Organizing Sustainability and the Problem of Scale

Abstract

Organizing for sustainability seeks systems change at a global level. This objective is captured in the phrase “Think global, act local”; the assumption is that global change will happen through summative local action. This article argues that local action will not necessarily produce systems change and that a new scale-independent categorization for interacting with systems is needed. I introduce the concept of fractal as a useful tool for engaging with problems of scale in organizational settings and argue that change for sustainability needs to be framed as a fractal narrative in order to facilitate implementation success.