Examining the Role of Employees in Enhancing Organizational Environmental Performance: A Focus on Eco-Initiatives and Engagement

Abstract

This paper explores the part played by employees in improving organizational environmental performance, with a focus on eco initiatives and employee involvement in Indian manufacturing firms. The first research question is to determine how levels of engagement and the organisational environment impact the extent of employee participation in eco-initiatives. This work adopted a quantitative research approach with 600 participants comprising both employees and members of the community who are impacted on by CSR activities. To test the hypotheses, the research used multiple linear regression to determine the significance of the employee engagement, the organization’s environmental performance and the employee eco-initiates. With respect to the research questions, these results indicate that employees with high level of engagement might not be as involved in environmental initiatives as expected, perhaps because of low organizational support, low congruence between personal values and sustainability activities, and low recognition of their efforts. The research clearly identifies the difficulties of implementing employee led environmental programs and shows that more needs to be done with regard to organizational culture, management support and correct association of organizational sustainability agenda with employee personal values. The study results imply that there is a need to increase the overall involvement of environmental activities as part of the organization’s mission and employees’ responsibilities. This study should be extended in the future to examine the detailed reasons for low employees’ engagement in eco-initiatives as well as examine how organizational culture and leadership influence environmental perceptions.