The perception of organisational change as a result of SDG implementations; an in-depth study.
Student name: Zazala Quist Student number: 12880094 University of Amsterdam
Supervisor: Tatiana Domingues Aguiar Date of completion: 26th of June 2020
Graduate School of Communication
ABSTRACT
With the demanding pressure placed by society and (inter)national politics on organisations to take on societal and environmental responsibility, organisations increasingly choose to
implement sustainable changes. The creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) in 2015 provided organisations in all sectors with tangible global goals that can be implemented to create national and global impact. However, it seems that organisations are struggling with implementing the SDG’s into their strategy, with concretising their SDG impact and communicating this sustainable change effectively through change management. Additionally, there is a lack of academic research on the process of implementing SDG’s and how this is perceived by management. The aim of this study is to fill this practical and theoretical gap and provide clear insights on how change management perceives this specific sustainable implementation and which bottlenecks or opportunities they might encounter. Therefore, this study interviewed 13 people responsible for- or within the change
management of their organisation’s SDG implementation to create understanding of their experiences and opinions on this change process. This study’s findings show that change management’s perceptions of the SDG implementation were based on 4 dimensions: the Perceived SDG-Organisational Identity Fit, the Perceived SDG-Strategy Fit, the Perceived Added Value of the SDG’s and the perceived Organisational Engagement & Awareness. Especially the role of Organisational Identity, an open and rewarding culture, effective change leadership, the sense-making and guiding aspect of the SDG framework and using the SDG’s for internal and external corporate communications, facilitated this overall perception as a logical and justified process. However, the difficulty of measuring and reporting impact, translating the SDG’s to an organisational level, the organisation’s lack of sustainable awareness and the so-called ‘sustainability bubble’ led to the perception of the SDG
implementations as difficult and complicated. Based on these findings, this study shines new light on the previous literature in change management, organisational identification,
leadership and vertical communication, by researching these topics through the eyes of change management and in the context of the SDG’s. Additionally, this study offers valuable insights and management implications for organisations to foster organisational discussions and decision-making within sustainable change management.
KEYWORDS: Sustainable Development Goals, Sustainable Change Implementation,
Organisational Identification, Change Management, Person-CSR fit, Change Leadership, Vertical Communication.
Introduction
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) created in 2015 by the United Nations have become an increasingly interesting aspect of sustainable change within organisations as they have shed a new light on effective sustainable implementations within organisations
(Scheyvens, Banks & Hughes, 2016). The SDG’s are 17 goals, aimed to universally bring about a call to action to end major problems such as poverty, environmental issues, bad or no education, etc, by 2030 (UNDP, 2020). Reaching the SDG’s requires partnership between the
private sector, the public sector, governments, civil society and citizens; emphasizing that everyone in society can contribute to achieving the goals (UNDP, 2020). The SDG’s are considered a real gamechanger within the sustainable developments field in both the public and especially the private sector, as they provide tangible goals (in local and global levels) that organisations can specifically choose and implement within their core structure (Scheyvens et al., 2016).
However, the embracement of the SDG’s within organisations has not completely gone flawless and in various cases, effective sustainable change implementation of the SDG’s seems to be quite a struggle (PwC, 2019). In their report on the SDG’s in Dutch organisations of 2019, PwC found that organisations find it difficult to translate the SDG’s into their
strategy. Additionally, making their own contribution to the global goals concrete, seemed to be a big challenge as well. Furthermore, during the SDG day 2019, at the KIT Topical Institute in Amsterdam, professionals reported they struggled to get employees to completely understand the SDG goals and the resulting implications. Still, there are many factors that could influence the success of change implementations and as the SDG’s are a relatively new player in the field of sustainable change; they could possibly both bring new challenges as well as opportunities to effective change management (Rapert, Velliquette & Garretson,
2000). This raises the practical question as to how and why organisations are apparently
struggling with implementing the SDG’s?
Next to the practical gap, there also seems to be a large gap in academic research. Although some research has been performed on the possible general effects of SDG’s on society, politics and intergovernmental organisations (Hajer et al., 2015), almost no research has been performed on this specific implementation within public and private organisations. Additionally, the research there is on SDG’s focuses more on the general potentials and constrains of the SDG’s instead of how they are actually implemented and perceived within
organisations (Gusmão Caiado, Leal Filho, Quelhas, Luiz de Mattos Nascimento & Ávila, 2018).
Furthermore, past academic research has mainly focused on the effects of leadership on employees during change management instead of studying how management actually experience and identify with this specific sustainable implementation process (Tucker, Hendy & Barlow, 2015). As change management plays a crucial role within any kind of change implementation, it is expected that implementations place a heavy burden on management as well as other employees responsible within change management in creating a successful sustainable organisational transformation (Kitchen & Daly, 2002). However, if these people do not identify with the changes they are implementing, it could be assumed that this could potentially complicate a successful SDG implementation (Rapert et al., 2000). Therefore, to ensure that these sustainable change implementations succeed, it is crucial to understand this management identification with the SDG implementation process (Nesbit, 2012).
To fill this practical and theoretical gap, this empirical study aims to provide new insights on the previous literature on change implementations, organisational identification, leadership and vertical communication by researching these topics through the eyes of change management and in the context of the SDG’s. Additionally, this thesis aims to gain clear
insights on how management identifies with SDG implementations and their personal view on the changes they have to translate to their team and implement in their work. By doing so, this thesis aims to help organisations gain more knowledge on how their management actually perceive the SDG’s and how they engage with this specific implementation process. Therefore, this thesis’ research question is:
How do management identify with the sustainable change implementation of (one of) the Sustainable Development Goals within their organisation?
Theoretical framework
Change managementThe first sensitizing concept relevant to this study is change management. Change management entails exactly what the name itself says; the management of organisational change (Kitchen & Daly, 2002). Kitchen and Daly (2002) explain how the study of organisational change is at the core of management and organisational behaviour and is highly intertwined with internal communication. The current business and societal demands and unpredictability of the business environment are requiring more radical changes within organisations to address their environmental and social bottom line, namely sustainable transitions (Hill et al., 2012). Therefore, many organisations choose to implement structured sustainable approaches for increasing their environmental efforts (Ronnenberg, Graham & Mahmoodi, 2011).
In this context, a new type of change management was created called ‘green
management’ which entails the management of the environmental and social responsibility of
organisations should only pursue green management practises when it is in their own self-interest to do so and these changes fit the organisation’s operations and core strategy.
