Corporate self-reliance and the sustainable society

TECHNOLOGICAL

FORECASTING

AND SOCIAL CHANGE

22, 139-151 (1982)

Corporate Self-Reliance and the Sustainable Society ANN C. CROUTER and JAMES GARBARINO

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the role of “corporate self-reliance” in producing and maintaining a sustainable society. The paper examines the meaning of corporafe self-reliance: business enterprises assuming responsibility for the consequences of their operation in the social as well as the physical environment by forming partnerships with local communities and families. The paper presents four strategies for the development of corporate self-reliance. The first is the role of labor-management commiftees as change agents for improving the quality of community and work life. The second strategy is worker-ownership as a constructive community response to plant shut-downs. The third strategy involves employer-based family support systems. The fourth is participative work as a means of enhancing personal and corporate competence resulting in enhanced morale and productivity, essential components of corporate self-reliance. In all four examples, the underlying theme is the importance of investing in human resources. In the course of explicating these phenomena, the paper considers the following related issues: Japanese concepts of corporate responsibility for employee and community welfare, outcome measures beyond job satisfaction, community impact, and the costs of change for individuals and groups. The paper relies upon original research by the authors and a review of studies in a variety of disciplines.

A New Role for the Private Sector to serve the new society in the offing and to pursue its own objectives efficiently, the private sector of the world economy must be systematized; its area, scope and functioning redefined. [31, pp. 42-431

The private sector has an important role to play in planning and implementing the agenda of social change needed to transform our world into a sustainable society. To accomplish this transformation requires imagination, the expertise of as many knowledgeable people as possible. In this essay we argue that this reservoir of expertise is already in place in the private sector. It is what O’Toole [28] calls “America’s greatest asset: the skills, intelligence, education, abilities and ingenuity of the workforce” (p. 59). To make most effective use of this underutilized resource, however, the private for profit sector must ally itself with two other important settings in the immediate social environment, the local community and the family units within that community. Work, community, and family are the central arenas of adult life. Together, they form a powerful triumvirate with the JAMES GARBARINO has a doctorate in social and personality development from Cornell University. He is a former fellow and project director of the Center for the Study of Youth Development at Boys Town, Nebraska. He was also a Mitchell Prize winner in the 1979 competition. ANN CROUTER has a doctorate in human development and family studies from Cornell University. She is a member of the National Council on Family Relations and the Society for Research on Child Development. Her numerous articles include a paper with Uri Bronfenbrenner for the National Academy of Sciences’ panel on Work, Family, and Community. 0 1982 by The Woodlands

Conference

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potential of making the most of the “human capital” at hand. The net result of such cooperation we call “corporate self-reliance.” By corporate self-reliance, we mean the cooperative process through which business and local communities forge partnerships that ultimately enable them to rely upon their own efforts and abilities. Our concept goes beyond a plea for social responsibility on the part of the private sector. Rather, we argue for social participation. The private sector has the organization and resources to take the initiative in developing and implementing new strategies that encourage active cooperation among the settings of work, community, and family, cooperation that we argue will improve the quality of life in all three spheres. The assumption of full responsibility for social consequences by the private sector stands in contrast to most contemporary thinking that casts government (“the welfare state”) in this leadership role and asks of business only that it do no demonstrable social harm. Our definition implies that we broaden the mission of corporate responsibility and labor-management relations to make them more consistent with the demands of a sustainable society. Ironically, the best chance the private for profit sector has to become selfreliant is to become reciprocally linked to other settings in the social environment, namely the surrounding community and the families that make up that community. The road to long-term self-reliance (and sustainability) is to be achieved through building interdependence and reciprocal responsibility among units of society.

