Keywords

1.1 Introduction: A Wake-Up Call

The power to develop and beneficially sustain—rather than damage—our living habitat is a hot topic on the agenda for leaders, specialists, and interest groups. It is enacting broad engagements by millions of citizens in particular among the younger generations. There is much to learn and reflect upon if we see sustainability and reimagination concerns as an open field for creative thinking and action.

Recall how the Swedish teenager Greta Ernman Thunberg boldly started her own school strike in Stockholm by August 2018 and how she soon was followed by thousands of other schoolchildren and quite a lot of adults too.

1.1.1 Learning with and from Young People

As landmarks of tomorrow, emerging trends and movements of young people are of great interest. Already the year after, 23 August 2019, Thunberg was invited to speak in the formal Climate Action Summit of the United Nations (UN):

… This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

It was a provoking message that went quickly around the world through numerous broadcastings and social media. The place for waking us up, was a strategic one. United Nations is an epicentre of climate action, targets, events, and publications. Sustainable development has no doubt become an important concern for the United Nations especially since the late 1980s. Following the UN Special Commission on the Environment 1984–1987, the so-called Brundtland commission after its leader, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the UN has for some decades now sought to inspire leaders and responsible people on all continents. The aim of the Brundtland Commission was to help direct the nations of the world towards the goal of sustainable development. The commission published its results in the Brundtland report in 1987. Thereafter, sustainable development became an important concept in the vocabulary of politicians, practitioners, and planners. And yet, Greta Thunberg, provoked with her message; “how dare you!”.

When facing unknown significant environmental changes and especially climate changes such as global warming, the requests of Greta Thunberg together with numerous people of all ages are that much more needs to be done to make progress in practice.

Assuming that more action and creative sustainability developments are essentials for innovative enterprises and leadership, we will introduce some relevant traditions for reimagination next, such as attention to both knowledge and ignorance in the emergence of sustainability ideas.

1.1.2 Pioneering Other, More Knowledge-Based Messages

The journeys towards enabling sustainability in business and human enterprises need to include our understanding of field experiments also including their darker sides. We will revisit an earlier significant wakeup-call, in the early 1960s, when another knowledge-seeking environmentalist, Rachel Carson, a writer and environmental field worker, combined all sorts of evidence across multiple disciplines and research sites in what became her bestseller book, Silent Spring (Carson, 1962/ 2018).

This pioneering work examined and eventually succeeded making clear the highly detrimental consequences of using pesticides (chemicals such as DDT) against insects in the agriculture fields. Initially, an important aim was also to find new uses for military innovations made during the Second World War. However, several kinds of these chemicals eventually turned out to impact not only insects in many detrimental ways but humans too (e.g., mothers’ breast milk). Furthermore, the pesticides also made insects unintentionally resistant to the chemicals, which show the importance of often unforeseen, long-term environmental effects. This dark side resonates to some extent with the effects of long-term overuse of antibiotics, antibiotic resistance leading to therapeutic impotence, which the World Health Organization (WHO) today consider to be a major threat against global public health.

In what became a landmark book, Rachel Carson (1962/2018, p. 13) reflects on the more recent man–nature interactions:

The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth’s vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species – man – acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

1.1.3 Goals and Pillars of Sustainability

On this background, it is noteworthy that the UN has elaborated a list of 17 sustainable development goals (SDG) in its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that came into force from 1 January 2016. With the SDG goals UN has also made a logo-pin which tends to be used by top notch spokespersons of the world, as well as business leaders and engaged professionals. Together with Climate change and other environmental goals, the list of SDGs includes developing the physical, the social, and the mental such as quality education. We can thus speak of an “enlargened sustainability” thinking, which today is becoming spread by and with leaders and reflective people in numerous communities and organizations.

Yet, actionable knowledge on reimagining and research on enlargened sustainability practices seem scarce. Few management books exist on these topics. As business educators, we personally think more can be done to leverage knowledge and action in the relevant areas, which means that we also need conceptual and analytical foundations.

1.2 Conceptual Groundwork

In this book, we will address several perspectives on reimagining as real-world creative endeavours towards sustainable organization. Our concept of “organization” encompasses both business and other human enterprises. It points to the dynamic organizing and patterned ordering (Tsoukas, 2005; Weick, 2001)—thus entailing work activities in circular processes including co-creating practices (Follett, 1924/1951), as well as spontaneous action (Chia & Holt, 2009).

An “enterprise” is a living project, business-interrelated organization, or other kind of undertaking among people, their instruments, and interconnected practices. For example, an innovative enterprise needs to be understood beyond the formal firm, it includes several business relations (Jevnaker, 2012; Lazonick, 2002). The term “living” project can be in a metaphorical or real sense, as de Geus (1997) reflected upon in relation to a living company. We see a living enterprise or better: enterprising, as primarily process-oriented, which is fruitful for our purpose to include also co-generative, informal, or voluntary creative endeavours. Creative endeavours commonly involve aspects that can be emergent, original or unique, but also difficult, complicated, surprising, ambiguous, uncertain, or risky (see Csikszentmihalyi, 1996), which thus tend to call for complex and often somewhat hidden knowledge (Jevnaker, 1993). To relate to the tacit, silent, or less articulate in knowing in action (Polanyi, 1966/1983) seems essential (see Sect. 1.3 below).

