Search Results (25)

This study extends the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine the factors influencing the employees’ intentions to save energy in the workplace (INSER), incorporating organizational culture (ORGCULT) and environmental knowledge (ENVKNOW) as mediating variables. Structural equation modeling (SEM) of survey data reveals that attitudes toward energy saving (ATESs) and perceived behavioral control (PERBCON) significantly predict INSER, while subjective norms (SUBNORMS) do not exert a direct effect. ORGCULT emerges as a strong mediator, highlighting its role in translating pro-environmental attitudes into actionable intentions. In contrast, ENVKNOW does not mediate the examined relationships, challenging the assumption that knowledge alone is sufficient to drive energy-saving behavior. These findings suggest that organizational commitment and leadership engagement exert a greater influence than peer norms or informational efforts in shaping sustainable workplace behaviors. From a practical perspective, the study underscores the importance of cultivating a sustainability-oriented organizational culture, implementing structural supports, and employing behavioral interventions beyond traditional awareness campaigns. Theoretically, it refines the TPB by illustrating that institutional factors may precede normative pressures in professional settings. Overall, the research contributes to the corporate sustainability literature by advocating for leadership-driven engagement strategies and policy-level interventions to promote long-term energy efficiency. Full article

Promoting environmental sustainability is becoming a priority for organizations. There is thus increasing interest in understanding to what extent green workplace behaviors are linked, alongside contextual determinants, to employees’ characteristics. This study investigated the relationship between green workplace behaviors, various employee characteristics, and organizational determinants. A sample of 513 employees from the energy sector was administered a survey assessing green workplace behaviors and the management of events (e.g., weak signals) which could anticipate the occurrence of incidents with harmful environmental impacts. Employees’ job-related (proneness toward behaving pro-environmentally at work) and broader individual characteristics (personality and human-nature connectedness), as well as their perceived organizational support (e.g., green climate and leadership), were also examined. The results from the structural equation models showed that green workplace behaviors were associated with employees’ proneness toward behaving pro-environmentally at work and perceived organizational support. Indirect effects from organizational support, personality, and human-nature connectedness on green workplace behaviors, mediated by employees’ proneness toward behaving pro-environmentally at work, also emerged. These findings highlight that employees’ characteristics also favor their adoption of green workplace behaviors, with important implications for developing interventions promoting environmental sustainability in organizations. Full article

Society at large has become increasingly concerned about climate change and sustainable development, so tourism and travel service providers have begun to focus more actively on sustainable development goals. Prior research has shown that supervisors’ support fosters employee green behavior and companies’ environmental performance. This study concentrated on Portuguese hospitality contexts to develop a fuller understanding of how organizations’ green efforts can combine with the individual variables highlighted by the theory of planned behavior (TPB) (i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) to encourage supervisors’ organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE). Data on 74 hotel managers were collected with an online survey. Multiple regression analysis revealed that perceived green organizational climate positively correlates with TPB variables, thereby increasing supervisors’ intention to adopt and encourage OCBE in their workplaces. These findings clarify how organizational and individual factors foster managers’ OCBE. The results have practical implications for organizations seeking to promote their managers’ pro-environmental behavior to boost their environmental sustainability. Full article

Organizations committed to sustainability and reducing their environmental footprint depend largely on the pro-environmental performance of their employees. This study investigates how environmentally specific transformational leadership (ESTL) shapes employee pro-environmental performance, as well as the mediating role of employee environmental awareness and the boundary condition of emotional exhaustion at work. Data were collected from 264 participants across three waves. The findings reveal that ESTL exerts a positive influence on employee environmental awareness, which in turn enhances pro-environmental performance. Additionally, the positive indirect effect of ESTL on pro-environmental performance through environmental awareness is moderated by emotional exhaustion, being stronger when the emotional exhaustion level is low. These findings highlight the critical role of leadership in fostering environmental sustainability within organizations and the importance of considering employee psychological well-being in the process. Our research contributes to the understanding of how specific leadership behaviors can drive pro-environmental actions in the workplace, offering practical implications for organizational leaders aiming to enhance environmental performance. Full article

The recent introduction of servant leadership into the research on pro-environmental behavior in organizations has stimulated interest and concern among scholars on how an environmentally specific servant leader fosters their subordinates’ green behavior. Drawing from affective event theory, this study focuses on the underlying affective mechanism linking environmentally specific servant leadership and employee voluntary green behavior. Using two-wave data from 190 employees in two organizations, we found that environmentally specific servant leadership was indirectly related to employee voluntary green behavior via positive affectivity. Moreover, workplace anxiety moderated the indirect effect, such that it was only significant and positive under low levels of workplace anxiety. Overall, our study sheds light on the role the effect plays in unpacking the influence of environmentally specific servant leadership on employee voluntary green behavior. Full article

