Pro-environmental Behaviour Dissertation Chapter Sample
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1.1. Background of study
This study deals with the pro-environmental behaviours of employees based on the sustainability program at Home 2 Suites Hotel in Salt Lake City.
Sustainability is defined as an ability or capacity of something to be maintained or to sustain itself. It's about taking what we need to live now, without jeopardizing the potential for people in the future to meet their needs (LandLearn NSW, N.D.).
In the past, an emphasis on the importance of sustainability was not yet a concern for many.
Nowadays, the increased concerns regarding the world of sustainability, in order to preserve the world that we are living in, has proved to be increasingly popular and common in society today. In this world, people are facing several environmental problems, which are caused by human actions and behaviours such as: pollution, overpopulation, global warming, climate change and reliance on fossil fuels (Alyssa, 2014). The aforementioned challenges in sustainability contain a common denominator that is they are all created by human behaviours. Therefore, sustainability programs surrounds us in not only the workplace but also in our personal lives. Due to the fast-growing trend, many companies are looking for support to their business strategy by sustainability (Franchise Help, 2015). While it can reduce the costs of a business and attract further customers for profit gain, it is correspondingly a huge market competition amongst other companies in which they employ the same strategy (Environmental leader, 2015). In the hotel industry, management is seeking to construct a win-win situation to the internal workings of the hotel and environment of the world. Moreover, there includes several benefits with the exercise of sustainability strategies, such as: Saving costs is one of the biggest advantages to the hotel, protecting the environment which is “the right thing to do” and it can reduce the environmental risks, such as the waste management (Graci&Kuehnel, 2010).
The encouragement of employees to participate sustainability programs also results to have numerous benefits, such as improving the reputation and credibility from the workers. For the employees, it can develop the new skills and gain the new experience of the work and social environmental (Green Hotelier, 2010). Numerous hotels employ various ways to engage employees to actively get involved in sustainability. For example, providing more chances for employees to share going green ideas, or develop activities and training programs about it (Elder, 2009). In Home 2 Suites, they launch the sustainability program reward to change the employee behaviour for the better, which they have successfully completed one of their goals (Green Hotelier, 2010). The primary reason of choosing Home 2 Suites hotel is to analyse the sustainability program and how the hotel changes the employees’ behaviour through the use of the program. In addition, the author will investigate the scope of strategies the hotel focuses to encourage the employees on pro-environmental behaviour and the result of the employee behaviour influenced by the sustainability program.
1.2. Statement of the Problem
In hotel industry, the managers want to grow their business profit and contribute with environmental problems by the pro-environmental behaviour; they recognized the responsibility of the environmental and seeking to improve better sustainable future by their performance (Verma, N.D.). Since the sustainability concept this study is dealing with is Corporate Social Responsibility, it concerns the needs and understanding of environmental issues in which managers of the hotel adopt to organize workplace sustainability programs (WSPs) for the employees. If hotel employees accept the WSPs in their workplace, it will lead to employees change in behaviours in their personal life habits and easily to find out the environmental issues in community (Loverock& Newell, 2012). On the other hand, if the hotel employees do not accept the WSPs in their workplace, it will reduce there ability to relate to environmental issues in their community. Some argue that human behaviour is interesting and habitual; some of them will change their old habits due to the environment factor. However, there is a contrast as the complexity of the constantly changing interacting factors influencing human behaviour concludes that comprehensive and definitive experiments in the social sciences are not possible and that the most we can ever realistically hope to achieve is not prediction and control but rather only temporary understanding (Cziko, 2012). Consequently, an important point of view is people cannot change the other people’s behavior, only individuals decide to change their own behaviour by themselves (Allen, 2013). In most cases people waste most of their times trying to change others. It is important to recognize and accept what you can change or cannot change in an individual. Mature people often have developed behaviours that cannot easily be changed by simple actions. Therefore, the hotel trend to motivate the staff by the sustainability program which influences their pro-environmental behaviour, such as providing awards and rewards, by making sustainability activities for every employees and installing the recycle system all around the establishment (Elder, 2009). Those aspects can bring a question, which is “Why and how does an organization’s environmental program affect on employees behaviour?”
