Locating Personal sustainability within Organisational Contexts in two different cultures

This paper argues that some elements of organisational dynamics, and particularly organisational metaphor, focus, and discourse, can contribute to greater or lesser personal sustainability. This, however, is only a first step... [ view full abstract ]

This paper argues that some elements of organisational dynamics, and particularly organisational metaphor, focus, and discourse, can contribute to greater or lesser personal sustainability. This, however, is only a first step in understanding actual dynamics; any inquiry needs to be much more nuanced and much more contextualised before effects on real rather than ‘typological’ organisations are fully appreciated. Any such analysis will then need to be accompanied by a deeper investigation into the actualities, deeper complexities, and individualities within an organization.

The paper then examines the effects of these elements on two real life organisations. The two organisations selected are not seen as exemplars of particular positive or negative characteristics, but instead are viewed as organisations whose complex dynamics were ‘discovered’ during two research projects, one in the UK and one in Hong Kong. The anonymised quotations used are taken from three different sources: the first are from full interview transcripts; the second from written ‘portraits’ of individuals in these organisations; and the third from discussions either singly or in groups following the interviews. Together, these three sources throw important light upon how organisations in different cultures can support or damage the sustainability of the individuals within them.