Sustainable Project Management Practices in the Service Sector
Abstract
Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to get to understand the different sustainable management practices in the service sector, particularly in the Etihad Airways.
Methodology: – The s major research of the project was done through secondary sources, that is, the use of journals and publications bout sustainable management practices at the Etihad Airways.
Findings: – Relying on the secondary data, this paper will propose a framework of maintaining sustainable project management practices especially in the service sector. A secondary source-based project reported all the sustainable management practices.
Practical Implications: – This paper is expected to support and also Comment in case any improvement is required in the management practices at Etihad Airways.
Originality/ Value: – This is among the new studies that try to explore on the sustainability management practices in the airlines
Keywords: – Sustainability, sustainable practices, prioritization, aviation, airlines
Paper Type: – Research paper
Introduction
Project management and sustainability are one the most considered topics in an organization. There has been an increasing interest in coming up with new management practices for project management, and the principles of sustainability often dominate every context in the organization development. Therefore, it is important to consider that the integration of these two fields will represent the future of every project-based organization. All the projects are influenced by the environment in which they are carried out. However, the same projects might contribute to the changes that might occur in the same environment. From sustainability point of view, project delivery is the final deliverable which leads to impacts that would clearly positively impact the future and the present state of the organization. The link between project and sustainability is under examined but still evident. (Daly,1992) states that a sustainability criterion encourages proper use of resources for evaluation of output in terms of social, economic, and environmental impacts. The traditional methods were previously exploiting these resources. Sustainability becomes a part for almost all organization’s agenda. Studies show that it is a necessity when it comes to competitiveness. All organizations performing in this manner create economic value for themselves.
As part of the economic vision of 2030, the aim is to come up with a sustainable economy through various ways to reduce the dependence of oil. This will also make them participate in the global growth of the service business. The UAE might then increase non-oil revenue by focusing on other industries. For the past few decades, the tourism industry has made very large developments which made the government promote international tourism to achieve economic growth. This made sure that a sustainable strategy was maintained. The country has now become one of the major tourist destinations. National carriers such as Etihad Airways have contributed to the rising number of tourist’s s they have linked the country with other global cities.
The aviation sector has played an important role in the UAE economy. This has led to the need of analyzing the sustainability practices in aviation. Studies show a comprehensive framework for integrated sustainability assessment does not exist. The objective of this study is to prioritize the sustainable practices in the airline sector. Since a comprehensive framework of study does not exist, the study will develop a framework for the Etihad Airlines by answering the below research question:
- What are the sustainability dimensions of Etihad Airlines?
The study will also meet the following objectives:
- Identify the main criteria and sub criteria of sustainability dimensions of UAE based airlines. In our case, we will focus more with Etihad Airways.
- Introduce a comprehensive framework of sustainability practices in Etihad Airways
- Develop AHP model for Etihad Airlines to prioritize sustainability practices.
Literature Review
At business level, sustainability means meeting the needs of the present organization and stakeholders such as customers and communities without compressing the needs of the future stakeholders. To be able to attain this goal, there are three pints of focus, the economic, environmental and social sustainability that help the firm current and future needs of the firm. Sustainability also help plan not only for current undertakings but also future activities. There are three factors that have an impact on the evolving of corporate sustainability. These factors include the economic growth, environmental policies and the demand for social justice and equity. The government and non-governmental organizations have joint forces to help address the issue and preserve the natural resources of a country. Corporates are now incorporating social responsibility as part of their decision-making method to help improve the situation of the areas they are in. (Hardi,1997) states that social responsibility means pertains to people and organizations behaving and conducting business ethically and with sensitivity towards social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues. They are responsible for their activities meaning they are working to help improve and maintain the environments they are in without causing harm. Being a socially responsible business has its benefits one being that it boosts the companies’ image which in return improves the sales which is the case for ETIHAD. Sustainability practices are important as they meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It also helps preserve the natural resource without leading to degradation ensuring a community where people co-exist peacefully. Another is that sustainable practices ensure that the effects of climate change are reduced through the years providing a more friendly environment. With climate change a lot is affected and mostly the climate which might create situations where flying may be impossible hence sustainability helps prevent this problem. Sustainability helps reduce on pollution which has greatly increased through the years providing a safe environment for all.
