Sustainability Struggles: Conflicting Cultures and Incompatible Logics

Introducing and implementing corporate sustainability poses many challenges to business organizations. In this longitudinal, inductive study, we focus on how such challenges are handled in a Dutch bank that is developing its sustainability policies. We examine why there is such a high degree of tens...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBusiness & society Vol. 58; no. 8; pp. 1496 - 1532
Main Authors Kok, Anne M., de Bakker, Frank G. A., Groenewegen, Peter
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.11.2019
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Business administration
Cultural values
Humanities and Social Sciences
Subcultures
Sustainability
corporate sustainability
organizational subculture
financial sector
institutional logics
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Summary:Introducing and implementing corporate sustainability poses many challenges to business organizations. In this longitudinal, inductive study, we focus on how such challenges are handled in a Dutch bank that is developing its sustainability policies. We examine why there is such a high degree of tension and conflict within the organization and identify how the development of these policies is affected by the interplay between subcultures and institutional logics. We show how different subcultures affect the enactment of logics by infusing the rational and mindful behavior coming from logics with (sub)cultural values, beliefs, and assumptions. In turn, conflicting logics amplify subcultural characteristics between groups by shaping different behavior and practices. Together, this leads to a magnification of subcultural differences while, at the same time, logics are increasingly being perceived as incompatible.
ISSN:0007-6503
1552-4205
DOI:10.1177/0007650317703644