corporate social responsibility as shaped by managers’ role dissonance: cleaning services...
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Corporate Social Responsibility as Shaped by Managers’ RoleDissonance: Cleaning Services Procurement in Israel
Orly Benjamin • Sarit Nisim • Galit Segev
Received: 29 October 2013 / Accepted: 3 May 2014
� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract Public procurement provides an excellent
window into the shaping of corporate social responsibility
of companies contracted by the government. To this
emerging scholarly realization, we want to add that public
procurement provides also the opportunity to examine
corporate social responsibility (CSR) as practiced by public
sector organizations. This opportunity enables the investi-
gation of the conditions under which public sector orga-
nizations endorse CSR guidelines, adherence to which
demonstrates accountability for their service providers’
legal, employment-related practices. Our study examined
the possibility that public sector organizations’ CSR is
enhanced by maintenance managers’ role dissonance
emerging in response to an ethical mismatch between them
and their organizations’ official stance concerning whether
unethical employment practices of service providers should
be sanctioned. We analyzed interviews with 13 managers
in charge of contract administration in the area of cleaning
and maintenance. Our findings suggest that the role dis-
sonance that emerges in cases of mismatch in ethical ori-
entation rarely enhances more responsible treatment of
cleaning employees. We introduce a model indicating the
conditions supporting this incident.
Keywords Corporate social responsibility �Management � Role dissonance � Cleaning service
procurement
Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) as shaped in the
context of public procurement has received surprisingly
little attention despite the large sums governments spend
on procurement contracts. Moreover, the scholarly atten-
tion that has attempted more recently to fill this gap (e.g.,
Snider et al. 2013) tends to assume a concept of CSR that
leaves contractors’ practices vis-a-vis workers’ rights to
implicit institutional arrangements (Matten and Moon
2008). These attempts are primarily concerned with the
contracting stage rather than with ongoing contract man-
agement and how the contract shapes workers’ rights over
time.
Snider and Rendon (2008), for example, cite the Obama
administration’s attempt to ensure that ‘‘companies that do
not comply with federal laws are not awarded government
contracts’’ and ‘‘companies that pay their employees ‘‘liv-
ing wages’’ and health and retirement benefits’’ would be
favored in the bidding process (p. 66). Snider and Rendon
(2008) argued that public procurement provides an excel-
lent window into the shaping of corporate social respon-
sibility of companies contracted by the government. To
these authors’ argument, we want to add that public pro-
curement also provides the opportunity to examine CSR as
practiced by public sector organizations, namely, organi-
zations that cannot use CSR to increase their competitive
advantage but use it as part of their ethical standardization
in related labor markets (Benjamin and Nisim 2012)
investigating the conditions under which public sector
organizations endorse CSR guidelines, adherence to which
demonstrates accountability for their service providers’
legal, employment-related practices.
Our approach investigates procurement practices as
generating two possible mismatches of ethical orientations.
O. Benjamin � S. Nisim (&) � G. Segev
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
e-mail: [email protected]
O. Benjamin
e-mail: [email protected]
G. Segev
e-mail: [email protected]
123
J Bus Ethics
DOI 10.1007/s10551-014-2213-9
The first is between the service purchaser and the service
provider, which mismatch has been already been explored
(Malloy and Agarwal 2010). The second is between man-
agers at differing levels of the purchasing organization,
which mismatch has received little attention. Nevertheless,
values held by managers in varying hierarchical positions
were found to be crucial to understanding corporate social
responsibility (Hemingway 2005).
The mismatch on which we focus herein concerns the
ethical dissonance faced by low- to mid-level managers in
charge of supervising service provision. We investigate the
conditions under which such role dissonance results in
greater CSR. We use Nielsen’s (1987) somewhat pessi-
mistic view as a point of departure for examining low- to
mid-level managers’ actions when faced with implement-
ing policies dictated by upper management’s decisions
made on the basis of differing values (McConville 2006).
In contrast to Nielsen’s implied suggestion that only upper
management can actually act against unethical management
decisions, we set out to investigate empirically whether cases
wherein low- to mid-level managers increase their range of
possible actions in favor of contractors’ employees and
transform the purchasing organization’s CSR practices.
Several sub-queries follow from our research question: with
regards to which upper management guideline(s) do main-
tenance managers in charge of contract management expe-
rience role dissonance related to the service provider’s
employment practices? What ways of action are open to the
manager experiencing role dissonance in this context?
Which among the manager’s possible actions leads to con-
fined role dissonance and with what effect on the organiza-
tional CSR? And which to magnified role dissonance and
how does organizational CSR respond thereto?
In what follows, we review the literature on role dis-
sonance and ethical orientation mismatches to establish the
relations between them and their implications for CSR. We
then review how CSR has evolved to incorporate the issue
of workers’ rights. Finally, we survey the history of public
procurement in Israel and its specific nature in the area of
cleaning, where, as elsewhere (Herod and Aguiar 2006),
cost-effectiveness has become a driver for implicit insti-
tutional encouragement to violate workers’ rights.
Managers’ Role Dissonance
The emergence of the notion of role dissonance is attributed
to the overall trend followed by many organizations to stress
economic success over values held by traditional managers
that emphasize interpersonal commitment. Following Fest-
inger’s (1957) understanding of the moral dilemma arising
from the gap between attitudes and practices, McConville
(2006) used role dissonance to cover a range of tensions
experienced by low- to mid-level managers including role
conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload. Role dissonance
is the tension resulting from low- to mid-level managers’
inability to cooperate with their superiors’ directives.
Already in the early days of analyses focused on busi-
ness ethics, the possibility that low- to mid-level managers
do not share upper management’s ethical perspective was
raised. These analyses attempted to present the options for
action and influence for resolving this dissonance. Nielsen
(1987) named ten such options, concluding that only one
among them, ‘‘Negotiate and build consensus for a change
in the unethical behavior’’ can effectively change an
organization’s policy. To illustrate this option, Nielsen
described a manager experiencing role dissonance, namely
a gap between his firm’s intention to close down a mill and
his own values oriented to protecting the community
dependent on the mill. The manager managed to cancel the
closure. Nielsen (1987) explained that the manager’s suc-
cess was the outcome of recognizing the benevolence of
other parties while working toward a win–win solution.
