Does a sense of calling facilitate sustainability? Research on the influence of calling on employee green behavior

Abstract

Organizations recently attach growing importance to sustainable development and green human resource management (GHRM), raising research interest in predicting employee green behavior (EGB). However, the potential linkage between a sense of calling and EGB is neglected. This research fills the void by examining whether, how, and when calling predicts EGB. Drawing upon self‐determination theory, we argue that by satisfying three basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness), a sense of calling enhances employees' prosocial motivation, which in turn promotes EGB. We further propose that calling predicts EGB more effectively for less conscientious employees. We conducted two field surveys to test the hypotheses. Both Study 1 (N = 280) and Study 2 (N = 295) confirm that calling positively affects EGB through partial mediation of prosocial motivation and that conscientiousness negatively moderates the relationship between calling and prosocial motivation as well as the indirect effect. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.

Academic employees' green behaviour as praxis for bolstering environmental sustainable development: A linear moderated mediation evaluation

“…Likewise, Akhtar et al (2022) acknowledged that environmental‐related programmes help the HEIs to develop students' problem‐solving capabilities for addressing environmental issues. Thus, this implies that individual employees' increased environmental concern can shape their attitude towards environmentally friendly practices (Zhang et al, 2021). Based on this postulation, it is hypothesised thatHypothesis Environmental concern positively predicts attitude.…”

“…Therefore, employee green behaviour (EGB) is the sequence of employees' environmentally friendly activities that help achieve the objective of safeguarding the environment at the workplace (Al‐Swidi et al, 2021). Recent evidence contends that EGB influences the environmental performance (EP) of organisations (Ahmad et al, 2021; Nisar et al, 2021; Zhang et al, 2021). When employees align with the task of protecting the environment, the carbon emission level of organisations reduces, and this consequently bolsters environmental performance.…”

“…While there is yet a paucity of research that addresses the question of how employees' environmental concerns psychologically provoke increased EGB in organisations, it remains unclear how environmental concern acts to predict EGB via other notably fundamental factors such as attitude, PBC, and environmental knowledge (Zhang et al, 2021). Though a handful of studies have assessed the plausible relationship between environmental concern and EGB (Fawehinmi et al, 2021; Okumus et al, 2019; Saari et al, 2021), prior research has yet to deepen insights into the probable linear moderated‐mediated roles of environmental concern and how it can simultaneously act to predict and moderate distinct mediated associations of attitude, PBC, and environmental knowledge with EGB respectively (Ahmed et al, 2020).…”

Ripples in the pond: Evidence for contagious cooperative role modeling through moral elevation and calling in a small pre-study

“…The findings indicated that the presence of a CC induces group members’ calling, a prosocial goal that drives them to exhibit cooperative behavior after their contact with CCs. Previous studies have found positive outcomes for calling, such as more green employee behavior, higher willingness to sacrifice for work, better work performance, and higher levels of life satisfaction ( Hall and Chandler, 2005 ; Bunderson and Thompson, 2009 ; Allan and Duffy, 2014 ; Zhang et al, 2021 ). Our study extends calling-related literature to the field of cooperation in a social context.…”

“…For instance, a study focusing on zookeepers indicated that employees with a high level of calling exhibit more willingness to sacrifice their free time (non-work time) for their organizations ( Bunderson and Thompson, 2009 ). Additionally, calling has been demonstrated to increase prosocial motivation in employees, which promotes green employee behavior ( Zhang et al, 2021 ). In general, when someone expresses a sense of calling, it suggests that the person consciously identifies with one’s prosocial goal.…”