Environmental impact versus personal gains: A study examining value priorities and perceived choice availability related to job search
2023 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
This research paper investigated the extent to which younger generations who recently started their white collar careers, prioritize the environmental impact of organizations when choosinga new workplace or accepting a new job offer. Although a growing number of research papers targeting this group concluded that sustainability is an important job choice influencing factor (Bauer & Aiman-Schmidt, 1996), many of these studies analyzed this topic as a binary question while disregarding other influential elements. Relying on Schwartz’s theory of basichuman values (1996; Schwartz et al., 2012) as well as on existing research about the salary level that companies with strong sustainability engagement can offer (Nyborg & Zhang, 2013), this thesis presented the need to examine the influence of environmental impact on job choice in a trade-off situation with personal gains. As the main part of the research, 100 valid responses were collected through an online survey which were then analyzed to test the different hypotheses of the paper. As expected, the results confirmed that depending on the perceived gravity of environmental impact, the minimum amount of salary required by candidates differed. Similarly, by analyzing the trade-off between non-financial factors and environmental impact, results showed that the more negative the environmental impact of organizations was, the less likely participants were to consider a job offer from these companies. In addition to this, the relationship between environmental sustainability prioritization and respondents’ educational field, profession and industry was examined. In the sample, no connection was found between these listed variables. Finally, the study also found that despite the fact that the majority of respondents reportedly believed that they havea reasonable choice to work for an environmentally sustainable company, based on their previous experience, this factor did not play a part in their last job choice.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023. , p. 70
Keywords [en]
Sustainability, environmental sustainability, candidate attraction, value priorities
National Category
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-52521OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-52521DiVA, id: diva2:1805613
Subject / course
Business Studies
Supervisors
Examiners
2023-10-182023-10-172023-10-18Bibliographically approved