Progress towards institutionalising field-wide water efficiency change

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how a heterogeneous range of water efficiency responses were driven across a field of seven water consuming organisations in Australia at a time of acute drought conditions into the late 2000s.

Design/methodology/approach

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a range of individuals from 2008 to 2010.

Findings

A loosely coordinated range of drivers motivated pervasive water efficiency responses in two of the seven case organisations. Would-be leaders sought to invoke a water efficiency field, and champion nascent logics and theorisation in order to gain some competitive advantage. There was little sense among others of any normative, mimetic or coercive pressure to adopt homogeneous practices. While the field lacked effective champions for change, an institutionalisation of novel water efficiency practices continued across the field into 2010.

Research limitations/implications

Further research could investigate how water efficiency responses continued to develop or decline into the 2010s, and how such practices integrate with the management of other sustainability issues (including carbon).

Practical implications –

Global water resources are subject to increasing supply constraints. This paper responds by exploring how the institutionalisation of water efficiency change can be driven across a field of organisations.

Originality/value

Relatively little is understood about “institutionalization” as an unfinished process. This paper responds by contributing an understanding of how institutional logics developed, and how theorisation for water efficiency progressed in the context of water scarcity in Australia in the late 2000s.

Citation

Egan, M. (2014), "Progress towards institutionalising field-wide water efficiency change", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 809-833. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-05-2013-1353