External Events Impacts on Organisational Change Management for Sustainability

Most of the literature on Organisational Change Management for Sustainability (OCMS) has focussed on internal proactive changes and a steady state. There has been limited research focussing on extreme external stimuli or events, such as the COVID-19, that affect organisations and their sustainability efforts which were negatively affected by the pandemic. Organisations’ sustainability priorities, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak were on the economic dimension, and then environmental and social dimensions. During the pandemic the priorities changed to social issues (i.e. taking care of employees) and then the economic (i.e. to survive). Prior to the outbreak, the drivers in all organisations were skewed towards internal factors. During COVID-19, there was a shift towards external stimuli in all types of organisations. The barriers show a similar pattern to the drivers, where prior to the pandemic there were skewed towards internal factors, and during the pandemic, these shifted towards external stimuli. Most of the system elements were affected negatively by COVID-19, with the exception of organisational systems. External events need to be considered when addressing OCMS, particularly when such events are as shattering as the COVID-19 outbreak.