Frame Decoupling for Organizational Change

Abstract

Using qualitative research in one organization that undertook green building, we examine the processes that occur to foster support for a new initiative among people with diverse values and perceptions. We found that framing was particularly important, but framing contests occurred due to variation in how individuals cognitively connected different frames together. To overcome these contests, the organization used an interactive process we define as “frame decoupling” through which the frames were identified, separated, and prioritized before new language or frame was selected for the collective organizational goal. We develop the concept “Frame Decoupling” to describe how variations in cognitive diagnostic framing by stakeholders within an organization contribute to framing contests and how these contests can be resolved through interactive processes that effectively decouple various preexisting frames. Frame decoupling is an additional frame alignment strategy that social movements and organizations can use to motivate support and action for organizational goals.

Keywords

green building organizational sustainability framing frame alignment environmental movement sensemaking sensegiving green schools framing contests

To achieve environmental sustainability, organizations attempt to incorporate competing economic, social, and environmental goals as well as conflicting perspectives from internal and external stakeholders (Hahn, Preuss, Pinkse, & Figge, 2014). Scholars have outlined these and other individual, organizational, and institutional obstacles that limit organizational success in tackling environmental issues (Berardi, 2013; Hoffman & Henn, 2008). To understand how organizations overcome these obstacles to sustainability, scholars are looking at microprocesses of interaction that influence organizational strategy.

One such process gaining interest is “framing,” the process of assigning and attaching meaning to external events and organizational initiatives in relation to organizational goals (Doppelt, 2003; Etzion, 2007; Hahn et al., 2014; Hockerts, 2015; Howard-Grenville & Hoffman, 2003). Drawing from several disciplines, this research connects individual cognition with the interactional political processes that affect the acceptance of goals in an organization. For example, framing, in social movement literature, describes the language and meaning negotiation processes used to motivate supporters, persuade bystanders, and combat antagonists (Benford & Snow, 2000). Framing has been used to describe how activists attempt to encourage support across a wide variety of movements (see Benford & Snow, 2000, for review). While research on social movement framing has grown over the past two decades, less research has focused on the framing processes of nonsocial movement organizations or within individual organizations (Benford & Snow, 2000; Jenness, 1995; Kaplan, 2008; Kolker, 2004).

Organizational scholars have focused on individual organizations and described how leaders’ cognitive frames are formed and how these frames are negotiated in political processes to become the collective frame of the organization (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Maitlis, 2005; Maitlis & Lawrence, 2007). This literature focuses largely on leadership, and has only recently connected the cognitive models to political negotiation activities (Kaplan, 2008). Kaplan (2008) described how multiple stakeholders participated in framing contests as leadership attempted to make their individual cognitive frames the overall organizational frame. Yet, more research is needed to understand how individual perceptions of a frame’s inclusivity affect support for collective organizational frames.

Our research examines both these literatures to contribute to the theory and practice of organizational framing. Specifically, we asked, “What processes occur within an organization to foster support for a new initiative among people with diverse values and perceptions on the initiative?” Based on qualitative research, we found that when framing contests occur within an organization, the negotiation of frames requires specifically addressing various values held by stakeholders and ensuring these values hold equal position in new change initiatives. We propose that the frame alignment processes—frame bridging, frame amplification, frame extension, and frame transformation—described by social movement scholars Snow, Rochford, Worden, and Benford (1986) is limited and would benefit from the inclusion of a new concept that we define as “frame decoupling.” Frame decoupling is the process of identifying how existing frames are coupled together conceptually, then separating and identifying each component as its own organizational concern. After frames are decoupled, frame extension and transformation processes can combine distinct frames into a collective organizational frame that does not privilege one frame over the others.

This case study examines the efforts of one large public school district (owner of 70 buildings comprising over 4 million square feet) to adopt sustainability and green building practices. Our previous research with this district (Schelly, Cross, Franzen, Hall, & Reeve, 2011; Schelly, Cross, Franzen, Hall, & Reeve, 2012), revealed that the Operations Department was engaged in innovative practices regarding designing and operating sustainable buildings. Inspired by these findings, this study examined how this district was able to adopt innovative building practices before it was common practice in the industry and in a climate of political contestation about the value of green buildings. Previous research had identified a variety of individual, cultural, and institutional barriers to green construction (Hoffman & Henn, 2008). We wondered what processes differentiated this school district from other organizations that were unable to overcome these barriers? Thus, we selected this case for its uniqueness, adoption of innovative building standards, and from this we propose a refinement of existing theory (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003). While we selected this case because of the district’s innovative practices, it was not until we conducted interviews that we understood the importance of framing processes to the ultimate success of their green building efforts.

Based on in-depth interviews and document review, we found the ability to change the frame—or vision—of green building to incorporate values of even the staunchest anti-environmentalists was central to green building adoption in this case. One unique aspect of the framing process in this case is the incorporation of numerous stakeholders, internal and external, as well as individuals located at different levels of the organizational hierarchy. Thus, it fills a gap in organizational framing literature that often focuses only on management and executive framing rather than framing efforts across many levels and job responsibilities. Our development of the concept frame decoupling also expands social movement literature by identifying a reason frame alignment processes may fail and a solution to overcome these obstacles.

Social Movement and Organizational Framing

Two strands of scholarship on framing help us understand organizational change and specifically changes related to environmental sustainability. One is organizational literature on cognitive frames and sensemaking and sensegiving processes. In this literature, sustainability is researched within the umbrella of strategic decision making and how leaders use frames to garner support for specific strategies. The second literature is social movement literature, which focuses on how activists have attempted to garner public support and create broad social change outside of their specific organizations. The environmental movement has commonly been studied as a social movement, and this literature describes how those with pro-environmental values attempt to encourage others to support their goals and make pro-environmental lifestyle changes. These two literatures offer similar, yet distinct understandings of framing processes and have developed the concept along parallel paths (Cornelissen & Werner, 2014).

Cognitive Frames, Sensemaking, and Sensegiving for Organizational Change

In the organizational literature, frames are often studied as cognitive processes (see Cornelissen & Werner, 2014 for a review). A cognitive frame is a “mental template that individuals impose on an information environment to give it form and meaning” (Walsh, 1995, p. 281). This literature combines cognitive psychology with social constructionism to describe how individuals create and attach meaning to the world around them (Starbuck & Milliken, 1988). The common focus is on how organizational leaders make sense of internal and external cues to define strategic choices and what affects the success of various leaders in turning their cognitive frames into collective organizational visions.

