Concept Of Social Sustainability Research Articles

Advancing understanding of unionization in the hospitality industry: the role of attitudes toward unions and social justice

Hospitality, where unions are rare, is a significant employer of women, youth and migrants, many of whom work as temps and part-timers. This translates into modest livelihoods and vulnerability to socio-economic shocks, which has social justice implications. This study explores the mediating role of attitudes toward unions in the relationship between attitudes toward social justice and the intention to join a union at two points in time. It draws on data collected among UK hospitality workers in March 2022 (T1) (N = 253) and February 2023 (T2) (N = 151). The research also examines how circumstances influenced employees’ views and the hypothesized relationships. The results indicate that attitudes toward unions were a full mediator in the relationship between attitudes toward social justice and the intention to join a union at both T1 and T2. Furthermore, there was a positive association between attitudes toward social justice and attitudes toward unions at T1 and T2. The findings suggest that, for hospitality workers and potentially precarious workers at large, the perceived social justice orientation of unions significantly influences their willingness to engage with unions. This thirst for social justice among employees reflects the evolving expectations and values within the labor force. Unions should, therefore, position themselves as champions of a fairer and more equitable society rather than just advocates for individual member interests. The study, while framing the analysis around the concept of social sustainability, contributes to workforce research in tourism and hospitality.

Social Sustainability in Production Systems: an exploration along the supply chain

Social sustainability (SS) within the supply chain has emerged as a critically important and increasingly pertinent topic in today’s global business environment. Sustainability has been conceptualized within the framework of the triple bottom line, encompassing environmental, economic, and social dimensions. However, in the current landscape, social sustainability has risen to the forefront, given that the economic and environmental aspects have largely been evaluated and addressed.The concept of social sustainability in supply chain (SSSC) is undergoing a significant evolution, transitioning from a narrow perspective that predominantly centered on individual companies to a more inclusive and integrated approach that encompasses all participants along the supply chain. This recognizes the significance of involving suppliers, sub-suppliers, and other stakeholders in the supply chain.Through a case study of a manufacturing supply chain, we analyse multifaceted factors that significantly influence working conditions and the overall well-being of individuals involved. This analysis serves as a means to enhance overall company performance.This article suggests a new approach to define SSSC, based on the principle that the strategies to improve sustainability are effective only if they impact positively (or at least not negatively) on all the actors in the supply chain.

Residents’ responses to social interactions and social sustainability in gated communities of the Greater Cairo Region

ABSTRACTSocial interaction is a crucial aspect of social sustainability, aiming to improve quality of life. However, the emergence of gated communities in Egypt has shifted priorities, prioritizing isolation over social interaction. This paper examines the impact of social interaction in gated communities in the West of the Greater Cairo Region from a social sustainability perspective. This study conducted a literature review on definitions and concepts of social sustainability and social interaction. We launched an online survey to measure social interaction in our case studies. We analyzed data retrieved from the survey to assess the correlation between social interaction and sustainability indicators. The results demonstrate that social interaction neutrally affects social sustainability indicators and users’ satisfaction. The survey findings indicate that users of gated communities rarely consider social interaction, which reflects their satisfaction with the isolation in the gated communities. As such, residents of gated communities should reconsider the shared spaces within these communities to improve social interaction and enhance social sustainability. This could lead to improved quality of life for people living in gated communities. Furthermore, improved social interaction within gated communities could also help to reduce social isolation and loneliness, which are associated with a range of physical and mental health issues.

