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Organizational Learning and the Sustainability Community of Practice: The Role of

Boundary Objects
Suzanne Benn, Melissa Edwards and Tamsin Angus-Leppan
Organization Environment 2013 26: 184 originally published online 19 May 2013
DOI: 10.1177/1086026613489559

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Boundary Objects

Suzanne Benn1, Melissa Edwards1

and Tamsin Angus-Leppan1

Abstract
This article aims to explore factors that influence organizational learning around sustainability.
For our theoretical framework, we take a sensemaking approach to the multilevel 4I model of
organizational learning. Through our pilot study of the case of the higher education sector in
Australia, we explore the particular challenges that sustainability poses in terms of integrating
new ideas at the group and organizational levels. Our findings suggest that the use of knowledge
sharing and generation tools in the form of selected boundary objects can promote the
development of communities of practice and hence those integration and institutionalization
processes described by the 4I framework when it is applied to sustainability. In specifically
allowing for knowledge development and transfer across knowledge and disciplinary boundaries,
our revised version of the 4I model has wide relevance to learning around sustainability in any
organizational context.

Keywords
sustainability, organizational learning, case study, boundary objects, sensemaking, change and
learning, integrative learning, interorganizational learning

Introduction
Actualizing a concept as diffuse as sustainability that crosses multiple knowledge boundaries and
is open to a range of values-based interpretations has proven a challenge to traditional approaches
to organizational learning and change. Schwom (2009), for example, argues that it is in part the
disparity of understanding and a lack of common framing between organizations that has led to
a lack of systemic communicative action on sustainability. Leaders across business and in gov-
ernment appear to be struggling to understand what it means in practice for their organization
(Kiron, Kruschwitz, Haanaes, & von Streng Velken, 2012). Drawing on leading theories of orga-
nizational learning, this article explores what it takes for an organization to implement and embed
sustainability practices so that it can be said to have “learnt” sustainability. We address this ques-
tion through a pilot case study in the higher education sector in Australia.

1UTS Business School, Sydney, Australia

Corresponding Author:
Suzanne Benn, UTS Business School, Box 123, Broadway, Sydney 2007, Australia.
Email: Suzanne.Benn@uts.edu.au

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Benn et al. 185

Sustainability can be defined as that state that results from the process of sustainable develop-
ment (Benn & Kearins, 2012), itself best understood as “development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs”
(World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 43). Although the material con-
sequences of not adhering to these principles may be increasingly obvious through speeding
climate change, increasing air and water pollution, and soil and ocean degradation (UNEP, 2012;
World Economic Forum, 2013), it is equally apparent that we face challenges in incorporating the
means to address them into our preexisting organizational systems and structures. According to
Benn and Martin (2010), a key problem appears to be the participatory and holistic principles on
which sustainability rests (Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992: Principles
3, 4, and 10). Sustainability and participation are each ambiguous, slippery, and contested con-
cepts that are readily politicized (Tregidga, Kearins, & Milne, 2013) and allowing for an integra-
tive, holistic approach given established organizational silos is problematic. It has been shown,
for example, that employees seem to have difficulty in understanding what sustainability might
mean aside from their very specific work roles (Haugh & Talwar, 2010). In this article, we
explore how organizational learning for sustainability allowing for the implementation of sus-
tainability might occur in the face of such challenges.
The article is organized as follows. We suggest the comprehensive 4I organizational learning
framework proposed by Crossan and colleagues (Crossan, Lane, & White, 1999; Crossan,
Maurer, & White, 2011) as a suitable lens through which to view how learning for sustainability
might occur. Drawing from this framework, we understand organizational learning around sus-
tainability to involve both new ways of incorporating sustainability awareness and practices, as
well as embedding into the organization as a whole what has already been learnt. Our analysis of
our case of the higher education sector in Australia considers contributions to this framework
from the learning that occurs in communities of practice, including the role that boundary objects
play in facilitating knowledge sharing and development across such communities.

Frameworks for Learning and Change

Organizational learning is usually taken to mean the embedding of organization wide systems,
norms, or values (Bell, Whitwell, & Lukas, 2002). Many scholars have concluded that the lack
of institutionalization of sustainability into organizations is in part due to barriers to organiza-
tional learning (e.g., Fenwick, 2007) and disparities between diverse organizational stakeholders
(e.g., Berry, 2003; Waddock & Bodwell, 2007) or the lack of recognition of stakeholder saliency
on organizational learning (e.g., Roome & Wijen, 2006). Literature in this area has tended to
focus specifically at either the organizational or individual level. Organizational-level studies, for
example, have examined pressure applied by stakeholders and governmental regulation (e.g.,
Berry, 2003; Clarkson, 1995; Roome & Wijen, 2006) and on the role of environmental manage-
ment systems as tools for communicative action and organizational learning (Lober, 1996; von
Malmborg, 2002). Other individual-level studies have examined the role of awareness raising,
learning mechanisms, and leadership styles (Haugh & Talwar, 2010; Siebenhüner & Arnold,
2007). For example, Haugh and Talwar’s research (2010) explores how action, technical and
social learning via various training, and development tools can facilitate sustainability. Aside
from studies of how networks can facilitate the development of sustainable organizations (Ryan,
Mitchell, & Daskou, 2012), there has been little scholarly interest in the development of a sys-
tematic model to encompass the dynamic interactions between different levels within the organi-
zation around sustainability and the implications for its implementation. How to embed ideas
emerging at the individual and group levels into organization-wide sustainability-related systems
is a question that appears not answered in extant literature.

