Abstract:
This paper examines how sustainability managers in a Buddhist country context
make sense of sustainability and the extent to which they see themselves as able to
enact their private moral positions at work. Analysis of interviews with 25 managers
involved with sustainability initiatives in Sri Lankan organizations reveals differences
between private moral positions, conventional and enacted morality. Buddhist values
that typically shape managers’ private moral positions on sustainability—interconnectedness,
moderation, empathy and reciprocity—tend not to be reflected in the
organizations in which they work. The conventional emphasis in organizations is
typically a measure-and-manage approach to sustainability, with only a few organizations
reported as displaying more extensive concern for the environment and for
community needs and employee wellbeing. Managers’ enacted morality is found to
be based on the prioritization of economic concerns in the organizations in which
they work, and the perceived importance of a secular view. Buddhism has potential
to inform sustainability, but its actual enactment is problematic as individuals’ moral
positions do not translate easily to collective enactment, even in a predominantly
Buddhist country context.
