Corporate biodiversity management and organisational change mechanisms: The case of a tea producer in Sri Lanka

Abstract Corporate biodiversity management (CBDM) is a primary environmental concern in the food and beverage industry, especially the tea sector. However, the way tea‐producing companies pursue sustainable biodiversity management practices, and how these practices lead to organisational change at the lower tiers of the food supply chain remain under‐researched. Using alternative models of organisational change and data from interviews, field visits, and documents, this study analyses the practices adopted by a tea producer in a highly environmentally sensitive area in Sri Lanka, and how these practices have led to organisational change. The findings show that environmental disturbances in the tea industry's value chain primarily influence the organisation's design archetypes, in turn leading to CBDM through organisational subsystems and interpretive schemes. The study shows that adopting CBDM practices gradually and consistently leads to sustainable outcomes over time.