The Need for Developing Corporate Self-Reliance Our conceptualization of the role of the private sector in society represents a shift from traditional views of business enterprise. Giarini [13] has described the development of current economic models, showing the need to transform the economic assumptions that emerged during the Industrial Revolution. That economic thinking may have been an adequate or even necessary paradigm for Western-style industrialization. It provided a gross approximation of the actual costs of production for its times, the period of approximately 1750-1950. That era was characterized by “free” (i.e., apparently inexhaustible) raw materials, “free” (i.e., unlimited) waste disposal, and an enormous reservoir of “free” social resources to absorb the psychological and social side-effects of industrialization. When these “free” factors were added to the clear increases in material well-being brought about by industrialization, the net result was socioeconomic progress, judged by most criteria of human quality. However, as the magnitude of Western-style monetarized industrialization has increased in recent decades, it has become clear that several of its assumptions are no longer tenable. Raw materials are no longer free. Waste disposal carries an ever-increasing cost. The social reservoir is running dry as more and more well-educated people, reared in an area of great expectations, balk at performing repetitive, undemanding, and alienating work. As a first step in changing our economic thinking, we propose that private sector enterprises be conceptualized, developed, maintained, and evaluated in terms of their long-range costs and benefits to the environment, including the social system and the physical ecosystem. Thus, the winner, in a mature economic sense, produces the most permanent net contribution to the human condition with the least transformation of raw materials into waste [13]. To date, most discussions of how the private sector can move toward this new set of values and assumptions have focused on the material side of the issue. For example, enterprises that use petroleum-based energy-intensive plastics to produce trivial products that are disposable, although nonrecyclable, have been unfavor-

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ably compared with enterprises that are based upon renewable energy and raw material resources (e.g., solar and biomass) to produce durable products that meet basic human needs and are fully biodegrable. This emphasis on the material side of building a sustainable mode of life is understandable. Physical degradation of the environment is usually clear and unambiguous. The analytic technologies for assessing material costs and benefits are established. And, of course, the social and psychological realities of life depend upon a material infrastructure. All these factors lead to a broad concern with the material aspects of what the Club of Rome calls “the world problematique,” a term used to summarize the current ecological morass in which we find ourselves. Our task here is to join Peccei [31] and others in going beyond discussions in primarily material and energy terms to consider solutions to the world problematique at the social and psychological level. To focus on the social context of private sector enterprise is necessary and appropriate for the transition to a sustainable society. The global modeling community has reached empirical and theoretical consensus that the major sources of variation in worldwide future scenarios are sociopolitical rather than technological factors [32]. Furthermore, while technological innovation can play an important role in easing the necessary transition, it is not the critical issue. For example, the work of the Intermediate Technology Group in developing energy efficient and ecologically sensible machines (see Schumacher [34, 351) can prove invaluable in implementing a sustainable society. Such an effort is effectively impotent, however, without the political will and social organization to implement its tools. The Club of Rome has come to focus increasingly on the sociocultural aspects of the world problematique for this very reason. [31]. The focus on social issues is consistent with our emphasis on corporate self-reliance, and with its local community-based orientation. Technological and social challenges differ in part in the degree to which they are appropriate for centralized, consolidated solution. Technological innovations lend themselves to centralized, single-site development and testing as seen in the success of various agricultural and industrial technology laboratories. We recognize, of course, that efforts must be made to ensure that such technological innovations are suited to local conditions. However, technological tools can be centrally developed without necessarily violating basic human needs and values. The same cannot always be said of the social innovations required for the transition to a sustainable society. Here, while centralized policy development is feasible (perhaps even desirable), centralized testing and implementation are often fatally flawed. Broad ideas may come from central social laboratories, but full development of those ideas into patterns of behavior and belief to meet the needs of a sustainable society is most likely to succeed in response to local needs, traditions, and ecological realities. This is particularly true in culturally heterogeneous societies such as the United States where there is marked diversity in values, traditions, and patterns of social interaction across subcultures. Centralized development of social policy has proceeded more smoothly in countries that combine small geographic size with a culturally homogeneous population. Sweden, for example, has implemented a national social policy specifically focused on the well-being of children and families (see Kamerman and Kahn [IS]). Although the concept of a national policy for children and families is regularly introduced in the United States in such settings as the White House Conference on the Family (held most recently in 1980), no policy has emerged, in part because American citizens and their elected representatives cannot agree upon what constitutes the quality of family life, nor even upon what constitutes a family. Thus, as will be seen in the next section of this essay, our strategies for corporate self-

