Employee agency in the context of organisational sustainability

In this chapter we explore the role that employees play as agents for creating change for sustainability in their organisations. While much research is focused on the organisational level and key decision-makers, we take a different approach and examine how individual actions within an organisation make a significant contribution to change agency for sustainability. We first examine the concept of employee sustainability behaviour and examine how it has been understood within the management literature. We then explore how employee behaviour contributes to organisational-level sustainability performance and how employees can and do act as agents of change for the organisation. Following this, we present an outline of the complexities of employee behaviour and outline current understanding of the motivations and drivers of employee behaviour. Drawing on the most recent research we identify how employee green behaviour can contribute to broader sustainability goals and we make recommendations for future researchers and identify the most pressing research questions.