Linking perceived corporate environmental policies and employees eco-initiatives: The influence of perceived organizational support and psychological contract breach

JBR-08336; No of Pages 8 Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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Journal of Business Research

Linking perceived corporate environmental policies and employees eco-initiatives: The influence of perceived organizational support and psychological contract breach Pascal Paillé a,⁎, Nicolas Raineri b,1 a b

Department of Management, Faculty of Business Administration, Laval University, Pavillon Palasis-Prince, Local 1638, 2325, rue de la Terrasse, Quebec City QC G1V 0A6, Canada Louvain School of Management, Bâtiment Doyens, Place des Doyens, 1, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 21 February 2014 Received in revised form 24 February 2015 Accepted 25 February 2015 Available online xxxx Keywords: Perceived corporate environmental policies Organizational support Employees' eco-initiatives Psychological contract breach

a b s t r a c t In this study we examine the linkages between perceived corporate environmental policies, organizational support, perceived psychological breach, and employees' eco-initiatives. We test (1) the indirect effect of organizational support on the relationship between perceived corporate environmental policies and eco-initiatives, and (2) the moderating effect of perceived psychological breach on the relationship between organizational support and ecoinitiatives. Using a convenience sample (N = 651), our study supports our hypotheses. More precisely, there was little effect of perceived PC-breach on eco-initiatives among employees who perceived high support from their organization. However, among those who perceived low organizational support, there was a negative effect of breach on their willingness to perform eco-initiatives. In comparison with employees who feel supported by their employer, employees who are not convinced by the supportive actions of their organization are less likely to perform eco-initiatives on the job if they consider a breach to have occurred. Practical implications are discussed and suggestions for future research are proposed. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction In the last ten years, the topic of environmental sustainability has attracted considerable attention. Scholars have studied determinants of consumers' pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., Kalamas, Cleveland, & Laroche, 2014), drivers of corporate environmental market responsiveness (Rivera-Camino, 2012), among other issues. Despite this growing body of research, in comparison, very little research has focused on what drives employees to engage in pro-environmental behaviors in organizational settings (Lo, Peters, & Kok, 2012). Current research reported human resource practices (Paillé, Chen, Boiral, & Jin, 2014), corporate environmental policies (Ramus & Steger, 2000), job attitudes (Temminck, Mearns, & Fruhen, 2013), leadership experiences (Robertson & Barling, 2013), environmental stressors (Homburg & Stolberg, 2006), moral obligation (Zhang, Wang, & Zhou, 2013), and environmental values (Norton, Zacher, & Ashkanasy, 2014) as relevant drivers leading individuals to perform eco-friendly behaviors in the workplace. Despite these previous efforts, additional research is needed to gain an understanding of employees' decisions to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors. The hypothesized relationships that need to be tested are depicted in Fig. 1. Paillé and Mejía Morelos (2014) contend that “if employees are aware that becoming greener is an important objective of their ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 418 656 2131. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (P. Paillé), [email protected] (N. Raineri). 1 Tel.: +32 10 47 21 11.

employer, and the employer demonstrates its interest in creating, developing and maintaining high-quality relationships in the long term, individuals might be more prone to reciprocate by performing proenvironmental behaviors on the job” (p. 126). In accordance with this proposition, the current research is based on social exchange theory (SET), which “asserts that individuals often enter into social exchanges because they perceive that the other party in the relationship has something to contribute” (Tekleab & Chiaburu, 2011, p. 461). Well established in human resource management (HRM) literature (for literature review see, among others, Lavelle, Rupp, & Brockner, 2007), social exchange seems to be a theoretical framework of interest for environmental literature (Craddock, Huffman, & Henning, 2012), especially when a responsible behavior toward the environment is not designed as a required task of the job for those individuals working in nongreen industries (Ones & Dilchert, 2012; Paillé & Mejía Morelos, 2014). Therefore, by drawing on a SET framework, the aim of this investigation is to extend previous research undertaken in a sustainability context in two ways. First, we examine the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) on the relationship between perceived corporate environmental policies (PCEPs) and employees' eco-initiatives (ECOIs). In the relevant environmental literature, significant positive relationships have been found between PCEPs and POS (Ramus & Steger, 2000) and between POS and ECOIs (Cantor, Morrow, & Montabon, 2012). While these findings suggest an indirect effect of PCEPs on ECOIs through POS, that possible effect remains to be tested. Thus, by examining the mediating role of POS on the relationship between PCEPs and ECOIs, the present research contributes to advancing knowledge. Second, we address the moderating role of psychological contract breach (PC-breach) on the

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Please cite this article as: Paillé, P., & Raineri, N., Linking perceived corporate environmental policies and employees eco-initiatives: The influence of perceived organizational suppor..., Journal of Business Research (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.021

