Purpose

Government-owned companies (GOCs), such as ports, have engaged in efforts to become more sustainable. Most of such efforts have been technological and policy ones and mainly focusing on the environment, with limited research on organisational change management. This paper aims to provide insights into how ports have been addressing sustainability change forces and pressures.

Design/methodology/approach

Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with top-level directors and sustainability managers, representing ports across Europe’s maritime regions and a range of port types and sizes. The interviews were analysed using grounded theory’s constant comparative analysis.

Findings

The findings highlighted that the ports’ success in their process to become more sustainable depends on how they take advantage of the thrust forces and reduce the drag ones. The findings serve to develop the “ports’ sustainability change management framework”, with five stages: reactive, proactive, transactive, interactive, and sustainable port.

Practical implications

Ports, and other GOCs, should capitalise on their private–public nature in their contribution to making societies more sustainable by adopting a holistic perspective and interactive changes.

Originality/value

This paper provides a dynamic perspective on corporate sustainability efforts, particularly on GOCs, through organisational change management complementing technocentric and managerial approaches.

Ports have been working towards becoming more sustainable. Although gender equality (SDG5) is very important within the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, it is ranked almost at the bottom of port priorities. The aim of this research is to provide insights into how ports have been addressing gender equality in their efforts to contribute to sustainability. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with directors and sustainability managers from six European countries. The responses from interviewees were analysed using Grounded Theory’s constant comparative analysis.

The findings show that European ports have engaged in measures aimed at contributing to sustainability through gender equality classified in five stages: (1) Gender segregation, which needs to be overcome, and is, in many cases, the starting point; (2) Compliance with national laws and regulation, e.g. in recruitment and salaries; (3) Gender equity, reducing barriers to entry and compensate for the historical and social disadvantages that women had previously suffered from; (4) Gender equality, guaranteeing the equal treatment of men and women in all processes; and (5) More sustainable ports. Achieving gender equality is a sine qua non to make ports more sustainable, i.e. integrating social issues of sustainability with economic and environmental ones. Internal and external forces affect each of the stages, where thrust forces help ports reduce gender segregation and advance towards becoming more sustainability and drag forces slow or block the efforts and may lead to returning to a previous stage. The findings were used to develop a “Gender equality for sustainability in ports” framework.

This research is especially related to SDG5, target 5.1 (End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere), and 5.5 (Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life). 

Ports, and other traditionally male-dominated industries, could capitalise on women’s holistic perspective and higher engagement to better contribute to accelerating the progress to make Europe more sustainable, especially in these testing times.

Ports have increasingly been addressing sustainability issues; however, gender equality has been a low priority in such efforts. This paper is aimed at providing insights into how ports have been addressing gender equality to contribute to sustainability. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with top-level port managers from six European countries. The responses from the interviewees were analysed using Grounded Theory’s constant comparative analysis. The findings show that European ports have engaged in gender equality measures aimed at contributing to sustainability through gender equality in five stages: (1) Gender segregation, which needs to be overcome, and is, in many cases, the starting point; (2) Compliance with national laws and regulation; (3) Gender equity; (4) Gender equality; and (5) More sustainable ports. Internal and external forces affect each of the stages, where thrust forces help ports reduce gender segregation and advance towards becoming more sustainable and drag forces slow or block the efforts and may lead to returning to a previous stage of the framework. The findings were integrated to develop a “Gender equality for sustainability in ports” framework. Gender equality is a sine qua non for ports, and other male oriented industries, in becoming more sustainable.

Ports are under increasing pressure to become more sustainable. Although some ports have been including sustainability into their operations, this has been mainly done from economic and environmental perspectives and technological or policy‐related approaches, while there has been little research on organisational change management for sustainability. This paper analyses organisational change efforts for sustainability at the Port of Gävle, Sweden. Twenty‐three face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with various stakeholders. The findings show that there were differences in perception of sustainability; but similarities in the drivers for and the barriers to sustainability (with some key differences between the internal and external stakeholders). This research shows that, in their journey towards becoming more sustainable, ports have to take a holistic approach encompassing the four dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, social, and time); their stakeholders (internal and external); and legislative, technological, financial, cultural/social, voluntary initiatives, and organisational change management approaches.

Governments need to decide how to allocate their public expenditure, which is commonly misconstrued as simply targeting social issues. Most scientific literature highlights that the role of public spending is to enhance social welfare and fight poverty and inequality. Nonetheless, public expenditure also includes spending on environmental issues. This paper analyses relations between public participation, support for public expenditure, and pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) intentions in the English Channel region. An online public survey was developed to investigate public use of the English and French sides and the public's willingness to change their behaviour to better protect the Channel region. The survey was undertaken in the summer of 2014 and was answered by 2000 respondents. The Channel region public is willing to participate more in behaviour that involves direct changes or switches between buying/purchasing choices. In contrast, there is less willingness to engage in pro-environmental behaviour intentions that involve more active engagement activities. French respondents were slightly less inclined to change their consumer behaviour intentions, while women and older people were slightly more likely to do so. This research shows that pro-environmental behaviour could positively affect support for proposed public expenditure on environmental issues.