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186 Organization & Environment 26(2)

To address this need for a multilevel and dynamic model of organizational learning for sus-
tainability, we look to the 4I framework of Crossan et al. (1999, 2011). These authors suggest that
organizational learning should be conceived as interconnected processes that frame the strategic
renewal of the organization, allowing it to build on what has already been learnt (which they term
exploitation of previous learning) while enabling exploration into new product and process
domains. The claimed advantage of this approach is that it harmonizes “continuity and change”
(Crossan et al., 1999, p. 522). The 4I framework for organizational learning expressed as strate-
gic renewal incorporates four interconnected processes of intuition, interpretation, integration,
and institutionalization that occur over individual, group, and organizational levels. Intuition and
interpretation occur at the level of the individual, whereas integration occurs at the group level
and institutionalization at the organizational level. The dynamic processes of interpretation and
integration allow for linking between the levels. Feed-forward (termed exploratory in the model)
processes shift learning from individual to group and organizational levels and are in tension with
feedback processes (termed exploitative), where what is learnt is exploited. These tensions assist
in explaining the dynamic nature of the learning process overall and the extent to which change
may become institutionalized. Crossan et al. (1999, p. 534) emphasize that change may be visible
at an organizational or group level but that “ideas occur to individuals” and “it is the individuals
and the social processes and dynamics through which they interact, that may facilitate or inhibit
organizational learning.” Hence, they suggest the importance for further research into factors that
influence the interaction between individuals, such as the role of leaders and leadership.
The 4I framework of learning provides considerable explanatory power. On the one hand, it is
multilevel showing the relationship between processes that occur at individual, group, and orga-
nization levels. On the other hand, it allows for the dynamic and interactive nature of organiza-
tional learning and subsequent change. Unlike earlier work that sought to find how organizational
learning exhibits the same characteristics as individual learning (Hedberg, 1981, cited in Powell
1991), the processes in the Crossan framework enable learning characteristics to be identified at
all levels highlighting tensions between worldviews, values, norms, roles, symbols, and ideolo-
gies. As Tsoukas and Chia (2002) have argued convincingly, change is ongoing and organizations
can be thought of as in a continual process of “becoming.” The dynamic nature of links made in
the 4I framework between individual, group, and organizational learning levels make it particu-
larly suitable as a means of analysing the diverse, individualized, and shifting understandings of
sustainability that have precluded its more coherent embedding across organizations. As well, it
provides a theoretical frame through which to analyse the tensions between the high dependence
of successful sustainability strategies on individual innovation and creativity and the need to
develop a shared understanding of what sustainability means and how it should be implemented
across the organization. The framework has not been used to date to analyse organizational learn-
ing around sustainability, surprising given that the 1999 explication of the framework received
the 2009 Decade award for most cited article in Academy of Management Review.
The authors of the 4I framework acknowledge that “interpretation” as a social activity leans
heavily on sensemaking theory and Weick’s (1979) suggestions around the importance of lan-
guage, context, and group interpretative processes in resolving equivocal situations. Integration
at the group level is also dependent on sharing of information or practice so that a collective
approach can be taken. The importance of language and communications of all forms in the
exchange of ideas again draws from sensemaking theory. Moving learning from individual
insight to embedded change in organizational practice or routines is a social process—dependent
every step of the way on negotiation of meaning with others. “While it is easy to consider sense-
making to be primarily an introspective process, in fact, we make sense of things in organizations
while in conversation with others, while reading communications from others, while exchanging
ideas with others” (Nijhof & Jeurissenn, 2006, p. 318). The sensemaking aspects of the 4I frame-
work highlight its relevance to our aim of exploring organizational learning around sustainability

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Benn et al. 187

because of the multiple and diverse ways in which the sustainability concept can be interpreted
across an organization (Angus-Leppan, Benn, & Young, 2010).
The social and practice based nature of the 4I framework as informed by sensemaking also
resonates with the prescriptions of community of practice (CoP). In the next section, we propose
that the CoP might be a suitable location for integrative processes of learning around sustainabil-
ity. As a model of social learning appropriate to knitting intersecting communities, the CoP needs
a shared sensemaking to be effective. In the next section, we explore the use of various artefacts
that might assist in taking the process of learning from the CoP at the group level and to institu-
tionalize it at the organizational level of the whole enterprise.

Organizational Learning Processes Across Boundaries

Community of Practice. According to Wenger (2000, p.229), “Communities of practice are the
basic building blocks of a social learning system because they are the social ‘containers’ of the
competences that make up such a system.” We suggest that changes that occur in the individual’s
understanding and actions in relation to sustainability (such as insights into new products, pro-
cesses, or day to day actions) through the process of interpretation can be shifted into the “coher-
ent, collective action” that characterizes integration at the group level of learning through
participation in the CoP (Crossan et al., 1999, p.528). In other words, it is in our participation in
a CoP that we negotiate with each other around what constitutes sustainable practice. According
to Wenger (2000), the success of such a learning community is dependent on the emergence of a
shared sense of purpose, capability or practice, a means for engagement, and a shared set of
resources. Applying the lens of the 4I framework, it is reasonable to suggest that these factors
provide the means of successful integration of new actions at the group level. The question
remains as to what this means in terms of institutionalizing the sustainability learning by means
of embedding it in systems, structures, information systems, and infrastructure of the organiza-
tion (Crossan et al., 1999).
Sustainability constraints have been described as a problem of boundaries that cross ecologi-
cal, economic, environmental, and social systems (Ny, MacDonald, Broman, Yamamoto, & Karl-
Henrik, 2006). Such boundaries apply at the organizational level, evident in the wide range of
organizational structures and occupational roles that may have different responsibilities for and
understandings of what sustainability implementation entails (Benn & Martin, 2010). In relating
the 4I framework to sustainability, we suggest there could be a role for the explicit incorporation
of boundary objects: artefacts of practice that are agreed and shared across intersecting social
worlds yet “satisfy the informational requirements of each of them” (Star & Groesemer, 1989, p.
393). Boundary objects are “used” by members of different social worlds in very different ways,
although the representation is shared (Bowker & Star, 1999; Sapsed & Salter, 2004). Boundary
objects allow coordination without consensus as they can allow an actor’s local understanding to
be reframed in the context of some wider collective activity (Bechky, 2003). Lee (2005, p.387)
extends the role of the boundary object, arguing that “artifacts can serve to establish and destabi-
lize protocols themselves . . . to push boundaries rather than merely sailing across them.” Oswick
and Robertson (2009) note the recent increased interest of scholars in boundary objects as tools
that can develop and transform knowledge and change practices across boundaries that relate to
work roles and professional and disciplinary backgrounds. Star and Groesemer (1989) list four
types of boundary objects: Repositories (e.g., library), Ideal Types (e.g., atlas), Coincident
Boundaries (e.g., political boundary of a state), and Standardized Forms (e.g., forms). Wenger
(2000) classifies boundary objects into artefacts (e.g., models), discourses (such as that provide
a common language), and processes. Briers and Chua (2001) suggest a further variation in the
form of a visionary boundary object. These are