However, these sustainable changes often require much more innovative responsiveness from change management due to the high amount of stakeholders involved and affected by these changes. This extra complexity possibly creates new challenges within management to embrace this specific change, anticipate it and if possible use it to their advantage (Kitchen & Daly, 2002). This raises the question if the SDG’s require more innovative responses from management and how challenging the implementation of the SDG’s actually is? Do the SDG’s require specific and perhaps more challenging work from management than other
sustainable changes?
Organisational Identification
The second sensitizing concept for this research is organisational identification.
Organisational identification entails an individual’s sense of belonging within the organisation in which they work (Karanika-Murray, Duncan, Pontes & Griffiths, 2015). More specifically, organisational identification can be considered a cognitive and affective bond between an individual and the organisation in which the individual’s identity includes membership to the organisation, which can lead to a range of desirable behaviours attitudes towards the
organisation (Karanika-Murray et al., 2015). With regards to organisational change, research has indicated that the success rates of strategic organisational changes are often quite low (Sackmann, Eggenhofer-Rehart & Friesl, 2009). Interestingly, the reason for these high rates of failure seem to mainly be conflicting group identities within companies, ineffective
leadership behaviour and a lack of a coherent shared vision within the company (Sackmann et al., 2009). Therefore, it would be interesting to research the possible role of organisational identification during the sustainable organisational change following SDG implementations.
Furthermore, as Blader, Patil and Packer (2017) found in their research, when employees strongly identify with their work and their organisation, they become more
motivated to work and more loyal to their organisation, often resulting in better performance. Therefore, if employees do not identify with certain organisational changes and the resulting consequences in their work, such as changes caused by the SDG’s, this could potentially
influence their motivation and performance within the sustainable implementation
(Linnenluecke, Russell and Griffiths, 2009). In the case of this study, this raises the question of how the organisational changes created by SDG’s are then perceived by management as either fitting or non-fitting within their organisation’s identity.
Person-CSR fit
The third sensitizing concept of this study is the Person-CSR fit, which is highly related to organisational identification and can be seen as a specific aspect of organisational
identification. The Person-CSR fit entails the degree to which an individual values the organisation’s CSR activities and values as compatible to their personal values on CSR (Im, Chung & Yang, 2016). As the SDG’s are drivers for sustainable change, it is expected that
CSR and SDG implementations go hand in hand (Buhmann, Johnsson & Fisker, 2018). However, most CSR studies mainly focus on external stakeholders, whilst neglecting the internal stakeholders such as employees (Im et al., 2016). Indeed, employees can perceive themselves as having CSR values and goals that can be congruent with their organisations’ (Im et al., 2016). This person-CSR fit could, therefore, further strengthen the relationships between the CSR and organisational outcomes (Im et al., 2016).
Additionally, when certain issues or developments occur within an organisation that organisational members recognize as affecting the organisation, they first need to be
Therefore, in case of CSR, sustainability issues first need to be legitimated as part of the corporate identity by employees; either as the core of the corporate environmental focus or the internal economic focus (Linnenluecke et al., 2009). The person-CSR fit is very interesting to organisations as employees whose values are highly congruent with those of their
organisation and it's CSR practises, will possibly tend to me more positive about their
workplace (Im et al., 2016; Posner, 2010). Therefore, it would be interesting to research if and how the SDG’s are perceived as organisation’s CSR drivers and how management identify with the SDG’s as a new organisational implementation.
Leadership
Leadership, can be defined as the process of influencing followers (Men, 2014). Within different organisational levels, leadership can directly or indirectly determine organisational culture and climate, power distributions, communication and other structural forms (Men, 2014). Whilst change management is crucial during times of organisational change to plan, organise, direct and control the change, it could be argued that organisational change requires leadership to be successfully introduced and sustained within an organisation (Gill, 2002).
The term ‘transformational leadership is often mentioned in this process of
organisational change and entails a leadership style that motivates followers by appealing to needs and motivating them to choose the group interest over their self-interest for the sake of an organisation (Men, 2014). However, according to Gill (2002) leadership within change management requires more than transformational leadership. According to Gill effective leadership of change should also have; a strong shared vision and shared values and culture between the leader and the follower, a clear strategy, empowerment and motivation and inspiration (2002).
the role of leadership within SDG implementations very interesting. What kind of leadership is necessary for SDG implementations? What could be aspects that leaders within SDG change management find difficult to perform? Answers to these questions could provide valuable insights into leadership during sustainable change management.
Vertical communication
The last sensitizing concept for this study is vertical communication. Vertical communication is the type of communication where information or messages flow between or among the subordinates and superiors of the organisational (Rapert et al., 2000). During times of changes, creating understanding on the change strategy through vertical communication is crucial and might be the most determining factor among top and functional-level managers with regards to a firm’s implementation efforts (Rapert et al., 2000). It can be argued that
effective and open vertical communication can enhance organisational performance as it creates common awareness on organisational pursuits and strategies and reduces uncertainty among employees through a clear shared view (Rapert et al., 2000).
Especially for sustainable change, often the complex and dynamic interconnectedness with society and the environment results in more complex approaches and consequences that need to be involved and taken into account in every step of an implementation strategy (Baumgartner & Korhonen, 2010). Due to this complexity, organisations often seem to fail with regards to effectively communicate the urgency of the sustainable need and clearly communicating the strategy to their employees (Ronnenberg et al., 2011). Therefore, exploring the vertical communication flows within organisations during SDG
implementations and what actually is communicated, can provide a lot of insight and understanding into how implementations are perceived and executed by organisational
Method
The chosen data collection method is qualitative research through the use of semi-structured interviews. First of all this type of method enables collecting rich and detailed information on how individuals experience understand or explain certain events in their lives (Braun & Clarke, 2013). Therefore, this method deemed most suitable due to the nature of the research question for this study which focuses on the personal opinions and views by individuals. Moreover, the presence of structure, but having open ended questions in a semi-structured interview, guides the interviewer to follow relevant topics whilst still providing opportunity for new understandings and insights (Braun & Clarke, 2013).
Sampling strategy
The type of sampling chosen for this thesis was purposive sampling as specific participants were chosen based on the judgement of the researcher (Etikan, 2016). Purposive sampling is highly fitting for this research, as due to the research criteria only a limited number of people serve as the primary source for this research (Etikan, 2016). This study’s participants needed to meet three requirements for this research. First, participants had to work for a public or private organisation that has or is implementing at least one of the SDG’s into their business model. Secondly, the organisation the participants worked for could be any kind of
organisation within the public or private sector as long as it had implemented one of the SDG’s. Thirdly, the participants had to be manager with direct authority over other employees and have responsibilities for- or within the implementation process of the SDG’s.