Specifically, organizational scholars have defined two processes related to how cognitive frames of individuals become organizational frames supporting strategic action: sensemaking and sensegiving. Sensemaking describes the process in which leaders relate internal and external cues to the organization and define a new strategic vision (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991). Once leaders have created this vision, they attempt sensegiving, which is the “process of attempting to influence the sensemaking and meaning construction of others toward a preferred redefinition of organizational reality” (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991, p. 442). Gioia and Chittipeddi’s (1991) foundational work focused specifically on leaders’ sensemaking and how these leaders champion their frame to the rest of the organization. Recent research on sensemaking has focused on the how of the sensemaking process and on the effect of sensemaking on organizational change, learning, and innovation (see Maitlis & Christianson, 2014 for review). Other researchers have evaluated whether frames are connected to the actions of the organization, finding that often frames are decoupled or disconnected from strategic action (Fiss & Zajac, 2006). These framing processes are affected by social interaction, and scholars have drawn from social constructionism literature to understand the effects of interaction on framing outcomes. For example, contestation from organizational members can result in another round of sensemaking and then another process of sensegiving.

Two limitations of this research have been highlighted by scholars. First, this literature has often focused on individual leaders or high-level management teams and the top-down process of how they use political influence to affect the adoption of their cognitive frames. Maitlis and Christianson (2014, p. 79) state that “sensemaking is most often restricted in nature, with leaders driving and controlling the process, and periodically eliciting input from other organizational members on certain issues.” Only a few studies have incorporated other actors beyond top leadership (Maitlis, 2005). Maitlis (2005) found that sensemaking and sensegiving processes vary when a larger diverse set of organizational actors are considered, specifically that actors at various levels use different tactics to influence the collective frame.

A second limitation is that the sensegiving process often loses its full interactional focus and instead falls back into description of different actors’ ability—through power and influence—to support their cognitive frame in becoming the collective organizational frame. Viewing frames as individual and based on knowledge versus researching how language and meaning grow from interpersonal interaction is one of the key disconnects within this literature (Chreim, 2006; Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). Kaplan (2008) argues that how the cognitive frames within the sensemaking process are linked to the interactional process has not been well studied. As Kaplan notes, the organizational literature uses social interactionist theory, but the specific framing literature from social movements has much more to offer to the understanding of frames and organizational change. She argues that framing is both cognitive and interactional. Kaplan (2008, p. 737) further emphasized that “Frames were not tools that actors could deploy at will,” and instead organizations undergo “framing contests” to determine which cognitive frames become the collective organizational frame. While recent research has identified the need for increased focus on interaction in organizational framing research, specific integration of definitions and terminology from social movement literature is still relatively lacking.

Social Movement Frames and Frame Alignment Processes

Within social movement framing literature, scholars draw from symbolic interactionism theory to discuss how meanings about a social movement’s goals are defined, negotiated, and transformed to further the movement (Benford & Snow, 2000). In this literature, a frame refers to “an interpretive scheme which renders social movement issues and goals meaningful to individuals and groups” (Cornfield & Fletcher, 1998, p. 1306). The verb framing, drawn from Goffman (1974), describes the ongoing process of negotiation to develop and maintain these frames and coalesce individual and movement perspectives for collective action.

The social movement literature offers more specific typologies for frames and framing processes than does much of the organizational framing literature. For example, there are three types of frames defined in social movement literature: diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational. Diagnostic frames define the problem(s) that the social movement is trying to affect. A prognostic frame is the definition of the solution to the stated social problem and motivational frames define the actions supporters should take to help the movement achieve its goals (Benford & Snow, 2000).

When faced with a need to increase movement success, movement leadership will undertake various frame alignment processes to alter one or all of the three types of frames. Frame alignment is defined as the strategic practices used by social movement activists to connect individual and social movement perceptions toward the movement (Snow et al., 1986). The goal of frame alignment is to increase support, participation, and action for the movement, similarly to how sensegiving processes are used to generate support for particular organizational frames and visions. These frame alignment practices clearly describe what Kaplan noted was lacking from organizational scholarship on the link between individual and collective frames.

In the central research on frame alignment, Snow et al. (1986) identified four framing processes used by movement activists. The first, frame bridging, is the connection of ideologically congruent frames of an issue; it often involves direct solicitation and awareness building among groups that would be expected to have similar beliefs as the activists. The second process is frame amplification, which involves highlighting particular issues as more salient than others or amplifying certain existing beliefs and values. For example, the peace movement included values of justice, cooperation, and democracy, but activists amplified democracy over the others to gain support from those who value liberty and freedom of speech.

The third process, frame extension, describes the expansion of a current definition of either the problem (diagnostic frame) or solution (prognostic frame) to encompass “points of view that are incidental to its [the movement’s] primary objectives but of considerable salience to potential adherents” (Snow et al., 1986, p. 472). Again using the peace movement as an example, activists attempted to garner more support from racial and ethnic minorities through amplification of their value of justice within the focus on combatting increased militarization. With little success, activists then extended the frame to social justice, a concern important to the targeted groups. Combatting racism and improving social justice was not the movement’s central goal, but did align with their focus on justice and democracy. Finally, frame transformation includes attempts to alter current frames into a new frame. This process involves redefining the problem and solution, such as with drunk driving by the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which reframed a tragic accident or death into an injustice requiring more serious judicial consequences for the intoxicated driver (Turner, 1983).

Frame alignment processes are similar, yet distinct from sensegiving processes due in part to the variation in level of analysis and targeted audience of frames. Within organizations, leaders directing sensegiving processes often have a specific audience, whether internal or external, whereas social movement leaders use frame alignment to convince an amorphous general public to join the cause, participate in collective action, or donate money. Because organizational sensegiving can be confined within an organization in which subordinates are the targets of leaders’ attempts to generate frames, coercion can be a strategy for some leaders. For example, organizational literature on sustainability initiatives describes how organizations generated awareness or appropriate knowledge about environmental issues that increased staff participation as well as used coercion or created a real or manufactured crisis to compel cooperation (Al-Homound, 2000; Doppelt, 2003; Fernandez & Rainey, 2006; Kotter, 1995). Coercion is less available to social movement activists, whose audience is the general public, making frame alignment success more crucial.