Under what conditions can such solutions be relevant for
enhanced corporate social responsibility in the context of
subcontracted services in the public sector?
In applying the notion of role dissonance to the specific
field of public procurement, wherein a contract is signed
between a purchasing organization and a service provider,
low- to mid-level managers may face a dual ethical mis-
match: a mismatch between their organization and its
service providers; and a mismatch between themselves and
their superiors. The latter may address how the former
should be treated: ignored or sanctioned? Namely, the role
dissonance experienced by low- to mid-level managers in
the context of service procurement involves the extent to
which they share their superiors’ views regarding how (or
indeed whether) the service provider’s ethical practices
should be addressed.
The service procurement contract is often signed by
upper-level managers who undertake to optimize values,
including political accountability, cost-efficiency, and
parity of treatment (Brown et al. 2006), all of which tend to
ignore the level of ethics practiced by the service provider.
However, low- to mid-level managers, in charge of the
actual daily routine of the contract’s management, may
wish to make ethically based decisions that entail sanc-
tioning the service provider. The low- to mid-level man-
ager who actually sees where ethical expansions are
required and can practically consider their implementation
faces role dissonance as a representative of the purchasing
organization. Specifically, we looked at the ways in which
low- to mid-level managers react to role dissonance typical
of service procurement. This dissonance occurs when they
encounter situations wherein their own professional per-
ception of their role clashes with the provisions of the
O. Benjamin et al.
123
service procurement contract. Because the contract was
signed by upper-echelon managers, their own view of their
level of involvement in contract employees’ health, safety,
and welfare is neutralized or disregarded (Trevino 1986),
even if formally acknowledged by the service provider.
To illustrate this point, take for instance the dissonance
experienced by a maintenance manager who as part of his
daily routine witnesses incidents wherein cleaning employ-
ees, not employed by his own organization and not under his
direct purview, experience workplace bullying. Hoel and
Beale (2006) described the role of a third party in situations
wherein those exposed to workplace bullying are often left to
face the situation on their own as individuals. Even if vio-
lations of workers’ rights cannot be fully equated to work-
place bullying, in an era wherein cleaning employees are
rarely unionized, they are nevertheless often left to fend for
themselves when facing violations of their rights. Research
on workplace bullying strongly suggests that a third-party
intervention at an early stage in the process by personnel who
witnessed the bullying, preferably together with a collective
response, may be the most effective means of combating
bullying behavior (Beale and Hoel 2011).
In other words, the maintenance manager is a witness; his
intervention has the power to halt violations of cleaning
employees’ rights. However, the legal nature of the contract
between his organization and the cleaning subcontractor
explicitly prevents him from acting on the evidence. His
organization expects him to make sure that the contract is
being properly executed in terms of the quality of the delivered
service, rather than allowing him to act on his own values.
Under such circumstances, it can be argued that public
sector low- to mid-level managers, who consider them-
selves professionals, experience role dissonance (McCon-
ville 2006) as they observe their organizations moving
away from the public service ethos, once having upheld
workers’ rights, being overridden by commercial interests.
Herein, we seek to understand this role dissonance for low-
to mid-level managers who are indirectly in charge of
outsourced employees. This role dissonance may be par-
ticularly acute in the context of the outsourcing of cleaning
services, as ignoring cleaning employees’ rights, has
become particularly easy for most organizations (Nisim
and Benjamin 2010).
Contract Management
The 1980s and 1990s saw widespread efforts to downsize
public sectors in OECD countries and other middle- and
low-income countries, including Israel. This relative con-
vergence in policymaking around the world reinforced the
emergence of a ‘‘contract state,’’ wherein procurement
departments are in charge of (often compulsory)
contracting out of state operations and services. Conse-
quently, growth was characterized by privatized service
delivery (Rhodes 2006; Sassen 2006). While the process is
often linked to the ‘‘economic value added,’’ ‘‘best value,’’
or ‘‘financialization’’ doctrine (Grimshaw et al. 2005, p. 7),
state agencies’ ability to benefit from outsourcing depends
on their administrators’ expertise in monitoring the service
provision contract. In Britain, it was found that government
agencies often failed to act as ‘‘smart clients’’ to the extent
that an official report concluded that the public sector lacks
the basic coordination to measure the true costs of pro-
curement transactions (ibid, 277).
In the USA, Schwartz (2011) showed how procurement
policies had the cumulative effect of significantly weak-
ening federal functioning as the consequence of two fea-
tures (out of six): (5) long-term dynamics of public
procurement that make it difficult to ‘‘achieve a long-term
equilibrium between over-regulation and under-regulation’’
(p. 809) of contracts; and (6) the compromising of public
values of transparency, competition, and accountability
occurs when procurement procedures become varied and
complex. Romzek (2011) also emphasized the delay in
developing contracting control models despite already-
excessive governmental engagement with contracting out.
She explained that one problem with contract management
is the lack of agreement between the contracting organi-
zation and the supplier concerning performance goals: The
public agency aims at maximizing its outcomes, while the
service provider is compelled to maximize its profitability.
This tension in turn raises the issue of the nature of a
required relationship between public sector representatives
and the contracted service supplier, which becomes par-
ticularly charged in attempts to shift risks to the supplier
(Romzek 2011). However, the model introduced by Rom-
zek for measuring contract implementation/management
effectiveness and other models in the field (Warner and
Hefetz 2004; Brown et al. 2006) share the notion of a total
absence of workers’ wage and legal protection. Thus, it can
be argued that the field of procurement contract manage-
ment reflects client control over the contract and remains
indifferent to the rights of subcontractors’ employees. The
latter represents an intriguing case for contract manage-
ment over time, which has the potential to manifest in the
quality of the service and employment practices.
