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Expanding the Scope of Education for Sustainable Development among Employees of Organizations Involved in the Implementation of the Environmental Management System
Nik Ramli bin Nik Abdul Rashid
University Teknologi MARA.
Nabsiah Abdul Wahid
Norizan Mat Saad
Universiti Sains Malaysia
(For correspondent: Email: )
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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to explore how business organizations could effectively promote positive environmental norms among a larger section of the community. This study hypothesized that the development of a feeling of high involvement among employees of organizations implementing the Environmental Management System (EMS) could result in the spillover phenomena of other environmentally responsible behavior in different domains such as, consumer preferences for environment-friendly products. The study also confirms the effects of environmental attitude (EA) and concrete knowledge (CK) as a mediator; acting not only as an axis to the spillover phenomenon but is also found to be the crucial factor in determining the strength of the whole process.
INTRODUCTION
Even with the ever deteriorating environmental quality and the increasingly negative image of business as the number one polluter, there is still widespread acknowledgement that business could play a significant role in the advancement of a more sustainable society by turning itself “green”. One of such “green” responses is through the adoption of the voluntary Environmental Management System (EMS), recognized through its ISO14001 certification. The ISO14001 is one of the most accepted environmental standards within Malaysian business and manufacturing communities, even though other standards have also been practiced by some multinationals. This enthusiasm toward the EMS / ISO14001 in Malaysia can be seen through the sharp increase in its membership, with only 4 companies in 1996, which rose to 566 by April 2005 (Corporate Risk Management, 2006)
Most studies thus far have been limited to examining the impact of the implementation of the EMS / ISO14001 on various dimensions of organizational performance. However, the impact of its implementation at the individual (employee) level has been scarce and limited. This study is an attempt to empirically explore the extent to which employee involvement (EI) with the organization’sEnvironmental Manage-ment System would result in the (unintentional) spillover of environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) in another private-life domain such as, preferences given for the purchase of environment-friendly consumer products.
LITERITURE REVIEW
Spillover of ERB phenomena
Thogersen (1999, and 2004) and Thogersen and Orlander (2003) have attempted to demonstrate that environmentally-friendly behaviors are not independent of each other. They proposed that general environmental values that people hold foster feelings of behavioral obligation and commitment in diverse setting, and when people start to act in an environmentally- friendly way in one area, this behavior tends to spill over into other areas.
Spillover of eco-behavior happens when performing an environmentally responsible behavior (such as participating in a recycling program for household waste) causes an increase in the salience of attitude towards other consumer activities targeting the same environmental problem (such as avoiding excessive packaging). This phenomenon is also used to explain how the development of environmentally friendly behavior in one area has a positive (or negative) effect on other behavior with the same environmental impact. Most previous studies have discussed this phenomenon using different environmentally responsible behavior categories, all of which were within the personal or individual private-life setting (Bratt, 1999; Thorgesen, 1999; Ebreo and Vining, 2001; Thorgesen and Olander, 2003). These studies thus far seem to conclude that the relationship between the behavior categories as low or in some cases negligible. Some of the reasons given for such outcomes are fallibility of measures and the influence of other idiosyncratic constraints that are sometimes situation specific (Thogersen, 2004).
An assumption made in this study that contributed to the discouraging outcome is that the educational and developmental aspect that would be crucial in the source behavior has to be made more explicit and intentional. The source behavior category should have contributed strongly in the development of the attitude necessary for the spillover behavior to be meaningful.
For this reason it is suggested that a behavioral category from an organizational setting should be introduced. This would ensure a structured and consistent effort for developing the necessary attitude that could be the foundation of performing another behavior category (target behavior). Two studies have been found in reliable journals and both seems to be very limited or have weaknesses in the instrument design. Rondenelli and Vastag (2000) in their study noted that one of the strongest impacts of ISO14001 certification and the adoption of a strengthened EMS was behavioral. The preparation, registration and surveillance carried out during the ISO14001 certification process was thought to have made most employees more aware of environmental aspects, regulations, and impacts, not only at work, but at home and in the community. However, their information was limited to that obtained from a handful of managers from just one company and with no specific construct that could explain the specific elements of the EMS that could have significantly contributed to the spillover phenomena. Another study by Berger and Kanetkar (1995) did use what they termed as “workplace experiences” (or an organizational setting as referred to in this study) when discussing this organizational domain. They also identified two psychological constructs (perceived consumer efficacy and conviction) to measure the influence of the EMS on the individual employees. However, the items used in their research instrument seemed not to reflect such organizational dimension that could then be identified as the source behavior for the eventual spillover process. Taking the above into consideration, this study proposes a well-established concept of employee involvement as a behavior category at an individual behavior level within an organizational setting as the source behavior or the independent variable.
