Open this publication in new window or tab >>2022 (English)In: Scandinavian Journal of Management, ISSN 0956-5221, E-ISSN 1873-3387, Vol. 38, no 3, article id 101229Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
In the literature, organizational sustainability identity tends to be treated as something that is ‘engineered’ within business organizations through control, reporting, target setting, strategic communication, and other instruments. Through a case study of a company mainly active within the recycling industry, an alternative understanding is given. A distinct organizational sustainability identity is, rather, a social construct based on perceptions of the core operations as “sustainable in themselves” and collaborative work with customers that is perceived as entailing sustainable solutions. Understood in this way, organizational sustainability identity has relatively little to do with formal controls such as codes, policies, reports used by management to position the company as sustainable. Rather, for organizational members, the process of constructing oneself as sustainable builds on convictions about the core operations and the possession of specific capabilities manifested in customer relations. The article adds to current literature through its constructivistic approach and through identifying underlying beliefs that condition the process of forming an organizational sustainability identity.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2022
Keywords
Core operations, Customer relations, Identity, Organization, Sustainability, Sweden
National Category
Business Administration
Research subject
Business Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-100216 (URN)10.1016/j.scaman.2022.101229 (DOI)000831021600001 ()2-s2.0-85134490800 (Scopus ID)
Funder
The Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation, P2017-0086:1
2022-07-252022-07-252022-08-04Bibliographically approved