Participatory Approach to Iran Khodro Co.'s EMS: Obstructions and Resolutions

The industrial revolution, which began from 18th century, has caused increasing environmental degradation and crises. Since the mid-1900s, concerns about environmental impacts of industrial activities have began growing. Some standards have been developed to improve environmental performance of industrial companies since1990s. Series ISO 14000 are the most common standards for planning and implementation of Environmental Management systems (EMS), which have been developed by ISO since 1996. According to ISO 14001, success of the Environmental Management Systems depends on commitment from all levels and functions in organizations. The basis of the mentioned approach is lied on participatory management.Environmental Management System, based on ISO 14000, has been implemented in entire Iran Khodro Company (IKCO) since 2001. In accordance with IKCO’s environmental policy, developing the environmental culture and participating of personnels in EMS have been considered in IKCO’s agenda. Many cultural, educational and training actions have been carried out to realize the mentioned policy. However, the results of internal periodical auditing of IKCO’s EMS show that the level of environmental culture and personnels participating is low.The findings of this research indicate that the level of organizational culture, style of management, commitment of perssonels, ability and competence of perssonels, organizational values, cognizance of perssonels and job satisfactory are the obstructions hindering the perssonels to participate in IKCO’s EMS. Finally, some resolutions were proposed to remedy the obstructions.