Social Sustainability in Business from a Gender Perspective

Dear Colleagues,

The scope of the Special Issue ”Social Sustainability in Business from a Gender Perspective” focuses on the social part of the triple-bottom-line (TBL) model: social, environmental and financial. This interrelation between social, economic and environmental factors includes gender equality and social equity, equity in health, equity in labor rights, corporate social responsibility, and sustainable consumption, among others.

Social sustainability in business seeks to identify and manage businesses’ social impacts, both positive and negative, on society, the environment, employees, workers in the value chain, customers and local communities. For social sustainability, the especially relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are SDGs referring to a) economic, financial and labor sustainability—"decent work and economic growth" (SDG8) and "reduction of inequality" (SDG10); b) socio-occupational health—"health and well-being" (ODS3); c) gender equality—“gender equality” (SDG5); d) "reduction of inequality" (SDG9); e) “build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”—(SDG10); and f) “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns” (SDG11). In this sense, the working conditions that ensure a reduction in economic and social inequalities, together with policies and organizational measures aimed at promoting health and well-being, and inclusive and sustainable industrialization consumption mean that companies are directing their actions towards the achievement of the SDGs.

Social sustainability is inherently interdisciplinary by combining gender studies, psychology, economics, finance, marketing, tourism, sustainability, ecofeminism and sociology to address the invisible dimensions of the interconnections between the interconnected dimensions of social sustainability. Different sectors take different approaches to addressing social sustainability; however, although there are numerous gendered issues and impacts that could be identified, there is a lack of studies focusing on social sustainability taking into account gender as a key factor. In this line, it is important to consider the relevant role of social responsibility to reduce gender inequality in employment and precarity in working conditions, or the special role of women in promoting a more pro-environmental and sustainable society. Additionally, the current COVID-19 pandemic environment will also play a role in how actors/businesses/citizens are addressing social responsibility, taking into account a gender perspective.

According to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, social sustainability has five dimensions that should be considered when determining if a business or project is socially sustainable: equity, diversity, social cohesion, quality of life, democracy and governance. In this Special Issue, we invite papers that cover those dimensions from a gender perspective in different sectors (tourism and ICT, among other sectors), addressing topics including (but not limited to):

• Equity:
• Gender balance and equality at workplaces;
• Working conditions/arrangements and gendered impacts;
• Work–life balance;
• Promoting decent work and economic growth.
• Diversity:
• Gender diversity management.
• Social cohesion:
• Social leadership, empowerment and gender.
• Quality of life:
• Promoting employees’ (psycho-socio and physical) health and well-being at work.
• Democracy and governance:
• Community engagement and volunteerism;
• Corporate sustainability (CSR).

Other topics regarding gender:

• “Doing gender” through social, pro-environmental and ethical actions, attitudes and values (consumption, responsible investment etc.);
• The gender impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on social sustainability in business.

To sum up, all topics related to social sustainability in gender research are of interest.

Contributions have to follow one of the three categories (article/review/conceptual paper) of papers of the journal and address the topic of the special issue.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Sustainability.

Prof. Dr. Mónica Segovia Pérez
Prof. Dr. Eva Cifre
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• social sustainability
• gender
• gender equality
• decent work
• working conditions
• health and well-being
• corporate sustainability
• women’s pro-environmental attitudes and values
• research
• COVID-19

Authors: Removed for double blind peer review
Affiliation: Removed for double blind peer review
Abstract: Violence at work is an especially important problem in a sector as feminized as nursing. Workplace violence refers to incidents in which staff are abused, threatened or attacked in circumstances related to their work that implicitly or explicitly endanger their safety, well-being or health (ILO, CIE, WHO, IPS , 2002, p. 3). It is, therefore, any action, incident or behavior that deviates from what is reasonable by which a person is attacked, threatened, humiliated or injured by another in the exercise of his professional activity or as a consequence of it (ILO, 2003 ). Within the framework of the Resource Conservation theory, the objective of this work is to analyze the mediating and moderating role of resilience as a resource that can alleviate the loss of resources or elicit new resources in adversity situations, such as workplace violence, and that could have a positive effect on the self-perceived health of the nursing staff.

Title: Empowerment vs glass ceiling. A proposed index to women advancement at the regional level in Spain.
Authors: Removed for double blind peer review
Affiliation: Removed for double blind peer review
Abstract: Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a sustainable world. Over the last decades, large progresses have been made with a higher participation of women in the education, labor, social and political spheres. Nevertheless, many challenges remain, like female underrepresented leadership. The glass ceiling is a central topic of our society, and its study is gaining increasing attention at the international level. Ensuring women’s effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life is set as a specific target in the Sustainable Development Goal 5. To the best of our knowledge, while many indicators on gender equality and women empowerment has been proposed, the only existing glass ceiling index, is the one constructed by The Economist. In this paper, taking building up The Economist index and relying in the methodology of the Gender Equality Index by the European Institute for Gender Equality, we propose a new glass ceiling index calculated at the regional level (NUTS2) for Spain. The results show the presence of important differences between regions so that our regionalized approach is a valuable instrument to set priorities and target regional policy actions.

