Opportunities of Workplace Innovation in Sustainability Transitions
A mixedmethods analysis of environmental initiatives at the workplace
Abstract
Although learning and innovation are key drivers of sustainability transitions, workplace innovation has gained little attention in the research area. Workplace innovation has potential to produce local change and development toward environmentally sustainable working life and society, since employees’ ideas and initiatives can foster the adoption of environmentally sustainable work practices and processes both at the workplace and within work-related networks. The empirical analysis presents findings from a representative sample of Finnish employees collected in 2022, Climate change and work survey (n=1917), and analyses the results using a mixed methods approach. The quantitative analysis reports environmental workplace innovation and its associated factors. The qualitative analysis of the survey’s open-ended questions assesses employees’ experiences of the hindrances in the development and innovation at work on environmental topics. The results of a mixed-method analysis show both the enabling and hindering factors of environmental initiation. The discussion section further elaborates the findings with previous research. Workplace innovation provides a relevant means for tackling societal change processes of sustainability transitions on a local level of workplace, ranging from small-scale changes in working practices to the organizational or sectoral sustainability solution provision. However, the lack of environmental workplace innovation efforts in Finland indicates that there is a need to strengthen and support local development efforts on environmental questions.
Keywords: workplace innovation, employee-driven innovation, environmental
innovation, green transition, sustainability transition, climate change
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