Looking up and fitting in: Team leaders' and members' behaviors and attitudes toward the environment in an MNC

Abstract

As an emerging topic in human resource management (HRM) research, organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) and workgroup green advocacy (WGGA) have been studied as a proxy of the environmental performance of organizations as well as a potential way for companies to assess the impact of their environmental strategies and initiatives. Viewing OCBE and WGGA as green-focused knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics and building on leader-member exchange theory, we examined the effects of leaders' OCBE and WGGA, person-supervisor fit (PSF), and person-group fit (PGF) as well as their potential interactions on members' OCBE and WGGA. To minimize the potential impact of different company strategies, the study was conducted in one MNC using a sample of 269 members from 64 teams. The results revealed that PSF and especially PGF were associated with members' OCBE and WGGA, but leaders' OCBE was a stronger predictor of members' OCBE and WGGA than leaders' WGGA. Contrary to our prediction, no moderating effect of PSF or PGF was found for the associations between leaders' and members' WGGA and OCBE. Together, these findings shed light on the differential trickle-down effects of leaders' perceptions and behaviors in the context of environmental management. As for the implications for HRM practitioners, our findings suggest companies may focus on leaders' OCBE and WGGA as well as on PSF and PGF independently as the means to shaping team members' OCBE and WGGA to support environmental strategies.