Management commitment to the ecological environment and employees: Implications foremployee attitudes and citizenship behaviors

Berrin Erdogan, Talya N. Bauer & Sully Taylor

• Public opinion is increasingly intolerant of “business as usual.”

• A 2010 PWC study shows that 92% of S&P companies report greenhouse emissions and 80% discuss plans to reduce emissions.

• What is the business case for green management?

Business Case for Going Green

Greater efficiency saves money

Access to new consumers

Organizational Behavior scholars are relative newcomers to this conversation.

Commitment to CSR

Organizational commitment

Turnover intentions

Organizational identification

Employee effort

Self-rated OCB

Ecological Environment in OB

Aguinis & Glavas, 2012 provides a review of CSR literature.

From CSR to Ecological Environment▪ CSR measures usually combine commitment to internal and external stakeholders.

▪ When management commitment to the environment and employees are separated, the effects of commitment to the environment are unclear. – E.g., Montgomery & Ramus (2011); Turban & Greening (1997)

What is the role of management commitment to the environment for job attitudes and behaviors?

Organizations may display commitment to the ecological environment without showing equally high commitment to their employees.

McShane and Cunningham (2012, JBE)

“I worked for a company where they advertise this big thing every year that - oh we're going to give money so that children can play hockey or they can participate in sports but yet the staff was paid just basically minimum wage. The minimum that they absolutely had to be paid. And, the standards that they set were really high and it was just, in my experience, it wasnot a good company to work for. So, I find it pretty ironic when, to this day,

I'm seeing these commercials saying how oh this company is giving money so that poor children can play sports, oh big hairy deal, yet their employees may end up having to use food banks because their incomes are not good enough that they can buy food.”

Theoretical Model

Perceived Managementcommitment

to the environment

(MCE)

- Justice- Commitment- Citizenship

- Toward Organization (OCBO)

- Toward ecological environment (OCBE)

Perceived Organizational Support (POS)

Deontic model of justice (Cropanzano, Goldman, & Folger, 2003)

Deontic Model of Justice▪ Individuals care about how third parties are treated – even when such treatment has no effects on themselves.

▪ How employees react to CSR is akin to observing how third parties are treated.

▪ Therefore, CSR should be a driver of employee behaviors.

Other treatment x self treatment▪ Reactions to how third parties are treated and how the focal person is treated tend to have interactive effects.– van den Bos and Lind (2001): When a focal person receives due process, they are more sensitive to others’ due process.

– de Cremer et al. (2005) showed that reactions to outsiders’ treatment were more strongly related to outcomes when individuals were treated positively themselves.

– Spencer and Rupp (2009) showed that customer mistreatment of coworkers was more positively related to emotional labor experienced by employees treated well by customers.

Attitudinal OutcomesDrawing from deontic view of justice, we predict that:

H1: POS will moderate the relationship between MCE and organizational justice such that, the relationship will be more positive when POS is high.

H2: POS will moderate the relationship between MCE and organizational commitment such that, the relationship will be more positive when POS is high.

Behavioral OutcomesH3: POS will moderate the relationship between MCE and OCBO such that, the relationship is more positive when POS is high.

H4: POS will moderate the relationship between MCE and OCBE such that, the relationship is more positive when POS is high.

Method▪ Employees and managers of a textile finishing services company in Istanbul, Turkey completed surveys. n = 142-170 employees, 25 managers.

▪ Employees came from all departments including finishing, process control, unprocessed fabric warehouse, and chemical laboratory.

▪ 96.3% male, 33 years old, 60% high school education, 16% college education, 13% middle school, and 11% elementary school education.

MeasuresWe developed and validated new items to capture MCE and OCBE. We retained 6 and 7 items respectively. We used established scales for other variables.

Pilot studies 151 working students in the USA, and 338 employees from Amazon Mturk

Items (MCE) α = .92My organization values the environment.My organization is committed to preserving and protecting the environment. My organization cares about the environment.

My organization is aware of the need to protect the environment.

My organization demonstrates concern for ecological matters.

My organization considers the full impact of its action on the environment.

Items (OCBE) α = .95Helps the organization improve its environmental performance. Helps solve environmental problems faced by the organization.Contributes to initiatives aimed at improving company environmental performance. Helps come up with creative suggestions that have the potential to improve the organization’s environmental performance. Goes out of his/her way to implement procedures which help the environment.Takes the time to ensure procedures are effective at reducing environmental hazards.Helps identify emerging technologies that can help the organization solve environmental problems.

Results

Discussion ▪ As expected, MCE and POS interact such that organizational justice and commitment are positively affected by MCE only when POS is high.

▪ For supervisor rated OCBE, MCE has a positive effect only when POS is low– employee reactions to third-party treatment may take the form of punishing the culprit or compensating the victim.

– In the high POS condition, employees may have been trying to compensate the victim (the environment) by treating the environment better.

Contributions▪ MCE is interpreted within the context of POS. CSR measures would benefit from accounting for target of these initiatives (internal vs external).

▪ Contributed to OCB literature by developing an OCBE scale.

▪ Social exchange concepts, particularly POS, has implications for the burgeoning CSR and sustainability literatures.

Questions?

Thank you!