In business management, one key factor is quite often overlooked: organizational culture. It influences the behavior of managers and employees, how they perceive and address the firm’s internal and external challenges, and attitudes towards change. To establish a truly sustainable business model, decisive corporate change is needed.
Organizational culture is of utmost importance for the success of corporate environmental management initiatives and the achievement of corporate sustainability. The implementation of environmental practices and guidelines must be embedded into the values and beliefs of the organizational culture (Johnstone 2018) to enable the required awareness as well as ongoing dialogue and communication about environmental issues. Moreover, organizational culture is also a disciplining instrument and control mechanism which may foster the likelihood of long-term success of corporate environmental management initiatives. It affects the behavior and decision making of managers and thus the firm’s strategic orientation, performance, procedures, and attitudes towards change and innovation.
Conclusion
There is an urgent need for the transformation from a static to a dynamic world view with change as a permanent process in business and society to address the challenges of global climate change and environmental degradation. Organizations must view change as an opportunity rather than a threat. An openness and high readiness for change has to be embedded into the organizational culture and the business strategy. Only an organizational culture that welcomes, embraces, and facilitates change and includes it in its organizational values and beliefs can promote sustainability. Since change itself is unavoidable, firms have to build capabilities to deal with change, unexpected events, and crises, for example by using tools such as scenario planning and employee training. Change is not the problem; insufficient preparation and a reluctant attitude are.
