Orchestrating organisational changes for Corporate Sustainability: Overcoming barriers to change

Abstract

Corporations are increasingly recognising their role in helping to make societies more sustainable. To incorporate sustainability principles into their systems and activities, companies have developed and fostered the development of a variety of voluntary efforts. In many cases these efforts have been limited by focusing on one particular sustainability issue, offering ‘hard’ technocentric solutions, or not being effectively integrated into organisational change processes. This paper offers a perspective to help ‘orchestrate’ organisational change to incorporate and institutionalise corporate sustainability (CS). A model is proposed that focuses on helping the move from the status quo to a more sustainability-oriented state, in an iterative process. The model is used to analyse three case studies. In this process, the CS drivers promote change. However, their efficacy is blocked by barriers to change. The use of appropriate strategies is essential to overcome the barriers throughout the organisation (including individuals and groups) and their respective attitudes, making CS part of the institutional framework, helping to maintain stability and facilitate CS institutionalisation.