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P. Paillé, N. Raineri / Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Psychological contract breach

H4 Perceived corporate environmental policies

H1

Perceived organizational support

Eco-initiatives H2

H3

Fig. 1. Theoretical model. Solid arrows represent direct relationships; dashed arrow is used to depict indirect relationship.

relationship between POS and ECOIs. Although the possible role of PCbreach has been empirically tested by Paillé and Mejía Morelos (2014) in the context of sustainability, their study showed only that PC-breach has moderated the effect of POS on job attitudes. Thus, the extent to which PC-breach interacts with POS in the prediction of eco-friendly behavior on the job remains an overlooked topic that needs to be tested. In so doing, this study adds to relevant literature by examining PC-breach as an internal barrier that may impede employees' willingness to perform ECOIs. The paper is structured as follows. We first present the literature review and the research hypotheses. The research method and results are then defined. Finally, the findings are discussed in light of the literature review. 2. Literature review and hypotheses 2.1. The indirect effect of POS between PCEPs and ECOI In this section, we propose to discuss the link between PCEPs, POS, and ECOIs by shedding light on the role of the exchange process that entails reciprocation between the organization and its members in the context of environmental sustainability. Research undertaken in sustainability contexts shows that organizational support fosters employees' willingness to adopt responsible behaviors that favor the natural environment. Support given by management is a recurring topic in the literature on environment (e.g., Cantor et al., 2012; Daily & Huang, 2001; Ones & Dilchert, 2012; Paillé, Chen, Boiral, 2013; Ramus & Steger, 2000; Temminck et al., 2013), and it appears as a key variable leading individuals to engage in pro-environmental behaviors in the workplace. While organizational support increases the employees' tendency to act on the job in favor of the natural environment, lack of organizational support impedes employees' ability to perform eco-friendly behavior (Plank, 2011). Employees may be concerned by environmental issues and convinced of the necessity to harm the environment as little as possible while on the job but may receive no organizational support to act in favor of the environment. For example, if an organization or its representatives provide(s) few or no material resources for selectively sorting waste, it may be difficult for an individual to engage in eco-friendly behaviors at work. Mac Donald (2011) reported findings that support this possibility and concluded that “by noting that no facilities were available to them at their workplace, respondents may be seeking to absolve themselves from the responsibility of their non-recycling behavior” (p. 63). Organizational support is often identified as a key factor of the achievement of environmental sustainability. However, for the sake of clarity, it is important to highlight that current relevant literature has addressed organizational support from two different perspectives. The first perspective is rooted in environmental literature and typically is associated with the works by Ramus and

Steger (2000). In this case, organizational support refers to the employees' feeling of being supported and is triggered by the degree to which the organization communicates an environmental corporate vision and by the engagement of managers (Ramus & Steger, 2000). Ramus (2002) indicated that employees feel supported by their organization when (a) they are encouraged to propose new ideas and communicate suggestions, (b) they are recognized for having done so and for achieving environmental goals, and (c) they perceive that the organization seeks to share key information about environmental topics. Ramus and Steger (2000) found that this form of organizational support encourages employees to develop creative ideas in their job and become willing to take initiative in favor of the environment. According to Ramus and colleagues (Ramus & Killmer, 2007; Ramus & Steger, 2000), ECOIs are a proxy for eco-innovation that contributes to corporate greening in three main ways: decreasing the environmental impact of the company, solving environmental problems, and creating more eco-efficient products or services. The second perspective, on which the current investigation is based, is rooted in HRM literature. In this case, coined by Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchinson, and Sowa (1986), POS captures the degree to which an enterprise is committed to its employees and, more precisely, is concerned about their wellbeing and values and recognizes their individual efforts at work. Eisenberger, Fasolo, and Davis-LaMastro (1990) reported that high POS fosters employee willingness to propose creative suggestions that contribute to the enhancement of productivity. Thus, the employee's perception of being supported by his or her organization contributes to the shaping of high-quality relationships over time (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). HRM literature reports that POS increases job performance and extra-role behavior (Riggle, Edmondson, & Hansen, 2009) and decreases employee turnover and absenteeism (Eisenberger & Stinglhamber, 2011). Ramus and Killmer (2007) argued that ECOIs are extra-role behaviors that contribute to achieving corporate greening. Ones and Dilchert (2012) proposed taking into account the ability of employees to initiate policies, to put environmental topics first, and to be activist toward sustainability. In this respect, individual eco-initiatives have generally been viewed as one of the success factors underlying various goals, such as pollution prevention, reducing energy use, industrial ecology, waste reduction, and the protection of biodiversity (Boiral & Paillé, 2012; Ones & Dilchert, 2012). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, employees' ecoinitiatives are discrete behaviors performed on a voluntarily basis (Paillé et al., 2014). Such discrete behaviors in the particular context of environmental sustainability are vital. To contribute effectively to environmental actions, it has been suggested that employees must be able to operate freely (Daily, Bishop, & Steiner, 2007) and without suffering undue influence from management (Daily & Huang, 2001). Recent research in environmental sustainability has used the underpinnings of social exchange framework, whether implicitly (Cantor

