1. Implementing Sustainability Within The Firm – The Role of Human Resource Management (HRM) and Organizational Management

2. The Human Factor in the Sustainable Enterprise  Implementation  Measurement of Success In short, the human factor is both a means and an ends!

3. Sustainable Organizational Mgmt “Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the people that make up organizations to develop, use, and continuously change their organization’s sustainability-based capabilities. After all, the common denominator for all organizations is people.” (text, p. 107)

4. Implementation of a Sustainability Strategy  Leader must create a vision and lead change….e.g. Ray Anderson of Interface (transformational leadership)  People must buy into the vision and goals  People must provide the behaviors that enable a sustainability strategy to succeed  People in the organization must work across internal and external boundaries to achieve a sustainability strategy

5.  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng /ray_anderson_on_the_business_lo gic_of_sustainability.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng /ray_anderson_on_the_business_lo gic_of_sustainability.html

6. Leaders also Establish Adaptive, Self- Renewing Organizational Structures  8 structural characteristics (text, p. 116-120)  Also, there are instrumental values that support a core value for sustainability: Quality, wholeness, posterity, community, smallness, diversity, effective dialogue, spiritual fulfillment

7. Key Question: How does a firm achieve all this? General Answer: Through how it manages its people.

8. People (Social) Issues are Also a Key Measure of Success  Despite some contrary opinions!! “Thinking about environmental challenges alongside social issues such as health care, poverty alleviation, or how to serve the “bottom of the pyramid” –….quickly becomes daunting….the business case for taking up the social agenda is much harder to establish. For all of these reasons, we focus on defining the strategies and tools companies can use to take advantage of environmental opportunities”. Esty & Weston, Green to Gold, p. 22.

9. Why is it a Key to Success?  It is generally agreed (Dunphy et al., 2003; Osland et al., 1999; Phillips and Claus, 2002; Bansal, 2002) that without equal attention to the social bottom line, the ability of firms to achieve environmental goals will be undermined. As Bansal states, ‘(I)f people aren’t treated equitably, they will exploit natural resources’ (2002: 123). Poverty, inequitable distribution of wealth, and lack of opportunity help create such ills as high population growth rates, deforestation and social unrest, all of which make environmental stewardship extremely difficult.

10.  The scientific basis for sustainability recognizes that people, and their economic and social activities, are an integral part of the ecosphere. It is the ecosphere and its ecosystems that support human society and economies, not the reverse. Thus human societies should be designed in a way that does not compromise natural systems. Osland et al. (1999: 173)

11. Even Esty and Weston Acknowledge the Perils of Ignoring the Social Issue, Although Mostly for Business Reasons  “While environmental and social issues pose different kinds of challenges, they both connect to corporate reputation. Any company that thinks it can cover shortcomings in social performance with strong environmental results is kidding itself. Wal-Mart, for example, has recently started to work on a range of issues from renewable energy to sustainable fishing to its impact on land use. But it shouldn’t expect to win any prizes for corporate responsibility while falling short on basic social issues such as wages, health care, and labor relations.” p. 22.

12. The ‘social bottom line’ really focuses on the measurement side rather than implementation. The ‘Social Bottom Line’ Strategic Frameworks Environmental Economic Social Strategic Issues Operational Issues Strategic Issues Operational Issues Strategic Issues Operational Issues Building Strengths and Ameliorating Weaknesses

13. What are the possible logics and values? (Ehnert)  Logic of Efficiency (HR as an object) OR Sustainability (HR as a person)  Value of Economic Rationality OR Social Responsibility

14. Key Question: How does the enterprise produce healthy sustainable communities? of employees of its local site of its sourcing sites globally

15. Stewardship of Human Resources (Osland et al.)  Focuses on the employee piece  Focuses on the success measures of creating a healthy, sustainable employee community (mostly).

16. Osland et al’s HR Sustainability Principles  Human resources must not be depleted faster than they can be re- invigorated by the organization’s support mechanisms.  Human resources must not be depleted at a faster rate than society’s support mechanisms can reinvigorate them and reintegrate them into productive organizational and societal roles.

17.  Demands placed on human resources must not surpass the developmental and regenerative capacities of employees and supporting social systems within organizations.  Organizations must be efficient and effective in their use of human resources and must be just in their dealings with all employees.

18. What does Egri and Hornal’s Article Show Us About How This Can Affect the Environmental Bottom Line?  Managing the people side for sustainability requires a focus on: Recruiting – focus on holding environmental values Selection – not key in top management selection! Job design – explicitly addressed in job descriptions. Performance evaluation – only sporadically incorporated Rewards and recognition – mostly recognition, not financial rewards. Development and training – environmental training mostly, and mostly at upper levels Career management – no mention Letting Go – no mention

19. But Conclusions of this Study and Others Indicate:  You need a consistent, integrated approach to managing people. i.e., you can’t design jobs with high environmental tasks and not include in performance evaluations.  You need to distribute throughout all the levels in the organization, not just at top levels or in specific areas.

20. What aspects of Sustainable HRM does Southwest Airlines practice? If evaluated against the criteria set by Osland et al., how well does Southwest Airlines do? Where does it fall short? How well does Southwest Airlines illustrate the 8 structural characteristics and 8 core values for sustainability? How realistic are the criteria that Osland et al set? What impedes a company from achieving them? How, if at all, does industry, size, country, ethnic makeup of the labor force, economic conditions affect a firm’s ability to achieve these criteria?