Organizational and Movement Framing for the Environment and Green Building

Both of these literatures have been used to understand success and failure within the environmental and green building movements. Organizational scholars researching sustainability have largely focused on attempts to overcome contradictions between environmental and profit concerns using various frames. As Bazerman and Hoffman (1999, p. 4) stated, “Environmental management staffs often take for granted that the value of their strategic environmental programs is apparent. Yet, they fail to adopt the business metrics and lexicon employed by other parts of the organization in communicating that value.” Hockerts (2015) researched how organizational managers’ cognitive frames relate sustainability to competitive advantage. The author found that organizations that successfully incorporated sustainability used more complex frames than unsuccessful organizations. In response, the organizational sustainability literature contains various sustainability frame typologies that leaders could use in sensegiving processes. For example, Al-Homound’s (2000) model for organizational energy conservation and efficiency lists four potential frames: saving resources, saving money, environmental protection, and occupant comfort. Howard-Grenville and Hoffman (2003) provide several frames for environmentally concerned employees to use: operational efficiency, risk management, capital acquisition, market demand, strategic direction, human resources management.

The identification of frames that would be easily accepted by organizational members may reduce framing to marketing slogans to be sold to organizational members and thus overlook negotiation and conflict in the sensegiving process (Bansal, 2003; Dutton, Ashford, Neill, Hayes, & Wierba, 1997; Kaplan, 2008). Recent work has attempted to overcome these limitations and connect specific frames to interaction outcomes for organizations. For example, Hahn et al. (2014) offers two cognitive frames for organizational sustainability: business and paradoxical. Leaders using the business frame view sustainability as connected to the economic goals of the business. The paradoxical frame is more complex, and leaders hold social, economic, and environmental goals simultaneously and attempt to create initiatives that succeed on several different fronts. The authors use these two ideal type frames to describe how each would affect the sensegiving processes within an organization, indicating that the more complex paradoxical frame leaves space for longer and more contested sensegiving negotiations.

In line with Kaplan’s (2008) description of framing contests, there is limited research on how frame alignment processes in organizations can encompass “non-environmental” values and make bedfellows out of ideological opponents. One exception is recent research that described a successful case of frame extension around climate change within an industrial union (Daub, 2010). The union undertook frame extension to encompass social justice concerns for employees’ livelihoods during a transition from the fossil fuel economy to a green economy within the environmental frame of climate change. This framing allowed them to profess support for the Kyoto International Climate Change Agreement in stark contrast to many industries. Daub (2010, p. 127) highlighted the importance of “explicit negotiation sub-processes: education, persuasion, consultation and accommodation” accomplished in a year-long series of meetings and group activities. As Daub’s research showed, social movement framing theory is useful in understanding the interactive process of framing within organizations.

Case Study: Framing of the Environment and Green Building

Our case study illustrates the interactional processes used in a public school district that transformed their organization from conventional construction to what is now commonly referred to as “green building.” Green building, also called sustainable building and high performance building, “is the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life cycle from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction” (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2014). Before LEED™ (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and before the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) were part of the construction lexicon, this large school district made innovative changes to their organization that supported environmentally-friendly building construction and incorporated sustainability as a component of the operational and educational mission. This district was at the forefront of the green building movement in the early 2000s and has won numerous national environmental awards.

The green building movement, grounded by the USGBC, is part of the broad and varied environmental movement. Just as with other social movements, the goal of frame alignment in the green building and environmental movement is to connect individual values and beliefs with movement goals and motivate environmentally-friendly action. Extensive research has been conducted on understanding individual environmental values and how these promote environmental action and movement identification (Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000). Environmental concern and behaviors are connected to demographics (Dietz, Kalof, & Stern, 2002; Milfont & Duckitt, 2010) as well as beliefs and norms about society in general (Stern, 2000). Stern found that many individual values including “frugality, luxury, waste, or the importance of spending time with family” generate pro-environmental behaviors (p. 417). Each of these values can be utilized as frames to garner more environmental support or may be used by organizational leaders as cognitive frames.

Yet, researchers have noted that environmental activists commonly focus on educating the public about environmental issues as a method to increase pro-environmental behavior more than focusing on the various values and norms that are linked to environmental behavior (Myers & Macnaghten, 1998, p. 335). This focus on the centrality of scientific knowledge to the environmental movement is seen in promotional materials from the USGBC (2010): “Buildings are the top emitter of carbon dioxide globally, beating out transportation and industry, and green buildings reduce energy use by 50%, carbon dioxide emissions and water use by 40%, solid waste sent to landfills by 70% compared to conventional construction.” The central certifying system, LEED™, promotes environmental degradation as a central problem with conventional construction and green building as a solution: “[green building] offers unprecedented opportunity to respond to the most important challenges of our time, including global climate change, dependence on nonsustainable and expensive sources of energy, and threats to human health.” These statements show how environmental concerns are central to the framing of the green building movement. But the environmental movement has faced continued counter-framing, and environmental concerns have become increasing politically polarized (Dunlap & McCright, 2008). In response, other frames of green building are also promoted as aligning easily with the environmental goals of the construction practices. For example, the USGBC (2010) added that they are “committed to a prosperous and sustainable future through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings.”

Although activists have argued the empirical case that green-building standards can address environmental and economic concerns, the case for creating support for green building through the social processes of frame alignment has been less well documented. We address gaps in the organizational, social movement, and green building literatures by focusing on the interactional framing processes among diverse stakeholders, not just organizational leaders. With this case study, we explore the process of frame alignment and address the question: What framing processes occur within an organization to foster support for organizational change (specifically sustainability-related change) among people with diverse values and perceptions of the problem?

Method

We use an instrumental case study to examine how one public school district became an early adopter and national leader in green building.¹ The case study approach allowed us to develop an in-depth description of a process or phenomenon within a bounded system or setting using multiple methods, including interviews and document review (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). Furthermore, qualitative research is central to understanding meaning creation and interactional processes. The selected school district is in the Rocky Mountain region of the U.S. and serves over 20,000 students. A $175 million bond was approved by voters in 2000 to construct six new schools, two other buildings, and various retrofits to existing schools and was one catalyst to transform construction processes district-wide. In 2009, we set out to understand how they became successful in this area despite resistance to green construction from various stakeholders.

This case is useful to understand organizational framing among people with diverse values for several reasons. First, the district was an early adopter of green buildings before national standards were available to guide implementation of green buildings. In 1998, green building was still a nascent concept in the construction industry, and no architects or builders in the region were knowledgeable in the techniques. Thus, district decision makers faced the common green building obstacle of a lack of predetermined sustainable designs or a preestablished frame to adopt (Hoffman & Henn, 2008).

