Green ideas travelling across organizational boundaries

In the last few decades, environmental commitment has become a powerful discursive means of mobilizing actors and developing distinct organizational identity. However, the prevalent uncertainty in society concerning the interpretation and operationalization of concepts, such as 'green', 'sustainable', 'environment' and 'ecology' allows for interpretative flexibility. Accordingly, individual members or groups of members in organizations operationalize the concept green in ways that make sense to their working contexts' specific ontology, epistemology and ideology. Based on a comparative case study of three Swedish municipal housing companies, the paper examines how green ideas are translated as they travel across organizational boundaries, and how these notions become embedded within different organizational processes, and thus set external as well as internal boundaries. The underlying assumption is that the meaning of 'green' shifts depending on which organization and sphere of society is in perspective. Therefore, the paper traces spatial shifts in meanings of 'green' as these travel across organizational boundaries, from the local governmental authority, via the Parent company, to the three individual companies studied. Comparing the companies' official environmental statements with the organizational members' representations of green shows discrepancies in talk and action, which may have implications for the companies' internal identity as well as for the creation of an external image. Furthermore, these discrepancies are traced to different communities of action and practice, i.e. those who make strategic environmental decisions in the companies are not the same as those who possess environmental expertise.