Significance of Indigenous Perspectives on a Corporate Sustainability Team

Indigenous perspectives are consistently overlooked and underrepresented in the mainstream sustainability realm. The purpose of the project is to bring awareness to this inequality and show the importance of indigenous perspectives by providing holistic approaches that contribute to enhanced workplace participation.

Alang, T., Stanton, P., & Trau, R. N. (2020). Exploring indigenous employee voice practice: perspectives from Vietnamese public sector organizations. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 58(4), 555-577.

The study explored how the implementation of government policy with respect to Indigenous voice practice impacted the workplace participation of Indigenous employees in Vietnamese public sector organizations. Capturing the perspectives of managers and Indigenous employees in three public sector agencies. The findings showed that, while government policies had led to increased Indigenous workforce participation, there were a range of barriers at the organizational level that limited and undermined workplace participation. They consisted of; inconsistencies in the interpretation and implementation of policies at the organizational level due to reliance on the discretion of individual managers. Second, lack of awareness and commitment or even underlying racism of non-Indigenous managers which was exacerbated by inconsistency in direct employee voice practices. Third, trade unions played a minor role in integrating Indigenous voice with collective voice. These findings underline the inherent problem we seek to address, even when Indigenous perspectives are taken into account in order to create governmental policy, they still are often ignored and not truly addressed. If we are to truly achieve any sustainable practices in business this cannot occur, otherwise, Indigenous populations have no say in how sustainable development is actually developing.

Brown, N. A., Campbell, E., Johnstoni, D., McCracken, H., Bradley, S., Dray, S., & Neely, D. (2019). Wellington Resilience workshop: Creating shared ideas and meanings. Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, 23(2), 101-111.

This workshop, brought together members of disaster management organizations and academia, community members, and members of local and central government in a full day of learning and activities. The aim was co-creation of knowledge in defining cultural and community resilience as well as developing a shared understanding of how to integrate resilience programmes that are meaningful and appropriate for communities in Aotearoa New Zealand. The contribution of the workshop to the existing literature concerning the role of culture in disasters, beyond the co-creation model, included a need to emphasize cultural activities during disaster recovery, the value of improving collaboration between stakeholders such as iwi, hapū, and marae (parts of the indigenous Māori community) in disaster management planning, and the importance of understanding local motivations and needs within our communities when designing and building disaster resilience programmes. This works directly in line with our desire to include Indigenous voices in regard to sustainability. As Indigenous peoples are generally unequally the victim of natural disasters and changing climate it is essential to understand and recognize their views, ideas, and issues in order to create accurate and reliable sustainability plans. Specifically, these ideas could enhance a sustainability organization’s views and ideas on how to perform sustainably and to avoid segregating an important part of human society.

Chang, W. J., Hu, D. C., & Keliw, P. (2021). Organizational culture, organizational citizenship behavior, knowledge sharing and innovation: a study of indigenous people production organizations. Journal of Knowledge Management.

This paper is about a research study done in Taiwan that looks at the relationship between four variables in Indigenous peoples’ production organizations (IPPOs). The variables analyzed are organizational culture, organizational citizenship behavior, knowledge sharing, and organizational innovation. The paper defines each of these variables and explains the interconnectedness of these variables. This source will contribute to our understanding of organizational behavior. Specifically, the relationships between knowledge sharing and the other variables will demonstrate the importance of Indigenous voices within organizations.

Doucette, M., Gladstone, J. S., & Carter, T. (2021). Indigenous conversational approach to history and business education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, (ja)

“Indigenous Conversational Approach to History and Business Education” advocates for the integration of old indigenous knowledge into business academics, and is demonstrated by three different indigenous business scholars. Here indigenous scholars explore the intersection between indigenous resilience and business academia, while acknowledging the historic prejudice and persecution that has existed throughout colonial history and is still consistently perpetuated. Through a recount of their own experiences in business schools, these indigenous scholars share the importance of indigenous oral traditions, the history of indigenous, native and aboriginal presence in the business world, and understanding of business school teachings in the context of colonialism. This article greatly aids our topic by providing a greater understanding of colonial teachings that are deeply ingrained into mainstream western business teachings. This will help us understand why indigenous presence, with regards to corporate diversity, is rarely included in the business world.

