MOTIVATING

MOTIVATINGEMPLOYEES3.pdf

Home >Human Resource Management homework help >MOTIVATING

Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

Elisha Temminck,1* Kathryn Mearns2 and Laura Fruhen3 1Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK

2Health and Safety Executive, UK 3University of Aberdeen, UK

ABSTRACT Workers engaging in voluntary and unrewarded environmental actions that go above and beyond their job requirements in an organizational setting can crucially contribute to a reduced environmental impact of organizations. This research investigates some of the factors that may contribute to the emergence of such organizational citizenship behaviour directed towards the environment (OCBE). The hypotheses predicted employees’ concern for the environment, employees’ perceived organizational support for environmental efforts and organizational commitment as antecedents of OCBE. Employees from two organiza- tions (n = 547) completed an online survey. Controlling for organizational tenure, a significant relationship between (a) employees’ concern for their environment and OCBE, (b) perceived organizational support for environment efforts and OCBE and (c) organiza- tional commitment and OCBE were found. Furthermore, organizational commitment mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support for environmental efforts and OCBE, but not environmental concern. This study’s insights into the factors that can drive employees’ engagement in small, voluntary environmental actions at work can guide organizations wishing to encourage such behaviours. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Received 22 January 2013; revised 29 July 2013; accepted 7 August 2013

Keywords: sustainability in organizations; environmental citizenship behaviour; environmental management; pro-environmental

behaviour

Motivating Employees Towards Sustainable Behaviour

T HERE IS INCREASING PRESSURE ON ORGANIZATIONS TO COMPLY WITH NEW ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS AND TO

reduce their negative environmental impact. Successful environmental management not only has been shown to allow for sustainability achievements, it also supports general firm performance (Klassen and McLaughlin, 1996) and innovation in organizations (Kim, 2013). As a result, more and more organizations

integrate the concept of environmental sustainability into their business strategies (Ambec and Lanoie, 2008) or introduce ‘green’ technology. This introduction of ‘green’ technology may deal with part of the problem. However, this mechanistic approach disregards the vital role that human behaviour plays in the ‘greening’ process.

*Correspondence to: Elisha Temminck, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Business Strategy and the Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 24, 402–412 (2015) Published online 21 November 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/bse.1827

Accordingly, there is a need for organizations to recognize that the environmental behaviour of employees is a key part of the solution when it comes to organizations addressing their environmental impacts.

Despite the abundance of research identifying the motivational drivers underlying individual engagement in pro- environmental behaviour at home (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Rowlands et al., 2003; Diaz-Rainey and Ashton, 2011; Ozaki, 2011), both literature and practice are lacking consideration of employees’ engagement in environmentally responsible behaviour in the workplace. Research on such behaviours at work reports that rewards, promotions or penalties are perceived by workers as some of the least effective techniques in fostering employees’ movement towards ‘greener’ behaviour (Zibarras and Ballinger, 2011). Thus, there appears to be a lack of suitable behavioural approaches to help organizations encourage employee engagement in the greening process that are specifically aimed at promoting the adoption of ‘green’ behaviour among employees at work. One way of approaching this issue is to examine the determinants of employee ‘green’ behaviour from a theoretical perspective referred to as organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB; Organ, 1988).

OCB has been defined as a personal and volunteer behaviour that goes above and beyond one’s prescribed job duties in the absence of any explicit reward (Organ, 1988). Such behaviours can range from performing extra duties without complaint to helping other employees within the organization. The OCB framework has been shown to have a significant impact on organizational outcomes, such as organizational performance and effectiveness (Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1997).

However, so far, the influence of OCB has not gained much attention in the environmental management literature, specifically in favour of technological innovations (Zibarras and Ballinger, 2011), formal management systems, standards and procedures or managerial decision-making (Lülfs and Hahn, 2013). This is surprising, as recycling waste, turning off lights and restricting the use of private vehicles in favour for public modes of transport mostly rely on voluntary commitment (Organ, 1988). Even though organizations may put facilities in place that enable the adoption of such behaviours, participation in ‘green’ activities is not necessarily required or formalized by an organization (Boiral, 2009).

