Conceptualizing the Role of Target-Specific Environmental Transformational Leadership between Corporate Social Responsibility and Pro-Environmental Behaviors of Hospital Employees

Abstract

The healthcare sector throughout the world is identified for its outsized carbon footprint. Despite the mounting importance of employees’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB) for decarboniza-tion, the role of PEB in a healthcare context was less emphasized previously, especially in a developing country context. To address this knowledge gap, the current work was carried out to examine the relationship between a hospital’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and PEB with the mediating effect of environmental-specific transformational leadership (ESTL). At the same time, the conditional indirect effect of altruistic values (AV) was also considered in the above relationship. The data were collected through a questionnaire by employing a paper-pencil method from the hospital employees (n = 293). By considering the structural equation modeling, the hypothesized relationships were validated. The results indicated that CSR directly (β1 = 0.411) and indirectly, via ESTL, (β4 = 0.194) influenced the PEB of employees. It was also realized that A.V produced a conditional indirect effect in this relationship (β5 = 0.268). This work tends to help a hospital to improve its environmental footprint through CSR and ESTL. Moreover, the current work also highlights the role of employees’ values (e.g., A.V) to guide the environment-specific behavior of employees. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords Altruistic values, Decarbonization of healthcare, Employees and organizational success