Does Greenwashing Affect Employee’s Career Satisfaction? The Mediating Role of Organizational Pride, Negative Emotions and Affective Commitment.

Abstract

Greenwashing occurs when companies deliberately deceive or mislead stakeholders regarding their environmental practices or benefits of a product/service. Most existing greenwashing studies focus on consumers, and the effects on employees have seldom been examined. Furthermore, little is known about how employees may respond emotionally to their company's greenwashing practices. Accordingly, the current research conducted an empirical study of the relationship between employees’ greenwashing perception and their career satisfaction. The mediating roles of organizational pride, negative emotions, and affective commitment are also examined. Based on information collected through a questionnaire applied to 398 Portuguese employees, a quantitative, causal, cross-sectional study was carried out, using structural equation model techniques, through AMOS. The results indicate that employees’ perception of greenwashing relates negatively to their career satisfaction, organizational pride, and affective commitment. In turn, negative emotions are positively impacted by greenwashing. The results also reveal that the path between perceived greenwashing of employees and career satisfaction is established not only directly, but also through organizational pride and affective commitment. This study extends the literature by addressing the neglected side of employees’ emotional reactions to greenwashing. Based on the central premise that corporate greenwashing is inherently an immoral act, we draw upon appraisal theory and moral foundations theory to investigate short-term (affective commitment, negative emotions, and organizational pride) and long-term work-related effects (career satisfaction) as an outcome for greenwashing.