New thinking and reimagination may be embedded in actions among participants developing new or existing enterprises. Theories (from Greek: theoria) were in ancient times associated with participating in special crystallizing and contemplative performances. To engage with both the known and unknowns and transcend normative traps in management, this book builds on plural, critical, and process-oriented philosophical foundations.

Reimagining is the act and process of thinking again or differently. This relates to fresh or green thinking.

1.2.1 Green Thinking and the Meanings of “Green”

In general, green is regarded as the colour of life pointing towards nature, renewal, and energy. It is associated with meanings of growing, freshness, fertility, safety, and the natural environment. With the green’s association with renewal, growth, and hope, green stands for both a growing flora and a lack of experience. This can be interconnected in reimagination. For example, different thinking such as common in designer-enterprise collaborations, may be met with scepticism when people are lacking shared relevant experience (see Jevnaker, 2014).

Evidently, green is not only harmonic growth in a well-tended garden. In the stock markets, “green stocks” are a nickname for the young businesses, associated with many uncertainties and fluctuations in stock prices. The nickname is used to distinguish them from established enterprises. Green points to both what we know as growing and what we don’t know but suddenly may see unfolding. Why and how we can work with both the known and the unknown, we will elaborate throughout this book.

An essential meaning of green thinking that we will keep in mind, is that green is the colour for creativity and for seeing possibilities. Recall Edward de Bono’s “Green Thinking Hat” (e.g., De Bono, 1992, p. 80). In human spirituality, green thinking points to fresh thinking and creative capacities. This also concerns the energy to set ideas in action. Accordingly, reimagining also relates to natality, “the beginning of something new”, to borrow a term from the political science thinker Hannah Arendt (1958/2000). This resonates with new beginnings as well as (re)emerging vitality in a circular living rhythm.

In searching for perspectives on sustainable organization in a human enterprise and management context, it seems fruitful to acknowledge several meanings of “green”, as a common metaphor for virtuous circularity. Reimagination includes our fresh creative feelings as well as possible inexperience with thinking anew or in different directions. It also includes what we might envy or conceive as somewhat strange and possibly may fear, e.g., when interacting with strange artificial objects or machine-learning programmes.

For example, new tech objects have emerged as sensor surveillance on our critical fresh water sources or used to track and control agricultural livestock or wild wolves moving around in nature. Data-assembling tools may rapidly be taken for granted on a wider scale (Zuboff, 2019), but they may have both positive and negative consequences (e.g., GPS tracking on children or on patients with dementia, etc.). On this wide background of change and in line with pragmatist phenomenological philosophers (e.g., Dewey, 1934/1980), we suggest multiple perspectives on a new or fresh experiencing in the everyday are something worth attending to and reflecting upon, for our learning and future survival.

Our book seeks to be optimistically oriented. Yet, we face ambiguities and complexities involved in sustainability thinking in relation to business enterprises. For example, what is termed “greenwashing” is a form of business marketing spin in which green public relations (communicating green values) and green marketing are used to make an unsubstantiated or misleading claim that an organization's products, aims, or policies are environmentally friendly.

In short, greener enterprising has many meanings. The complex of dynamic relationships of living things in action with their surroundings are what is commonly termed ecological. Thinking deeper about their dynamics deserves our attention for many reasons.

1.2.2 Inspirations from Process Philosophy

In philosophy, imaginative as well as green thinking can be understood and further developed specifically in relation to eco-philosophy, i.e., how humans live and practice their wisdom in relation to their natural habitat. We will here build on the philosopher Arne Naess because he argued for an open and optimistic thinking in relation to both possibilities and complexities in our surroundings.

Arne Naess (1912–2009) was a Norwegian and internationally known philosopher himself working actively with possibilities, eco-philosophy, and the meaning of practical wisdom, as well as the logical philosophy of science. In line with the pluralistic ideas where everyone can follow their own path, yet seeking to be an exemplar for others, he argued that everybody should develop their own eco-philosophy or what he coined “ecosophy”, that is, one’s personal system of values. To introduce his positive possibility-oriented approach, we will share a little story Naess often retold himself, which was grounded in his lifelong mountaineering and climbing interests. Once in the Spanish Pyrenees, he was lost on a rocket plateau, in a rather challenging mountain area. In this difficult situation, he then recognized the importance of considering alternate action. Through experiencing other actions, he discovered what he called the pleasure of “rambling along the peaks” rather than reaching for their highest top.

In other words, we can try to find alternate, feasible possibilities in human enterprise and development. Our “climbing” efforts can unfold in unforeseen ways that may lead to new joy, even in highly challenging surroundings. Interestingly, people stumble upon alternate ways. Arne Naess set out on his first mountain hiking trip (alone) when he was only 14 years old. On this trip, he happened to meet a man who proposed that he should start reading Spinoza, a seventeenth-century philosopher! We turn to this conceptual line of thinking next.