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reliance have a local, home-grown flavor. Each is well suited to its surrounding environment but might not be as appropriate in another community with different values, traditions, and beliefs. To elaborate upon what we mean by “corporate self-reliance,” it is necessary to provide some concrete, real life examples. We next provide four illustrations of corporate self-reliance that we believe demonstrate its relevance to the task of developing a sustainable society. Strategies for Corporate Self-Reliance Having introduced the issues at hand in terms of the big picture, the world problematique, we now describe four very specific strategies that have worked in various American communities. Our change in scope and in level of specificity is a deliberate one because, as indicated above, we suspect that in large, culturally diverse societies the most effective level for planned social change may be the local community. EXAMPLE

1: FROM STRIKE TOWN TO INTERNATIONAL A LABOR-MANAGEMENT

MODEL:

COMMITTEE

Corporate self-reliance requires changing the traditional adversarial relationship between labor and management into one of cooperation and mutual trust. An enterprise works best when participants share the same goals, seek solutions to the same problems, and agree to weather hard times together. But how do we attain cooperation given the traditional view that management and labor have conflicting interests and goals? One model is the labor-management committee, a new form of organization that has emerged in diverse communities in the United States. The specific purpose of a labor-management committee varies from community to community, but in general the underlying goals are to improve the labor climate of the local area by enhancing productivity, reducing the likelihood of strikes, and enhancing the quality of worklife. In this it resembles Japanese planning committees [29] and the wage-price boards envisioned by Rostow [33]. Jamestown, New York is the site of a well-known labor-management committee. We outline briefly the evolution of the Jamestown Area Labor Management Committee (JALMC), emphasizing the extent to which its activities have enhanced the self-reliance not only of participating companies but of the entire community as well. The economy of Jamestown, population 40,000, is primarily industrial. During the 196Os, the economic life of the area was in disarray. In this time period, 38 strikes (totaling 1,401 strike days) took place in Jamestown [26]. By the early 1970s trust between management and labor had eroded, and numerous businesses were folding. Moreover, leaders in local government were finding themselves unable to persuade new businesses to relocate in Jamestown. The community had acquired a reputation as a strike town, a town with no future. The JALMC was established in 1972 by corporate management, union leaders, and local government as an antidote to the community’s disintegrating labor climate. The committee consisted of leaders of labor and management from local factories interested in effecting change and of local government officials. The committee hired consultants from the academic community [8] who came to live and work in Jamestown. Gradually the JALMC and the consultants transformed the community context of Jamestown. They began to set up committees within companies to improve the quality of worklife. These committees, composed of managers and workers, were problem-oriented so that individuals pooled their expertise to solve complex issues. The JALMC also surveyed the strengths

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and weaknesses of the community. In doing so, it noted that many highly skilled woodworkers were aging and that younger workers were not taking their place. In response, the JALMC enlisted the cooperation of the local community college in establishing a skills training program in woodworking, resulting in the upgrading of skills in an important local industry. The group also established liaisons with the local school system, resulting in an unusual course on quality of worklife issues for eighth graders. The success of the JALMC is a matter of public record [26]. Only 26 strikes occurred in the 1970s for a total of 490 strike days. New industry has come to the area creating jobs and opportunities. Older companies once in danger of going under have streamlined their operations often with the contribution of workers’ technical expertise. One example is a local firm called Hopes Windows which used to bid successfully on only one out of 10 jobs. With help from the JALMC, an in-house committee developed cost-cutting procedures and accurate methods of estimating costs, allowing the firm to bid successfully on five out of ten jobs. Such growth in organizational competence benefits the entire organization. The company learns to exploit its own hidden expertise more systematically-to consult the people who carry out the job and who may have innovative cost-saving strategies. The self-reliance of the individual is enhanced as well. By taking part in the JALMC’s in-house committee, workers at Hopes Windows learn more about the complexities of the bidding process, the factors that go into the cost of a final product, and so on. To the extent that they can act upon such knowledge, their jobs are more secure, and their opportunities to learn on the job are enhanced. Moreover, the community of Jamestown has evolved from a small industrial city threatened with economic demise into a role model for cooperative problem-solving that has been examined by other interested communities both in the United States and abroad. Meek and Whyte point to Jamestown as a good example of a community redefining the responsibility of government for the people: Liberals as well as conservatives have come to recognize that our social and economic problems are not going to be solved by having government do more things to andfor people. As in the Jamestown case, the future contribution of government will be to do especially those things that enable local citizens to take the actions that solve their own problems. 126, p. 301

