TY - JOUR
T1 - Greening for greater meaning: A dynamic examination of the consequences of voluntary employee green behavior
AU - Yang, Dan
AU - Tang, Guiyao
AU - Jia, Junyun
PY - 2025/1
Y1 - 2025/1
N2 - The achievement of organizational environmental sustainability relies on voluntary employee green behavior (VEGB). While VEGB has received increasing attention from scholars, little attention has so far been paid to the effects on the actors who exhibit this behavior. The question of whether performing VEGB is an enriching or depleting experience for employees needs more exploration. To address the research gaps, we adopt an enrichment-based perspective, arguing that engaging in VEGB can enrich employees who perform it. Drawing from the worker-centric approach to work meaningfulness, we propose a theoretical framework to examine how engaging in VEGB daily can lead to greater benefits for certain employees. We conducted an experience sampling study involving 114 full-time employees. To test our hypotheses, we employed hierarchical linear modeling. Our findings show that engaging in VEGB is meaningful for employees with higher environmental commitment. Subsequently, the meaningfulness experienced through VEGB improves in-role and extra-role performance (self-reported job performance and helping behavior) on the following workday. We contribute to both employee pro-environmental behavior literature and work meaningfulness literature, and we discuss practical implications for both managers and employees.
AB - The achievement of organizational environmental sustainability relies on voluntary employee green behavior (VEGB). While VEGB has received increasing attention from scholars, little attention has so far been paid to the effects on the actors who exhibit this behavior. The question of whether performing VEGB is an enriching or depleting experience for employees needs more exploration. To address the research gaps, we adopt an enrichment-based perspective, arguing that engaging in VEGB can enrich employees who perform it. Drawing from the worker-centric approach to work meaningfulness, we propose a theoretical framework to examine how engaging in VEGB daily can lead to greater benefits for certain employees. We conducted an experience sampling study involving 114 full-time employees. To test our hypotheses, we employed hierarchical linear modeling. Our findings show that engaging in VEGB is meaningful for employees with higher environmental commitment. Subsequently, the meaningfulness experienced through VEGB improves in-role and extra-role performance (self-reported job performance and helping behavior) on the following workday. We contribute to both employee pro-environmental behavior literature and work meaningfulness literature, and we discuss practical implications for both managers and employees.
KW - voluntary employee green behavior
KW - work meaningfulness
KW - environmental commitment
KW - experience sampling method
KW - Environmental sustainability
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296324005113
U2 - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.115007
DO - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.115007
M3 - Article
SN - 0148-2963
VL - 186
JO - Journal of Business Research
JF - Journal of Business Research
IS - 115007
ER -