Building sustainability on deep values through mindfulness nurturing

Estrella Bernal*, David Edgar, Bernard Burnes

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    20 Citations (Scopus)
    297 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    To effectively pursue sustainability, companies need to develop an awareness of the importance of social and environmental objectives in addition to economic. To achieve this, they need to promote a set of shared values in their strategy and cultural change which align global sustainability with organisational performance. To assist organisations with this process and thus identify and nurture their members’ underpinning values, we present the Organisational Presence Model including a Real Dialogue Methodology. We draw on Lewin’s participative approach to change and the deep concept of Mindfulness related to Buddhist precepts, while contributing with a way to initiate Mindfulness nurturing in business context, facilitating its acceptance and practice by organisational members. In our study case we find signs of positive effects of the model in sustainability pursuing. The new strategy has been built aligned with resulting values, that are also perceived by organisational members as inspirational, generating motivation and helping the effective communication that integrates the strategic objectives in the economic, social and environmental aspects.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)645–657
    Number of pages13
    JournalEcological Economics
    Volume146
    Early online date20 Dec 2017
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2018

    Keywords

    • deep values
    • global sustainability
    • mindfulness
    • organisational culture
    • participation
    • performance

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Environmental Science
    • Economics and Econometrics

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