Labor-management committees represent just one strategy toward developing selfreliance at the corporate, community, and individual levels. It is not what might be called a “radical” strategy because the relative status of labor and management remains the same. The labor-management committee has transformed Jamestown, however, and enhanced the quality of life for its citizens. For this reason, it has contributed to the sustainability of the region. EXAMPLE

2: WHAT’S SMALL POTATOES TO SPERRY RAND IS BREAD AND BUTTER TO HERKIMER, NEW YORK: THE SUCCESS OF WORKER-OWNERSHIP

When a plant is shut down permanently, there is little that a labor-management committee can do. The critical issue surrounding a plant closing is not the quality of worklife but the loss of jobs and the loss of the revenue generated by the plant for the local community. The last decade witnessed an increase in plant shut-downs in the United States. Plants sometimes are closed because they are not profitable, but there are other reasons. Many manufacturing plants are owned by large conglomerates with headquarters away from the local community. As a conglomerate grows, it may liquidate small plants that make modest profits and write them off as tax losses. Such an event is a bottom-line

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business decision to the corporation, but it may signal economic and social disaster to employees and the community around the plant in question. One constructive response to the threat of a plant shut-down is “worker ownership.” A case in point is the Library Bureau, a furniture factory in Herkimer, New York, once a subsidiary of Sperry Rand (see [41]). In 1976, the plant’s profit, while considerable, was less than the 22% standard of the conglomerate. Furthermore, the furniture business was no longer an interest of the corporation. Sperry Rand therefore decided to close the plant. In a dramatic example of community mobilization, the work force and the local community combined resources to buy the plant from Sperry Rand (see [38, 411). Shares were sold door to door, outside of supermarkets, and at the plant itself. Local businesses and banks backed the project. Six months after the announcement of the shut-down, the ownership of the Library Bureau passed to employees and members of the community. The plant was renamed the Mohawk Valley Community Corporation. As a result of this action, the community has survived. More than that, it has become more self-reliant. Massive unemployment did not occur to sap the economic life of the area and weaken the functioning of local families [21]. Indeed, we suspect that a sense of efficacy has permeated the lives of those people involved in this collective endeavor. At an individual and group level, this community has demonstrated some of the skills and psychological resources needed to work toward a sustainable society. After this successful experience in risk taking, one would guess that Herkimer, New York, would meet its next shared crisis with an efficient community mobilization strategy and a sense of optimism and control. And what of the corporate self-reliance of the corporation itself? Has its economic status or quality of worklife been enhanced as a result of worker ownership? Primarily, its future has been assured for it is no longer dependent on an absentee owner conglomerate for its survival. Interestingly, a study conducted at the Library Bureau before and after the transition to worker-ownership did not reveal the expected drop-off in absenteeism [ 141. The researchers’ explanation for this result was that, in this case, worker ownership did not mean an increase in worker power or decision making. Absenteeism, for some workers, may be a short-term strategy for coping with intrinsically unsatisfying work. Thus, worker ownership without rearrangements in the structure of workplace decision making may enhance the company’s ability to survive and thus maintain the quality of community life, but it may not greatly improve the intrinsic nature of the work accomplished, nor individuals’ attitudes toward their work. In the last decade, there have been at least 60 cases of employees buying their companies outright. Only two of these efforts have failed [40]. If inflation and high interest rates continue to wreak havoc on the American economy, we may see more communities pulling together to buy local businesses, thus taking their futures in their own hands. EXAMPLE

