管理工程学报2025，Vol.39Issue(5)：45-58,14.DOI:10.13587/j.cnki.jieem.2025.05.004
企业"向绿"如何促进企业"变绿"——基于意义建构视角的企业环境责任对员工绿色行为的影响研究
How"pursuing green"facilitates organizations"turning green"?Investigating the influence of corporate environmental responsibility on employee green behavior from a sensemaking perspective
摘要
Abstract
Under the background of achieving peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality goals,promoting employees' green behavior is the emphasis of corporate carbon emission reduction.In response to the national carbon peaking and carbon neutrality policies,more and more enterprises have begun to"pursue green"by undertaking corporate environmental responsibility.In reality,"turning green"means the realization of corporate green goals,which depends on individual employees' participation in workplace green behavior.Will"pursuing green"facilitate organizations"turning green"? Recently,scholars begin to pay attention to the influence of socially responsible activities of organizations on socially responsible behavior of employees and call for further investigation on the underlying theoretical mechanisms.Then,will corporate environmental responsibility facilitate employee green behavior?If so,what is the underlying mechanism?Employees interpret their work environment and search for and experience meaning from work,which is called sensemaking process.Corporate environmental responsibility,which signals organizational concern for environmental protection and devotion to the greater welfare,is particularly likely to be the source from which employees find work meaning.Furthermore,from a moral logic,when exploring how corporate environmental responsibility(a moral strategy of organizations)promotes employee green behavior(a moral behavior of employees),it is of great importance to focus on employee work meaningfulness,which is an employee psychological mechanism within the moral scope.Therefore,this research draws on the sensemaking perspective of corporate environmental responsibility to explore the specific mechanism through which corporate environmental responsibility influences employee green behavior. From the sensemaking perspective of corporate environmental responsibility,this research investigates how corporate environmental responsibility(corporate"pursuing green")leads to employee green behavior(corporate"turning green").According to the sensemaking model of corporate environmental responsibility,this research proposes that corporate environmental responsibility promotes employees' work meaningfulness,which in turn,enhances employee green behavior.Furthermore,according to the sensemaking model of corporate environmental responsibility,this research proposes that two sensemaking factors strengthen this sensemaking process,which are employees' green value(employee"pursuing green")and environmental transformational leadership(leader"pursuing green"). We employed a multi-method approach to test the hypotheses.Study 1 conducted a scenario experiment(N=146)to validate the causality of the hypotheses.Study 2(N=226)conducted a field survey by collecting multi-wave multi-source(employee-supervisor dyads)questionnaire data.Consistent with our hypotheses,results of both studies show that:1)Corporate environmental responsibility positively relates to employee work meaningfulness.2)Employee work meaningfulness mediates the positive effect of corporate environmental responsibility on employee green behavior.3)Employee green value positively moderates the relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and work meaningfulness as well as the indirect effect of corporate environmental responsibility on employee green behavior via work meaningfulness.4)Environmental transformational leadership positively moderates the relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and work meaningfulness as well as the indirect effect of corporate environmental responsibility on employee green behavior via work meaningfulness. This paper mainly makes three theoretical contributions.First,this paper introduces a new theoretical perspective to the employee green behavior literature by predicting employee green behavior from a sensemaking perspective of corporate environmental responsibility.Meantime,by revealing the specific mechanism and two important boundary conditions,this paper helps to comprehensively understand how and when corporate environmental responsibility affects employee green behavior,which further complements the employee green behavior literature.Second,this research contributes to the limited micro-level corporate environmental responsibility literature.By revealing that corporate environmental responsibility stimulates employees' green behavior through the sensemaking mechanism,this paper provides a new insight into how corporate environmental responsibility influences individual employees' behavior beyond the known organizational identification and social exchange mechanisms.Third,this research expands the work meaningfulness literature.By demonstrating the positive impact of work meaningfulness on employee green behavior,this paper not only enriches the research on the consequences of work meaningfulness,but also finds its potential social welfare beyond the organizational boundaries in terms of enhancing environmental sustainability.In practice,this paper also provides implications for corporate green management and carbon emission reduction.关键词
企业环境责任/员工绿色行为/工作意义感/环境变革型领导/绿色价值观Key words
Corporate environmental responsibility/Employee green behavior/Work meaningfulness/Environmental transformational leadership/Green value分类
管理科学引用本文复制引用
张赟,张喆,贾明..企业"向绿"如何促进企业"变绿"——基于意义建构视角的企业环境责任对员工绿色行为的影响研究[J].管理工程学报,2025,39(5):45-58,14.基金项目
国家自然科学基金项目(72172119) （72172119）
教育部人文社科规划基金一般项目(21XJA630010) （21XJA630010）
陕西省杰出青年基金项目(2022JC-51) The National Natural Science Foundation of China(72172119) （2022JC-51）
The General Project of Ministry of Education for Humanities and Social Sciences(21XJA630010) （21XJA630010）
The Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of Shaanxi Province(2022JC-51) （2022JC-51）