Please cite this article as: Paillé, P., & Raineri, N., Linking perceived corporate environmental policies and employees eco-initiatives: The influence of perceived organizational suppor..., Journal of Business Research (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.021

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et al., 2012; Lamm, Tosti-Kharas, & Williams, 2013; Temminck et al., 2013) or explicitly (Paillé et al., 2013). Lamm et al. (2013) and Temminck et al. (2013) found a positive direct effect of POS on OCBE, leading to the conclusion that the more employees feel supported by their organization, the more they will engage in eco-friendly behaviors on the job. In the context of the greening of supply chain management, Cantor et al. (2012) have shown that when an organization implements environmental practices dedicated to employees' training, allowing them to improve their capabilities or to better understand environmental issues, employees feel supported by their organization and in turn are more likely to demonstrate their willingness to adopt responsible environmental behavior in the form of ECOIs. Unfortunately, Cantor and his colleagues have only addressed direct effects and have not sought to test to what extent POS has an indirect effect on the relationship between environmental practices (training) and ECOIs. Recently, Paillé et al. (2013) have provided findings that go beyond those reported by Cantor et al. (2012). They reported findings indicating that environmental policies lead to OCBE when employees feel supported by their organization. Paillé et al. (2013) assumed that the rationale behind this effect is that the implementation of environmental policies by the organization indicates to its staff the extent to which sustainability is an important concern. In accordance with social exchange principles, employees are more likely to perform OCBE if they perceive that their organization gives appropriate support to help them implement these policies. In their investigation, Paillé et al. (2013) measured OCBE by using an overall measurement. However, research indicates that OCBE encompasses different forms and, as such, may be performed by employees in different ways. Employees can contribute to sustainability in the form of reducing personal and organizational resource consumption (Lamm et al., 2013), helping co-workers to better integrate environmental concerns into the workplace (Boiral & Paillé, 2012), supporting the firm to improve its environmental programs and related activities within the organization (Temminck et al., 2013), or performing ECOIs (Ramus & Steger, 2000). Therefore, if OCBE can reflect a wide range of forms that focus on one distinct purpose, in the research of Paillé et al. (2013), it remains unclear which form of OCBE has been influenced by POS in the context of the implementation of environmental policies. To summarize, although there is little evidence of how PCEPs influence employee willingness to engage in eco-friendly behaviors, previous research reported findings that suggested an indirect effect of POS on the relationship between PECPs and ECOIs. Thus, drawing on the social exchange tenets, it can be inferred that when organizations seek to become greener and undertake supportive actions toward employees, the latter would be more likely to “repay” the organization by engaging to protect the environment through the completion of ECOIs in their job. As a consequence, the following relationships can be predicted: H1. PCEPs and POS are positively related. H2. POS and ECOIs are positively related. H3. POS mediates the relationship between PCEPs and ECOIs.

2.2. PC-breach as an internal obstacle The foregoing discussion concerning our first three hypotheses indicated that POS serves as an intervening variable between PECPs and employee ECOIs. In keeping with our objectives, we propose now to examine perceived PC-breach as an internal barrier that may impede employees' willingness to perform sustainable behavior at work. PC-breach refers to the employee perception that the employer does not respect its obligations (Conway & Briner, 2005; Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski, & Bravo, 2007). This definition raises the following question: To what extent can PC-breach be conceptualized as an internal obstacle in the context of environmental sustainability?