Recruitment process and sample characteristics
The participants were recruited via the researcher’s personal network in the sustainability
professionals that had sustainability/SDG’s mentioned in either their job title or description on
their LinkedIn profile. In total, 36 messages were sent out both on LinkedIn and via e-mail of which 16 people replied and were willing to participate. Eventually 13 interviews were conducted.
As some participants were not managers or did not have direct authority over other employees, the search criteria was extended to include participants that were in any way responsible for- or within the SDG implementation process. This resulted in a change in this study’s research question to:
How do people responsible for- or within the change implementation of (one of) the Sustainable Development Goals identify with this specific implementation process within their organisation?
An overview of the diverse sample characteristics can be found in Table 1.
Table 1. Participant’s characteristics. Name (Randomly Assigned Letter) Function Organisation’s branch and/or business model Organisation type (profit vs. non-profit) (private vs. public sector)
‘P’ - Corporate Social Affairs - MVO (Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen) - CSR Director Energy Network operator - Independent company - Non-profit organisation - Public sector
‘A’ Corporate Program
Manager -Sustainability
Dairy company - Profit-driven organisation - Private sector
‘N’ Corporate Strategist – Corporate strategy & Sustainability
Bank - Profit-driven organisation
- Private sector
‘C’ Project Manager –
Dairy Development Program
Dairy company - Profit-driven organisation - Private sector ‘K’ Lead Sustainability Engagement & Learning – Sustainability department
Life science & technology multinational (Health, nutrition and materials) - Profit-driven organisation - Private sector ‘B’ Marketing Manager - Innovation
Life science & technology multinational (Health, nutrition and materials) - Profit-driven organisation - Private sector ‘D’ Corporate Sustainability Strategist
University - Profit-driven organisation - Public sector
‘S’ CEO – Global
Management Team
Data & Technology - International development and aid. - Foundation - Non-profit organisation - Private sector ‘M’ - Corporate Social Affairs Energy Network operator - Independent company - Non-profit organisation - Public sector
- MVO (Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen) - Manager Diversity & Inclusion ‘J’ CEO International development aid - Non-governmental organisation - Non-profit organisation - Private sector ‘W’ - Corporate Social Affairs - MVO (Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen) - CSR Advisor Energy Network operator - Independent company - Non-profit organisation - Public sector ‘T’ Global Director
EHS, Security & Sustainability
Life science & technology multinational (Health, nutrition and materials) - Profit-driven organisation - Private sector ‘Q’ Corporate Communication, Senior Advisor Public Affairs & Science communication University & Research - Profit-driven organisation - Public sector
Procedure of data gathering
Due to the COVID-19 circumstances all interviews were conducted online through the communication platforms Skype, Zoom or Microsoft Teams. As the participants were talking from within their home environments, they were comfortable and the researcher could get close to observing how the participant’s behaved in their daily lives and retrieve authentic and
credible answers (Braun & Clarke, 2013). Out of the 13 interviews, 12 were held in Dutch and 1 in English. As the interviews were semi-structured, the interview guide was followed in every interview. However, as the participant’s functions differed, questions on leadership
varied per participant function.
The interview guide for this study can be found in Appendix A and exists out of 5 topics, based on this study’s sensitizing concepts. The first topic focused on the participants’ general information about their organisation, the department they work for and their function. The second topic focused on the Person-CSR fit, specifically tailored to the SDG’s. Here the aim was to understand the participant’s opinion on the SDG’s and the perceived fit between the SDG’s and their organisation’s strategy, values and mission. The third topic discussed the participant’s experience with the SDG change management within their organisation; aiming
to understand how the participant perceived these changes and their role and responsibilities within this process. The fourth topic discussed leadership where participants were asked to reflect on their leadership style and their preferred leadership style during and/or after the SDG implementation; aiming to discover which type of leader the participants describe as the more suitable leader for this specific type of change management. The last topic discussed the possible vertical communication executed by organisations during the SDG implementation; aiming to discover how the participants perceived this organisational communication
Through the use of a factsheet and a consent form that had to be signed before the interview, the participants were informed that the audio of the interview would be recorded. This privacy and complete anonymity protection was again mentioned before the start of the interview. Finally, the average duration of the interviews was 58 minutes.
Analysis of the data
As the aim of this thesis is explorative, grounded theory was used to guide the analysis in order to produce new theory which is heavily grounded in the interview data and
systematically gathered and analysed (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
First, the interviews were transcribed and anonymized within Word after which they were coded. The coding process helps with thematically clustering the data; enabling easier comparison and more efficient insights for retrieving analytical findings (Braun & Clarke, 2013). The coding process started with open coding in which codes were assigned to any interesting segment of the interview data. The program ATLAS.ti; a program that allows the researcher to structure and increase the efficiency of the process of coding and analysing data, was used for the coding and analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013). In total, a number of 2105 codes were assigned.
In a second round, focused coding allowed to cluster, rearrange and concise the open codes and link them in-depth to concepts as guided by the interview guide, research question, theoretical framework and the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). This resulted in 4 new
dimensions and 15 indicators grounded in data within the main concept; ‘Perception of SDG implementation’. These 4 dimensions are; the perceived OI Fit, the perceived SDG-strategy Fit, the perceived Added Values of the SDG’s and the perceived Organisational
Engagement & Awareness. Based on the analysis, a concept-indicator model (CIM) was created to concisely and accessibly visualise and structure all the interesting opinions and
perceptions this research generated (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The CIM can be found in Figure 1.
Finally, based on the findings from the interview data the decision was made to change the initial research question to:
How do people responsible for- or within the change implementation of (one of) the Sustainable Development Goals perceive this specific implementation process within their organisation?
This decision was based on the outcome of the data, showing that the answers of the participants mainly discussed their opinion and perception of the SDG implementation instead of their identification with the process.
Reliability and validity
To ensure reliability the interview guide was followed in every interview. Additionally, the researcher made notes during the interview to create rich and detailed descriptions. Moreover, a test interview was conducted, allowing the researcher to practise the interview guide. The reliability of the whole coding and analysis process was enhanced by the program ATLAS.ti and by memo-writing. Furthermore, to enhance validity a thick description of the methods and the sample were made. Finally, peer debriefing was applied to the interview guide to enhance validity and credibility.