Although the theoretical OCB framework has rarely been applied to the notion of corporate ‘greening’, recent developments have aimed to introduce OCB theories into the literature of environmental management (Ramus and Killmer, 2007; Boiral, 2009; Daily et al., 2009). This research has given rise to the concept of organizational citizenship behaviours towards the environment (OCBE). Such environmental OCBs are characterized by workers engaging in voluntary and unrewarded environmental actions that go above and beyond their job requirements in an organizational setting (Boiral, 2009; Daily et al., 2009). These can range from suggesting solutions aimed at reducing energy consumption in the workplace to advising co-workers about the ways in which they can reduce their environmental impact at work. The existing literature has posited that employee engagement in OCBE is one of the key success factors in corporate ‘greening’ (Ramus and Killmer, 2007; Daily et al., 2009).

It therefore appears critical to determine the potential factors that may increase the emergence of these pro- environmental extra-role behaviours in an organizational setting. Daily et al. (2009; see also Ramus and Killmer, 2007) proposed a theoretical model that consists of environmental concern, supervisory support, perceived corporate social performance and organizational commitment as motivational drivers of environmental OCB. However, the evidence base for the proposition of this model is still limited, as only one study has so far empirically investigated its proposed relationships (Lamm et al., 2013). Additional data are needed to determine the antecedents of OCBEs. Therefore, the present research investigates the possible antecedents of OCBE within organizations, as underlain by the theoretical OCBE frameworks of Daily et al. (2009) and Ramus and Killmer (2007). Three antecedents of environmental OCBs are tested. These are environmental concern, perceived organizational support (POS) for employee environmental efforts and affective organizational commitment (Figure 1 illustrates the postulated relationships between these concepts and OCBE).

Environmental Concern, POS, Affective Organizational Commitment and OCBE

Environmental concern has been defined as an individual’s awareness and attitudes towards the environmental threats facing humankind (Gill et al., 1986). Studies have reported environmental concern to lead individuals to engage in ecologically friendly behaviour (Poortinga et al., 2004), such as recycling behaviour (Schultz and Oskamp, 1996) and the adoption of green electricity (Rowlands et al., 2003; Diaz-Rainey and Ashton, 2011; Ozaki, 2011).

403Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

It is possible that this link in the domestic context would also hold true in the work environment, as engaging in environmental gestures at home or in the workplace both depend on voluntary behaviour. Whether at home or work, separating waste into the different bins or choosing to travel via public transport is not necessarily easy and might benefit from an individual’s concern for the environment. Cordano and Frieze (2000) have identified attitudes as crucial drivers of workplace behaviours, in that they found that managers’ pollution prevention attitudes were positively related to their preference to implement source reduction activities at work. This study proposes environmental concern as a driver of participation in ‘pro-green’ behaviours at work.

Hypothesis 1. Environmental concern will positively relate to OCBE.

Perceived organizational support reflects the extent to which employees’ perceive that an organization appreciates its workers’ contributions and shows concern about their welfare (Eisenberger et al., 1986). Previous research shows that POS is positively related to extra-role behaviours, such as providing creative suggestions in relation to the organization’s operations and thoroughly performing job responsibilities (Eisenberger et al., 1990; Lynch et al., 1999), whereas employees who perceive their organization as not providing sufficient support respond in ways that are detrimental to an organization (Gibney et al., 2009). All of this evidence suggests that POS is linked to OCB, and it is further proposed that this will also be the case for extra-role actions specific to corporate ‘greening’. A previous study by Ramus and Steger (2000) found employees’ POS towards the environment to be positively related to employees’ willingness to develop and promote eco-initiatives, whereas Lamm et al. (2013) showed that general POS contributes to OCBE. Therefore, based on the current academic literature, the extent to which employees perceive ‘green’ behaviours as being supported by the organization is likely to be a promoter of pro-environmental behaviours and motivate employees to engage in them.

Hypothesis 2. POS for employee environmental efforts will positively relate to OCBE.

According to Allen and Meyer (1990), organizational commitment can be conceptualized as having three components: affective, continuance and normative commitment. Based on more recent research, it has been revealed that affective commitment exhibits the strongest correlations with organization related outcomes, including OCB (Meyer et al., 2002); therefore, for the purpose of this study it was decided that only affective commitment would be focused on. Affective commitment represents the degree to which employees have an emotional attachment to an organization and the extent to which they identify with and involve themselves in the organization (Allen and Meyer, 1990).

