Toward holistic corporate sustainability-Developing employees' action competence for sustainability in small and medium-sized enterprises through training
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Toward holistic corporate sustainability-Developing employees' action competence for sustainability in small and medium-sized enterprises through training. / Schroeder, Sophia; Wiek, Arnim; Farny, Steffen et al.
In: Business Strategy and the Environment, Vol. 32, No. 4, 05.2023, p. 1650-1669.Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Toward holistic corporate sustainability-Developing employees' action competence for sustainability in small and medium-sized enterprises through training
AU - Schroeder, Sophia
AU - Wiek, Arnim
AU - Farny, Steffen
AU - Luthardt, Philip
N1 - We would like to thank Tabea Mallon and Dr. Jan‐Ole Brandt for project support as well as Jan Pranger, Dr. Daniel Fischer, and Dr. Nigel Forrest for guidance on questions pertaining to the research design of this study. AW acknowledges financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (TRANSFORM: Accelerating Sustainability Entrepreneurship Experiments at the Local Scale, 50658‐10029), as well as from the Belmont Forum and the Joint Programming Initiative Urban Europe (Globally and Locally‐Sustainable Food‐Water‐Energy Innovation in Urban Living Labs [GLOCULL], 0000‐0003‐1599‐2199). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Business Strategy and The Environment published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2023/5
Y1 - 2023/5
N2 - To advance holistic corporate sustainability in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) requires employees to fully engage in sustainability efforts, which, in return, means to develop employees' action competence for sustainability. Little empirical evidence, however, exists on how to do this considering well-known constraints SMEs face (time, expertise, resources). We present a transdisciplinary project that developed, delivered, and evaluated a sustainability training for the workforce of the Bohlsener Mühle, an SME that has pioneered corporate sustainability in Germany. The training was piloted for the business' apprentices and combined different learning modes to build participants' sustainable action competence. The pre-post evaluation, supported by observations and qualitative interviews, revealed that employees' action competence for sustainability can be fostered through such trainings and is most effective if organizational factors that enable a corporate culture of sustainability are aligned. We conclude that a human-centered and action-oriented approach to training is needed to unleash the full potential of the workforce to advance corporate sustainability.
AB - To advance holistic corporate sustainability in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) requires employees to fully engage in sustainability efforts, which, in return, means to develop employees' action competence for sustainability. Little empirical evidence, however, exists on how to do this considering well-known constraints SMEs face (time, expertise, resources). We present a transdisciplinary project that developed, delivered, and evaluated a sustainability training for the workforce of the Bohlsener Mühle, an SME that has pioneered corporate sustainability in Germany. The training was piloted for the business' apprentices and combined different learning modes to build participants' sustainable action competence. The pre-post evaluation, supported by observations and qualitative interviews, revealed that employees' action competence for sustainability can be fostered through such trainings and is most effective if organizational factors that enable a corporate culture of sustainability are aligned. We conclude that a human-centered and action-oriented approach to training is needed to unleash the full potential of the workforce to advance corporate sustainability.
KW - employee engagement
KW - sustainability-oriented workforce
KW - sustainable human resource management
KW - sustainable workforce education
KW - transdisciplinary case study
KW - Transdisciplinary studies
KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/4e1fbe19-aaaa-3eba-a555-b65e00b564de/
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85135853851&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/bse.3210
DO - 10.1002/bse.3210
M3 - Journal articles
VL - 32
SP - 1650
EP - 1669
JO - Business Strategy and the Environment
JF - Business Strategy and the Environment
SN - 0964-4733
IS - 4
ER -