Title: Awakenings: An Authentic Leadership Development Program to Break the Glass Ceiling
Authors: Removed for double blind peer review
Affiliation: Removed for double blind peer review
Abstract: Companies are vital agents in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. One key role that business can play in achieving the 5th UN Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality, is implementing training programs for their women executives so they can reach top corporate leadership positions. In this paper, we test the effectiveness of an Authentic Leadership Development (ALD) program for women executives to advance their corporate careers. By interviewing 32 participants from this ALD program and building on authentic leadership theory, we find that this program lift women participant’s self-efficacy perception, as well as their self-resolution to take control of their careers. The driver for both improvements is a reflective thinking process elicited during the program, that leads women to abandon the stereotype of a low status role and the lack of self-direction over time. Additionally, through the relational authenticity developed during the program, women participants gain leadership styles more congenial with their gender group, yet highly accepted by the in-group leader members, which enhances their social capital. After the program, women flourish as authentic leaders, able to activate and foster their self-stem, and social capital, and enhancing their agency in career advancement, increasing their possibilities of breaking the glass ceiling.

Title: Teleworking during COVID-19 lockdown: Is work and family balanced affected differently by women and men?
Authors: Removed for double blind peer review
Affiliation: Removed for double blind peer review
Abstract: The lockdown, as sudden consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, is considered an external crises event that evokes innumerous changes in individuals lives. One of the changes is teleworking imposition’ that challenge business sustainability and evokes changes in work and family dynamics. As such, in order to create business sustainability is crucial to understand the work and family dynamics. Based on boundary theory we examine the mediated role of work and family balanced in the relationship between violations / segmentation of these both domains and teleworkers’ stress and well-being. However, because women and men live their work and family differently, gender may condition these mediated relationships. Hypotheses were tested through moderated mediation modeling using data collected of 456 teleworkers during lockdown. In line with our expectations, teleworkers who have suffered most family-to-work violations, most work-to-family violations, least work-to-family segmentation and least family-to-work segmentation were those with the least balance between work and family, which, in turn was related to higher burnout and lower flourishing. Furthermore, the direct negative relationship between work-to-family violation and flourishing was stronger for woman than for men. However, contrary to our expectations this well-being indicator also was stronger affected by family-to-work violation for women than for men and stronger affected by family and work balanced for men than for women. We discuss implications for future research and for managing teleworkers, creating sustainability, both during a crise and stable days.

Title: Analysing the impact of the glass ceiling in a managerial career: the case of Spain
Authors: Removed for double blind peer review
Affiliation: Removed for double blind peer review
Abstract: The need to break down the barriers facing women in the labour market arouses great interest for reasons of social and sustainability justice. This study breaks new ground on the topic of “glass ceiling” by assessing the evolution of gender inequality in the proportion of individuals reaching high managerial positions. The application of the csQCA method to a survey of two cohorts of Spanish graduates in Management sharing the same starting conditions reveals two factors: job variety and additional education, as conditions usually present in a successful managerial career. Our findings confirm the prevalence of the gender gap with little progress in the last years. Women find it more difficult to promote to high managerial positions whereas being a man turns out to be almost a guarantee for eluding low managerial positions. In the context of Spain and for sure in most other countries, the few women attaining high managerial positions still need to make a greater effort in their professional career than their male counterparts.

Title: Title Pending Confirmation
Authors: Removed for double blind peer review
Affiliation: Removed for double blind peer review
Abstract: Workplace harassment in the workplace is a psychosocial risk factor that increasingly affects workers in the hospitality sector, especially women. This phenomenon in Spain, is subjected to legal regulations, however, in many cases the scope and extent such regulations lack understanding. This is detrimental not only to the practice of the Courts, but to all those who have recoursed to law. The objective of this research is to carry out a qualitative documentary analysis from the point of view of the harasser and the victim in a sample of 61 sentences extracted from the database of the Judicial Documentation Center (CENDOJ) and mostly from the Superior Courts of Justice. Main results show a claiming increase during sixteen years, where women are usually victims of workplace and sexual harassment, being men mostly the harasssers through bossing practices. Most of cases reflect contract termination for victims, and the monetary compensation is quite low. Based on the results found, we developed proposals that could facilitate future lines of action in the defense and legal protection of this psychosocial phenomenon, contributing to a social sustainability promoting wellbeing at work. Keywords: workplace harassment, hospitality, judgment, gender, sexual harassment, qualitative analysis, psychosocial risks

Title: The importance of Sustainable Leadership amongst female managers in the Spanish logistics industry: a cultural, ethical and legal perspective
Authors: Removed for double blind peer review
Affiliation: Removed for double blind peer review
Abstract: The aim of this study was to identify the level of sustainable leadership among the middle and top female managers of Spanish logistics industry. Sustainable leadership is a type of leadership that is carried out in the long term and which is based on acting fairly and ethically with all stakeholders. Our article uses as a basis the fifth Sustainable Development Goal, “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. At present the logistics industry in Spain is one that is mostly male-dominated, and women middle and top managers only make up less than 10% of the workforce at these management levels. There is therefore a need for equality in this sector. Spanish regulation at present supports and promotes gender in different sectors including the logistics industry. 24 female middle and top managers of the logistics sector were interviewed via a questionnaire of 54 questions. Findings showed interesting results. Respondents agreed that organizations were not very open to knowledge sharing and indicated that there is still a considerable need for improvement as regards to leadership practices in the logistics sector Almost 70% of female managers interviewed manifested that environmental protection was not a priority while 83.3% of respondents felt they were committed to their company. Keywords: Female leadership Sustainability; Gender equity; Sustainable leadership