Achieving an organizational sustainability transformations through aggregating micro-level changes

Abstract

Organizations struggle to initiate change for sustainability and particularly in identifying rele-vant projects and creating engagement for sustainability. Therefore, organizational sustainabil-ity transformation (OST), meaning a substantial rather than a symbolic shift in the organiza-tion’s operations, values and goals to extensively incorporate sustainability concerns, is not a one-time project but requires a long-term attention to the issue. However, little attention has so far been given to implement micro-level changes towards sustainability. Extant literature em-phasizes the importance of micro-level changes in an OST, yet it remains widely unclear how to aggregate these micro-level changes to support a substantial and large-scale sustainability transformation. This is however crucial for enhancing our understanding of how micro-level changes add up to a large-scale transformation over time. Building on a qualitative inductive study with key informants, we reveal how an OST can be achieved through emergent evolution-ary continuous micro-level changes. We provide a model to understand OST better, by explain-ing how the decentralized micro-level changes, integrated in a clear sustainability vision, but without a detailly planned change agenda, can be achieved collectively. We identify three inter-related cycles illustrating the organizational dynamics of the OST, revealing opportunities for supporting an OST and showing where an OST can possibly fail when the dynamics are ne-glected. In addition, we derive recommendations for managerial actions in an OST.