1.2.2.1 Some Concepts for Engaging with Possibilities

Arne Naess is among the key founders of deep ecological thinking, that is, “deep” in the terms of in-depth, sound arguments, and constructive practices. Deep ecology is thus related both to thinking and to being constructive in our approaches to change. This ecological thinking has several forerunners, embracing here and now, and the always open, next moment in natural time, as inspired from process -philosophy (e.g., Bergson, 1889/1913/2001). In the here and now we can have respect for all living, as Naess (2005) learned from India’s former leader Gandhi. The Naessian thinking also goes way back to early philosophers such as Baruch Spinoza in the Netherlands (1632–1677), as well as Aristotle in Greece (384–322 BC). Three of the interesting conceptions Arne Naess adopted from Spinoza we will briefly introduce below.

The first is potential—potentia or Virtus (from Latin, vir for man), which means the courage, character, and strength or power to do something, that is, to be capable of doing something of value, something excellent. The power term proposed by Spinoza as argued by Arne Naess (2005), has a special meaning. It is not “power over” something (as Machiavelli suggested), it is rather “power to” do something. Also, in this embracing of “Virtus”, Spinoza did not prioritize the mind over the body, which was common at the time he lived. Rather, mind and body should be regarded as equally important, Naess recurrently underlined.

The second concept we wish to highlight for an improved green thinking, is joy—and even hilaritas, a full joy that activates our mind/body. The feelings are very important to activate! In fact, both Spinoza and Naess saw active feelings as necessary for all to be capable for change. Arne Naess focused a lot on the free human’s playful affections in his own eco-sophic thinking. And joy was a recurrent theme in his many popular, inspirational philosophical writings, some of which became best-sellers. From this we may learn that it is a potential strength, rather than a weakness, to be passionate and open for full joy in our sustainability work. We may add that Naess remained personally intrigued throughout his life by children’s play, and he also continued to practice a childlike humour (e.g., he enjoyed burping unexpectedly in secret, such as on a tram or in other social settings).

The third key concept from Spinoza is conatus or effort. Arne Naess refers to conatus as a striving (also a key Aristotelian concept, we may add). This striving is important because it relates to perseveration as a dynamic notion; Naess preferred this old “perseverare” term to avoid the more static “preservation”. In this dynamic conception, we can understand self-perseveration as “an active concept in which the striving (conatus) is the force that makes the self sustain itself” (De Jonge & Whiteman, 2014, p. 437). According to Naess, this striving is something which is more than mere survival (Naess, 2005, p. 414):

There is an urge for change. Human beings, and others being, are always “on the way”—without change of essence. The dynamic, interactionist view of the self makes it inevitable to interpret a basic principle of conatus as a striving for self-causingness, activeness, power.

With “conatus” he specifically means the striving to continue to exist with the power to do. This includes man as well as other living creatures. The active perseverations can further be regarded as an increase in the level of being in ourselves, an increase in our level of freedom, in our level of joy, and so forth. Thus, these concepts—power to do and striving to persevere, are interrelated and they can be very helpful, as we shall come back to throughout the book.

1.2.2.2 Imaginative Working with Intrinsic Relations

Overall, as free human beings, Arne Naess pointed to our positive imaginative possibilities, the potentiality of doing something more. He was no fundamentalist, he articulated that he was more interested in whether leaders had visions, rather than utopias. While exploiting logical reasoning and respecting opponents, Naess recommended to use active feelings creatively towards visions of our future. We should also try to transform the pessimistic aspects into optimistic ones. In other words, we should seek to do something more, with impact and joy.

He recurrently argued: “The basically positive function of the ecological crisis is to renew a general concern for what human life is about. What are we here for? To spoil the planet? Why should we do that?”:

By definition—or better, almost by definition—those who support the deep ecology movement are, like Spinoza, in part motivated by basic premises of philosophical or religious kinds and feel that all living beings have intrinsic value. It makes sense to care for these beings for their own sake, as creative beings. Clearly, the supporters may appreciate something like the above verbal articulations of deep attitudes. (Naess, 2005, pp. 404–405)

Furthermore, Arne Naess pointed to the interconnectedness of everything, a mutually constituting relationism, whether we are talking about ideas or tangible things. The world is regarded as “one”, that is, all in a dynamic interplay, as Spinoza also thought (De Jonge & Whiteman, 2014, p. 440 ff). To attend optimistically to interacting relations among humans and non-humans can thus be crucial to understand ecological matters with a power to do.

1.2.2.3 What Perspectives and Means Can We Explore?

Naess typically recommended to engage in human dialogues with due respect to all opponents. As a pioneering thinker and environmentalist, he was open to diverse views and creative action. The latter could possibly include non-violent resistance action if that was ethical and helpful. For example, he once participated in a sit-down started by local farmers and other protesters, to save a precious waterfall (Mardöla) in North-West Norway.

