Organizational Transformation For Sustainability

During the 21st century organizations will undergo a level of radical and global change that has rarely been seen before. This transformation will come as a result of the environmental, social and economic challenges that now confront organisations in all their activities. But are our understandings and theories of change up to the task of meeting these challenges? Will we be able to develop sustaining visions of how organizations might contribute to the long-term viability of our interdependent global communities? Organizational Transformation for Sustainability: An Integral Metatheory offers some innovative answers to the big questions involved in organizational sustainability and the radical changes that organizations will need to undergo as we move into the third millennium. This new approach comes from the emerging field of integral metatheory. Edwards shows how a "Big Picture" view of organisational transformation can contribute to our understanding of, and search for, organisational sustainability. There are four key themes to the book: i) the need for integrative metatheories for organisational change; ii) the development of a general research method for building metatheory; iii) the description of an integral metatheory for organisational sustainability; and iv) the discussion of the implications of this metatheory for organisational change and social policy regarding sustainability. This book brings a unique and important orienting perspective to these issues.

Using specific examples of incremental and transformational changes, and outlining the long-term corporate benefits of sustainability, the book examines the changes required to achieve true sustainability.

This important book examines issues affecting the sustainability and spread of new working practices. The question of why good ideas do not spread, ‘the best practices puzzle’, has been widely recognized. But the ‘improvement evaporation effect’, where successful changes are discontinued, has attracted less attention. Keeping things the way they are has been seen as an organizational problem to be resolved, not a condition to be achieved. This is one of the first major studies of the sustainability of change focusing on the example of the NHS, by a unique team of health service and academic researchers. The findings may apply to a variety of other settings. The agenda set out in 2000 in The NHS Plan is perhaps the largest organization development programme ever undertaken, in any sector, anywhere. The NHS thus offers a valuable ‘living laboratory’ for the study of change. This text shows that sustainability and spread are influenced by a range of issues - contextual, managerial, political, individual, and temporal. Developing a processual perspective, this fresh analysis considers policy implications, and strategies for managing sustainability and spread. This book will be essential reading for students, managers, and researchers concerned with the effective implementation of organizational change.

The business case for acting sustainably is becoming increasingly compelling - reducing our global footprint to sustainable levels is the defining issue of our times and it is one that can only be addressed with the active participation of the private sector. However, persuading well-established organizations to act in new ways is never easy. This book is designed to support business leaders and organizational scholars who are grappling with this challenge by pulling together leading edge insights from some of the world's best researchers as to how organizational change in general - and sustainable change in particular - can be most effectively managed. The book begins by laying out the economic case for change, while subsequent chapters describe how leaders at firms such as Du Pont, IBM and Cemex have transformed their organizations, exploring issues such as the role of the senior team and the ways in which firms shift their identities, build innovative cultures and processes, and begin to change the world around them. Business leaders will find the book a source of both powerful examples and immediately actionable ideas, while scholars will be deeply intrigued by the insights that emerge from the cross-cutting exploration of one of the toughest challenges our society has ever faced.

Change management is a challenging and continuous process that requires a particular skill set for both leaders and managers. It is essential for leaders and change agents to understand and address the five most important questions: Why? What? Who? How? When? Inside, you’ll learn the concept of change management, its impact on the company’s business performance and sustainability, and the relevant issues associated with it. The author highlights the importance of sustainable development, including economic, environmental, and social elements and introduces different types of changes including planned, unplanned, incremental/marginal, transitional, and transformational ones. Various models of planned and unplanned changes are featured, including leaders as change agents; the concept of resistance, reasons, sources, and forms of resistance to change; definitions of values, attitudes, personalities, and perceptions of individuals; and how these determinants affect individuals’ behaviors, attitudes, and responses toward organizational change. Several organizational examples are provided throughout the book to illustrate how high-performance organizations grow their business.

During the 21st century organizations will undergo a level of radical and global change that has rarely been seen before. This transformation will come as a result of the environmental, social and economic challenges that now confront organisations in all their activities. But are our understandings and theories of change up to the task of meeting these challenges? Will we be able to develop sustaining visions of how organizations might contribute to the long-term viability of our interdependent global communities? Organizational Transformation for Sustainability: An Integral Metatheory offers some innovative answers to the big questions involved in organizational sustainability and the radical changes that organizations will need to undergo as we move into the third millennium. This new approach comes from the emerging field of integral metatheory. Edwards shows how a "Big Picture" view of organisational transformation can contribute to our understanding of, and search for, organisational sustainability. There are four key themes to the book: i) the need for integrative metatheories for organisational change; ii) the development of a general research method for building metatheory; iii) the description of an integral metatheory for organisational sustainability; and iv) the discussion of the implications of this metatheory for organisational change and social policy regarding sustainability. This book brings a unique and important orienting perspective to these issues.

Organizational Transformation for Sustainability: An Integral Metatheory offers some innovative answers to the big questions involved in organizational sustainability and the radical changes that organizations will need to undergo as we move into the third millennium. This new approach comes from the new field of integral metatheory.

There is no bigger challenge for organizational change management in the contemporary world than achieving greater sustainability. The challenges associated with sustainable development are multifaceted, including criteria pertaining to the delivery of environmental, social, ethical and economic results. Creating sustainable value requires companies to address issues that relate to pollution and waste, created by industrialization; to respond in a transparent manner to the challenges increasingly raised by the civil society, namely NGOs; to invest in emerging technologies that provide innovative solutions to many of today’s environmental problems; and to effectively respond to the challenges of increased poverty and inequality around the globe. On the other hand, to create shareholder value, managers must focus not only on cost reduction and risk control, but also on fostering innovation, enhancing corporate reputation within external stakeholders, and establishing a credible growth path for the future. The current global financial crisis has left few untouched: unprecedented unemployment figures, public deficits, bankruptcies, redundancies, austerity regimes, and governments bailing out banks all over the globe. World confidence is at a record low. How can management scholars encounter solutions for the dilemmas created by this scenario of change in which they can manage to change sustainably? This book provides some answers to these pressing questions. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Change Management.