LUT Business School, Finland and RMIT University, Australia

Shape Shifting: An Autobiographic Journey of Sustainability Transformation

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ABSTRACT

This research invites you on a personal journey toward sustainability. 

Despite extensive discussion about sustainability crises, we seem to remain stuck in a business-as-usual mindset. But how does one rethink? Through an autobiographical lens, I explore the cognitive shifts along my sustainability journey, examining incidents that have shaped my perceptions in the form of cognitive frames. By sharing personal life stories, I examine how emotionally charged encounters have contributed to cognitive reframing processes concerning my perceptions and standpoints on sustainability. This introspective journey focuses on my inner transformations and the factors that influenced them, not to provide definitive conclusions, but to create space for humanity in research and beyond, potentially leading to broader transformations. To achieve true sustainability transformations - reshaping how we produce, consume, and live - we must also reshape the way we think, feel and speak. I invite you to join me on this journey!

BIOGRAPHY

Leonie is a junior researcher in management and business studies under a cotutelle agreement between LUT University in Finland and RMIT University in Australia. Her doctoral position is part of the REDI PhD training program under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. Further, she’s a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow. Leonie is pursuing her doctoral degree with a focus on the micro-foundations of sustainability transformations, with a specific research interest in the necessary cognitive shifts required to implement sustainability in organizational settings and beyond. Her research links cognitive processes with hands-on sustainable decision-making and actions while exploring opportunities to overcome business-as-usual and instead promote sustainability as if it matters. Further areas of interest are regenerative development, female thinkers and emotions in sustainable development processes.