3: GETTING

BUSINESS

IN THE FAMILY WAY

A third strategy toward corporate self-reliance derives from the recognition that the family and community lives of employees affect the well-being of the private sector, as well as an acknowledgment that corporate policies and practices have immediate and enduring consequences for the family and community lives of employees. This strategy family supports” in the workplace in rhe involves instituting specific “employer-based hope of transforming the work-family
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build the personnel for a sustainable society. In this way, the corporation is making a longterm investment in the future of its workforce. That the setting of work, family, and community are intricately interrelated is the subject of a growing body of research [5,7, 201. Indeed, the impact of work on family life and the effects of family life on the world of work have recently been the topic of surveys and reports by such organizations as General Mills [24] and Better Homes and Gardens [2], an indication that the perspective is becoming part of the mainstream of American thought. Too often, however, the workplace is depicted simplistically as the “villain,” a source of stress, fatigue, exploitation, and alienation for the worker. There is another side of the story. Recent research indicates that the family and community can be sources of productivity problems for companies [36]. In a recent study in a manufacturing plant, Crouter [7] found that mothers of children under six were the employees most likely to describe “negative spillover” from their family to their work lives. These mothers poignantly described being absent from work to care for a sick child, being preoccupied at work when worried about unsatisfactory childcare, having to turn down a job transfer because the hours were not flexible enough, and so forth. It is likely that some form of companysponsored childcare would relieve many mothers-and fathers-of considerable pressure. Indeed, such a policy might be in the company’s best interest if it enabled employees to be more efficient at work and more committed to the organization. In such a situation, no party loses. The company gains an effective, loyal employee. The parent experiences social and economic support for his or her childrearing responsibilities. Equally important, the child receives quality childcare and supervision. The enthusiasm of companies that have implemented some form of employer-supported childcare (including Stride-Rite Shoes and Coming Glass) lend support to these assumptions. Employer-sponsored childcare is one example of a variety of innovative policies and practices that can be seen as employer-based family supports. Existing employer-based family supports fall into three general categories. The first involves innovative scheduling such as flexible work hours (flex-time), job sharing, and increased options for part-time employment. The second category is corporate benefits, including maternity and paternity leaves, flexible (or “cafeteria”) benefit packages, and employee assistance programs for drug and other problems. A third type of employer-based family support involves corporate sensitivity to the needs of working parents, including special assistance to two-career families, work-site or other forms of company-sponsored childcare, and arrangements for school-age childcare (see [19]). Some examples: Honeywell, Inc. has a manager-level employee with the title “Working Parents Resource Coordinator” who, among other activities, is developing a computerized information and referral system on childcare facilities for employees and members of the Minneapolis community. American Can Company and TRW have pioneered flexible benefit plans under which the employee can select, from a range of possible benefits, those benefits most needed by his or her family. Corporate implementation of flex-time is on the rise [27], having been pioneered-at least in the United States-by Control Data in 1972. In addition, there is renewed interest in the workplace as an effective site for human services [ 11. Little research to date, however, has explored whether these various employer-based family supports are indeed helping families. Employers that have tried them tend to be very enthusiastic and offer vivid anecdotes that point to their success, but there is little objective information on this score. What data there are can be equivocal. For example,

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one study [39] revealed that parents who took advantage of flex-time spent more evening time with their families, evidence that flex-time may indeed enhance family life. On the other hand, a systematic survey of federal employees in agencies with and without flextime scheduling revealed few differences in how employees perceived the ease with which they balanced work and family life [4]. Ironically, those employees without parenting responsibilities were those who reported having benefited from the scheduling innovations. For parents, a modest flex-time arrangement may simply not be enough. In addition to determining whether or not employer-based family supports actually contribute to the well-being of families, we also need to know if such innovations benefit the private sector. As yet there are no systematic empirical data showing a causal relationship between policies and practices that are thought to be supportive of employees’ families lives and such corporate concerns as organizational productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and employee moral. EXAMPLE

