Making Organizations Sustainable Through Employee Participation: An Analysis of Factors and Their Interactions

Abstract

Organizations have been integrating sustainability issues into their systems. Employees are a core component of the human dimension of the organizational systems; however, there has been limited research on the factors of employee participation (EP) for organizational sustainability. This article is aimed at investigating the importance of EP factors and how they are related. A survey was conducted to investigate the importance and relationships of EP factors for sustainability, and 305 full responses were received. The responses were analyzed using Friedman tests, Kruskal–Wallis test, correlation analysis, and centrality measures. The results highlight that all factors are important for organizational sustainability, albeit some more than others. The correlation and centrality analyses showed that all factors are interrelated. This article provides insights into EP factors by 1) ranking of EP factors in organizations, 2) analyzing the interrelations and centrality of the EP factors, and 3) comparing the rankings, the interrelations, and centrality measures. This research contributes to organizational sustainability by focusing on the human dimensions through the EP factors and their interrelations. The EP factors must be recognized and integrated to implement sustainability more efficiently in organizations. No organization exists without its employees, and no organization can become sustainable without engaging them.