{"title":"Humanizing sustainability in organizations: a place for workers’ perceptions and behaviors in sustainability indexes?","authors":"S. Luís, I. Silva","doi":"10.1080/15487733.2022.2068751","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The triple bottom line is at risk of being reduced to an accounting tool rather than serving as a paradigm for organizational sustainability. To be successful, approaches promoting organizational sustainability should be humanized, that is, to further incorporate measures of perceptions and behaviors toward the environment, the economy, and the society in their frameworks and/or indexes of sustainability. The first goal of this work is to illustrate the importance of adopting this approach by assessing employees’ perceptions and behaviors of a banking institution highly committed to sustainability, focusing on the environmental bottom line. The second goal is to contribute to understanding of the antecedents of decisive perceptions (perceived organizational support toward the environment) and behaviors (organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment) by exploring if and/or how the relation between them is moderated by organizational policies, middle-management support, and employees’ social norms. Data analyses of an online questionnaire (N = 145) showed that employees’ perceptions and behaviors were above average and allowed tailoring intervention strategies to further promote environmental sustainability. The results further evinced that middle-management support strengthened the relation between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behaviors toward the environment. Organizational policies had a small moderating effect that became non-significant when management support was taken into account, and employees’ social norms toward the environment had no effect. This work describes a humanized and successful way of promoting sustainability in organizations through the dynamization of sustainable policies, processes, and practices by middle managers.","PeriodicalId":35192,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy","volume":"76 1","pages":"371 - 383"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2022.2068751","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract The triple bottom line is at risk of being reduced to an accounting tool rather than serving as a paradigm for organizational sustainability. To be successful, approaches promoting organizational sustainability should be humanized, that is, to further incorporate measures of perceptions and behaviors toward the environment, the economy, and the society in their frameworks and/or indexes of sustainability. The first goal of this work is to illustrate the importance of adopting this approach by assessing employees’ perceptions and behaviors of a banking institution highly committed to sustainability, focusing on the environmental bottom line. The second goal is to contribute to understanding of the antecedents of decisive perceptions (perceived organizational support toward the environment) and behaviors (organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment) by exploring if and/or how the relation between them is moderated by organizational policies, middle-management support, and employees’ social norms. Data analyses of an online questionnaire (N = 145) showed that employees’ perceptions and behaviors were above average and allowed tailoring intervention strategies to further promote environmental sustainability. The results further evinced that middle-management support strengthened the relation between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behaviors toward the environment. Organizational policies had a small moderating effect that became non-significant when management support was taken into account, and employees’ social norms toward the environment had no effect. This work describes a humanized and successful way of promoting sustainability in organizations through the dynamization of sustainable policies, processes, and practices by middle managers.
期刊介绍:
Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy is a refereed, open-access journal which recognizes that climate change and other socio-environmental challenges require significant transformation of existing systems of consumption and production. Complex and diverse arrays of societal factors and institutions will in coming decades need to reconfigure agro-food systems, implement renewable energy sources, and reinvent housing, modes of mobility, and lifestyles for the current century and beyond. These innovations will need to be formulated in ways that enhance global equity, reduce unequal access to resources, and enable all people on the planet to lead flourishing lives within biophysical constraints. The journal seeks to advance scientific and political perspectives and to cultivate transdisciplinary discussions involving researchers, policy makers, civic entrepreneurs, and others. The ultimate objective is to encourage the design and deployment of both local experiments and system innovations that contribute to a more sustainable future by empowering individuals and organizations and facilitating processes of social learning.