4: MAKING

THE WHOLE GREATER

THAN THE SUM OF ITS PAIlTS

It is doubtful that any of the three strategies described above would succeed without including a fourth strategy: introducing worker participation in decision making and problem solving into the daily routine of corporate settings. There is persuasive evidence that participative work (also referred to as “workplace democracy” or “participation management”) encourages the development of self-reliance on at least four levels: the individual, the work group, the company, and the surrounding community. In the United States, participative work usually involves setting up semiautonomous work teams. A team works together to perform a fairly large complex task from beginning to end. Often individuals are rewarded on the basis of the number of skills they require with the goal that team members eventually are able to perform all the tasks needed to do the job. Most important, teams make decisions and solve problems [37]. In the plant in which Crouter [7] conducted her research on participative work, teams were responsible for managing their own inventory, monitoring safety, handling performance problems, hiring new members, controlling quality, troubleshooting productivity problems, scheduling, meeting deadlines, and many more activities. The contrast with jobs in additional settings with their characteristic routinization, hierarchical supervision, and dearth of challenge is dramatic (e.g., Blauner [3]). Sites in which variations of participative management approaches to organizing work have been introduced include the Topeka, Kansas, General Foods Gains Dog Food plant, Cummins Engine’s plants in Jamestown, New York, and Charleston, South Carolina, and various less publicized efforts within General Motors and Procter and Gamble. The desire to enhance productivity or decrease worker alienation usually is the primary motivation behind the introduction of participative work into industrial settings [37], but there are other positive benefits for the individual as well. Employees in such settings report gaining new skills that are also useful off the job, including skills in communication, problem solving, listening, and decision making [7]. In addition, studies have shown that self-direction at work actually can improve the individual’s cognitive functioning [22, 231. These promising outcomes indicate that, as a result of participating at work, the individual is more effective interacting with others and better able to function autonomously in a complex environment. We trust these qualities will make individuals better able to contribute the innovative ideas needed to make the transition to a more sustainable society. The implications for the self-reliance of the work group or team are clear. The team

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takes on tasks such as inventory or quality control tasks that would be performed by specialists in a traditional setting. Working together, the group gradually becomes a selfreliant collective, able to cope when a team member is absent, to plan ahead, and to perfect the work process. The resulting self-reliance has many benefits for the company. It gains a skilled, stable work force with high morale [37] and improved productivity [26]. Furthermore, as the organization increases its internal competence, it decreases its need for outside experts. If such changes mean that the organization is better able to compete in the market, its changes for survival have been enhanced. The community benefits from participative work and its effects. The quality of community life is maintained if local employers are able to reduce or eliminate layoffs and cutbacks. Families receive strength from the job security of breadwinners [II] and by the new skills that employees generalize to their family lives. For example, employees in one participative plant reported that participative work had helped them learn to listen to their children better, organize family life more democratically, and be more open with their husbands or wives [7]. Finally, the community as a whole benefits if employees in participative work settings extend their participation into volunteer community organizations, as theorists [30] and researchers [37] suggest. Such community participation is all the most important today because high rates of female employment have concomitantly meant decreased commitment to the volunteer sector, traditionally an area supported by women [ 161. We see participation as a critical prerequisite of corporate self-reliance without which labor-management committees, worker-ownership, or employer-based family spports are unlikely to succeed. Such innovations cannot be imposed upon a work force or a community. There are all too many examples in the social sciences of noble experiments that failed because the people for whom the experiment was intended were not consulted. Work-site childcare, for example, is not likely to be utilized by employees if it is simply imposed from above without the involvement of employees in the planning stages [lo]. Clearly, corporations have much to gain from restructuring the work process so that workers have a voice in decision making and problem solving. Unresolved

Issues and Questions

for Further Research

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat every problem as if it were a nail.

This aphorism attributed to Mark Twain highlights how our tools shape the way we identify and define our issues and problems. However, of equal relevance to the growth policy debate is a reversal of the hammer-nail aphorism to read: “If you define your problem as a nail, the only tool you will look for is a hammer.” We have sought to enlarge the range of issues to include the long-term role of the private sector in society. We see corporate self-reliance as a tool suitable for dealing with this challenging part of the quest for a sustainable society. We must broaden our conception of the issues and thereby see the relevance of our tools. Some of these issues are outlined below as unresolved problems and as questions for further research. Worker Outputs The “nails” for most work-related research to date are narrowly defined measures of job satisfaction and short-term productivity. Assessing the impact of initiatives to develop corporate self-reliance demands that we consider a much broader range of outcome vari-