Ηuman sustainability in dental enterprises, as in every workplace, is connected to air and water quality, eco-friendly and naturally designed working spaces, and the culture of the 4Rs. The purpose of this study was to assess pro-environmental behavior, as well as knowledge of preferences for circular economies and green building construction, among a sample of dental students and dentists in Greece. We further assessed the factors influencing their choices. Students (N1 = 93) and dentists (N2 = 126) filled in e-questionnaires from April to December 2022. The data revealed that both students and dentists lack knowledge about the circular economy (N1 = 67.74%, N2 = 68.25%), EU regulations on amalgam disposal (N1 = 64.51%, N2 = 58.73%), and plastic recycling (N1 = 76.34%, N2 = 76.98%); meanwhile, they do recycle at home (N1 = 80.64%, N2 = 82.54%) and have participated in voluntary environmental initiatives (N1 = 58.06%, N2 = 66.66%). Gender influences the importance of factors related to green dental practices, with women students being more likely to agree that increased costs for network changes (p = 0.02) and poor wastewater management (p = 0.01) are significant. Students from urban areas are more likely to give positive answers to questions related to the lack of state financial support (p = 0.02), low levels of green design in buildings (p = 0.03), the negligible direct financial benefits of green dental offices (p = 0.04), the negligible reputational benefits of green dental offices (p = 0.02), and the lack of continuing education training seminars on green dentistry (p = 0.05). For dentists, no significant relationships were observed, except for a weak positive relationship for the increases in costs due to changes related to utility networks (p = 0.08), while increases in waste energy (p = 0.12) and the waste of dental materials (p = 0.19) seemed significant only for dentists in urban areas. Women dentists were more likely to answer positively regarding wasting energy (p = 0.024) and the use of unapproved disinfection products (p = 0.036). The findings contribute ideas and solutions for green dental practice buildings and sustainable behaviors through educational activities and regarding the social aspects of factors such as age, experience in dentistry, gender, and urbanism. This study also provides a basis for future multi-disciplinary research on dental quality assurance, the psychology of environmentalism, economics, and behavioral science in dentistry. Full article

Research lacks a solid understanding of the relational patterns between intrapersonal and organizational determinants to promote proenvironmental behavior. In this study, I investigated the effects of employees’ intrapersonal and perceived organizational determinants on voluntary proenvironmental behavior of employees (VPBE) from an integrative moral perspective. While primarily building on insights from norm activation theory and research on organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE), I developed a framework and empirically analyzed how interactions between ascriptions of environmental responsibility, perceptions of proenvironmental work climates, and affective organizational commitment influence VPBE. The findings show that even employees (in this study: student workforce) with little sense of responsibility towards nature can be subtly encouraged to practice VPBE. I discuss the findings against the backdrop of integrated and introjected norms and provide managerial advice. The study contributes to a theoretical broadening of the norm activation theory in workplace contexts and advances our knowledge of conditional effects and normative mechanisms underlying VPBE. Full article

The increasingly severe environmental situation has brought challenges to the world, and organizations are aware of the importance of environmental management and are committed to changing individuals’ environmental behavior patterns. Based on the proactive motivation model, this study constructs a moderated multiple mediation model to explore the impact mechanism and boundary conditions between environmentally specific servant leadership (ESSL) and employees’ workplace pro-environmental behaviors (WPB). This study examines 440 Chinese industrial sector employees, and the linear regression method test results show that: (1) ESSL significantly promotes employees’ WPB. (2) Green self-efficacy (GSE), green organizational identity (GOI), and environmental passion (EP) act as multiple mediators between ESSL and employees’ WPB. (3) Green shared vision (GSV) positively moderates the relationship between ESSL and employees’ WPB. This study provides a new theoretical perspective on how ESSL affects employees’ WPB, which is analyzed from three aspects: “can do”, “reason to”, and “energized to”. This new mechanism reveals that leaders should transform their leadership style to that of environmental service, and focus on enhancing the employees’ GSE, GOI, and EP. Moreover, ESSL should make copious use of green strategy tools, such as GSV, to realize the above mechanism. Full article

The green leadership (GL) concept has significantly gained popularity over the last decade. Consequently, more research has been conducted on this emerging leadership concept, emphasizing leadership styles that promote the green environment so that sustainable goals can be achieved. In the present research, leaders’ emotional intelligence (EI) is positioned as a mediating variable between GL and employees’ green organizational citizenship behavior (GOCB). The data of this research comprised managerial and non-managerial staff from the manufacturing and service industries. A PLS-SEM was used to evaluate the relationship between the various factors among 422 employees. The empirical findings indicated that GL and GOCB had a favorable and robust relationship. The results of the study also suggested that a leader’s EI mediates the influence of green leadership on their employees’ green organizational citizenship behavior. Green leadership is essential in creating sustainable environmental behaviors among employees. It can strengthen leaders’ EI, which successively helps them to garner positivity and foster an environment of mutual harmony and cooperation in the workplace to support pro-environmental policies. Overall, our study contributes to and advances previous studies and shows that green leadership plays a critical role in influencing a leader’s own EI which, in turn, predicts the green OCB of their employees in the workplace. Full article

