Employee social sustainability: prioritizing dimensions in the UAE’s airlines industry

Abdulla Hasan Al Marzouqi, Mehmood Khan and Matloub Hussain

Social Responsibility Journal, 2019, vol. 16, issue 3, 349-367

Abstract: Purpose - This paper aims to identify and prioritize the dimensions that impact employee social sustainability in the airline industry in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach - The five main criteria (employee well-being, communication, management support, reward and control system and training) and 18 sub-criteria were identified from the literature. The sample comprised four experts covering the HR, finance and training functions from a major UAE airline organization. Applying the analytical-hierarchy-process (AHP) methodology resulted in obtaining priority weights for the factors assigned to employee-social-sustainability implementation. Findings - Management support was found to have the highest priority among the study dimensions impacting employee social sustainability. Surprisingly, reward system was found to be the least important dimension. Research limitations/implications - The study was carried out on a single airline organization, limiting the generalizability of the findings. Future studies should be extended to cater to different organizational contexts and varying operational conditions. Practical implications - The findings should be of value to human resource management and policymakers in developing countries, such as the UAE, where employee social sustainability should be sought as a means to develop an efficient and sustainable workforce in different industrial sectors. Originality/value - This study is among the few pioneering studies that focus on employee social sustainability. The use of AHP to prioritize employee-social-sustainability dimensions is also considered pioneering within the field and is anticipated to support future studies, and a deeper understanding, of employee social sustainability.

Keywords: United Arab Emirates; Airline industry; Analytical hierarchy process; Employee social sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:srjpps:srj-07-2018-0166

DOI: 10.1108/SRJ-07-2018-0166

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