ETIHAD takes into account the importance of being a sustainable business not just for its benefit but to also help maintain the environment around them. Their management puts this into consideration while having their meetings considering its impact all over the world is felt. Being frontiers in sustainable developments helps create awareness for the need of businesses to be more sustainable improving the situation all over the world. Sustainable transportation or transportation system sustainability attributes are referred to having an effective system that have an impact on financial development, environmental integrity and enhancing social quality of life. Economic sustainability that refers to economic efficiency, economic development and financial affordability, socio-cultural sustainability
ETIHAD takes part in sustainable development projects one of which is reducing their dependence on fossil fuels and reduction on their carbon emission. These two-trap heat in our atmosphere, making them the primary contributors to global warming and climate change. Instead ETIHAD is leaning on developing more sustainable fuels and measure their carbon intensity and incorporating decarbonation as a more sustainable approach. ETIHAD has also worked to optimize their flying and in 2007 we get to see that it reduced the amount of fuel consumed by its aircraft by over 62000 tons of fuel, amounting to approximately 195,000 tons of carbon dioxide emission. The results show an improvement of 3.3% compared to that of 2016. Another sustainable activity undertaken by ETIHAD is the cost and quality of service. We see that offering better meals, avoiding delays and providing free baggage and handling makes the airlines activities more sustained. This is through the rich customer relations created improving on the demand for their services. Another sustainable activity is by incorporating more technology to be used by the airline. Among the few impacts of technology on ETIHAD is improving aircraft performance as some technology helps reduce on fuel consumption, technology improve fuel efficiency helps with noise reduction by 30%. Lastly, some of these technologies provide aircraft winglets that reduce aircraft drag.
Understanding the issues of water shortage all over the world, ETIHAD had gone ahead to we avoid the use of bottled water where possible and equipped our offices with water-saving devices and filtration systems. This initiative eliminates the consumption of over 25 thousand water bottles in offices, reducing the carbon footprint by over 50 tones. This has helped reduced on the amount of plastic disposed around the ETIHAD premises providing a clean environment free from pollution. ETIHAD has also undertaken recycling as a sustainable development project to get value of their waste. (Christie,2000) states that the waste is segregated and recycle in offices and residential properties to segregate and collect paper, plastics and cans. We also pursue recycling initiatives on board our planes to divert waste from landfill. Etihad is also a founding partner of the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC) whose aim is come up with a more sustainable fuel friendly to the environment. This has been ongoing for the past 2 years and progress is being made daily. When this fuel comes out, ETIHAD will have brought a revolution to the airline business hat will have impact not just to their economic growth but rather to environmental conservation as well. The aim of this sustainable practices is to increases on the economic growth of ETIHAD, create an even better social interaction and have an impact on the environment. There would be no airlines if the land is degraded and climate disrupted hence efforts to sustain it are important.
The employee is an important stakeholder in a firm and in this regard, it should be ensured to have sustainable business and good performance. They should be provided with good working condition, good pay and even health plans within the work area. When employees are well taken care of productivity improves. The firm’s good relations with the government through obedience to the laws of the land and policies ensures that they run their activities smoothly. Payment of taxes to the government should also be key. All partakers of the ETIHAD community should be considered so as create a sustainable project. Sustainability cannot be affected by one sector; all sectors have to come together to be able to make an impact and that is why our discussion covers all these areas. ETIHAD has had an impact on the local community around them though financing community projects and sponsoring their activities be it education, food or healthcare. For a firm’s effectiveness to be felt or seen, assessing the environment they are in gives this away. Through this activities ETIHAD has been able to create a good image for the business and even attract more customers.
Some of the challenges seen with sustainable development and in this case for ETIHAD is that the cost involved is quite high and facilitating all these projects becomes difficult. A lot goes into effecting a project not juts finances but also managements, labor and physical resources which are not freely provided. Therese is also a follow up activity to ensure the objectives of the project are met which may not be easy. Another problem that may arise is that ETIHAD is a big business and to effect change in all sectors manly take time. It might also take time for its workers to adjust to the new practices. It is to say that change is not effective in a day but requires time for it to be effective which in this case ETIHAD requires. (Rao,1999) states that competition in the airline business may also hinder sustainability in that if it only focuses on these projects and ignores the business bit, it might be driven out of business creating an even worse situation. This is to say that as much as focus and input is required in being sustainable, eyes should still be focuses on the fact that the main core of any business is financial growth. And ETIHAD finances a lot of activities all over the world like the UN and Manchester City whose activities need to be up and running through the year. ETIHAD as a business has its covering all over the world and hence its influence is felt by all people in relation to the airline business. They are a world class business and their consideration to take part in sustainable activities means that all other business should mimic this. ETIHAD has gone form just being about money but to be more about having an experience which keeps one coming back to them.
