Inculcation of Green Behavior in Employees: A Multilevel Moderated Mediation Approach

Abstract

In this era of globalization, preventing organizations from undermining and degrading the environment has become a great challenge, especially when considering that organizations are among the major contributors to environmental deterioration. As a result, scholars have recently begun to focus on understanding the key determinants of employee green behavior (EGB), a nascent field within the area of sustainable development and organizational behavior. This study extends the emerging discussion over EGB by investigating how green behavior can be inculcated into employees’ mindsets and under what conditions this can best be accomplished. The present research examines the relationship between ethical leadership and EGB by the mediating mechanisms of green psychological climate, employees’ harmonious environmental passion, and employees’ environmental commitment, through the underpinnings of social learning theory. Further, the study examines the contingency effects of leaders’ pro-environmental attitudes to determine how leaders with ethical attributes and pro-environmental attitudes can create a green psychological climate that ultimately leads to EGB through employees’ harmonious environmental passion and employees’ environmental commitment. The approach to implementing theory development is deductive as the research employed a quantitative research design and survey administration with a time-lagged approach. Multi-level data were collected from 400 respondents working in public and private sector hospitals and universities in Pakistan. The analysis was conducted in MPlus. The results show positive and statistically significant effects of ethical leadership on EGB through the serial mediations of a green psychological climate and employees’ harmonious environmental passion, and a green psychological climate and employees’ environmental commitment. Moreover, the leaders’ pro-environmental attitude contingency strengthens the indirect impact of ethical leadership on EGB. This research provides several managerial implications through which organizations can strategically concentrate on EGB, including saving energy by turning off unused lights, reducing waste, and recycling.

Determinant analysis of employee attitudes toward pro-environmental behavior in textile firms of Pakistan: a serial mediation approach

“…The results revealed that ETFL has a significant impact on EP, which is in line with the previous research conducted by Robertson and Barling (2013) on the under-grad students in Canada. Also, Saleem et al (2021) reported a positive effect of leadership on employees' environmental behavior. These findings are also consistent with the TL theory, whereby through idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, the organizational leaders inspire the employees to go beyond their personal needs and in process, demonstrate EP to cater to environmental needs (Changar and Atan, 2021).…”

“…PGC improves environmental motivation and also satisfies employees to work pleasurably toward environmental goals (Amrutha and Geetha, 2021; Norton et al , 2017). The PEB literature also suggests that an organization's environmental policies have a positive effect on employee's green behaviors (Islam et al , 2018; Kong et al , 2021; Saleem et al , 2021). However, since the role of psychological factors is potentially important in understanding PEBs (Li et al , 2019) we, therefore, tested the impact of employee perceptions of an organization's environmental policies as a more proximal micro-level predictor of employee attitudes.…”

“…Passion makes an individual choose a likable activity freely. Harmonious passion is an energized emotion that drives employees to create a difference in the workplace and enables them to carry out environmental activities (Vallerand et al , 2007; Saleem et al , 2021). In the context of EP, employees engage in activities that result in environmental protection.…”

“…In the context of EP, employees engage in activities that result in environmental protection. Also, environmental practice produces positive emotions such as satisfaction and happiness that influence the propensity of employees to follow GBI (Robertson and Barling, 2013; Saleem et al , 2021).…”

The Role of CSR and Ethical Leadership to Shape Employees’ Pro-Environmental Behavior in the Era of Industry 4.0. A Case of the Banking Sector

“…Similarly, the inclusion of ethical leadership as a mediator in the proposed relationship from the perspective of the banking sector also provides a unique insight into the existing literature on CSR and organizational management. There have been different studies highlighting the importance of ethical leadership to promote the pro-environmental behavior of employees in the era of industry 4.0 [142][143][144][145]. However, the banking sector has remained deprived and has not receive due attention in this regard.…”