The quality of service provided by the cleaning firm
may be related to the management of how the cleaning firm
employs its personnel. In the case of service quality, the
low- to mid-level maintenance manager has a detailed
contract that can be used for evaluating the quality of the
service. As the quality of the service is an agreed-upon
criterion for contract execution, the maintenance manager
can expect the organization’s full support for his manage-
ment of the contract over time. Yet regarding the quality of
Cleaning Services Procurement in Israel
123
employment for the subcontractors’ employees, no support
can be assumed. This is because, in the specific context of
public procurement, upper-level managers may favor
managing contracting out in ways that show reports of
budget reductions, over the upholding of core labor rights.
Such preference may emerge as a response to the organi-
zation’s dependency on public budgets. At the same time, it
cannot be legitimized by any CSR code, as may occa-
sionally occur in for-profit organizations (Compa 2008).
Identifying the ways in which maintenance managers can
resolve the role dissonance that emerges when their views
concerning the contractors’ employees are not supported
will shed light on which of Nielsen’s (1987) ten options is
relevant to this specific role dissonance.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Workers’ Rights
Wood (1991) showed that the development and implemen-
tation of socially responsive programs and policies depends
on the organizational culture, prompting researchers to
inquire under what conditions organizations and their
administrations define workers’ protection as an area calling
for social responsiveness. While it is possible that an orga-
nizational culture of self-regulation would facilitate concern
for employees who are employed by subcontractors
(O’Rourke 2003), would it be correct to assume that there is a
general consensus within firms concerning the level of
control that should be exerted over this work? Do all the
departments have similar performance goals for the out-
sourcing contract and the nature of the relationship with the
service provider? If this issue depends on ethical commit-
ment, consensus could be dependent on the extent to which
various departments are involved in the contracted work.
Wood (1991) contended that an organization’s social
objectives are not met by ‘‘some abstract organizational
actor,’’ suggesting that we need a better understanding of
CSR and the role of individual managers in extending their
organizations’ commitment to engage therein.
In Carroll’s (1991) model of business ethics, ethical
responsibilities are defined as expansions of legal responsi-
bilities and cover activities and practices that are not codified
in law. Ethical responsibilities are based on norms, values,
standards, and expectations of the businesses community to
adhere to fair, just, and moral practices in their business
operations. In Carroll’s (1991) original model of CSR, ethical
responsibilities are supported by three additional realms of
responsibility: economic, legal, and philanthropic responsi-
bility. Later on (1999), Carroll renamed the philanthropic
domain ‘‘discretionary,’’ emphasizing its idiosyncratic nature.
Importantly, research found that public sector organi-
zations confine their CSR to the economic and legal
domains, as donations necessary for the discretionary
aspect consisting of philanthropic endeavors are prohibited
in public budgets (Snider et al. 2013). CSR’s ethical
dimension, which encourages organizations to undertake
expansion of their activities beyond legal requirements, is
never mentioned by Carroll (1991, 1999) to include treat-
ment of employees, despite his awareness of earlier defi-
nitions of CSR that explicitly included commitment to
employees (McGuire 1963; Jones 1980; CED 1971 cf
Carroll 1999). This is important, as Carroll’s understanding
appears to be consensual; the topics viewed by managers as
important for research on CSR do not include workers’
rights (Carroll 1999, p. 291).
An interesting explanation of the slow pace at which
workers’ rights were incorporated into CSR models is
suggested by Matten and Moon’s (2008) distinction
between explicit and implicit ways of increasing CSR.
Comparing various institutional histories enabled these
authors to argue that in countries wherein historically, labor
market institutions have protected workers’ rights, such as
European countries, individual corporations felt no need to
explicitly declare their responsibility for this aspect, as it
was institutionally regulated. Carroll (1999) also hints at
this type of explanation when stating that the CED included
the issue of workers’ rights in 1971 as a response to the
1960s and 1970s trend of demanding government regula-
tion over this and other matters (p. 275).
In this way, Carroll’s combination of CSR dimensions
falls short of the second dimension of the EU CSR model
according to which the socially responsible business ‘‘cares
about the health, safety, and general well-being of
employees and customers’’ (Lepoutre and Heene 2006,
p. 259). This shortcoming is particularly significant at a
time of surge in the development of ethical codes in diverse
areas: sexual harassment, ethnic/racial diversity, and
workplace bullying. The deterioration of labor market
institutions previously promoting implicit CSR (Matten
and Moon 2008) exposed individual contracting of
employment to violations (Stone 2013). Therefore, implicit
institutional arrangement cannot be relied upon. Against
this process, explicit CSR codes have the potential to
become a more significant apparatus. Shouldering this
potential, such codes may buttress the qualities set forth by
the EU model (Lepoutre and Heene 2006).
With regard to the global south and the possibilities of
off shoring and exploitative employment conditions typical
to export processing zones, Matten and Moon (2008)
argued that more explicit efforts toward CSR are required.
And indeed, as shown by Compa (2008), for these areas,
CSR has become an effective instrument. The mobilization
of quite a few international organizations concerned with
workers’ rights has facilitated the possibility of using CSR
codes to improve employment conditions for low-wage
workers.
O. Benjamin et al.
123
At the same time, Compa’s discussion exposes the
weakness of CSR in the context of non-unionization. Once
union representatives are not involved in ways that allow
them to protect workers’ rights, as is often the case in the
context of services procurement, the organization claiming
CSR can be perceived as ‘‘the fox monitoring the henhouse’’
(Compa 2008, p. 4). Moreover, some scholars further expose
the limits of CSR in the area of workers’ rights by arguing
that no firm can be held responsible for another’s ethical
violations, even if we expect powerful firms to demonstrate
high moral standards regarding employees’ rights (Amaeshi
et al. 2008). This is precisely where ethical commitment of
the type we call ‘‘interpersonal root dimension’’ (Nisim and
Benjamin 2008) may become significant in changing the
client organization’s practices.
