2025-Liz Cooper

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Role morality and sustainability professionals: managing expectations of sustainable behaviours in work and non-work roles

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Dr Liz Cooper , Heriot-Watt University - Role morality and sustainability professionals: managing expectations of sustainable behaviours in work and non-work roles

Grant Ref: 2025-T1-525

Grant Amount: £5,772.69

Project Summary: 

Sustainability professionals typically hold personal motivations that influence their career choices and are likely to take an interest in the environmental and social impacts of their non-work behaviours as well as their workplace actions. People also tend to expect congruous identities across the different roles we play, and so sustainability professionals also face expectations from others regarding their behaviours outside of work. For example, should sustainability professionals avoid air travel for leisure? This research will explore how sustainability professionals negotiate and rationalise differences in moral judgements made across roles, taking inspiration from the theory of role morality.

Focus groups with sustainability professionals will be conducted to analyse how participants intersubjectively construct accounts of moral decision-making related to sustainability. A discursive psychology approach will be used identify patterns in discursive strategies used to negotiate role morality issues, focusing on the details of language used in sequentially unfolding interactions.

The study will produce new psychological insights into common ways people justify differences in moral decision-making across roles through specific discursive practices. The findings will be shared with sustainability professionals to develop shared awareness of effective strategies for managing role morality expectations.