Date of Award

Spring 2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial/Organizational Psychology (PhD)

Department

Industrial/Organizational Psychology

First Advisor/Committee Member

Paul Yost, Ph.D.

Second Advisor/Committee Member

Joey Collins, Psy.D.

Third Advisor/Committee Member

Robert Bullock, Ph.D.

Keywords

environmental workplace behavior, green human resources, organizational climate, proenvironmental behavior spillover

Abstract

As evidence of human impact on climate change continues to build, understanding the conditions that enable the transfer of proenvironmental behavior (PEB) between life’s two major domains (home and work) is essential to take meaningful steps forward. Building on border theory and the work-life interface literature, this study explored the nature of the relationship between PEB at home and at work (cross-context PEB) when facilitated by an individual’s sense of identity and influence (central participation) at work. Border theory adopts an agentic perspective whereby individuals can actively manage the transfer of behaviors from one domain (home) to a second domain (work) when they experience central participation within the second. An American sample of 530 Mechanical Turk participant results indicated moderate to strong effects for cross-context PEB (R2 = .20 and .55), and linear relationships between central participation facets (decision-making autonomy; r = .42 and .35), supervisor support for PEB; r = .56 and .82), and affective organizational commitment; r = .50 and .54) and workplace PEB. Although small, each facet showed distinct moderating influences that can either strengthen (i.e., decision-making autonomy; ß = .098, 95% CI [.024, .164], p < .01and affective commitment; ß = .084, 95% CI [.017, .144], p = .020) or slightly dampen (i.e., supervisor support for PEB; ß = -.045, 95% CI [-.097, .002], p = .063) cross-context PEB. Post hoc analyses continued to build evidence for the organizational context (specifically organizational climate for PEB) as an importance predictor in workplace PEB (ß = .380, 95% CI [.311, .436], p < .01 and ß = .812, 95% CI [.766, .852], p < .01). Outcomes from the study help provide practical guidance on how to increase environmental workplace behavior and cross-context PEB, while evidence for border theory within the empirical proenvironmental research was expanded.

Keywords: proenvironmental behavior, decision-making autonomy, supervisor support, affective commitment, border theory, green human resource management, work-home interface, environmental workplace behavior, organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, organizational climate

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