Yet according to McCrudden (2006), the attempt to link
together public procurement, CSR, and workers’ rights
dates back to the early twentieth century, when already,
‘‘appropriate conditions of labor had been considered from
an international perspective’’ (p. 3). Thus, the globalization
of supply chains raised the question of whether workers’
rights-related legislation is ever enforced, which in turn has
pushed consumer pressure to center stage. This point is
crucial once the discussion turns to public procurement, as
public sector organizations do not depend on consumers,
and consumer pressure accordingly rarely arises (univer-
sities being an exception). Yet in the absence of consumers,
who pressures a client organization to endorse the ‘‘inter-
personal root dimension’’ of ethical conduct?
Indeed, in the absence of consumer pressure, sufficient
methods of implementing workers’ rights through ethical
codes remain rare for both the public and private sectors,
other than in cases of vast international mobilization as
described by Compa (2008). This is because social and
legal systems that promote effective enforcement are nec-
essary to ensure that those who toil at the low end of the
labor market are not exposed to violations of their basic
legal protections, particularly when their labor is outsour-
ced. The implementation of these social procedures con-
stitutes a significant challenge as long as competitive
capital and the product market continue to exert significant
pressure on firms to keep labor costs down (Estlund 2005).
Frederick (1994) argued that corporate social respon-
siveness is ‘‘the capacity of a corporation to respond to
social pressures’’ (p. 154); and McCrudden (2006) and
Compa (2008) showed that public pressure for better pro-
tection of workers’ rights might facilitate CSR as a good
substitute for what in the supply chain context is the role of
consumers. However, in the absence of the consumer ele-
ment from public procurement, mid- to low-level manag-
ers’ professional attitudes become a possible source of
ethical action. However, we do not know what ways of
actions are open to the manager experiencing role
dissonance and whether any of the actions described by
Nielsen (1987) is relevant to their situations.
We therefore need an empirically based investigation in
order to better understand which action leads to confined
role dissonance and with what effect on the organizational
CSR and which leads to magnified role dissonance and
how the organizational CSR responds thereto. For this
purpose, we developed our research question as follows:
with regards to which upper management’s directive(s) do
maintenance managers in charge of contract management
experience role dissonance related to the service provider’s
employment practices? And once role dissonance is cre-
ated, is CSR influenced thereby? If so, how? We present
below the Israeli context and the specific empirical inves-
tigation that we conducted for the purpose of responding to
these questions.
The History of Public Procurement in the Israeli
Context
Matten and Moon (2008) presented a theoretical argument
on how corporate social responsibility reflects the historical
institutions of their national business systems. In Israel, this
argument is particularly relevant, as unions were able to
sustain wage levels and secure protected employment
conditions for unskilled employees until the early 1980s
(Gal-Nur et al. 1999; Shalev 1984). Bernstein (1986)
showed that unions were instrumental in slowing down the
entry of cleaning subcontractors into the public sector, a
process that eventually led to the replacement of unionized
public sector cleaning employees. With the collapse of
union power since then, the Israeli labor market has seen
the emergence of a vast range of ‘‘McJobs’’ (Ram 2007).
The term ‘‘McJob’’ refers to jobs, usually in the retail,
caring or service sector. Such jobs tend to be temporary
and characterized by a low hourly wage, high turnover, and
a low level of recognized skill. Moreover, such jobs offer
neither union protection and benefits nor opportunity for
promotion (Ram 2007, p. 127). Those employed in McJobs
are rarely protected by the highly developed Israeli labor
laws that include the Hours of Work and Rest Act (1951),
the Annual Leave Act (1951), the Wage Protection Act
(1958), the Foundation of the Labor Courts Act (1969), and
such laws as the Sick Pay Act (1976) and the Minimum
Wage Act (1987). More recent legislation has been enacted
to guarantee basic protection of labor rights as in the
Advanced Notice of Discharge and Resignation Act (2001)
and the Notice of Basic Employment Terms Act (2002).
Labor law experts have argued that the earlier legislation
was supported by powerful unions, whereas the most
recent legislation reflects the unions’ current weakness
(Mundlak 2007). In 1981, collective agreements covered
Cleaning Services Procurement in Israel
123
about 85 % of all employees, but this figure dropped to
33 % by 2009 (Cohen et al. 2010). The Israeli labor mar-
ket has recently been categorized as liberal (Batt et al.
2009).
In the early 1980s, monetary liberalization, high rates of
unemployment, and hyperinflation (384 % between 1983
and 1985) triggered a political–economic crisis in Israel
that led to a historical turning point, primarily due to the
involvement of exogenous forces. Maman and Rosenhek
(2007) stated that the Finance Ministry ‘‘was losing its
control over fiscal policy’’ (p. 14). They analyzed a series
of developments that were publicly viewed as responses to
the crisis. Among these were the Reagan administration’s
demand for reform (in 1982); the emergence of a group of
professional economists, both local and foreign, whose
theoretical models shaped Finance Ministry decisions
(from 1982 onward); legislation rendering the central bank
independent (1985); a stabilization reform (1985); and
finally the reinforced power of the Finance Ministry’s top
administrators in negotiations with unions as well as with
other state agencies.
In 1992, Israel consolidated its WTO membership by
accepting the Compulsory Tender Act, the local form of
the GATT government procurement code signed by Israel
in 1983. The 1992 legislation was quickly followed by re-
regulation in the form of a soft law providing guidelines for
tenders issued by the Finance Ministry Accountant Gen-
eral. These guidelines consisted of three main components:
the redefinition of work as service, namely tendering a
quantified unit of service (e.g., cleaned square meters)
while ignoring the employees producing the cleaned square
meters; the favoring of bids with the lowest price in labor-
intensive services (which meant that loss tenders, namely
those in which costs do not cover workers’ rights unless the
subcontractor remains in loss, were encouraged); and
contractual penalties for cases wherein the subcontractor
fails to provide any part of the service [subcontractors tend
to palm these fines off on their employees (Golan 2010)].