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188 Organization & Environment 26(2)

conceptual objects that have high levels of legitimacy within a particular community. They can evoke
similar emotive and affective responses from a wide spectrum of people; possessing a sacred quality that
makes it difficult for a “rational” person to be against them. (p. 242)

Specifically, boundary objects have been explored in the context of sustainability in the examples
of ecological restoration (Tomblin, 2009) and the politics of “clean coal” (Fitzgerald, 2012).

Revisiting the 4I Framework. This overview of the organizational learning literature highlights the
relevance of CoP if the 4I framework is to be modified as a framework to explain how sustain-
ability may be implemented and institutionalized. It suggests the need to explore the artefacts that
can be instrumental in enabling actors from very different roles or professional backgrounds to
interact and collaborate so that the processes of intuiting, interpreting, integrating, and institu-
tionalizing new knowledge or practices around sustainability may be encouraged. Extant research
on CoP and the associated concept of boundary objects has mostly focussed on what would be
classified as the feed-forward processes of organizational learning (e.g., Haugh & Talwar, 2010).
In our study, we are also interested in understanding how it might impact the feedback or exploit-
ative processes of the learning, where the new practices need to be embedded into the organiza-
tion through various systems, routines, and a range of material artefacts. Our approach is therefore
informed by recent research on sociomateriality (e.g., Orlikowski & Scott, 2008), which assumes
that people and things such as technologies, artefacts, and equipments only exist in relation to
each other, each constituting each other in that each is defined by the relationship between them
(Orlikowski & Scott, 2008). In the next section, we explore the challenges that sustainability
poses in terms of integrating and institutionalizing new ideas at the group and organizational
levels, as suggested by the 4I framework. Drawing from our literature review, we focus particu-
larly on the role played by various types of boundary objects and the CoP in this overall organi-
zational learning process.

Methodology
Higher Education Sector as an Exemplary Industry Case
The higher education sector was purposively selected as one that exemplified the phenomenon
under study. The noted barriers to implementing strategic renewal around sustainability in this
sector (Bekessy, Samson, & Clarkson, 2007) reflect the challenges faced by industry more widely
as it attempts to embed sustainability as a strategic objective (e.g., Da Silva & Teixeira, 2008;
Dunphy, Grifftihs, & Benn, 2007). The core product of the higher education sector is knowledge,
expressed in research output and in curriculum. Universities are commonly claiming to embed
sustainability operationally and in the curriculum, and the holistic rhetoric of education for sus-
tainability has been embraced widely by governments and intergovernmental bodies as a means
of bringing about change for sustainability (e.g., UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). Although there are
undoubtedly successes (e.g., Holmberg et al., 2008; Steketee, 2009), there are also major chal-
lenges (Benn & Dunphy, 2009).
The study reported in this article represents the first stage of a larger study that is exploring
how to embed sustainability across university curricula. During this pilot stage, we explore how
those playing leading roles as stakeholders in sustainability education in Australian universities
understand the implementation of sustainability within in their organization. What are the ten-
sions between feed-forward and feedback processes, for instance? What role does a CoP and
associated boundary objects play in harmonizing the processes of continuity and change, as
described above? We argue that our case of the higher education sector can be taken as an exem-
plary case (Flyvbjerg, 2006) on two counts. First, governmental and intergovernmental support

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Benn et al. 189

for integrating sustainability into the core products of this sector (e.g., Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development driven by UNESCO) along with institutional pressure in the form of
various codes of conduct (e.g., Talloires Declaration; Principles of Responsible Management
Education) and comparative assessments (e.g., Green Pinstripes) are driving such changes in the
sector. Second, the high level of diversity in sustainability curriculum and the well-established
silos that separate the bodies of knowledge in this sector (Wu, Huang, Kuo, & Wu, 2011) make
it highly appropriate as a case to study the constituting effects of communities of practice and
associated boundary objects. Although boundary objects are well accepted as supporting the
development of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), to our knowledge there has been little
research on how they might stimulate organizational learning in the form of strategic renewal
around sustainability.
In the first step toward understanding how sustainability learning may occur in this sector and
how factors such as interactions in a CoP that might facilitate it, we sought to ascertain how key
stakeholders make sense of the sustainability concept in relation to their practice as professionals
in curriculum development and teaching. We can then recommend on the actions that need to
occur if the leading actors are to interact via the development of shared artefacts.

Data Collection
Twenty different higher education institutions were represented in the sector sample. Each insti-
tution had established sustainability managers and has committed to introducing sustainability
into their curriculum. We used a snowball sampling technique within each institution to locate
those recognized as most actively engaged in sustainability education and curriculum. In the first
instance, we commenced with the Vice-Chancellor or their representative. The interviewees were
selected as publically recognized leaders in sustainability education and curriculum develop-
ment. The selection criteria were broad and not restricted to organizational position or disciplin-
ary specializations, as we were aiming for a diverse representation of different stakeholder
groups. The most essential selection criterion was that the interviewee be known as an active
leader in their sustainability practice. Stakeholder groups represented in the final sample for this
research were campus sustainability managers, sustainability curriculum specialists (i.e., those
university staff given the task of increasing sustainability curriculum across the university), edu-
cation specialists, professors, lecturers, and students. The in-depth and open-ended interviews
were conducted between January and May 2012. Interviews lasted 30 minutes on average.
Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim, allowing the interviewer to concentrate on
questioning and listening, to provide an accurate record, to enable the use of direct quotes in
subsequent analysis (as suggested by Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2003), and as the necessary
input into the computer-based analysis described in the following section.
In our data collection and subsequent analysis, we explored how the sustainability leaders
from different social worlds, both intra- and interorganizational, made sense of new ideas around
embedding sustainability in the higher education sector. We explored how they then integrated
them into shared understandings at the group and organizational levels. We looked for potential
sensemaking of boundary objects and boundary negotiating artefacts such as interdisciplinary
teaching tools specific to sustainability education and various modes for sharing teaching materi-
als. As noted above, our approach is informed by suggestions from sociomateriality theory
(Orlikowski & Scott, 2008), which holds that social activities and material artefacts such as
information technology systems are mutually constituted. Hence, we specifically explored sen-
semaking of a sustainability website as a key boundary object that could promote learning flows
in a CoP. Through this artefact, educators across institutions could hypothetically share a wide
range of sustainability teaching and resource support material available for educators, students,
and other stakeholders who could then interact to form a CoP around sustainability.

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190 Organization & Environment 26(2)

To explore this sensemaking, the transcripts were analysed using conceptual and relational
content analysis. Content analysis is a research technique for breaking down text into categories
based on explicit rules of coding (Krippendorf, 2004). Conceptual analysis, the most common
form of content analysis, involves the detection of explicit and implicit concepts in the text.
Relational analysis considers the relationships between concepts. In line with the recommenda-
tions of Gephart (2004), computer-aided textual analysis was used as it allows for systematic and
comprehensive analysis. The analysis software used for the analysis, Leximancer, adds reliability
by using machine learning to automatically and entirely code the text rather than relying solely
on the researcher’s interpretations to do so. In other words, the computer analysis provides an
objective, quantitatively derived framework in which qualitative interpretation analysis is more
effectively facilitated (Smith & Humphreys, 2006), and the Leximancer tool is now used across
a number of areas in the social sciences (e.g., Cretchley, Gallois, Chenery, & Smith, 2010; Crofts
& Bisman, 2010; Martin & Rice, 2007). The value of this kind of analytic triangulation has been
highlighted in a broad range of research contexts (Patton, 1990).
The recommended Leximancer analysis procedure was followed (Leximancer, 2005), using
“discovery” mode for the conceptual analysis to see what concepts were automatically generated
by Leximancer without intervention. In Leximancer, the frequency of co-occurring concepts is
measured, weighted, and clustered to produce a two-dimensional map of concepts (Leximancer,
2005). The result of the Leximancer “discovery” mode is a two-dimensional map that displays an
overview of the cognitive structure and content of the data. We now explain three key method-
ological aspects of the data analysis procedure that produced the findings reported in the next
section: concepts, themes, and tags. A “concept” is a set of words that are used in conjunction
with each other by informants. We also “tagged” each block of text to indicate which stakeholder
group the informant belonged to, because we were interested in exploring if there were differ-
ences between the main concepts discussed by different stakeholder groups and if the concepts
themselves were discussed with similar or different meaning. In Leximancer, the components of
each “concept” are placed in a “thesaurus” that contains the set of associated words and weight-
ings that indicate the words’ relative importance in the concept generation. Each three-sentence
block of text is then assessed to ascertain whether it contains sufficient evidence of the concept
and if so is so coded.1 The result is a set of key concepts that can be ranked in terms of count and
relevance. Leximancer also creates themes where related concepts group together in circles.
Concepts may fall in between themes and these concepts are indicative of relationship between
themes. We now outline the key themes and concepts, highlighting the significant areas of
co-occurrence.

Findings
Figure 1 shows the discovery mode Leximancer map for the transcripts for all six groups of
stakeholders, representing a bird’s eye view of the data. Interpreting this map involves studying
concepts, themes, and tags, which we now explain in relation to our significant findings. Concepts
are portrayed on the map as words and dots. The darker the word and the larger the dot, the more
frequently the concept appeared in the text. The top five concepts are curriculum, education,
teaching, university, and environmental/discipline. The concepts are also ranked in Table 1.
These concepts represent the major preoccupations revealed by respondents in terms of their
sustainability roles. Given the focus of our questions, it is not surprising that the most common
concepts were curriculum, information, teaching, university, environmental, and discipline. The
important point is that we use these main concepts as the basis of the relational co-occurrence
analysis to explore how the meaning of these core concepts identified in the minds of our inter-
viewees are related to one another within the text.

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Benn et al. 191

Figure 1. Leximancer map of all transcripts for six stakeholder groups.

Note. Theme size = 49%.

In Figure 1, the themes are depicted by circles that group concepts.2 We enabled five themes—
jobs, discipline, time, curriculum, and environmental. The name of each theme equates to the
name of the largest concept within it. Analysing overlapping themes is an important aspect of
Leximancer. We find that the environmental theme overlaps with discipline and curriculum; dis-
cipline overlaps with jobs; curriculum overlaps with time.
Concepts that sit in the overlaps between these themes are indicative of key or common top-
ics raised in interview discussion. For example, in the top right hand corner of the map, the
concepts “community” and “curriculum” sit in the overlap between the themes “time” and “cur-
riculum.” The linking of these concepts indicates discussion around the role that a “community”
could play to develop sustainability curriculum—in other words, a role for a CoP. Another find-
ing relates to the concepts that sit in the overlap between the themes “discipline” and “environ-
mental” at the bottom of Figure 1. In this overlap we find the concepts “social,” “embedding,”
and “accounting.” This indicates pivotal discussion around embedding social as well as envi-
ronmental aspects of sustainability into accounting curriculum, and hence an emergent interest
in a more interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that is shared by these interview-
ees. We conduct more detailed discussion of the implication of these overlaps between themes
in the next section of the article.