Also, his own acting with nature, putting up a small cabin and living a life in recurrent long periods high up in the Hallingskarvet massif of the Hardanger (mountain) plateau of Norway, helped Arne Naess building his own “ecosophy”. It is a personal value system and wisdom that he encouraged everybody to develop. At this very rough place, he enjoyed living in nature in simple ways, which offered so rich experiences, e.g., an eagle eye’s view on to thousands of square miles and the majestic Hallingskarvet Massif. “Up here, it is difficult not to think big” (Naess, cited in De Jonge & Whiteman, 2014, p. 433).

Dwelling in other landscapes such as Spinoza’s in the Netherlands, could also offer beautiful experiences, if “appreciated” (Naess, 2005, p. 399):

Spinoza does not write about the beauty of wild nature. Perhaps he never talked about it—the coastline of the Netherlands, the storms, the varieties of light and darkness, the seabirds. There were people around him, Dutch landscape painters, who appreciated all this. Maybe he did also, but it scarcely influenced what he says in the Ethics. What he says about animals does not suggest he had any wide or deep sense of identification with any of them. Nevertheless, his kind of philosophy of life, its structure, is such that he inspires many supporters of the deep ecology movement.

Through such combinations of inspirations, Arne Naess developed his wild-life experiences into a thinking of the place, which he called Philosophy T, after the mountain cabin’s name Tvergastein. He argued that humans are not separate from nature (and to think so leads to trouble) (De Jonge & Whiteman, 2014, p. 446).

Said differently, there is a need to think in deeper ecological ways to consider the less observed actions and consequences. Arne Naess here also refers to Rachel Carson as being significant for his own ecological thinking. Often, the combination of ecological and economic sustainability issues comes with possibilities, as well as threats. Some of which may be unforeseen, as found by Carson (1962/2018) in the DDT chemical industry and agriculture case.

On this background, we must have multiple perspectives to be able to reimagine complex work and deal with emergent challenges, as also found in real-life innovation journeys (Van de Ven et al., 1999).

1.3 A Multi-Perspective Process Thinking

In the following, we synthetize five areas of interest for our understanding endeavours towards reimagining sustainable organization (see Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1
A diagram has a circle in the center, inside of which is, an inclusive dynamic process perspective on reimagining sustainable organization. 4 smaller circles surround it, clockwise from top, theories of exploring new ideas, theories of design projecting distinctive character, theories of integrating changes, and theories of complex knowledge-creation.

(Source Expanded from Jevnaker [2012])

Towards inclusive process perspectives with relevant theorizing for reimagining sustainable organization.

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The five areas we draw on are:

  1. (1)

    theories for complex knowledge and ignorance (see Chapters 3, 5, 6, and 8),

  2. (2)

    theories for new initiatives and travelling management ideas (see Chapters 2, 6, and 7),

  3. (3)

    theories for designing distinctiveness, the art of identity, valuable (re)usability, and meaning (see Chapters 5, 6 and 8), and

  4. (4)

    theories of collective action with the power to organize and realize innovative integration and collaboration (see Chapters 4 and 6).

  5. (5)

    Finally, the book is oriented towards an inclusive dynamic philosophy for sustainable organization, (elaborated throughout the book, see e.g., Chapters 1, 5, and 8).

As introduced, in our concept of organization, we include extra-organizational efforts beyond the formal organization (Tsoukas, 2005; Jevnaker, 2005). By the word sustainable, we point to the capacity to be upheld and endure, while not harming the surroundings, in an inclusive philosophy sense (cf. Naess, 2005). The “enduring” involves arts and our cultural experiencing of time (Bergson, 1889/1913/2001). This is a sensitizing conception (see Chapter 3) that should be further discussed, for example, according to dynamics in criteria for sustainability and in a cross-generational perspective, as introduced by the Brundtland Commission (WCED, 1987, see next section).

In Fig. 1.1, the circle indicates dynamic interconnectedness among the various perspectives in the contexts of leadership and organization, for example views on travelling ideas relate to our understanding of organizational integration (see Chapter 2). Furthermore, we believe perspectives from arts and aesthetic organization, in a broad sense (e.g., Kostera & Woźniak, 2021), can shed light on reimagining endeavours and their dynamics (see Chapters 5 and 8). As argued, the perspective areas are sensitizing, and not meant to be a final framing for a dynamic process orientation towards reimagining sustainable organization.

Notice that although processual aspects are interdependent, there are interesting tensions in-between theories. For example, perspectives attending to varieties of knowing/ignoring in situated practices and the perspectives in design that highlight projecting distinctive wholes through the art of shaping character and meaning across practices, evoke tensions of divergent and convergent views (see e.g., Dumas, 1993; Jevnaker, 1993, 2014). Sometimes, designing something in novel ways with external consultants may actually turn out to be suppressing (forgotten or unseen) existing or past knowing in an established business enterprise (Dumas, 1993). For illustration, we may see the diverse traditions of theories in knowing/ignorance and designing as related to two aspect areas of an interconnected creation or generativity theme, because they tend to be interwoven in design-creation work (Jevnaker, 2005), as we shall come back to (see Chapter 6 and 8).

