Implementing Sustainability in Organizations: How Practitioners Discursively Position Work
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
Keywords
sustainability, discourse, politics, discursive positioning
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318917724234
Abstract
Although largely espoused by contemporary organizations, implementing sustainability is often vague and ineffective. In contrast to most studies that employ resource-based or institutional perspectives to study sustainable organizing, we draw on discursive positioning theory to examine how sustainability practitioners make sense of and enact their work on the ground. Interviewing 45 practitioners and analyzing 35 curriculum vitae (CVs), we traced four subject positions – discovery, enlightenment, legitimacy, and consumption – constructed via 12 discursive resources. These positions emphasized 12 strategic messages, depending on participants’ work contexts. Findings also indicated four ways that politics shaped participants’ subject positions through government collaborations, regulatory environments, vested political agendas, and dominant sociopolitical discourses. We close by discussing some key theoretical and practical implications related to discursive positioning, the political implications of work practices, and sustainability policy making.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Management Communication Quarterly, v. 32, issue 2, p. 172-201
Scholar Commons Citation
Mitra, Rahul and Buzzanell, Patrice M., "Implementing Sustainability in Organizations: How Practitioners Discursively Position Work" (2017). Communication Faculty Publications. 997.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/spe_facpub/997
