Enabling employees and breaking down barriers: behavioural infrastructure for pro-environmental behaviour

Strategic planning and implementation issues are evident when organisations seek environmental sustainability outcomes. Critically, this can involve issues between employees and their behaviour, and their connection to, and within, higher-level social structures. Structuration theory is used to determine if employees have the power to change contexts for actions supporting the environment, or if they capitulate in the face of structural resistance. Further, we elaborate on the resources that employees may draw upon and rules that guide them, both of which are used to reproduce or change social structures that enable sustainable practice. We test a structuration framework using two empirical cases examining organisational strategy, thus applying a new lens to develop a unique understanding of these contexts. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion on how the model we use can inform new research and practice to identify and navigate structural barriers to implement environmental sustainability within organisations.