Corporate Sustainability in a Project-Based Reality: A Pragmatic Sociological Case Study on Project Managers Engagement with Corporate Sustainability

Abstract

This qualitative case study explores the topic engagement with corporate sustainability within the project management discipline. I will be examining how a group of project managers are conditioned by the project management discipline when engaging with corporate sustainability. I will be using Laurent Thévenots sociology of engagements as well as Boltanski and Thévenots economies of worth to understand which understands of worth are at play in the project management discipline, and how they do, or do not, relate to corporate sustainability. The study is framed by the issue of the sustainability gap within the business context. The empirical data in the case study consist of 8 interviews with project managers, with the ambition of understanding their most personal and intimate considerations around how they engage with corporate sustainability in their daily work. I find that the project management discipline and the inherent hierarchy of ‘orders of worth’ is highly influential on the project managers engagement. The dominant position of the market and industrial order leads the project managers to pursue an instrumental approach to sustainability in their daily work. However, I also found moments of critique and regret towards the performative instrumental approach when exploring the project mangers most personal considerations behind their past projects.