click on star to go back to Joseph Sarkis' HomepageAs more firms embrace the concepts of organizational restructuring (downsizing, reengineering, outsourcing) the implications for corporate sustainability initiatives need to be investigated. Though corporate restructuring has been a subject of academic and popular debate for two decades, the conceptual and emprirical basis for understanding how restructuring affects the internal operations of organizations is surprisingly small. Similarly, little is known about the day-to-day efforts of companies to institute corporate sustainability initiatives. In both cases, the scope and function of these processes within organizations is varied and changing. Few studies have looked closely at either process independently, and fewer yet at their interaction. In this chapter we argue that processes of restructuring and improving corporate sustainability have important interrelations that merit scholarly, as well as managerial, attention. We develop this argument by discussing three forms of organizational restructuring in the United States and showing how these processes overlap with those central to improving corporate environmental performance. We emphasize in particular the role that effective training and communication play in successfully designing and implementing both organizational change and environmental risk management programs. We conclude by sketching a broad framework for further research and for promoting effective corporate management of these inter-related processes.
click on star to go back to Joseph Sarkis' Homepage