Sustainable Organizations

How can organizations and their managers face the tremendous complexity of the current environment? How can their compliance with the requirements of sustainability be evaluated? And how can new organizations be structured to ensure their viability? This book addresses these questions in a very practical way, essentially combining systems theory with cybernetics to help managers to evaluate and shape organizations by making accessible the wealth of knowledge contained in these fields. Importantly, it also provides guidelines for its practical application.

An increasingly competitive environment can lead to considerable problems for many organizations as they struggle to adapt to change. As a result, they fail to create the conditions that can lead to sustainable development over the long term, thus affecting the capabilities of employees. This book provides a fresh perspective on sustainable change and development in organizations, as well as a critical perspective on lean implementation, work environment and sustainability. The expert contributors address the development in, and of, organizations, as well as the development process between organizations, such as in networks or clusters. They discuss topics, such as the role of customers in the development of public organizations; developing knowledgeable practice at work; exploring evidence-based practice and the challenge of regional gender contracts. Undergraduates and postgraduates in different management fields including organizational theory, innovation, human resources, quality development and entrepreneurship will find this book to be of interest. The empirical results and interdisciplinary approach will appeal to practitioners and policy-makers at national, as well as international levels.

This volume shines a light on Sustainable Community Movement Organizations (SCMOs), an emergent wave of non-hierarchical, community-based socio-economic movements, with alternative forms of consumption and production very much at their core. Extending beyond traditional ideas of cooperatives and mutualities, the essays in this collection explore new geographies of solidarity practices ranging from forms of horizontal democracy to interurban and transnational networks. The authors uniquely frame these movements within the Deleuzian concept of the ‘rhizome’, as a meshwork of alternative spaces, paths and trajectories. This connectivity is illustrated in case studies from around the world, ranging from protest movements in response to austerity measures in Southern Europe, to the Buen Vivir movement in the Andes, and Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) in the Caribbean and Canada. Positioning these cases in relation to current theoretical debates on Social Solidarity Economy, the authors specifically address the question of the persistence and the durability of the organizing practices in community economies. This book will be a valuable tool for academics and students of sustainable consumption, environmental policy, social policy, environmental economics, environmental management and sustainability studies more broadly.

Given the multidisciplinary nature of our object of study, sustainability, we have divided this book into twelve chapters. In the first four, we cover the content required to learn how to start a business and create companies based on sustainability. The following chapters provide guidance to help translate sustainability strategies across cultures. These processes are analyzed through the Triple Bottom Line perspective, which effectively describes the primary objectives of sustainability. The last chapters analyze current trends in sustainable development, framing education as a powerful tool to facilitate the transition to more sustainable forms of development. Through these chapters, the understanding of the theoretical concepts is facilitated and examples of sustainable enterprises are made available to the reader that serves as a reference and that allow the development of practical activities.

This is a seminal book for anyone who wants to understand, shape or study the communication surrounding sustainability in their interactions with colleagues, employees, supply chain partners and external stakeholders. It develops essential insights on the basis of an extensive review of relevant theories and research drawn from multiple disciplines. Interview data gathered from organization members who are currently communicating about sustainability in their cities, universities, nongovernmental organizations, small businesses and large for-profit organizations provide valuable insights from a practitioner’s perspective. The interviewees represent organizations such as the Portland Trailblazers, Tyson Foods, the City and County of Denver and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Theory, research and interview comments combine in a reader-friendly way to provide practical insights and stimulate future research.

This book is the first to combine the much talked about topics of leadership and sustainability, and provides readers with a comprehensive overview and pragmatic approach to leading sustainable organizations. Chapters include discussions, case examples, steps, and useful tools centred on the components of the Leading the Sustainable Organization model. This model provides managers with a pragmatic, end-to-end framework for creating (in the case of new entities) or shifting (in the case of existing firms) their organizations’ workforces to a sustainability focus. Leading the Sustainable Organization is the perfect tool for executives and managers in small, medium, and large companies, and in all industries, to assist with the difficult and confusing topic of leading sustainability efforts. This book will be of great interest to students and academics who want to learn more about corporate sustainability.

Innovation is a key source of competitive advantage, but it remains frustratingly elusive for many organizations. This book shows you how to close the innovation gap by making individuals and organizations systematically and sustainably innovative. You will learn how to embrace a culture of innovation and make it permeate every level of the organization. You will find a clear road map and practical tools to redefine your workplace's culture, identify and tap into the existing innovative intelligence, and develop leaders who can close the innovation gap for greater business success.

Managing Organizations for Sustainable Development in Emerging Countries focuses on the main challenges and opportunities of managing firms and emerging economies in the light of sustainable development. One of the key questions of sustainable development is how organizations from developing countries are achieving their economic goals while considering, simultaneously, environmental issues like conservation of natural resources, eco-efficiency, biodiversity conservation, and climate-change mitigation. These questions are relevant for government, industry, and urban sustainability. However, in the modern literature that discusses organizational management for sustainable development, few studies focus on the reality of organizations from emerging countries. Moreover, changing environmental legislation in emerging countries (such as China and Brazil) will affect organizational managers. In this context, this book may contribute to organizational management in the search for more sustainable organizations, as well as deal with the challenges of managing organizations in the context of increased social problems, degradation of natural resources, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology.