Embedding sustainability: a change management guide for ports

2013-11-27To advance and embed sustainability within port organizations, this paper offers an organizational change management guide for port practitioners. A framework from Baumgartner and Ebner (2010) is adapted to evaluate the maturity level of sustainability within six of the world’s top container ports: Shanghai, Ningbo/Zhoushan, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, and Los Angeles. Port organizations are then classified by a sustainability strategy typology adapted from Baumgartner and Ebner (2010). Through this process and by highlighting the most advanced practices among ports, we are better able to understand the aspects and influences that contribute to the evolution of a mature sustainable port organization. Applying the framework from Mirvis and Googins (2006), an organizational change case study of the Port of Los Angeles offers a look at the triggers, drivers, successes, and remaining challenges of integrating sustainability into the organization’s culture and decision-making processes. This analysis is supplemented by examining inter-organizational learning efforts that endeavor to drive change for sustainability among ports and within the goods movement supply chain. Building on these approaches, the final chapter provides a guide for change agents who want to further advance and institutionalize sustainability within their port organizations and the ports industry