This research topic seeks to promote environmental sustainability in workplaces by combining organizational psychology and systems theory. Our goal is to examine how key organizational psychology concepts can be integrated with systems thinking to promote environmentally sustainably behaviors and actions within workplaces, and organizations in general.

Addressing climate change and increasing environmental sustainability requires coordinating efforts by organizations. An understanding of organizational systems offers important levers for proactive environmental change and fosters advances that go above and beyond individual efforts. Like the natural ecosystem, organizations can be understood as open systems with cycles of inputs, transformations, outcomes, and feedback loops that constantly alter the environment and are, in turn, altered by the environment (e.g., Katz & Kahn, 1966). An organizational system works against entropy to not only maintain the status quo, but to grow and change. By thinking of organizations as interconnected concepts, systems thinking may be useful to help organizations address the challenge caused by climate change as well as maintain or enhance environmental sustainability throughout the organization.

With the threat of climate change and need for sustainability within organizations, systems thinking adds to describing and improving holistic organizational strategies and responses. While organizational psychology considers many aspects of workplace systems ranging from training, employee selection, performance reviews, leadership development, motivation, and attitudes, changes toward increased environmental sustainability would benefit by a broader view of the interconnections and intersections of multiple concepts both within the organizational system and across levels.

We seek papers that improve understanding of organizational change efforts towards advancing organizational environmental sustainability and reversing climate change. This includes research that integrates a variety of organizational psychological concepts with increasing the organization’s pro-environmental activities. In this research topic, we will consider papers that specifically address organizational systems in a pro-environmental way, and how systems thinking can be applied in an organizational context in pursuit of climate change and sustainability goals.

Papers can discuss forces affecting pro-environmental organizational change such as (but not limited to) motivation, leadership development, employee recruitment and selection, training and education, communication, organizational policies and practices, organizational climate and culture, as well as contextual factors (such as legislation, norms, economics, industry, politics, national culture) that are involved in an organization’s efforts towards advancing environmental sustainability and reversing climate change. To be considered, papers must directly relate to organizational psychology concepts as well as climate change or environmental sustainability.

We will consider:
- Original research
- Systematic review
- Brief research reports
- Registered Reports
- Perspective (under limited circumstances)
- Policy and Practice Reviews (under limited circumstances)
- Policy Brief (under limited circumstances)

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Frontiers in Psychology

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