Through its budgeting policies, the Finance Ministry
introduced the requirement that tenders should be used for
all possible operations.
Outsourcing, in particular, became a dominant step in
fulfilling one of the imperatives of the 1985 stabilization
reform: a compulsory annual 2 % reduction in the per-
sonnel of each public sector organization (Raday 2004).
Moreover, the tender-related decisions began to be made in
each ministry’s tender committee, chaired by the ministry’s
head accountant, who received training and guidance from
the Accountant General’s Bureau at the Finance Ministry.
At the same time, no tender-related decisions could be
approved and acted upon before they were confirmed by
the Accountant General. Importantly, intense public criti-
cism pressed for setting threshold conditions such that
since 2007, the previously common practice of loss tenders
has been significantly limited.
Methodology
Studying maintenance managers’ accounts using qualita-
tive methods, we aimed to elucidate the ways in which they
deal with the role dissonance created by the fact that they
are expected to ignore violations of workers’ rights despite
the fact that some of them experience this expectation as
contradicting their professional ethics. The systematic
analysis of these accounts led us to the theoretical possi-
bility that their role dissonance has the power to shape CSR
in the context of public procurement. Thus, we developed a
set of sub-queries, including: facing which upper man-
agement’s directive do maintenance managers in charge of
contract management experience role dissonance related to
the service provider’s employment practices? What actions
are open to the manager experiencing such role disso-
nance? Which among the actions lead(s) to confined role
dissonance and with what effect on the organizational
CSR; and which lead(s) to magnified role dissonance and
how does the organizational CSR respond thereto?
Research Design
Several studies have already outlined the advantage of
qualitative approaches in eliciting substantial data (Brand
and Slater 2003). Various studies in the area of business
ethics have particularly outlined the advantages of semi-
structured interviews in extracting information regarding
various decision-making processes being studied (Pedigo
and Marshall 2009). In particular, semi-structured inter-
views provide a way to maintain a flexible conversation
with interviewees, allowing inductive categories and local
language to emerge in the interaction (Warren 2002).
Participants
The third author interviewed 13 maintenance managers
employed by various public sector organizations over the
course of 2011–2012. These interviews were conducted
during a time of relatively heightened public visibility of
cleaning employees’ rights, which meant that many
maintenance managers preferred not to be interviewed.
Those who agreed were mainly approached through
snowballing, but the process as a whole involved many
refusals. Altogether, we approached 29 maintenance man-
agers, three of whom agreed to participate in the study, but
later on withdrew. Ten of the interviewees were male and
O. Benjamin et al.
123
three female, reflecting the relatively rarity of women in
these organizational positions. All of the participants had a
minimum of 10 years experience in maintenance man-
agement and therefore were a significant source of
knowledge in the field. The interviewees had a variety of
managerial work experience, but none in cleaning.
The Interview
The interviews covered various areas, including the man-
agers’ involvement in drafting the tender, selecting the
winning bid, and managing the contract from the stand-
point of the quality of the service procured. The interviews
also focused on contract management from the standpoint
of workers’ paychecks, pension payments, and other ben-
efits. The interviews were conducted face to face at their
offices and lasted between 50 and 90 min. All the inter-
views were recorded and then fully transcribed for analysis.
Data Analysis
For the analysis, we used Charmaz’s (2006) guidelines for
grounded theory analysis, which consist of repeated read-
ings and systematical theme extraction. The relationship
with upper-echelon management emerged as an important
theme, and the subjective meanings reflected therein
improved our ability to trace managers’ dissonance.
Findings
We turn now to the assumption that maintenance managers
may become part of a set of social processes that shape
their views on social responsiveness toward the subcon-
tractors’ employees, even if other managers in the orga-
nization refuse to embrace such responsiveness. We
examine the Israeli public sector’s managerial concern that
no employer–employee relationship with subcontracted
employees should be recognized (Benjamin and Goclaw
2005). The determination to avoid any possible identifi-
cation as ‘‘the employer’’ (Glynn 2011) may lead to null
control over employment conditions.
Control covers cases wherein employment conditions
are viewed as an aspect of the contract’s management.
Under managerial insistence that in no case should the
employer–employee relationship become a basis for a legal
suit, it is intriguing to ask whether individual managers
may develop social responsiveness toward the subcon-
tracted employees that would contradict their organiza-
tions’ official position?
We begin by presenting the type of professional attitude
presented by experienced maintenance managers; then we
discuss the relationship between upper management and
our interviewees. We highlight the role of the no
employer–employee relations directive. We then describe
two different solutions that managers have found for their
dissonance: that of postponing involvement to just after the
contract ends and the case wherein managers simply
abandon the issue and focus on the quality of service alone.
Maintenance Managers’ Professional Attitudes
As professional managers in the field of maintenance, the
interviewees tried to convey an image of themselves as
adhering to the highest standards of organizational clean-
liness as part of general maintenance. They communicated
their attitudes that better productivity can be achieved with
employees whose rights are well protected:
In fact I don’t have to look in the reports. The
employees show me their paychecks, and I look to
see that everything is fine and I ask them, ‘Is every-
thing ok? Did you get paid?’ Because, you know, if
an employee does not get his salary properly, it will
affect the work immediately.
(Z., public agency)
Taking an interest in the employees’ paychecks was
presented as a means to improving cleaning standards: The
interviewee believes that there is a direct relationship
between the two. The idea that a professional manager is
responsible for workers’ rights is reflected in the account of
the manager’s role even as the contract is being drafted:
I know all the tricks; I’ve already encountered all the
types of tricks possible. For example, they don’t pay
for breaks; they have all kinds of methods of stealing
from these poor workers, so they try… because they
quote very low prices on these tenders and they also
have to survive. They tried one method of stealing
from the employees but we prevented it, and then
they tried to use cheaper cleaning compounds, so we
keep an eye on them.