Results
Perception of SDG Implementation
When analysing the participant’s experiences and accounts regarding the SDG
perceptions with the implementations than to identification. The perception of the SDG implementation entails the participant’s opinions, views and impressions of (aspects of) the SDG implementation process within their organisation.
An interesting aspect of the participant’s perception of the SDG implementation is that
they viewed this process as an embracement instead of an implementation. Indeed, the participants perceived the SDG’s mainly as a communication and sensemaking tool for their organisation’s contribution and credibility towards society, the world and within their organisation. Additionally, the SDG’s were perceived as a positive development in
sustainable change implementations. Moreover, all participants perceived the SDG implementation within their organisation as a logical and positive organisational decision, however, described it as a long and difficult process for every organisation to truly make a sustainable transition.
The data showed that how the participants perceived and judged this SDG implementation process was based on four dimensions labelled as; The perceived SDG Organisational Identity Fit, The perceived SDG-Strategy Fit, The perceived Added Value of SDG’s and The Perceived Organisational Attitude & Awareness (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Concept Indicator Model of the perception of SDG implementations by people
responsible for- or within the SDG change management.
Perceived SDG-Organisational Identity Fit
The first dimension of the CIM is the perceived SDG-Organisational Identity Fit. This dimension entails the participant’s perception of the fit between the SDG’s and their organisation’s identity (OI). Indeed, this dimension shows the importance of the concept of
organisational identity during organisational sustainable change as a way of justifying and clarifying the SDG change process. Overall most participants explained their organisations were purpose- and impact-driven, emphasising this as a logical factor for SDG
implementation. Furthermore, they addressed that sustainability was either embedded or highly embraced within their organisation’s identity through its culture. Based on the data, the
Concretising of Organisational Responsibility, the Fit with Organisational Mission, Vision & Values, and through Emphasising the Organisational Leadership Role.
Fit with Organisational Mission, Vision & Values
The first indicator for the perceived SDG-OI Fit is the facilitating role of the organisational mission, vision & values. This seemed to be the most defining aspect for the SDG-OI fit and was addressed by all participants as a facilitating factor for the SDG-OI fit. Especially when sustainability was already part of the organisational mission, vision and values for a longer time, the participants spoke of this fact with pride. Indeed, the words ‘purpose-driven’ and ‘impact-driven’ were often used to describe the participant’s organisational drive for implementing the SDG’s: ‘Yeah we’re a company with a strong purpose. So I think for
example sustainability has always been one of the core values of this company and eh that has really been demonstrated in many sort of innovations we’ve launched. So I think that the values are closely aligned yeah’. When participants judged the implementation of the SDG’s as a fit with their organisation’s mission, vision and values, this facilitated their perception of
the SDG Implementation as logical and positive change: ‘You just know that this mission, this truly lies in the core of our company; climate impact. You know, we believe- we know what we stand for and are willing to work very hard for that’.
Furthermore, many participants linked the SDG implementation within their
organisation with a broader picture of sustainability embedded in their core mission, vision and values: ‘Absolutely, yeah no I mean these SDG’s are already really one of our core values, well mostly sustainability in general as it is of course a very broad topic right; sustainability. But if I really look at the Safety, Health and Environment but also at the ‘peoples’ part right. Yeah sustainability has been part of the core values of this company since day one’.
Reflection of Organisational Culture
The second facilitating indicator for this dimension is the high fit between the organisational culture and the SDG’s. Most participants believed their organisational culture enabled the
organisation to contribute to the aim of the SDG’s. This important aspect of culture within SDG implementation is grounded in the data and introduces culture as a new concept relevant to this study. Indeed, the perceived SDG-OI fit seemed to be facilitated when participants felt that their own organisational culture was rewarding and motivating: ‘If you create a culture in a company that is rewarding, than it sort of reinforces itself right. So people, if they do well and are being celebrated if I sell more environmentally friendly product, then eh yeah that’s great! So you’re creating a bit of a culture of positive reinforcement and I think yeah that’s most of what we can do right. Try to reward the behaviour and try to motivate the people intrinsically’.
Additionally, many participants described their culture as ‘open’ to feedback from other employees and putting an emphasis on creating consensus on the sustainable changes. Due to this ‘open culture’, employees were more involved and willing to undergo sustainable change: ‘Yes, yes I do believe that that is how our organisation is. I do think that has to do
with us being a Dutch company as well. Ehm, yeah I do see that Dutch companies have a more open management culture; are more open, it’s partly a bit of creating consensus. The participants believed an aspect of a culture that supports sustainable change, was that they were listened to by upper management and involved in organisational discussions regarding the sustainable change: ‘And more people & executives within departments or the director
who discusses the waste started to notice- and for us this secretly was a confirmation,, and thought ‘oh apparently people do really like to separate the waste’. And you can way easier implement within such an organisation’. In turn the participants aimed to incorporate these aspects in their work too.
Concretising Organisational Responsibility
The third indicator that seemed to facilitate the perceived SDG-OI Fit was that the SDG’s helped make organisational responsibility more concrete and clear to the participants. Indeed, the SDG’s were often framed and referred to as a ‘Guiding Framework’ and ‘Hanging Rack’ to hang organisational responsibility and contribution on to. This role of the SDG’s to
concretise organisational responsibility towards society helped the participants clarify how their organisation’s responsibility and professional ambitions are part of the main mission of the SDG’s: ‘It really helps me to very clearly hang up my ambitions to something. So you
really look at- these are the world themes, these are our countries’ issues, this is the responsibility that my organisation can take’. Moreover, many of the participants believed that their organisation truly held responsibility within society and the world: ‘I really believe that companies have a responsibility and an opportunity to have responsibility in these big challenges of the world’.
Interestingly, this indicator showed the same facilitation in organisations from all sectors, however, for the NGO’s it seemed easier to place their responsibility within the SDG’s. They emphasised the shift in responsibility towards Western organisations within the
global problems: ‘Especially to our own role in the Norther and Western economies and societies, it really clearly maps out ‘guys we really have something to do in the process of making a better world’. And to me, that was a huge step forwards’.
Organisational Leadership Role
Finally, the last facilitating indicator of this dimension was the Organisational Leadership Role. When the participants felt their organisations were leaders in sustainable transitioning or had a strong leadership position within their market, implementing the SDG’s was deemed
sustainable transition which made the SDG implementation an aspect of their own
organisational pride and the result of taking responsibility within society. This leadership role was also understood as a responsibility of taking action and inspiring other organisations: ‘And we have been a front runner for quite some time now, so than it’s a lot of fun to inspire others with the examples we have. On the other hand it (SDG implementation) has an element of helping each other, help the world to reach a little but further in which there also is an element of wanting to show leadership within this field yes’.
