Making Sustainable Places Through Spaces

Role Identity Expansion and Imagination in a Swiss Urban Planning Committee

Bibliographic Data

ID20413664
AuthorsEmamdeen Fohim (0000-0001-6883-873X, University of Bern, corresponding author), Mélodie Cartel (0000-0001-8062-2050, UNSW Business School, Kensington, NSW, Australia), Chintan Kella (0000-0002-5789-5015, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
Year2024
Volume37
Issue3
Pages408-439
Publication date2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOrganization & Environment (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1086-0266 • E-ISSN: 1552-7417
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/10860266241233600
OpenAlexW4392587744
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited97

The transition toward sustainable cities has garnered significant attention from governments, policymakers, and researchers. Mirroring these developments in the academic world, organizational researchers are investigating sustainable placemaking and identifying the conditions that favor such a vital process. Building on a case study of an urban planning committee in the Swiss town of St. Gallen, this research studies how spaces (temporary social settings that enable the negotiation of new ideas) can initiate sustainable placemaking. The interplay between the expansion of space members’ role identities and their imagination of sustainable places is essential to sustainable placemaking. Generalizing these findings, our process model sheds light on the mutual constitution between imagination and role identity expansion inside spaces. The model makes two contributions to the organizational literature: (i) it highlights the importance of role identity expansion in sustainable placemaking processes through spaces and (ii) it discloses the interplay of imagination and identity expansion in spaces

Aesthetics · Art · Civil engineering · Political science · Sociology · Urban planning · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Engineering · Management and Organizational Studies · Participatory Visual Research Methods