Alliances of Change Pushing Organizational Transformation Towards Sustainability across 13 Universities

Abstract

Universities are expected to play a leading role in developing and maintaining sustainability. To contribute to a systemic and dynamic understanding of organizational change that is necessary in order to play such a role, we comparatively analyzed processes of organizational changes towards sustainability across thirteen universities in Austria. This comparative analysis is based on data from guided interviews and document analysis and on validation of preliminary results via group discussion and individual comments. The results show that all universities embedded sustainability in most of their areas of activity (research, teaching, operations, organizational culture, societal engagement), but the depth of integration and the type of structural embedding varies. Especially for early changes dating back to the 1990s, academics working in the broader field of sustainability studies were those agents of change, who—without formal mandate—skillfully and proactively initiated and drove organizational transformations following an idealistic and intrinsic motivation. A timeline analysis illustrates peaks of sustainability-related changes in the years of the foundation of inter-university networks in 2011 and 2017, which acted as alliances of change. Ministry intervention in 2015 helped to bring sustainability on the agenda of those universities with less change agency. In summary, sustainability transformations across the fields of teaching, research, operations, organizational culture, and societal engagement were driven by a fruitful interplay of change agency and change alliances and to a minor degree by top-down interventions.

The COVID-19 Pandemic as an Opportunity to Foster the Sustainable Development of Teaching in Higher Education

“…Conclusions of the study by Bohunovsky et al [27] on pushing organizational transformation towards sustainability across 13 Universities in Austria are enriching for other HEIs, respecting the internal and external characteristics of each one. First and foremost, and prior to any changing process in HEIs towards sustainable development, it is important to bear in mind that organizational change processes towards sustainable development in these institutions are complex and experience numerous parallel developments, and have a wide range of institutional actors involved in this process, who may react differently to change.…”

“…Higher education is paramount in the promotion of sustainability at the environmental, economic and social levels [27][28][29]. Building on Kuzma, Doliveira, and Silva [30], Table 3 depicts the main competences for sustainability, as well as the definition and characteristics of each one of them.…”

“…Furthermore, HEIs are influenced differently by internal and external factors. The main drivers of organizational transformation towards sustainable development in HEIs can be, for example, individual institutional actors, HEIs' management and rectorate organs and inter-HEI networks through inter-influence, enabling this transformation by creating conditions and opportunities and/or leading this organizational transformation [27].…”

Organizational Change Management for Sustainability in Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Quantitative Literature Review

“…Only four papers highlighted how context factors can impact organizational change. For instance, Farinha et al [49] found that sectoral initiatives like the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development had limited effect on Portuguese HEIs, whereas Bohunovsky et al [50] claimed that a national university network acted like a major driver of change, particularly for HEIs starting their journey towards sustainability. Similarly, Lambrechts et al [51] report positive impacts from professional development initiatives driven by the government to facilitate the incorporation of sustainability into competence-based education.…”

“…Overall, 14 papers (42.2% of total) contained at least one database entry constituting a leadership factor, and out of those, the majority contrasted different approaches of change leadership and their impact on organizational change (e.g., [50]) (see Figure 3). Most of these papers attach leadership to specific stakeholders and the degree of authority they wield.…”