Furthermore, tensions also exist in-between theories of working with new initiatives and ideas, what has on one hand been coined “exploration” or search for novel approaches (March, 1991), and on the other hand understanding “exploitation” (March, 1991). In real-life sustainability-oriented action, innovation work can beneficially involve both exploration and exploitation strivings, even by some recurrent managers and specialists, or “hands” engaged (Jevnaker, 2012). Thus, we propose to reimagine how we understand sustainable organization with inclusive dynamic perspectives, e.g., theories of emergent way-finding (Chia & Holt, 2009) and extended co-creation (Follett, 1924/1951) among managers and collaborating parties, as well as organizational integration to foster innovative business enterprise over time (see e.g., Lazonick, 2002). Interestingly, developing sustainable and useful products such as office chairs with long lives depend on interweaving experimental and exploitative practices, which calls for continued creativity to sustain the suitable action (Jevnaker, 1991, 1995, 2012, see Chapter 6). In understanding creative experience, we should thus also consider the potential plus-values of different and even conflicting views (Follett, 1924/1951). We introduce the areas only briefly below, but their conceptions and interconnections are explored throughout the book.

1.3.1 What is Knowledge—and Relevant Traditions?

Knowledge comes from the Greek word, Gnosis, signifying knowing through observation or experience. In general, knowledge is what we know, that is, our meaningful understanding of something, whether it is acquired through experience, research, education, or otherwise. The meaning-making entails that knowledge is more than information or data, which always needs to be interpreted.

Evidently knowledge and an active search for new or improved knowledge are important ingredients in sustainability thinking. The two environmentalists we have referred to, Rachel Carson and Greta Thunberg, have both searched extensively for many kinds of knowledge on environmental issues and their impacts on our living conditions.

Knowledge can be understood in multifaceted ways such as awareness and familiarity, knowing how and why, as well as knowing-what (Ryle, 1949). The latter is sometimes called declarative knowledge, emanating from observation and experience, our thought worlds, or “justified true beliefs” (Von Krogh et al., 2000). Individually, it can be regarded as the capability to draw meaningful distinctions in a domain of action, based on an appreciation of context or theory, or both (Tsoukas, 2005, p. 128). However, there are also limits to our knowledge and future thinking. “Because ‘everything affects every other thing’, we cannot predict the long-range effects of our particular actions and policies”, the philosopher Arne Naess often stressed (Naess, 2005, p. 411).

Complex knowledge is always many-faceted. Complex knowledge includes know-how and the procedural, of how to make or do something, which differs between a novice, an advanced beginner, a competent, or a master (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986, 2005). Furthermore, knowledge can develop into practical wisdom through our strivings over time, as already understood by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (Ross, 2009). Personal knowledge and collective knowledge can include what has been assembled, embodied, and matured in relation to a person or a group. Personal knowing includes what has been learned in the past and what has become tacit, that is not specifically articulated step by step anymore (Polanyi, 1958, 1966/1983). Working with tacit complex knowing tends to be misunderstood (Jevnaker, 2012; Tsoukas, 2005) but is nevertheless critical in new or diverse thinking (see Chapters 3, 6, 8).

Nordhaug (1993) distinguished between different degrees of idiosyncratic or dissimilar competences. This includes firm-, industry-, and task-specific competences and meta-competence (operating at a higher level) such as creativity and learning capacity. Accordingly, what becomes shared or collectively known (or not) of what actors know and do, can be dissimilar and uncertain. Management can still be collaborating and seeking improvements at several layers (Cunliffe, 2021; Hansen, 2009; Olaisen & Revang, 2018). Finally, actors differ in how they engage with imagination and search exploring the unknown or unconventional (“outside the box”) thinking. Also, what may be regarded as “peripheral” ideas from temporal participation, enabled by otherwise non-participation such as a consultant, can become fruitful (Jevnaker & Bruce, 1999; Wenger, 2002).

One way of leveraging complex knowing is through research. Research comes from the Latin word Scientia, which literally means knowledge. Science and scientific methods are systematic ways of acquiring knowledge about relations in nature and living organisms, as well as with the man-made physical world, for example through collection of data, observations, experimentation, and formulating testable hypotheses (see Chapter 3).

But approaches as practiced in the natural sciences or physics as well as life sciences are not the only ways of acquiring knowledge (Parrilli & Heras, 2016) for sustainability in relation to organization (Whiteman & Kennedy, 2017). Social sciences, law, and the human sciences (e.g., philosophy), as well as many interdisciplinary fields (e.g., technology management, business/economics history, design history, sociotechnical organization) offer a wide range of perspectives and methodological approaches of relevance for leadership, management, and organization studies in relation to sustainability. Combinations of sciences and so-called “DUI”, learning-by-doing, by-using, and by-interacting, can become relevant for understanding varieties of innovation modes (Parrilli & Heras, 2016).