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In the context of environmental sustainability, internal obstacles refer to factors that impede employees' willingness to engage in ecofriendly behaviors in the workplace. Addressing these hindrances within organizations is not new. Obstacles can be grouped into three levels: organizational, managerial, and individual (i.e., psychological). Internal barriers at the organizational level put stress on strategic and financial considerations and may refer to costs associated with launching and maintaining sustainability, lack of related resources in terms of capacity and knowledge, difficulties in measuring return on investment, and lack of support by top management (SHRM, 2011, cited by Schmit, Fegley, Esen, Schramm, & Tomassetti, 2012). At the managerial level, the difficulties of managers in engaging in environmental sustainability are mainly explained by the degree of complexity of environmental issues, their lack of environmental concern, or their tendency to focus on their main tasks (Ramus & Steger, 2000). At the individual level, costs related to energy consumption seem to be more diffuse in work settings than in domestic settings and may explain why employees did not engage in ecofriendly behaviors on the job by seeking to, for example, reduce energy consumption or increase the recycling of paper (Carrico & Riemer, 2011). PC-breach may be also conceptualized as an internal obstacle. We contend that employees are unlikely to engage with environmental sustainability if they believe that their organization does not respect its obligations. To what extent may an obligation delivered by an organization potentially affect the employees' willingness to perform pro-environmental behaviors on the job? Using critical incidents techniques, Herriot, Manning, and Kidd (1997) reported that training (i.e., providing adequate induction and training), recognition (i.e., reward for special contribution or long service), and discretion (i.e., minimal interference with employees in terms of how they do their jobs) have been identified by employees as important contents of a psychological contract. These obligations are particularly relevant for our purpose. Some investigations (Chinander, 2001; Jabbour, Santos, & Nagano, 2008) offer findings that give good insight on situations in which one might assume that employees have estimated that organizational efforts are inappropriate to reaching environmental sustainability, leading to a perception of PC-breach. Using a case study, Chinander (2001) found that training had a positive effect on employees' awareness about the necessity of protecting the environment and revealed a great discrepancy between leaders and staff in terms of how environmental performance and personal recognition/rewards should be regarded. Although Chinander (2001) did not regard the question of breach, her findings are consistent with incongruence (i.e., organization and employee interpreting an obligation differently, for details see Morrison & Robinson, 1997). Using the same technique, Jabbour et al. (2008) reported that companies with low environmental performance are those in which human resource practices specifically dedicated to environmental issues (e.g., training or non-financial rewards) are regarded as a less-important topic by top management. When employees perceive that a breach occurs, they become less satisfied, less committed, think that the employer is less trustworthy, and are more prone to resignation (Zhao et al., 2007). Finally, more relevant to the current research, Zhao and his colleagues reported also that PC-breach is significantly negatively related to work outcomes, including organizational citizenship behavior, and in-role performance. In accordance with the social exchange framework, this means that when employees experience PC-breach, they may be less willing to adopt the norm of reciprocity and may “repay” the breach by decreasing their efforts on the job. A similar pattern can be inferred for employees' eco-initiatives, as they have been conceptualized as one of the dimensions of employee extra-role behaviors (Ramus & Killmer, 2007), referring to discrete behavior toward the environment (Boiral & Paillé, 2012). Given that these behavioral intents contribute to helping the organization to achieve environmental sustainability (Lamm et al., 2013) that in turn enhances its environmental performance (Paillé et al., 2014), employees' experiences of PC-breach can be detrimental for an organization seeking to become greener.

Please cite this article as: Paillé, P., & Raineri, N., Linking perceived corporate environmental policies and employees eco-initiatives: The influence of perceived organizational suppor..., Journal of Business Research (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.021

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To summarize, there is a dearth of work in the sustainability context indicating how PC-breach affects employees' willingness to perform eco-friendly behaviors. It can be therefore assumed that in situations where employers seek to implement corporate environmental policies, but fail to adequately fulfill obligations, for example in terms of training, the perception exists that breach has occurred. Effects of PC-breach on work outcomes are best understood by taking into account whether employees are high or low in POS. Based on their theoretical integration, Aselage and Eisenberger (2003) argued that employees with high POS “would be less vigilant in monitoring the organization's actions for contract breach and would be more lenient in judging whether the organization has fulfilled its obligations” (p. 506). This contention suggests, in contrast, that employees with low POS may be less complaisant if they perceive that their organization has not respected its obligations. In accordance with social exchange tenets, an interaction effect can be assumed between POS and PC-breach. Employees with low POS may be less prone to repay in the form of ECOIs if they believe that a breach has occurred, whereas in the same circumstance those with high POS may be more willing to reciprocate by engaging in ECOIs. Therefore, the following relationship can be predicted. H4. PC-breach moderates the relationship between POS and ECOIs.

3. Method 3.1. Participants and sample Data were gathered with the support of the alumni association of a large Canadian university. The alumni association agreed to send a web-based survey to its members using an electronic mailing list of randomly selected participants. The survey website contained introductory pages providing information on the study and a consent statement. In addition, to increase the participation rate and avoid confusion with undesirable messages and junk mail, the representative of the association suggested sending an e-mail with a message explaining the purpose of the study to the selected participants. The e-mail provided a URL link to the survey website. Once a participant completed the survey, the related file was automatically entered into a database. In so doing, the anonymity of the participants was preserved. Survey questionnaires were sent to 2441 alumni who had been enrolled in executive MBA programs between 2004 and 2009. A total of 731 responses were returned, for a response rate of near 30%. Sixteen participants withdrew from the survey website before having completed the questionnaire, and 64 responses were excluded because of missing data. The final sample included 651 participants. At the time of the survey, all participants held a job in a non-green industry. Finally, 69.7% of the participants were female. The average age of the participants was 34.7 years (SD = 6.3). The average organizational tenure was 9.6 years (SD = 7.8).