BIM Sociotechnology: Situational Awareness as a Strategy for Enhancing Collaboration in BIM-Enabled Education within the GCC Context

The education and industry of architecture and engineering disciplines are being transformed by Building Information Modelling (BIM) through digitization. Recent literature shows that BIM is in reality 90% sociology and 10% technology, despite the perception that it is 90% technology and 10% sociology. Without social interventions within technological models, barriers and limitations that are evident in the social culture of an institution could result in being reflected in dead-ended technical and technological structures and solutions. For this, concepts of social sustainability and cultural resilience are promoted by proposing socio-technical solutions relying on the theoretical model of Situational Awareness (SA) as a cornerstone in this research. The investigation method on the link between BIM-enabled Education and SA is done through multiple interviews within the academic sector of multiple educational institutions within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The results of this study could design a preliminary framework for approaching technical solutions to social dilemmas and thus help in enhanced implementation and collaboration in BIM-enabled education in the GCC.

From Neglect to Progress: Assessing Social Sustainability and Decent Work in the Tourism Sector

Measuring social sustainability performance involves assessing firms’ implementation of social goals, including working conditions, health and safety, employee relationships, diversity, human rights, community engagement, and philanthropy. The concept of social sustainability is closely linked to the notion of decent work, which emphasizes productive work opportunities with fair income, secure workplaces, personal development prospects, freedom of expression and association, and equal treatment for both genders. However, the tourism sector, known for its significant share of informal labor-intensive work, faces challenges that hinder the achievement of decent work, such as extended working hours, low wages, limited social protection, and gender discrimination. This study assesses the social sustainability of the Portuguese tourism industry. The study collected data from the “Quadros do Pessoal” statistical tables for the years 2010 to 2020 to analyze the performance of Portuguese firms in the tourism sector and compare them with one another and with the overall national performance. The study focused on indicators such as employment, wages, and work accidents. The findings reveal fluctuations in employment and remuneration within the tourism sector and high growth rates in the tourism sector compared to the national average. A persistent gender pay gap is identified, which emphasizes the need to address this issue within the tourism industry. Despite some limitations, such as the lack of comparable data on work quality globally, incomplete coverage of sustainability issues, and challenges in defining and measuring social sustainability indicators, the findings have implications for policy interventions to enhance social sustainability in the tourism industry. By prioritizing decent work, safe working conditions, and equitable pay practices, stakeholders can promote social sustainability, stakeholder relationships, and sustainable competitive advantage. Policymakers are urged to support these principles to ensure the long-term sustainability of the tourism industry and foster a more inclusive and equitable society. This study provides insights for Tourism Management, sustainable Human Resource Management, Development Studies, and organizational research, guiding industry stakeholders in promoting corporate social sustainability, firm survival, and economic growth.

Strategies for Realization of Socially Sustainable Residential Buildings: Experts’ Perspectives

Over the recent decades, the concept of social sustainability (SS) has been increasingly recognized as a key component of sustainable development incorporated in sustainable communities’ agendas. However, SS measures and practices have been insufficiently applied and underrepresented with regard to residential buildings. The aim of this paper is to employ experts’ perspectives to identify interdisciplinary, multilevel strategies/drivers for the integration of SS measures and practices into governmental and operational activities in relation to residential buildings. The selected strategies emerged from a detailed literature review and a two-round Delphi survey collecting responses from an expert panel, which were carried out in order to determine the relevancy of the proposed strategies. Of the 38 preselected strategies, 32 were deemed significant. In addition to a number of relevant strategies, the panelists especially recommended disseminating new concepts of growth that would contribute to breaking the link between materialism and social progress and to the adoption of new ways of life characterized by a more harmonious and healthy coexistence of people and the environment. They also suggested a gradual introduction of SS principles into value systems and their implementation in all aspects of personal and social life as an essential precondition for achieving the goals of sustainable development on a large scale. These results lay the groundwork for the incorporation and development of SS strategies by policy makers, developers, and planners and provide a starting point that will allow other researchers to identify the most relevant strategies in different contexts, i.e., countries and regions with their specific characteristics, which will further create the conditions for the more efficient implementation of SS measures and practices and contribute to the fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Editorial: Social Sustainability: An Ambiguous Concept, Areas of Tension and Ways Forward

