Linking Responsible Leadership to Organizational Citizenship Behavior for the Environment: Examining the Role of Employees Harmonious Environmental Passion and Environmental Transformational Leadership

Abstract

Firms are increasingly expected to exhibit social responsibility and contribute to sustainability goals. Emerging studies have highlighted the importance of responsible leaders who stimulate their employees, which then results in employee voluntary behavior toward the environmental practices, referred to as organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE). Drawing from social learning theory, the current study explores the impact of responsible leadership (RL) on OCBE using data obtained from employees of Turkish manufacturing firms. Additionally, employee harmonious environmental passion and environmental transformational leadership (ETL) were examined as mediator and moderator respectively. The results indicated that RL has a positive effect on OCBE. RL has a positive effect on employee harmonious environmental passion. Employee harmonious environmental passion has a positive effect on OCE. The relationship between RL and OCBE was mediated by employee harmonious environmental passion. Also, it was discovered that high level of ETL, the link between RL and OCBE is stronger for firms’ whose employees perceived high ETL. Based on the findings, implications for practice and research were discussed.