Examining Social Sustainability in Organizations

Abstract

Social sustainability in organizations has been externally focused and, given its socio-ecological importance and potential, it requires further attention. This study examines social sustainability in business organizations (a) as an antecedent of environmental and economically related constructs, and (b) as a component of a multiplicity of relationships among social, environmental, and economically associated constructs. We examine a diverse set of 41 model configurations of 10 first-order constructs, and a diverse set of second-order constructs following a gradient ranging from a relatively moderate degree of order to quasi-random construct arrangements ending with model configurations fully determined at random. These sets reflect variability and commonality among respondents from various organizations, industries, and regions of the United States. Constructs may be antecedents, mediators, or outcomes. Analyses were conducted using PLS-SEM software. Results show (a) that social constructs are at the core of organizational life, given their frequent moderate to strong positive effects on other social constructs, as well as on environmental and economically related organizational constructs; and (b) construct variability within sustainability dimensions. Contributions include examining both constructs’ gradient ordering and constructs’ variability effects contingent on both construct nature and position. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations and future research, are discussed.