1.3. Purpose and Significance of Study
The overall purpose of this study is to analyse the pro-environmental behaviours of employees and how they affect them in the workplace at the Home 2 Suites Hotel in Salt Lake City. Furthermore, this study also aims to determine whether the implementation of a sustainability program encourages these behaviours among employees. The author believes that the findings of this study will prove to be a beneficial endeavour for the hospitality industry and the Home 2 Suites Hotel, considering that pro-environmental behaviours is the driving force behind sustainability, which is currently a major trend not only in this industry but globally. Additionally, the information gathered will aid the Home 2 Suites Hotel in providing better training systems as the author believes that training will always cost less than purchasing sustainable assets, which only profits in the long-term.
1.4. Theoretical Frameworks
Scholars of environmental behaviours study the personal norms of individuals and how they motivate the intentions of humans to react differently. Shalom H. Schwartz, for example, developed the Theory of Basic Human Values, which has been an important factor for pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours. Additional to this theory, two additional theories have been selected and will be critically analysed, as the author believes that they are most relevant to the topic proposed, they include: Pro-Environmental Behaviour and The Planned Behaviour.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the staff’s pro-environmental behaviour impacted by Home 2 Suites Salt Lake City’s sustainability program. In order to accomplish this aim, the researcher will achieve three objectives:
To analyze the existing theories based on the concepts of pro-environmental behavior.
To investigate the pro-environmental behavior by survey to hotel employees in Home 2 Suites Salt Lake City.
To assess if sustainability program encourages pro-environmental behaviors among employees.
1.5. Delimitations
In this research, the author will take the place to investigate the Home 2 Suites hotel by Hilton, which is located in Salt Lake City, USA. The reason of choosing this particular hotel to evaluate and analyse the pro environmental behaviour of employees is because the whole hotel chain operates with the sustainability program, in which people are currently concerned about the problems and following as a trend. Due to the hotel generate by Hilton, they set tons of goals to achieve about the sustainability and desire to become the largest company of “Living Sustainability” in hospitality industry, which they successfully achieved most of the goals (Hower, 2013). For example energy management system certification across the entire portfolio of hotels (Tuppen, 2014), also they are the first multi-national organizations to verify the global system (Hower, 2013). Moreover, they provided training program to managers and team members, encourage employees to adapt the sustainability program with rewards, split the Living Sustainably environmental awareness message to over 700hotels (Tuppen, 2014). The research will investigate the employee behaviour influencing by the sustainability program support with the primary research (survey), which the Hilton did not evoke about it in their corporate responsibility report.
1.6. Organization of the study
This paper includes five chapters. Chapter 1 includes the background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose and significance of study, theoretical frameworks and delimitations of the study.
Chapter 2 contains the literature reviews, which includes pro-environmental behavior, Human behavior – The Planned Behavior and the human values.
Chapter 3 presents the methodology used for this research study, which includes research philosophy, research approach, primary data collection, research strategy, data analysis procedures, time horizon, limitations, validity and reliability.
Chapter 4 describes and analyzes the primary data collected including the text of the interview conversation and the result of the survey.
Chapter 5 will summarize the whole research study by clarifying how to achieve the aim and objectives, providing recommendations, and conclusion for future research.
2.1. Introduction
In this proposal, the author will introduce several theories and literature review relevant to pro environmental behaviour of employees to enhance the understanding of the purpose of the research. A number of significant terms and theories to look at are pro environmental behaviour, human behaviour – The Planned Behaviour and the values of the human. The author would like to look in depth of the concept of pro-environmental behaviour at Home2 Suites, Salt Lake City in order to discover how the selected theories could be applied and resulted to test whether this particular organization agrees with the theories. The author chose two theories and the first theory is used to support is the Planned behaviour, which underlies the idea to predict the deep conscious and the planned behaviour. This theory explains further describing it as how important it is to know what people would intend to do in advance, in order to determine how they would behave. This also means in another word, to discover one’s intention to prophesy behaviour (Ajzen, 1988: 7). The last theory will be mentioned about Schwartz’s (1977) Norms Activation theory; it describes pro-environmental behaviour focused on the personal norms and awareness on different situation responsibility and human decision making (Schwartz, 1977 cited in Harland, Staats&Wilke, 2007). The reason of why the author would choose these theories is all of the theories have strongly related with human behaviour, also the purpose of this study is to investigate the employee’s pro-environmental behaviour in a workplace. Therefore, the author believes the theories can provide a huge support to help the author complete the investigation.