To the participants the implementation of the SDG’s was also a way to use their leadership position to inspire and/or ‘force’ stakeholders and even competition to be more
sustainable with their vision, values & mission: ‘Yesterday within a tender offer for suppliers and facilities, then I bring up the SDG’s and people find it really interesting’ – ‘But I hope that these suppliers who read the offer, than have to make a pitch and apply for such an offer and that they will think ‘SDG’s’? And they have to do that because we require it from them, so it’s a bit- yeah you could call it abusive power haha’.
Finally, most participants claimed that their open culture towards sustainable change and their sustainable leadership position was a result of their CEO’s vision: ‘We have been lucky that we have always had CEO’s that said: ‘I am not only obliged to execute what is asked from us, but I also feel responsible for the energy supplies. - So the CEO turned it around; we belong to society and with that come societal issues and we simply have a big role in that’.
Perceived SDG-Strategy Fit
The second dimension of the participant’s overall perception of SDG implementation is the
perceived SDG-Strategy Fit. This dimension shows the importance placed by the participants in the fact that when an organisation implements a change, the change needs to fit the
organisation’s strategy in order to be effective. Therefore, in the case of the SDG
Implementation, specific SDG’s were- or were not chosen that highly fit the organisation’s
strategy to be able to ensure organisational contribution. If there was no perceived strategic alignment between the organisation’s strategy and the SDG’s, the SDG’s were not fully implemented within the organisation’s strategy. In this case, the SDG’s were merely chosen to show already existing organisational contribution related to the SDG’s as a request from relevant external stakeholders. The perceived SDG strategy fit by the participants is based on 4 indicators; a High Core Business Alignment, a High perceived External Pressure, the SDG translation to Organisational level and the measuring of Impact.
High Core Business Alignment
The first facilitating indicator of the perceived SDG-Strategy Fit is the high core business alignment with the SDG’s. Not all participants worked for profit-driven organisations,
however, most participants stressed organisation first had to specifically choose specific SDG’s that best fit their core business to make the change process easier to understand and
their contribution relevant to their business. Although this process was often described as difficult and long, when the chosen SDG’s fitted well within the organisation’s core business,
it was easier for participants to perceive the SDG implementation as a logical and smart decision: ‘It’s very logical and it’s even necessary that all the areas of business are covered to attract young people, attract talent if I specifically look at my company. I mean there are so many young and talented people that want to work for us because of our strategy, because of our sustainability embedded strategy and everything we do’.
Moreover, the participants of the profit-driven organisations almost all agreed that by aligning the SDG’s to your core business, you could also create a true business case from this
business case out of this as well. When you’re a leader in this, which we also now see with our own company. The society changes and if you don’t change with it or change just in time before society changes; then you will lose’. For the participants from NGO’s aligning the SDG’s to their organisation’s core ‘business’ meant showing their relevance within the world’s issues: ‘Ehm with other words, the we are relevant’ argument, a motive, an indicator
for our own relevance’.
High Perceived External Pressure
The second indicator for the SDG-Strategy Fit was the high perceived external pressure for the demand of SDG implementations. When the external pressure was high, this facilitated the justification for SDG implementation/embracement within an organisations strategy. This external pressure was defined as multiple types of pressure: political, stake- and shareholder pressure and societal pressure. This was especially the case for the banking sector as
explained by one of the participants: ‘Well there is a lot of pressure - there is political pressure and there is pressure from NGO’s and a lot of pressure from customers’.
All participants stated that as society is now at the beginning of a sustainable transition, modern organisations were required to respond to society’s and the political pressure for more transparency and sustainable products and service: ‘This is basically hygiene, And it’s not even about praise anymore, as a modern organisation you have to dare to report about this’.
Third, many participants mentioned that because other companies within or outside their industry were implementing and reporting on the SDG’s, their own SDG implementation was a response to keep up with the industry’s developments. This process was deemed
logical, however, added an complicating aspect to the SDG implementation; how to be sustainable and still make profits: ‘Yeah I believe there are many things that we can do, but
don’t do, because it would really hurt our position among the competition’. Therefore, participants emphasised the responsibilities of the salesforce to effectively create added value around products and services towards customers: ‘That’s something that we also have been very busy with; making it clear for our salesforce people why our product are then so much better in comparison to that of our competition’.
Finally, the SDG implementation was explained as a as a requirement for returned services from Investor Relations, Shareholders and Insurance organisations: ‘The funny thing is that we perform really well on these theme’s and with that you show a connection with large societal themes which makes you more solid for investors’.
Measuring Impact
The third indicator of this dimension is the facilitating and impeding role of measuring impact. Measuring impact helped with reporting impact and creating transparency, however, it also impeded the SDG implementation as measuring impact was experienced as a very complicated and frustrating process.
Measuring your organisational impact was deemed crucial by all participants and facilitated their perception of the SDG implementation as a necessary force. Indeed, most participants explained with pride that the biggest change the SDG implementation had created within their work was within the quality of the reporting dimension: ‘It has very clearly strengthened and improved our results dimension’. Especially the SDG’s indicators were viewed as facilitators of organisational transparency and great guidance in this reporting process: ‘We have been working for years on the health sector; but how can you measure
this? How can you judge this? You can make up your own indicators or you can say; ‘hey guys wait a second, let’s try to use the indicators of the SDG’s’. This really strengthened our result measurements and is truly of added value’.
However, the measuring of impact also impeded the perception of the SDG
implementation process as incredibly difficult. Although many of the participants felt that reporting was crucial, creating targets and measurable impact data was experienced as a very difficult and time and resource consuming process: ‘This was a huge and difficult task on itself if I am very honest. What we did in the last couple of years is work very hard to lift the quality of our sustainability data to the same level as our financial data. This is of course very good and mostly reporting but yeah- it just takes a ridiculous amount of work effort’.
Therefore there was critique that the UN should have made this impact measurement process more clear for business: ‘Not all targets are evenly clearly formulated and also not on which
scale or dimension they should be reached. So this is tricky if you have to identify which goals are relevant for your organisation’.