A second reason this case is useful is their dramatic success. The new buildings stand in stark contrast to older, energy inefficient buildings. National awards and recognition have flowed to the district: one new elementary and one new high school were certified Gold and Silver, respectively, by the USGBC’s LEED™ program, the national standard in green building design. Furthermore, 82% of the district’s schools received ENERGY STAR labels in 2013. The new schools save the district 25% in energy costs compared to older schools, and the maintenance budget stayed the same even with the substantial expansion in building square footage.

A final reason this district provides an ideal case for study is the political climate of the area. This region is politically diverse, swinging from Republican to Democrat in state and national elections, and the leadership of the school district is usually split evenly along political lines. The local community includes adamant environmentalists, liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. In this area and across the country, political rhetoric over climate change has affected the success of environmental initiatives and the belief in anthropogenic climate change among the U.S. public (Dunlap & McCright, 2008). Understanding how organizational actors generate support for politically contested issues is crucial.

Sampling

We used purposive and snowball sampling to gather interviewees. Two managers within the district’s Operations Department were identified as key informants in the building process. We asked them to identify other stakeholders involved in construction decision-making processes. They identified 24 individuals, whom we began interviewing in 2009. We then used snowball or referral sampling by asking each interviewee to name others who were important to the construction changes. These sampling strategies allowed us to encompass more participants and perspectives on the process (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981). The final sample included 44 potential interviewees. We attempted to contact each individual three times to request an interview. Of these, 25 individuals accepted our request for an interview (57%). Those who declined were retirees no longer working in the community or for the district.

Our final sample maximized variation in interviewee job position and role with the district (Sandelowski, 1995). Sixteen interviewees were current or previous district employees at various levels of the organization: (1) Operations Department leadership (e.g., Director of Operations, Director of Construction), (2) Operations Department managers (e.g., mechanical, janitorial, electrical), (3) District Administrators and Board Members, and (4) Teachers or Educational Staff. The average length of full-time employment among district employees was 20 years, with a range of 1 to 35 years. Nine interviewees were external stakeholders: (1) architects, (2) employees of the local utility companies, and (3) environmental consultants. This variation in organizational position and association allows us to speak to framing processes among many stakeholders, especially those outside of senior management. The 25 interviewees included 16 men and 9 women, aged 33 to 62. All individuals were local residents, and more than half were either graduates of the district or parents of students in the district.

Data Collection and Analysis

The interviews were semistructured to gather similar information from each participant while allowing space for discussion beyond the prepared questions (Berg, 2007; Weiss, 1994). Using a grounded theory approach, we collected and analyzed data simultaneously and coded and recoded the data in stages (Charmaz, 2006). We noticed during the first several interviews that individuals described their personal connection to the building choices in a variety of ways, and we elaborated our interview questions to gather further description of these personal motivations. In particular, we asked interviewees: (1) What is the importance of the mission of energy conservation and high performance buildings to you personally and professionally? (2) What mattered to you in this process? (3) Describe how you became involved in this goal. We also gathered documents related to the construction process including meeting notes and tools used to evaluate different construction products.

Interviews lasted 45 minutes to 2 hours and were digitally recorded then transcribed verbatim. We uploaded our field notes, documents, and transcriptions into NVivo software for interpretive, line-by-line coding. The authors and two graduate students each coded the data and then conducted inter-coder reliability checks. During the first stage of coding, we identified all possible themes in the data related to motivations for supporting the construction changes. The second stage involved connecting different themes together. Finally, we coded the themes as they related to framing, and coded for specific discussion of framing contests and congruencies.

Our approach’s strength is the in-depth information gathered to understand framing in this district. The interviews were conducted after the initial construction phases ended and sustainability was becoming institutionalized across district operations. This timing allowed respondents to describe the history of their role in the process and motivations. Recollections could be biased but based on the interviewees’ own words, there was still debate about climate change and the frames continuing at the time of these interviews. All the district employees were still employed in the district and working on the buildings as well as on new projects, which meant they continued to be part of discussions about construction choices, lessons learned from the buildings, and new sustainability efforts. Thus, our timing of interviews allowed us to understand the continuous nature of framing negotiation.

Participants noted explicitly the effect of language on support for certain construction practices. These insights were largely consistent with social movements’ framing theory, but some of their experiences could not be explained by existing concepts. We developed the concept of frame decoupling, described below, to explain the process through which this team successfully moved to a new collective frame.

Results

After conducting about a dozen interviews, the authors were discussing our preliminary analysis and noted that some participants described other stakeholders as resisters to the green building efforts. Yet our interviews with those same individuals suggested that these “resisters” were some of the strongest supporters or greatest contributors of innovative ideas to the new buildings. We asked ourselves, “How is it that advocates are perceived as resistors?” The answer to this question is that frame contestation was being perceived as “resistance.” To lay the groundwork and understand the process undertaken in this district to address perceived resistance, we begin our results with description of the different individual definitions of the problem (i.e., diagnostic frame) of conventional construction. Then, we detail how participants saw these problem definitions coalescing or conflicting. Next, we propose that frame alignment processes include decoupling of different frames before frame amplification, bridging, or extension can occur and show how this district used interactional processes to create new language around the decoupled frames. Finally, we conclude with analysis of how this district’s framing process differed from previously researched processes of frame alignment. Importantly, frame decoupling is the reverse of frame bridging or extension in that it disconnects two or more already linked frames or deconstructs already extended frames. After decoupling, a new master frame can be adopted to graft several, even political disparate, frames together.

Six Diagnostic Frames of Conventional School Construction

When we asked participants to discuss the process of designing and building the green buildings, participants described their perceptions of what was wrong with past construction projects. No individual expressed a belief that conventional construction (i.e., non-green construction) was the best method of designing, building, or maintaining schools. Instead, all interviewees expressed dissatisfaction with previous construction practices, and described the change in construction practices as “the right thing to do.” Interviewees defined the exact problem of conventional construction and why this change was “right” in different ways. Specifically, we identified six different diagnostic frames from the interviews: (1) conventional construction is bad for the environment, (2) conventional construction is fiscally irresponsible, (3) conventional construction negatively affects children’s educational outcomes, (4) conventional construction does not incorporate professional expertise of Operations Department tradespeople in decision making, (5) conventional construction does not incorporate the whole community into development and maintenance, and (6) conventional construction does not support frugality of resources or money, instead it is wasteful.² Table 1 shows the percentage of interviewees who identified with each problem.