2.2. Pro-environmental behaviour
According to Sawitri, Hadiyanto&Hadi (2014), pro-environmental behaviour is any individual’s awareness actions performance to decrease the negative impact on the environment by the human activities, and increase the environment quality (Sawitri, Hadiyanto&Hadi, 2014). For example, air pollution is a man-made challenge therefore in order to solve this problem and create a better quality for the environment, a lot of business encourages employees to reduce the pollution, such as conserve energy or use energy efficient devices.
Moreover, pro-environmental behaviours aim to work through self-motivation in the workplace and enhance psychological salience and the values of this behaviour (Huffman & Klein, 2013).
It is essential for the general public to contribute their actions to reduce environmental concerns, which will gain a better environment for the future. However, these actions are not forced by someone to contribute, but reliant on the spontaneity of mankind. Therefore, many companies are trying to work on changing employee’s behaviour in the workplace in order to help the company achieve their sustainability goals (Woofter, 2011). Consequently, empirical research in this area has demonstrated that the environmental performance of an organization depends, to a large extent, on employees involvement through various behaviors intended to contribute to eco-innovations and participate in recycling programs (Boiral, Paille&Raineri, 2015). Since environmental management practices are associated with pro-environmental behaviors, the success of these initiatives ultimately relies on employees’ interest and contributions.
However, several organizations are seeking to improve their business image through social legitimacy thus the overall objective is not in line with the internalization of environmental management practices. This directly influences the pro-environmental behaviors of employees as there is less value placed on their concern for the environment in contrast to the hotel public image, which is heavily emphasized upon (Corner, 2011). As a result, these practices end up becoming superficial and will not translate into concrete pro-environmental behaviours.
2.3. Human behaviour - Behavioural change - The Planned Behaviour
Human behaviour is a massive subject to discuss, therefore the author will briefly to discuss and classify this behaviour into three different aspects, such as: Sociology, Psychology and Anthropology. Sociology is a study of human social society and human interaction, which concerns the human research of social relationships that are affected by social and cultural aspects (Edu resource, 2014), such as gender, race and religion, social group and social change. Many managers in trying to establish connections with their workplace and employees have used sociological aspects. Issues such as gender balance, religion, and racial integration are significant for manager to consider since they form part of legal requirements. Besides social changes determines the extent to which employees are motivated. Every business exists in a certain social-cultural environment. This environment affects employee’s activities within and outside the organization. Most of the employees’ relations and interactions are as result in the similarities or differences in their social cultural practices. Therefore, sociology plays a significant role in managing employee behaviors. It is important to understand every aspect and how they are related to the business. These aspects are also the important perspective on society, due to the sociology is to understand human interactions and action affected by surrounding cultural and social structures (Aldrich, 2016). Therefore, the sociology aspect in human behaviour may change the human behaviour by different social structures and cultrual. In contrast, compared to psychology, it places an emphasis about society’s understanding of human mind, such as the stress, behaviour and mental problems. For example, it has different types of psychology that social psychology is one part of this subject, which investigates the thoughts and behaviours which are influenced by other people (Nordqvist, 2015). Anthropology represents everything of human kind’s trace, such as history, literature and so on. It is a study about social and natural science and the subject is to make humanism in a scientific way (Wolf, 1964). All these aspects are deeply relating and influencing the human behaviour.
However, the behaviour changed is a transformation of human behaviour, this factor has been influence by knowledge of various theories, such as, the theory of Planned Behaviour, which will analyse and explain why it will be useful for this study in the next paragraph.
