Making sense of sustainability through an individual interview narrative

Abstract

This paper closely examines how a particular individual makes sense of sustainability and how detailed analysis of enactments of sustainability at the individual level can contribute to understanding organisational-level enactment of sustainability practices. Taking a narrative approach, this paper selects and analyses one interview to understand how that person is responding to sustainability initiatives in her organisation. The findings suggest that the complex processes of meaning construction that underpin the enactment of sustainability involve identity validation, narrative support and reduction of polysemy. The paper argues that to boost the chances of success when implementing sustainability, organisations need to establish discursive space to engage with and support these three processes of sense-making. Methodologically, the paper demonstrates how a single interview/narrative can be analysed to progress the understanding of a complex, ambiguous and paradoxical problem like sustainability.

Keywords:

• change
• discursive space
• identity
• narrative
• sense-making
• sustainability