SDG Translation to Organisational Level
The last indicator of the SDG-Strategy Fit was the complicated and impeding process of translating the SDG’s from a global and governmental level to an organisational level: ‘Yeah
they are very broad and really formulated from a government perspective, so that makes it complicated for business to really make concrete’. For most participants it was difficult to scale these global goals to an organisational level as most of the SDG’s indicators and targets reflect global and national issues. Translating these issues to what you can contribute to with your organisation, therefore, requires a lot of time, creativity and analysing: ‘Ehm what I do
run into and what our organisation is now really looking into is how to make this as concrete as possible, because they are such general target- no general topics I mean. Sometimes they have titles such as ‘health and wellbeing’ and you think ‘hey that really fits!’ But then when you look at the targets and objectives underneath they again stand very far away from us. But how can you say as a company; these are the target I want to connect to and make an impact
in’.
As the SDG’s are very global and broad, multiple participants stated the SDG’s
needed to be more concrete and relatable for organisations and professional contribution as well, whilst again emphasising the role of the government in this process: ‘I believe that the SDG’s should be made more concrete, there are of course indicators but these are all quite dry. And not only our company, but also the government should help make this personal role more concrete.’
Perceived Added Value of SDG’s
The third dimension of the overall perception of SDG implementation is the perceived added value of the SDG’s. This dimension exists out of three indicators; tool for stakeholder & shareholder management, SDG’s as Guiding & Sense-Making Framework and Organisational
Misuse. Overall the SDG’s were viewed as a great tool for stakeholder and shareholder management, which facilitated the perception of the SDG implementation. Additionally, the SDG’s helped the participants with guiding them through their function in the change process
and make sense of their possible impact they could have with their work by being able to link this impact to the SDG’s. However, the SDG’s also brought about a new form of
greenwashing to many organisations called ‘SDG-washing’. This impeded the overall
perception of the SDG implementation as ‘less important’ and ‘frustrating’ to participant’s when comparing their own hard work of creating transparent and credible impact with this ‘easy’ SDG-washing performed by other organisations.
Tool for Stakeholder & Shareholder Management
The first indicator of this dimension is the facilitating role of the SDG’s as a specific tool for stakeholder and shareholder management. As previously mentioned, the SDG’s were also a
way for the participants of being managed by- and managing their organisation’s external relations. Most participants claimed that the role the SDG’s played in external relations was
very useful in creating a common language between organisations and was a way to look for partners with common values and goals: ‘Yeah it allows you to draw parallels when you’re looking for a business partner right. And you don’t have to be the same, you can be
complementary. But in values, in certain business visions and within the business world you want to have things in common with other partners’. Furthermore, multiple participants claimed that by embracing the SDG’s in their strategy and being an overall sustainable
organisation, this attracted a lot of young talent. One of the younger participants explained this as: ‘And eh for me it’s extremely important to make a positive impact and I think many people of eh my generation, they have, they are looking for a bit of purpose in their work and I feel like yeah that’s a fantastic way to make an impact’.
Finally, the SDG’s were used for marketing, public relations and as sales pitch when
communicating with (possible) new investors or shareholders: ‘Hmm well it also has a motivation of public relations, PR, because we are part of achieving these goals and that is very good of course. So this is also very useful for commercial profiling and your
positioning’.
SDG’s as Guiding & Sense-Making Framework
The second indicator of this dimension was the facilitation of the perceived added value of the SDG’s as a sense-making and guiding framework for their role and responsibilities within the SDG implementation. The SDG’s were viewed as a looking glass that allowed the participants
to truly grasp the societal and sustainable themes and goals relevant to their organisation: ‘I use them a lot within the organisation, but also externally because they truly lay down our world ambitions. They provide guidance to this ambition and how to fill this in’. Moreover
this sense-making allowed organisations to self-reflect on their business model and initiate actual change: ‘You can say the SDG framework initiated us to reflect on our business model and refocus it and it’s the first time in this organisation that this has happened’. Furthermore, almost all the participants explained that the SDG’s helped them a lot with making sense of the possible responsibility and impact they could have with their work: ‘This really led us to think; how are we defining our impact? Because they always say that impact is much more than sustainability. But what positive societal impact truly means is undefined. And then we quickly turn towards to the SDG’s as framework that can tell us how to define this’.
Finally, the SDG’s were used as a guiding framework of authority for internal
communications and internal lobbying; aiming to create and influence more sustainable unity, action and cooperation within organisations: ‘So in this sense it’s also a lobby instrument right; an arrangement of world ambitions and for action prospects’.
Organisational Misuse (SDG-Washing)
The third indicator of this dimension is the impeding role of Organisational Misuse of the SDG’s on the overall perception of the SDG implementation. The participants explained this misuse of the SDG’s as greenwashing. Many of the participants showed frustration on this
SDG misuse for greenwashing, as it put their own hard work in a less important light, making the SDG implementation less ‘special’.
Indeed, one of the things the participants often witnessed was a phenomenon called ‘SDG-washing’ within other organisations. This term entailed that organisation just simply
put the SDG sticker on everything without showing credible data to back up their impact and contribution: ‘You can receive credibility through the SDG’s, however there is a thin line in receiving it or claiming it. Because you can also perform ‘SDG-washing’. As an organisation
you can just simply put an SDG-sticker on everything and especially when the SDG’s just came out, this was done often’.
Therefore, participants complained about the lack of external obligations to report on impact and placed another responsibility on the government to imply tougher and compulsory implications and requirement for SDG implementations and reporting: ‘A fact is; there is no pay-up mechanism with the SDG’s. So this means that it will never be a priority that because of the SDG’s an entire organisation will be rebuild, unless you have a really visionary leader’.
Perceived Organisational Attitude & Awareness
Finally, the last dimension to the perception of SDG Implementations was the perceived organisational Attitude & Awareness towards the SDG’s. This dimension brought about
frustrating but also promising aspects of the SDG implementation according to the
participants. Especially the important role of direct and indirect leadership and support from authority in change management were emphasised by all participants. Furthermore, the participants were reasonably content with the attitude within their organisations towards the SDG’s and their underlying story and the change communication within their departments and
connected teams. However, most participants noticed a lack of awareness on the SDG’s and sustainability in general within the rest of the organisation and stated more communication from within the organisation was necessary to truly support the sustainable implementation.
Direct and Indirect Leadership
The first indicator of this dimension is the facilitating role of leadership in the overall
many inspiring aspects of leadership facilitated the readiness and willingness of the organisation to implement the SDG’s.
