Limits to Anthropocentrism: Toward an Ecocentric Organization Paradigm?

Abstract

This article examines the historically constituted dimensions of anthropocentrism, tracing the emergence of linear perspective, a camera theory of knowledge, and the human-nature dualism. These epistemological conventions are socially reproduced in organization science and management practice in their more contemporary anthropocentric forms: a disembodied form of technological knowing conjoined with an egocentric organizational orientation. Following this critique, the paradigmatic differences between anthropocentric and ecocentric approaches for dealing with issues related to the natural environment are discussed in what is referred to respectively as the environmental management and ecocentric responsibility paradigms. Our analysis suggests that corporate environmentalism and so-called “greening-business” approaches are grounded in the environmental management paradigm. It is argued that environmental management approaches are incommensurable with the ecocentric responsibility paradigm. The tensions bet...