HCBE Faculty Articles
Employees and Sustainiability : The Role of Incentives
ORCID
Andrew J. Felo0000-0002-8144-4353
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Journal of Managerial Psychology
ISSN
0268-3946
Publication Date
1-1-2016
Abstract/Excerpt
Purpose – Organizational sustainability has become a priority on many corporate agendas. How to integrate sustainability efforts throughout the organization, however, remains a challenge. The purpose of this paper is to examine two factors that potentially enhance incentive effects on employee engagement in environmental objectives: explicit organizational values for sustainability and the performance objective’s complementarity with incented financial objectives. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employed a quasi-experimental design in which participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, including a status quo condition against which the treatments were contrasted. Participants (n=400) were comprised of a cross-section of US employees from a wide range of occupations and industries. A post hoc qualitative analysis provided additional insights. Findings – Incentive effects were enhanced (i.e. preference for the environmental objective was significantly higher) when the environmental project offered complementary benefits for financial objectives, but not when organization values emphasized sustainability. An entrenched status quo bias for financial performance was discerned among a subset of the sample. Research limitations/implications – Management scholars must pay close attention to the role of implicit norms for financial performance when investigating employee engagement in organizational sustainability efforts. From an applied perspective, framing sustainability objectives to emphasize financial benefits consistent with a financial mission may maximize employee engagement. Originality/value – This study contributes to understanding of organizational sustainability efforts at the individual employee level of analysis, a conspicuously small part of the organizational research surrounding this topic.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-09-2014-0285
Volume
31
Issue
4
First Page
820
Last Page
836
NSUWorks Citation
Merriman, K. K.; Sen, S.; Felo, Andrew J.; and Litzky, E. B., "Employees and Sustainiability : The Role of Incentives" (2016). HCBE Faculty Articles. 587.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hcbe_facarticles/587