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192 Organization & Environment 26(2)

Table 1. Ranked Concept List for Conceptual Analysis.

Conceptual analysis Word count Relevance Conceptual analysis Word count Relevance

Professors TG 165 100% Internships 15 9%

Education specialists TG 103 62.4% Jobs 15 9%
Students TG 92 55.7% Engineering 13 7.8%
Curriculum specialists TG 84 50.9% Networks 11 6.6%
Sustainability managers TG 76 46% Energy 11 6.6%
Lecturers TG 60 36.3% Careers 11 6.6%
Curriculum 57 34.5% Postgraduate 10 6%
Information 44 26.6% Economic 7 4.2%
Teaching 40 24.2% Engagement 7 4.2%
University 39 23.6% Integrated 6 3.6%
Environmental 33 20% Challenge 6 3.6%
Discipline 33 20% Volunteering 6 3.6%
Social 30 18.1% Stakeholder 6 3.6%
Time 26 15.7% Chancellor 6 3.6%
Area 24 14.5% Connection 5 3%
Accounting 22 13.3% Embedding 5 3%
Business 20 12.1% Values 4 2.4%
Science 19 11.5% Deans 4 2.4%
Issues 18 10.9% Systems 3 1.8%
Degrees 16 9.6% Leadership 2 1.2%
Interdisciplinary 16 9.6% Supervisors 2 1.2%
Community 15 9%

Stakeholder groups are represented by the tags (e.g., Professors TG). The proximity of these
stakeholder groups to concepts and themes reveals the main concepts discussed in the interviews
with each group. For example, the curriculum specialists sit closest to the discipline theme and
relative to the other groups, appear to have discussed concepts such as challenge, discipline,
careers, and leadership, whereas sustainability managers discussed the concepts community,
time, and chancellor. Students discussed internships, jobs, and careers; education specialists dis-
cussed the concepts chancellor, time, and systems; professors discussed the concepts deans,
degrees, interdisciplinary, environmental, teaching, and networks; and lecturers discussed the
concepts supervisors, values, science, and postgraduate. Hence, we note disparate discussion of
the themes and concepts across the different stakeholder groups. The distance of stakeholders
from one another in the map is also significant. In Figure 1, all six tags are spatially separate,
indicating large degrees of difference between the focus of their discussions, even more than the
map indicates, as this is a multidimensional map represented in two dimensions. This is an impor-
tant point as it reveals very disparate views on sustainability education amongst the sustainability
leaders selected for this study. It confirms our expectation that stakeholder sensemaking of sus-
tainability education is diverse and related to specific stakeholder roles.

Relational Co-Occurrence Analysis

The adjacency of concepts indicates association, and this may be further investigated by drilling
down to the text represented by the co-occurrence of two concepts indicating a conceptual rela-
tionship in the minds of interviewees. We have taken the approach of looking at co-occurrences
stemming from the top six most frequently occurring concepts—curriculum, information, teach-
ing, university, environmental, and discipline—in terms of what they reveal about organizational
learning as proposed in the 4I framework processes. We also looked for evidence of learning that

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Benn et al. 193

might be triggered by boundary objects. In the two left hand columns of Table 2, co-occurrences
are listed and an exemplary quote provided for each one—that is, quotes that have been coded as
supporting evidence for a significant co-occurrence between two concepts. Analysing the text of
these co-occurrences revealed the relationships between the key concepts in the minds of the
interviewees. As indicated in the two right hand columns in Table 2, they can be related to the
ways in which our different respondents had participated in social interactions around interpret-
ing, integrating, and institutionalizing sustainability and to various boundary objects that might
have facilitated this learning.

Discussion
Distributed Sensemaking in the 4I Framework
Our case of the higher education sector highlights the implications of the diffuse and open sus-
tainability concept for organizational learning around sustainability in two ways. First, echoing
findings of studies in other sectors concerning sensemaking around sustainability (Angus-Leppan
et al., 2010, Fitzgerald, 2012), our sustainability leaders interpret sustainability in very different
ways, recontextualizing the concept so as to allow for action that is meaningful to them in their
particular work roles. Although such findings are not new in relation to sustainability (e.g.,
Angus-Leppan, Metcalf, & Benn, 2009; Angus-Leppan et al., 2010), the extent of the disparity
between the stakeholder groups in terms of their sensemaking around the concept of sustainabil-
ity and its integration into the curriculum is surprising. This confirms to us the importance of
exploring the roles that boundary objects might play in enabling shared sensemaking.
Second and relevant to our aim to explore factors influencing organizational learning in the
form of more holistic approaches to institutionalizing sustainability into the curriculum, our lead-
ers clearly see the need to support the sustainability curriculum from the perspective of their
specific disciplinary area. Although the different leaders each seem to recognize that sustainabil-
ity should be seen as an interdisciplinary concept, overall they struggle as individuals to make
this more holistic approach meaningful in their own sphere of action, which tends to focus on one
or another of the various sustainability elements, that is, environmental, social, economic, cul-
tural, technical, and political. The problem, as expressed here by one of our interviewees, was
widely seen across the group as

the term sustainability is a whole concept in itself, which is trying to represent the amalgam of different
disciplines.