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ables. These variables include individual and group competence, life satisfaction, longterm productivity, and the development of enduring relationships between the corporation, the community, and local families. Much has been made in the popular and professional press of Japanese management approaches [6, 291. While it is easy to exaggerate the benefits of the Japanese approach and to overlook its shortcomings in the spheres of ecological sustainability, it can be helpful in developing management approaches geared to the needs of the sustainable society. The Japanese model of management takes a long-term perspective characterized by stimuli and reinforcements for competent performance, enduring worker-company commitments that include job security for the employee, and an intertwining of worker and company lives. Existing research unfortunately rarely deals with these phenomena. However, a reorientation toward long-term investment in human capital is an idea whose time has come. Waste One of the biggest unresolved issues facing the corporate sector is how to assume full economic responsibility for waste [12]. As Giarini [13] has shown, waste is the eventual end point of production. The utilization value (i.e., the absolute usefulness) of products is defined by how long they are accessible and useful as instruments for meeting human needs. One implication of corporate self-reliance is that the private sector work to develop “markets” for its waste. In fact; one criterion for judging the sustainability of a society is its success in prolonging the utilization value of its raw materials. Thus, for example, when the “waste” heat of one plant can be employed in the production of another, the two enterprises have made a significant step toward sustainability. Similarly, when an expended product can be recycled, the community experiences a net gain in sustainability. The same concepts can apply to human beings, where indicators of durability and productivity stand against the waste of human capital. This, of course, means that in evaluating the worth of enterprises-in terms of tax and credit incentives-a careful waste analysis is imperative, along material and social dimensions. Social Costs of Change for the Individual The focus of our analysis of corporate self-reliance is the net social effects of business enterprise. We include in this perspective the casualities of change-those individuals who experience significant discomfort and personal dislocation because of corporate innovation and shifts in labor-management relations. Indeed, it is precisely this kind of concern that lies at the foundation of our concept of corporate self-reliance. Models for doing (physical) environmental impact analyses have received substantial attention. Even the “family impact analysis” concept has its supporters [4, 171. Both orientations suggest the need to consider who is hurt-or at least affected-by corporate decisions, as well as who benefits. For example, research on participative work [7, 371 indicates that it may be perceived as more rewarding by labor than by management. Indeed, first-line supervisors, who serve as team advisors in such plants, report considerable stress about their jobs. On the one hand, their job is to facilitate and enhance team functioning by serving as an advisor, not as boss. On the other hand, they know they will be evaluated in part on the basis of the performance of the team. The ambiguity inherent in such a job requires new imaginative strategies. Similarly, the age of an employee may make a difference. Older employees may find it more difficult to quickly adjust to new work practices. An important area for attention is the development of sensitive and sophisticated designs for study-

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ing how the background, experience, skills, values, and temperament of individual workers interact with corporate self-reliance initiatives in the short-term, on their way to longterm socioeconomic sustainability. Monitoring the Unintended Negative Consequences of Corporate Self-Reliance Initiatives for Families and Communities Many efforts involving planned social change result in negative consequences that were not anticipated by the planners. This is to be expected. Tinkering with the social system is a high-risk endeavor because the system always turns out to be even more complex than first imagined. Thus, we hope that corporations that decide to develop cooperation among work, family, and community will be realistic and pragmatic. They should carefully monitor their innovative arrangements. One risk, for example, is that the company become a paternalistic, exploitative community participant rather than a cooperative unit. For example, work-site childcare may not be a beneficial contribution to community life if it results in other community groups failing to take the initiative to develop childcare. A community or a family is in a vulnerable position if it relies too heavily on the private sector. Thus, we urge companies and communities to periodically conduct an impact analysis to detect major strengths and weaknesses of ongoing innovative practices. Such monitoring would enable companies and communities to make adjustments in their activities as needed. To be successful, we suggest that this monitoring be conducted by a team composed of business people, community members, and representatives of key settings such as schools, churches, small businesses, and so on. It is through the long cyclic process of experimentation, analysis, and refinement that the private sector and the local community will come closest to achieving corporate self-reliance. Conclusion Man possesses, for a small moment in his history, the most powerful combination of knowledge, tools, and resources the world has ever known. He has all that is physically necessary to create a totally new form of human society-one that would be built to last for generations. [25]

