Exploring the Impact of Sustainability Control Systems on Employees’ Green Creativity: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment and Sustainability Learning Capabilities

Abstract

This paper investigates how sustainability control systems (SCSs) drive employees’ green creativity (EGC) with the purpose of assisting organisations in the Sri Lankan manufacturing sector to improve their environmental sustainability performance. Managers and staff of manufacturing firms often lack awareness of environmental issues, which leads to unsustainable strategies. EGC has been identified as an important resource for devising sustainable strategies. SCSs drive employee behaviour and support EGC by fostering a creative workplace. Utilising Simons’ Levers of Controls (LoC) framework, a mediation model incorporating psychological empowerment (PE) and sustainability learning capabilities (SLCs) is tested to provide insights on how SCSs influence EGS. Survey data collected from 239 organisations in the Sri Lankan manufacturing sector were analysed using the PLS-SEM method. The results confirm the full mediating roles of PE and SLCs on the link between SCSs and EGC. This demonstrates the importance of empowering employees and enhancing their learning capabilities to encourage EGC. This study contributes to Simons’ LoC framework by incorporating sustainability dimensions into management control systems (MCSs), and extends the extant body of knowledge by providing a specific understanding of the mechanisms driving EGC through PE and SLCs.

Exploring the perceived effects of Destructive Leadership on employees' psychological empowerment: An Azerbaijan retail context

“…Furthermore, scholarly research asserts that workplace learning and self-determination are strongly connected to PE (Pandithasekara, Erabaddage Ayoma & Áron Perényi, 2023). Similarly, employees experience a sense of control once they can engage to express their views or to participate in decisions that affect their performance (Hummer, 2016;Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).…”

“…Similarly, job (psychological) withdrawal infers that while employees keep their existing organizational and work-role physical attendance, psychologically withdrawn employees tend to ignore and or neglect certain aspects of their job roles or decrease the efforts spent on their specific work responsibilities. Withdrawn employees lose commitment, which might involve plans to leave or sabotage the organization (Hoffman & Sergio, 2020;Pandithasekara et al, 2023). This, thus, underpins the relevance of a positive workplace environment to enable employees to perform at their best within challenging business conditions (Thanh Nguyen, Tat & Dang, 2023).…”

How Green Mindfulness and Green Shared Vision Interact to Influence Green Creative Behavior

“… 30 However, the mediating role of GIM between GMFN and GCB is absent in the extant literature. Fourth, in addition to investigating the individual factors leveraging GCB, 31–33 the study outstretches the boundary conditions of GMFN–GCB by investigating the moderating role of GSV in the underlying linkage. To the best of authors’ knowledge, no prior studies have investigated the moderating role of GSV into the direct relationship between GMFN and GIM and indirect association between GMFN and GCB via GIM.…”