embedding sustainability in organizational culture - Network for ...
embedding sustainability in organizational culture - Network for ...
embedding sustainability in organizational culture - Network for ...
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Chapter 1: 7: a Introduction Call to action<br />
51<br />
ChAPTER 7<br />
A Call to Action<br />
implications <strong>for</strong> practitioners<br />
We would like to re-emphasize that the framework we developed serves as a guide<br />
to <strong>embedd<strong>in</strong>g</strong> <strong>susta<strong>in</strong>ability</strong> <strong>in</strong>to <strong>organizational</strong> <strong>culture</strong>. Once your organization<br />
has charted its path toward <strong>susta<strong>in</strong>ability</strong> and identified its strategic priorities,<br />
this framework can be used to help build and susta<strong>in</strong> an <strong>organizational</strong> <strong>culture</strong><br />
to support your journey. There are two ma<strong>in</strong> ways that you can make use of the<br />
framework developed <strong>in</strong> this report:<br />
First, you can conduct a gap assessment of your current <strong>susta<strong>in</strong>ability</strong> <strong>culture</strong>. Scan<br />
the practices <strong>in</strong> the four quadrants and ask yourself: to what extent do we make<br />
use of this particular practice? It may be useful to reflect on which practices you<br />
currently employ the most and those you use less frequently or do not use at all.<br />
Th<strong>in</strong>k about why this may be the case. Do you rely more heavily on practices <strong>in</strong> one<br />
quadrant than the others? Are there quadrants where you do not make use of many<br />
practices at all?<br />
A second way to use the framework is as plann<strong>in</strong>g tool <strong>for</strong> the implementation of a<br />
particular program or <strong>in</strong>itiative that aims to build your current <strong>culture</strong>. Aga<strong>in</strong>, with a<br />
particular goal or <strong>in</strong>itiative <strong>in</strong> m<strong>in</strong>d, you can scan the practices <strong>in</strong> the four quadrants<br />
and select a diversified sub-set of practices that are best suited to help<strong>in</strong>g you<br />
implement this particular program or <strong>in</strong>itiative. In do<strong>in</strong>g so, ensure that you select<br />
practices from each of the four quadrants and try to select some practices that have<br />
already received empirical support.<br />
implications <strong>for</strong> researchers<br />
Despite an <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g amount of scholarship <strong>in</strong> the area of bus<strong>in</strong>ess <strong>susta<strong>in</strong>ability</strong>,<br />
our review reveals that there is very little work <strong>in</strong> the area of <strong>embedd<strong>in</strong>g</strong><br />
<strong>susta<strong>in</strong>ability</strong> <strong>in</strong>to <strong>organizational</strong> <strong>culture</strong>. Additionally, much of the work reviewed<br />
here consists of case studies with an emphasis on ‘success’ stories and most have<br />
been at the level of the overarch<strong>in</strong>g construct of ‘<strong>susta<strong>in</strong>ability</strong>’ or ‘environmental<br />
management’ [notable exceptions <strong>in</strong>clude Howard-Grenville et al. (2008) and<br />
Andersson and Bateman (2000)]. We frequently struggled when try<strong>in</strong>g to identify<br />
the <strong>in</strong>dependent and dependant variables <strong>in</strong> many studies, and we found a need<br />
<strong>for</strong> much more construct clarity <strong>in</strong> this field. For this reason, we have given much<br />
attention to def<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the constructs that we use to describe the various practices we<br />
identified <strong>in</strong> this report.<br />
In the future, we see a need <strong>for</strong> more comparison studies of more and less<br />
‘successful’ firms. We also believe it will be <strong>in</strong>structive to look at comparisons<br />
across various ‘stages’ of implementation. It is our hope that this review will<br />
encourage more researchers to conduct empirical <strong>in</strong>vestigations to determ<strong>in</strong>e the<br />
effectiveness of these proposed practices, especially those that are raised frequently<br />
by practitioners but have not yet received much empirical attention. Eventually, we<br />
hope to also see studies that compare the impact of the practices located <strong>in</strong> the four<br />
different quadrants of our framework.