The environmental management literature has implied that organizational commitment from workers is needed across all levels of an organization in order to successfully achieve corporate ‘greening’ (Cramer and Roes, 1993). However, at present, only Lamm et al. (2013) have tested this proposition. Generally, if employees hold a strong commitment towards the organization, they will be more willing to direct their behaviour towards activities that are in line with the organization’s goals and values, such as sustainability. Employees who are committed to an organization will devote more time and attention to their work, including tasks they are not formally required to do so, such as the ‘greening’ of an organization.

Figure 1. Antecedents of OCBE

404 E. Temminck et al.

Hypothesis 3. Affective organizational commitment will positively relate to OCBE.

It is further proposed that the relationship of environmental concern with OCBE (see hypothesis ) will be mediated by affective organizational commitment. Environmental concern is not specific to the workplace (Poortinga et al., 2004) and it is likely that, in order for it to affect OCBE in the workplace, it requires the individual to also hold a positive attitude towards the organization. An individual who cares about the environment might be more inclined to show OCBE at work, as well as at home, if he or she identifies with the organization, whereas an individual who is concerned about the environment but is not committed to the organization is less likely to employ such behaviours at work. This suggests that affective organizational commitment may act as a mechanism through which environmental concern influences OCBE at work.

Hypothesis 4. Affective organizational commitment will mediate the relationship between environmental concern and OCBE.

It is further proposed that the relationship between POS for employee environmental efforts and OCBE will be mediated by affective organizational commitment. This is based on a theory by Piercy et al. (2006), as well as previous research, which found an association between general POS and organizational commitment (Settoon et al., 1996) and a relationship between organizational commitment and general OCB (Schappe, 1998; Organ et al., 2006). Furthermore, previous research has shown that commitment mediates between general POS and OCBE (Lamm et al., 2013). These findings suggest that the direct influence of environmental POS on OCBE stipulated earlier might be due to organizational commitment as a linking mechanism.

Hypothesis 5. Affective organizational commitment will mediate the relationship between POS for employee environmental efforts and OCBE.

Method

Sample and Procedure

The sample consisted of 547 employees (318 females, 229 males) from two public bodies, namely an environmental regulator and educational institute, who gave us permission to collect data. Of all employees contacted, 29% responded by completing the survey. The data from the two organizations were analysed together, as Fischer’s z comparison of the correlation scores indicated no significant differences between the relations in view in the two organizations (z ranged from �1.92 to 1.45; p ranged from 0.06 to 0.28). Participants were between 18 and 69 years old (M = 40.98, SD = 9.49), with most participants being 30–39 years old. Organizational tenure varied from 1 to 30 years (M = 8.30, SD = 5.31), with most participants working for the organization for more than 10 years. With permission from managers at the respective organizations, participants were asked via e-mail to complete a questionnaire through an online software tool.

Measures

All constructs were measured using self-reports. In the following, the included scales are described along with modifications where applicable.

Environmental Concern Participants’ environmental concern was measured using the New Ecological Paradigm Scale (NEP) developed by Dunlap et al. (2000). This section of the questionnaire consisted of 15 items that measured an individual’s

405Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

pro-environmental orientation. Employees were asked to respond on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In the present study, the scale yielded a Cronbach alpha of 0.82.

Perceived Organizational Support (POS) for Employees’ Environmental Efforts This section of the questionnaire consisted of seven items that measured employees’ perceptions of the organization’s support for their personal environmental actions. Participants responded to the scale on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The items were adapted from a general measure of perceived organizational support by Eisenberger et al. (1986), due to unavailability of a suitable scale. For example, the item ‘Even if I did the best job possible, the organization would fail to notice’ from the original scale of Eisenberger et al. was modified to ‘Even if I did the best environmentally friendly job possible, the organization would fail to notice’ (see Appendix for the final scale). Like the original scale, the items of the environmental specific measure of organizational support loaded on one factor (with factor loadings ranging from 0.74 to 0.86). Cronbach’s alpha of this scale was 0.82.

Affective Organizational Commitment This aspect of the questionnaire comprised six items concerned with the feelings of commitment employees held with regard to the organization for which they worked. Items were taken from the affective organizational commitment measure developed by Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler (2000). Participants were instructed to indicate their response on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha indicated this scale to be reliable in the present study (α = 0.86).

Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Directed Towards the Environment (OCBE) At the time at which the study was designed, no suitable scale was available to measure OCBE. Accordingly, we adapted the safety citizenship scale developed by Mearns and Reader (2008) so that it would reflect organizational citizenship behaviour specific to environmental issues in the organization. The modified scale consisted of nine items assessing the frequency with which individual employees engaged in discretionary environmental activities in their workplace. Employees were instructed to report the extent to which they engaged in such activities on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (to a great extent). An example of the adaptation made to items in this scale is the following: ‘I make suggestions to improve the organization’ was adapted to ‘I try to make innovative environmental suggestions to improve the organization’. Principal component analysis showed that the majority of items loaded on one factor, which we propose as reflecting OCBE (factor loadings ranged between 0.78 and 0.88). Two items loaded on a second factor, and it was subsequently decided to exclude these two items from the scale (see Appendix for the final scale). The remaining factor showed an internal consistency of α = 0.94.

Controls Participants were asked to provide information regarding the amount of time they had worked for their organization, as this was evaluated as possibly accounting for some of the variance in OCBE. This was assessed through an open question: ‘How long have you worked for this organization?’.

Results

The scales were inspected for possible violations of normality using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. A deviation from normality was confirmed for all scales (p < 0.05). Accordingly, non-parametric statistics were used to analyse the data.

Spearman’s rank correlation was employed in order to assess the strength of association between constructs. An inspection of these correlations revealed that there were significant positive correlations between affective organizational commitment and OCBE (rs(546) = 0.20, p < 0.01), environmental concern and OCBE (rs(550) = 0.16, p < 0.01) and POS for employee environmental efforts and OCBE (rs(526) = 0.16, p < 0.01). Table 1 reports means, standard deviations and correlations.

406 E. Temminck et al.

Bootstrapped hierarchical regression was used to test the hypotheses. This resampling method has been described as a non-parametric alternative to traditional regression analysis (Field, 2009). Hayes (2009) describes bootstrapping as treating a sample as representing a population, based on which a number of samples are obtained through re-sampling of the initial sample with replacements. Based on these representations, bootstrapping estimates the standard errors of the standard deviations, from which confidence intervals are calculated (Field, 2009). Where the confidence interval does not bridge zero, it can be assumed that the effect is different from zero (Hayes, 2009). Stepwise regression was employed with organizational tenure entered in the first step of the analysis. This confirmed a positive influence of environmental concern on OCBE (β = 0.17, p < 0.001, CILL 0.17, CIUL 0.50), supporting hypothesis 1. Furthermore, in support of hypothesis 2, POS for employee environmental efforts was found to positively influence OCBE (β = 0.17, p < 0.001, CILL 0.17, CIUL 0.44). Moreover, affective organizational commitment positively contributed to OCBE (β = 0.19, p < 0.001, CILL 0.07, CIUL 0.25), confirming hypothesis 3. Table 2 reports the regression analyses testing the effects of environmental concern, POS for employee environmental efforts and affective organizational commitment on OCBE.

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5

1.Organizational tenure 2.87 1.00 2.Affective organizational commitment 3.83 0.60 �0.04 3. Environmental concern 3.58 0.51 �0.01 0.05 4. POS for employee environmental efforts 4.33 1.08 �0.08 0.41** 0.00 5. OCBE 2.59 0.98 0.14** 0.20** 0.16** 0.16**

Table 1. Correlations **p < 0.01 (one tailed). POS, perceived organizational support; OCBE, organizational citizenship behaviours.

Variables B (SE) R2 ΔR2 β LL 95% CI UL 95% CI

Hypothesis 1 Step1 Organizational tenure 0.14 (0.04) 0.02 0.14** 0.06 0.22 Step2 Organizational tenure 0.14 (0.04) 0.15** 0.06 0.23 Environmental concern 0.34 (0.08) 0.05 0.03 0.17** 0.17 0.50

Hypothesis 2 Step 1 Organizational tenure 0.14 (0.04) 0.02 0.14** 0.07 0.23 Step 2 Organizational tenure 0.15 (0.04) 0.15** 0.07 0.23 POS for employee environmental efforts 0.32 (0.07) 0.06 0.04 0.19** 0.17 0.44

Hypothesis 3 Step 1 Organizational tenure 0.14 (0.04) 0.02 0.14** 0.06 0.23 Step 2 Organizational tenure 0.16 (0.04) 0.16** 0.08 0.24 Affective organizational commitment 0.16 (0.04) 0.05 0.03 0.18** 0.07 0.25

Table 2. Regression analysis of OCBE on environmental concern, perceived organizational support (POS) for employee environmental efforts and affective organizational commitment Environmental concern n = 534, POS for employee environmental efforts n = 524, affective organizational commitment n = 534. Number of bootstrapped samples = 1000; **p < 0.001. CI, confidence interval – LL, lower limit; UL, upper limit. OCBE, organizational citizenship behaviour directed towards the environment.

407Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

Finally, it was tested whether affective organizational commitment mediated the influence of environmental concern and POS for employee environmental efforts on OCBE. This analysis was carried out using a bootstrapping method developed by Preacher and Hayes (2004). This method of testing mediation and indirect effects has been proposed by Preacher and Hayes (2004) as superior to the stepwise approach by Baron and Kenny (1986) and the traditionally employed Sobel test (Sobel, 1982). Therefore, it was decided to directly test the hypothesized mediation effect using an SPSS macro by Preacher and Hayes (2004). First, results in Table 3 show that the influence of environmental concern on OCBE was not mediated by affective organizational commitment (OCBE; CILL �0.01, CIUL 0.06). Accordingly, hypothesis 4 was not supported. Second, the mediation of organization commitment between POS for employee environmental efforts and OCBE was supported because the CI did not cross zero for this bootstrapped test (CILL 0.02, CIUL 0.10). This finding supports hypothesis 5, which stipulates that affective organizational commitment mediates the relationship between POS for employee environmental efforts and OCBE. Accordingly, hypothesis was supported.

Discussion

The aim of this study was to identify which antecedents drive the emergence of employee OCBE. Inspired by the frameworks of Daily et al. (2009) and Ramus and Killmer (2007), the influence of environmental concern, perceived organizational support (POS) for employee environmental efforts and affective organizational commitment on OCBE were empirically investigated

Consistent with hypothesis 1, employees who reported greater environmental concern were found to be engaged in significantly more self-reported OCBE related behaviours. Organ et al. (2006) have proposed job attitudes are strong predictors of general OCB. The above finding demonstrates that their suggestion also applies to OCB that is specific to the environment. Scholars have consistently demonstrated that, as citizens, individuals high on environmental concern are more likely to engage in positive ‘green’ behaviours at home (Schultz and Oskamp, 1996; Schultz and Zelezny, 1998; Poortinga et al., 2004). The present research shows that the same applies to ‘green’ behaviours in an organization.

In support of hypothesis 2, this study found a positive relationship between the extent to which employees perceive the organization as supportive of their environmental efforts and employee engagement in OCBE. This finding is in line with earlier research concerning the relation of general POS on OCB (Eisenberger et al., 1990; Lynch et al., 1999), further confirming the application of the OCB framework to corporate greening in the context of OCBEs.

A significant link between affective organizational commitment and OCBE was also found, supporting hypothesis 3. Accordingly, it can be proposed that high levels of affective organizational commitment will result in employees engaging in a greater degree of OCBE. This finding emphasizes that environmental behaviour of individuals in organizations depends not only on perceptions and attitudes that are specific to environmental issues, but also on their general view of the organization. Scholars have extensively demonstrated a positive link between organizational commitment and OCB (Schappe, 1998; Organ et al., 2006), and it appears that this link also holds true in relation to OCBE.

M SE LL 95% CI UL 95% CI

Bootstrap results for the indirect effect

Effect of environmental concern 0.03 0.02 �0.01 0.06 Effect (POS) for employee environmental efforts 0.06 0.02 0.02 0.10

Table 3. Bootstrapped regression analysis of mediation and indirect effects OCBE n = 536 for environmental concern, n =526 for POS for employee environmental efforts. Number of bootstrapped samples = 5000. CI, confidence interval; LL, lower limit, UL, upper limit.

408 E. Temminck et al.

The hypothesized mediation of the environmental concern and OCBE link through affective organiza- tional commitment was not confirmed. It may be possible that this mediation did not occur because environmental concern and affective organizational commitment differ in terms of the degree to which they are determined by external influences. The attitude of environmental concern is rooted in an individ- ual’s internal value system (Stern and Dietz, 1994). Even though feelings of commitment towards an organization represent an attitude and stem from inside an individual, this commitment can be crucially determined by factors outside an individual’s control, such as job characteristics or work experiences (Steers, 1977). This explanation suggests the influence of environmental concern on OCBE, if not direct, to be most likely an attribute that centrally emerges and is rooted within the individual, for example self-efficacy (Blake, 1999; Ramus and Killmer, 2007).