The 50th anniversary of the Club of Rome report on The Limits of Growth is a good opportunity to think about what sustainability and particularly social sus-tainability mean. The introduction contextualizes the concerns that came up when the report was written by presenting some influential texts of the time. Some ideas of the way the social world is connected to the environment were formulated in the Club of Rome executive committee’s commentary at the end of the scientific report, yet they were not further pursued. The report was contested by the Bariloche coun-termodel of Latin American researchers. These scholars included issues of power, dependent development, exploitation, poverty, and social justice into their model. It was the approach of the Brundtland Report that popularized the concept of sus-tainability with its three dimensions (ecological, economic, and social). However, the concept of social sustainability has remained vague. Two perspectives are dis-cussed: the dependency of the social world on the natural environment and sus-tainability of the social world. This editorial concludes with a presentation of most recent publications that understand social sustainability as a transformation of so-ciety towards sustainability integrating all three dimensions.

Concept of Social Sustainability and its Challenges for the Sociology of Social Policy

Max Weber considered social policy to be applied sociology. In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda with 17 universal Sustainable Development Goals. The main goals and subgoals essentially deal with social policy issues and are linked to economic and ecological demands. In the 21st century, there are many arguments that speak for a sociology that addresses this transdisciplinary and transformative context. This in turn requires a change of perspective, away from a limited socio-ecological view and towards establishing a discourse on social sustainability. To succeed, the established conception of welfare regimes must be transposed to sustainability re-search. The article discusses the issue of normativity that social sustainability has as well as measures for a sustainable social policy. The paper argues in favor of a mixed universalism, termed guarantism, that focuses social policy on participation and identifies modern digital and smart pathways to achieve it.

Social Sustainability of Water and Waste Management Companies in Portugal

The Sustainable Development Goals aim at balancing economic, social and environmental development. In this framework, social sustainability is key to tackle current challenges that hinder the maximization of social satisfaction. Yet, for many years, scholars have negleted the social dimension. A possible explanation may be the difficulty to measure social concepts such as well-being and prosperity. Thus, we argue that, to evaluate sectoral performance, the concept of social sustainability should be translated into metrics, by focusing on the indicators that impact on those social concepts. Consequently, time-series data from Quadros do Pessoal, PORDATA and SABI databases for the sector of Water Collection, Treatment and Distribution, Sanitation, Waste Management and Depollution, are consulted to analyze the evolution of those indicators and evaluate corporate performance concerning social sustainability in 2008–2019. In line with previous literature, we use average wages and employment as proxies for social sustainability. However, we introduce a new indicator, the average term for receipts to carry out an analysis from the stakeholders’ perspective. The results suggest that, especially as of 2017, sectoral firms appear to have reagained their momentum concerning social sustainability performance. This study provides the opportunity to uncover average sectoral trends on social sustainability and paves the way for future research exploring firms’ heterogeneity.

Considerations of Use-Use Interactions between Macroalgae Cultivation and Other Maritime Sectors: An Eastern Baltic MSP Case Study

With the blue economic sectors growing, marine macroalgae cultivation plays an important role in securing food and energy supplies, as well as better water quality in sustainable ways, whether alone or as part of a cluster solution to mitigate the effects of fish farming. While macroalgae cultivation exists in Europe, it is not that widely distributed yet; with increasing marine activities at sea, Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) needs to ensure social recognition as well as social and spatial representation for such a new marine activity. This comparative case study analysis of MSPs of three eastern Baltic Sea countries explores the levels of support for the development of macroalgae cultivation in MSP and the degree of co-location options for this new and increasingly important sector. It presents new analytical ways of incorporating co-location considerations into the concept of social sustainability. The results of this study support the harmonisation of views on co-location, propose ways of using space to benefit multiple users as well as marine ecosystems, and highlight some of the key social challenges and enablers for this sector.

