Structure and Agency in Designing Sustainability
Abstract
Organisations design solutions and implement strategies to address impending environmental crises. Despite the proliferation of environmental strategies, they have for the best part failed in delivering impact reductions.... [ view full abstract ]
Organisations design solutions and implement strategies to address impending environmental crises. Despite the proliferation of environmental strategies, they have for the best part failed in delivering impact reductions. Reasons as to why success is elusive are still not entirely clear. Environmental strategies are enacted by people within organisations, and rely on people being afforded sufficient agency and resources to make a difference. This paper responds to calls for more attention to be paid to people and their ‘agency’ when considering how environmental strategies are implemented. Building on Giddens’ structuration theory, the research draws on qualitative interview and observation based research of three case studies comprising a strategy review conducted at a tertiary institution; an aged care planning context; and a long term eco-design program funded by government. It focuses on how employees interact with rules, resources, norms and information to either reproduce or change social structures during three cases involving design. Primary data were collected and analysed from these sites. A systematic three stage inductive approach to analysis was applied following Gioia et al, to articulate themes as they emerged, to develop a series of second order themes. Themes were combined and synthesised into aggregate dimensions. A descriptive analysis was used to articulate key aggregate dimensions evident across cases. When aggregate dimensions were collated, they formed a nuanced account of the structure-agency relationship for design contexts when environmental strategies are implemented. Within the contexts investigated, the results highlight how social structures constrain or enable environmental outcomes respectively. Moreover, the conditions where employees can use power to change or exploit contexts for better environmental outcomes are illustrated, in instances when design projects progress. Alternatively it is revealed that contexts are problematic when employees are faced with structural resistance at the organisations in which they work. Therefore, characteristics about people and their agency aimed at environmental efforts emerge, thus contributing a new understanding of how environmental strategy can be successful or not. It is concluded that structuration could be used in further research to identify routes for managers to navigate structural barriers, and to help enable their employees to enact environmental strategy. Indeed such work may help to deliver effective strategy for both design scenarios, and for other individual or cross disciplinary contexts within organisations.
Keywords: environmental strategy, agency, social structures, structuration, design
Authors
-
Simon Lockrey
(RMIT University)
-
Warren Staples
(RMIT University)
Topic Area
5b. Design for sustainability
Session
OS5-5b » 5b. Design for sustainability (09:30 - Friday, 15th June, Department of Economics - Room 9 - Third floor)
Paper
empty_final_draft.pdf