While affective organizational commitment did not mediate the link between environmental concern and OCBE, affective organizational commitment was identified as a mediator of the influence of POS for employee environmental efforts on OCBE. This finding suggests that the positive influence of perceived organizational support for environmental activities on OCBE depends on a commitment to the organization as an underlying mechanism. Accordingly, organizations that want to promote OCBE in their organizations not only need to show support for environmental behaviours, they should also consider ways in which to increase the employees’ commitment to the organization.

Contributions of the Study

This study contributes to the academic literature as the second study to empirically identify and validate mechanisms that contribute to OCBE in employees, despite numerous researchers calling for this topic to be investigated (e.g. Ramus and Killmer, 2007; Boiral, 2009; Daily et al., 2009) and with one study investigating this issue similarly (Lamm et al., 2013). So far, the majority of the literature in this area had developed theoretical frameworks (Ramus and Killmer, 2007; Daily et al., 2009), which had not been tested, with the exception of Lamm et al. (2013). Second, the identification of the drivers of OCBE suggests that organizations can actively promote OCBE in their employees. Showing support for environmental issues as an organization, as well as promoting environmental concern, can be effective in promoting pro-environmental behaviours. However, it needs to be considered that affective organizational commitment is a crucial link in generating green behaviours.

Accordingly, this study’s findings can inform ways in which organizations and managers can influence employees’ environmental behaviours at work. As a result, this can help reduce the organizations’ resource consumption. Even though environmental OCBs are voluntary and as a consequence difficult to control, it is evident that organizations can work on developing a context that would indirectly increase their emergence. For example, one recommendation is that organizations could include information about the successful environmental efforts of employees in their weekly newsletter. This would show employees that the organization is valuing and recognizing workers’ extra efforts. Furthermore, organizations can support environmental efforts by facilitating and positively reinforcing the submission of suggestions for environmentally beneficial changes. Through implementation of such changes, organizations should be able to gain ground in achieving their objective of corporate ‘greening’ – especially in combination with technological innovations.

Finally, because environmental OCBs are voluntary and as a result difficult to control, organizations may find it difficult to provide recognition to those employees who are engaging in OCBEs. The developed OCBE measure can be used by organizations to assess voluntary sustainable behaviour. Furthermore, organizations can administer the scale for the evaluation of training and interventions. This would allow organizations to assess the degree to which such efforts have proven successful in changing employees’ behaviour towards a more desirable way of action.

Limitations and Future Directions

Despite the contributions of the paper, there are some noteworthy limitations that need to be addressed. First the affective organizational commitment scale used did not reflect all three dimensions of organizational commitment

409Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

that have been developed by Allen and Meyer (1990) (affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment). The items selected from the commitment scale by Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler (2000) in the present study solely tapped into affective commitment. Future research could also include the other two dimensions of commitment to more fully understand the role of this concept for OCBE. Considering that this was a new area of study, we aimed to develop a short questionnaire through the inclusion of shorter scales to gain more responses. The short scales can be proposed as having supported the attraction of a large sample in this study, which importantly improved the power of the statistical analysis.

As reported in the method sections, we developed an OCBE scale through a modification of a safety citizenship scale by Mearns and Reader (2008). This was necessary as, at the time of the study design, no such scale was available. Subsequent to the data collection for this study, the first validated OCBE scale (Boiral and Paillé, 2012) was published. Across two studies, Boiral and Paillé (2012) showed that three forms of OCBE exist: eco-initiatives, eco-civic management and eco-helping.

Third, the data were collected with employees from only two organizations, one of which has a specific focus on environmental sustainability in its activities, and an educational institute. It is not clear whether the data might have been biased due to the special nature of these two organizations and to what extent the findings are applicable to other sectors. The data from both organizations were combined, as no significant differences in the relationships tested were found between the two, and the data were analysed at an individual level.

Finally, due to the way in which the data were collected in this study, the effects of common method bias cannot be ruled out. All ratings for both the predictor and dependent variables were obtained from the same employee, at the same time, using the same self-report measures. This limitation appears to be commonplace in the OCB literature (e.g. Cordano and Frieze, 2000; Organ et al., 2006). However, some researchers, such as Koys (2001), have minimized the influence of common method bias by using supervisory ratings, or peer ratings, of environmental OCBs. Unfortunately, it was not possible to gain access to such data in this study.

