Organizational Climate for Climate Sustainability

As humans respond to climate change, it is important to understand the role that organizations can play in influencing proenvironmental behavior (PEB) by employees. This study explored the extent to which individual motivation and organizational climate are related to PEB. The results suggest that b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Consulting psychology journal 2020-09, Vol.72 (3), p.198-222
Main Authors: Magill, Matthew S., Yost, Paul R., Chighizola, Bryn, Stark, Alice
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate Change
Employee Attitudes
Environmental Attitudes
Female
Human
Male
Motivation
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Organizational Climate
Pro Environmental Behavior
Sustainable Development
Test Construction
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Summary:As humans respond to climate change, it is important to understand the role that organizations can play in influencing proenvironmental behavior (PEB) by employees. This study explored the extent to which individual motivation and organizational climate are related to PEB. The results suggest that both individual motivation (R2 = .18 to .45) and organizational climate perceptions (R2 = .07 to .49) are related to PEBs inside and outside of work. Furthermore, results indicated that organizational climate incrementally predicted PEB beyond individual motivation both at work (ΔR2 = .13 to .17) and outside of work (ΔR2 = .02 to .13). The findings suggest that organizations could have an important role in the human response to climate change. Practical implications for organizations, the assessment of organizational climate for climate sustainability, and suggestions for researchers and practitioners are discussed. What's It Mean? Implications for Consulting Psychology Most organizations engage in some type of sustainability practice, but efforts can be misaligned and their impact on employee behavior needs clarification. In this study, practice-oriented measures of organizational climate for climate sustainability are developed and tested on a diverse sample. Evidence suggests they predict employee proenvironmental behavior above and beyond employee motivation. Consulting psychologists can use this research to measure organizational climate and better understand contextual predictors of behavior.
ISSN:1065-9293
1939-0149
DOI:10.1037/cpb0000163