Environmentally responsible behaviour in the workplace: An internal social marketing approach

Abstract

The role of social marketing in encouraging environmentally responsible consumer behaviour is recognised. However, organisations account for a greater negative environmental impact. This study aims to identify how social marketers and organisations can reduce that impact by harnessing a valuable resource, that of employees' environmentally responsible organisational citizenship behaviours (EROCBs). Findings from focus group interviews with employees of five large UK organisations show that individual personal factors such as environmental concern, values, beliefs, norms and habits formed from domestic behaviour are fundamental toEROCBs. An important role for internal social marketing (ISM) is highlighted in identifying environmentally concerned employees, or 'internal customers,' creating incentives and removing barriers to pro-environmental behaviour. The need to increase employees' self -efficacy with respect to EROCBs is emphasised.

Heritage tourism, CSR and the role of employee environmental behaviour

“…It was hoped that this would increase the respondents' self-efficacy, reflecting the suggestion made by Smith and O'Sullivan (2012).…”

“…They suggest that lack of knowledge about what to recycle and perceived time constraints showed a weak negative correlation with waste management behaviour and that forgetfulness was a reason for failing to conserve energy. Smith and O'Sullivan (2012) stress that it is important to increase employees' self-efficacy for them to be able to fulfil the behavioural objectives given to them. However, overall self-efficacy has not been studied within employees' environmental behaviour, although Manika et al (2014) highlight it as a variable that should be included in future studies.…”

“…Research has examined OCBs both generally in terms of broad aspects (Lin, Lyau, Tsai, Chen & Chiu, 2010;Hansen et al, 2011) and, specifically, in terms of environmental behaviour as organisational citizenship behaviour for the environment (OCBE) (Boiral & Paillé, 2012) or as employees' environmentally-responsible, or green OCBs (Smith & O'Sullivan, 2012).…”

“…Individual factors which have been studied include attitudes and beliefs (Jones, 2010;Chun, Shin, Choi & Kim, 2013;Manika, Wells, Gregory-Smith & Gentry, 2014), norms (Scherbaum, Popovich & Finlinson, 2008;Carrico & Riemer, 2011), self-efficacy (Smith & O'Sullivan, 2012), habit (Siero et al, 1996), motivation (Lee, De Young & Marans, 1995;Tudor, Barr & Gilg, 2008), knowledge (Siero et al, 1984) and socio-demographics (Wehrmeyer & McNeil, 2000). The most comprehensive study of employee environmental behaviour within the tourism literature focused on individual (individual environmental beliefs, personal environmental norms, self-reported environmental behaviour) and organisational variables (green organisational climate) as well as demographics to explain employee behaviour (Chou, 2014).…”

The Impact of Individual Attitudinal and Organisational Variables on Workplace Environmentally Friendly Behaviours

“…This type of behavior "on the part of the individual … indicates that he/she responsibly participates in, is involved in, or is concerned about the life of the company" (Podsakoff et al, 1990, p. 115). Smith and O'Sullivan (2012) describe these behaviors as employees' environmentally responsible, or green, OCBs. Internal initiatives to encourage such behavior, generally through some form of social marketing, have increased in recent years as organizations strive to be more socially responsible to compete for consumers or respond to stakeholders' expectations (Hansen et al, 2011).…”