MODERATION EFFECT OF STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT ON THE RELATIONSHIP SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN AND FIRM PERFORMANCE

This paper aims to explore the determinants of social sustainability in the supply chain (SSSC) of the company and examine the role of strategic information systems development as moderating variables in the relationship of SSSC and firm performance. The research setting used a sample of small and medium sized companies of “Batik Tulis” in Bantul Regency, using a sample of 106 SMEs of natural color batik. Testing the hypothesis in this study using hierarchical regression analysis techniques. The results of the study proved that determinant variables such as environmental uncertainty, regulation of environmentally friendly proved to have a significant effect on SSSC, while interdependency determinant variables consisting of three dimensions namely interdependency task, interdependency goal and interdependency reward identified that the three dimensions had no significant effect on SSSC. While the influence of SSSC on firm performance proved to have a significant effect, also the ability of the strategic information system development variable to prove significant was able to strengthen SSSC's influence on firm performance. The results of this study have a theoretical contribution to the development of institutional theory and dynamic capability theory because the research is able to produce business modeling that essential role of strategic information systems development as a strategic effort of SMEs in order to increase the influence of SSSC capability. More specifically, the results of the study provide empirical evidence about the concept of social sustainability in supply chain (SSSC) in order to develop a new theory of Sustainability Supply Chain Management. Keywords: Social Sustainability in Supply Chain (SSSC); Determinants of SSSC; Firm Performance; strategic information system; Hierarchal Moderation Regression

Considering Family and Child Welfare in Lithuania in Terms of Social Sustainability Pursuant to Observations of Everyday Professional Practice

This article investigates the family and child welfare system in Lithuania in terms of social sustainability, with an emphasis on children’s rights. The conceptual framework of Gilbert et al. (2011a) on child welfare was used as the substance of the research, identifying the problem frame, aim and mode of intervention, and parent–state relationship as the main dimensions for analyzing configurations of the child welfare systems. The analysis in this article focuses on how the family and child welfare system is observed in everyday professional practice in Lithuania by linking it with the social sustainability concept. The quantitative research sample comprised 501 respondents from Lithuania, representing different professionals of the family and child welfare system. An online questionnaire was distributed across regional municipal social services departments and to the national service of the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service. Explorative factor analysis and multidimensional scaling were used for data analysis. The research demonstrated that family and child welfare dimensions are meaningfully related to the social sustainability concept through the rights of a child such as the child’s best interests, accessibility to services, the right to be heard, protection against violence, child identity, development assurance, and so forth. The research indicates the need for awareness raising, including education and training for professional actors regarding child and family welfare, as an integral part of the concept of social sustainability.

Family Business as a Bearer of Social Sustainability in Multinationals-Case of Slovakia

Social sustainability is slowly becoming a more important aspect of a company’s management, particularly in the case of multinational companies with an international network of subsidiaries placed in diverse cultural and social environments. The concept of social sustainability is strongly connected with a considerable number of stakeholders, compared to the environmental and economic aspects of sustainability. The nature of activities under the social pillar of corporate responsibility connects social sustainability with family business, which aims at the principles of social solidarity, equality and ethics. This article uniquely analyzes selected aspects of social sustainability on a sample of 201 Slovak subsidiaries of foreign multinationals and finds differences between family and nonfamily ones. Surprisingly, the conducted research proved that the examined family businesses cannot be considered as bearers of social sustainability in Slovakia, since, in many aspects, the nonfamily businesses implemented the monitored aspects in larger measures, and there were only two factors that turned out to be significant, according to the type of business ownership. Equal opportunities in the workplace were the only variable, due to which significant differences were seen, according to the factor of a family business and the factor of employees’ gender simultaneously, which makes it a crucial variable. The conducted study fills the gap in explanation of interconnections between social sustainability, family business and equal gender opportunities, which makes it unique not just in Slovak conditions.

