دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی سیاست ها و شیوه های پایدار در سازمان های بخش دولتی: اداره مرکزی پرتغال - الزویر 2018

Abstract

The adoption of sustainability policies and practices in organisations is a rising trend, in particular in companies. Public sector organisations are also following this occurrence but with slower signs. Despite a relevant amount of research work on sustainability practices implemented by private organisations and by some public agencies, central public sectors have been left out of the scope of these studies. The main goal of this research is to identify the sustainability profile (including adopted policies and practices) of the public organisations, using the Portuguese Central Public Administration as a case study. A questionnaire survey was developed and submitted to Portuguese public sector organisations that fulfilled the following criteria: (i) to belong to the Portuguese Central Public Administration and (ii) to have the major area of activity at the national level. The statistical population was also defined on the basis of these criteria. Descriptive statistics and frequency analysis were used to explore the results in the organisations surveyed. The overall results demonstrate a low adoption level of integrated sustainability policies and practices, despite the expected positive trends related with the mandatory social and economic practices. This research contributes to new knowledge by characterising the sustainability profile of the Portuguese central public sector and where actions are needed, leading to a better transition to sustainable societies. The developed questionnaire can be used in other geographical, institutional and cultural contexts to define sustainability profile of worldwide public organisations, working also as a benchmarking tool.

5. Conclusions

The public sector, by defining the policies and strategies that constrain the performance of the entities under its supervision and regulation, needs to be sustainable in order to influence other sectors and improve their performance. It is so essential to define the current sustainability profile to identify potential improvements and identify good policies and practices that are already being implemented to enable other public or private organisations to adopt them. The Portuguese central public administration profile was analysed in this study, as an example of a southern European country, integrated within the European Union.

The overall results demonstrate a low adoption of integrated sustainability practices and tools by the PCPA, despite the expected positive trends related to some mandatory social practices. There are some positive signals related to the integration of sustainability practices in some Portuguese public sector organisations, but mainly focused on economic and social issues, neglecting the environmental dimension. This stresses the need to adopt new public policies to improve the current trend, in order to integrate holistically all the dimensions of sustainability. The sustainability profile reported by the surveyed organisations shows that the PCPA is not fulfilling its leadership role in seeking and promoting sustainability and sustainable development. In order to improve the degree of adoption of some of the practices and tools it is important to invest in the sustainability training and engagement of the employees, managers and decisionmakers.