Work and leisure: negative cross-contextual spillover of individuals’ pro-environmental behaviours from workplace to hotel

Abstract

This study investigates whether pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) in the workplace have a negative cross-contextual spillover effect on PEBs in a hotel context. The latter setting differs due to the privacy and hedonic nature of the hotel context and the disappearance of social pressures from the workplace. Furthermore, the contribution ethic and identity resilience are incorporated into the research framework to understand the negative cross-contextual spillover. The results reveal that workplace PEBs are negatively associated with hotel PEBs, and the negative spillover effect of low-effort workplace PEBs is smaller than that of high-effort workplace PEBs. PEBs in the workplace positively affect the contribution ethic, and the contribution ethic negatively affects PEBs in a hotel context. Notably, high-effort workplace PEBs have a greater positive impact on a person’s contribution ethic than low-effort workplace PEBs. The negative cross-contextual spillover effect is contingent on identity resilience, and identity resilience positively moderates the negative relationships between workplace PEBs, the contribution ethic, and hotel PEBs. The findings offer hospitality scholars and practitioners a deeper insight into consumers’ PEBs in a hotel context and provide guidelines on how to reduce the negative cross-contextual spillovers of PEBs in the workplace.