(S., institute of higher education)
The interviewee has already accumulated crucial expe-
rience in his negotiations with cleaning subcontractors. He
understands the nature of the conundrum facing cleaning
subcontractors who have to make a living and how out-
sourcing of cleaning exposes the cleaning employees to
‘‘all possible tricks.’’ He emphasizes his familiarity with
the ‘‘tricks of the trade’’; he also apparently understands the
relationship between the quality of the service component
of his regulatory position and the quality of the employ-
ment component and realizes that if a trick does not work
in one area, it will proliferate in other dimensions such as
employees’ breaks or the cleaning compounds used, one of
Cleaning Services Procurement in Israel
123
which contract clauses must ensure that the subcontractor
makes a profit.
The Relationship Between Upper-Echelon Management
and Middle Managers
The maintenance middle managers we interviewed tended
to actively participate in all stages of the process of con-
tracting out. It is they who write up the preliminary drafts
that list the organizational requirements for the service;
they publish the tender and notify interested cleaning firms;
they serve on the tender committee and share their
knowledge and familiarity with the specific competing
firms; and after the committee selects the winning bid, the
maintenance manager oversees the contract management
on a daily basis.
The power relations between upper-echelon manage-
ment and the middle maintenance manager manifest in how
the winning bid is selected. Whereas upper management
prioritizes low-cost bids and has the power to impose a
winning bid on the maintenance manager, the maintenance
manager will try to circumvent this using his own power
resources, which include his familiarity with the field and
his choices in drafting the tender requirements. The same
elements serve as his power resources in his ongoing
relationship with the winning bidder:
There are professional requirements, safety require-
ments, and there are work processes; I define precisely
what I want the work processes to be. The workers
arrive at half past six in the morning, clock in, report
to my representative, and start working until half past
eight. At half past eight, they’re allowed to have a
break. All these things are put in writing as a routine
process, and I dictate how to clean. For example, we
require the work to be done with certain cleaning
compounds, and at a given frequency that we decide
on in our detailed specifications of the tasks. I also
specify the nature of the supervision and the follow up
by the contractor, so that he realizes that I will be
checking, [and] if he doesn’t fulfill the requirements,
he is subject to fines or penalties.
(Y., public agency)
Brown et al. (2006) presented drafting contract specifi-
cations as a highly professional task. Here, however, the
highly professional level of the specifications takes on
additional meanings. What can be read as a power position
used by the interviewee in his negotiations with the sub-
contractor is indirectly a positioning process vis-a-vis
upper management. Professional and power positioning
occurs in three ways: The first is that the higher the cost of
the service, the more important the manager’s role
becomes in taking responsibility for the organization’s
resources. The second is that the more detailed the speci-
fications, the more professional and rational the manager
appears. Third, and most importantly, as an experienced
player, the manager already knows that the subcontractors
whose low-cost bids are appealing to upper management
cannot meet the specific requirements. All three ways of
power positioning emphasize the extent to which the
maintenance managers’ are motivated to identify with the
attitude linking together the quality of service with the
quality of employment. The role dissonance is intensified
in this way by the manager’s power positioning.
Upper Management’s Directive of No Employer–
Employee Relations
The previous quotes illustrate the professional positioning
of maintenance managers regarding the quality of
employment and the quality of the service. However, upper
management tends to be dissatisfied that the quality of
employment is also part of the regulative power of the
maintenance managers’ long-term management of the
contract. The following excerpt summarizes the message
conveyed to maintenance managers:
Guys, do not develop ties; do not get too attached; it’s
very important. We are not allowed to write down
their [the employees’] names, get their signatures, or
put their names in phone directories. We are expected
to try to avoid forming any relationship with them
because the labor courts can then define our organi-
zation as the liable employer if they find the rela-
tionship was too close.
(P., public agency)
The cynical quote warning managers not to get too close
suggests that the maintenance manager rejects upper
management’s directive as impossible to uphold or incon-
sistent with his professional position or ability to demand
appropriate levels of cleaning. As was seen in the previous
sections, maintenance managers believe that the level of
cleaning does require direct interactions with the employ-
ees and even taking active interest in their employment
conditions. In this context, the neoliberal managerial
preference of avoiding legal liability appears to contradict
all the professional standards of contract execution
described by the interviewee. Other interviewees explained
how the directive to retain a distance between themselves
and the subcontractors’ employees became anchored in two
routine practices:
They did it; they defined it in the tender by [an area
of] square meters, in order to keep the relationship
O. Benjamin et al.
123
between the workplace and the employees to a min-
imum. Then they also described the contractor as
providing ‘a service’ rather than ‘work’. Everything
has to be completely separated from the workplace.
One of the ways to make this practice legal is to pay
the subcontractor by cleaned square meters and not
by the hours worked, because hours give the
impression that perhaps she works for the company,
and this way she is defined as a service provider and
she cleans square meters. This is something we are
legally compelled to do.
(T., public agency)
The definition of square meters without any reference to
work renders issues related to employment or labor laws
irrelevant. The second practice engaged to generate dis-
tance between the maintenance manager and the cleaning
employees is to deny the employer–employee relationship
by insisting that all communications go through the
supervisor appointed by the cleaning subcontractor.
You have to pay attention to the subtleties. I’m
walking a tightrope here in terms of the employer-
employee relationship, and I cannot slip and forget
it… so officially, all my conversations with the
employees here are with the representative, with the
main supervisor; a worker does not come into my
office and tell me, ‘Listen, I have a problem…’ She’s
not allowed to do that. She has to approach the main
supervisor who represents the firm that employs her’’.
(K., hospital)
The maintenance manager is not allowed to be involved
in daily interactions wherein he actually sees the employees
and gets to know their problems and witnesses the diverse
ways in which their employers’ illegal practices violate
their rights. To avoid creating situations wherein the orga-
nization could become legally liable due to regular inter-
action between the maintenance manager and the
subcontracted employees, the employees are legally defined
as not part of the service delivery process (but rather, their
‘‘product’’—cleaned square meters—is), and a supervisor
relays messages relating to the quality of the service.
