Using Communication to Create Environments That Empower Employees

This chapter focuses on factors that can influence employees’ pro-environmental behaviors. Sustainable organizational cultures, learning organizations, and an informed and supportive managerial subculture are discussed in this chapter. Employee hiring, socialization, and training can influence employees’ pro-environmental actions. Reward systems need to link sustainability goals and measures to corporate training. If employees do not see that their organization rewards people for displaying pro-environmental behaviors, training can have less of an impact (Cantor et al., Journal of Supply Chain Management, 48, 33–51, 2012). Although managers may encourage employees to meet work-related pro-environmental goals, employees balance multiple goals and react emotionally to their working environment assessing issues related to perceived organizational support and justice. Informal communication helps create, reinforce, stabilize, and challenge sustainable values and goals within an organization. Additional theories or theoretical concepts discussed in this chapter include the 4I model of organizational learning, organizational climate, affective organizational commitment, perceived organizational support, employee trust, the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, goal congruence, path-goal theory, socialization and assimilation, uncertainty reduction theory, social exchange theory, social identity theory, person-organization fit, organizational citizenship behaviors, green teams, personal sustainability plans, social learning theory, cognitive maps, and self-efficacy. Interview data spotlights WasteCap Nebraska, Ecotrust, the HEAL program, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Aspen Skiing Company, Neal Kelly Company, the City of Portland, the City and County of Denver, the Arbor Day Foundation, the South Dakota Bureau of Administration, the State Farm processing plant in Lincoln, NE, Assurity Life Insurance, and Sam’s Club.