Psychological contract breach was measured using the 5-item scale (the first three items were reverse-coded) developed by Robinson and Morrison (2000) (e.g., I have not received everything promised to me in exchange for my contributions). The reliability of the scale was high (α = .85). All items were measured using a 7-point Likert scale (7 = strongly agree; 6 = agree; 5 = slightly agree; 4 = neither agree nor disagree; 3 = slightly disagree; 2 = disagree; and 1 = strongly disagree). Finally, gender age and tenure were used as control variables because research has reported that such variables are related to environmental attitudes and behavior (see Klein, D'Mello, & Wiernik, 2012, for literature review). 3.3. Data analyses Using the variance–covariance matrix as input, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the measurement model (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988), as well as convergent validity, internal consistency, and discriminant validity. Convergent validity refers to the extent to which different measures that are designed to tap the same construct correlate with each other (Cunningham, Preacher, & Banaji, 2001) and is established based on the relationships between latent variables and their indicators (Ruvio, Shoham, & Brencic, 2008). Internal consistency was estimated by calculating Jöreskog's ρ, for which a value above 0.70 is expected (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Discriminant validity denotes to what extent each construct differs from one another (Ha & Stoel, 2009). In so doing, one should compute for each variable the average variance extracted (AVE), which gives the proportion of total variance explained by the latent variable. Hair, Anderson, Tatham, and Black (1998) recommended values above 0.50 for AVE. Finally, the discriminant validity is shown when the average AVE between two constructs is higher than their shared variance (i.e., squared correlation between two variables). H3 implies testing mediation. Mediation was tested using the biascorrected bootstrap because it is acknowledged for providing better statistical power (Cheung & Lau, 2008). Bootstrapping is a nonparametric resampling procedure “that does not impose the assumption of normality of the sampling distribution,” advocated for testing mediation (Preacher & Hayes, 2008, p. 880). Mediation (with n = 5000 bootstrap resamples) is demonstrated when, on the one hand, the indirect effect is significant and, on the other hand, the bias-corrected confidence interval (95%) does not include zero (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). H4 implies testing moderation. We used moderated multiple regression to examine the moderation effect (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003). Control variables were entered in the first step. As main effect variables, POS and PC-breach were entered in the second and third steps, respectively. Finally, we entered the interaction variable (POS × PC-breach) in the fourth step. According to Cohen et al. (2003), the statistical significance of the moderator effect may be established if the interaction variable affects the relationship between POS and ECOIs. 4. Results

3.2. Measurement

4.1. Checking common method variance

Perceived corporate environmental policies were measured with a set of statements proposed by Ramus and Montiel (2005) (e.g., my company applies environmental considerations to purchasing decisions). The reliability of the scale was high (α = .91). Perceived organizational support was measured using a short version (4 items) of the POS scale defined by Eisenberger et al. (1986) (e.g., my organization values my contribution). The reliability of the scale was high (α = .89). Employees' eco-initiatives were measured with the 3-item scale developed by Boiral and Paillé (2012) (e.g., I make suggestions about ways to protect the environment more effectively, even when it is not my direct responsibility). The reliability of the scale was high (α = .78).

The data were collected, combining self-rating and cross-sectional design. Therefore, before testing the hypotheses, it was important to detect whether common method variance (CMV) might inflate the data, leading to misinterpretation. We performed the single commonmethod-factor approach recommended by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, and Podsakoff (2003). To conclude that the bias due to CMV may influence the findings, the measurement model with a common factor should yield a better fit than the measurement model. Conversely, if the measurement model offers a better fit, one may conclude that the bias does not threaten the findings. Table 1 shows the baseline comparison, based on the chi-square difference test (Bentler & Bonnett, 1980) and a set of indices, including the

Please cite this article as: Paillé, P., & Raineri, N., Linking perceived corporate environmental policies and employees eco-initiatives: The influence of perceived organizational suppor..., Journal of Business Research (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.021

P. Paillé, N. Raineri / Journal of Business Research xxx (2015) xxx–xxx Table 1 Results of model comparisons (N = 651). Models

χ2

df

CFI

NNFI

RMSEA

AIC

Null model Measurement model Measurement model with common factor

6973.4⁎⁎⁎ 294.3⁎⁎⁎ 294.3⁎⁎⁎

153 128 127

– .97 .97

– .97 .97

– .04 .04

– 380.2 382.3

⁎⁎⁎ p b .001.

