The Antecedents And Consequences Of Environmentally Specific Servant Leadership

In response to the worsening global environmental problems,China has announced carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals to the world.Carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals are beginning to be integrated into all aspects and processes of economic and social development.Realizing carbon goals requires the joint participation of industry and business in their efforts to follow a green and low-carbon development path.In the process of implementing green and low-carbon development,environmentally specific servant leadership has gradually attracted the attention of scholars.Environmentally specific servant leadership refers to the leader focusing on the development of employees’ environmental values,knowledge and skills,and the provision of services to employees in the pursuit of environmental goals and activities.In order to promote a systematic understanding of environmentally specific servant leadership,this paper draws on the cognitive-affective system theory of personality to reveal its consequences and antecedents.Based on the cognitive-affective system theory of personality,this paper proposes that environmentally specific servant leadership promotes employee green creativity from an employee perspective and enterprise green HRM practices promote environmentally specific servant leadership from a leader perspective.Both cognitive and affective mechanisms played a mediating role and cultural contextual factors moderated the above-mentioned relationships.To test these prepositions,this paper conducted two studies that used the questionnaire method.One study collected 254 employee data and the results of the regression analysis showed that environmentally specific servant leadership positively influenced employee green creativity.Employee environmental knowledge or employee harmonious environmental passion mediated between environmentally specific servant leadership and employee green creativity.Moreover,employee collectivism positively moderated the relationship between environmentally specific servant leadership and employee environmental knowledge/harmonious environmental passion as well as the indirect relationship between environmentally specific servant leadership and employee green creativity via employee environmental knowledge/harmonious environmental passion;such relationships were strong(weak)when employee collectivism was high(versus low).Another study collected 216 leader data and the results of the regression analysis showed that enterprise green HRM practices positively influenced environmentally specific servant leadership.Leader green self-efficacy or leader environmental commitment mediated between enterprise green HRM practices and environmentally specific servant leadership.Moreover,environmental organizational culture positively moderated the relationship between enterprise green HRM practices and leader green self-efficacy/environmental commitment as well as the indirect relationship between enterprise green HRM practices and environmentally specific servant leadership via leader green self-efficacy/environmental commitment;such relationships were strong(weak)when the environmental organizational culture was high(versus low).This paper constructs a full model about the consequences and antecedents of environmentally specific servant leadership,and the results help the scholars to understand environmentally specific servant leadership in a comprehensive way,deepening their understanding of the consequences of environmentally specific servant leadership,and broadening their understanding about the antecedents of environmentally specific servant leadership.At the same time,the results of this paper have practical value in the context of the comprehensive implementation of the “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals” strategy,providing insights for enterprises to positively respond to the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals and accelerate the transformation towards green and low-carbon development.