Conclusion

With organizations coming under an increasing amount pressure to reduce the use of their resources, it is now as important as ever to address the ways in which organizations and the employees within them can assist in decreasing their environmental impact. This study provides insights into the factors that can drive employees’ engagement in small, voluntary environmental actions at work. The findings suggest that such actions are in part linked to environmental concern, perceived organizational support (POS) for employee environmental efforts and affective organizational commitment. Furthermore, the influence of POS for employee environmental efforts on OCBE was exerted through affective organizational commitment, suggesting commitment as a crucial mechanism of this influence. If organizations promote the extent to which employees are (a) concerned about the environment, (b) committed to the organization and (c) perceive the organization as supportive of their environmental efforts, organizations will be able to overcome the obstacles associated with ‘being green’.

References

Allen NJ, Meyer JP. 1990. The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology 63: 1–18.

Ambec S, Lanoie P. 2008. Does it pay to be green? A systematic overview. Academy of Management Perspectives 22: 45–62. Baron RM, Kenny DA. 1986. The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical

considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51: 1173. Blake J. 1999. Overcoming the ‘value–action gap’ in environmental policy: tensions between national policy and local experience. Local

Environment 4: 257–278. Boiral O. 2009. Greening the corporation through organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Business Ethics 87: 221–236.

410 E. Temminck et al.

Boiral O, Paillé P. 2012. Organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment: measurement and validation. Journal of Business Ethics 109: 1–15.

Cordano M, Frieze IH. 2000. Pollution reduction preferences of U.S. environmental managers: applying Ajzen’ s theory of planned behavior. Academy of Management Journal 43: 627–641.

Coyle-Shapiro J, Kessler I. 2000. Consequences of the psychological contract for the employment relationship: a large scale survey. Journal of Management Studies 7: 903–930.

Cramer JM, Roes B. 1993. Total employee involvement: measures for success. Total Quality Environmental Management 3: 39–52. Daily BF, Bishop JW, Govindarajulu N. 2009. A conceptual model for organizational citizenship behavior directed toward the environment.

Business and Society 48: 243–256. Diaz-Rainey I, Ashton JK. 2011. Profiling potential green electricity tariff adopters: green consumerism as an environmental policy tool? Business

Strategy and the Environment 20: 456–470. Dunlap RE, Liere KDV, Mertig AG, Jones RE. 2000. Measuring endorsement of the new ecological paradigm: a revised NEP scale. Journal of

Social Issues 56: 425–442. Eisenberger R, Huntington R, Hutchison S, Sowa D. 1986. Perceived organizational support. Journal of Applied Psychology 71: 500–507. Eisenberger R, Fasolo P, Davis-LaMastro V. 1990. Perceived organizational support and employee diligence, commitment, and innovation.

Journal of Applied Psychology 75: 51–59. Field AP. 2009. Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (3rd edn). Sage: London. Gibney R, Zagenczyk TJ, Masters MF. 2009. The negative aspects of social exchange: An introduction to perceived organizational obstruction.

Group and Organization Management 34: 665–697. Gill JD, Crosby LA, Taylor JR. 1986. Ecological concern, attitudes, and social norms in voting behavior. Public Opinion Quarterly

50: 537–554. Hayes AF. 2009. Beyond Baron and Kenny: statistical mediation analysis in the new millennium. Communication Monographs 76: 408–420. Kim Y. 2013. Environmental, sustainable behaviors and innovation of firms during the financial crisis. Business Strategy and the Environment

published online DOI:10.1002/bse.1811. Klassen RD, McLaughlin CP. 1996. The impact of environmental management on firm performance. Management Science 42(8): 1199–1214. Kollmuss A, Agyeman J. 2002. Mind the gap: why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?

Environmental Education Research 8: 239–260. Koys DJ. 2001. The effects of employee satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover on organizational effectiveness: a unit-level,

longitudinal study. Personnel Psychology 54: 101–114. Lamm E, Tosti-Kharas J, Williams EG. 2013. Read this article, but don’t print it: organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment.

