The sustainability movement - The institutionalization of sustainability in organizations

Abstract

Background Sustainability has become a more frequently used phenomenon, both within organizations but also in public. The concept sustainability have been used for several years and started in the fishing and foresting industries, but have later on been used in all sort industries and contexts. Today, it is almost impossible not stumbling over an organizations’ sustainability web page on the Internet. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how and why organizations with different backgrounds and characters operate with sustainability, to answer if sustainability has become an institutionalized trend in organizations. Method and Theory The study is built on qualitative interviews with six informants from different organizations operating in different fields. Every informant has a link to the field of sustainability and has been audio-recorded under the interviews. The theoretical tools used for this study are institutional- and new institutional theory and the organizations relationship to its environment. The analysis of the data has been compared with the institutionalized trend of quality. Results There are to few interviews being done to confirm if sustainability has become an institutionalized trend in organizations, but there are some signs in the study indicating that there has been some institutionalization. The wide use of sustainable certifications and standards shows that there have been institutional processes in the organizations. The thesis shows that sustainability provide organizations with legitimacy and trustworthiness, and many informants explained that the growing awareness in the world pressure organizations to incorporate sustainability in their processes, making it a hygiene factor in many organizations to work with.