Sustainability Struggles: Conflicting Cultures and Incompatible Logics

Anne M. Kok; Frank G.A. de Bakker; Peter Groenewegen

doi:10.1177/0007650317703644

Sustainability Struggles: Conflicting Cultures and Incompatible Logics

Anne M. Kok^*, Frank G.A. de Bakker, Peter Groenewegen

^*Corresponding author for this work

Organization Sciences

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Introducing and implementing corporate sustainability poses many challenges to business organizations. In this longitudinal, inductive study, we focus on how such challenges are handled in a Dutch bank that is developing its sustainability policies. We examine why there is such a high degree of tension and conflict within the organization and identify how the development of these policies is affected by the interplay between subcultures and institutional logics. We show how different subcultures affect the enactment of logics by infusing the rational and mindful behavior coming from logics with (sub)cultural values, beliefs, and assumptions. In turn, conflicting logics amplify subcultural characteristics between groups by shaping different behavior and practices. Together, this leads to a magnification of subcultural differences while, at the same time, logics are increasingly being perceived as incompatible.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1496-1532
Number of pages	37
Journal	Business and Society
Volume	58
Issue number	8
Early online date	9 Apr 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650317703644
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2019

Funding

The authors thank Dennis Schoeneborn, Janni Thusgaard-Pedersen, and three anonymous reviewers for reviewing earlier versions of this article. We also benefited from discussions and feedback by participants of European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) 2012, the “Amsterdam Seminar on Sustainability, Society & Business” (ASSSB), and a Paper Development Workshop in 2012 at the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy of Management annual conference. The authors give a special word of thanks to the handling editor, Andy Crane, for his stimulating guidance throughout this lengthy process. The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funders	Funder number
Academy of Management

Keywords

corporate sustainability
financial sector
institutional logics
organizational subculture

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10.1177/0007650317703644

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Sustainability Struggles: Conflicting Cultures and Incompatible Logics

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