Group and Organization Management 38: 163–197. Lülfs R, Hahn R. 2013. Corporate greening beyond formal programs, initiatives, and systems: a conceptual model for voluntary pro-

environmental behavior of employees. European Management Review 10: 83–98. Lynch P, Eisenberger R, Armeli S. 1999. Perceived organizational support: inferior-versus-superior performance by wary employees. Journal of

Applied Psychology 84: 467–483. Mearns KJ, Reader T. 2008. Organizational support and safety outcomes: an un-investigated relationship? Safety Science 46: 388–397. Meyer JP, Stanley DJ, Herscovitch L, Topolnytsky L. 2002. Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization: a meta-

analysis of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior 61: 20–52. Organ DW. 1988. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: the Good Soldier Syndrome. Lexington: Lexington, MA. Organ DW, Podsakoff PM, MacKenzie SB. 2006. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: its Nature, Antecedents, and Consequences. Sage:

Thousand Oaks, CA. Ozaki R. 2011. Adopting sustainable innovation: what makes consumers sign up to green electricity? Business Strategy and the Environment

20: 1–17. Piercy NF, Cravens DW, Lane N, Vorhies DW. 2006. Driving organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson in-role behavior performance:

the role of management control and perceived organizational support. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 34: 244–262. Podsakoff PM, MacKenzie SB. 1997. The impact of organizational citizenship behavior on organizational performance: a review and suggestions

for future research. Human Performance 10: 133–151. Poortinga W, Steg L, Vlek C. 2004. Values, environmental concern, and environmental behavior: a study into household energy use. Environment

and Behavior 36: 70–93. Preacher KJ, Hayes AF. 2004. SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Behavior Research Methods,

Instruments, and Computers 36: 717–731. Ramus CA, Killmer ABC. 2007. Corporate greening through prosocial extrarole behaviours – a conceptual framework for employee motivation.

Business Strategy and the Environment 16: 554–570. Ramus CA, Steger U. 2000. The roles of supervisory support behaviors and environmental policy in employee “ecoinitiatives” at leading-edge

European companies. Academy of Management Journal 43: 605–626. Rowlands IH, Scott D, Parker P. 2003. Consumers and green electricity: profiling potential purchasers. Business Strategy and the Environment

12: 36–48. Schappe SP. 1998. The influence of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and fairness perceptions on organizational citizenship behavior.

Journal of Psychology 132: 277–290. Schultz PW, Oskamp S. 1996. Effort as a moderator of the attitude–behaviour relationship: general environmental concern and recycling. Social

Psychology Quarterly 59: 375–383.

411Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

Schultz PW, Zelezny LC. 1998. Values and proenvironmental behavior: a five-country survey. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 29: 540–558.

Settoon RP, Bennett N, Liden RC. 1996. Social exchange in organizations: perceived organizational support, leader–member exchange, and employee reciprocity. Journal of Applied Psychology 81: 219–227.

Sobel ME. 1982. Asymptotic confidence intervals for indirect effects in structural equation models. Sociological Methodology 13: 290–312. Steers RM. 1977. Antecedents and outcomes of organizational commitment. Administrative Science Quarterly 22: 46–56. Stern PC, Dietz T. 1994. The value basis of environmental concern. Journal of Social Issues 50: 65–84. Zibarras LD, Ballinger C. 2011. Promoting environmental behaviour in the workplace: a survey of UK organisations. In The Psychology of

Sustainability in the Workplace, Bartlett D (ed.). British Psychological Society: Leicester, UK; 84–90.

Appendix

Perceived Organizational Support for Employee Environmental Behaviour Scale

The organization values my environmental contribution. The organization fails to appreciate any of my environmental efforts. (r) My organization would ignore any complaint, from me, relating to their harmful environmental practices. (r) My organization really cares about my views on the environment. Even if I did the best environmentally friendly job possible, my organization would fail to notice. (r) The organization takes pride in my environmental accomplishments at work. The organization shows very little concern for my environmental opinions. (r)

Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Towards the Environment Scale

I make environmental suggestions to improve work procedures. I make suggestions to improve the organization’s environmental performance. I try to draw management’s attention to potentially environmentally unfriendly activities. I try to make innovative environmental suggestions to improve the organization. I inform management of potentially environmentally irresponsible policies and practices. I am willing to speak up when policy or rules do not contribute to the achievement of the organization’s environmental goals. I suggest revisions to work practices to achieve the organization’s environmental objectives.

412 E. Temminck et al.

Copyright of Business Strategy & the Environment (John Wiley & Sons, Inc) is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.