root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) (expected value below .05), the comparative fit index (CFI) (expected value above .95), and the non-normed fit index (NNFI) (expected value above .95). The Akaike information criterion (AIC) was also computed, for which a small value was expected (Hu & Bentler, 1999). All indices met the expected values for the measurement model as well as the measurement model with common factor. However, given that the measurement model yielded the lowest value for AIC, it can be deduced that the measurement model fits the data better than the measurement model with common factor. Therefore, we may conclude that bias due to CMV was not a serious threat. 4.2. Assessing the measurement model At this stage, convergent validity, internal consistency, and discriminant validity were examined. Table 1 reports findings indicating that the measurement model fits the data well. In addition, all indicators loaded significantly (p b .001) on their respective constructs. Thus, convergent validity was evidenced. Table 2 reports psychometric properties, the pairwise correlations, and Jöreskog's ρ for all the variables of the study. All pairwise correlations are weakly and moderately related because their respective thresholds are not above the value of .70 (Hocking, 1996). Following requirements by Fornell and Larcker (1981), values for Jöreskog's ρ range from .79 (ECOIs) to .92 (PCEPs). Thus, internal consistency is satisfactory for each construct. Table 2 also reports the AVE and the shared variance, given in brackets. Consistent with Hair et al.'s (1988) requirements, AVE values are above the expected value and range from .56 (ECOIs) to .68 (POS). Findings indicate that for each pair of constructs, AVEs are higher than their shared variances. Therefore, the discriminant validity is evidenced. 4.3. Testing hypotheses The results of the analyses testing H1–H3 are reported in Table 3. H1, which predicted a positive relationship between PCEPs and POS, was supported by the data (β = .211, SE = .039, critical ratio = 5.512, p b .001). H2, which predicted a positive relationship between POS and ECOIs, was supported by the data (β = .185, SE = .041, critical ratio = 4.843, p b .001). H3 predicted that POS mediates the relationship between PCEPs and ECOIs. The standardized direct effect of PCEPs and ECOIs is .202. Table 2 Correlation matrix and psychometric properties (N = 651). PCEPs

POS

1. PCEPs 2. POS 3. ECOIs 4. PC-B

– .21 (.04)⁎⁎ .24 (.05)⁎⁎ −.14 (.02)⁎⁎

– .22 (.04)⁎⁎ −.52 (.27)⁎⁎

Mean SD

17.2 6.2

20.5 4.8

PC-B

AVE

Jöreskog' ρ

– .01 (.00)

–

.64 .68 .56 .57

.92 .89 .79 .86

12.2 4.7

13.2 6.5

ECOIs

Notes. PCEPs, perceived corporate environmental policies; POS, perceived organizational support; PC-B, perceived breach; ECOIs, eco-initiatives; AVE, average variance extracted. ⁎⁎ p b .01. ⁎ p b .05.

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The 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals (CIs) for this direct effect are between .121 (lower bound) and .282 (upper bound), with a pvalue b .001 for the two-tailed significance test. The standardized indirect effect of PCEPs on eco-initiatives through POS was .039. The 95% bias-corrected CIs for this indirect effect are between .020 (lower bound) and .066 (upper bound), with a p-value b .001 for the twotailed significance test. These results lead to the conclusion that the relationship between PCEPs and ECOIs was mediated by POS. It was estimated that the mediator accounted for 23.9% of the variance (indirect effect/total effect; .039/.163). This means that the percentage of the total effect of PCEPs on ECOIs that was mediated through POS was approximately 24%. Therefore, H3 was supported by the data. H4 predicted that PC-breach moderates the relationship between POS and eco-initiatives. Before computing the product terms (POS × PCbreach), standard skewness and kurtosis tests were performed to ensure the normality for each indicator. Then the variables (predictor and moderator) were mean-centered to avoid multicollinearity (Cohen et al., 2003). Table 4 indicates that while POS and PC-breach account for 25% of the variance in ECOIs, the interaction of POS with PC-breach accounts for 2%. Despite of the weak effect size of the added variance of the interaction term, this result was significant (p = .02). This means that the positive relationship between POS and ECOIs was mitigated by the perception of PC-breach. Then we conducted a test for assessing to what extent slopes are or not significantly different regarding high vs. low levels of PC-breach. Results show that differences between the slopes were significant when POS was low (t = 7.31, p b .001) and not significant when POS was high (t = 0.211, p = .833). Finally, Fig. 2 represents this effect, leading to the conclusion that Hypothesis 4 was supported by the data. 5. Discussion 5.1. Findings The present study extends current research on employees' decisions to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors in two main ways. First, we sought to clarify how PCEPs, support given by the organization, and ECOIs are related. In so doing, we went beyond existing findings (Cantor et al., 2012; Paillé et al., 2013; Ramus & Steger, 2000). The present research reported that PCEPs have an indirect effect on ECOIs, leading to the conclusion that this relationship was mediated by POS. Our findings are best understood in the context of social exchange whereby “an employee who sees the employer as supportive is likely to return the gesture” (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005, p. 883). Framed with social exchange principles and applied in the context of environmental sustainability, our findings indicate how PECPs are linked to POS and ECOIs. Perhaps more importantly, however, our research proposes to explain the underlying process pertaining to why employees are willing to engage in behavioral intended to influence the environment when they perceive that their organization is committed to harming the natural environment as little as possible. More specifically, if the objective of the organization is to become greener, the adoption of corporate environmental policies is an important step that needs to simultaneously be coupled with concrete supportive actions toward employees, by sending them an important signal about the real intentions of their organization to develop an environmentally friendly business. It can be argued that employee willingness to take ECOIs can be viewed as a form of individual support toward the organization. Also consistent with social exchange tenets, this process reflects a cross-fertilization relationship through which employees are prone to engaging in eco-friendly behaviors on the job when they perceive that their employer is really committed to not harming the environment. Finally, it was estimated that POS account for 24% of the variance. This means that our results reported a partial rather than a full mediation. These findings lead to the assumption that other variables might play a mediating role and need to be tested (for technical details, see Rucker, Preacher, Tormala, & Petty,

