How and when does perceived greenwashing affect employees' job performance? Evidence from China

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in the implications of greenwashing, few studies have examined the underlying mechanism and contingency of how greenwashing affects employee outcomes. In this study, we develop a mediated moderation model to analyze the impact of perceived greenwashing on employee job performance (i.e., task performance and organizational citizenship behavior). Using a questionnaire survey of 400 employees in 20 Chinese companies, the results reveal that perceived greenwashing negatively affects job performance and that the relationship is mediated by organizational cynicism. Furthermore, employees' green values strengthen the indirect negative relationship between perceived greenwashing practices and job performance through organizational cynicism. The study contributes to addressing the long-discussed problem of whether greenwashing pays vis-à-vis a human resource management perspective and micro-level approach. The findings indicate that a close cooperation between the human resources and corporate environmental responsibility management departments is required to achieve the sustainable development of businesses.

Financial constraints and corporate greenwashing strategies in China

“…Finally, the fact that greenwashing companies receive no penalties undermines fair competition in the markets, especially for companies that invest in environmental management or proactively disclose crucial environmental information. As a result, existence of greenwashing behaviors can affect stakeholders' perception of the company (Torelli et al, 2019), managers' decision‐making (Ferrón‐Vílchez et al, 2021), employees' job performance (Li et al, 2022), and consumers' purchasing decisions (Szabo & Webster, 2020).…”

“…As the second largest economy in the world, environmental performances of Chinese companies would generate profound impacts on international business and on global sustainable development. Studies that focus on the CSR performance in China are also growing (e.g., Kuo et al, 2012; Li et al, 2022; Lu & Abeysekera, 2017; Xiang et al, 2020).…”

How do financial markets reward companies tackling climate change concerns? A natural experiment based on the Brexit referendum

“…Companies may use greenwashing to save face and gain legitimacy from stakeholders. Still, it also may have a limited contribution to environmental performance improvement (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al, 2020), negatively affect customer satisfaction (Ioannou et al, 2022) or employees' job performance (Li et al, 2022), and reduce the managerial willingness of collaborating with greenwasher stakeholders (Ferr on-Vílchez et al, 2021).…”

How does multi‐agent govern corporate greenwashing? A stakeholder engagement perspective from “common” to “collaborative” governance

“…The direct impact mainly focuses on the environment pollution (Berrone et al, 2017). And the indirect impact mainly includes corporate development related indicators (e.g., corporate reputation [Correa et al, 2018], financial performance [Testa et al, 2018]) and potential benefits for other stakeholders (e.g., consumer brand loyalty [Xiao et al, 2021], green purchase behavior [Hameed et al, 2021], green word-of-mouth [Chen et al, 2014], investment intention [Gatti et al, 2021], employees' green behavior [Tahir et al, 2020], employees' job performance [Li et al, 2022]).…”