Sustainability and Organizational Change

Coping with the challenge of sustainability will determine emergent organizational forms in years to come. If ten years ago CEO’s tended to pay lip service to sustainability, informally voicing their doubts about its financial feasibility – today they acknowledge sustainability’s significance for their competitive advantage. Sustainability is relevant, salient and has to be taken seriously even if it does, indeed, increase the costs of most business activities. Hence the unusual combination: guest editors and editor in chief join hands to stress the exceptional nature of this particular special issue. What we clearly need is less ideology (limit carbon dioxide emissions or we shall roast ourselves) and more robust theoretical imagination and more relevant empirical research.

Our main questions are to be found in the heart of our knowledge domain;

• How can we foster organizational learning and promote change, which will keep our organizations fit and our organizational citizens creative in an age of sustainability?
• What changes of routines and procedures should be put on our organizational agendas right now, today rather than tomorrow?

We invite theoretical papers, which take issue with the Sterne, Gore and Kyoto ecological projects or Freeman Dyson’s critique thereof, and which allow us to understand how we need to change our organizations. We invite empirical papers, focusing n real managerial and policy dilemmas and solutions. Limiting paper printouts of web documents or filling our car tires with helium is not enough. We would like to contribute towards an answer to the question: how to deal with sustainability challenge? How to balance short term priorities with a long term vision? Organizational change with stability? Domestic with global frame of reference? What is the role of leadership and implementation in creating a sustainable and realistic organization?

Proposed papers should be submitted to eileen.mullins@ashridge.org.uk by October 1, 2011. However, authors are invited to first submit their papers to the Ashridge International Research Conference (AIRC2) on “The Sustainability Challenge: Organizational Change and Transformational Vision” (Ashridge Business School, Berkhamsted, UK, June 10-12, 2011) by March 31, 2011. Reviews and decisions on acceptance for the conference will be announced by May 1, 2011 (see airc2@ashridge.org.uk) While it is possible to submit a paper for the special issue directly, those submitting it to the conference will benefit from earlier review and inspirational discussion with a critical audience.