A Developer’s Translation of Social Sustainability: Communities that “Take Care of Themselves”

ABSTRACT Scholars consider socially sustainable communities to be equitable, diverse, connected and democratic. This article examines how a property developer translates and works with concepts of social sustainability, with implications for social cohesion and equity. It draws on interviews with managers and residents in two Australian neighbourhoods to illustrate how commercial translations of social sustainability can promote the agency of residents, albeit with the purpose of realising the developer’s vision for the neighbourhood. The article highlights how property developers who focus on commercial goals face challenges in creating inclusive and deliberative forums through which residents keep the developer’s priorities in check.

Sustainability Disclosure and the Financialization of Social Sustainability

Abstract This empirical study explores the financialization of social sustainability driven by sustainability accounting and reporting initiatives (SARIs). Since no globally accepted definition of what social sustainability encompasses exists, the paper asks how social sustainability is translated into the financial market language by SARIs as they provide standards for disclosing corporate non-financial performance and promote their concepts of social sustainability. The paper uses a two-step qualitative content analysis. First, it operationalizes social sustainability based on the empirical data of six sustainability rating agencies. Second, this operationalization is compared with the concepts created by three SARIs. The paper shows significant differences between the concepts of the SARIs and the rating agencies. While the rating agencies altogether interpret social sustainability with 83 distinct aspects, the SARIs, although differently created, use significant reduced concepts where 20% of these aspects are absent. The result of this financialization process could be a simplified and financially determined concept of social sustainability within die socially discourse. The research is limited to social sustainability and its financialization by SARIs. Individual indicators and their way or intensity to capture aspects of social sustainability were not part of the research interest. Further research should investigate the economic and the ecological pillars of sustainability as well as the usage of such financialized concepts within the society and especially by corporations. The paper unfolds the arbitrariness of operationalizing a qualitative phenomenon like social sustainability through the financial system. It discloses the need for looking at the mechanisms behind such processes and at the interests of the actors behind the frameworks. The paper reveals the financialization process driven by SARIs and demonstrates its simplifying effects on the concept of social sustainability. Furthermore, the paper shows that SARIs as metrics for non-financial aspects are troubled with a lack of transparency and a lack of convergence.

Social sustainability assessment framework for managing sustainable construction in residential buildings

Nowadays sustainability concept has gained worldwide recognition in the building industry worldwide. However, despite the recent trends toward consideration of environmental and economic aspects in sustainability assessment framework for buildings, the concept of social sustainability has given less attention. Therefore, social issues were less included in the main categories of sustainability assessment schemes. As a result, such frameworks failed to effectively correspond to social aspects of sustainability and they have created gaps in analytical support necessary for sustainable decision-making. While there are some researches regarding social aspects of sustainability worldwide, investigations are still lacking in developing countries. In order to resolve this issue, this study aims to propose an assessment framework which addresses social sustainability in residential building construction by prioritizing social sustainability criteria based on Iran context. In this research, after exploiting social sustainability indicators, through multi-criteria decision making approach, criteria priorities were obtained with the aid of local experts. Results revealed that among the proposed criteria, local experts considered safety issues as the most important and site considerations and equipment as the least important criterion to be considered in the social sustainability assessment for residential buildings in Iran. After safety issues, performance and flexibility factor was the third-highest important criterion in terms of social sustainability in planning and construction in this country. From the results, it can be concluded that the establishment of social sustainability scheme with a consideration of priorities in a particular country can be a pivotal step forward to provide a responsive sustainability assessment for buildings, especially in developing countries such as in Iran. This research can shed light on the way in which other developing countries customize such social sustainability framework based on their own context to offer decision makers an efficient approach for measuring the social sustainability status of a residential building.

‘Social stuff’ and all that jazz: Understanding the residual category of social sustainability

Recently we have seen a substantial increase in pressure for industries, such as aquaculture, to become more sustainable. When it comes to practical attempts to operationalise sustainable development, however, the ‘social stuff’ is often neglected. In this paper, we provide a detailed exploration of how the concept of social sustainability is operationalised (and therefore understood) within the aquaculture certification context. We found that a) certification schemes do address social sustainability, but relevant indicators mostly focus on workers’ rights, or link directly back to environmental sustainability (through the consequences of environmental impact on humans); and b) the actions required often add little over and above existing legal requirements. Essentially, aquaculture sustainability certification schemes have not (yet) taken the opportunity to further shape our understanding of what social sustainability means, or how it is practiced. The consequence of this may be the impression that industries are truly sustainable, just because they have obtained sustainability certification.

