Essays on Organizational Culture and Sustainability

该项目审查环境可持续性领域及其他领域的组织（文化）变革。该项目的主要兴趣在于自上而下（即领导者驱动）和自下而上（由组织层次结构较低级别的组织成员驱动）的变革努力的相互作用。必须更充分地了解这种相互作用，因为从上或从下发起的变革努力都会带来某些风险（如对个人地位的威胁或离开组织），这些风险可能阻碍变革的实施。组织文化的作用是特别感兴趣的，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。这对于可持续性领域的组织变革努力至关重要，因为组织文化可以（或阻碍）变革。作为其中的一部分，该项目还将研究不同的亚文化在变革努力中的作用，以更全面地了解它们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，该项目借鉴并努力促进关于问题销售（即个人如何在其组织内推动问题）、组织文化（特别是将组织文化视为工具包的观点）和系统思维（特别关注复杂系统的不同部分如何相互作用和相互关联）的文献。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的组织成员的“生活经验”。这样的“深入”将使我能够，首先，尽可能充分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）重复和学习组织成员随着时间的推移从它们中获得。由于目前的疫情，观察和访谈将暂时远程进行。在博士的第一年，我的导师和我已经成功地协商了访问深度研究符合上述描述：该研究仍处于初始阶段，但将允许我检查在一个大型德国组织实施的变化过程中化学部门正在进行有计划的文化变革（其中嵌入可持续性的组织文化构成的重要组成部分）。广泛的数据收集预计将于2020年9月下旬/10月开始。此外，目前正在探讨至少另外一个经验项目的备选方案。

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.