CSR as a potential motivator to shape employees’ view towards nature for a sustainable workplace environment

• Main Authors: Linghui Kong, Muhammad Safdar Sial, Naveed Ahmad, Mariana Sehleanu, Zhihui Li, Malik Zia-Ud-Din, Daniel Badulescu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-02-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: microlevelCSR; view of self and nature; transcendent emotions; proenvironmental behavior; environmental performance
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/3/1499

Prior studies in the contemporary literature have largely ignored the important role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in shaping employees’ views of self and nature. Although researchers have recently started to pay considerable attention to explore the link between CSR and environmental sustainability, determining how CSR can be effective in shaping the proenvironmental behavior of employees that is missing in the existing literature. The objective of the present research study is to test the impact of microlevel CSR activities to induce environmental performance of an organization with a mediating effect of employees’ pro-environmental behaviors. This study argues that CSR activities of an organization motivate the workers to rethink the relationship between self and nature; hence, they are encouraged to participate in activities that are helpful in terms of preserving the environment, such as participating in pro-environmental activities at the workplace. The proposed model of the study was tested in the banking sector of Pakistan and analyzed by using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique in AMOS software. The results revealed that microlevel CSR activities, using employee proenvironmental behaviors as a mediator, directly and indirectly influence environmental performance of a bank. The results of the present study are helpful for policymakers of different banking institutions to understand how they can reduce the environmental footprint of their bank by using a well-planned CSR program that can induce transcendent emotions in employees to create a sustainable environment.