Abstract
Sustainability is associated with many contemporary challenges facing society, prompting sustainability initiatives and research in this field. An emerging strand of research has sought to investigate sustainability as a function of values. Given that values determine and predict perceptions, attitudes and behaviors, understanding employees’ underlying values would provide important insights on how values relate to sustainability-related actions. However, there is a gap in knowledge around individual actors’ roles as influencers or change agents for sustainability, particularly in a construction project context. Drawing on values theory, this exploratory research addresses this gap by conceptualizing the relationship between personal values and sustainability performance. A Temporary Multiple Organization (TMO) (a major infrastructure project in the UK) was used as the case study. An adapted version of Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) was used to measure and analyze the personal values of employees with professional and managerial roles. Statistical and multidimensional scaling analysis were deployed to analyze the responses. Given the lack of theory and research in a construction management context, the potential significance and implications of the findings were explored and analyzed by drawing on existing empirical studies around values. This enabled the development of six theoretical concepts (‘Feeling of Oneness’, ‘Moral Obligation’, ‘Creativity’, ‘Challenge’, ‘Change’ and ‘Compliance’) latterly expressed as propositions. This novel conceptualization has the potential to explain and articulate the relationship between personal values and sustainability performance. This research has both practical and theoretical implications, as it is the first to explain the role of personal values in enabling projects to deliver sustainability in a TMO context.
Highlights
Sustainability underpins many challenges facing society (UN Sustainable Development Goals2019) and by extension, industry (Kivilä et al 2017)
The survey data and multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis helped to explain the alignment of values and priorities within the case study Temporary Multiple Organization (TMO), but did not explain how these values are related to sustainability performance
Whilst extensive research has been attributed to the development and use of various instruments and assessment tools to measure and analyze sustainability performance in construction projects (e.g., Ding 2008), the concepts developed in this study provide an alternative perspective by addressing sustainability through the lens of values, emphasizing the role of individual actors as drivers or change agents for sustainability
Summary
2019) and by extension, industry (Kivilä et al 2017). Whilst ongoing research is attempting to explore sustainability in a range of contexts, many argue that more is needed to understand the factors that contribute to and explain project and organizational sustainability (e.g., Zhao et al 2012; Florea et al 2013). Part of the argument is to consider sustainability as a function of values (e.g., Garriga and Melé 2004; Pfeffer 2010) rather than focus on outcomes and actions as the ‘unit of analysis’. Values as the ‘unit of analysis’ to explain sustainability is gaining purchase (e.g., Van Marrewijk and Werre 2003; Planko and Gilbert 2012).
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