Stakeholder Dialogues for Sustaining Cultural Change

A multiplicity of firms and enterprises accept the challenge of sustainability and integrate these requirements in their daily activities without the introduction of cultural change. However, sustainable development demands cultural change, and stakeholder dialogue can enforce it. Yet the dialogue orientation of companies and their ability to initiate organizational change depends on corporate culture types. Therefore, the question arises as to whether different corporate culture types cause special levels of dialogue orientation and stakeholder participation. This article addresses this question based on an empirical qualitative analysis of companies. We demonstrate that different culture types can initiate an appropriate cultural change. However, to anchor sustainability permanently within a business, stakeholder dialogue is not enough. Structural and cultural factors such as cooperative leadership and group work are necessary to pass and implement the attained information, knowledge, and learning effects into the organization as well.