Is an unsustainability environmentally unethical? Ethics orientation, environmental sustainability engagement and performance

Organisations are among the largest contributors to environmental unsustainability. If environmental unsustainability were viewed through the lens of ethical violation, perhaps it would be taken more seriously by these organisations. This study aims to investigate the importance of ethics orientation and environmental sustainability engagement among employees and its impact on workplace environmental and job performance. A quantitative research approach using two sets of match surveys (employee and supervisor) was employed. A group of about 350 employees and 59 managers participated in this study. The hypothesised relationships were tested through the structural equation modelling (SEM) tool AMOS. The results indicated that ethics orientation influences employee environmental sustainability engagement, positively affecting environmental and job performance. In addition, employee environmental sustainability engagement was found to have a significant positive relationship with environmental performance but not with job performance. Instead, the relationship between environmental sustain ability engagement and job performance was fully mediated by environmental performance. Thus, these findings indirectly showed that improving environmental performance could lead to job performance enhancement. Organisations and managers could use this evidence to assuage their concerns over losing profits if they were to become more sustainable. In finding a positive link between environmental sustainability and profit-related job performance which has been historically under-researched indicating the significant role environmental sustainability plays in achieving an organisation?s bottom line. ? 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study revealed that employees' ethics orientation positively influences environmental sustainability engagement, subsequently improving job performance. Additionally, environmental sustainability engagement was significantly correlated with environmental performance but not with job performance, with the relationship between the two fully mediated by environmental performance.