Sustainably engaging employees in food wastage reduction: A conscious capitalism perspective

Abstract

Although food wastage across the world is preventable, yet it's an endemic problem affecting organizations and societies across the planet. In a shift from the existing assumptions of holding customers responsible, we base our study on the conscious capitalism perspective to argue that organizations through its employees can lead a paradigm shift towards environmental sustainability. In this direction, we propose and empirically validate a conceptual model based on the data collected from 335 employees of Saudi Arabian restaurants. The results reveal that when organizations enable intrinsic sustainable interventions, such as an empowering green psychological climate, it positively affects its employees' sense of purpose and their green intrinsic motivation, which consequently drive employees' intention to reduce food wastage. The results also reveal that sense of purpose and green intrinsic motivation partially mediate the relationship between green psychological climate and employees' intention to reduce food wastage. By arguing that employees with a higher purpose and intrinsic motivation towards environmental sustainability can contribute in resolving negative food wastage behaviors across societies, our work provides a new meaning to the role that management and organizations can play in societies grappling with the problem of food wastage.