Inspired by Arne Naess and other philosophers, we acknowledge the benefit of multiple perspectives or “pluralism” in science. Several perspectives are often necessary to explore different aspects of problems as well as probing varieties of approaches to come up with new or improved solutions. Complex and ill-defined problems and related knowledge are typically multidimensional, not one-dimensional (see Part I).

Our experiences from the broad field of executive education as well as design education are that people with different theoretical and practical backgrounds tend to see the problems from quite different angles, which can be highly useful. Specialists and managers may need to expand their views to see differently and design something sustainable for the future (see e.g., Bruce & Jevnaker, 1998). Action research is one way of doing research while working with improving some focus situations. It commonly seeks to involve a wider learning in its own organization (Coghlan, 2019).

1.3.2 What are Sustainability Ideas Travelling in Emergent Practices?

Sustainability is not just a one-way highroad to the promising land. Sustainability is an umbrella term with multiple meanings, and each meaning tends to be multifaceted. For example, the meaningful aspects of ecological or man’s dwelling, and local habitat can shift when you move from a fixed settlers’ community to a nomadic community. Also, sustainability concerns will differ when building in a hot climate zone versus in a cold one.

Sustainability thinking engages with the present and the future, as well as the past. In 1987, the United Nations’ World Commission on Environment and Development, often called the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987), defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

However, as the philosopher Arne Naess understood, when we create a new vision for the future, we will probably also view the past differently. For example, the past generations tended to throw their waste just outside their habitat, whether into the street, into the sea, or into certain places such as what accumulated as landfills. These common waste practices were previously regarded as normal and quite satisfying, but today rather disgusting or even dangerous, such as garbage and chemicals polluting the harbour areas.

The term “sustainability” has currently come to be broadly used to indicate programmes, initiatives, and actions. Yet, the abstract goals as well as input or output resource thinking seem to be foregrounded. For example, the public debating is oriented towards reducing emissions (the climate-related output called footprints) and improving inputs or preservation of a particular resource such as drinking water.

In general, sustainability refers to the intersection of several dimensions such as the human, the social, the economic, and the environmental—known as the four pillars of sustainability. A fifth core dimension is also sometimes added, that is, public policy. Commonly, it is referred to three key pillars mainly: People (the social), Planet (the environmental), and Profit (i.e., the economic area or dimension). Place is another dimension referred to nowadays in relation to, for example, urban sustainable development, because more people of the world now live-in cities rather than rural districts. As realized early on by the design professor Victor Papanek (1995), we have to start searching for “a cure for a problem” before we recognize it—or a proper diagnosis is possible.

1.3.3 Critique

However, linking sustainability to only the intersection field of a selective number of pillars, for example, People, Planet, and Profit—thought of as distinct areas—is something to reflect upon critically. It is typically illustrated as three circles in part intersecting and thus defining the field of interest for sustainability (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2
A three-circle Venn diagram. From the top, clockwise, the first circle is economic interests, then social interests, and the last is environmental interests. On the right of the top circle is a box labelled, sustainable business. An oblique leftward arrow from it, is pointed at the space where the three circles overlap.

(Source https://blog.goodhere.org/sustainable-business/)

The triple bottom line of social, environmental, and economic interests—often called people, planet, and profit.

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  • First, this way of distinguishing what is the sustainable area tends to portray a relatively narrow intersecting field for sustainability (see Fig. 1.2). We will argue that the possibilities are much larger and more dynamic, than this kind of “the shared intersecting fields” portrayal. People can work with and see possibilities beyond the narrow intersection area in the middle of the intersecting circles (see the Flokk company case, in Chapter 6).

  • Second, the Sustainability circles (of people, planet, profit, public policy, etc.) are probably more interconnected in both foreseen and unforeseen ways. As already understood by Adam Smith (1776/2003), one of the fathers of economics, markets can become enabled by public legislation and policies. For instance, introducing low customs on imports of electric cars have triggered new sales and wider consumption of electric cars in Norway, one of the countries with the highest use of electric cars relatively (54% of new cars sold in 2020 were electric, according to national statistics). However, the same favourable policy is not yet enacted for new car parts and adopting used components is seldom considered because it threatens the sales guarantees. Taken together, these two practices may affect a possibly relatively short life cycle of a new electric car. It has already led to increasing waste assemblies of many brand-new electric cars—as an unintended critical consequence.

  • Third, the People, Planet, and Profit circles and their respective interconnections can be highly dynamic and with many uncertain or ambiguous interfaces. We do not know where for example people’s future actions or industry actions eventually will move and what that may lead to. Economic activity can also be unfolding for more reasons than profit. In fact, the meaning of the Profit circle was originally much broader, more like prosperity, Elkington (2018) argued, who said he invented this 3Ps or Triple Bottom line (3BL). As we will explore (Chapter 2), managers do engage in ideas travelling across geographical and cultural borders between many kinds of enterprises.

