used. If he was not able to conceptualise the
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