Enabling shared values for sustainability transformation: empirical lessons from a case of promoting cross-group collaboration in China

Finding pathways to enable values-for-sustainability transformation is crucial. Despite the emergence of strategic insights and theoretical frameworks like the Four Perspectives, there remains a scarcity of empirical work to directly engage with values for pragmatic learning. We address this gap by presenting an empirical case study of an intervention designed to move two groups from non-collaborative to collaborative on the basis of newly found shared values. By conceptualizing values as tacit knowledge and employing the Knowledge Creation Theory, our intervention facilitated the development of cross-group shared values through Externalization and Combination modes. Our results demonstrate empirical evidence of values-engagement processes including Surfacing and Negotiation from Four Perspectives (i.e. Surfacing values, Negotiating values, Eliciting values, Transforming through values), and informs their sequence of appearance. We highlight the importance of a pool of shared experiences as basis for Surfacing, and demonstrate the utility of the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) model to plan the utilization and sequencing of values-engagement processes towards achieving sustainability transformations. The findings suggest that starting with participants having shared experiences facilitates Surfacing and Negotiation of values, and enables developments of cross-group collaboration valuable for providing preparedness for a diversity of sustainability transformation contexts.