Social sustainability measurement framework: The case of employee perspective in a CSR-committed organisation

CITATION

Staniškienė, E., & Stankevičiūtė, Ž. (2018). Social sustainability measurement framework: The case of employee perspective in a CSR-committed organisation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 188, 708–719

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ABSTRACT
The number of organisations putting the issue of sustainability on strategic agenda has been growing in
the past few years. Although sustainable development gains more importance, discussion on measures of
sustainability is continuing. Environmental and economic dimensions could be more easily evaluated by
clearly expressed quantitative indicators. Social sustainability measurement requires a balance between
quantitative and qualitative indicators. Furthermore, there is still some ambiguity around what social
sustainability actually is. It seems that essentially the determinants of the “social” element depend on the
underlying framework. However, the majority of the existing measurement frameworks do not fully
address the employee perspective. To bridge this gap, the present study aims at substantiating the
framework for measuring social sustainability from the employee perspective. The scientific value of the
study is the contribution to social sustainability measurement literature by identifying the employee
perspective. The proposed framework for social sustainability measurement incudes six dimensions:
employee participation, employee cooperation, equal opportunities, employee development, health and
safety, and external partnership. For reaching the aim of the paper, two methods are applied: interview
of line managers and employee survey. The study is conducted in a CSR-committed organisation, which is
a member of the Lithuanian Association of Responsible Business. The findings reveal some differences in
the attitudes of employees concerning the social sustainability practices. Health and safety conditions
were disclosed as the most important in terms of social sustainability. The findings also suggest incorporating
the perspective of employees when measuring social sustainability. The study shows vital
involvement of employees in social sustainability evaluation of an organisation


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