In our text analysis, however, we note that key experts within our group of interviewees
(tagged Professors) were clearly identified by their peers as interdisciplinary experts, with con-
siderable influence in terms of pushing the learning forward across organizations in the form of
an interorganizational CoP. Our findings as set out in Table 2 also show that a more holistic and
interdisciplinary understanding of sustainability is building through interaction at various levels
of the 4I learning process, facilitated or triggered by a range of boundary objects.

Boundary Objects and Participation in CoP

Although sustainability could be taken as a visionary boundary object (Briers & Chua, 2001)
capable of evoking positive emotional responses across diverse stakeholders in university educa-
tion and in fact does appear to have some power to elicit shared or distributed sensemaking and
a CoP (Wenger, 1998) across multiple stakeholders, our study indicates other boundary objects
that are necessary to enable its effectiveness in linking across roles, disciplines, agendas, and

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194 Organization & Environment 26(2)

Table 2. 4I Processes: Exemplary Quotes From Leximancer Co-Occurrence Analysis.

Co-occurring
concepts Exemplary quotes Boundary object 4I Process/activities

Curriculum and “If they are embedding sustainability then the whole Education for Institutionalization
Embedding of the course and the whole of the unit have the sustainability
social, environmental, cultural and economic view. (EfS) discourse
Anything at all, whether it is law, it is not just the
environmental law but it is thinking about law from
an environmental, social and economic viewpoint.
And that is what is different.”
Curriculum and “I suppose the triple bottom line (TBL) accounting, TBL as a Integration
Interdisciplinary which we get from business, gives us the teaching tool
justification for bringing in environmental science,
engineering or the social sciences into the broader
decision making.”
“There are some tools that are taught like Stakeholder Interpretation
stakeholder engagement, for example, that are engagement as
really applicable across disciplines.” a teaching tool
Teaching and “Education for sustainability (EfS) is a specific way EfS discourse Intuition and
Curriculum of teaching. It very much uses that approach of interpretation
engagement and trying to get students and people
to recognize the contextual underpinnings of
sustainability. And it means different things to
different people, the values based sort of approach
to it.”
“There are architects, doctors; almost everyone you
can think of has an interest in sustainability. I think
as soon as you try to set a limit on the content
you lose people but if you actually talk more about
the practice of sustainability you are going to catch
people.”
Environmental and “It’s just the way you teach the sustainability. I can Role play Interpretation and
Teaching get up there in the lecture theatre and put down a teaching integration
whole list of causes of environmental degradation resources
and the students look at it or maybe take it in or
maybe don’t. But if you get them to workshop it
and role play it, theoretically you are getting them
more engaged on a personal level, or a workplace
level or a level of affect.”
Discipline and “For business you have a concept for how you TBL as teaching Tension between
Environmental interpret TBL accounting whereas if we consider tool feed-forward and
that a theme that runs across the disciplines we are feedback
not trying to get them to change that concept but
get them to think about how to use that concept
more broadly across other disciplines. It's a huge
challenge.”
Environmental and “We had a restructure a couple of years ago and we Teaching Integration
Curriculum were teaching straight environmental ecology and programs as
the student numbers were low and that got canned artefacts
and in its place we put a broader environmental
type program. Within that most of the courses are
taken by students outside our own major.”
Teaching and “Even in our master of environmental management Interdisciplinary Integration
Interdisciplinary we have three core courses which are completely teaching
interdisciplinary and in fact the intake to our programs
postgraduate course work degrees we accept
graduates in any field. So that is a reflection of
our recognition of the need for interdisciplinary
teaching in this area.”

(continued)

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Benn et al. 195

Table 2. (continued)

Co-occurring
concepts Exemplary quotes Boundary object 4I Process/activities

Information and “Because I have been talking like that, in my little Teaching Interpretation
Interdisciplinary one or two pager I have tailored it to every proformas
discipline. Then people have actually said to me
that when they were doing research together from
biology and ecology, they realized they need to talk
to business people and have an economic view.”
University and “Then they realized they needed a research centre Interdisciplinary Integration
Interdisciplinary and sustainability would be the best word in the research
name of that centre. So that it wasn't just biology centres
or science focussed but it actually worked across
disciplines.”
Discipline and “If we say education for sustainability is about a EfS discourse Exploration—feed-
Social mode of engaging in social change or conceptions forward
that are challenging dominant views in whatever
disciplines, that is actually quite cross-disciplinary.”
Teaching and “Even the engineers are saying, ok there are specific Action learning Tension between
Community technical skills you have to have around how to teaching fast forward and
design a bridge but ultimately you need to be approaches feedback
questioning all the time, the purpose of the bridge
and taking into consideration the long-term impact
of the bridge and the effect of it in the community
and society. Critical thinking.”
Curriculum and “As a way of encouraging a community of lecturers Institutionalization;
Community to share content it (a sustainability website) tension between
would certainly be useful. I suppose the copyright fast forward and
restrictions; the problem is that the university feedback
decides what I can do with my materials. There
could be problems with such a competitive
market now . . . which is really unfortunate
because it would be great to have this sort of
idea of knowledge commons where you can share
quite easily. I think the bottom line is that my
supervisors would not be happy with me giving out
much content.”

belief systems. Our interviewees highlight different artefacts and discourses that they understand
to be of potential value in building shared understanding, equivalent meanings, and collective
learning through social interaction in a CoP. As we have pointed out above, Table 2 exemplary
quotes from our co-occurring key concepts can be seen to reflect different stages in the 4I pro-
cesses. They indicate that boundary objects are triggering fledgling CoPs, emerging both within
organizations, and as Wenger (2000) argues is quite typical of CoPs, across organizations. Of
interest also, as noted in Table 2 quotes, is that students are drawn in through the various bound-
ary objects as members of CoPs.
Where boundary objects appeared to be particularly effective in promoting learning flows
across a CoP was through developing shared understandings around teaching sustainability prac-
tice. Reflecting arguments earlier expostulated around sociomateriality, we noted our respon-
dents saw much potential for a shared information system expressed on a sustainability website,
or in other words a repository boundary object (Star & Groesemer, 1989) as a means of integrat-
ing learning processes regarding teaching best practice. On the other hand, and reflecting the
impact of ecological materiality (Bansal & Knox-Hayes, 2013), some of our sustainability lead-
ers suggested that diverse actors could be engaged and drawn into participation in the CoP

