Greening organizations through leaders' influence on employees' pro-environmental behaviors
TL;DR: In this article, a model that links environmentally-specific transformational leadership and leaders' workplace proenvironmental behaviors to employees' pro-environmental passion and behaviors was developed and tested.
Abstract: Summary Climate change is a serious global issue that poses many risks to environmental and human systems. Although human activity is cited as the main cause of climate change and organizations significantly contribute to climate change, research that investigates workplace pro-environmental behaviors remains scarce. We develop and test a model that links environmentally-specific transformational leadership and leaders’ workplace pro-environmental behaviors to employees’ pro-environmental passion and behaviors. Structural equation modeling on data from 139subordinate–leaderdyads(Mages=37.42and40.17years,respectively)showedthatleaders’environmental descriptive norms predicted their environmentally-specific transformational leadership and their workplace pro-environmental behaviors, both of which predicted employees’ harmonious environmental passion. In turn, employees’ own harmonious environmental passion and their leaders’ workplace pro-environmental behaviors predicted their workplace pro-environmental behaviors. These findings show that leaders’environmental descriptive norms and the leadership and pro-environmental behaviors they enact play an important role in the greening of organizations. Conceptual and practical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of psychological green climate and individual green values on in-role and extra-role workplace green behavior were investigated. And the results indicated that green HRM affects both employee in role and extra role green behavior; however, this occurs through different social and psychological processes.
Abstract: As an emerging concept, green human resource management (green HRM) has been conceptualized to influence employee workplace green behavior. This research empirically tested this link. We first developed measures for green HRM, and then drew on the behavioral HRM and psychological climate literature along with the supplies-values fit theory, to test a conceptual model integrating the effects of psychological green climate and individual green values. Results revealed that green HRM both directly and indirectly influenced in-role green behavior, but only indirectly influenced extra-role green behavior, through the mediation of psychological green climate. Individual green values moderated the effect of psychological green climate on extra-role green behavior, but it did not moderate the effect of either green HRM or psychological green climate on in-role green behavior. These findings indicate that green HRM affects both employee in-role and extra-role workplace green behavior; however, this occurs through different social and psychological processes. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
531 citations
Cites background from "Greening organizations through lead..."
...Moreover, past workplace green behavior studies have mainly explored the effect of organizational sustainability programs (Paillé, Boiral, & Chen, 2013; Norton, Zacher, & Ashkanasy, 2014) and leaders’ influence (Ramus & Steger, 2000; Robertson & Barling, 2013)....
[...]
...…employees to acquiesce to a green behavioral mantra, they must engage with the organization and its resolve to implement green practices and policies (Robertson & Barling, 2013; Unsworth, Dmitrieva & Adriasola, 2013), as green HRM practices are expected to play an important role in this engagement…...
[...]
TL;DR: This article describe three sources of information that people use to understand norms: individual behavior, summary information about a group, and institutional signals, and discuss conditions under which influence over perceived norms is likely to be stronger, based on the source of normative information and individuals' relationship to the source.
Abstract: How can we change social norms, the standards describing typical or desirable behavior? Because individuals’ perceptions of norms guide their personal behavior, influencing these perceptions is one way to create social change. And yet individuals do not form perceptions of typical or desirable behavior in an unbiased manner. Individuals attend to select sources of normative information, and their resulting perceptions rarely match actual rates of behavior in their environment. Thus, changing social norms requires an understanding of how individuals perceive norms in the first place. We describe three sources of information that people use to understand norms—individual behavior, summary information about a group, and institutional signals. Social change interventions have used each source to influence perceived norms and behaviors, including recycling, intimate-partner violence, and peer harassment. We discuss conditions under which influence over perceived norms is likely to be stronger, based on the source of the normative information and individuals’ relationship to the source. Finally, we point to future research and suggest when it is most appropriate to use a norm change strategy in the interest of behavior and social change.
401 citations
Cites background from "Greening organizations through lead..."
...Observational research has demonstrated that by engaging in proenvironmental behaviors such as turning off lights that are not in use or printing double-sided, a leader demonstrates to employees that these behaviors are expected and valued (Robertson & Barling, 2013)....
[...]
