Sustainable Incremental Organizational Change—A Case of the Textile and Apparel Industry

Abstract

The article is aimed at working out a comprehensive perspective on sustainable incremental change in organizations from a practice-based approach. That perspective presents everyday routine organizational practices as loci of sustainable organizational change. The research conducted reveals sustainability aspects that influence incremental change in the product development cycle in textile and apparel enterprises. The short life cycle of textile and apparel products challenges the multiplicity of sustainability aspects in that industry. The sequential procedure of mixing quantitative and qualitative methods was applied. A quantitative study was followed by qualitative research that was aimed at gaining an idiographic perspective. The statistical procedure was applied to determine the associative relationships between sustainable dynamizing factors and practice variability in textile and apparel enterprises. The influence factors were further explored as part of in-depth qualitative research. The qualitative research referred to three main aspects of sustainable practices at the initial production stage (sustainable water use), the last stages of the textile and garment life cycle (disposal and recycling of unwanted materials), and value (co)creation in the apparel industry. The results put emphasis on spontaneous vs. purposive activities in sustainable practice.