Environmentally specific transformational leadership and team pro-environmental behaviors: The roles of pro-environmental goal clarity, pro-environmental harmonious passion, and power distance

Abstract

Does environmentally specific transformational leadership promote team pro-environmental behaviors? If so, why and when? Using the cognitive-affective processing system framework, we explore the idea that environmentally specific transformational leadership facilitates team pro-environmental behaviors via team pro-environmental goal clarity and team pro-environmental harmonious passion separately and that such indirect relationships are stronger when the team power distance is high. We used three waves of data from 113 teams in six Chinese manufacturing organizations to test our theoretical predictions. The results of regression analyses show that environmentally specific transformational leadership is positively related to team pro-environmental behaviors; this relationship is parallel mediated by team pro-environmental goal clarity and team pro-environmental harmonious passion. Furthermore, the team power distance strengthens the above parallel mediation effects such that in teams with high levels of power distance, environmentally specific transformational leadership strongly provokes team members’ pro-environmental goal clarity, pro-environmental harmonious passion, and subsequent pro-environmental behaviors. These findings suggest that environmentally specific transformational leadership is an effective approach for organizations to improve their teams’ pro-environmental behaviors, particularly in the context of strong power distance.