Environmentally Specific Servant Leadership and Employee Workplace Green Behavior: Moderated Mediation Model of Green Role Modeling and Employees’ Perceived CSR

Abstract

While employee workplace green behaviors (EWGBs), which contribute toward goals of organizational sustainability, have developed as an important research topic in the last decade, environmentally specific servant leadership (ESSL) is considered an important enhancer of employees’ green behaviors. From a social learning perspective, we developed a theoretical model to explore the mediating role of green role modeling and the moderating effect of employees’ perceived CSR on the relationship between ESSL and EWGB. In order to test the hypotheses, we adopted a two-wave research design and collected survey data from 512 employees from eight companies in Shandong Province, China. Structural equation modeling and the PROCESS macro for SPSS were utilized to analyze the data from the survey. The results of the quantitative analysis suggest that ESSL has positive impact on both employees’ in-role green behavior and extra-role green behavior. Meanwhile, green role modeling has a mediating effect on the relationship between ESSL and EWGB. Moreover, employees’ perceived CSR moderates the mediating relationship between ESSL and EWGB through green role modeling. The findings indicate that organizations should promote managers’ environmentally specific servant leadership and establish their own CSR policies and practices in order to motivate employee workplace in-role and extra-role green behaviors, which, in turn, contribute to sustainability, environmental protection and societal development. Overall, the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for the research on ESSL and EWGB are also discussed.