Future Professionals: A Study of Sustainable Behavior
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Sustainability and Human Resources
3. Item Response Theory (IRT)
4. Research Method
5. Results and Discussion
5.1. Descriptive Analysis—Respondents’ Information
5.2. Validation of the Construct
5.3. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Conflicts of Interest
References
- Dao, V.; Langella, I.; Carbo, J. From green to sustainability: Information technology and integrated sustainability framework. J. Strateg. Inf. Syst. 2011, 20, 63–79. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Colbert, B.A.; Kurucz, E.C. Three conceptions of triple bottom line business sustainability and the role for HRM. Hum. Resour. Plan. 2007, 30, 21–29. [Google Scholar]
- Porter, M.; Kramer, M. Strategy and society: The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. Harv. Bus. Rev. 2006, 12, 78–92. [Google Scholar]
- Searcy, C.; Elkhawas, D. Corporate Sustainability Ratings: An Investigation into How Corporations Use the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. J. Clean. Prod. 2011, 35, 79–92. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Chow, W.S.; Chen, Y. Corporate Sustainable Development: Testing a New Scale Based on the Mainland Chinese Context. J. Bus. Ethics 2012, 105, 519–533. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Gurvitsh, N.; Sidorova, I. Survey of Sustainability Reporting Integrated into Annual Reports of Estonian Companies for the years 2007–2010: Based on Companies Listed on Tallinn Stock Exchange as of October 2011. Procedia Econ. Financ. 2012, 2, 26–34. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Glavas, K.; Kelley, K. The Effects of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility on Employee Attitudes. Bus. Ethics Q. 2014, 24, 165–202. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Gonzalez-Benito, J.; Gonzalez-Benito, O. Environmental proactivity and business performance: An empirical analysis. Omega Int. J. Manag. Sci. 2005, 33, 1–15. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Darnall, N.; Jolley, G.J.; Handfield, R. Environmental management systems and green supply chain management: Complements for sustainability? Bus. Strateg. Environ. 2008, 17, 30–45. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Aguinis, H.; Glavas, A. What we know and don’t know about corporate social responsibility: A review and research agenda. J. Manag. 2012, 38, 932–968. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Zelezny, L.C.; Schultz, P. Psychology of promoting environmentalism: Promoting environmentalism. J. Soc. 2000, 56, 365–371. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Ferdig, M.A. Sustainability leadership relational model and practices, 2009. Sustainability Leadership Institute. Available online: http://www.sustainabilityleadershipinstitute.org/downloads/SLI_model_download.pdf (accessed on 3 October 2015).
- Mudrack, P. Individual personality factors that affect normative beliefs about the rightness of corporate social responsibility. Bus. Soc. 2007, 46, 33–62. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Schwartz, S.H.; Cieciuch, J.; Vecchione, M.; Davidov, E.; Fischer, R.; Beierlein, C.; Ramos, A.; Verkasalo, M.; Lönnqvist, J.E.; Demirutku, K.; et al. Refining Basic Values Theory. J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 2012, 103, 663–688. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed] [Green Version]
- Bansal, P. From issues to actions: The importance of individual concerns and organizational values in responding to natural environmental issues. Organ. Sci. 2003, 14, 510–527. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Hay, R.; Gray, E. Social responsibilities of business managers. Acad. Manag. J. 1974, 17, 135–143. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Swanson, D.L. Toward an integrative theory of business and society: A research strategy for corporate social performance. Acad. Manag. Rev. 1999, 24, 506–521. [Google Scholar]
- Stevens, J.M.; Steensma, H.K.; Harrison, D.A.; Cochran, P.L. Symbolic or substantive document? The influence of ethics codes on financial executives’ decisions. Strateg. Manag. J. 2005, 26, 181–195. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Laessoe, J.; Mochizuki, Y. Recent Trends in National Policy on Education for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Education. J. Educ. Sustain. Dev. 2015, 9, 27–43. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Elkington, J. Canibais com Garfo e Faca; M.Books do Brasil Editora: São Paulo, Brazil, 2012. [Google Scholar]
- Andrade, D.F.; Tavares, H.R.; Valle, R.C. Item Response Theory: Concepts and Applications; Associaçao Brasileira de Estatística: São Paulo, Brazil, 2000. (In Portuguese) [Google Scholar]