Regardless of their management position, all participants viewed themselves as either important direct or indirect leaders in the SDG implementation process and often described themselves as sustainable ambassadors within their organisations: ‘So we are sort of an ambassador already right, we all lobby a lot internally as well as externally around the whole importance of sustainability and of climate change’. Direct leadership was perceived as having direct authority over other employees and direct SDG-related decision making. Indirect leadership entailed embracing leadership aspects in inspiring and motivating others with SDG discussion and decision making without having direct authority over others.
When describing themselves as leaders, participants often used the term
‘transformational leadership’ and additional aspects such as being transparent, inspirational by playing into people’s intrinsic motivations, passionate and caring. Furthermore,
importance was placed in repetition of necessary information, showing credibility by giving the right example, practising open communication and being able to translate and concretise the SDG’s for the individual employee: ‘I find that very important as well that a leader takes
the lead, goes in the front and shows what it’s all about when it comes to him/her. And really shows this behaviour’. Interestingly, when asked to describe the ideal leader for SDG
implementation, emphasis was placed on the aspects of transparency, and being realistic: ‘What I find so important is good judgement right; the balance. You can’t do this without looking at the consequences and business operations and the economic aspects. And I believe that’s leadership!’.
Finally, most participants explained that with supportive direct leadership from high-management and the CEO, they could more easily initiate SDG-related changes: ‘It is of course that you can show up until the highest regions of your organisation that people find
this important and he (the CEO) was definitely a real driving force behind this entire development’.
Storytelling
The second indicator of this dimension is the facilitating role of storytelling within the SDG change process. Indeed, all participants claimed that storytelling as an aspect of vertical communication was crucial to ensure employees would feel pride of their organisation and especially increase sustainability awareness.
However, the SDG’s themselves were mainly used for storytelling towards
management or in communication with external stakeholders instead of general employees, as a means of showing contribution, creating focus and portraying a purpose-driven
organisation: ‘Yeah, I think everyone recognizes them right? So it’s, it’s in that sense eh
maybe easier to explain our own story I would say, if we say we align according to the SDG’s instead of making up our own priorities and say well these are the things we work on’.
Most participants believed it was more important for employees to know the broader picture behind the SDG’s as linked to specific organisational projects than knowing the SDG’s themselves as they believed the SDG’s were too high-level: ‘I find it more important
that SDG are portrayed as concrete projects that employees can imagine and place
themselves in. And that they are very proud of us and that they really want to contribute and share, instead of that they have to know SDG 1 or 8 or 16’.
Finally, sharing success stories within storytelling and showing the added value of sustainability to all employees within organisational storytelling were deemed crucial: ‘And what is incredibly important and something we’re currently really working on is the concrete benefits of sustainability on our products. To make those more clear in an understandable way, for ourselves, our salesforce and our customers’.
Lack of Sustainable Awareness
The third indicator of this dimension is the impeding role of the lack of sustainable awareness within the organisation. Most participant perceived the lack of sustainable awareness within their organisation as impeding to the true success of the SDG implementation. The lack of sustainable awareness entailed a lack of knowledge and understanding of the concept of sustainability and a lack of understanding of the importance of sustainability for both the employees as individuals and for the organisation.
The participants acknowledged that this was an aspect they still had to work on: ‘I think there is an entire part of developed and training necessary to truly let people understand; what is this all exactly? To transform purpose and sustainability into an
understandable language for our own people and our for our customers and explain what the benefits are’. However, the participants explained that increasing sustainable awareness and specifically more SDG awareness, was very difficult and often not in their interest to do for their entire organisation, especially when the organisation was large: ‘But I would never have the ambition to have all these thousands of employees know what the SDG’s are’.
Additionally, participants often claimed to not have enough time and resources for this process either.
The ‘Sustainability Bubble’
The last indicator of this dimension is the impeding role of the so called ‘Sustainability Bubble’ in the overall perception of the SDG implementation. As participants were often only
surrounded by like-minded professional and team-members with the same interests and drive, this often led to SDG communication and sustainable awareness staying within a
‘Sustainability Bubble’ instead of reaching out to other employees: ‘You do see that, yeah I
in the academic world. Everyone you know, knows about it. But if I talk to my neighbour, a very nice bloke, but he is a truck driver and he just really looks at me like ‘what are you doing, because I don’t get it’.
Furthermore, many participants placed less importance in the rest of their organisation knowing the specific SDG’s and the changes they brought to their organisation. Indeed, this
Sustainability Bubble was strengthened as the perception of the participants often was that the SDG’s were too high-level, too academic and complicated for most employees, the
communication around SDG’s stayed within the upper management levels of the
organisations: ‘Macro is the entire organisation, meso are the different business units and micro is the individual employee. Well the SDG’s are really a macro theme’. Moreover, most participants believed it was logical and expected that self-education was how managers should- and how they themselves had learned everything about the SDG’s. This kept some organisations from communicating the SDG’s and their contribution to ‘lower-levels’ of the organisation. The participants’ opinion was that although a lack of awareness impeded the
SDG implementation, increasing this awareness only entailed increasing general awareness among employees of the organisation’s overall sustainable mission and impact.
Discussion & Conclusion
This thesis’ aim was to research the perception on SDG implementation processes by people either responsible for- or within the SDG change management. Therefore, this study shines new light on what the opportunities and bottlenecks are for change management during sustainable organisational change, specifically in context of the important sustainable change enablers; the SDG’s. Especially now, with the societal and political pressure on sustainable
organisational efforts, understanding of how management perceives the SDG’s as important
organisational change can be used by organisations to make this sustainable transition easier and clearer for everyone involved. This study can function as structure for organisations to foster organisational discussions and decision-making with management regarding sustainable change, based on mutual understanding.
Overall, participants were content with their organisation’s decision to implement specific SDG’s and viewed their role in this process as logical and necessary due to their organisation’s responsibility towards society and it’s future. Moreover, the SDG
implementation was perceived as a positive development within their organisation’s
sustainable transition and a useful guiding framework for understanding their organisational impact. Additionally, the SDG’s were a useful communication tool and common language for
internal and external corporate communications and relations. Still, reporting and concretising impact as a result of the SDG’s and communicating the SDG’s to other organisational levels
were deemed a complicated process.
The interview data showed that the participant’s perceptions of the process were based
on 4 dimensions: the Perceived SDG-Organisational Identity Fit, the Perceived SDG-Strategy Fit, the Perceived Added Value of the SDG’s and the perceived Organisational Engagement
& Awareness.
