Morphostatic or Morphogenetic change? A Discursive Backcasting Analysis of Sustainability Transition in TSMC’s Environmental

Abstract

This thesis adopts a qualitative longitudinal single-case design to examine how TSMC’s environmental ESG discourse articulates the type of organizational change embedded in its corporate sustainability transition. TSMC, a sustainability-recognized leader in the resource-intensive semiconductor sector, is analyzed through its sustainability reports from 2015 to 2024. Drawing on The Natural Step (TNS), the study operationalizes backcasting through the interpretive frames of vision, diagnosis, and strategy and combines this structure with Laughlin’s (1991) distinction between morphostatic and morphogenetic change. Rather than evaluating environmental performance, the analysis investigates how TSMC’s reporting constructs movement from an unsustainable present toward an envisioned sustainable future. The findings indicate a morphostatic type of change, although morphogenetic elements become increasingly visible over time. The thesis contributes an analytical approach for examining whether corporate sustainability reporting connects future ambitions, present challenges, and strategic responses through a corresponding depth of organizational change that can eventually lead to transformation