- Jorge, M.L.; Martinez, D.M.; Reyes, M.J. Que habría de incluir una memoria completa de sostenibilidad? Univ. Bus. Rev. 2013, 39, 1698–5117. [Google Scholar]
- Jabbour, C.J.C.; Santos, F.C.A. The central role of human resource management in the search for sustainable organizations. Int. J. Hum. Resour. Manag. 2008, 19, 2133–2154. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Eisenstat, R. What Corporate Human Resources Brings to the Picnic: Four Models for Functional Management. Organ. Dyn. 1996, 25, 7–22. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Wright, C.; Nyberg, D.; Grant, D. Hippies on the third floor: Climate Change, Narrative Identity and the Micro-Politics of Corporate Environmentalism. Organ. Stud. 2012, 33, 1451–1475. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Marcus, A.A.; Fremeth, A.R. Green Management Matters Regardless. Acad. Manag. Perspect. 2009, 23, 17–26. [Google Scholar]
- Wright, P.M.; Boswell, W. Desegregating HRM: A Review and Synthesis of Micro and Macro Human Resource Management Research. J. Manag. 2002, 28, 247–276. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Wirtenberg, J.; Harman, J.; Russell, W.; Fairfield, K. HR’s role in building a sustainable enterprise: Insights from some of the world’s best companies. Hum. Resour. Plan. 2007, 30, 10–20. [Google Scholar]
- Fenwick, T.; Bierma, L. Corporate social responsibility: Issues for human resource development professionals. Int. J. Train. Dev. 2008, 12, 24–35. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Singh, J. Tackling measurement problems with Item Response Theory: Principles, characteristics, and assessment, with an illustrative example. J. Bus. Res. 2004, 57, 184–208. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Wang, M.; Russell, S.S. Measurement equivalence of the Job Descriptive Index across Chinese and American workers: Results from confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory. Educ. Psychol. Meas. 2005, 65, 709–732. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Zickar, M.J. Conquering the next frontier: Modeling personality data with item response theory. In Applied Personality Psychology: The Intersection of Personality and I/O Psychology; Roberts, B., Hogan, R., Eds.; American Psychological Association: Washington, DC, USA, 2001; pp. 141–158. [Google Scholar]
- Zickar, M.J.; Robie, C. Modeling faking good on personality items: An item-level analysis. J. Appl. Psychol. 1999, 84, 551–563. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Maurer, T.J.; Raju, N.S.; Collins, W.C. Peer and subordinate performance appraisal measurement equivalence. J. Appl. Psychol. 1998, 83, 693–702. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Tay, L.; Drasgow, F.; Rounds, J.; Williams, B. Fitting measurement models to vocational interest data: Are dominance models ideal? J. Appl. Psychol. 2009, 94, 1287–1304. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Ryan, A.M.; Horvath, M.; Ployhart, R.E.; Schmitt, N.; Slade, L.A. Hypothesizing differential item functioning in global employee opinion surveys. Pers. Psychol. 2000, 53, 531–562. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Allen, D.D.; Wilson, M. Introducing multidimensional item response modeling in health behavior and health education research. Health Educ. Res. 2006, 21, i73–i84. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Holzinger, K.J.; Swineford, F. The bi-factor method. Psychometrika 1937, 2, 41–54. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Li, Y.; Rupp, A.A. Performance of the S−χ2 statistic for full-information bifactor models. Educ. Psychol. Meas. 2011, 71, 986–1005. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Gibbons, R.D.; Bock, R.D.; Hedeker, D.; Weiss, D.J.; Segawa, E.; Bhaumik, D.K.; Stover, A. Full-information item bifactor analysis of graded response data. Appl. Psychol. Meas. 2007, 31, 4–19. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Reise, S.P.; Morizot, J.; Hays, R.D. The role of the bifactor model in resolving dimensionality issues in health outcomes measures. Qual. Life Res. 2007, 16, 19–31. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Bortolotti, S.L.V. Resistência à Mudança Organizacional: Medida de Avaliação por meio da Teoria da Resposta ao Item. Ph.D. Dissertation, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção, Florianópolis, Brazil, 2010. [Google Scholar]
- Benedetti, M.H.; Lima, P.; Melatto, L.; Silva, M. Possíveis interações entre o desenvolvimento sustentável e a logística de combustíveis. Rev. Prod. 2009, 19, 129–142. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Donaire, D. Gestão Ambiental na Empresa; Atlas: São Paulo, Brazil, 1999. [Google Scholar]
- Akatu. Consumo Consciente para um Futuro Sustentável. Available online: http://www.akatu.org.br/ (accessed on 10 January 2015).