The Planned Behaviour is applied changing behaviour theories, which is “dependent on one’s intention to perform the behaviour.” The intention can define by the people’s behaviour, attitude, values and beliefs. The author believes this theory is suitable for this study as through this theory, the behaviour changed will be conduct by exterior factor, such as, working environment. From that point, the subject will perceive as a norm, which will have an opportunity to affect the employees’ attitude toward the behaviour, then each environmental behaviour and actions will be action with intention and no with obligation (Ajzen, 1991: 3 cited in CommGAP, 2010).
Conversely, linking beliefs and behaviours to promote pro-environmental behaviour, not only for employees in the hotel but also the general public, is a concept that is somewhat challenging. This is due to the different beliefs a group of culture or race may conceive.
Furthermore, although the planned behaviour theory is generally successful, its variables cannot account for a large proportion of variance in both intentions and behaviour (Bilic, 2005).
2.4. The Human values
This study will focus on human values criteria but more specifically on personal norms. Also known as the norm activation theory, this theory was developed by Shalom H. Schwartz as a vested model that explains altruistic and environmentally friendly behaviour (Onwezen, Antonides& Bartels, 2013).
According to (Schwartz, 1977), personal norms have been an important factor for pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours. Schwartz argued that personal norms are activated by four key situational variables namely: Awareness of consequences, Ascription of responsibility, Outcome efficacy and one should recognize own ability to provide relief (Schwartz, 1970 cited in Lemmens, Ruiter, Veldhuizen and Schaalma, 2007).
Firstly, it is proposed that the awareness of consequences (AC) of one’s potential acts for the welfare of others moderates the relationships of moral norms to behaviour. Persons in high AC are presumed to become aware of extensive and specific consequences of possible acts for others, and to adopt the perspective of those to be affected when weighing decisions (Schwartz, 1968). Thus, in context with the employees in Home 2 Suites Hotel, it is essential for the hotel to understand the consequences of environmental problems and to inform employees of the consequences of the actions of operations.
Secondly, Schwartz mentions ascription of responsibility as the belief or denial that one’s own actions or decisions have contributed to or could alleviate those consequences (Stern, 1999). Next, outcome efficacy is defined as the identification of actions to relieve the needs of others or things one values. Outcome efficacy is particularly important in case of large-scale problems that can only be solved when many people cooperate, such as reducing harmful emissions or donating money to charity.
Finally, one should recognize their own ability to provide relief. In other words, individuals who recognize that their actions can bring change, only need to contribute to these large-scale problems in order to bring about change.
However, there are several limitations imposed on this theory, such that it may not be modernized to apply fully to today’s human behaviour as times are continually revolutionized and human behaviour is argued to be unpredictable. Human behaviours depend on the circumstances surrounding their social and psychological characteristics. Therefore, it is difficult to predict human behaviours due to social changes. It will be significant to assess the norms among the employees social cultural environment and relate to the pro-environment in order to draw accurate connections in relation to this theory. Aspects that promote pro-environmental behavior Thus, the author aims to assess this theory in the analysis of the Home 2 Suites Hotel.
2.5. Summary
Norm activation theory has been one of the fundamental theories used in understanding human behaviors. Besides personal norms have been important factors for pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours thus making this theory significant for this study. Although the theory has some limitations, the ascription of responsibility as the belief or denial that one’s own actions or decisions have contributed to or could alleviate those consequences provides evidence that this theory is vital in undertaking this case (Stern, 1999). On the other hand, one if the key aspects of theory of planned behaviours is that it relates to beliefs and behavior. Therefore, it will be easy to connect different social issues to the pro-environmental factors. This theory will be significant in understanding how employees use reasoned actions in their daily activities by involving perceived behavioral control in their actions. Perceived behavioral control is important for understanding and assessing of different factors the analysis of the Home 2 Suites Hotel.
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Research Philosophy
Realism will be the research philosophy and precisely direct realism, will be applied on the pro-environmental behaviour of employees at Home 2 Suites hotel by Hilton in USA. Because the realism is based on the facts of reality that people can sense it, and “the objects have an existence independent of the human mind” (Saunders, Lewis &Thornhill, 2012). Therefore, the reason why the author chooses direct realism for this research is because it is focusing on employees’ behaviour performance in the workplace, also it is interesting to investigate whether or not employees’ behaviour is affected by a hotel’s sustainability program. As Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill mentioned “direct realism says that what you see is what you get: what we experience through our senses portrays the world accurately” (Saunders, Lewis &Thornhill, 2012). Moreover, working with an observable action in the society is important in gathering facts and making people understand others. Observable actions and provide the basis for hypotheses to be tested(Collins, 2010) .
