Cross-cultural examination of the normative impact of Corporate Environmental Responsibility in Italy and China

Organizations play a pivotal role in the ecological transition. Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) encompasses voluntary actions undertaken by companies to minimize environmental impact during their operations and to promote these efforts through effective internal and external communication. Grounded in the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct, this research explores how injunctive and descriptive norms related to CER contribute to a collective sense of efficacy and commitment to organizational environmental issues, positively influencing attitudes and intentions toward simple (e.g., recycling, sustainable mobility) and challenging behaviors (e.g., acceptance of new energy technologies), both in the workplace and at home. The research also investigates the impact of such injunctive and descriptive norms on specific individual variables related to climate change, seeking to understand whether working in a context that supports pro-environmental norms (and behaviours) can reduce feelings of stress and uncertainty related to climate change. Finally, the moderating role of norm tightness/looseness in influencing the relationships between CER norms (considered as independent variables) and outcome variables is analyzed. This study involves Italian and Chinese workers (mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong) from public and private organizations. The research is a cross-sectional, correlational study, and the relations between variables are analyzed through a path model. Any similarities and differences between the two samples are investigated through multigroup analysis. Conducting a cross-cultural study with reference to these constructs is relevant because the intercultural (East-West) dimension may be crucial in increasing the generalizability of the study. In fact, in contexts such as China, where adherence to norms appears to be tighter than in Western countries (Gelfand et al., 2011), it is interesting to understand whether the influence of these norms acts can be stronger. The results of the study will be discussed in light of both theoretical and practical relevance.