Table 1.

Diagnostic Frames of Conventional Construction.

Diagnostic frame identification	Specific frames of the problem with conventional construction and example quote
Environment 76%	Environmental stewardship; Ecological footprint; Global sustainability
	“I don’t want to have a huge footprint. I want a place for my kids and the future. It makes sense to me that you tread lightly, that you recycle what you can, that you be as responsible as you can, reuse what you can.”
Economic 64%	Steward of public money; Money wasted takes from education; High utility and material costs
	“[A]t the end of the day, there is a financial savings for being more efficient. And like we said, there might be some initial costs, but you do the planning, calculate through those numbers and in five years, if you’re ahead, that’s a no-brainer when you buy that equipment.”
Educational 52%	Negatively affects student performance; Modeling bad behavior for students; Funds should go to education first; Buildings need teaching elements; Buildings negatively affect health
	“We challenged ourselves to build the best buildings we could energy-wise, daylighting-wise, what’s good for kids in the teaching process.”
Professional 32%	Lack of teamwork and relationships; High workload
	“There should be a balance with the facility operating at a high level, which also meant that the educational opportunities [for facilities staff] were there at a high level. So the culture when I came in was people looked at us as not being craftsmen or tradesmen.”
Community 28%	Need stewardship locally; Buildings need to be comfortable/enjoyable
	“The other part of it for me is the community. We’ve got a great community. My son just graduated from high school here. He’s gonna be going to [the local college], and it’s a great environment to be here. So my role isn’t just with the school district, it’s as a community member also, because I don’t walk away from this, I live here.”
Frugality 24%	Need to be frugal with resources; Need to be frugal with money
	“I strongly believe that we need to use our resources correctly. Personally, I strongly think [an older school] was a sin! It’s that bad. It’s upsetting. It makes me upset when I see waste, such as gas burning that doesn’t need to be burned, or I see a chiller running that doesn’t need to be running.”

The most commonly expressed problem with conventional construction was negative environmental impacts (76%), and interviewees expressed it in a variety of ways. Self-described “old hippies” evoked the 1960s environmental movement and many discussed pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, or loss of clean outdoor recreation areas. The second most commonly mentioned problem with conventional construction was economic (64%). As one administrator noted, “I was being directed to contribute to budget savings . . . and one of them was the energy budget. So this energy conservation piece was a budgetary issue.” When asked if there were other concerns beyond the budget, this administrator answered “no.” Operations Department managers similarly felt compelled to reduce costs through the incorporation of life cycle costs (energy and maintenance) of various products.

Another problem with conventional construction was drawn from the mission of the School District—”to educate every child, every day.” Uncomfortable buildings were described as negatively affecting teacher, staff, and student performance. Daylighting, appropriate lighting and acoustics for lectures, and better air quality were desired to improve test scores. Other interviewees desired teaching components added to the physical buildings, such as see-through walls to learn about plumbing and electricity, to increase learning opportunities.

The professional diagnostic frame held by 35% of interviewees described a problem with the process of conventional construction not just the final product. Operations Department employees said they felt like “second-class citizens.” These employees, historically, had no voice in building design processes, and were only called when something went wrong after the building was completed. Administrators with educational backgrounds and outside contractors made all construction decisions, ignoring the knowledge available from district tradespeople. For example, one tradesperson recalled watching decisions about his trade occur over a televised school board meeting before the construction change when board members selected a new ventilation system for one school:

I remember the school board president taking her gavel and hitting the thing, saying, “Congratulations, you’ve got a new air conditioned school.” I went [to work the next day] and I go, “Do you know about the air conditioning?” My boss said, “No.” And now we got a bunch of junk up on that roof!

Furthermore, incorporating the professional knowledge of tradespeople allowed for their focus on improving their jobs. One interviewee supported a transition away from conventional construction for his benefit stating,

Most everything I do is to make my job easier, which is lower maintenance. Most everything we do for efficiencies affects the maintenance side. So that’s what got me on board mostly, I want the buildings to run. I don’t want to have a lot of problems.

The final two diagnostic frames were identified by fewer individuals and are conceptually distinct from the others. The community frame was expressed by 28% of interviewees through discussion of the local town, culture, and people, and how buildings can be comfortable or enjoyable for community members. While the educational frame focused on the student outcomes, the community frame focused on the role of the district as a central community institution. The final diagnostic frame identified in the interviews address concerns for both money and resources, but was qualitatively different from the environment or economics frame. The frugality frame, identified in 24% of interviews, related to general beliefs about the destructiveness of waste. Respondents related their beliefs about how to live a frugal life, and that wasteful use of financial, environmental, and energy resources should be prevented. While the economics frame of the problem focused on saving money only, and included those who wanted to build new schools at the lowest up-front cost, frugality, on the other hand, implied not being wasteful in general not just saving money. These two frames could contradict each other as in the choice to install an expensive but more efficient item that would save money and energy over the long term. People thinking about frugality focused on using and preserving what you had, not just on selecting the least expensive option as would some of those with the economics frame. For example, one administration-level interviewee felt that the older buildings should be preserved and renovated, in contrast to another interviewee who used an economics frame to argue that demolition and total reconstruction would be cheaper.

Cognitive Connection of Different Frames and Framing Contests

These six diagnostic frames described above are conceptually distinct, however, interviewees often expressed some combination of these as mutually constituent. In fact, only two interviewees identified with just one diagnostic frame. Our analysis showed that some of these six frames are tightly and often causally connected for interviewees and this connection between frames led to framing contests.

The connection between frames was an individual cognitive process. Thus, stakeholders associated different diagnostic frames so tightly that they cognitively assumed that addressing one problem would automatically address another problem. In other words, they always saw the “win-win” situation when they moved from considering problems to developing solutions. For example, one Operations Department leader interlaced his fingers of both hands to demonstrate, stating, “You’ve got sustainable education, you’ve got resource conservation, transportation efficiencies, and greenhouse gas reduction. In the end, they actually all go like this [clasps hands together]. They’re all integrated. One feeds all the others.” Another interviewee connected the environment, community, and frugality into one thought, problem, and potential solution, “Everyone’s got to be a part of doing good for the environment, the people, the community, saving money. It was a win-win situation.”

Table 2 summarizes the connection between various frames across interviewees. The table shows the number of interviewees who identified with the two most commonly cited frames (environmental and economic), and then shows the percentage of these who connected these frames with one or more of the other frames. However, only 40% of interviewees connected these two frames to each other and assumed that both could be addressed with one solution. Another 40% identified with the environment but not economic, and 20% mentioned economic but not environment.

