The double-edged sword of perceived corporate environmental policy (CEP): How perceived CEP encourages and hinders employee green behavior

Despite the growing interest in corporate environmental policy (CEP), our understanding of the underlying mechanisms linking CEP to employee behavior remains incomplete. Integrating conservation of resources theory with self-determination theory, we develop an integrative model to explain how perceived CEP influences employee green and non-green behaviors. Drawing on a time-lagged large-scale survey and a vignette-based experiment, we demonstrate that perceived CEP positively affects employee green self-efficacy and role overload, which drive green and non-green behaviors, respectively. We also find that autonomous motivation amplifies the indirect effect of perceived CEP on employee green behavior through green self-efficacy, and that controlled motivation reinforces the link between perceived CEP and employee non-green behavior by increasing role overload. Our findings contribute to a more balanced understanding of the effect of perceived CEP as a double-edged sword and shed light on encouraging green behavior and discouraging non-green behavior in organizations.