Constructing the Green Manager

Abstract

This article applies a social constructionist approach to senior managers' `green' selves and roles. In a qualitative, empirical study of the UK automotive industry, the social/political contexts of managers' organizational lives are explored as they interact with, and define, the green corporate agenda. Ethical dimensions of environmentalism are stressed – particularly the distinctions and tensions between private moral positions, enacted morality, and the conventional morality as disseminated by the corporation. The study reveals the way different stakeholders are construed, and how `green' territories are contested. The implications for organizational change and strategic formulation are discussed, especially the strengths and limitations of approaching corporate greening from enacted/normative moralities, or from a vision of a substantive transformation of values.