Please cite this article as: Paillé, P., & Raineri, N., Linking perceived corporate environmental policies and employees eco-initiatives: The influence of perceived organizational suppor..., Journal of Business Research (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.021

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Table 3 Bootstrap analysis of the direct and indirect effects (N = 651). IV

Mediators

H1: PCEPs H2: POS H3: PCEPs

VD

→ → → POS →

POS ECOIs ECOIs

β standardized direct effect

β standardized indirect effect

– – .039

.211 .185 .202

Standardized error

.039 .041 .040

95% CIs Lower

Upper

.131 .105 .020

.285 .265 .066

Notes. PCEPs, perceived corporate environmental practices; POS, perceived organizational support; ECOIs, eco-initiatives.

2011). Current research on social exchange in the HRM context indicates that numerous variables may have the potential to play such a mediating role. Typically, among other variables, leader–member exchange, forms of justice, and trust contribute to shaping a social exchange ambience in the workplace (see Lavelle et al., 2007). These variables have been extensively examined in HRM literature and have been, to a large extent, taken less into account in environmental literature (for an exception concerning trust, see Andersson, Shivarajan, & Blau, 2005). They may also offer interesting insights for a better understanding of how individuals may react when their organization seeks to promote environmental issues. The second main result of interest is the role played by PC-breach in the context of environmental sustainability. Consistent with our prediction, we showed that the perception of a breach may affect the relationships between POS and ECOIs. Thus, our results extend previous research undertaken in the context of environmental sustainability. Paillé and Mejía Morelos (2014) found that PC-breach moderates the relationship between POS and employee job satisfaction; however, they have not considered to what extent the interaction effect between POS and PC-breach may affect employees' willingness to perform friendly behaviors toward the environment. Our findings add to previous research by indicating that this effect is more marked among employees who are high in PC-breach than those who are low in PCbreach. More precisely, there was little effect of perceived PC-breach on ECOIs among employees who perceived high support from their organization. However, among those who perceived low POS, there was a negative effect of PC-breach on their willingness to perform ECOIs. These results suggest that, in comparison with employees who feel supported by their employer, employees who are not convinced by the supportive actions of their organization are less likely to perform ECOIs on the job if they consider a breach to have occurred. The current research suggests that when an organization wishes to promote environmental policies, supportive action on the part of the organization may be insufficient for employees to engage in extra effort in the form of ECOIs. Herriot et al. (1997) reported that in the minds of employees, the organization has the obligation to allow them to achieve correctly their jobs. Therefore, in the specific context of sustainability, this means that the organization should give appropriate support by supplying adequate resources for the implementation of environmental policies. In this case, employees are more prone to believing that their organization has fulfilled its obligations. However, support given by the organization may be insufficient if the employees perceive that related resources are

