Linking Leaders’ Voluntary Workplace Green Behavior and Team Green Innovation: The Mediation Role of Team Green Efficacy

Wenjing Cai,Chun Yang,Jingtao Fu,Bart A G Bossink

doi:10.3390/su12083404

Abstract

Given the increasing significance of green innovation, scholars have identified environment-oriented leader behavior as a key antecedent of green innovation in firms. However, despite the fact that previous studies highlight all kinds of benefits of environment-oriented leaders’ voluntary workplace green behavior (VWGB) in and for firms, little is known about how these leaders’ VWGB could affect a firm team’s green product innovation as well as their process innovation. To narrow this research gap, this study theorizes and tests the effect of leaders’ VWGB on their team’s green innovation, as well as the mediation effect of team green efficacy belief on this relationship. Using a time-lagged research design, we collected data from 497 employees and 80 leaders in Chinese manufacturing firms. The results show that leaders’ VWGB directly affects both their team’s green product and process innovation, and facilitates the development of team green efficacy, which in turn stimulates team green innovation. This present study extends the multilevel phenomena by reinforcing the importance of leaders’ VWGB and team green efficacy on team-level green innovation, and provides practical implications on developing leadership for environmentally sustainable innovation.

Highlights

Innovation has been widely acknowledged as a key driver of firms’ performance by managers and scholars [1,2,3]
Existing research suggests that organizational greening efforts depend on leaders’ voluntary behaviors towards green innovation issues [16], there is little knowledge on the impact of such leaders’ voluntary workplace green behavior (VWGB), which refers to discretionary individual behaviors that improve the environmental sustainability of the focal firm, but are not induced, regulated, and controlled by formal institutions relating to environmental management [17]
It is observed that the means of team green product innovation and team green process innovation are 4.95 (SD=0.37) and 5.02 (SD = 0.4), respectively

Summary

Introduction

Innovation has been widely acknowledged as a key driver of firms’ performance by managers and scholars [1,2,3]. Environmental sustainability is a key concern and an increasing source of pressure for firms’ innovation endeavors [6,7]. In this serious situation, firms are increasingly concentrating on how to shift their innovation activities to be more green-oriented [8,9,10,11], which implies that both product and process innovations may motivate firms to show more concern for environmental sustainability [12]. Existing research suggests that organizational greening efforts depend on leaders’ voluntary behaviors towards green innovation issues [16], there is little knowledge on the impact of such leaders’ voluntary workplace green behavior (VWGB), which refers to discretionary individual behaviors that improve the environmental sustainability of the focal firm, but are not induced, regulated, and controlled by formal institutions relating to environmental management [17]. The main purpose of the current study is to explore the influence of leaders’ VWGB on followers’ green innovative outcomes

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion