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Publications
  • 2022
  • Chapter
  • Handbook on the Business of Sustainability

Sustainability for People and the Planet: Placing Workers at the Center of Sustainability Research

By: Julie Yen, Julie Battilana and Emilie Aguirre
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Abstract

Though workers face a series of critical challenges in contemporary work organizations, they are often overlooked in conversations about sustainable business. In this chapter, we argue that prioritizing the rights and well-being of workers is a core dimension of sustainability along with the preservation of the environment. We review scholarship on corporate social responsibility, then identify psychological and structural empowerment as two key dimensions of human sustainability. Drawing on empirical findings emerging from research on hybrid organizing, we argue that organizational democracy has the potential to empower workers and promote their well-being, while enabling the simultaneous pursuit of social, environmental, and financial objectives. We propose a research agenda to investigate how democratic organizing and sustainability are intertwined, calling for interdisciplinary research that attends to the importance of legal and institutional frameworks that support organizations’ pursuit of a sustainable future. In doing so, we draw attention to potential synergies as well as conflicts between organizational democracy and sustainability, with implications for worker well-being and inequality.

Keywords

Environmental Sustainability; Employees; Well-being; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Structure; Social Issues

Citation

Yen, Julie, Julie Battilana, and Emilie Aguirre. "Sustainability for People and the Planet: Placing Workers at the Center of Sustainability Research." Chap. 11 in Handbook on the Business of Sustainability: The Organization, Implementation, and Practice of Sustainable Growth, edited by Gerard George, Martine R. Haas, Havovi Joshi, Anita M. McGahan, and Paul Tracey, 189–214. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022.

About The Author

Julie Battilana

Organizational Behavior
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • June 2024
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    Defining Who You Are by Whom You Serve? Strategies for Prosocial–Professional Identity Integration with Clients

    By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Julie Yen
    • April 2024
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    An Integrative Model of Hybrid Governance: The Role of Boards in Helping Sustain Organizational Hybridity

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More from the Authors
  • Defining Who You Are by Whom You Serve? Strategies for Prosocial–Professional Identity Integration with Clients By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Julie Yen
  • An Integrative Model of Hybrid Governance: The Role of Boards in Helping Sustain Organizational Hybridity By: Anne-Claire Pache, Julie Battilana and Channing Spencer
  • Walking the Purpose-Talk Inside a Large Company: Sustainable Product Development as an Instance of Divergent Change By: Marissa Kimsey, Thijs Geradts and Julie Battilana
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