Organizational Citizenship Behaviour for the Environment: Measurement and Validation

Abstract

While the importance of employee initiatives for improving the environmental practices and performance of organizations has been clearly established in the literature, the precise nature of these initiatives has rarely been examined (particularly the issue of their discretionary or mandatory nature). The role of organizational citizenship behaviour in environmental management remains largely unexplored. The main objectives of this paper were to propose and validate an instrument for measuring organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment (OCBE). Exploratory (Study 1, N = 228) and confirmatory (Study 2, N = 651) analyses were conducted to examine the factor structure of OCBEs. The factor structure that emerged from Study 1 indicated that the three main types of OCBEs were eco-initiatives, eco-civic engagement and eco-helping. The factor structure found in Study 1 was confirmed by Study 2. Analysis of the three types of OCBEs highlighted the complexity of discretionary initiatives for the environment in the workplace and points to a number of avenues for further research.

How Does Leader’s Support for Environment Promote Organizational Citizenship Behaviour for Environment? A Multi-Theory Perspective

“…OCBE was measured by using the 10 item scale developed by Boiral and Paillé [17]. A sample item included "Though it is not expected from his/her job he/she voluntarily carry out environmental actions and initiatives in his/her daily work activities".…”

“…First, social learning effect suggests that the group leader's supportive behaviour tends to be imitated by group members fostering a condition in which group members promote supportive environmental behaviour within the group. Helping others to engage in environmental sustainability is considered as a kind of OCBE [17]. Therefore, leader's support for environment promotes eco-helping among the group members leading to perceived observation of green behaviour within the group by the group member.…”

The More, the Merrier: Why and How Employee-Driven Eco-Innovation Enhances Environmental and Competitive Advantage

“…OCBE mostly describes employees' low-intensity behaviors in the context of their work environment (e.g., recycling, printing double-sided, encouraging colleagues for environmental protection) [56,103,104]. In contrast, EDEI primarily describes employees' innovative activities regarding sustainability in their companies' production as well as product development processes [17].…”

Heritage tourism, CSR and the role of employee environmental behaviour

“…Research has examined OCBs both generally in terms of broad aspects (Lin, Lyau, Tsai, Chen & Chiu, 2010;Hansen et al, 2011) and, specifically, in terms of environmental behaviour as organisational citizenship behaviour for the environment (OCBE) (Boiral & Paillé, 2012) or as employees' environmentally-responsible, or green OCBs (Smith & O'Sullivan, 2012).…”