Vol. 17, n. 3, November 2024 — pp. 156-160
RECENSIONi/REVIEWs
a cura di (edited by) Annamaria Di Fabio
Di Fabio, A., & Cooper, C.L. (Eds.). (2023).
Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development in Organizations.
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003212157, pp. 254
The book Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development in Organizations edited by Annamaria Di Fabio and Cary Cooper anticipates an urgent need which focuses on contributing to enhancing sustainability and sustainable development in organizations from a psychological point of view. The book promotes the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development research and intervention area, which is located within sustainability science, promoting its transdisciplinary approach. This volume provides a variety of viewpoints on the most recent research in the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development, highlighting practical strategies for enhancing well-being and promoting healthy sustainable development in organizations.
All those who wish to learn more about sustainability and sustainable development in organizations, enriching their perspective through the psychological lenses that characterize the contributions, will find this book to be very interesting for its far-reaching perspective regarding organizational complexities. Not only scholars but also managers, team leaders, and business executives can benefit from its strong innovative psychological focus. The same benefit could be gained by university students and PhD students who are interested in these topics.
Regarding its articulation the volume is divided into three sections.
The first section includes contributions relative to the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development as well as broad topics of associated organizational issues. The second section regards traditional organizational psychology themes (leadership, organizational change, organizational resilience, etc.) offered in the framework of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development. The third section is a core of contributions focused on prevention, including variables that could be increased to promote sustainability and sustainable development in organizations.
The first section «Conceptual Frameworks Themes» opens with the chapter by Annamaria Di Fabio and Sir Cary Cooper and introduces the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development and wellbeing in organizations and their very close bonds and connections. The chapter starts from a reflection on wellbeing at work for promoting an applicative culture of workplace wellbeing and moves to thoughtful stimuli on the need to construct and enhance a remote workplace culture. Then, the chapter focuses on the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development, a current research and intervention area within the field of sustainability sciences. This chapter also delineates other worthy themes in the same framework: prevention, psychology of harmonization, and decent work as pillars of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development and wellbeing in organizations.
The following chapter, by Marc Rosen and Annamaria Di Fabio, constitutes another central contribution, underlining the value of continuing to open the black box of psychological processes in sustainability and sustainable development. This chapter offers empirical evidence based on the production of two international research and intervention laboratories at the University of Florence (Italy) (director Annamaria Di Fabio): (1) «Cross-Cultural Positive Psychology, Prevention, and Sustainability» founded in 2014; (2) «Work and Organizational Psychology for Vocational Guidance, Career Counseling, Career Development, Talents, and Healthy Organizations» founded in 2009. The reported empirical evidence regards different kinds of environment (natural environment, personal environment, social environment and organizational environment, etc.). This chapter also offers a reflection on analogies and extensions to safety and innovation issues.
The chapter by Jona Leka and Adrian Furnham focuses on the current issue regarding climate change denial and its causes, consequences, and solutions. This contribution deals with the problem of climate change for companies, reflecting on attitudes to climate change and the psychological dynamics of climate change scepticism. It also introduces the theory of socio-structural and personality correlates of climate change beliefs, ending with some recommendations for organizations about the issue of climate change for companies.
The following chapter by Carr et al. is centred on precarious jobs and sustainable livelihoods. This contribution offers a wide reflection on many interesting and current issues in relation to sustainability and sustainable development: living wages and fair trade; informal work (recognizing skills, resisting formalization and counteracting slavery); social enterprises; and digital equity gift economies. Finally, the authors introduce the project Sustainable Livelihoods and the Ecosystem (Clean S.L.A.T.E.) to investigate «how» the shift to sustainable, cleaner livelihoods can be and is being made.
The chapter by Maureen Kenny and Annamaria Di Fabio is a reference point since it introduces an innovative and fundamental passage from decent work and decent lives in organizations for healthy lives in the framework of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development. Starting from the psychology of working theory (PWT), the authors introduce the concepts of decent work and precarious work, also with a focus on vulnerable workers, and move on to preventive intervention in real contexts. In this framework, the concept of decent lives is delineated. Furthermore, this chapter includes a crucial passage, including the recognition by the American Public Health Association (APHA) of decent work as a public health goal (2022). On these bases, the authors link the concept of decent work with healthy work and pave the way to link decent lives to healthy lives.
