REFLECTIONS ON SUSTAINABILITY’S MEANING IN ORGANIZATIONS

Author:

Zanoni Beatriz Lima1ORCID,Oliveira Samir Adamoglu de2ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brasil

2. Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brasil; Instituto Brasileiro de Estudos e Pesquisas Sociais, Brasil

Abstract

ABSTRACT Adopting an institutionalist perspective on the construction of the meaning(s) of sustainability for organizations, we argue that this polysemic concept is linguistically employed in diverse fields with the intent to provide legitimacy. We apply the semiotic model of the institutionalization process to the concept of sustainability, highlighting its linguistic-social construction in two ways: as denotation and connotation. We then discuss the departure from the objective nature of the concept to its mythical-rational nature in which the separation of doing, saying, and meaning transmute its semantic content. Sustainability is, then, understood as another institutional pressure to which organizations need to respond, and they usually do so strategically through acceptance, adaptation, or contestation. Thus, even if certain actors aim to institutionalize sustainability as a denotation, its connotation fluctuates due to convenience or lack of clarity on how to operationalize it in organizations.

Publisher

FapUNIFESP (SciELO)

Subject

Marketing,Strategy and Management,Industrial relations,Business and International Management,Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous),Management of Technology and Innovation,Management Science and Operations Research,Information Systems and Management,Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

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