Despite the significance of pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in the workplace, most of the existing studies have neglected its negative work outcomes. Drawing upon moral licensing theory and cognitive dissonance theory, we construct a conceptual model of the influence mechanism of employees’ PEB (i.e., public-sphere PEB, private-sphere PEB) on workplace deviance through psychological entitlement, and the moderating effect of rationalization of workplace deviance on the relationship between psychological entitlement and workplace deviance. Using two-stage survey data from 216 employees in China, we performed hierarchical regression analysis and structural equation modeling method to test our hypotheses. Our findings reveal that public-sphere PEB positively affects psychological entitlement, while private-sphere PEB negatively affects psychological entitlement. Psychological entitlement further positively affects workplace deviance. In addition, rationalization of workplace deviance strengthens the positive impact of psychological entitlement on workplace deviance. This study offers novel insights into the dark side of PEB literature by exploring the PEB–workplace deviance relationship. This study also contributes to managerial implications of how PEB leads to workplace deviance and how to address this issue. Full article

Organizations’ environmental performance has come increasingly under scrutiny given the need for sustainable, low-carbon economies. Workers’ pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) can contribute to greener operations, but research on workplace PEBs is still an emerging field. This study examined how employees’ perceptions of environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and practices are related to their self-reported voluntary PEBs, including person-organization fit (P-O fit) and organizational identification’s role as sequential mediators. Data were gathered from 178 workers from different organizations via an online survey. The results reveal a positive relationship between perceived environmental CSR practices and work PEBs, which are both directly and indirectly connected through P-O fit and organizational identification. Managers can thus use environmental CSR activities to capitalize on employees’ P-O fit and organizational identification, thereby fostering work PEBS. Full article

Rural residents’ pro-environmental behavior plays a critical role in rural environmental governance. This paper examines how the perception of government environmental information disclosure (EID) can promote rural residents’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB) using a questionnaire survey. Using Zhejiang province of China as a case study, we designed a four-stage mixed sampling method, which yielded 783 valid responses. We used ordinary least squares (OLS), an ordinal logit model and a mediation effect model to draw our conclusions. The results indicated that the EID had a positive impact on the PEB of rural residents. It is also evident that personal environmental concerns (PECs) play a partially mediating role between EID and PEB. Moreover, the impact of EID on PEB is heterogeneous in terms of residents’ age and workplace. This research contributes to insights into the promotion of guiding rural residents’ PEB and improving ecological environment management. Full article

Environmental education (EE) is a lifelong process to acquire knowledge and skills that can influence pro-environmental behavior, environmental activism, and disaster-risk management. Disabled people are impacted by environmental issues, environmental activism, and how EE is taught. Disabled people can be learners within EE but can contribute to EE in many other roles. Given the importance of EE and its potential impact on disabled people—and given that equity, diversity, and inclusion is an ever-increasing policy framework in relation to environment-focused disciplines and programs in academia and other workplaces, which also covers disabled people—we performed a scoping review of academic literature using Scopus and EBSCO-HOST (70 databases) as sources, to investigate how and to what extent disabled people are engaged with EE academic literature. Of the initial 73 sources found, only 27 contained relevant content whereby the content engaged mostly with disabled people as EE learners but rarely with other possible roles. They rarely discussed the EE impact on disabled people, did not engage with EE teaching about disabled people being impacted by environmental issues and discourses, and did not connect EE to environment-related action by disabled people. Results suggest the need for a more differentiated engagement with disabled people in the EE literature. Full article

The purpose of this research is to analyze the role of organizational culture in fostering green practices in the workplace while investigating the mediating role of intrinsic motivation in the context of energy conservation. Based on a cross-sectional quantitative study with a sample of 203 employees from the manufacturing sector, the hypothesized relationships were verified. Based on the mediation analysis, statistical analyses revealed positive relationships between organizational culture and green workplace practices, as well as organizational culture and intrinsic motivation. Additionally, the study found that intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between organizational culture and green workplace practices. This study supported the importance of organizational culture in enhancing green workplace practices aimed at conserving energy and natural resources. The underlying mechanism behind the significant positive effect of intrinsic motivation on proenvironmental behavior in the workplace was also identified. The research demonstrates the importance of an organizational culture to reinforce green practices in the workplace. Furthermore, based on the used models, this study illustrates the importance of each organizational culture dimension: leadership, sense of community, communication, collaboration, and structure in promoting green behavior. Additionally, the research suggests a key role of intrinsic motivation in this relationship. This study provides valuable guidance for the implementation of specific environmental measures in companies. Full article

We investigated whether the emotional framing of climate change communication can influence workplace pro-environmental behavior. In three quasi-experimental studies, we examined whether emotional displays in climate change communication affected participants’ subsequent workplace pro-environmental behavior. In Studies 1 and 2, undergraduate and master’s students viewed a fictional news video about climate change, where the newsreader displayed one of five emotions: sadness, fear, anger, contentment, and hope. The dependent variable was recycling behavior following the viewing. In Study 3, office employees viewed the same news videos online; the dependent variable was requesting further information to increase pro-environmental behavior in the workplace. The results from all three studies show that displayed emotion significantly affected pro-environmental behavior and that sadness, in particular, resulted in significantly less workplace pro-environmental behavior. These results indicate the need to study the effect of discrete emotions, rather than assuming that emotions of the same valence have similar effects. The results also underscore the importance of using experimental designs in advancing the field. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for research, theory, and practice of emotionally framed communication of sustainability messages. Full article