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196 Organization & Environment 26(2)

through development of a “boundary negotiating artefact” in the form of a list of “sustainability

issues.” These issues (e.g., energy efficiency, food, or sustainable business) have significant
material impact that is measured across multiple disciplines and could enable the intersecting
social worlds to “share ideas.”
Another boundary object that seems particularly useful to our sustainability leaders is the
discourse (Wenger, 2000) of Education for Sustainability. As a way of teaching it has a prescribed
or accepted set of principles (Benn & Martin, 2010), almost operating in the form of a pedagogi-
cal “protocol,” set out in numerous government and intergovernmental publications (e.g.,
UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). As a discourse, it offers a way of teaching and a set of shared resources
that can be applied differently across the disciplines. In other words, as with the classic boundary
object, its representation is the same but changes with the particular knowledge users (Star &
Groesemer, 1989). Similarly, as also reflected in Table 2, teaching tools and processes such as
stakeholder engagement can be a way of prompting shared understanding at the group level. Our
interviewees highlight that the recontextualization underpinning such exercises may generate the
critical awareness relevant to each individual’s understanding that is essential for the develop-
ment of new insights into the interdisciplinary aspects of sustainability. These various teaching
tools and discourses do more than just providing a common language—they act as a boundary
object because they prompt decontextualization at the boundary between the unitary disciplinary
and interdisciplinary approaches, allowing for recontextualization into a more holistic set of
understandings around sustainability.
Our research also indicates the difficulty in institutionalizing learning around sustainability in
the form of new routines, strategies, and systems that would embed interdisciplinary or holistic
approaches. Whereas exploratory or feed-forward processes of learning are occurring by means
of these boundary objects, the exploitation or feedback processes at the organizational level are
much more problematic. It is a challenge for further research to think of boundary objects that
would embed and institutionalize without limiting the creative aspects of the overall learning
process. Returning to the 4I framework and the key issue of how to ensure that generation of new
ideas at the level of the individual, we note Lee’s (2005) criticism of overdependence on using
standardization (such as forms and protocols) as a boundary object, as it can preclude the emer-
gence of new collaborations and nonroutine, creative ways of working. Different and more flex-
ible boundary objects may be required. Within or across organizations, particular boundary
objects could work to challenge certain agreements and taken for granted relationships between
actors in sustainability communities (Lee, 2005; Tomblin, 2009; Wenger, 2000). Resulting nego-
tiations can push boundaries, stimulating reconsideration of each community’s practices and
possibly leading to the refreshing of them.
An apparent obstacle to learning flows is ownership of the learning. This problem was raised
by one of our sustainability leaders when discussing the potential for a CoP formed around a
sustainability website where different disciplines across different universities would share cur-
riculum (indicated in Table 2 as “curriculum and community”). Although boundary objects
obviously can be put to certain political uses (Oswick & Robertson, 2009), as Kimble et al.
(2010) have argued, their downside is that in some forms they may also be too mechanical and
unable to assuage the politics of interactions. Although educators may theoretically agree with
the principles of open sharing of sustainability curriculum, boundary objects in the form of their
institutional standards or protocols relating to Intellectual Property may act as a barrier.

Conclusion
Overall, although this is only a pilot study and we need to undertake considerably more in-depth
analysis using the Leximancer tool, our findings suggest that the 4I framework can illuminate
how learning for sustainability occurs in terms of interpretation at the individual and integration

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Benn et al. 197

at the group level either within or across organizations. Our study indicates that the tension
between the feed-forward or exploratory learning processes and feedback or organizational
embedding through rules and procedures is fraught enough to impede the institutionalization
processes that enable learning at the organizational level. Hence, the findings highlight barriers
to the flows of learning between the various levels in terms of how sustainability is taken up by
the organization. Although the study indicates the difficulty in institutionalizing interdisciplinary
approaches within the individual organization, it also shows the potential for the interorganiza-
tional CoP as a site for learning at the group level. Therefore, the networked CoP may provide the
feed-forward learning across various organizations rather than within one organization. We sug-
gest this highlights conclusions drawn by scholars that sustainability presents far too complex a
task to be conceived of as occurring at the level of the organization as a separate entity (e.g.,
Banerjee, 2011) or that we may need to consider the interactive effects between the organiza-
tional and field levels to understand the social learning processes that embed sustainability
(Hoffman, 2001).
Overall, our research reveals the challenges that highly distributed sensemaking around sus-
tainability poses for institutionalizing sustainability through various systems and procedures.
The highly dispersed set of understandings across various stakeholders around sustainability
serves to emphasize the tension between exploration and exploitation processes that the organi-
zation needs to manage. Such distributed sensemaking across the stakeholder groups indicates
different experiences and knowledge sets that will influence the processes of individual intuition
that underpin all learning flows and feed-forward. In our case in the higher education sector, it is
the development of critical awareness rising in students and staff and the integrated body of
knowledge that can be shared at this level that is the exploratory side of the learning. Exploitation
processes at the organizational level where this knowledge is embedded into the curriculum
reflects the attempt to institutionalize this knowledge. Most of our interviewees expressed unease
that institutionalization was not occurring. So although social interaction through the CoP was
occurring at the group level, even between organizations through the interorganizational CoP, the
lack of shared understandings between the leaders from different stakeholder groups in sustain-
ability indicates that institutionalizing would be a very difficult process. As Crossan et al. (1999,
p. 530) point out—“generally that which is institutionalized in organizations has received at
some point a certain degree of consensus or shared understanding among the influential members
of the organization.”
On a positive note for those interested in facilitating organizational learning around sustain-
ability, our pilot research has indicated that boundary objects are highly relevant to organiza-
tional learning at the level of the individual aspect of the 4I model—that is, the intuition and
interpretation processes. Our research has also indicated their importance at the group level of
integration across a CoP that crosses intra- and interorganizational boundaries, acting, as Star and
Groesemer (1989) describe, as “objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs (. .
.), yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites” (p. 393). We have less support
for their usefulness in the processes of institutionalization of new insights around sustainability
into core organizational processes and practices. Moreover, we are also mindful of the critique of
the selection of boundary objects as a politically laden process (Oswick & Robertson, 2009)—
institutionalization may also mean embedding versions of sustainability that are politically useful
to certain actors.
Our findings in the education sector could also apply in other sectors where there are widely
different understandings of what sustainability means in practice. We argue that our revised
version of the 4I model may be relevant not only in the case of sustainability in the higher
education sector but also in any organizational situation where the learning required is open to
multiple interpretations and politicization. Through this pilot study of the higher educational
sector, we have already identified that boundary objects may enable change across disparate