TL;DR: A conceptual primer on conditional process analysis is provided for those not familiar with the integration of moderation and mediation analysis, while also describing some recent advances and innovations for the more experienced conditional process analyst.
Abstract: Behavioral scientists use mediation analysis to understand the mechanism(s) by which an effect operates and moderation analysis to understand the contingencies or boundary conditions of effects. Ye...
400 citations
TL;DR: Greenwash: Greenwash is communication that misleads people into forming overly positive opinions about environmental performance as discussed by the authors. But, greenwash is a form of communication that encourages people to form overly positive beliefs about environmental outcomes.
Abstract: Corporate claims about environmental performance have increased rapidly in recent years, as has the incidence of greenwash, that is, communication that misleads people into forming overly positive ...
399 citations
Cites background from "Greening organizations through lead..."
...…internal outcomes for green and socially responsible firms, including improved employee psychological health, trust, job satisfaction, and stronger organizational commitment (Robertson & Barling, 2013, 2014), all of which have been linked in prior research to positive organizational outcomes....
[...]
TL;DR: In this article, a conceptual model based on person-environment interaction, job performance, and motivational theories is proposed to structure a multilevel review of the employee green behavior (EGB) literature and agenda for future research.
Abstract: We propose a conceptual model based on person–environment interaction, job performance, and motivational theories to structure a multilevel review of the employee green behavior (EGB) literature and agenda for future research. We differentiate between required EGB prescribed by the organization and voluntary EGB performed at the employees’ discretion. The review investigates institutional-, organizational-, leader-, team-, and employee-level antecedents and outcomes of EGB and factors that mediate and moderate these relationships. We offer suggestions to facilitate the development of the field, and call for future research to adopt a multilevel perspective and to investigate the outcomes of EGB.
385 citations
Cites background from "Greening organizations through lead..."
...Leaders’ behavior also appears to set an example for employees to follow (Robertson & Barling, 2013), although this might be mediated by factors at other levels (Kim et al., 2014)....
[...]
...In this regard, Robertson and Barling (2013) reported that leaders’ environmental behavior have a direct and positive influence on subordinates’ EGB, as well as a positive indirect effect via subordinates’ environmental passion....
[...]
...Robertson and Barling (2013) reported that leaders’ environmental transformational leadership style also has a positive indirect effect on employees’ voluntary EGB via the leader’s own EGB and employees’ harmonious environmental passion....
[...]
References
More filters
TL;DR: The extent to which method biases influence behavioral research results is examined, potential sources of method biases are identified, the cognitive processes through which method bias influence responses to measures are discussed, the many different procedural and statistical techniques that can be used to control method biases is evaluated, and recommendations for how to select appropriate procedural and Statistical remedies are provided.
Abstract: Interest in the problem of method biases has a long history in the behavioral sciences. Despite this, a comprehensive summary of the potential sources of method biases and how to control for them does not exist. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which method biases influence behavioral research results, identify potential sources of method biases, discuss the cognitive processes through which method biases influence responses to measures, evaluate the many different procedural and statistical techniques that can be used to control method biases, and provide recommendations for how to select appropriate procedural and statistical remedies for different types of research settings.
52,531 citations
"Greening organizations through lead..." refers methods in this paper
...First, to confront possible threats from mono-method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003), we obtained data for one predictor variable from two separate sources (leaders and subordinates)....
[...]
TL;DR: In this article, an exploración de the avances contemporaneos en la teoria del aprendizaje social, con especial enfasis en los importantes roles que cumplen los procesos cognitivos, indirectos, and autoregulatorios.
Abstract: Una exploracion de los avances contemporaneos en la teoria del aprendizaje social, con especial enfasis en los importantes roles que cumplen los procesos cognitivos, indirectos, y autoregulatorios.
20,904 citations
"Greening organizations through lead..." refers background or result in this paper
...Our findings also point to a modeling influence on employees’ workplace pro-environmental behaviors that is consistent with social learning theory (Bandura, 1977)....
[...]
...…workplace pro-environmental behaviors, and harmonious environmental passion One of the sturdiest findings in the social psychological literature is that individuals learn by observing others’ behaviors and subsequently, initiate and sustain similar patterns of behavior themselves (Bandura, 1977)....
[...]
