Managing human factors for change towards organizational sustainability in tourism organizations

Abstract

Companies develop various management strategies while they go through a process of change for sustainability. When aiming to reach higher levels of organizational sustainability, both technical aspects of sustainability implementation and human-related aspects of change needs to be taken into consideration for an effective change initiative. The human dimension of change for sustainability receives relatively less interest in the literature. However, human factors can have important effects on the change initiative either by creating barriers, if not managed carefully, or by facilitating the process when approached in an effective manner. Concerning three human factors: resistance towards change, internal communication and engagement for sustainability practices; this qualitative research aims to explore how these human factors are managed by tourism companies in the context of Turkey. Semi-structured interviews with sustainability managers of case companies and organizational documents such as sustainability reports were used in data collection process. The findings state that case companies have various motivations for integrating sustainability into their operations. With regards to managing human factors, companies adopt various strategies and use communication and education against individual barriers to create engagement to sustainability.