The purpose of this paper is to show that organizational change depends on societal narratives – narratives about the character, history, or envisioned future of societies.
A case study of a Swedish municipal waste management company serves as an illustration.
Swedish waste governance is powered by two main narratives: “less landfilling” and “wasting less”. Less landfilling has been the dominant narrative for several decades, but wasting less is gaining momentum, and a new narrative order is establishing itself. This new narrative order significantly redefines the socio‐material status of waste and imposes major changes on waste management organizations.
Based on the case of waste governance in Sweden, the authors conclude that organizations should be aware that societal narrative affects the legitimacy and nature of their operations; therefore, they must integrate a watch for narrative change in their strategic reflections.
This paper establishes the relevance of the notion of societal narrative to understand organizational change.
