Changing Organizational Culture to Establish Sustainability

Abstract

Organizational culture is of utmost importance for the success of corporate environmental management initiatives and the achievement of corporate sustainability. The implementation of environmental practices and guide­ lines must be embedded into the values and beliefs of the organizational cul­ ture (Johnstone 2018) to enable the required awareness as well as ongoing dialogue and communication about environmental issues. Moreover, orga­ nizational culture is also a disciplining instrument and control mechanism which may foster the likelihood of long­term success of corporate environ­ mental management initiatives. It affects the behavior and decision making of managers and thus the firm's strategic orientation, performance, proce­ dures, and attitudes towards change and innovation. What is organizational culture? Organizational culture is comprised of shared values, norms, assumptions, and beliefs that affect managers and employees in their daily operations. It influences behavior with regard to interactions with other members of the organization and external stakeholders. In sum, organizational culture in­ fluences corporate practice. It provides guidance on the perception and the resolution of problems, as well as on decision­making. In short, organiza­ tional culture shapes the pattern of social life within the firm, for example employee commitment to the organization and its goals and values, as well as the creation of a group feeling among managers and employees. Every or­ ganization has an organizational culture. It is either explicit and thus actively managed and controlled, or implicit and not given further attention by ma­ nagement, leading to a lack of attempts to actively change it (Schein 2010). The model most commonly applied in business management research to classify and quantify the rather broad and general term of organizational culture is the competing values framework (see figure 1). This model quan­ tifies organizational culture into four specified culture types to enable em­ pirical analyses (Henri 2006; Linnenluecke/Griffiths 2010): Adhocracy cultures foster innovation and willingness to try new things, take risks, and think out of the box. Bureaucracy cultures have an administrative approach with detailed pro­ cedures and processes in combination with predictability to provide stabili­ ty and efficiency. Clan Cultures emphasize loyalty as the key value and foster personal ties and group thinking. Market cultures are results­driven and focus on competitive actions and goal achievement. The four culture types can be found in the four quadrants of the compe­ ting values framework. They are classified by the categories of flexible ver­ sus stable organizational structure and internal versus external organizatio­ nal focus. Each type focuses on different values and norms and thus diffe­ rent organizational philosophies, strategies, and management styles. A firm can determine its organizational culture type by applying the OCAI survey questionnaire (Cameron/Quinn 2011).