The interplay of green servant leadership, self‐efficacy, and intrinsic motivation in predicting employees’ pro‐environmental behavior

Abstract

Employees' pro-environmental behavior serves as a cornerstone in realizing organizations' sustainability initiatives. Leadership plays a vital role in shaping and nurturing the desired employee behaviors. Building upon social learning and self-determination theories, we developed and tested a research model that investigated the mediating role of employees' green intrinsic motivation and the moderating influence of their green self-efficacy on the relationship between green servant leadership and proenvironmental behavior. Data were collected in two waves from 323 pairs of employee-manager working in Pakistan's energy sector and analyzed with partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM). The findings endorsed that green servant leadership influences pro-environmental behavior through the mediating mechanism of green intrinsic motivation. Further, green self-efficacy played an interactive role with green servant leadership in shaping pro-environmental behavior. This research responds to multiple calls for research and advances the knowledge on servant leadership and pro-environmental behavior.

Culture-Based Green Workplace Practices as a Means of Conserving Energy and Other Natural Resources in the Manufacturing Sector

“…They also emphasize the mechanism of cultural drivers affecting green behavior through intrinsic motivation. From a theoretical perspective, the present investigation is consistent with the findings of Faraz et al [111] and Li et al [110], whose research indicates the role of intrinsic motivation in workplace environmental initiatives. Moreover, the results of the study make a significant contribution to the literature by demonstrating that particular dimensions of organizational culture (sense of community, strategic orientation, leadership, team collaboration, communication, team structure, and informal relationships) help promote proenvironmental behavior.…”

“…Empirical research proves that there is a relationship between intrinsic motivation and environmental action [109]. Moreover, the literature demonstrates the verified role of intrinsic motivation in shaping green creativity [110] and proenvironmental behavior at work [111]. Interest and passion, or perceiving an issue as enjoyable, forms the basis of intrinsic motivation, which activates individuals to pursue given actions [104].…”

“…Empirical studies show that through the mediating mechanism of green intrinsic motivation, leadership influences green behavior [111,113], and through the mediating role of intrinsic motivation, green transformational leadership influences green creativity [110]. Venhoeven, Bolderdijk, and Steg's [114] empirical findings suggest that decisionmakers can use people's intrinsic motivation to promote sustainable actions.…”

Curbing nurses' burnout during COVID‐19: The roles of servant leadership and psychological safety

“…Servant leaders can effectively deal with job burnout among nurses because such leaders mainly focus on followers' well‐being (Coetzer et al, 2017 ). This support and positive association of leaders towards employees compels them to accomplish a meaningful outcome (Faraz et al, 2021 ) beneficial not only for the individuals but also for the organizations and the community (Coetzer et al, 2017 ).…”

Socially Responsible Leadership’s Impact on Stakeholder Management, Staff Job Satisfaction and Work Engagement

“…There seem to be some external reasons for the increasing popularity of servant leadership. Some attempts have been made to conceptualize servant leadership as green servant leadership concentrated on environmental objectives (Faraz et al, 2021). These concepts use the fact that servant leadership causes value internalization in staff through social learning (Bandura and Walters, 1977).…”