Kwon, B., & Farndale, E. (2018, June 19). Employee voice viewed through a cross-cultural lens. Human Resource Management Review. (added after)

Linnenluecke, M. K., & Griffiths, A. (2010). Corporate sustainability and organizational culture. Journal of world business, 45(4), 357-366.

Overview of the Journal: This journal goes into detail of how sustainability was introduced into the world of Business and Organizations, it breaks down how companies think and manage through the Competing Values Framework (CVF) with both external and internal forces that can allow for change within an organization. The CVF shows how some companies that follow a more internal approach and don’t experiment with external features tend to, “become dysfunctional (Quinn, 1988).” The journal also states that companies with more flexibility tend to focus too much on external forces and lack any sort of internal OB structure. I found that this journal has ideas that relate to our topic of: Significance of the Indigenous perspective Diversity on a Corporate Sustainability Team through the idea that “in order to fully respond to environmental and social challenges, organizations will have to undergo significant cultural change and transformation (Post & Altman, 1994; Stead & Stead, 1992; Welford, 1995)”

Parsons, R. (2008). We are all stakeholders now: The influence of western discourses of “community engagement” in an Australian Aboriginal community. Critical perspectives on international business.

This source analyses the discourses of indigeneity and sustainability topics related to business. It challenges concepts behind terms such as “Indigenous,” “corporate social responsibility,” and “community engagement” by interviewing people with varying backgrounds. Our past experience and culture shape the way we perceive these concepts which causes them to be interpreted differently. The study done in this paper contrasts the views from the local Indigenous community and the company participants in the particular case study. This source will contribute to our project by opening our minds to other perspectives and it will serve as a reminder of our own bias shaped by our culture and experiences. It also provides insight into the perspective of Indigenous peoples toward sustainable business organizational strategies.

Politeknik NSC surabaya: Business Administration. Politeknik NSC Surabaya | Business Administration. (n.d.). (added after)

Schneider, A. B. S., Samkin, G., & Pitu, E. (2012). Incorporating indigenous values in corporate social responsibility reports.

This journal goes over the importance of community relations for a corporate business. It goes into detail about a company called the “Mighty River Power Company” who have annual CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) reports that are used by organizations to demonstrate how they are discharging their social responsibilities to various stakeholders. Mighty River Power Company, “provides an alternative perspective on CSR reporting by reviewing how the relationships with local environmental community groups and the Indigenous population is presented through the disclosures made in the annual reports.” For the MRPC (Mighty River Power Company) they must meet with local officials for resource consent because the Māori people have an ancestral system called Kaitiakitanga which means Guardianship and therefore they want to ensure that the company will act as a guardian over the resources. This Journal closely relates to our topic of: Significance of the Indigenous perspective Diversity on a Corporate Sustainability Team because it shows how, “By integrating indigenous Māori values related to Kaitiakitanga in its modus operandi, Mighty River Power is seeking to demonstrate its ability to be a good corporate citizen to stakeholders and the wider community.

Velasco-Herrejón, P., Bauwens, T., & Friant, M. C. (2022). Challenging dominant sustainability worldviews on the energy transition: Lessons from Indigenous communities in Mexico and a plea for pluriversal technologies. World Development, 150, 105725

Challenging dominant sustainability worldviews on the energy transition: Lessons from Indigenous communities in Mexico and a plea for pluriversal technologies, juxtaposes indigenous and modern understandings of sustainable development and gives great insight into how each views the world and the environment with specific attention to the clean energy transition that has begun in many parts of the world. This article uses each mainstream perspective of indigenous and western sustainability. The definition of sustainability that is used to represent the dominant western perspective comes from the Brundtland commission and is defined as development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own, while the indigenous perspective of sustainability is defined as living harmoniously and in balance with all forms of life. This article is relevant to our project because it outlines the main differences in perspectives between indigenous and western views of sustainability. Furthermore, it also gives the reader insight into why a more holistic view of sustainability is helpful for understanding more effective mitigation solutions to the world’s environmental crisis.

Anya Roemer-Cominos
Sam Woodman
Weston Mueller
Nikita Presler
Andi Rachmat Aqil Kesuma