Wringer, Elles de

Individual Sustainability Competences for Eco-design Infrastructure.

Heerlen /NL

2017

Master Thesis: Open University of the Netherlands - Faculty of Management, Sciences and Technology

Summary

Background – Sustainability in the broadest sense of the term has become an undeniable aspect of corporate dealings this day and age. The advent of Corporate Social Responsibility as a morally sound issue has been caught up by market-oriented, profit-driven motivations for ′greening′ the business. Also, new generations of professionals are growing up more environmentally aware than ever and eager to put their beliefs and attitudes into practice. And while improving corporate sustainability is an important topic in all fields of business, progress made in the Supply Chain Management field has attracted a great deal of academic attention. Research has been done into conditional aspects of sustainable performance and study has been made of the practical implications of greening supply chains. The study at hand aims to focus on that area where those two come together and where educational vision is applied to business context. More specifically we try to explore the use of individual sustainability competences in corporate infrastructural projects. Definition of those competences is based on a framework proposed by Lans, Blok, and Wesselink (2014) and validated by Ploum, Blok, Lans, and Omta (2017) which is considered an important tool for monitoring students′ sustainable entrepreneurship in school-based environments.

Purpose – The main objective of this study is to find validation for the following:
″Embracing individual competences for sustainable development positively supports eco-oriented design and build in corporate infrastructural initiatives″.
Methodology – Qualitative research was undertaken based on interviews with respondents who played an active role in a sustainable infrastructure project. Case companies were chosen based on the sustainability certification (or ambition thereto) their infrastructural project had achieved. Interviews were conducted with eleven professionals employed by four case companies, using the Critical Incident Technique to collect data on application of individual sustainability competences related to the issues they dealt with during the building project they were responsible for. Findings were categorized using labels derived from Ploum et al. (2017), Wesselink, Blok, van Leur, Lans, and Dentoni (2015) and Martens, Roorda, and Cörvers (2010).

Findings – Results from these interviews suggest that the propositions formulated in this study are positively supported. During the eleven interviews twenty-five incidents were recalled where application of competences was recognized. Categorization using labels linked the observed behaviour to five out of the six individual sustainability competences formulated in literature where all competences are recognized except for the normative aspect. In application of specific Individual Sustainability Competences three distinct phases are distinguished: initial inspiration, out-of-the-box thinking and engaging stakeholders. 2

Managerial implications – Practical recommendations focus on increasing corporate knowledge of- and familiarity with competences in general. Project teams working on sustainable SCM projects could benefit from training specifically on the impact of individual sustainability competences. Another recommendation concerns higher education institutes, who could be increasing the effort to raise the level of awareness on sustainability competences with students to reach a more ingrained belief or attitude.
Research implications – Recommendations for future research could centre on extending research from the rather homogenous group of SME companies studied here to include larger –multinational- corporations. Also, future research could include checks and balances concerning aspects of biases as documented in the field of behavioural economics and calibrating the Critical Incident Technique used in the interview methodology.

Other interesting avenues of future research could include the conceptualization of the normative competence considering the absence noted in our findings and further research into reducing thresholds toward sustainable building by applying rewards.

Contents
1. Introduction................................................................................................................................5
1.1 Research problem ........................................................................................................... .....5
1.2 Research question............................................................................................................... .8
1.3 Relevance ............................................................................................................................ 8
1.4 Research Design .................................................................................................................. 8
2. Theoretical background.............................................................................................................. 9
2.1 Competences ....................................................................................................................... 9
Individual Competences .......................................................................................................... 9
Competences for Sustainability ............................................................................................. 10
Competence-based education............................................................................................... 11
2.2 Sustainable Supply Chain Management ............................................................................. 12
Different paths..............................................................................................................................12
Embedding through Organizational Strategy and Leadership.............................................................14
2.3 Sustainable design and building of commercial infrastructure.......................................................15
Certification assessment standards................................................................................................15
Certification tool BREEAM-NL........................................................................................................16
Link to research on Competences .................................................................................................18
2.4 Conceptual model and propositions...........................................................................................19
Conceptual Model ........................................................................................................................19
3. Methodology ............................................................................................................................20
3.1 Developing interview protocol ...................................................................................................20
3.2 Consolidation and analysis of the results...................................................................................22
3.3 Selection of case companies ...................................................................................................25
3.4 Selection of respondents .........................................................................................................25
4. Results....................................................................................................................................26
4.1 The case companies and their respondents ..............................................................................26
Vencomatic Group BV..................................................................................................................26
Holmatro BV................................................................................................................................27
Datacon BV/FAXX gebouw ............................................................................................................27
Orangeworks BV .........................................................................................................................28
4.2 Critical Incidents and the application of Individual Sustainability Competences .............................29
Phase 1. Initial inspiration for sustainability in building.....................................................................30
Phase 2. Out-of-the-box thinking ...................................................................................................32
Phase 3. Engaging stakeholders ...................................................................................................33
5. Discussion, conclusion and recommendations.............................................................................37
5.1 Discussion .............................................................................................................................37
5.2 Conclusion..............................................................................................................................41
5.3 Recommendations for practitioners ...........................................................................................42
5.4 Recommendations for future research........................................................................................43
References ..................................................................................................................................45

↑ http://dspace.ou.nl/bitstream/1820/8744/1/Wringer%20de%20E%20scriptie.pdf

16.02.2018