Employees Involvements
Employee involvement (EI) has been conceptualized as the process of developing ‘a feeling of psychological ownership among organizational members’ and has been implemented via the participation of employees in information processing, decision-making and/or problem solving. Employee involvement has been identified as one of the seven elements of world-class manufacturing that can make both the smallest and largest companies competitive in the global market (Kearney, 1997).
Numerous studies, all point to the fact that employee involvement does influence organizational effectiveness; some of which includes lower absenteeism (Marks et al, 1986), enhanced work attitudes (Steel and Lloyd, 1988), higher individual work performance (Bush and Spangler, 1990), lower employee turnover and increased returns on equity (Vandenberg et al, 1999), and improved organizational learning culture (Thompson, 2002). EI is also expected to lead to increased product or service quality, greater innovation, stronger employee motivation, lower costs but a higher speed of production, and lower employee absenteeism and turnover (Lawler, 1996).
Employee involvement programs (EIPs) can take a variety of forms including: a) job participation, consisting of permanent programs in which employees take a formal, direct role in decisions relating to job issues; b) consultative participation, including long-term interventions like quality circles and employee suggestion schemes, in which employees' opinions are sought as managers engage in decision-making; c) representative participation, in which employees elect councils or board members to represent their interests to management; d) downward communication, through newsletters and team briefings; e) and various forms of financial participation via gain-sharing, profit-sharing and employee-ownership schemes (Lawler, 1996).
However, it is incorrect to assume that the mere existence of such organizational programs as proxies for individual feelings toward involvement, and the individual acceptance of those practices. A more accurate test would operationalize involvement through the individual employees’ attitude and behavior. This type of operationalization recognizes that the individual employee must perceive that the opportunity for involvement exists and that the employee must endorse it by actually putting involvement into practice in his or her daily work routine (Lawler, 1986). An organization may have well-written policies concerning involvement, and top management may even believe it is being practiced, but these policies and beliefs are meaningless until the individual perceives them as something important to his or her presence in the organization. (Vandenberg et al., 1999).
Attitudes toward environmental protection
Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) define attitudes as “a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object.” Environmental attitude can then be defined as “a learned predisposition to respond consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to the environment”. Overall, there has been consistent empirical evidence supporting a positive association between environmental attitude and behavior. These studies have also indicated that even if people have little knowledge about the environment they would still exhibit strong emotional attachment to environmental wellbeing (Ling-yee, 1997). Laroche et. al., (2001), also concluded that attitude, as opposed to knowledge and behavior, is the most significant predictor of consumers’ willingness to pay more for ecologically favorable products.
Concrete Knowledge
The state of one’s knowledge about an issue impacts significantly upon his or her decision making process. The importance of knowledge and the impact of lack of knowledge in the decision-making process have been demonstrated in numerous studies (Laroche et. al 2001; Verdugo, 1996, and Oskamp et al., 1991). This study has initially conceptualized consumer knowledge as having two dimensions, namely Knowledge of Environmental Issues and Knowledge of Green Product Features. Upon doing Factor Analysis a third and more significant dimension of knowledge which arises and is aptly labeled as Concrete Knowledge. This type of knowledge is gained through a person’s actual involvement with environmental protection efforts at the work-place. As an outcome of employees’ involvement with the EMS, this construct will also be treated as a mediating variable in explaining the spillover of ERB phenomena.
METHODOLOGY
The population for this study is employees of organizations that have successfully adopted the environmental management system ISO14001 since 1996. The unit of analysis is the individual employees who are involved with the implementation of the Environmental Management System. The sampling frame used for the selection process is taken from the SIRIM website, which has approximately 350 organizations that have been successfully certified with ISO14001 by the year 2004. For the purpose of this study 65 organizations were randomly selected to participate in the survey. They represent business organization from various sectors, which include manufacturing, service, plantation and petroleum – chemical. Questionnaires were either sent by “express mail” or delivered by hand to the environmental management representative (EMR), who would then be the contact person for the subsequent follow up activities. The EMR was asked to randomly select 15 employees from their organization to be respondents for the survey. A total of 526 employees were then finally selected. The entire data collection period took approximately ten weeks to be completed.
Design of Questionnaire
Items in the questionnaire correspond to all the variables in the research model with most of them being adapted from different sources. The items or measurements used are highly structured and undisguised. The questionnaire was self-administered and adequate time was provided to enable them to respond to each item without undue stress.
Employee involvement
Items for employee involvement consists of Power, Information, Reward and Training dimensions. The items were adapted from Vandenberg’s (1996) study, using a 5 point Likert scale, ranging from 1 being strongly agree to 5 being strongly disagree.
Green Purchase Intention
Green purchase intention (PI) is conceptualized as the probability and willingness of a person to give preference to products having eco-friendly features over other traditional products in their purchase considerations. The green product used for this research was the energy-saving bulb as compared to the traditional tungsten bulb. A detailed and graphical description of the two products was provided for comparison and the respondents were required to give their response using Likert scale of between 1 (strongly agree) and 5 (strongly disagree).
