Scholars in environmental management have called for better grounding of research on corporate greening within established organizational theories. We propose a conceptual framework (including suggestions for operationalizing it) that embeds empirical research within behavioural intent models and the concept of value-creating prosocial behaviours. We argue that conceiving of corporate greening as a prosocial behaviour in this manner provides an improved understanding of the dominant factors that motivate employees to engage in ecoinitiatives. Copyright Starik and Marcus (2000, p. 543) reiterated this plea in the Academy of Management Journal by stating: 'the need still remains to link organizational theories to the greening process'. The links between corporate greening and organizational theory appear to be readily apparent, not least because the phrase 'organizational greening' clearly implies an organizational change process. In fact, scholars of corporate environmental management are frequently concerned with concepts that are also close to the hearts of organizational theorists, such as values and leadership styles (Egri and Herman, 2000), companies' norms and ethics (Flannery and May, 2000) and factors affecting change management and issue leadership (Andersson and Bateman, 2000). Several authors have linked established streams of organizational research and environmental management (Cordano and Frieze, 2000;Hoffman, 1999;Ramus and Steger, 2000). Yet, there is a consensus among leading scholars in environmental management that an even stronger and more systematic connexion is highly desirable. This article responds to this consensus by present- ing a conceptual framework that embeds empirical research on corporate greening initiatives within the theoretical context of value-creating prosocial behaviours and behavioural intent models. Corporate greening behaviours exhibit several characteristics that render them unusual and hence somewhat challenging with respect to their theoretical treatment. They are prosocial behaviours, in that a member of the organization performs them with the intent to promote the welfare of the individual, group or organization toward which they are directed (Brief and Motowidlo, 1986). Yet they also display aspects of 'taking charge behaviours', defined by Morrison and Phelps (1999, p. 403) as discretionary behaviours intended to effect organizationally functional change, and they tend to have a strong valuecreating component. Also, as we will show, corporate greening behaviours are -not invariably but frequently -extrarole behaviours, meaning that they are not formally required for an employee's job, and are conducted in so-called 'weak situations ' (Mischel, 1973; Shamir et al., 1993, p. 589). In other words, employees often find themselves in situations without clear goals or certainty about the organizational rewards associated with the optional behaviour of promoting environmentally beneficial changes. Due to these characteristics and the fact that most tradition...
