The discursive construction of a green organizational identity

Paper in proceeding, 2008

Contributing to the development of a sustainable society is currently on the agenda of most organizations and has become an important feature of their internal identity and their external image. The everyday life of these organizations are highly influenced and constrained by the wider context and discourses in which the organizations are embedded and the power structures that prevail. This paper examines how multiple and conflicting notions of ‘green’ compete and are made sense of within organizational processes and discourses, shaping that organization’s identity and image. Based on empirical data from a longitudinal, qualitative case study, we show how, over time, the environmental discourse in the organization has been technologized. Through this process, alliances are created, subordinate groups are mobilized and a common representation of sustainability as well as a consensual green praxis is generated in talk.