not appropriate. In such circumstances, the latter may feel that the organization has not fulfilled its obligations. Thus, PC-breach has the potential to be detrimental to employees' willingness to engage in environmental sustainability. 5.2. Practical implications In environmental literature, support given by the organization is often posited as a critical factor in achieving environmental objectives. Although our findings confirm this key role, our research also suggests that supporting employees is not sufficient to engage them in proenvironmental behavior at work. Research has shown that incomplete information about a given situation may contribute to the shaping of a mental model that serves employees by interpreting whether their experiences are discrepant with information they hold about a situation (Rousseau, 2001), leading them to believe that a breach has occurred. Top management should be aware of the necessity of monitoring possible sources of perceived PC-breach when environmental sustainability has been defined as an important organizational objective. Conway and Briner (2005) indicated that a set of cues related to emotional displays (e.g., frustration, helplessness, and anger) may signal that employees are reacting to their perception that a breach has occurred. Therefore, it is important that employers develop sensitivity to these cues. In the context of environmental policy implementation, in order to avoiding confusion in the minds of employees about the intention of the organization to take environment into account in the corporate strategy, one possibility is to define clear goals. Therefore, if protecting the natural environment becomes an important objective, top management should put forward the sustainability issues to help staff better identify which goals should be prioritized. Another possibility is to increase communications, discussions, and interactions between top management and the staff. Using communication, discussion, and interaction mechanisms may help to assure employees that the terms of the psychological contract are being respected (Morrison & Robinson, 1997).

7 6

Table 4 Results of moderation (H4). Step

Variable(s) entered

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

1

Gender Age Tenure POS PC-breach POS × PC-breach

.03 .01 .14

−.04 −.06 .14 .22⁎⁎⁎

.02 −.03 .16 .30⁎⁎⁎ .14⁎⁎

.01 −.05 .15 .32⁎⁎⁎ .12⁎⁎ −.09⁎

ΔR2

.00

.12⁎⁎⁎

.25⁎⁎⁎

.02⁎

2 3 4

⁎⁎⁎ p b .001. ⁎⁎ p b .01. ⁎ p b .02.

ECOIs

5

Moderator 4

Low Breach

3

High Breach

2 1 Low POS

High POS

Fig. 2. Graphical representation of the moderating effect of PC-breach on the relationship between POS and ECOIs.

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5.3. Limitations and future research This research is not without limitations. First, the results are based on a single sample and a transversal research design. For these reasons, the data should be approached with caution as we cannot necessarily be confident that the relationships occur in the direction inferred by our set of hypotheses. Therefore, our study offers no warranty that POS mediates the relationship between PECPs and ECOIs, because when research is designed with a cross-sectional, the effects between variables may be overestimated (Cole & Maxwell, 2003). In this situation, it remains difficult to ensure that mediation occurs. To overcome these difficulties, Cole and Maxwell (2003) have recommended gathering data with a longitudinal design, although they have recognized that it may not be easy to implement. To ensure the hypothesized direction of causality, future investigations could use a longitudinal research design to verify the stability of the observed correlations over time. Second, the focus has been placed on individual ECOIs on the job, a particular proenvironmental behavior. Given this choice, we recognize that the results might not extend to other pro-environmental behaviors. Thus, future investigations may extend our model research by adding recycling or reusing alongside other ECOIs. Third, consistent with our objective, we examined to what extent PC-breach moderated the effect of POS on ECOIs. To test this effect, a global measure of PC-breach has been used. Therefore, our investigation does not allow for the identification of which obligations explicitly explain the breach. Future studies could take into account recognition/non-financial rewards, among other possible obligations, to provide more accurate findings. Finally, the generalizability of the results may be limited because data were gathered among Canadian clerical workers. Future research may reproduce the current study using different samples from other countries. 6. Conclusion Adopting the social exchange framework, the main objective of this paper was to examine the extent to which the relationship between perceived corporate environmental policies and employees' ecoinitiatives is influenced by perceived organizational support and psychological contract breach. Our main finding is that employer support is not in itself sufficient to guarantee that employees will engage in eco-friendly behaviors if these latter feel that the employer has not respected its obligations. Psychological contract-breach may be a hindrance that negatively affects efforts undertaken by organizations to implement environmental policies. This means that employers should monitor the potential sources of employees' misunderstanding in order to ensure their collaboration, and avoid that undesirable effects of psychological contract-breach disrupt the successful implementation of environmental policies. References Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 411–423. Andersson, L., Shivarajan, S., & Blau, G. (2005). Enacting ecological sustainability in the MNC: A test of an adapted value–belief–norm framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 59, 295–305. Aselage, J., & Eisenberger, R. (2003). Perceived organizational support and psychological contracts: A theoretical integration. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24, 491–509. Bentler, P. M., & Bonnett, D. C. (1980). Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures. Psychological Bulletin, 80, 588–606. Boiral, O., & Paillé, P. (2012). Organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment: Measurement and validation. Journal of Business Ethics, 109, 431–445. Cantor, D. E., Morrow, P. C., & Montabon, F. (2012). Engagement in environmental behaviors among supply chain management employees: An organizational support theoretical perspective. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 48, 33–51. Carrico, A. R., & Riemer, M. (2011). Motivating energy conservation in the workplace: An evaluation of the use of group-level feedback and peer education. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31, 1–13. Chinander, K. (2001). Aligning accountability and awareness for environmental management in operations. Production and Operations Management, 10, 276–291.

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