Sensemaking of a sustainability transition by higher education institution leaders

Abstract

The understanding of meaning-creation processes according to sensemaking theory and its role in conceptualising sustainability in higher education institutions is limited. The idea of sustainability obliges organisations and people to rethink worldviews and justify actions. This may ultimately introduce organisational change, often associated with a redistribution of power. Its extent depends on, among other factors, the prevailing definition of sustainability within the organisation. Through a process of sensemaking and sensegiving, academic leaders impose their own understanding of science, the university and sustainability upon others, while conceptualising sustainability to maintain or increase power. A principal medium for the reproduction and maintenance of power in organisations are discourses. Based on qualitative field research at a large German university, we examined how academic leaders make sense of and give sense to ambiguous fields of meaning in conceptualising a sustainable university. We identified three aggregated dimensions that form the change context of the transition: (1) discourse strategies applied to make and give sense, (2) triggers of resistance and (3) determinants of a collective sensemaking process. We reflected our findings on the existing literature on organisational change management for sustainability in higher education and present first considerations for a systematic meaning-creation process that guides the definition of a commonly shared vision for a sustainable university.