Attitudes toward environmental protection
The measurement for this construct was adapted from Bohlen et al. (1993). They constructed a list of items that they believe could capture the concern a person has regarding environmental protection efforts. A 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree and 5 = Stongly agree) was used.
Concrete Knowledge
The measurement for this construct consists of three items measuring the employees’ knowledge of environmental protection efforts derived from activities related to their work experience in the factory. A 5-point scale (1 = No knowledge at all and 5 = Very knowledgeable) was used.
FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS
Response rate
The response rate was found to be quite reasonable and slightly better than previous research involving organizations certified with ISO14001 and its employees as respondents. For instance, Maliah and Nik Nazli (2002) reported only a 42% rate of returned responses whereas Berger and Kanetkar (1995) only reported an 11% response rate. Similar to Berger and Kanetkar, Sroufe (2003) reported 10% among employees working in organizations with an EMS in place
The majority of the respondents were found to be male (68%), married (79%) with 70% of them having at least 1 child. Most of them have had education at the tertiary level, with 23% having a diploma and 40% a degree or higher. The average age of the respondents is 35 years and most of them have been working with their respective organization for the past 10 years (mode). Only a small number are members of any environmentally-related NGOs (10%) with only 3% as active members. 60% of the respondents have attended training sessions that were related to the ISO and other quality management systems. 65% are holding an executive post of either managerial or officer level. The majority of the respondents (46%) are within the RM1500 – RM3000 income level followed by those within the RM3001 and above level (34%).
Multiple Regression Analysis
As stated earlier, the main research question was to find out whether employees involvement with the EMScould spill over to their intention in purchasing “green” consumer products. As can be seen in Table 1, high employee involvement in the EMS does contribute to a positive and significant spillover occurrence in the form of preference for a product with environmentally friendly features (adjusted R2 of 10%). As with Berger and Kanatker (1995) this result implies that people who is highly supportive of environmental protection efforts and have the opportunity to be involved personally in environmentally conscious behavior in an organizational setting is also likely to actualize his or her attitude in the consumer marketplace. This research outcome would have an important influence on future efforts to inculcate positive environmental attitudes among citizens while using “work experiences in an organization” as a medium.
However, what should raise more interest is the fact that only 10% of the variation in the dependent variables could be explained by the independent variables. This would mean an obviously huge percentage of the exploratory power of this regression model lies with other factors not focused in this study. However, a look at other studies of behavioral spillover phenomena using similar multiple regression models also showed a R2 of between 5 – 12% (Keser, 2005; Near et al., 1980; Bratt, 1999).
For this study, one explanation for this result could relate to the nature of the implementation of the EMS (in Malaysia). Looking at the descriptive analysis (Table 1), we could observe a rather restrained and unassuming attitude among respondents toward their involvement with the EMS. Although this study is not an attempt to uncover the antecedent of employee involvement with the EMS, it would be inaccurate, or probably naïve to assume that enough efforts have been carried out on the part of the organizations to actually nurture the level of involvement required from its own employees. In fact, a certain degree of cynicism was generally present in discussions, as to whether the actual purpose of implementing the EMS was to realize an honorable environmental management philosophy, or only for the sake of export market pressure or just being compliant to oversea head-office instructions (McDonach and Yaneske, 2002), or merely boosting public image (Zutshi and Sohal, 2003; Robbins, 2001). Although undoubtedly, the environment would still benefit from the implementation of the system no matter what the driving factor would be, its impact would miss the most important target of all; which is, the inculcation of a positive environmental attitude and behavior in their general aspects of life as citizens of planet Earth.
An opportunity would be missed, if an organization overlooked this seemingly latent contribution of the implementation of the EMS, while at the same time having assured that there would be no loss of any other financial or market-share benefits. We would conclude that a strategic emphasis on employee involvement with the implementation of the EMS is a win-all situation – for the organizations, employees, citizens, nation, and most of all the sustainability of the environment.
A further look into each dimensions of EI shows Power (β=.25**) and Training (β=.14*) as positively significant, thus implying these two as “active” dimensions of EI requiring heighten participation and active response from employees when involved in decision-making process and attending related training programs. Power which is conceptualized as “the ability to make decisions”infers trust and responsibility and requires in response for the employee to feel accountable for whatever they do, is actually a salient predictor of ecological behavior (Kaiser and Shimoda, 1999). Training on the other hand is a requirement in the EMSand is explicitly stated in the Standard document. Trainingsarein fact“planned activities”, carried out by organizations to intentionally influence the attitude and behavior of the employees (ISO 14001, clause 4.4.2; Perron, 2002).