Triple Bottom Line Corporate Sustainability and Organizational Performance: The Mediation of Employees Work Engagement

Management scholars are currently focusing on designing research that could cater the big issues of 21st century organizations including sustainability. Current research uses and extends Triple Bottom Line perspective that conceptualizes sustainability as comprising of economic, social and environmental dimensions. Though most of the previous research has focused on sustainability as a consequence of innovation and quality, present research contributes to literature by studying corporate sustainability as an antecedent of quality performance and innovation performance. Employees’ work engagement has also been incorporated in the framework as a potential mediator. To test the conceptual framework, a positivist research philosophy was utilized with cross-sectional design and quantitative approach via structured questionnaires. Data was collected from Iron and Steel Industry of Pakistan that has second highest growth rate for year 2017-18, and the responses aggregated to 216 in number. Structural equation modeling was used to validate the constructs through measurement model, and to test the hypotheses through structural model. The results revealed that corporate sustainability (economic, social and environmental) positively influences organizational performance (quality and innovation performance), and employees’ work engagement partially mediates this relationship. In Pakistan, the GDP and the cost of environmental degradation are increasing simultaneously. Current research offers a solution to this problem through suggesting that adopting sustainable practices can help resolve country’s environmental issues without taking a toll on organizational performance. It also explains that corporate sustainability leads to organizational performance through employees’ work engagement, thus providing an effective way to enhance employees’ work engagement as well.