McInerney Sarah J, Niewiarowski Peter H
Program in Integrated Bioscience, Department of Biology, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-3908, USA.
Biomimetics (Basel). 2022 Jun 3;7(2):71. doi: 10.3390/biomimetics7020071.
Employees play a critical role in the success of corporate sustainability initiatives, yet sustained employee engagement is a constant challenge. The psychology literature states that to intrinsically motivate employees to engage in sustainability, there must be opportunity for employees to engage in practices that are directly relevant to their job duties. Traditional ad hoc initiatives such as Earth Week events, recycling challenges and so on, are not sufficient to derive this type of intrinsic motivation. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the psychological impact of a biomimicry sustainable innovation training program, to intrinsically motivate R&D employees to reconnect with nature and identify whether this promotes creative thinking and employee engagement. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the current study conducted virtual workshops with R&D employees and demonstrated that biomimicry training was intrinsically motivating to employees and was valued as a practice that could be incorporated into R&D job duties. In conclusion, this study provides an adaptable procedural template for biomimicry training with a corporate audience. The results demonstrate a strong business case for organizations to experiment with biomimicry by illustrating its potential to create positive change across several business units beyond sustainable innovation to include human resources and sustainable marketing.
员工在企业可持续发展倡议的成功中发挥着关键作用，但持续激发员工的参与度始终是一项挑战。心理学文献表明，要从内在激励员工参与可持续发展，必须为员工提供与工作职责直接相关的实践机会。诸如地球周活动、回收利用挑战等传统临时举措，不足以产生这种内在激励。因此，本研究的目的是考察仿生可持续创新培训项目的心理影响，从内在激励研发员工与自然重新建立联系，并确定这是否能促进创造性思维和员工参与度。由于新冠疫情限制，本研究对研发员工开展了虚拟研讨会，并证明仿生培训能从内在激励员工，且被视为一种可纳入研发工作职责的实践。总之，本研究为面向企业受众的仿生培训提供了一个可适配的程序模板。研究结果通过说明仿生在可持续创新之外的多个业务部门（包括人力资源和可持续营销）创造积极变革的潜力，为组织尝试仿生提供了有力的商业依据。
