Alteration spaces: Charting the sustainability potential of large organizations

Goggins, Gary und Rau, Henrike (2021): Alteration spaces: Charting the sustainability potential of large organizations. In: Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Bd. 40: S. 435-449

Abstract

Large organizations play a key role in sustainability transitions through their systems of pro-duction and consumption and their influence on wider society. Recognizing the uniqueness and complexity of structure-agency relations in organizations, this paper uses the example of food provisioning to compare the sustainability potential of eight national and multinational organi-zations located in Ireland. By introducing the novel concept of 'alteration spaces' to describe specific intra-organizational structure-agency constellations and their dynamics over time, we question existing interventionist views of organizational change. We argue these tend to overstate extra-organizational impulses for change while paying insufficient attention to organizational culture and committed individuals as potential sustainability advocates within organizations. This, in turn, facilitates a reconceptualization of individual agency as embedded within an organizational context, thereby challenging dominant understandings that disregard the potential of established organizations to initiate intra-organizational changes that shape and reflect sus-tainability transitions.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Geowissenschaften > Department für Geographie
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 550 Geowissenschaften, Geologie
• ISSN: 2210-4224
• Sprache: Englisch