- Dale, A.; Newman, L. Social capital: A necessary and sufficient condition for sustainable community development? Community Dev. J. 2010, 45, 5–21. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Baumgartner, R.J.; Korhonen, J. Strategic thinking for sustainable development. Sustain. Dev. 2011, 18, 71–75. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Müller, L.H.A. A Construção do Social a Partir da Ótica Empresarial. V Workshop Empresa, Empresários e Sociedade: O Mundo Empresarial e a Questão Social; Anais: Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2006. [Google Scholar]
- Muraki, E.; Carlson, J.E. Full-information factor analysis for polytomous item responses. Appl. Psychol. Meas. 1993, 19, 73–90. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Chalmers, R.P. Mirt: A multidimensional item response theory package for the R environment. J. Stat. Softw. 2012, 48, 1–29. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- R Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing; R Foundation for Statistical Computing: Vienna, Austria, 2013; Available online: http://www.R-project.org/ (accessed on 7 January 2015).
- Steiner, G.; Posch, A. Higher education for sustainability by means of transdisciplinar case studies: An innovative approach for solving complex, real-world problems. J. Clean. Prod. 2006, 14, 877–890. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Castro, R.; Jabbour, C.J.C. Evaluating sustainability of an Indian university. J. Clean. Prod. 2013, 61, 54–58. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Jabbour, C.J.C.; Sarkis, J.; Jabbour, A.B.L.; Govindan, K. Understanding the process of greening of Brazilian business schools. J. Clean. Prod. 2013, 61, 25–35. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Brundiers, K.; Wiek, A.; Redman, C.L. Emerald Article: Real-world learning opportunities in sustainability: From classroom into the real world. Int. J. Sustain. High. Educ. 2010, 11, 308–324. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Scott, L.C.; Tinnemore, R. Is community-based sustainability education sustainable? A general overview of organizational sustainability in outreach education. J. Clean. Prod. 2009, 17, 1132–1137. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
Item | Description |
---|---|
1 | I turn off the water while washing the dishes |
2 | I make food donations to charity organizations |
3 | I buy products made in my region |
4 | When I have to travel short distances, I walk |
5 | I buy products from manufacturers that do not harm the environment |
6 | I use the back of used sheets of paper |
7 | I recycle garbage |
8 | I pay more for a product that has less environmental impact |
9 | I turn off the water while brushing my teeth |
10 | I turn out the light when I leave a room that is no longer being used |
11 | I turn off electronic equipment when it is not being used |
12 | I participate in associations or social organizations in my community |
13 | I perform volunteer work |
Environmental Dimension | Economic Dimension | Social Dimension | Reference |
---|---|---|---|
Protecting and conserving the environment, care for renewable resources, waste management and management of risks and impacts. | Economic results, shareholder rights, competitiveness and relationships between customers and suppliers. | Labor and human rights, community involvement, transparency and ethical behavior. | Dale and Newman [46] |
