پایداری شرکت و فرهنگ سازمانی

The concept of corporate sustainability has gained importance in recent years in both organizational theory and practice. While there still exists a lack of clarity on what constitutes corporate sustainability and how to best achieve it, many scholars suggest that the pathway for the adoption of corporate sustainability principles leads via the adoption of a sustainability-oriented organizational culture. In this paper, we provide a closer examination of this suggested link between the cultural orientation of an organization and the pursuit of corporate sustainability principles. Specifically, we seek to assess (1) what constitutes a sustainability-oriented organizational culture, (2) whether it is possible for organizations to display a unified sustainability-oriented organizational culture, and (3) whether organizations can become more sustainable through culture change. Directions and challenges for practical management and future research are identified and outlined.

There has been much written espousing principles of sustainable development and the need for corporations to pursue sustainability practices (e.g., Sharma, 2003). In recent years, many organizations have introduced or changed policies, products and/or processes to address pollution, minimize resource use, and to improve community and stakeholder relations (Crane, 2000). Several scholars, however, maintain that these changes are insufficient as they are only superficial and not conducive to the formation of sustainable organizations and industries (Hart and Milstein, 1999 and Senge and Carstedt, 2001). They argue that in order to fully respond to environmental and social challenges, organizations will have to undergo significant cultural change and transformation (Post and Altman, 1994, Stead and Stead, 1992 and Welford, 1995). The central idea is that organizations will have to develop a sustainability-oriented organizational culture when moving towards corporate sustainability (Crane, 1995). The organizational culture concept has become popular within the sustainability literature as it provides an access point for the fields of Human Resources and Organizational Behavior to enter as explanations for an organization's sustainability performance. However, there is little theoretical underpinning on what actually constitutes a sustainability-oriented organizational culture. Furthermore, there exist only generic prescriptions on how organizations can realize and implement sustainability-oriented culture change (e.g., Halme, 1997). Extant models and theories on sustainability-oriented culture change have been criticized for an over-reliance on simplified formulae for cultural change, and a lack of insight into how culture change might occur (Harris and Crane, 2002 and Newton and Harte, 1997). These models do often not specifically address how culture change should be initiated, monitored and become subject to managerial intervention and control. In this paper, we therefore seek to assess (1) what constitutes a sustainability-oriented organizational culture, (2) whether it is possible for organizations to display a unified sustainability-oriented organizational culture, and (3) whether organizations can become more sustainable through culture change.

This paper has provided a closer examination of the concept of corporate sustainability and its link to organizational culture. First, this paper sought to assess what constitutes a sustainability-oriented organizational culture by referring back to the traditional concept of organizational culture. The CVF has provided a framework for discussing how ideological underpinnings of organizational culture influence how corporate sustainability is implemented and the types of outcomes that can be achieved. Employees from different culture types place emphasis on different aspects in their pursuit of corporate sustainability, ranging from a focus on internal staff development, resource efficiency, environmental protection or stakeholder engagement. Second, we sought to assess if it is possible for organizations to display a unified sustainability-oriented organizational culture. While the integration perspective of organizational culture generally assumes that organizations have only one dominant culture with organization-wide consensus among employees around a set of shared assumptions, values and beliefs, this view is contested by the differentiation perspective. According to the differentiation perspective, different subcultures can exist throughout an organization, and members of each subculture can hold different attitudes towards corporate sustainability which are distinct from that of other subcultures. Third, we asked if organizations can become more sustainable through culture change. This paper has identified a number of important barriers and limitations for sustainability-related culture change, including organizational rigidity and the existence of organizational subcultures throughout the organization. However, the adoption of corporate sustainability principles can occur at several different dimensions. Our paper suggests that changes on the surface level, for example through the publication of corporate sustainability reports, the integration of sustainability measures in employee performance evaluation, or employee training, can provide a conducive context for changes in employees’ values and beliefs or even in core assumptions. We suggest several avenues and directions for future research. The proposed relationships between organizational culture and corporate sustainability will require further exploration. It seems apparent that organizations have to abandon the dominant design and assumptions of the bureaucratic organization, and similar claims have been made by a number of authors in other studies (e.g., Stead & Stead, 1992). It also seems apparent that the “ideal” culture profile for corporate sustainability needs to be low on internal process values, and high on open systems values, yet to date there is little empirical support to support his claim. We believe that an important issue for the future will be studies designed to understand the complexities of the relationship between organizational culture and corporate sustainability. Already some studies (Linnenluecke et al., in press, Ramus, 2001 and Ramus, 2002) have attempted to develop and use existing measures as a means to understand the relation between organizational culture and the pursuit of corporate sustainability. Second, an interesting avenue of future research is the investigation of how culture change can be achieved in the presence of different subcultures, and how this changes the corporate performance on economic, social and environmental aspects. A third interesting avenue worthy of future research is the relation between individual values and organization values. The values of employees and managers in organizations are phenomena that have captured much attention from researchers, practitioners, social critics, and the wider public. Despite this interest, there is a lack of agreement on what values are and how they influence individuals (Meglino & Ravlin, 1998). Hoffman (1993) argues that a congruent fit between an individual's values and that of the organization's culture is important. In case of incongruence, individuals can either chose among compliance, a resolution to change the corporate values, or resignation from the organization. As Hoffman's study is based on the assumption of a unified organizational culture, a more detailed investigation of individual values and organizational values seems useful. Future research could address whether and how values of top management or dominant organizational actors become disseminated throughout different subcultures, and how this helps to facilitate the adoption of corporate sustainability.