The road to eco-excellence: How does environmentally specific empowering leadership foster hospitality employees’ green creativity through green creative self-efficacy and green learning orientation

Recent literature in environmental management implies that employee behaviour is imperative for improving environmental sustainability. Despite this, few attempts have been made into how environmentally specific empowering leadership (ESEL) relates to employees’ green creativity. This study aims to uncover how and when ESEL can foster hospitality employees’ green creativity through the sequential mediation path of employee green learning orientation (GLO) and green creative self-efficacy (GCSE), and moderation of green organizational culture (GOC) for the effects of ESEL on green learning orientation and green creative self-efficacy. To test the model, a multi-wave survey process was used to collect and analyze data from 333 employees of three-to-five-star hotels in China using PLS-SEM. The results demonstrated a significant relationship of ESEL with green learning orientation, green creative self-efficacy, and green creativity. Similarly, green learning orientation and green creative self-efficacy showed significant relationships with green creativity. Moreover, results demonstrated that green learning orientation and green creative self-efficacy functioned as sequential mediation path to link ESEL to hospitality employees’ green creativity. Moreover, the impact of ESEL on green learning orientation and green creative self-efficacy was moderated by green organisational culture. Overall, our study contributes to scholarly knowledge on empowering leadership and environmental management by providing new insights into the critical role of ESEL in fostering green creativity. Using the conservation of resources (COR) theory and the resource-based view (RBV) theory as a foundation, this research provides theoretical and practical contributions, implications, and valuable recommendations for scholars and managers in the hospitality discipline.