Thus maintenance managers face a contradictory daily
routine: While adhering to their professional standards,
they accumulate information that could interfere with their
organization’s legal interests as defined by the neoliberal
policy of outsourcing. In the following case, the mainte-
nance manager refuses to accept upper management’s
requirement for separation and indifference toward the
employees and presents his role dissonance in an extreme
form:
I’m their manager, but in fact I’m not really their
manager, but actually it is as if I’m their manager. It’s
better for me if they have some kind of connection to
the place; I feel they are my employees and not the
contractor’s, and this is also how it comes out.
Nothing would help, because who stays with them is
me and who works with them is me. Where’s the
contractor? Even his supervisor, who works with me,
as if she’s managed the work, I would not go and tell
her to tell them to do this and that. We work together
and part of the time I am in direct contact with the
workers, though it is forbidden; I am not supposed to
be in direct contact with them; [yet] nothing can stop
me; I am in direct contact with them.
(A., public agency)
This maintenance manager states that his involvement in
accomplishing his daily routine means more to him than
does upper management’s directives. His professional
stance is at stake and his professional understanding is that
he will get a better quality of service if he remains involved
with the subcontractors’ employees and provides them with
a connection to the workplace. He insists on his profes-
sional stance being more closely related to the type of tasks
that he has to achieve and that the legal requirements
relating to separation and generating distance harm his
professional position. Yet when it comes to actually acting
upon the information that managers collect as part of their
daily interactions with employees, particularly in instances
where organizational cooperation is required, alternative
ways of action have to be found. Two forms of response to
role dissonance emerged in the analyzed material. The two
following sections describe these, starting with the case of
confined dissonance and then a case of a magnified
dissonance.
Confined Role Dissonance
In this type of response, which we view as the one coming
closest to Nielsen’s (2008) tenth strategy of consensus
building, maintenance managers try to elicit their organi-
zation’s cooperation in various departments, including the
legal department:
It’s hard, because the employees walk around scared
all their lives, and do not want to say how the con-
tractor has deceived them… On the other hand, I am
not allowed to talk to them; I ask the supervisor, who
was also tricked by the contractor, and try to get the
answers, basically the legal department of the com-
pany can and should receive information to check on
the terms of employment of the employees. I’m try-
ing to make sure this works… I pass on the infor-
mation I collect to our Legal Department, for
example, that the subcontractor did not pay for
Cleaning Services Procurement in Israel
123
clothing as detailed in the contract specifications. I
am the liaison with the Legal Department, and it is
supposed to sue the contractor.
(S., institute of higher education)
Despite the efforts on the part of upper management to
maintain the separation between employer and employee,
this maintenance manager is determined to voice his pro-
fessional concern, which also enhances his power position
vis-a-vis the cleaning subcontractor and the rest of man-
agement. He finds a way to express his responsibility and
calls upon his organization to expand its social responsi-
bility as demonstrated in the interpersonal dimension (Ni-
sim and Benjamin 2008). Building consensus with the legal
department, the interviewee is able to recognize the
benevolence of legal experts and eliminate the unethical
behavior by sanctioning the subcontractor for not securing
all his workers’ rights. The workers in this case benefited
from the consensus, and CSR was enhanced.
It is unclear from the data whether the organization
could benefit from this achievement and whether the CSR
code was changed to include concern for workers’ rights.
Thus, the interpersonal dimension of CSR as acted upon in
the described case is a form of another implicit aspect of
CSR: not that located in the institutional context, but rather
one practiced without being explicitly stated.
Magnified Role Dissonance
In the second type of response to role dissonance, main-
tenance managers do not benefit from cooperation from the
firm. The managerial stance is very strict and compels the
interviewee to use her own resources. Before the contract
ends, he can only conscientiously object (Nielsen 1987). In
real time, he is left with nothing other than planning action
for after the termination of the contract:
I compelled previous contractors to follow the letter
of the law; they knew they’d better not mess with me.
We threatened them; we gave them the sense that
we’re strong and they’d better not step out of line.
Regarding our current contractor, I’m waiting for the
end of the tender to help the employees go to court
and sue the contractor, because today I don’t have my
superiors’ backing because they don’t want to deal
with these workers; it’s easier for them to not
supervise, which is why they hired a contractor in the
first place – so they can avoid dealing with the
workers.
(T., public agency)
For some maintenance managers, role dissonance is so
strong that they develop modes of ethical action that are
entirely external to the organization. In the past, when the
public gaze heightened the visibility of the cleaning
employees, this manager had the backing of upper man-
agement, but this is no longer the case and the organization
refuses to invest its resources in CSR on behalf of the
contractors’ employees. Whereas in the previous case,
organizations occasionally allowed the attitudinal gap
between managerial positions to enhance the organiza-
tions’ CSR, in this case, the organization is reluctant.
Under these circumstances, the maintenance manager feels
isolated and waits for the end of the contract to help file a
suit against the cleaning firm that violated the employees’
rights.
Discussion
The outsourcing of cleaning as a case of public procure-
ment raises a particular challenge for researchers of cor-
porate social responsibility who are interested in the
potential impact of CSR on workers’ rights. The specific
challenge is in identifying the conditions under which the
second dimension of the EU CSR model can become fea-
sible. Here, we set out to investigate one such potential
condition low- to mid-level managers’ role dissonance. The
examined case of role dissonance is one wherein mainte-
nance managers in charge of cleaning services’ contract
management hold values compatible with the EU CSR
model, according to which the socially responsible busi-
ness: ‘‘cares about the health, safety, and general well-
being of employees and customers’’ (Lepoutre and Heene
2006,p. 259). We emphasize the EU CSR model because of
its proximity to our own conceptualization of CSR (2008)
wherein we attempted to add a root dimension to Carroll’s
model that of interpersonal commitment. In the referred to
previous work, we argued that interpersonal commitment
must become a criterion for evaluating the economic, legal,
and discretionary dimensions in an organization’s CSR-
related activities.