Table 2.

Coupling of Environmental and Economic Diagnostic Frames.

Primary frames	N	Coupled frames
Primary frames	N	Educational	Professional	Community	Frugality
Environment	9	5 (56%)	3 (33%)	2 (22%)	3 (33%)
Economic	6	3 (50%)	2 (33%)	2 (33%)	6 (100%)
Coupled environment/economic	10	5 (50%)	3 (30%)	3 (30%)	1 (10%)
Total	25	13	8	7	6

The following quote shows how an external environmental consultant connected environment, economic, and education concerns,

And it’s not only energy and cost, it’s about being green, it’s about resources and the whole big piece, not just energy. It’s about doing the right thing for the environment, which makes for better education and better facilities and everything else.

Her last sentence shows how she assumes that a solution for environmental problems caused by conventional construction will automatically improve education and energy outcomes as well. As another example, one staff member who identified with the frugality and community frames stated,

A big key for my side of things is they realized that if something is energy-efficient, it doesn’t have to be more uncomfortable. If something is using energy efficiently and done right, people are more comfortable. That’s the big thing.

This district employee assumed that addressing energy efficiency would automatically produce more comfortable and enjoyable buildings but he, like 20% of our interviewees, did not link these issues to environmental problems.

Frame contestation resulted from the variation in how individuals connected or did not connect these diagnostic frames. When they began the change process, Operations Department leadership used the frame “green buildings.” They asked operations and maintenance staff to research “green and sustainable” products for the new school prototype, creating a worksheet for staff that identified the object and its purported sustainable benefits. They then formed a team of these staff to provide input and called the group “The Green Team” (see Meyer, Cross, Byrne, Franzen, & Reeve, 2013, for description of Green Team processes). This team met weekly to discuss products, ideas, and design choices for the new buildings.

The most noticeable framing contests occurred between those who connected an environmental frame with the other frames and those who did not see the environment as linked to other issues. For the 40% who connected environment and economic concerns, “green building” promised all manner of benefits to the district. This group assumed that their understanding of how environmental benefits resulted in economic, educational, community, professional, and frugal benefits was widely accepted. They felt that “green building” was a frame that addressed all stakeholders’ concerns. Stakeholders who did not see the environment as a problem began questioning the motives and goals of the organizational change. Dispute arose and early meetings of the team were described as heated because some stakeholders felt “green buildings” only aligned with environmental concerns. This concern that green buildings cost more or are more difficult to maintain has been identified as a common obstacle for organizations to overcome (Hoffman & Henn, 2008), and was observed in this case when the new vision for the district was originally proposed as “green building.” Soon, some interviewees realized that saying “green” or the synonym “sustainable” created resistance, as another environmental consultant described:

If you look at what was happening socio-politically in the late ‘90s, there was either a pro-business or pro-environment paradigm. You couldn’t say the S-word. We joke that there are parts of [the state] where you still can’t say the S—sustainability—word. Because it sends up this lightning rod that you’re talking about a “religion” they don’t subscribe to. So some of it wasn’t necessarily converting them, but introducing them to the religion in a way that they could engage.

Interestingly, leaders who connected various diagnostic frames easily were confused by the backlash against the phrase “green buildings.” As discussed by another Operations Department leader, they did not expect the resistance and felt that it was clear that their frame described a “better” building in all ways:

There were a lot of political issues . . . I remember we had problems with the lexicon. We said “green buildings” and folks thought that this meant we had something to do with Greenpeace and saving whales . . . , but we were just talking about doing something that was a better building [emphasis in discussion] . . . So we had to start being careful about how we used language . . . If we said “green” [people] thought “you’re some radical environmentalist, you’re going to burn something down.”

Two key sides appeared in the framing contests in this case. On one side, the self-identified environmentalists saw the name “green building” as a solution for many of the issues with conventional construction—environmental, learning, health, and fiscal responsibility. On the other side, some self-identified, politically conservative participants viewed the phrase “green building” as negatively connected with the environmental movement, and associated it with radical activism and climate change mitigation—causes they did not support.³ Only 40% of our participants coupled economic and environmental benefits, so nearly two thirds did not assume that green buildings would fundamentally address both of these two top issues identified with conventional construction. The regional and national political context and the contentious debate over climate change bled into discussions of the building initiative, as some stakeholders expressed direct disagreement with belief in an anthropogenic cause of climate change, thus challenging the importance for the environmental frame.

Frame Decoupling and Frame Extension to “High Performance Buildings”

In response to this conflict, the leaders of the Green Team began a truly interactive process to foster support and develop new terminology. Teasing out how individuals perceived the problem and solution to conventional construction happened through an interactive process we call “frame decoupling” or separating and delineating existing frames. Frame decoupling is defined as the process of identifying how stakeholders cognitively couple existing frames, then separate and identify each frame as its own organizational concern.

In this case, “green building” was perceived to privilege environmental interests over other identifications of the problems with conventional construction. Therefore, the framing process involved separating the environment and the other frames before identifying new language that did not privilege one frame over the others. It was during Green Team meetings in which stakeholders expressed various concerns about potential products and practices that leaders realized that they could not continue with the green building language without alienating a large group of stakeholders, many of whom were operations and maintenance staff who would eventually have to operate the chosen building equipment. In the following quote, an Operations Department manager describes resistance he saw and noted how stakeholder goals did not align with “green building”:

There’s always some people that just—I guess some of the maintenance staff originally kind of said, “Whoa, if we start doing this, I’m going to get more calls, and I don’t want to get more calls. I don’t want to get more customer complaints. I don’t want to have more work orders to deal with.” So some of the maintenance staff was a little hesitant to jump on board, for the simple fact that their goal is to save money by fewer customer calls, which means they have less work to do, which means that they have less people hired and less miles to drive in their trucks, less supplies to buy.

Team meetings became a space where frame decoupling occurred. Each stakeholder was encouraged to voice their views on new design choices and suggest other options. As a maintenance employee states, interaction supported frame decoupling by testing members assumptions about the ability of environmental action to meet other expressed goals:

It was uncomfortable to look at just the way we were changing. A lot of that is—energy saving. You had heard that the maintenance was probably not worth it, but we tried it and it’s proved to be true that the maintenance part of it went up . . . I learned that I’d have to do better preparation [and] I can think of other times since I had everything on paper, they agreed with me and we didn’t—we changed from what the architects, the engineer and everyone wanted, to my way, and it still has proved to be a better solution. It was a learning experience for me. If I’m going to find something, I can’t just say, “I know.” I’ve got to have facts and numbers. I’ve had to back off, too, because I see the numbers and I’ve had to go [with others’ ideas], too. It sort of goes both ways.

