Predicting environmental citizenship behavior in the workplace: A new perspective of environmental affective event

Abstract

The way some external environmental pollution events affect employees’ environmental affections and environmental behaviors in the workplace is an interesting question that has not been paid much attention. Therefore, based on affective event theory (AET), this study introduces anticipated pride and guilt, and it establishes a mechanism model that explores how the environmental pollution event perception affects employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment (OCBE). With data on 469 employees, a structural equation model is used to test the hypotheses. The results show that the environmental pollution event perception can directly drive employees’ eco-civic engagement behaviors, but has no obvious effect on eco-initiatives behavior and eco-helping behavior. Anticipated guilt plays an important mediating role between the environmental pollution event perception and the three types of OCBE, while the effect intensity of the three paths was different. However, contrary to expectations, anticipated pride has no significant mediating effect. This study provides a new and valuable insight for understanding the psychological motivation of employees to engage in OCBE. In the practical field, it also provides recommendations on how to stimulate employees’ OCBE through environmental events and affections, thus alleviating environmental pollution.