1.3.4 What is Design Projecting Distinctiveness and Co-creating Meaning?

Visiting alternate ideas in further abstract and concrete concept development is inherent in real-world complex designing, which involves emergent tensions and actions in many directions (Jevnaker, 2014). Theories of design focus on projecting and expressing a distinctive identity and meaning. Designing is a creating process that can integrate multiple aspects including enhanced user-friendliness and sustainability thinking. Designing can relate to both innovation and heritage in cultural artefacts and needs to be understood in dynamic ways of thinking and working, though involving some habitual practices (e.g., prototyping, testing, etc.).

Design innovation can be highly engaging and stimulating, working across several organization boundaries (Jevnaker, 2012) and seeking to tackle emergent challenges and setbacks, as common in innovation work (Van de Ven et al., 1999). Tension and creative breakings can thus emerge among people in different positions and with diverse backgrounds (Jevnaker, 1995, 2012). There is a gap in research regarding complex design collaborations (Bruce & Jevnaker, 1998; Jevnaker & Bruce, 1999), which tend to involve co-creation and sustainability thinking over several projects (Jevnaker, 2012). Perspectives in design and design/sustainability thinking is further elaborated later (see Chapter 6).

1.3.5 Theories of Organizational Integration, Entrepreneuring and Leadership in Collective Action

We contend that all people working in or with an enterprise can potentially contribute to leadership as co-creating practices, which can foster or hinder sustainability in action. Interestingly, creativity research has found that all people can be creative, and that engaging in creative efforts can expand our abilities (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).

However, we also need to acknowledge that research suggests that people seem to have different abilities for creative action (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). Not every manager, employee, or expert enjoy the potential hardships in daily co-creating and problem-solving,—but some do! Although perhaps few tend to be acting with something new or different in the beginning, both specialists and leaders or others engaging in innovation practices may enable further support and action (Jevnaker, 1993, 2012).

Furthermore, power to act with others needs to be understood beyond work regarded as fabrication (in industry) or labour (reproductive work e.g., in households), according to the public policy thinker Hannah Arendt (1958/2000). We thus propose the human capacity to act with others is critical for understanding and potentially affecting the ongoing changes in and between organizations and societies. “It is beyond doubt that the capacity to act is the most dangerous of all human abilities and possibilities, and it is also beyond doubt that the self-created risks mankind faces today have never been faced before” (Arendt, 1958/2000, p. 296).

This power-with perspective, as well as our own lifelong engagement with action-based leadership training, is sensitizing us towards multifaceted leadership in action beyond formal leaders. If possible to engage creatively with others in a situation, everyone can in principle contribute to leadership in action. It can thus be crucial to find potential high-creative companions (designers, fellow workers, clients, end-users, etc.) as well as engage with managers constructively championing sustained development (Jevnaker, 2012, 2014; see Chapters 6 and 8).

Entrepreneurial action can expand the fields of interest for sustainability as creative practices. Probing new combinations (Schumpeter, 1947) can lead entrepreneurs to sense and seize new possibilities (Teece, 2009). This needs some more introduction, which we turn to next in Case vignette 1.

Case vignette 1

When the entrepreneur Anjali Bhatnagar and her co-investors in Spring 2020 launched Törn, a new net-based building material business platform based on a customer-friendly app (software application), she made new, previously unsold building materials easily accessible for many customers for heavy discount prices. In the beginning, several months went by with a slow recruitment of shops. Bhatnagar thus contacted shop after shop in the building industry including recruiting building chains. Since July 2020 the Törn’s turnover doubled each month, and before the end of the year, nearly 100 shops were onboard and registered their surplus building material. All shops had to accept discounts of at least 50% to the customers provided through this new net-based platform. However, the alternative was that on average 8-10 % of the building shops’ inventories were stipulated to be stored for long and then thrown away or burnt. Indeed, between 5 and 10 % of the unsold wares had previously just been thrown away, one local shop-owner in Stabekk, west of Oslo city, explained to the daily business newspaper. (Klevstrand, Dagens Næringsliv, 5 February 2021)

Organizing new offerings through interacting in new ways is illuminating “entrepreneuring” or entrepreneurship as a social practice (Johannisson, 2011). Making this enterprising possible with unsold building material previously dealt with as loss or waste, is just one example of the manifold ignored resources that may be converted into more ecological business circulation. In the Törn business, to make it work did depend on organizing an accessible technology platform for pooling interested customers with many existing shops with unsold wares (in this case, at least one-year stored new, but unsold building materials). It can become a win–win for both established shops and the new net-based shop, as well as for customers.

Also, the active business-to-business networking of the Törn entrepreneur who was mobilizing “shop after shop” onboard this new service, seems critical. In fact, this woman entrepreneur had a PhD in solid state physics, and she has experience from several enterprises including project management and telecommunication (Telenor), design groups (Creuna, Halogen, Design without Borders) and a former not successful start-up (LinkedIn-profile, visited 01.03.2021). In 2021, Schibsted and other investors invested in this e-business firm (Schibsted’s website, visited 18.11.2021).

This building industry case illuminates the crucial links between knowing and ignorance of “silent” problems and possible solutions. The emergent projecting and collaborative action fostered a viable solution; in this case transforming the loss (even burning) of surplus materials into a net-based offer that people might be interested in, when supplied accessibly and to lower prices. We also see in this case that the increasing knowing-whom to contact and mobilize onboard (e.g., local shop representatives in the building industry) were crucial, which resonates with theories of mobilizing invisible assets (Itami, 1987).

However, without the relative abundance of nearby surplus resources (building materials) and the possibilities for easy trials and demonstration on how to earn or save money (the business model) for customers, suppliers, and also the operator of the new net-based trade platform, this particular innovation in the building industry might not have been realized.

Our experience is that innovation can be founded on overlooked or ignored issues and imaginative thinking (Jevnaker, 2014), such as apparent in this Törn case.

1.4 Enlargening—or Shrinking—Sustainability

With enlargened sustainability in relation to management and leadership, we mean an inclusive practicing of the ecological, human, social, technological, and capital relations. The idea of inclusion is adopted from the philosophical idea of inclusion, proposed by the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey (1928/1998) (see Chapters 5–6). In this book, we seek to include multifaceted resources when relevant for our learning purpose. We will thus address sustainability thinking in close relation to also the social, the physical, the economic, as well as the envisioning or imaginative capacities of interest for human enterprises.

Green innovations are eventually affecting production and consumption in several business fields from lightweight industries such as food and wine production to heavyweight industries like electric vehicles and ferries. Services are in the process of change, too, as indicated in terms such as green shipping and sustainable finance. For instance, the green bond market aims to enable debt markets to fund projects that contribute to environmental sustainability. Green bonds facilitate capital-raising and investments for new or existing projects that have environmental benefits and mitigate risks associated with climate change. When there is an intentional mix of environmental and social benefits, the bond is referred to as a “Sustainability Bond”.

1.4.1 The Paradox of Green

As a multifaceted phenomenon, sustainability is also a paradox. It can simultaneously be involving green thinking and thoughtless sustainability (e.g., doing more of the same, business as usual, thoughtless economic growth, too green narrow measures, etc.) and good strivings with sustainability in an enlargened ecological way. Recall that with enlargened, we here mean an inclusive practicing of the ecological, social, technological, and capital relations. Some companies find it valuable to engage in new green practices of financial sustainability reporting (e.g., the ESG system assessing Environmental, Social, and Governance factors). However, the leadership or governance may become misguided, for example, if involving only possibly narrow shareholders’ interests and not engaging with stakeholders and democratic orientations. Reducing set goals over time can be another sustainability-shrinking practice.

Ample evidence suggests that green business actions have possible unknown and even dark sides, as early understood by Carson (1962/2018). For instance, on one hand it sounds great that sustainability-oriented actions of energy companies have led to more investments in reproductive energy sources such as wind craft. On the other hand, the super-large size of new windmills has led to several new problems. In coastal areas these “monsters” with gigantic heights and blades are disturbing the milieu in the local communities and have led to accidents in the natural habitat of birds (e.g., eagles).

Even if we knew what could be essential to learn in developing increased sustainability, it normally takes some time to learn how to act and make skilled distinctions and assessments in ill-defined or dynamic real-world situations. That is why we need to engage in recurrent explorations of problem situations in varied contexts with diverse expertise and perspectives (see Chapter 6).

1.5 Conclusions

In this chapter, we have introduced how sustainability thinking has been put on the agenda of world leaders through emergent efforts in institutions such as the United Nations. The future-oriented undertakings were inspired by recurrent wakeup calls by pioneering environmentalists and their synthesizing of diverse, not well-known knowledge across many disciplines and places. As underlined by the Silent Spring-author Rachel Carson, novel environmental interventions can also become harmful. Her work inspired deeper eco-philosophy work by e.g., the process philosopher Arne Naess. Recall that Naess, like Carson, pointed to the benefits of multiple perspectives.

We have thus reflected upon the double meanings of “green” activity. On the one side, green spiritually refers to a fresh, creative, or revitalizing capacity. On the other side, green points to new beginnings, incomplete or little experience, and immaturity, which may lead to thoughtless acts. In other words, reimagination as “green” endeavours is not merely positive, and both kinds of meanings seem relevant. To act in sustainable creative ways for the longer term may require rethinking and redoing in diverse fields of project ideas, knowledge management, design creation, and organizing work.

Taking a process perspective, we have seen that creative undertakings beyond what is conventional practices can be of special interest. Managers, employees, external specialists, customers, and other actors can gain new experiences when actually interacting with new possibilities (e.g., Dubois, 1998; Jevnaker & Misganaw, 2022), such as in the building industry case (case 1)—creating a new service with reuse of surplus materials.

Learning can thus be inherent in the necessity of taking alternate routes—and not a waste of our time. Recall how the mountaineer Arne Naess—when not being able to reach a mountain top, instead survived by “rambling along peaks” which for him became an essential experience to a deeper eco-philosophical thinking.