TL;DR: In this article, the authors pointed out that there is a strong functional tie between opinions and abilities in humans and that the ability evaluation of an individual can be expressed as a comparison of the performance of a particular ability with other abilities.
Abstract: Hypothesis I: There exists, in the human organism, a drive to evaluate his opinions and his abilities. While opinions and abilities may, at first glance, seem to be quite different things, there is a close functional tie between them. They act together in the manner in which they affect behavior. A person’s cognition (his opinions and beliefs) about the situation in which he exists and his appraisals of what he is capable of doing (his evaluation of his abilities) will together have bearing on his behavior. The holding of incorrect opinions and/or inaccurate appraisals of one’s abilities can be punishing or even fatal in many situations. It is necessary, before we proceed, to clarify the distinction between opinions and evaluations of abilities since at first glance it may seem that one’s evaluation of one’s own ability is an opinion about it. Abilities are of course manifested only through performance which is assumed to depend upon the particular ability. The clarity of the manifestation or performance can vary from instances where there is no clear ordering criterion of the ability to instances where the performance which reflects the ability can be clearly ordered. In the former case, the evaluation of the ability does function like other opinions which are not directly testable in “objective reality’. For example, a person’s evaluation of his ability to write poetry will depend to a large extent on the opinions which others have of his ability to write poetry. In cases where the criterion is unambiguous and can be clearly ordered, this furnishes an objective reality for the evaluation of one’s ability so that it depends less on the opinions of other persons and depends more on actual comparison of one’s performance with the performance of others. Thus, if a person evaluates his running ability, he will do so by comparing his time to run some distance with the times that other persons have taken. In the following pages, when we talk about evaluating an ability, we shall mean specifically the evaluation of that ability in situations where the performance is unambiguous and is known. Most situations in real life will, of course, present situations which are a mixture of opinion and ability evaluation. In a previous article (7) the author posited the existence of a drive to determine whether or not one’s opinions were “correct”. We are here stating that this same drive also produces behavior in people oriented toward obtaining an accurate appraisal of their abilities. The behavioral implication of the existence of such a drive is that we would expect to observe behaviour on the part of persons which enables them to ascertain whether or not their opinions are correct and also behavior which enables them accurately to evaluate their abilities. It is consequently
16,927 citations
"Greening organizations through lead..." refers methods in this paper
...Drawing on Festinger’s (1954) social comparison theory, Goldstein et al....
[...]
Book•
01 Jan 1986
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a comprehensive theory of human motivation and action from a social cognitive perspective, and address the prominent roles played by cognitive vicarious self regulatory and self reflective processes in psychosocial functioning emphasizing reciprocal causation through the interplay of cognitive behavioral and environmental factors.
Abstract: bandura a 1986 social foundation of thought and, presents a comprehensive theory of human motivation and action from a social cognitive perspective this insightful text addresses the prominent roles played by cognitive vicarious self regulatory and self reflective processes in psychosocial functioning emphasizes reciprocal causation through the interplay of cognitive behavioral and environmental factors and systematically applies the, presents a comprehensive theory of human motivation and action from a social cognitive perspective this insightful text addresses the prominent roles played by cognitive vicarious self regulatory and self reflective processes in psychosocial functioning emphasizes reciprocal causation through the interplay of cognitive behavioral and environmental factors and systematically applies the,
9,060 citations
"Greening organizations through lead..." refers background in this paper
...While initial research focused mainly on learned aggression, Bandura (1986) subsequently noted that just about anything can be learned by observing others’ behaviors....
[...]
TL;DR: This article conducted a meta-analysis of 52 studies and found that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association.
Abstract: Most theorizing on the relationship between corporate social/environmental performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) assumes that the current evidence is too fractured or too variable to draw any generalizable conclusions. With this integrative, quantitative study, we intend to show that the mainstream claim that we have little generalizable knowledge about CSP and CFP is built on shaky grounds. Providing a methodologically more rigorous review than previous efforts, we conduct a meta-analysis of 52 studies (which represent the population of prior quantitative inquiry) yielding a total sample size of 33,878 observations. The meta-analytic findings suggest that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association. For example, CSP appears to be more highly correlated with accounting-based measures of CFP than with market-based ...
6,493 citations