Research Methodology
This study is aiming to identify and priorities the sustainable practices in ETIHAD. The man aim of this part is to understand the methods incorporated to drawn our conclusion on sustainable development on ETIHAD. Analytical hierarchical method will be incorporated as the method of choice following the fact the fact that the data is complex. (Elliott,2012) states that this approach provides evaluation on both the qualitative and quantitative nature of the firm. It also involves It involves building a Ranking of decision elements and then making comparisons between each possible pair in each cluster (as a matrix). It is made of four main steps the first one being identifying and analyzing the sustainability practices in ETIHAD. Next step is to develop hierarchical model. AHP classifies the goal and all the decision criteria and variable into different levels. The highest level being that of the goal and here exploring sustainable projects by ETIHAD is done. The other level involves the criteria used to identify the sustainable practices. Eight types of criteria; employee management, shareholder management, customer management, government management, environment and resource management, local community management, competitors, management and innovation management; have been chosen. They have been clearly elaborated on the literature review. The next stage involves data collection and measurements. Questionnaire was designed on eight-point scale Sustainability practices in ETIHAD sector based on eight aspects of sustainability. Purposive sampling technique was used to choose the population of the study. Seven executives were selected from each airline and the total respondents were 14. All respondents were from top management with more than seven years’ experience at ETIHAD. Expert opinion was collected through in-depth interview.
Findings/Evaluation/Discussion
A lot has been drawn from the research method used above and will be represented in graphs and tables and explanations on what they mean will be provided later on. Upon data collection and analysis, the following it was drawn that ETIHAD has already incorporated most of the sustainable projects and others are underway. This is to say that most of ETIHAD’s success may be more from these sustainable projects that are underway. The study found that government management equally with innovation management has the most priority among sustainability practices. This is met by ETIHAD through the payment of taxes and following the laws of the land some of which include not participating in trafficking practices as an airline. Since we learn that most trafficking is facilitated by airlines but not the case for ETIHAD. They are also required to act in line with the international air law which states that every state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory which has been well followed by ETIHAD.
Marketing innovation is also a sustainable activity practiced by ETIHAD. This involves the marketing strategies undertaken by ETIHAD some of which include having a social media standing and advertisement. According to (Elliott,2012) their strategy mainly covers the 4ps which are Product, Price, Place and Promotion which are the main points of consideration. Another finding from the research is that ethical operation and imitate practices in foreign market are also another sustainable approach for ETIHAD. Ethics ensures the code of conduct are maintained by all people who bear the ETIHAD name be it as workers, financiers or investors. Good ethics has helped keep ETIHAD at the forefront in the airline business as this creates trust with the customers and employees. Another outcome we get to see is that ETIHAD has a great significance all over the world with the opportunities it has provided for the people in different capacities and advancement into sustainable development has been a journey for them and they keep improving on it. What proves that ETIHAD looks to provide a sustainable airlines business is the fact that they invested in Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium which is meant to look for a better environment- friendly fake to be used in place of the fossil fuels which have great effect on the environment.
Through innovation by technological advancement ETIHAD has been able to improve the efficiency of flights through reduction of fuel consumption and noise pollution. The findings also show that ETIHAD has a great impact on the community as it has helped sponsor talents and community projects. A lot of people have benefited from ETIHAD in one way or another. ETIHAD has been a firm of significance to the people.
Community projects Society Well-being Charity and donations Priority W
Community projects 1.0 2.1 4.1 0.68
Society wellbeing 0.4 3.0 3.1 0.58
Charity and donations 0.1 2.3 1.0 0.40
ETIHAD has helped many people develop their talents which would have otherwise been left for dead. They have also facilitated community projects to improve the lives of people and to provide living conditions. From my research ETIHAD is praised by all people because of its activities at the community level. It has created a good name for itself with the local community where it is. ETIHAD from the report also has a tendency of taking part in charity and donations. This is also part of their aim on giving back to the society. Some of the donations ETIHAD has made is to help with the current situation in the world of Covid-19 by providing masks for their medical staff. Another of their most current donations is that of giving Ramadhan boxes to families who have been affected by the Covid-19 either through the loss of jobs or the loss of their providers.