Assessing the social sustainable supply chain indicators using an integrated fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making methods: a case study of Turkey

Sustainability of environmental, economic, and social systems aims to not destroy the resources that future generations should have in today's shacks. However, for many years, the concept of sustainability has only been examined in the economic and environmental contexts, and the concept of social sustainability has been neglected. The social dimension, which is a very important factor besides economic and biophysical environment within the social structure, is one of the most basic pillars of sustainability. In this study, we focused on the example of companies in the automotive industry in Turkey to evaluate them in terms of social sustainability. Many automotive manufacturers and suppliers are operating in Turkey. However, some of them are local, and some of them are working with regional companies. This differentiation affects the level of self-development of companies. Therefore, the case study for the evaluation of Turkey's social sustainability will provide the opportunity to achieve significant results. In this study, four companies that are in a supplier status in the automotive sector were considered by the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS), which are Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods. The obtained results revealed the situation in terms of the social sustainability of the automotive industry companies in Turkey. Finally, there were evaluations of what kind of improvements should be made in the framework of social sustainability indicators based on the case study results.

Barriers to implementation of blockchain into supply chain management using an integrated multi-criteria decision-making method: a numerical example

Information and product visibilities have been crucial in today’s supply chain processes, as economic, environmental and social sustainability concepts, which have been frequently focused on in recent years, prioritize the transparency of business processes. Blockchain technology, with continuously expanding application areas, has been revealed to be applicable in supply chain processes. On the other hand, integration of blockchain technology into supply chain processes will not be as smooth as estimated, since some challenges and constraints have already been identified. Therefore, companies aiming to integrate blockchain into supply chain processes should qualify and investigate each of these challenges. In the literature, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no study addressing the issues arising during the integration process. Moreover, most studies related to blockchain technology have merely examined the positive aspects. This study, on the contrary, discusses the technologic, financial, organizational and environmental challenges that are confronted on a sectoral basis during the integration process. The fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS methods, which are used in uncertainties and are capable of simultaneous multi-criteria evaluation, were employed. Furthermore, it is intended to produce a study that is of benefit to industrial actors by analyzing the findings related to the challenges merging during technological transformation. The outputs of this study are as follows: (i) High investment costs, data security and utility are important; (ii) integration is harder for the health and logistic sectors; (iii) the supply chains, which are less complicated, will be able to coordinate faster than the blockchain technology does. Consequently, the obtained results are evaluated, and strategic outputs are shared for the decision-makers aiming to integrate blockchain technology into the supply chain processes.

Dynamic semantic network analysis for identifying the concept and scope of social sustainability

Social sustainability is important across disciplines in the era of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, many scholars note that its concept and scope are ambiguous regardless of public attention and importance. It limits the development of social sustainability research. Therefore, in this study, we introduce a data-driven approach for identifying the concept and scope of social sustainability. We apply dynamic semantic network analysis to the current social sustainability literature over time. This analysis partitions the diffusion of social sustainability in academia into several periods by detecting change points. It also builds semantic networks periodically to discover the concept and scope in the network analysis perspective. Our result shows that social sustainability penetrated into disciplines with minimal innovation and high imitation rates. The concept of social sustainability has been changed several times by including the humanity of community and individuals during its diffusion. The scope of social sustainability has been enlarged but is densely intertwined. That is, social sustainability more concerns quality of life in a society, which is independent from economic and environmental sustainability. And thus, it considers human factors and social effects in a supply chain of products and services. This statement means that social sustainability developed to include the various values of humanity in our society that we should retain.