Does a sense of calling facilitate sustainability? Research on the influence of calling on employee green behavior

Abstract

AbstractOrganizations recently attach growing importance to sustainable development and green human resource management (GHRM), raising research interest in predicting employee green behavior (EGB). However, the potential linkage between a sense of calling and EGB is neglected. This research fills the void by examining whether, how, and when calling predicts EGB. Drawing upon self‐determination theory, we argue that by satisfying three basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness), a sense of calling enhances employees' prosocial motivation, which in turn promotes EGB. We further propose that calling predicts EGB more effectively for less conscientious employees. We conducted two field surveys to test the hypotheses. Both Study 1 (N = 280) and Study 2 (N = 295) confirm that calling positively affects EGB through partial mediation of prosocial motivation and that conscientiousness negatively moderates the relationship between calling and prosocial motivation as well as the indirect effect. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.