Administrative Technological Marketing Organization Priority W
Administrative 1.1 3.8 0.4 4.1 0.18
Technological 0.3 1.1 4.1 0.2 0.69
Organization 0.6 10.3 0.4 3.0 0.43
From what we have seen, ETIHAD has a great social standing with all peoples of the world and this coverage has led to more expansion for them as an enterprise. We have also seen that ETIHAD puts into consideration the environmental aspects with aims to reduce on climate change, pollution and improving on recycling and conservation of the available facilities by nature. ETIHAD understand that it is important to have a sustainable environment since without it the airline business may be pushed out of business. Airline business is seen to emit 5% of the total waste produced impacting the environment negatively. The shareholder management should also be sustainable and provide a level focus to insure accurate disclosure, legal revenues and management system. At the level of customer management ETIHAD mainly focuses on development and innovation. Stakeholders partake in running of the business in our way or another and by making it more sustainable ensure effectives of all their sectors and eventually economic growth of the airline. Stakeholders also help foresee or predict the future if the business through the current trends which would be in prospecting the impact of being sustainable and relative its impact on financial standing if the airline.
The study found among the sustainability sub criteria level of employee management that education and trainings, staff employment, wages, welfare, health and safety are somehow equally most important practices in ETIHAD. Another prove of sustainability is by ETIHAD providing health facilities through insurance or even health facility for its workers to ensure productivity. They say health is wealth and, in this case, prioritizing the needs of the people ensures that their productivity is boosted. A healthy community is a productive community. Sustenance of health in the sense that it helps keep away communicable diseases and even maintain it. Health is important since if a population is unhealth the consumption of the goods and services one provides may be impossible. Sustaining health activities may be through providing universal vaccination for all its workers since their nature of work exposes them and maintaining high levels of hygiene. Incorporating the Occupational and Health safety has never been a compromise for ETIHAD as they have Public Health officers in their airports and not one but several. Health in an airline is key to prevent spread of diseases and provide immediate action to be able to save the situation. Another issue related to staff is the working hours, employment strategy and their wages. All this ETIHAD has practiced in line with what the laws of the land stipulate. Providing its workers with the right gear for those working in different areas is key. They also pay inline which what the labor Act stipulates to ensure the rights of all are respected. According to (Christie,2000) the main goal of our research was to study and analyses the sustainable project by ETIHAD which as w have seen is impactful. Some of wat can be done to even improve the situation of ETIHAD is in the advancement of technology to come up with planes that consume less fuel and provide alternative methods of cleaning planes to reduce on the water it consumes. Another improvement that can be done to improve sustainability for ETIHAD is educating their employees on the importance of being a sustainable business even as they work to meet their full capacities. This will encourage them to come up with ideas to be able to address the problem that comes with sustainability at work. Addressing sustainability is key in ensuring the environment upon which the airline is safe both for working and flights. ETIHAD has also been a financier of several organizations all over the world to help finance its activities. One of these is the United Nations. ETIHAD has lately been the first airline to finance the activities of the UN as of 2019. ETIHAD has secured funding for a project based on its compatibility with the Sustainable Development Goals. This move just shows how much ETIHAD is willing to do to provide a sustainable environment for all. The UN is a humanitarian organization with various wings that functions to improve the level of life for life. ETIHAD saw this as a good move if in any way they are to push for sustainability all over the world. Another of ETIHAD’s funding in Manchester City which is a football club based on the United Kingdom. With this funding came the building of the ETIHAD stadium in Manchester which houses the football game. ETIHAD entered into this agreement to finance it for the next 10 years. It is not a common aspect as such to see airlines funding football clubs. This may have been an aim to invest so as to farther returns. ETIHAD has put into consideration these sustainable projects so as to boost their productivity and ensure value for all their activities. According to (Hardi,1997). Sustainable on its own cannot be fully addressed without incorporation shareholders in their different capacities be it workers, investors or management. For sustainability to meet all its goals it needs to be fully addressed and all those shareholders involved in their different capacities.
Conclusion
With my focus being on researching on the topic of sustainable development projects of ETIHAD, a lot has been drawn form it. I have understood the level of sustainable development as per the actions and practices in place by ETIHAD. We have drawn from the research that most of the activities that are being carried out by ETIHAD are on sustainability as much as it is on productivity. I have gone as far as funding an organization on all its activities that pertains to sustainability. We have drawn that sustainability not just environmentally but also in management, economically, in research, technology and even the social impacts. We have also seen that the implications of sustainable development are good and it draws focus on all aspects of the firm and its employees. This shows just how much effort ETIHAD has put in addressing its issues. We also see form this research that effectiveness of a business is not only on its financial spectrum but rather how sustainable it is in the environment it is. A few aspects of the firm that the managers can improve on is on employee feedback. They should be able to draw some of heir policies, regulations and ideas from those working within their firm. This is so because they have a better understanding of the activities compared to others.
References
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