The first dimension; the Perceived SDG-OI Fit entails the perceived fit between the SDG’s and the participant’s view on their organisation’s identity (OI). The SDG-OI fit
facilitated organisational identification, resulting in highly motivated participants. This dimension showed the importance of OI to justify the fit of sustainable organisational change. When the SDG’s chosen by the organisation were specifically deemed a good fit with the organisation’s culture, mission, vision and values, the participant’s perceived the change as
that the fit between the sustainable change and the OI further strengthens organisational identification and commitment. Additionally, this study extends Siegel’s (2010) argument that organisations should only pursue sustainable organisational management when it is in their own self-interest to do so and these changes fit the organisation’s operations and core
strategy. There should also be a high fit between the sustainable change and the organisation’s
OI as this facilitates justification and positive perceptions of sustainable change implementation.
Finally, this dimension introduced the concept of organisational culture as an
important facilitator for positive perceptions of sustainable change. Especially a culture that is open to organisational listening, encourages feedback and is rewarding towards innovation and sustainable behaviour facilitated the SDG implementation process. This open and rewarding aspect of culture has been highlighted by only a few researchers as key to
developing a sustainable culture. Indeed, in their case research on sustainable organisational change, Benn, Dunphy and Griffiths found that when management was rewarded with better pay and team-based conditions and a motivated and driven team spirit, this resulted in
elimination of unrest and doubt during sustainable change (2006). Therefore, this study aligns with Ben et al.’s findings that when organisational culture aims at enhancing social capital and rewards human sustainability efforts they are more willing to innovate and take on sustainable change (2006).
The second dimension entails the perceived SDG-Strategy Fit. The SDG-Strategy Fit entails that participants stressed their organisation had to choose the SDG’s that truly fit their
core business strategy, to make the change process more logical, credible and beneficial to their operations. This again aligns with Siegel’s (2010) research on the crucial fit between the organisation’s sustainable changes and its core strategy. Still, this dimension also showed the difficulty of organisational reporting with regards to the SDG’s. The SDG’s were perceived as
big and global goals, so translating them to organisational level of impact was deemed a difficult and a limiting aspect of the implementation. This finding is not unique to the SDG’s
and is echoed in the scarce research on measuring corporate sustainability that points out the complexity of sustainable reporting (Atkinson, 2010). Additionally, it aligns with previous findings that due to ambiguous nature of impact it’s difficult to create targets and quantify the outcomes and result of sustainable change for management and their peers (Atkinson, 2010). Indeed, this dimension shows the practical difficulty of organisational sustainable
transitioning and the work that still needs to be done to make global and national sustainable goals and requirements easier to understand and implement for organisations.
The third dimension entails the perceived added value of the SDG’s that facilitated or impeded the SDG implementation. Here the SDG’s guided the participants in making sense of their organisation’s contribution to society and their own role within this process. This
sense-making and guidance aspect shows the importance of employees to place their work within a bigger sustainable picture. Sense-making theory is a useful theoretical frame for
understanding how ‘change agents’ create their own role and expectations (Tucker, Handy & Barlow, 2013). This study can therefore, add to sense-making theory that the SDG’s are a very useful tool for change agents to understand not only their own role, but also concretise their organisation’s sustainable responsibility and role within reaching global sustainability
goals.
The final dimension is the perceived Organisational Engagement and Awareness during the SDG implementation. Here, participants described the importance of change leadership as facilitating the SDG implementation. Especially strategic thinking and being transparent in showing and communicating all possible aspects of sustainable change were seen as key change leadership aspects and emphasised in participant's own and other’s
transparency is a key issue for long-term high performance and sustainability in all manager levels and throughout the firm (2006). Additionally, in this study sustainable change leaders were described as translators of organisational change to a personal level and can clearly show the added (business) value of their sustainable strategy for employees in their
workplace. The role of the CEO was highly addressed as crucial in creating and leading an organisational culture that embraces sustainable change. This echoes Musteen, Barker and Baeten’s (2010) findings that CEO’s with liberal and positive attitudes towards change have a strong systematic impact on the organisation’s approach to innovation and change-oriented strategies. In this study’s case, this can be applied to sustainable innovation and change. Therefore, this dimension confirms Gill’s description of change leadership (2002); creating a
strong shared vision and shared values and culture between the leader and the follower, communicating a clear strategy, empowerment and motivation and inspiration.
Additionally, participants all agreed on a lack of sustainable awareness within their organisations. This lack of awareness was perceived as a bottleneck to true organisational sustainable transitioning and awareness should be increased in all management levels and departments to inspire innovation and employee pride. This aligns with Ronnenberg et al.’s research (2011), that organisations often struggle with effectively communicating the urgency and broader background of sustainable developments to their employees. Interestingly,
increased awareness of the SDG’s was not deemed necessary. However, increasing general awareness on sustainability and the organisation’s sustainable strategy through storytelling of
sustainability success stories were deemed highly necessary in creating employee pride and motivation. Still, lack of participant’s time and resources often stood in the way of increasing sustainable awareness. This results in the practical question if more employees should be hired to specifically increase this awareness.
Finally, participants all deemed the SDG’s as too academic and high-level for
employees to understand and, therefore, difficult to communicate. Indeed, attention was brought to the interesting concept of the ‘Sustainability Bubble’. This concept entails that
sustainable awareness remains in a network of employees and professionals that are open to- and are knowledgeable to sustainability and the SDG’s. This bubble could be a result of their
education, their interests or even upbringing and shines a light on how people create and are unaware of the sustainable bubble they are in. This bubble could potentially stand in the way of more communication and discussion among people or employees that are outside of this bubble and impede an increase in sustainable awareness. Therefore, the ‘Sustainability
Bubble’ introduces a new insight into the role of organisational information management during sustainable change management.
Limitations & Future Implications
When discussing this study’s possible limitations, attention should be brought to the transferability of this study’s results. Transferability entails the extent to which this study’s results can be transferred to other groups of people or other organisational contexts (Braun & Clarke, 2013). This study’s participants often had high-level and influential positions within the SDG implementation. Additionally, due to their sustainability-related functions,
participants were very passionate and knowledgeable on the field of sustainability and the SDG’s. These aspects could have resulted in more pro-sustainability and high-level biased
points of view, potentially different from ‘lower-level’ employees’ perspectives or employees with less knowledge and/or passion for sustainability. Therefore, it would be interesting for future research to include employees with diverse functions from other organisational levels