Respecting natural limitations, rationalizing non-renewable resources, optimizing the use of resources and maintaining biodiversity. | Economic development, food safety, continuous modernization and maximizing the use of resources. | Social inclusion, health and safety, political aspects, cultural aspects and quality of life. | Baumgartner and Korhonen [47] |
Models | Difference Chi-Squared | AIC | AICc | BIC | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
χ2 | Degrees of Liberty | p-Value | ||||
Model 1 × Model 2 | 326.56 | 32 | <0.01 | 262.56 | 194.86 | 128.21 |
Model 2 × Model 3 | 147.11 | 31 | <0.01 | 85.11 | 7.62 | −45.04 |
Model 3 × Model 4 | 86.10 | 30 | <0.01 | 26.10 | −97.99 | −99.86 |
Item | Description | Factor 1 (Environmental) | Factor 2 (Social) | Factor 3 (Economic) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | I turn off the water while washing dishes | 0.614 | ||
2 | I make food donations to charity organizations | 0.487 | ||
3 | I buy products made in my region | −0.302 | ||
4 | When I have to travel short distances, I walk | 0.440 | ||
5 | I buy products from manufacturers that do not harm the environment | −0.613 | ||
6 | I use the back of used sheets of paper | 0.400 | ||
7 | I recycle garbage | −0.415 | ||
8 | I pay more for a product that has less environmental impact | −0.749 | ||
9 | I turn off the water while brushing my teeth | 0.791 | ||
10 | I turn out the light when I leave a room that is no longer being used | 0.597 | ||
11 | I turn off electronic equipment when it is not being used | 0.460 | ||
12 | I participate in associations or social organizations in my community | 0.874 | ||
13 | I perform volunteer work | 0.802 |
Factor 1 | Factor 2 | Factor 3 | |
---|---|---|---|
Factor 1 | 1.000 | 0.043 | −0.337 |
Factor 2 | 0.043 | 1.000 | −0.328 |
Factor 3 | −0.337 | −0.328 | 1.000 |
Model | AIC | AICc | BIC | χ2 | df | p-Value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hierarchical—bi-factorial | 13,128.52 | 13,148.67 | 13,401.43 | |||
Non-hierarchical—compensatory | 13,140.13 | 13,167.53 | 13,455.01 | 8399 | 10 | 0.590 |
Item | ag | a1 | a2 | a3 | b1 | b2 | b3 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 0.808 | 1.285 | −0.054 | 1.050 | 2.317 | ||
2 | 0.852 | 1.071 | −2.022 | −0.891 | 1.231 | ||
3 | 0.679 | 0.392 | −2.263 | 0.346 | 3.569 | ||
4 | 0.339 | 0.696 | −0.520 | 0.877 | 2.891 | ||
5 | 1.962 | 1.268 | −1.849 | 0.164 | 2.459 | ||
6 | 0.757 | 0.569 | −0.463 | 0.818 | 2.726 | ||
7 | 1.261 | 0.641 | −0.855 | 0.240 | 1.796 | ||
8 | 1.488 | 0.049 | −2.335 | −0.812 | 1.370 | ||
9 | 0.639 | 1.954 | 0.416 | 1.161 | 2.180 | ||
10 | 0.705 | 1.124 | 0.609 | 2.163 | 3.816 | ||
11 | 0.486 | 0.797 | −0.235 | 1.142 | 3.016 | ||
12 | 0.729 | 2.844 | −1.663 | 0.970 | 0.164 | ||
13 | 0.711 | 2.132 | −1.676 | −0.787 | 0.520 |
© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Martins Lohn, V.; Tezza, R.; Dias Alperstedt, G.; M. S. Campos, L. Future Professionals: A Study of Sustainable Behavior. Sustainability 2017, 9, 413. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9030413
Martins Lohn V, Tezza R, Dias Alperstedt G, M. S. Campos L. Future Professionals: A Study of Sustainable Behavior. Sustainability. 2017; 9(3):413. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9030413
Chicago/Turabian StyleMartins Lohn, Vanderleia, Rafael Tezza, Graziela Dias Alperstedt, and Lucila M. S. Campos. 2017. "Future Professionals: A Study of Sustainable Behavior" Sustainability 9, no. 3: 413. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9030413