Research On Corporate Environmental Responsibility Behavior From An Institutional Perspective And Its Impact On Employee Behavior

The 20th CPC National Congress proposed new deployments for ecological civilization construction and ecological environmental protection in order to promote green development and build the modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.In the context of ecological civilization construction,the Chinese economy has entered a high-quality development stage of green and low-carbon transformation,and the development model of enterprises is also moving toward green,low-carbon and clean.Corporate environmental protection activities can promote both green innovation,strategic transformation and sustainable development,as well as further benefit nature,mankind and society.As the government continues to strengthen its environmental protection efforts and the public becomes more concerned about environmental issues,enterprises,as one of the main entities of the market economy,are facing with the pressures of environmental governance.How to deal with external pressures to improve their own legitimacy and competitive advantage,and how to take responsibility for environmental protection while pursuing their own development has become a major issue for firms today.However,firms can be motivated by self-interest and try to avoid or ignore their basic environmental responsibilities.There is a discrepancy between the words and actions of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors,which is gradually attracting the attention of scholars.As corporate greenwashing and hypocrisy continue to emerge,employee skepticism about corporate environmental responsibility is on the rise.In this paper,according to the motivation of firms,corporate environmental responsibility behavior is divided into two types:substantive and symbolic.How to improve the substantive environmental responsibility behavior and reduce the symbolic environmental responsibility behavior is of great practical significance to improve the quality and depth of corporate environmental protection,prevent corporate agency problems,and promote sustainable economic development.In addition,whether and how substantive and symbolic corporate environmental responsibility behaviors,as a powerful value orientation and practical demonstration,can influence employees’behaviors have received little academic attention and have not been fully explored.Based on this,this paper takes institutional theory,supplies-values fit theory,organizational identity theory,and cognition-affection-conation theory as the theoretical basis,and focuses on the influence of institutional factors on corporate substantive or symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors and the influence of substantive and symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’behaviors.This paper constructs a research model of the influencing factors of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors and the influence of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ pro-environmental and counterproductive work behaviors by using a questionnaire survey method with a sample of Chinese SMEs.This paper consists of the following three research questions:First,based on institutional theory and related studies,this paper studies the factors influencing substantive and symbolic corporate environmental responsibility behaviors from an institutional perspective.Based on the analysis of the direct effects of coercive,mimetic and normative pressure,as well as the moderating effects of resource slack and green organizational climate,the effects of pressure factors on substantive and symbolic corporate environmentally responsibility behaviors were comprehensively evaluated.Based on 387 questionnaires,this study found that(1)there is a distinction between substantive and symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors.(2)All three institutional pressures significantly enhance firms’ substantive and symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors;mimetic pressure has the strongest effect on firms’ substantive environmental responsibility behaviors;and coercive pressure has the strongest effect on firms’ symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors.(3)Resource slack moderates the relationship between institutional pressures and corporate environmental responsibility behaviors.When faced with mimetic pressure,firms with high resource slack are more willing to allocate resources to substantive environmental responsibility behaviors than to symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors.However,when faced with coercive pressure and normative pressure,firms with high resource slack are reluctant to devote slack resources to substantive environmental responsibility behaviors and instead devote more resources to symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors or the government-business collusion.(4)Green organizational climate moderates the relationship between institutional pressures and firms’environmental responsibility behaviors.When faced with institutional pressures,firms with a good green organizational climate are more likely to increase their substantive environmental efforts and reduce their symbolic environmental behaviors.Second,this paper studies the influence mechanism and boundary conditions of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ pro-environmental behaviors.Employees pay close attention not only to the firm’s environmental statements,but also to its actual environmental actions.Different types of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors generate different employee perceptions and attitudes.Based on 358 questionnaires,this study found that(1)Corporate substantive environmental responsibility behaviors can significantly enhance employees’ proenvironmental behavioral intentions,while corporate symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors can significantly weaken employees’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions.(2)The positive effect of corporate substantive environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions is achieved by strengthening employees’ organizational identification.(3)The effect of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions is moderated by employees’ workplace spirituality.Higher workplace spirituality enhances the positive effect of corporate substantive environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions and weakens the negative effect of corporate symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions.(4)Employees’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions can positively influence employees’ pro-environmental behaviors,but intentions do not automatically translate into behaviors.Organizational incentive measures can bridge the gap between employees’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions and pro-environmental behaviors and facilitate the shift from intentions to behaviors.Finally,this paper studies the influence mechanism and boundary conditions of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ counterproductive work behaviors.Based on 378 questionnaires,this study found that(1)Corporate substantive environmental responsibility behaviors can significantly reduce employees’counterproductive work behaviors,while corporate symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors can significantly increase employees’ counterproductive work behaviors.(2)The altruistic value orientation of substantive corporate environmental responsibility behaviors can stimulate employees’ sense of reciprocity,arouse their emotional resonance,increase their emotional commitment,and reduce their counterproductive work behaviors.In other words,the negative effect of corporate substantive environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’counterproductive work behaviors is mediated by employees’ affective commitment.(3)The effect of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’counterproductive work behaviors is moderated by employees’ moral identity.Higher moral identity enhances the negative effect of corporate substantive environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ counterproductive work behaviors and weakens the positive effect of corporate symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’counterproductive work behaviors.This paper has the following three innovations.First,this paper distinguishes two types of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors,substantive and symbolic,and constructs a unified research model based on institutional theory,supplies-values fit theory,organizational identity theory,and cognition-affection-conation theory to analyze and discuss the influencing factors of substantive and symbolic corporate environmental responsibility behaviors and their effects on employees’ behaviors.Second,this paper constructs a comprehensive model of corporate environmental responsibility behaviors from an institutional perspective.The model considers both internal and external factors and not only compares the direct effects of three institutional pressures(coercive,mimetic,and normative pressures),but also analyses the heterogeneous roles of resource slack and green organizational climate,providing an explanation for the inconsistent findings of previous studies.Third,previous empirical studies on corporate environmental responsibility behaviors have mostly focused on their macro-level effects and less on their micro-level effects,that is,the role of internal stakeholders-employees is not sufficiently explored.Moreover,previous studies have placed more emphasis on the possible positive effects of substantive corporate environmental responsibility behaviors,while neglecting the possible negative effects of symbolic corporate environmental responsibility behaviors.This paper examines the double-edged sword effect of substantive and symbolic environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ pro-environmental behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors at the micro level.In addition,this paper has certain practical implications.By distinguishing between substantive and symbolic corporate environmental responsibility behaviors and exploring the institutional factors and intra-firm mechanism factors behind them,it can provide certain guidance for shaping a good internal and external environment,improving the quality and depth of corporate environmental responsibility practices,and promoting green and low-carbon development of enterprises.Studying the heterogeneous effects of substantive and symbolic corporate environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ pro-environmental intentions and behaviors can help enhance employees’ environmental motivation and participation,and form an upand-down environmental management system.Studying the heterogeneous effects of substantive and symbolic corporate environmental responsibility behaviors on employees’ counterproductive work behaviors is important to reduce employees’counterproductive work behaviors and mitigate their negative effects.