A new frame extension process was able to occur after frame decoupling and the identification and equalization of each of the goals identified by stakeholders for the new construction changes. All participants contributed to the new frame and saw their perception of the problems with conventional construction and values as part of the new collective frame for the district. If the team approach had been insincere or just for political purposes, interviewees believed support for the organizational changes would have declined. As described by an Operations Department leader, team interactions allowed participants to rearticulate the goals for the new buildings with the frames included as seen in brackets below:

We want a building that is light on the environment [environmental], using recycled materials [frugality], doesn’t smell like a new car when you walk in [community], is non-toxic to people [educational], has delightful interiors [community], is day-lit [educational], is energy-efficient [environmental], is acoustically well-designed [educational], is a place where people want to be [community], uses less water [frugality]—all this great stuff . . . saving money is a consequence [economic], is an outcome of designing this high-performance building. And isn’t that wonderful?

For this district, frame extension involved developing a new prognostic frame that addressed the six unique problems with conventional construction in a manner that did not privilege environmental concerns over the others. As described in the following quote, team members wanted to define a new frame together, “We need to define it collectively with you so we all have an alignment around this shared vision . . . So that’s means language having to be redefined.” Their solution was the phrase “high performance buildings.” An Operations Department leader had read about another organization that used the phrase and when he introduced it to team, they decided collectively that the terminology fit all of their goals for the building redesign. The following quote from an environmental consultant to the district describes the alignment of individual frames with the collective, and how their process did not attempt to change individual values or convince people to be more environmentally conscious:

I think that it’s not a conversion in core values. Maybe the conversion is they finally believe it’s possible. It’s a conversion to the possible . . . . There’s converts on the bandwagon now. There’s room in that high performance wagon for converts of all different motivations. So this person is a convert because of the comfort. You’re going to find folks who are a convert because of the purist environmental motivations, but you’re also going to find plenty of converts because of the cost savings associated with it.

“High performance buildings” became the District’s official position in June 2000, about one year after the Green Team started meeting. The superintendent released a letter to the public stating, “We believe that by working together in an integrated approach, we can build higher-performance schools that provide a superior learning environment while reducing life cycle costs through conservation of energy and natural resources.” The letter expressed the goal of the new construction process for internal staff, the public, and architects and builders, as described by an administrator, “Once that came out and we were having bidding on the architectural firms, they all knew that we were looking at something different.”

Objectively, the new frame describes similar construction practices as the term “green buildings,” such as reduced resource waste, improved occupant atmosphere, and energy efficiency. But, redefining “green schools” to “high performance schools” allowed for a new frame that recombined stakeholder concerns by using a phrase that did not imply a privilege of one frame over others. For example, an Operations Department leader described how the new frame addressed education and community problems by emphasizing the best environments for students:

Now, a student and teacher in a high performance building really doesn’t say every day, “Oh we’re saving energy, we’re saving dollars.” What students and people suddenly understand is that, “I like being here. I’ll stay here longer. This is a good place to be. I’m not getting as sick as much as I used to. I don’t have as much stress as I used to have.”

One Operations Department staff member described how the new goal addressed professional concerns too by creating, “the opportunity to involve all these staff members and recognize them for the qualities that they bring, the skill, the professional level that they bring, the experience, to the table when you design a school.”

Following Snow and Benford’s (2005, p. 207) objective “to specify the interactive processes by which frames are socially constructed, sustained, contested, and altered,” we found that continued participation and discussion created and maintained an extended frame in this district. The frame extension process required a large amount of interaction and continual negotiation within the district’s Green Team, which had representatives from all facilities and maintenance departments, the educational and administration departments, and outside consulting organizations. Support for the new frame went hand-in-hand with participation in the team. In Table 3, we show two contested green products to display how the frames were decoupled and a choice made about the product’s alignment with high performance building.

Table 3.

Two Examples of Framing Contests, Diagnostic Frames, and Resolutions.

Diagnostic frame	Initial opposition	Initial support	Resolution and frame alignment
1. Framing contest: Waterless urinals
EnvironmentalFrugality		Saves waterDoes not waste water	Try a few waterless toilets in the high school bathrooms for older students who are better able to use new technology with minimal additional cleaning.
Economic		Saves money on related costs	Avoid the need for additional janitor staff hours for cleaning new toilets.
Professional	Difficult to clean and maintain		Young students have difficulty flushing and using regular urinals. Regular urinals are easier and quicker to clean; janitorial staff takes pride in bathroom cleanliness.
Description of resolution: Debate and discussion of potential consequences for each option. Waterless urinals would be used minimally in certain schools that have more advanced students to ensure that they are kept clean, but not used in schools with young students.
2. Framing contest: Ground source heat pumps for heating and cooling
Environmental		Reduced greenhouse gas emissions	Try this new system in one school to see how it performs.
Frugality		Lower life-cycle costs	Carefully monitor maintenance requests and equipment life.
Economic	High up-front costs, undetermined maintenance		Design the system for easy access to equipment to reduce costs associated with replacing equipment and maintenance.
Professional	Unknown maintenance procedures		Design the system for easy access to equipment to ensure staff can easily maintain.
Educational		Use to teach renewable energy	Students are trained to give tours of the facility and the HVAC system.
Community		Modeling new technology for community	Provide community tours of facility.
Description of resolution: HVAC department manager was sent to educational institutions to investigate these systems in action and determine maintenance consequences. System was installed but design was altered based on these observations to improve ease for potential maintenance.

The Green Team was described by participants as a place for learning and negotiation, highlighting how continued reinterpretation was necessary to avoid recoupling (and consequential contestation) of frames. As an external consultant recalled, “Fundamentally, the process—it was non-traditional, and it included considerations for buy-in. It included considerations for informing folks and welcoming them and taking their input and using it, as opposed to a dictation of ‘Thou shalt.’” The new framing and team atmosphere in the district generated ownership, personal responsibility, motivation, and commitment that participants felt was important to the organizational change success.