Maintenance managers are in an organizational position
wherein their close ties to cleaning service delivery turns
their experiences into a rare opportunity to examine the
meaning of public procurement of services as related to
CSR. In this study, we framed our interest in their experi-
ences as a case of possible ethical mismatch between
managers at various hierarchical levels of the purchasing
organization. We chose this framing because this type of
mismatch has been documented in the area of corporate
social entrepreneurship and shown to be effective in
exploring organizations’ CSR (Hemingway 2005). Figure 1
illustrates our findings on the conditions required to
enhance the likelihood of a given organization’s CSR-
related activities.
O. Benjamin et al.
123
Setting forth our research questions, we asked: facing
which upper management-issued directive do maintenance
managers in charge of contract management experience
role dissonance related to the service provider’s employ-
ment practices? Our analysis showed that the directive
found most powerful in generating role dissonance is that
of avoiding the employer–employee relationship. When
maintenance managers remain in close contact with the
cleaning subcontractors’ employees and use the informa-
tion they glean to inform their legal departments of vio-
lations, this directive becomes a high hurdle to jump, and
the attitudinal mismatch becomes powerful. Upper man-
agement is often reluctant to engage in litigation against
the cleaning firm on behalf of the cleaning employees in
order to avoid employer–employee relations with them.
Under these circumstances, when upper management
refuses to back the maintenance manager, he remains
isolated.
We learn from McCrudden (2006) and Compa (2008) that
public pressure for workers’ rights might be important for
our model as a good substitute for what in the context of
supply chain is the role of consumers. And indeed, our in-
terviewees mentioned some willingness on the part of upper
managers and legal representatives to support sanctioning
the service provider when public pressure becomes visible.
However, as this pressure faded over time for some of the
organizations, upper management went back to its previous
practice of not supporting the maintenance managers.
This aspect of the analysis is particularly important for
situating our findings in the Israeli context. In the context
of lack of union power and the consequent rise of the
McJob phenomenon, Israeli society’s specific historical
path is reflected in two ways: On the one hand, it is
reflected in the relatively impressive body of labor laws
and collective bargaining agreements. Alas, this body has
become irrelevant for those employed through public pro-
curement contracts, as the lack of union power and high
turnover meant that these employees cannot realistically
seek court protection. On the other hand, history is
reflected through low- and mid-managers’ professional
positions including many years of tenure, during which
they have witnessed varying treatment of employees.
Against this background, heightened role dissonance can
be expected to emerge in these managers’ accounts as
motivating them to organizational action. Thus, the specific
Israeli context enabled us to validate earlier accounts
emphasizing the salience of public pressure to CSR while
adding the significance of organization-specific dynamics.
At the entry point to our study, we did not know what ways
of actions are open to managers experiencing role dissonance
vis-a-vis the cleaning subcontractor’s employees. What we
found are two forms of subversive actions, both belonging to
dimension of CSR
workers’ rights protection
workers’ rights
Conscientious objection
Maintenance Manager’s
Role dissonance
Upper management’s directive of
avoiding the employer-employee
relationship
Maintenance Manager’s
professional attitudes
Confined
dissonance Magnified dissonance
Consensus building +
Public pressure for
Interpersonal
Public indifference to
Fig. 1 Role dissonance as shaping CSR
Cleaning Services Procurement in Israel
123
Nielsen’s (1987) suggested repertoire. One of them renders
CSR completely irrelevant to the maintenance manager’s
role dissonance. This is the conscientious objection mode of
action, which emerged as the only possibility, even for a
manager who had been better able to make an impact in
previous periods. The other clearly raises the potential of the
maintenance manager’s role dissonance to make an impact
on the organization’s CSR. This is the consensus-building
mode of action, wherein the manager insists on cooperating
with his legal department and acting as a catalyst for its
action.
CSR-related activities emerge in response to the man-
ager’s ethical insistence in such a way as to generate a new,
implicit mode of CSR, one that is not part of the institu-
tional context (Matten and Moon 2008), but rather occurs
on an interpersonal, organization-specific level. In our
study, it occurred when the consensus-building action
could rely on public pressure to have an effect on the legal
department, and thus, the role dissonance was confined.
It can be concluded that the enhanced CSR-related
activities in the sense of the interpersonal commitment
dimension emerged in response to the maintenance man-
ger’s consensus-building action. To articulate our finding
in more general terms, role dissonance may become crucial
for the enhancement of CSR under the condition of such
relationships between lower- to mid-level managers and
upper management that allow for creating a consensus that
eventually confines the dissonance.
Conclusions
Our findings contribute to the literature on low- to mid-level
managers’ role dissonance that emerges when they are
expected to implement policies dictated by upper manage-
ment’s decisions made on the basis of differing values
(McConville 2006). We found that our interviewees posi-
tioned themselves as highly professional managers who
strive for the highest possible standards of managerial skill in
their domain of responsibility. This type of positioning is
clearly aimed at reinforcing their power position vis-a-vis
upper managers, who may be more conscious of budgeting
constraints rather than seeing cleaning in its full significance.
Given the difficulties in collecting data in this grey area
of vague legal responsibility for workers’ rights, our
research design runs the risk of containing several limita-
tions, including the lack of triangulation of data, so that
findings are based solely on what the interviewees told one
interviewer. At the same time, the findings, particularly
interviewees’ reports of workers’ rights violations, are
consistent with several earlier reports in the area of
cleaning workers’ rights (e.g., Golan 2010). While our
small research sample is another limitation, we believe that
in the research area of borderline ethical issues, such a
sample size is typical.
More generally, our findings reinforce the need to
understand corporate social responsibility as a means of
protecting workers’ rights within a perspective of inter-
personal commitment. Such a perspective is crucial for the
development of specific CSR codes that can be applied to
public procurement. A perspective of interpersonal com-
mitment humanizes employees and is based on recognizing
the value of their skill, workplace-specific training, and
relationality (Duffy 2011) and therefore has the potential to
intensify public organizations’ motivation to endorse CSR
in their long-term relations with service providers.
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