The second section «Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development in the Context of Organizational Behaviour» opens with the chapter by Annamaria Di Fabio and José Maria Peiró about the contribution to sustainability and sustainable development of the Human Capital Sustainability Leadership (HCSL) for Healthy Organizations. The chapter presents empirical research on this construct and scale (Di Fabio & Peiró, 2018), considering it both as an independent variable and as a dependent variable. Healthy organizations and cross-cultural perspectives are introduced, emphasizing the value of HCSL for sustainable development in organizations. The authors underline that the Human Capital Sustainability Leadership could facilitate strategic initiatives to support not only green behaviours but also to establish a more sustainable human environment in organizations, which would improve the long-term growth of both employees and businesses and encourage healthy businesses from a cross-cultural standpoint.
The following chapter by Thomas A. Norton, Neal M. Ashkanasy and Jo da Silva concerns the identification of leaders’ roles in transitioning organizations and the challenges leaders face, considering emotions as a mechanism for sustainable development transitions. The authors base their reflection on the Five-Level Model of Emotions at work and its levels (Level 1 Within-person temporal variations in emotions; Level 2 Between-person individual differences; Level 3 Emotional communication; Level 4 Groups and teams; Level 5 Organization-wide). For each of these levels, the authors delineate the relative leadership challenges. This chapter answers the question of how leaders can integrate emotions into the processes they use to lead a transition.
The chapter by Tregaskis et al. is focused on organizational change towards sustainability and tries to respond to the question «What is organizational sustainability?» In this regard, the authors present organizational models of sustainability. The focus is on introducing a transformation from reducing harm to creating value through sustainable organizations. The authors propose to bridge sustainability ambition and impact through mindsets and communities of practice. They propose that learning processes that help people cultivate and expand their sustainability mindset can be facilitated by sustainability communities of practice. A sustainability mindset, in turn, facilitates the connection between meaningful action and organizational ambition.
The following chapter by Aneesh Banerjee, Joseph Lampel, and Ajay Bhalla deals with the theme of the psychology of employee owners in the framework of sustainability and sustainable development. The authors propose that new employee ownership schemes can signal organizational resilience during crises. After offering a theoretical background on organizational leadership, the chapter presents the Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP). The main argument in this chapter is that initiating an ESOP is a resilience signal that offers insights into organizational resilience for sustainability and sustainable development.
The third section «Prevention in the Context of the Psychology of Sustainable Development in Organizations» opens with the chapter by Jean-François Stich on the theme of a sustainable and supportive email culture. This chapter delineates the need to understand email misuse (email volume, email quality and email behaviours) and the outcomes of email misuse (individual impacts, organizational impacts and environmental impacts). The author proposes an in-depth discussion towards a sustainable and supportive email culture. Perspectives for future research and applications to promote sustainability and sustainable development are delineated.
The following chapter by Marunic et al. deals with humour awareness as a primary prevention resource in organizations for sustainable development. A review on humour in the workplace is offered, considering individual level, group/organizational level, and the promotion of humour within organizations. Future directions for research and intervention are proposed. Future studies on the subject should take a multifaceted approach, considering quick, simple plans that benefit both the organization and the individual in the context of sustainable development. The value of preventive interventions to promote humour awareness in organizations is also underlined.
The chapter by Saklofske et al. is focused on perfectionism as a critical disadvantage for sustainable development in organizational contexts. After conceptualizing perfectionism, the authors offer a review on perfectionism and personality traits, ill-being correlates in workers and work-related outcomes. Strategies to assess, prevent, and ameliorate perfectionism in organizations are proposed. The value of preventive interventions to reduce the negative impact of perfectionism, thereby promoting the sustainable development of workers and organizations, is also underlined.
The last chapter by Ana Laguía, Juan A. Moriano, and Gabriela Topa regards the theme of job crafting for sustainable career development. The authors delineate the construct of job crafting and present the available instruments for detecting it. They also offer a review of job crafting antecedents and outcomes. New approaches to job crafting are proposed: from task-related to cognitive job crafting and from an individual-level activity to collaborative job crafting. New avenues for future research and intervention are offered, considering the preventive value of job crafting for sustainability and sustainable development.
The book is a priceless and worthy resource for scholars, professionals, students, leaders, policy-makers, and anybody else interested in the topic of sustainability and sustainable development in organizations, using a refined approach that uses psychological lenses. For all these reasons, this volume represents an essential basis for understanding the complex scenario of sustainability and sustainable development for current and future organizations. Proposing future perspectives for further reflection and discussion, this volume represents a fundamental reference in the current scenario. A great merit of this book is offering promising suggestions for sustainability and sustainable development in organizations, enhancing the understanding of complex processes through a psychological approach of research and intervention.
Letizia Palazzeschi
