Essays on Organizational Culture and Sustainability

该项目审查环境可持续性及其他领域的组织（文化）变化。项目的主要兴趣在于自上而下（即领导者驱动）和自下而上（由组织层次较低层次的组织成员驱动）变更努力的相互作用。对这种相互作用有更充分的理解是至关重要的，因为无论是从高层还是从底层发起的变革都会带来一定的风险（例如对个人地位的威胁或离开组织），这些风险可能会阻碍变革的实现。组织文化的作用是特别有趣的，因为文化包括组织成员在日常活动中采取的行动以及他们对这些行动的信念。这对于可持续发展领域的组织变革工作至关重要，因为组织文化可以促成（或阻碍）变革。作为其中的一部分，该项目还将研究不同亚文化在变革努力中的作用，以更全面地了解它们之间的相互作用，以及亚文化成员对组织变革的理解过程。为了进行这项研究，该项目借鉴并努力为问题销售（即个人如何在组织内推进问题），组织文化（特别是组织文化作为工具包的观点）和系统思维（对复杂系统的不同部分如何相互作用和相互关联特别感兴趣）的文献做出贡献。为了进行我的研究，我将使用定性的数据收集方法，从访谈开始，并尽可能地（参与者）观察。这将使我接触到所研究组织成员的“生活经验”。这样的“深入”将使我能够，首先，尽可能全面地掌握所研究的组织的文化，其次，研究过程的展开，它们的（修改的）重复，以及组织成员随着时间的推移从中获得的学习。由于目前的大流行，暂时将进行远程观察和访谈。在博士第一年的课程中，我和我的导师成功地就上述描述的深入研究进行了谈判：该研究仍处于初始阶段，但将使我能够研究一家大型德国化学行业组织实施的变革过程，该组织正在进行计划中的文化变革（在组织文化中嵌入可持续性是其中的重要组成部分）。预计将于2020年9月底/ 10月开始广泛收集数据。此外，目前正在探讨至少另一个经验项目的备选办法。

The project examines organizational (culture) change in the area of environmental sustainability and beyond. The primary interest of the project lies in the interaction of top-down (i.e. leader-driven) and bottom-up (driven by organization members at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy) change efforts. It is crucial to develop a fuller understanding of this interaction as change efforts initiated from either the top or the bottom entail certain risks (such as threats to individuals' status or departures from the organization) that can hamper change implementation. The role of organizational culture is of particular interest as culture comprises what actions organization members take in their day-to-day activities and the beliefs they have with regard to these actions. This is crucial for organizational change efforts in the area of sustainability as organizational culture can enable (or hinder) change.As part of this, the project will also examine the role of different subcultures in change efforts to gain a fuller understanding of their interactions as well as the sense-making processes of members of subcultures regarding the organizational change.To pursue this research, the project draws on and strives to contribute to the literatures on issue selling (i.e. how individuals advance issues within their organization), organizational culture (in particular the view of organizational culture as a toolkit) and systems thinking (with a particular interest in how different parts of complex systems interact and relate to one another). In order to conduct my research, I will be using qualitative methods of data collection, starting with interviews and, as far as possible, (participant) observation. This will expose me to the "lived experience" of the members of the organization studied. Such a "deep dive" will allow me to, first, grasp the culture of the organization studied as fully as possible and, second, study the unfolding of processes, their (modified) repetition and the learnings organization members derive from them over time. Due to the current pandemic, observation and interviewing will be carried out remotely for the time being. Over the course of the first year of the PhD, my supervisor and I have successfully negotiated access for an depth-study in line with the above description: the study is still in its initial stages, but will allow me to examine the change processes implemented at a large German organization in the chemical sector undergoing a planned culture change (of which embedding sustainability in the organizational culture constitutes an important part). Extensive data collection is expected to begin in late September / October 2020. Furthermore, options for at least one additional empirical project are currently being explored.