Promoting pro-environmental behaviors in the workplace: the role of injunctive and descriptive CER norms

Corporate environmental responsibility (CER) is becoming a topic of increasing interest in organizations. Attention to environmental issues and proper communication within and outside the organizational context can be one of the leading solutions for transmitting organizational values to the entire corporate community to create a "green organizational culture." Corporate environmental responsibility can be interpreted as a social norm internal to the organization that can influence members' attitudes toward pro-environmental behaviors, both individual (e.g., recycling, sustainable mobility, etc.) and collective (e.g., acceptance of new energy technologies proposed by the organization). The present research aims to analyze how perceptions of these injunctive and descriptive environmental norms may contribute to a greater sense of collective efficacy in adequately addressing environmental issues by adopting pro-environmental behaviors. It is hypothesized that the personal biospheric values of the workers moderate this relationship. It is further hypothesized that the relationship between collective efficacy and attitude toward pro-environmental behaviors in the workplace is mediated by the employee's commitment to the organization. Finally, it is hypothesized that the perception of behavioral control moderates the relationship between organizational commitment and pro-environmental attitude. The currently underway research will involve workers from different public and private work settings. Preliminarily, piloting will be conducted to distinguish between easy and difficult pro-environmental behaviors to assess how CER norms can influence behaviors that require different personal commitments. The spillover between behavioral intention in the organization and that in the private context will also be analyzed.