Discussion

We set out to understand what processes within an organization affect the acceptance of and motivate action for a new initiative among stakeholders at different organizational levels and with diverse values. Using a case of green building adoption within a large school district, we found that framing processes were important to initial and continued support for organizational change such that stakeholders could agree that the new initiative was “the right thing to do.” The framing process in this case did not fit neatly into the four frame alignment strategies nor the sensemaking or sensegiving literatures.

Thus, we proposed a fifth frame alignment process called frame decoupling defined as the process of identifying automatically interconnected frames, separating and defining each frame as its own organizational concern, and agreeing upon a prioritization of each concern. The four previous frame alignment strategies—frame amplification, extension, transformation, and bridging—all assume an agreed upon delineation between various frames. Frame decoupling highlights how some frames may be cognitively linked and affect movement support and resistance. Specifically, stakeholders may not only disagree about particular frames of an issue, but also disagree with how some frames are linked or assumed to be connected to other frames.

With the increase in green building adoption, external or predetermined frames will play a role in organizational framing processes, and will affect the views of stakeholders in other organizations attempting to transition to green building. Thus, frame decoupling provides a way to separate previously bridged frames and isolate their core components, while allowing for interaction of stakeholders to develop and determine their own vision and goal, rather than simply accept an external frame.

Frame decoupling also removes a priori prioritization of frames, so that stakeholders can discuss and determine new prioritization specific for their organization. Future research should explore how organizational framing contests are affected by cognitively linked frames or previous frame amplification or bridging.

This case shows how appropriate framing can incorporate disparate values or attitudes into a transformed or extended frame, but only after frame decoupling has occurred. Once core frames are identified and prioritized, then frame extension or transformation processes can occur through interaction among the various stakeholders. Researchers might examine cases of failed organizational change and explore explicitly how frame decoupling, or lack thereof affected these cases.

Beyond social movement literature, frame decoupling is also a strategy to address framing contests identified by organizational scholars (Kaplan, 2008). Frame decoupling helps overcome contestation by first identifying and understanding the meanings stakeholders (especially resistors) associate with a frame, rather than assuming universal agreement on meaning. When leadership works with stakeholders to decouple frames by identifying all issues related to the organizational change and engages in processes that support negotiation and collective determination of priorities, they can gain support for various initiatives. Our frame decoupling differs from the use of decoupling by Fiss and Zajac (2006), which was used to describe how frames were contrary to actual strategic action. Our concept of frame decoupling focuses on the frames themselves. We argue that building support from numerous stakeholders for organizational change through frame decoupling followed by appropriate frame extension could increase action toward the new goal and potentially reduce the mismatch in frames and action found by Fiss and Zajac (2006). In our case, framing was an ongoing, negotiated, part of both small and large decisions made throughout the process of designing and building new schools. Expanding empirical studies of how stakeholders at various levels in organizations participate in framing processes and connect frames to action will further enhance theories of organizational change.

Our results provide insight on organizational interactive strategies that affect the success of environmental initiatives (Shwom, 2009; Vasi, 2006). In this case, we saw that leadership was able to motivate pro-environmental behavior from people with a variety of values—even from staunch anti-environmentalists—which adds to previous research on environmental initiatives that successfully negotiate political divides (Daub, 2010; Senier, Mayer, Brown, & Morello-Frosch, 2007). In the past decade, for instance, as green building benefits and climate change effects have become more scientifically evident, public belief in anthropogenic climate change has declined (Dunlap & McCright, 2008), and scholars question as to whether this debate has become too divisive for collaboration (Hoffman, 2011). Our focus on framing highlights the interactive processes that engender support and action, which can be especially important to organizational leadership considering environmental initiatives. The green building movement suggests there are numerous reasons to support “green,” “sustainable,” or “high performance,” buildings and regardless of the name used, the objective effects on the environment, financial balance sheets, communities, and occupant comfort are often similar. Green building proponents would agree that this type of construction simultaneously addresses many diagnostic frames.

However, not all frames of green building are perceived as equally inclusive of these varied meanings, as illustrated by our study participants, and framing contests can occur when frames do not seem to align with stakeholders’ various meanings. Thus, “frames are not silver bullets” and diagnostic frames and frame extension processes can and do fail to generate support and collective action (Noy, 2009, p. 223). Instead, frames are actively constructed and refined in group processes—in other words, framing is a shared interactive process (Rohlinger, 2002). The chosen frame is an emergent phenomenon, developed locally within a specific culture and political environment, based on the identification of the specific diagnostic frames through a frame decoupling process. Thus, the frame “high performance buildings” may not be the best frame for all organizations, though many may find it useful. “High performance buildings” was able to address the six diagnostic frames of stakeholders in this organization, and created an umbrella under which all six frames could be incorporated and equally prioritized. For other organizations, there may be fewer, more, or different diagnostic frames, identified during a frame decoupling process. For example, a stakeholders focused on artistic quality may assume “high performance” prioritizes performance over style, and thus this frame would not address their concerns. As a quote from one of our interviewees exemplifies, framing is context specific and interactive, “You’ve got to ask the people that are actually in the building. They know what motivates them.” Future research could identify whether frame decoupling can occur while maintaining certain language or, as in this case, the original language is too contested to use successfully.

Footnotes

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 publication of this article: The authors received funding from the Clean Energy Supercluster Seed Grant Program at Colorado State University to conduct this research.

Notes

Author Biographies

Michelle Annette Meyer is an assistant professor of sociology at Louisiana State University. She has worked on a variety of projects related to disasters and environmental sociology including two National Science Foundation grants on organizational collaboration in disaster recovery. Her research and teaching interests include disaster resilience, climate change displacement, environmental sociology and community sustainability, and the interplay between environmental conditions and social vulnerability. She received her PhD in sociology from Colorado State University.

Jennifer E. Cross is an associate professor of sociology and Director of Research of the Institute for the Built Environment at Colorado State University. Her research interests include community attachment/sense of place, land use and conservation, sustainability, interagency collaboration, and social networks. She works with organizations on participatory research programs, such as land conservation decision-making, energy conservation, organizational sustainability, and behavior change campaigns. She received her PhD in sociology from the University of California at Davis.

Zinta S. Byrne is a professor of industrial and organizational psychology at Colorado State University and runs the Byrne Organizational Psychology Lab. Her research interests include employee engagement, organizational justice, and computer-mediated exchanges. She is the author of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior: An Integrated Approach to Understanding the Workplace (2015) and Understanding Employee Engagement: Theory, Research, and Practice (2014). She runs Atniz Consulting, LLC, which coaches organizations on developing solutions for specific needs.

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