Entrepreneurship-driven organizational transformation for sustainability: a sensemaking lens

PurposeThis paper adopts a sensemaking lens to explore the process of entrepreneurship-driven organizational transformation for sustainability.Design/methodology/approachAnalysis is based on an in-depth case study of a large European meat company. Sensemaking by top and middle managers is analyzed over the period of 18 months.FindingsThe findings show how, over time, bidirectional sensemaking, that is, sensemaking for and of sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship, directed and accelerated organizational transformation for sustainability. The case company transformed with regard to organizational strategy, structure, operations and identity. The process revealed temporally different involvement of top and middle managers in sensemaking.Originality/valueThis paper offers unique insights into fast and emergent sustainability-oriented change in an established organization within a highly topical context. The results highlight how continuous and increasingly shared sensemaking can help top and middle managers navigate organizational change for sustainability in dynamic environments over time.

The Absorptive Capacity and Innovation in Jordanian Universities

Organizational transformation is a high-risk and difficult activity that all institutions must undertake. The objective of this article is to examine how businesses develop and utilize ACAP to aid with transformation. We examine how realized absorptive capacity in terms of transformation and exploitation capability directly affects organizational change and how process innovation practises act as an effective mechanism for connecting transformation and exploitation capability with organizational change, using a dynamic capability perspective and a’resourcing’ synergy perspective. To differentiate ourselves, we focus on both an evolving organizational structure and an emerging economy context in this research. The findings and discussion that follow on how process innovation strategies might help colleges become more entrepreneurial will interest university administrators and lawmakers.

Engaging Employees With Positivity

This chapter attempts to find the role of appreciative inquiry in employee engagement and organizational transformation. An attempt has been made to explain the impact of appreciative inquiry on employee engagement, which eventually helps in organizational transformation with minimal hindrances. Employee engagement has turned into an undeniably conspicuous issue in the region of organizational development (OD) likely because of the developing collection of research encompassing the positive connection between employee engagement and organizational development, which also comprises profit margin. Appreciative inquiry is a vision-based approach of open dialogue that is designed to help organizations and their partners create a shared vision for the future and a mission to operate in the present. The main thrust area of appreciative inquiry is to find out what works best for the organization. Instead of focusing on negativity, appreciative inquiry focuses on the positive aspect of the organization.

Global Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, Equity, and Access - GIDBEA. The Architecture of A New Different

The article asserts the need for organizations to adopt intentional and transformative Global Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, Equity, and Access (GIDBEA) practices, to ensure their future readiness. The research developed reaffirms the benefits of GIDBEA strategies in identifying gap areas and navigating crises, by providing insights on how to successfully embed a ‘new different’ GIDBEA strategy into organizational frameworks. By drawing trends across the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic and other previous health and economic crises, it is indicated what is described as the “normality of disruption” and the need to move away from the idea of a ‘new normal’ to a new different. The new different acknowledges that the ‘normal’ or the status quo was often challenging for many. The impact and importance of the disruptions that individuals, communities, nations, etc., all have and will face together, is also recognized. The new different emphasizes organizational transformation through co-creation, sustainability, adaptivity, resilience, and design thinking. By implementing a design thinking model, GIDBEA proactively engages mistakes while promoting innovation through dissent and disruption. As a result, disruptions are not considered episodic crises but as recurring, expected, and presenting opportunities. Furthermore, it is argued that GIDBEA expertise is essential for remaining agile, innovative, and providing strategic organizational architecture to prepare and innovate for these disruptions. However, it is necessary to consider that GIDBEA practice can be limited due to the failure of organizations and leaders to frame it as an asset and develop strategic plans to leverage it in the same way they do other critical functional business units. Therefore, unless prioritized and conducted intentionally, GIDBEA work will not achieve its promised bonuses and transformative potential. The article offers readers insights and tools to assess existing GIDBEA within their organization. Using metaphors of “construction” and “architecture,” it illustrates how reimaging organizational architectures and constructing initiatives focused on GIDBEA are fundamental to resiliency, organizational sustainability, and the ability to thrive through shifting landscapes.

RACIAL CHANGE AND BLACK MOVEMENT EMERGENCE: A CASE FROM THE BLACK LIVES MOVEMENT

This article contributes to sociological understandings of race and social movements by reassessing the phenomenon of social movement emergence for Black social movements. Broadly, it addresses the possibility of organizational support for Black social movements. More narrowly, it seeks to understand the emergence of Black movements and racial change as outcomes of organizational transformation, specifically using the case of how the mixed-race prison reform organization Action for Police Reform (APR) joined the Black Lives movement. By providing a case of racial transformation and the spanning of tactical boundaries, I present two central arguments. First, it is necessary to look within organizational forms and at organizational dynamics to see how activists modify their organizations to support Black movements. Second, tailored more directly to the case of APR, sustained support for Black movements depends on organizational transformation, such as when activists repurpose an organization’s form and resources to maintain racially delimited tactics.

Systems Sensing and Systemic Constellation for Organizational Transformation

This paper examines how a systems sensing—or felt-sense—approach and orientation to inquiry and systemic constellation practice might help social change organizations cultivate capacities to better navigate complexity, both in their outer-facing work and internal dynamics as teams and as individuals. We present a pilot study of systemic constellation practice, sharing the experience of participants during and after the practice, as well as our own reflexive process. Currently an undertheorized and underutilized approach within systems thinking work, systems sensing and systemic constellation, can reveal less visible but nevertheless foundational dynamics at play in an organizational body, and can help create more awareness through widening ways of knowing in the organizational playground. We explore how the facilitated collective sense-making process of systemic constellation engages subtle ways of knowing specifically energetic, relational, and embodied knowing, building on what Heron and Reason (2008) have called an “extended epistemology.” As we suggest, these more subtle ways of knowing warrant further study, particularly as they may contribute to action research methods and foster a more participatory culture of transformation at both an organizational and societal level.

Development of innovative processes in integrated industrial structures (IPS)

The purpose of this article is to analyze the problems of development of innovative processes in integrated industrial structures (IPS).The article considers approaches and methods that activate the development of innovative processes in the IPS. Special attention is paid to the consideration of issues reflecting the economic forms of integration of industrial enterprises: the processes of organizational transformation based on the creation and functioning of new production structures, involving the adaptation of their structural units to the development of innovative activities. Special attention is paid to the formation of the IPS as a promising form of management at the current stage of economic development. The paper analyzes the IPS as a factor of interaction and organization of effective activities of economic entities. The approaches of different authors to the definition of this term are shown. The author comes to the conclusion that the existing industrial environment contributes to the development of innovative activities of enterprises in the industrial sector, its definition is given, the essence and content are revealed. The author identifies and describes the characteristic features of integration processes, the main forms of integration are given, their content is disclosed. The author determines that the management of changes carried out in the development of integration processes is a separate type of innovative activity with its inherent features. Considerable attention is paid to the creation of cluster-network structures representing the development of integration processes in the industrial environment on the basis of network cooperation of participants. The definition of cluster-network integration of industrial sector enterprises has been put into circulation. It is shown that the formation and implementation of the activities of individual enterprises in the cluster gives a positive impetus to the entire innovation system through the mechanisms of networking and participation in technological platforms.