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Introduction
Multiple environmental crises such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and natural resource depletion pose incalculable risks to human health and threaten economic and political stability (e.g., disruption of industries, conflict over resources, social injustice; Richardson et al., 2023). Addressing these crises necessitates rapid action to advance environmental sustainability (i.e., “meeting the resource and services needs of current and future generations without compromising the health of the ecosystems that provide them”; Morelli, 2011, p. 6). Given the significant environmental damage caused by economic activities (Jayachandran, 2022), improving organizational environmental performance is both an ethical obligation and a strategic necessity for organizations. Organizational environmental performance is a function of the collective actions of individual organizational members. Therefore, employee green behavior (EGB), a compound performance domain defined as employee actions that either support or hinder environmental sustainability (Ones & Dilchert, 2012), is essential to achieving organizational environmental goals (Zacher et al., 2023).
Although EGB has received increasing research attention in recent years, there are still important gaps in the understanding of its antecedents and consequences (Ones & Dilchert, 2012; Zacher et al., 2023). Research has mainly focused on individual-level antecedents (e.g., attitudes) of everyday green behaviors (e.g., conserving resources by printing double-sided, switching off lights). More proactive and high-impact forms of EGBs (e.g., choosing sustainable business travel, developing sustainable products and services), as well as other individual (e.g., knowledge) and higher-level antecedents (e.g., team processes) and consequences of EGBs (e.g., decreases in organizational greenhouse gas emissions) have been neglected.
To develop theoretically and empirically informed recommendations for increasing EGB and, in turn, organizational environmental performance, we must advance the understanding of the nomological network of EGB. This special issue offers a platform for publishing innovative research, based on theoretically informed empirical analysis, that expands the understanding of the drivers of diverse EGBs as well as the various outcomes they produce.
List of Topic Areas
We invite submissions that explore under-researched questions on the antecedents and consequences of EGB across multiple conceptual levels, including the individual, team, organizational, and societal contexts. Potential research topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Which EGBs have the greatest impact on organizational environmental performance, and how can they be classified based on their impact potential?
- What cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and affective team processes foster EGB?
- How can jobs, work roles, and tasks be designed to promote EGB?
- What organizational-level strategies, such as environmental sustainability interventions and policies, are most effective in enhancing EGB?
- How can “bottom-up” EGB initiatives contribute to the “greening” of organizations?
- How do cultural values and environmental legislation shape the prevalence and effectiveness of EGB in different societies?
- What is the relationship between EGB and various employee outcomes, such as well-being and job attitudes?
To gain a comprehensive and interdisciplinary perspective on EGB, we encourage submissions from scholars across diverse fields, including psychology, economics, management, communication science, and public administration.
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Key Deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 15/01/2025
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 01/06/2025
Guest Editors
Dr. Clara Kühner, Wilhelm Wundt Institute of Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany, [email protected]
Dr. Maie Stein, Wilhelm Wundt Institute of Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany, [email protected]
Dr. Hannes Zacher, Wilhelm Wundt Institute of Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany, [email protected]
References
Jayachandran, S. (2022). How economic development influences the environment. Annual Review of Economics, 14(1), 229-252. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-082321-123803
Morelli, J. (2011). Environmental sustainability: A definition for environmental professionals. Journal of Environmental Sustainability, 1(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.14448/jes.01.0002
Ones, D. S., & Dilchert, S. (2012). Environmental sustainability at work: A call to action. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(4), 444-466. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2012.01478.x
Richardson, K., Steffen, W., Lucht, W., Bendtsen, J., Cornell, S. E., Donges, J. F., Drüke, M., Fetzer, I., Bala, G., von Bloh, W., Feulner, G., Fiedler, S., Gerten, D., Gleeson, T., Hofmann, M., Huiskamp, W., Kummu, M., Mohan, C., Nogués-Bravo, D., . . . Rockström, J. (2023). Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Science Advances, 9(37), eadh2458. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
Zacher, H., Rudolph, C. W., & Katz, I. M. (2023). Employee green behavior as the core of environmentally sustainable organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10(1), 465-494. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-120920-050421.
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