3.3. Research Approach
There are two forms of research approach, which are known as inductive and deductive approaches. The inductive approach is followed by step by step to access, which the first step is to collect data that is relevant to the author’s topic, the second step is to define and understand the data and analyse the patterns, which leads to the final step of summarizing all the information and create a new theory based on the research. The deductive approach is different from the used of inductive approach as it collects the existence theories that are related to the topic, analyse the data and apply the theories to the data (Blackstone, 2012).
3.4. Primary Data Collection
Therefore, the author will use mixed methods of both qualitative and quantitative data as methodological choices, due to the research of an investigation on employee’s behaviour by the face to face interview to management level employee and closed-ended questionnaires survey to all the employees in order to achieve the third objective of this paper.
3.5. Research Strategy
The research strategy is a process of action-plan to achieve the objectives, also can aid the author answering the research questions, “it is the methodological line between the researcher philosophy and subsequent choice of methods to collect and analyse data” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005 cited in Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2012). In this part, the author will select a case study as a research strategy, as through the use of the case study enhances a clear understanding by generating and answering questions on the particular topic, as a demonstration based on the fact of real life context (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2012). Therefore, the author will explore the Home 2 Suite hotel employee’s behaviour as a case study, due to the fact that the hotel running with sustainability program can affect the behaviour in workplace.
3.6. Data Analysis Procedures
As the author mentioned in Primary Data Collection part, the qualitative and quantitative data will be used in this research paper, therefore, it will analyse both primary data in the coming part respectively.
3.6.1 Qualitative Data Analysis
Qualitative data will be analyzed with the use of qualitative comparative analysis as data collection but more specifically in this case, the author will use the constant comparison tool, which refers to a process of maintaining a close connection between data and conceptualization, so that the correspondence between concepts and categories with their indicators are not lost (Bryman& Bell, 2011).
All data from the face-to-face interview will be collected and transcribed into a document and categorized so that the author will be able to identify relationships and in turn classify them accordingly to the various concepts proposed.
3.6.2. Quantitative Data Analysis
Data collected from survey questionnaires shall be compiled and organized into graphs and charts in order to enable the author and readers of the study to view statistics visually. Through this, the author can identify common variables presented and provide evidence to support the findings.
3.7. Time Horizon
According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, cross-sectional is applied to a case which the study of research is limited. The author is only given a particular time to complete the research. In addition a cross-sectional study would not be applicable after a certain period of time (Saunders, Lewis &Thornhill, 2012). The author will collect relevant data between December 2015 and January 2016.
3.8. Selection of participants
The probability sampling is not a random selecting rather it is purposive. The author focuses on general management employees from different departments as they consist of more than a third of the total number of employees in the hotel. Therefore, the author has reason to believe that they are representative of the population being studied. Moreover, there are no criteria against which the author will sample, as the population sample is diverse in age, gender and income(Glaser, 2014).
The sample is chosen as probability in order to identify whether the sustainability program can influence the pro environmental behaviour of employees or not. This sampling technique will support in analysing statistical data as the questions in the questionnaires contain simple and straightforward responses (Saunders, Lewis &Thornhill, 2012).
For the survey questionnaires, the author will use the stratified random sampling that is the probability-based approach to all low-level management employees from different departments. This method is to let the author divide the target population into the different strata, and randomly choose these strata to allow the author to collect data from the entire population.
The face-to-face interview will utilize the non-probability approach, the author will target the high-level management level employees such as: General manager, F&B manager and Rooms division manager. The author has chosen these managers specifically as their working environment is much more relevant to the research topic. Therefore, judgment sampling will be used in this research paper.
