“Corporate Sustainability in Organization Development”

Abstract — Since the publishing of what has become to be known as the ‘Brundtland-Report’ in 1987 the term sustainability has been used in various ways. However, there is almost no relevant literature that would explicitly exhort the concept of sustainability in the context of Organization Development (OD) itself. The paper attempts to sketch sustainability in the organizational field as a contingent matter. In effect, in capturing potential aspects of sustainability that might be ‘in the room’ and in dialoguing about the relevance thereof for an OD endeavor we deem it to be primordial to give a voice to both the existing environments and those that might possibly arise in the future. Additionally, it proves essential to establish some sort of transition organization which is predestined to encompass all the sustainability aspects identified as relevant and to follow up on those aspects in a room free from taboos in what we refer to as a cyclical, recursive and reflexive process. Such an approach is likely to allow for sustainable solutions to emerge with impunity. Finally and complementing the two ideas above, on a personal and social level, it seems imperative to accompany parties concerned from leadership, to management, to shopfloor such that they feel facilitated to embark on a joint Organization Development journey cognitively and emotionally with the aim to develop sustainable and fully engaged realities in their organization.

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