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198 Organization & Environment 26(2)

groups of stakeholders, supporting those findings of other scholars studying ecosystem and
energy management and policy (Fitzgerald, 2012; Tomblin, 2009). We have also indicated how
feed-forward learning around holistic understandings of sustainability within organizations
can be facilitated through information flows across interorganizational networks (Manring,
2007).
Given the barriers to institutionalizing such learning we found within organizations, as we
continue to develop the model of organizational learning in relation to sustainability by investi-
gating how it might apply in other sectors, we will include interorganizational learning processes
in the 4I framework and argue that we are therefore contributing to the wider literature on orga-
nizational learning. Furthermore, we will explore the field-level interactions between organiza-
tions and the higher education sector, interpreting the higher education field through multiple
level, complex interactions between diverse constituents (Hoffman, 2001). We will look to theo-
ries of co-evolution to interpret learning flows between integrative learning within the CoP, insti-
tutionalization within constituent organizations, and systemic changes within the sector (Benn &
Baker, 2009; Porter, 2006). Through further analysis of the tensions that occur around various
boundary objects within this dynamic framework, we could explore how social learning dynam-
ics (Antonacopoulou & Chiva, 2007) could enable instituting of sustainability across higher edu-
cation organizations.
We have argued that organizational learning around interdisciplinary sustainability education
in the higher education sector can act as a critical case of organizational learning for sustain-
ability and therefore can provide us with an opportunity to study the factors influencing the
processes in the 4I framework. Our pilot research indicates that sustainability is a visionary
boundary object (Briers & Chua, 2001) capable of evoking positive emotional responses across
diverse stakeholders in organizations but that its success as a means of introducing change is
dependent on deploying other boundary objects that have the capacity to translate this vision
into practice. They may include sociomaterial interfaces, standardized repositories, or discourse
boundary objects that can have the power promote to promote shared or distributed sensemak-
ing across a community of practice (Star & Groesemer, 1989; Wenger, 1998) across multiple
stakeholders. More generally, in terms of the 4I framework, we note a number of boundary
objects that may be useful in generating learning flows. They include material artefacts, tools,
and processes such as stakeholder engagement and interactive sustainability websites that have
the capacity to link diverse stakeholder groups, roles, and disciplinary backgrounds within and
across organizations.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article: We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Australian Government Office for
Learning and Teaching.

Notes
1. Post “discovery” interventions can be undertaken by analysts, if required, including—but not limited
to—deleting of words or concepts from analysis, changing settings for required evidence for coding to
occur, changing size of text block, and doing other forms of more directed analysis.
2. The size of themes may be altered by the researcher as a means of assisting map reading.

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Benn et al. 199

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Author Biographies
Suzanne Benn, PhD, is a professor of sustainable enterprise in School of Management, UTS Business
School. In this position, she provides leadership within the Business School and across UTS, working with
other disciplinary areas and external stakeholders to promote sustainability. She was previously professor
of education for sustainability, director of ARIES, and head of the Graduate School of the Environment at
Macquarie University, Sydney. She has a background in the sciences and the social sciences. She has had
wide experience working across the range of educational sectors and as a research and industrial scientist.
Her current research interests range across corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility, busi-
ness education for sustainability, and organizational change and development for sustainability. Her inter-
disciplinary academic publications include three books and more than 90 refereed journal articles, book
chapters, and refereed conference papers.
Melissa Edwards, PhD, is a senior lecturer in management, UTS Business School, University of
Technology, Sydney. Her areas of interest are sustainability, social movements, social capital, networks,
complexity theory, and social change. She has completed a PhD on emergence of organizational processes
in community networks within the area of sustainability. She is currently embedding sustainability into a
first year compulsory business subject and teaches in the area of community and nonprofit management,

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social enterprise, and sustainable business. Other recent research is on developing systemic measure of
social impact for community-based organizations. She has had active involvement in advocacy projects in
climate, social justice, and conservation.
Tamsin Angus-Leppan, PhD, has 17 years experience in conducting qualitative research, overseas and in
Australia. She has completed a PhD in corporate social responsibility, which has involved extensive qualita-
tive research in the financial services sector. She has concurrently been an associate lecturer and a research
associate in the School of Marketing at UTS and project leader on several projects for Australian Research
Institute for Environment and Sustainability, including one with the St James Ethics Centre to develop a
sustainable business toolkit for SMEs and work with the Ethnic Communities Council to assess and develop
methods for improving sustainable living in Sydney.

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