Exploratory examination of environmental protection behaviors in a hospital setting using the theory of planned behavior and ethical leadership

Abstract

Most research focused on understanding the general environmental awareness or attitudes around the world, targeting residents, students, or undergraduates. There were limited attempts to understand the environmental protection behaviors in Taiwan healthcare sector. A questionnaire survey was designed with current healthcare personnel in Taiwan as target population. From the theory of planned behavior and ethical leadership, structural equation modelling allowed a better explanation of the social-psychological indicators affecting environmental protection behaviors in the healthcare sector. Attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control are positively impacted by ethical leadership. Environmental protection behavior is significantly influenced by environmental protection intention, while environmental protection intention is strongly affected by perceived behavioral control which is the strongest predictor, followed by attitude. However, there is insignificant correlation of subjective norms to environmental protection intention, due to the weaken social connection among healthcare personals, especially with the heavily burdened workload and restrictive measure during the COVID-19 crisis in a hospital environment.

Influences of Social–Psychological Constructs in Predicting Taiwanese Pro-Environmental Behaviors

“…In recent years, Tsai and Tan [7] expanded the theory of planned behaviors to include ethical leadership aiming to understanding the PEB of healthcare personals in Taiwan. Ethical leadership was determined to positively influenced attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control.…”

“…From the various works regarding the PEB of Taiwanese, the theory of planned behaviors was widely used. The surveyed respondents were mostly specified targeted group of people by geographical location [4,10] or specified roles [7][8][9], with a wide range of accounted variances regarding PEB. In addition, subjective norms, the perceived social pressure to engage in a particular behavior, were noted by several researchers to significantly influenced PEB intentions [6,10].…”

“…Among the various research studies conducted to understand the PEB of Taiwanese, the theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behavior were widely used and their coefficients of determination for PEB ranged widely, from healthcare personnel in Tsai and Tan [7], undergraduates in Tsai and Tan [8], tourists visiting Nantou in Chang et al [9] to residents from Taichung in Situmorang et al [10], giving values of 19%, 30%, 84% and 48%, respectively. Given the complexity and variety of pro-environmental behaviors, the VBN theory and the theory of planned behavior had both seen substantial application and development within the literature.…”

“…Together, subjective norms and social norms illustrate how individual perceptions and collective behaviors interact, influencing each other and contributing to a better understanding of the collective nature of a society. Due to the restrictive measures during the COVID-19 crisis, Tsai and Tan [7] found that subjective norms had no significant influence on healthcare personnel's PEB intention. Tsai and Tan [8] found that subjective norms had the weakest influence on PEB intention compared to attitude and perceived behavioral control, as undergraduates viewed PEB as personal decisions regardless of social pressure.…”