Employee involvement in EMS/ISO14001 and its spillover effect in creating consumer environmentally responsible behavior
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Date
2007
Authors
Nik Abdul Rashid, Nik Ramli
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Abstract
This study answers the main question of whether the implementation of a
comprehensive and pervasive management system such as the Environmental
Management System (EMS) could reinforce work attitude and norms that are ecofriendly
and whether the same attitude and norm would spill out into behavior outside the
organization. Employee Involvement (EI) which is an embedded element in the
successful implementation of the EMS has been identified as the independent variable.
Purchase intention for an environment friendly product (PI) is the dependent variable.
Employee ecological concern (EC) as the direct outcome of their involvement with the
implementation of the EMS would mediate the entire spillover process. While awareness
and trust for an established eco-label were expected to positively strengthen the effect
environmental attitude and knowledge (as dimensions of EC) has on the intention to
purchase the green product. The units of analysis for this study are employees working
in organizations that have successfully implemented the EMS and obtained the
ISO14001 certification. A total of 526 respondents from 46 organizations participated in
the survey. The outcome of the multiple regressions analysis confirms the existence of a
spillover phenomenon between “employee involvement with the implementation of the
EMS” and “purchase intention of a green product”. Two dimension of EI, that is Power
and Training contributed significantly to the process. Empirical evidence from this study
also confirmed the role of attitude toward environmental protection and concrete
knowledge as mediators. This finding further strengthen the theoretical assumption that
underpin this research framework which states that behavior (EI) causes attitude (EC)
which then result in the spillover of another behavior (PI). In other word, attitude toward
environmental protection and knowledge are pre-requisite or a link between two different
behavior categories. Finally, the results also showed that both trust and awareness of
eco-label was proven to have a moderating effect of strengthening the relationship
between environmental concern and purchase intention.
In conclusion, this study is a move forward to further understand how organizations
could contribute in fostering positive environmental attitude and norms among their
employees by getting them to be highly involved with the implementation of the EMS.
These attitudes and norms would also have a spillover benefits for society at large
through preferences shown for environment responsible consumer choices that they
make outside the organization. This finding could be the basis to further encourage
organizations, not only in the private sector, but also in the public and education sector
to adopt the EMS. The benefits, if implemented with true involvement from management
and employees, would surely give a positive influence in the effort to develop a
sustainable environment responsible community. This would also compliment the
government’s policy to further enhance holistic human capital as mentioned in the 9th
Malaysia Plan. The study also lends strong support to the relevance of the existing
national eco-labels and act as a cornerstone to further explore its use in local strategic
marketing initiative.
Description
PhD
Keywords
Management , Employee involvement , EMS/ISO14001 , spillover effect , consumer environmentally , behavior