3.9. Limitations
At some point the author will face the limitation of the research due to the distance of location between the author and the organization Home 2 Suites hotel. This means the author has limited choices in conducting primary data. In addition, although the author plans to contact hotel employees from all departments through the questionnaires, the author cannot assume the exact number of responds. Therefore, the author will assess the exact number of employees in each department and ensure that at least half of the employees have participated in the research. The author cannot measure the accurate number of employees from each department, which some departments could not be representative. To overcome this limitation, the author will contact the managers in Home 2 Suite hotel by sending emails attached with surveys for both employees and managers, since the number of participants is considered large in terms of contacting every one of them. This will require managers to distribute the surveys to the employees with flexibility. Moreover, the face to face interview will focus on one department manager, if it not available for that department manager, it will move on to different department managers relevant to the topic who be able to aid to accomplish this interview.
3.10. Validity and Reliability
According to Shuttleworth (2008), the reliability basic concept refers to the idea of acquiring results from more than one particular finding, but collecting from various sources, and bring up the significant results to measure for a number of times to ensure the accuracy. Collecting data from not just one or two employees based on questions, but doing this from a set number of employees will allow the author to collect information and compare in order to avoid being biased.
Therefore, in order to make sure the primary data collected is reliable, the author will record the interview with the manager and the entire questionnaire in the survey will be the same questions distributed to all the employees. Additionally, the author will inform the general manager in the process of debriefing that all the employees are encouraged to answer as truthfully as possible in order to avoid deception, this will ensure that all findings are valid and reliable. Employees will also be brified on the importance of giving accurate information and how the research will improve their working experience at the hotel.
According to (Bryman& Bell, 2011), Validity is a concern with the integrity of the conclusions that are generated from a piece of research. However, certain questions from participants may arise, for example, “What exactly is the concept of pro-environmental behaviour?” Therefore the author aims to clarify the scope of questions to all participants before the execution of data collection so that validity is achieved.
The assessment tool used in this study is internal validity. This refers to the concern that the data that is collected actually represents the reality of what is being measured (Saunders et. al, 2012). Thus, with the use of peer examination of data and the analysis of recorded data, the validity of the data will be evaluated. The data will be compared to other related researches and assessed based on the quality of feedback and the relations to the study.
3.11. Ethical Considerations
Firstly, the author will send the consent letter to the case study hotel, which The consent letter will mention The Home 2 Suite hotel in Salt Lake City that they will be the participants to be part of this study. The consent letter will be signed after the proposal has been approved. In order to allow the participants agreement and understanding of the content of the letter, a signature will required from all participants at the end of the document.
Secondly, In order to process the primary data, the author will contact the hotel for available time to do the questionnaires. The questionnaires will be structured prior to the real survey, and will be eliminated after the completion of the research. The participants may refuse to answer certain questions as they have a right to volunteer to participate. The questions will be only focused on the topic of the research. There will not be irrelevant or personal questions in request. Once the research is completed, the primary data will be no longer in use or seen to the public. The purpose of conducting questionnaires will be explained clearly to the organization. In order to protect the participants, the purpose of the study is an academic research; there will be no physical, psychological and emotional risks toward the hotel organization.
Thirdly, The author will provide a set of questions for any volunteers who are pleased to participate. The author does not have an obligation to force the employees to answer. Lastly, the primary data will be protected, as it will be used for the academic research. As the data could be sensitive and private, the author plans to use the information as soon as it has been collected, and will erase the record of the data after the study of this research is done.
3.12. Summary
The research proposes to investigate employee’s pro-environmental behavior at Home 2 Suite Hotel in Salt Lake City. Based on the literature review chapter, the author will gain knowledge about the employees’ pro-environmental behavior, behavioral change and human values. The method for this research will be the mixed method, which will help the author direct to manage the case study of Home 2 Suite Hotel to analyze the employees’ pro-environmental behavior and how does it affect by the sustainability program. The hotel employees and managers will be invited to participate to this study, the subjects will provide the awareness, attitude and perceptions on their behaviors that base on the survey and interview question results. In order to provide recommendations for hotel managers in terms of the organization that can affect employees’ pro-environmental behavior, the primary data and secondary research will be comparing to achieve this goal.
Chapter 4: Data Collection & Analysis
