Sustainability Leaders’ Influencing Strategies for Institutionalising Organisational Change towards Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy-as-Practice Perspective

ABSTRACT

Through deductively applying the influencing strategies component of the institutionalizing change model, the article sets out to discover what sustainability leaders do to create a readiness for and reinforcing the institutionalization of relatively large-scale organizational change towards corporate sustainability. This study used the influencing strategies component of the institutionalizing change model as a framework in order to uncover the pragmatic change practices of a group of sustainability leaders in a multi-level organization with several subsidiaries. This article argues that to realize meaningful organizational change, it is important to know the ‘pragmatic practices’ underpinning the ‘theoretical what’. The research drew on the qualitative case study method to realize this endeavour. The study found that all seven influencing strategies identified in the literature were in use and so confirmed their value for change management theory and practice. Findings also showed the unique socially situated practices underlying each influencing strategy. The study concluded that the seven influencing strategies are potentially applicable and of value to other organizations although change agents may deploy these strategies differently as is appropriate for the change agenda in their organization.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability leaders
• corporate sustainability
• influencing strategies
• institutionalizing organizational change
• social practices
• strategic change
• strategy-as-practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Andani Thakhathi is a researcher affiliated with the University of South Africa’s Department of Business Management in the College of Economic and Management Sciences. His research draws on the social sciences and focuses on organizational sustainability and ethics in the global business context with a focus on critical and positive organizational scholarship. Email: [email protected]

Catherine le Roux is a senior lecturer in strategic management. She completed her MCom degree cum laude and has PhD in Sustainability Embeddedness. Catherine is passionate about addressing the current industry and organization challenges around embedding sustainability and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into strategising. Catherine has supervised postgraduate research projects and favours qualitative studies with a focus on micro-strategising. Email: [email protected]

Annemarie Davis is an associate professor in Strategic Management and conducted her doctoral research within the strategy-as-practice perspective. She is a qualitative researcher with a focus on micro-strategising practices and favours studies in the middle manager context. Email: [email protected]

ORCID

Andani Thakhathi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2878-6047

Catherine le Roux http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6242-4894

Annemarie Davis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2137-2597

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by South Africa’s Department Education and Training; University of South Africa.