How Does Environmentally Specific Servant Leadership Fuel Employees’ Low-Carbon Behavior? The Role of Environmental Self-Accountability and Power Distance Orientation

Abstract

Environmental problems caused by excessive carbon emissions are becoming increasingly prominent and have received heightened attention in recent years. Encouraging people to adopt low-carbon behavior to reduce carbon emissions is desirable. Based on social learning theory, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model to investigate when and how environmentally specific servant (ESS) leadership impacts employees’ low-carbon behavior (i.e., private low-carbon behavior and public low-carbon behavior). We tested our theoretical framework with a sample of 483 subordinates and their direct supervisors working in northern China. The results indicate that ESS leadership is positively related to employees’ low-carbon behavior, and that environmental self-accountability plays a mediating role in this relationship. In addition, power distance orientation strengthens the direct effects of ESS leadership on employees’ environmental self-accountability and low-carbon behavior, as well as the indirect effect of ESS leadership on private low-carbon behavior via environmental self-accountability. Our findings contribute to the literature surrounding ESS leadership and low-carbon behavior, and help to promote green development and thus achieve the goals of carbon neutrality and decreasing carbon dioxide emissions.

The impact of environmentally-specific servant leadership on organizational green performance: The mediating role of green creativity

“…This finding validates previous literature that high power distance orientation enhances the impact of managerial leadership on employee behavior (Kwak and Shim, 2017). Xia et al (2022) in their study also confirmed the moderating role of power distance orientation in the influence of environmentally-specific servant leadership on employees' environmental self-accountability and low-carbon behavior. The potential mechanism may be as follows.…”

“…Notably, heavily impacted by Confucian culture, Chinese people tend to have a higher power distance orientation than Westerners (Fu and Deshpande, 2014). The acceptance of the unequal allocation of power in institutions and organizations varies among people (Xia et al, 2022), despite the fact that China has a significant power 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1091025 distance. The leading role of leaders to employees is influenced by employees' power distance orientation, and employees with high power distance orientation are more likely to respect and rely on leaders (Farooq et al, 2017), and therefore more likely to be influenced by leaders.…”

How responsible leadership shapes followers’ low-carbon behavior: A dual-mediation model

“…Consistent with previous research (Xia et al, 2022), we controlled employees' demographic variables, including age, gender, and education levels.…”

“…Low-carbon behavior refers to the behaviors that are helpful for building a low-carbon society such as using energy-saving appliances or turning off appliances when they are not in use ( Whitmarsh et al, 2011 ). Previous studies have found that low-carbon knowledge ( Lin and Yang, 2022 ), carbon neutrality behavioral intention ( Zhao et al, 2022 ), and low-carbon awareness ( Xia et al, 2022 ) can promote individuals’ low-carbon behavior. In this study, we argue that employees’ environmental consciousness can foster their low-carbon behavior for the following reasons:…”

“…The Chinese government has announced the plan that China will aim to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. And research has indicated that the carbon emission of individuals’ daily behaviors accounts for around 80% of the total amount of global carbon emission ( Bin and Dowlatabadi, 2005 ; Xia et al, 2022 ). Therefore, under such a context, it is essential to improve individuals’ low-carbon awareness and increase low-carbon behavior.…”