A decade after the publication of Limits to Growth we are still pondering the challenge posed by the transition to a sustainable society. It is clear that if we are to create a new form of human society, the private sector will have to participate fully. The very challenging task before us is simply altering our socioeconomic order. We must neither despair nor delude ourselves with the thought that we can muddle through with business as usual. Business as usual will not do, but business can do. There are many things that the private sector can do now that will help ease our troubled world toward a sustainable future. We have described four such approaches in this essay: labor-management committees, worker-ownership, employer-based family supports, and participative management. These strategies work. They are relatively conservative in that they do not go so far as to do away with the distinction between labor and management or to dismantle large corporations and conglomerates. Thus, they can be implemented within the existing social order. They offer ways in which the private sector can more fully benefit from the expertise and imaginations of members of the labor force. In other words, these stategies all emphasize investing in human resources. We need a new work ethic that builds upon two foundations. The first is an ethic of ecological and social accountability for the long-haul and the short-term. We cannot permit individual or corporate entities to proceed without assuming full responsibility for

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their actions. Can this be done without an elaborate and intrusive governmental bureaucracy? In his comparative look at societal blueprints for the future, Hawrylyshyn [ 151 concludes that it can, if we work toward a set of values and institutional forms that encourage cooperation and pluralism. The second foundation for the new work ethnic is a community-based, future-oriented perspective on human needs. This implies that the major institutions within communities develop plans for the future that are consistent with local resources-material and human. A sane planetary strategy for survival and quality implies grand international schemes and national planning. But, just as one can demonstrate the virtues of small-scale “private” initiative for regulating the narrowly conceived economy, so it can be demonstrated that local community-based efforts toward sustainability are necessary for a safe and sane world order. As the Farallones Institute [9] has demonstrated in the realm of energy and food production, even cold weather climates permit self-reliance when cooperation and innovative thinking are the norm. And, as we have shown in our analysis, the private sector can be a leader in improving the sustainable quality of life in the community by helping to integrate the roles of worker, family member, and citizen in a cooperative way that produces the personnel needed for the hoped-for new social order. It is our hope that strategies for corporate self-reliance serve as a first step toward the development of a society that is sustainable in the long run and that will offer a challenging and satisfying way of life to its members. The construction of a new social order will require collective problem solving and imaginative solutions on a scale that we can only dimly envision. If the social infrastructure is in place so that together the private sector, local communities, and families develop the corporate self-reliance that is born of shared experience and expertise, we may yet achieve a way of life that will work for generations to come. References 1. Akabas, S. and Kurzman, P., Work, Workers, and World Organizations: A Viewfrom Social Work, PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1982. 2. Better Homes and Gardens, How Is Work Affecting American Families? A report from the editors of Better Homes and Gardens, 198 1. 3. Blauner, R.. Alienation and Freedom: The Factory Worker and His Industry, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1964. 4. Bohen, H. and Viveros-Long, A. M., Balancing Jobs and Family Life: Do Flexible Work Schedules Help? Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1981. 5. Bronfenbrenner, U. and Crouter, A. C., Work and Family Through Time and Space, in S. Kamerman and C. Hayes (eds.), Families That Work: Children in a Changing Environment, Family, and Community, National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C., 1982. 6. Cole, R. E., Work, Mobility, and Participation: A Comparative Stud>1of American and Japanese Industry, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1979. 7. Crouter, A. C., Participative Work and Personal Life: A Case Study of Their Reciprocal Effects. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, 1982. 8. Eldred, J. C., A Labor-Management Committee Improves the Quality of Working Life, Implementing New Education-Work Policies. P. E. Barton, ed., Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1978. 9. Farallones Institute, The Integral Urban House, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA, 1979. 10. Friedman, D. E., Designing a Feasibility Study: A Starting Point for Considering New Management New Management Initiatives for Initiatives for Working Parents, paper presented for the conference, Working Parents, Boston, MA, April I98 1. 11. Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., Work Experience and Family Life, in J. O’Toole (ed.), Work and the Quality oflife, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1974. 12. Gabor, D., Colombo, U., King, A., and Galli, R., Beyond the Age of Waste, Pergamon, New York, 1978. 13. Giarini, 0.) Dialogue on Wealth and Welfare, Pergamon, New York; 1980.

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